Ghost Series - Ghost Part 13

"Very badly hit, sir," Reynolds said. "He's lost a lot of blood and he's probably got major internal bleeds.

We don't have blood with us, just IV's. We're trying to keep him stabilized but . . ."

"Okay," the President said. "The girls?"

"Better than I expected, sir," the lieutenant admitted. "Some of them are nearly catatonic, but most of them seem to be holding it together pretty well. Ghost had a few of them helping him and they're particularly good. One of them took some hearing loss when we dropped a JDAM near the entrance, but she's otherwise okay. She was holding the door when we got here and nearly killed my point. Shot the NODs right off his helmet. Another one was apparently chucking grenades for him. I think, maybe, fighting back was kind of good therapy."

"I don't know about times, but somebody's on the way," the President said. "You just hang tough, SEAL. d.a.m.ned good job. I want to see all of your team at the White House, or maybe Camp David, as soon as you get back to the States. Camp David, that way you don't have to dress up."

"Yes, sir," Reynolds said.

"Anddon'tlose that bag," the President added. "And try to find the rest of him."

"Will do, sir," Reynolds replied.

"Cut this and clear us, I've done enough damage . . ."

"I think he's clear," Admiral Hayes said. "I have to add, good job. How was the drop?"

"Not something I want to do again, sir," Reynolds admitted. "We nearly were mid-aired by an F-15, had a SAM fly by, an air-to-air, watched portions of the dogfight from the good seats, if you know what I mean. We lost two of our meats on the way down from effects from the F-15. Their chutes deployed, but I don't know where they are or if they're alive or dead."

"We'll get SAR in there, too," the admiral said. "And dial out the Predator to look for them. Security situation?"

"The JDAM must have convinced them we were serious, sir," Reynolds responded. "We had some contact on the way in, very light, brushed it aside, and no counterattacks. ETA on reinforcements?"

"According to the Air Force, we've dug a hole through their SAM belt and CAP is refueling. As soon as they're refueled, the 101 will move to your position by helo. Say an hour or so. Egress Ghost and the wounded girl first, then the women, then your team, then the 101 will pull out."

"Roger, sir," Reynolds said. "Sir, be advised. The ladies are completely unclothed. Respectfully request .

. . well . . ."

"The 101 is supposed to be bringing spare clothes," the admiral said.

"Thank you, sir," Reynolds replied. "Anything else, sir?"

"Nope," the admiral said. "I'm looking at the take from the Predator and you're right, n.o.body seems to be sticking out their head. There was an armored column headed for your position, but the Air Force savaged it and it turned back. Fingers crossed, we're looking good."

"I'll go tell the ladies, sir," Reynolds replied. "SIERRA Six clear?"

"STARBASE out," the admiral said. "And make sure you bring the bag."

"Okay, ladies," Reynolds said, walking back into the room. "G.o.d willing and nothing goes particularly wrong, our reinforcements should be here in about an hour. When they get here, we leave. And theyare bringing clothes."

That elicited applause from the girls and he smiled.

"I'd like to cover some details of the exit," he said. "We're going to put Ghost and Rachel on the first chopper. There are medics standing by. I'd like a couple of the ladies who have been with Rachel to accompany her, so figure out who they are. Then we'll get the rest of you out of here. The stairs, in case you haven't seen them, are covered in bodies and body parts. We're not going to have time to clear that; you'll have to walk on the bodies, so prepare yourselves. We'll station someone on the landing with clothes so you don't have to walk out in the open in your . . . current condition." He looked around and cleared his throat.

"This might be the wrong time to say this and the wrong thing to say, but please don't let what happened to you turn you into . . . something you don't want to be. We went through a lot to get here and secure the position. I won't get into the whole story except to say that we had to drop through the middle of a dogfight overhead and I lost two of my men when we were nearly hit by an F-15 fighter. We came here to rescue, Ghost fought to rescue, what you . . . were. Nice, decent, lovely young ladies who were just . .

. getting on with your lives. This experience is, yeah, going to scar you. But when you get to thinking that all men are horrible a.s.sholes because of what you went through, or some friend tells you that, or some therapist tells you that, or some professor tells you that, or, h.e.l.l, you run into some guy whoisan a.s.shole, think about us, too, and Ghost. If you turn your backs on the good guys . . . well . . . we'll still come for you whenever you need us, but it will take all of the joy out of what we do, what we've done. This is . . .

what we live for. In the end, you ladies are what we fight and die for. Don't turn your backs on us, too."

He nodded at the group and then walked out of the room.

"Sergeant Major Gunther, Third Batt, Rakasans," the NCO said as he neared the entrance followed by a group of soldiers carrying BDU tops in their arms. "We brought clothes."

"PO Roman," Roman said. "My L-T wants us to hand them out as the girls come up. We've been around them for a couple of hours now, they're used to us." His jaw flexed and he shook his head. "Try to get your guys to not ogle."

"Already covered," the NCO said tightly. "Where do you want them?"

"Meat," Roman said. "Grab an armful and station yourself on the landing. You're about to be very popular." Meat grabbed the first two armfuls and headed down the stairs.

"We've got enough choppers to lift all the girls and the team," Gunther said. "Then the choppers will turn around and pull us out."

"Have fun sitting on this patch," Roman said. "It's no fun. We need two stretchers."

"Incoming," Gunther said, looking over his shoulder. "Medics! Stretchers!"

"Okay, good stick whoever did it." Specialist Calvin Thomas was a pretty good medic in his opinion. He was an EMT in New York on September 11, 2001 and volunteered for the U.S. Army on October 1, as soon as they were sure there wasn't anything left to do at Ground Zero. He'd seen his share of shot-up bodies, both in New York and since. In his expert medical opinion, the guy on the floor should have already been dead. On the other hand, he'd seen people survive that should have died. And people die that should have lived. You just never knew. "Any idea what type he is?"

"O pos," Chief Adams said.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," Adams said. "I know him like a brother."

"Good," Thomas replied. "Let's get him on the stretcher. Then I'll run some blood and intubate."

Ghost was lifted onto the stretcher as the medic pulled out a unit of O positive blood. Since almost anyone could take O pos, he had carried it down to the room just in case. He had other types in a cooler in the chopper. He put a blood pressure cuff on the guy's arm and shook his head at the reading.

"Okay, easy with the stretcher," he said to the four infantrymen that had accompanied him into the bunker. "And keep your eyes on where you're going, not the view."

"The girl goes, too," Chief Adams said. "And the two girls with her. Her name is Rachel, I don't have a last. No idea of her medical. Call the two girls with her Bambi and Thumper."

"Ooo-kay," Thomas said, shaking his head. "Lift away, boys."

The stretchers were carried, carefully, up the stairs and then across the open area to the waiting choppers. Bambi and Thumper each gave Meat a quick kiss and then donned the BDU tops, b.u.t.toning them hurriedly. They barely had time to scramble into the chopper before the pilot revved the engines and lifted off the ground.

"Is he going to live?" Britney asked.

"Maybe," Thomas said. "His blood pressure is so low, though," he added, giving the liter of blood a squeeze. He had one more liter of O-pos and after that he'd be pumping in water where blood should go.

He slid an oxygen tube up Ghost's nose, then a breathing tube down his throat. He ran a cervical collar around his neck, for what good it would do, and checked the bandages.

"SEALs," he muttered, looking at the tampons and pads. He put pressure bandages on each of the wounds, right on top of the field expedient bandages. When he was done he checked for a pulse again and blanched.

"c.r.a.p," he muttered, pulling out a field defibrillator.

"Can I a.s.sist?" Bambi asked.

"You trained?" Thomas asked. "Not right now. Clear." He placed the pads on Ghost's body and set the sensor in place, hitting the on b.u.t.ton of the defib kit then sitting back.

"Aren't you supposed to . . ." Thumper said.

"Wait."

"Checking for pulse," the machine said in a female voice. "No pulse. Charging, charging, stand clear, CLEAR." There was a sharp whine from the machine and Ghost's body jerked but didn't arch convulsively. "Checking for pulse. Pulse forty-five."

"It does it all," Bambi said. "I've never used one, but I've heard of them."

"I'm leaving it in place," Thomas said, going back to his bandaging. The liter was about out, so he changed it for a fresh one and ran another IV, after three sticks, to start a standard glucose drip.

Anything to get the d.a.m.ned BP up. "Crew chief! How long?" he yelled.

"Twenty minutes," the crew chief yelled back over the thunder of the chopper. "There's a field station set up."

"He doesn't need a field station," Thomas snapped. "He needs a d.a.m.ned cla.s.s one trauma center. If we can't get some more blood in him, his heart is going tocollapse."

"No pulse," the machine said. "Charging . . ."

"Miss, we have to go now," Reynolds said as carefully as he could. He'd hardly noticed the girl in the back of the room, huddled in the corner, until the rest of the girls were filing out. She had a blank stare that he'd seen in seriously sh.e.l.l-shocked firefight survivors. He knew she wasn't seeing him, except, possibly, as a male shape.

"Chief," he called. "See if Babe is still around."

"I'm here, sir," Babe said. She was still stark naked but seemed to hardly notice anymore. The SEALs, despite the lieutenant's warning, had been solicitous to a fault. Yeah, they looked from time to time, but not in a bad way. Like Ghost, she felt she could trust them. But the girl in the back corner clearly could not. If she even noticed.

"Hi," Babe said, squatting down. "What's your name?"

The girl looked at her in fear, then shut her eyes and huddled into the corner.

"Okay," Babe said. "Wrong question. I knowwhyit's the wrong question, even. It was stupid. But, listen to me, we're getting out of here. They're not going to hurt us anymore. We're safe. The Army's here and the SEALs and they're all good guys that aren't going to hurt us. But we need togo."

"Chief," Reynolds called. "Go get one of those BDU tops for Babe and this lady."

"Roger," Chief Adams said, striding out of the room.

"We can sedate her," Reynolds said.

"They gave us drugs to bring us over here," Babe responded tightly. "If you want her to totally panic, come at her with a needle. If you wantmeto totally panic, bring out a needle."

"Gotcha," Reynolds said, squatting down. "What can we do?"

"If we can get some clothes on her, maybe she'll calm down," Babe said.

"I was next," the girl whispered.

"What?" Reynolds said. "Honey, you're safe. The bad men are all dead. You're safe. Please, let us get you out of here."

"I was next," the girl said again, looking at the far wall. "I sat next to Rachel. She was my friend."

"Oh, c.r.a.p," Babe said then swallowed. "When they were done with Rachel, she would have been next."

"I liked Clari," the girl said, tears forming in her eyes. "She was my friend, too. And they . . . they . . ."

"Clothes, boss," the chief said, shaking his head. "Miss, you're about the age of my daughter. Could you maybe put on some clothes? I know she started getting funny about being naked when she was ten. And I surely would like to get you out of here. There's a plane waiting to take you back to the United States.

Your family is waiting. Could you please come back to us?"

The girl seemed to focus for a second and then shut her eyes, crying.

"Don't like to look at the room, do you?" the chief said, handing Babe a jacket and cradling the other one in his arms. "Can you let Babe put this on you?" he asked.

The girl nodded and Babe slid her arms in the sleeves, then b.u.t.toned up the front. Then she laughed.

"It's . . . a little big," Babe said, rolling up the sleeves so that the short female's hands would show.

"Miss," the chief said, gently. "I know you don't want a man touching you or even being near you. But getting out of this place with your eyes closed will be tough. Did your daddy ever carry you piggyback?"

"Yes," the girl said, quietly.

"No man can hurt a girl that's piggyback," the chief said. "If I turn around, will you climb on my back? I can carry you out of here. I can carry you all the way home if that's what it takes. I can carry you around the world, if that's what it takes. You just say the word. I'll carry you anywhere, because you look a lot like my daughter and I'd want somebody to help her if she was hurt and scared like you are."

The girl nodded, her eyes closed.

"I'm going to turn around now," the chief said, suiting actions to words, "and Babe is going to help you up on my back. Can Babe do that? She's a girl, just like you."

"Okay," the girl said in a small voice.

"Come on," Babe said, taking one arm and lifting it up so it touched the chief's shoulder. As soon as the girl's hand touched, she leaned forward and swarmed onto the SEAL's back, wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing his neck so hard it choked him.

"Maybe a little lighter?" the chief gasped. "I need to breathe a little."

The girl loosened up as the chief carefully climbed to his feet.

"Please take me home," the girl whispered in his ear, crying faintly and shaking. "Please? I don't want to be hurt. Please?"

"I will, sweetie," the chief said, walking carefully towards the front of the room and unconsciously moving his weapon to a tactical position. "And n.o.body,n.o.body, is going to hurt you anymore. Let me teach you a song as we go. It goes like this:Out in the wood there's a band of small fairies if you walk unwary at night. They're laughing and drinking and soon you'll be thinking, that you'd like to join in their life. . ."

Chapter Fourteen.