Pointing toward where they had to walk to get to the baggage claim area, he added, “They call Lima the Jewel of the Pacific. The city sits up on the slopes of the lower Andes and looks out over the dark blue Pacific Ocean. The first time I came here, I didn’t know what to expect. My mother had told me many, many stories of Lima, and how beautiful it was—the apartments that had flower boxes on their balconies and the trees that made the city look more like a park than a maze of steel-and-glass sentinels. She loved this city.” Mike risked a glance down at Ann. Even though she was a good five feet nine inches tall, she was still short in comparison to him.
She refused to look up at him. The way her full lips were pursed told him that he’d hurt her earlier with his nasty, spiteful comments. Ruthlessly, Houston absorbed her aristocratic profile. She had high cheekbones, like his Indian ancestors did. With another sigh, he dropped his gaze to her pursed lips once more. To hell with it. Somehow, he had to change things so that they parted on good terms at least. He took a deep breath, reached out and gripped her arm gently, forcing her to look at him.
“Listen,” he muttered darkly as her expression changed to one of shock as he touched her, “I’m sorry for what I said to you on the plane. It wasn’t right and—”
A cry for help halfway down the terminal ripped through the early morning air. People began to slow down or hurry a little faster.
Scowling, Mike dropped his hand from Ann’s arm, instantly alert. “Now what?” he growled.
Ann looked in direction of the sound. She could hear a woman sobbing and screaming for help. She saw Mike Houston peering above the heads of the crowd. “You’re taller than I am,” she exclaimed. “What do you see? What’s going on?”
Grimacing, he glanced down at her. “Someone’s in trouble. Medical trouble. Come on….” He took off in long, loping strides.
“Mike! Wait!” Ann hurried to catch up. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man and he cut a swathe through the crowds in the airport terminal. She wasn’t so lucky and was stopped repeatedly. As she hurried along in his wake, she found herself admiring the way he ran, with a boneless, swift grace that reminded her of a large cat. Perhaps a cougar loping along silently, yet with remarkable power. Other people seemed to sense it, too, for Houston was never elbowed, stopped, nor did he have to change direction. No, the masses parted for him like the Red Sea had for Moses. Ann realized she was witnessing that impenetrable mystery about him in action now. No wonder they called him the jaguar god.
Mike’s eyes widened as he made his way through the large circle of people that had formed. In the middle was a woman crying hysterically. A young woman, very pretty, well-heeled and dressed in a purple business suit. He knew her well. It was Elena Valdez, wife of Antonio Valdez, one of the most prominent and powerful businessmen in Lima. What the hell was happening?
“Step aside,” Mike growled, opening a path to where Elena stood sobbing, her fists against her mouth. She was from one of the old aristocratic families of Peru, of pure Castilian blood. Normally aloof and serene, her mascaraed eyes were running dark streaks like war paint down her cheeks, her red lips contorted as she stared down at the floor. Mike followed her wild, shocked gaze.
“Antonio!” he rasped. Houston suddenly spun on his heel and roared at the crowd, “Give us room!”
Miraculously, everyone took a number of steps back widening the circle. There on the floor, ashen and unmoving, was Antonio Valdez. The thousand-dollar, dark blue pinstripe suit he wore went with the short, sleek black hair combed back on his narrow skull. His red silk tie looked garish next to his pasty flesh as Mike sank to his knees.
“Antonio—Tony!” He gripped the businessman’s shoulder. The man did not respond. Sensing Ann’s presence, Mike snapped his head up as he placed two fingers against the man’s neck.
“Cardiac arrest,” he stated shortly. “No pulse…” He leaned down, his ear close to the man’s nose. “No breath.” He jabbed at his backpack, which he’d dropped nearby. “There’s a bag-valve mask in there. Get it. An OPA, too.” He ripped at the man’s tie, the silk of his shirt giving way under the power of Mike’s efforts. Then he tipped the man’s head back to create an airway. He heard Elena sobbing wildly.
“Oh, Mike! Mike! Antonio was just walking with me. Everything was fine. Fine! And suddenly…suddenly he grew very pale and groaned. He collapsed, mi amigo. Oh, Mike! Help him! Help him!”
Jerking the tie from Tony’s neck, Houston shot a glance at Ann, who was on her knees, digging furiously in his backpack. All the tiredness, the cloudy look in her eyes, had dissolved. When she looked up, protective green latex gloves in hand, he reached out and took them. With expert swiftness, he donned them. “Get the goggles, too. If he vomits, I don’t want it in our eyes.”
“Right!” Ann handed him a pair of plastic goggles. Her hands trembled slightly as she placed the white OPA, a plastic device known as an oropharyngeal airway, into the patient’s mouth. This device would keep his tongue from falling back and blocking his breathing passage once they started pumping air into his lungs.
Ann grabbed the bag-valve mask and moved once more to the man’s head. She knelt and settled the translucent, soft plastic mask over his face. The mask was attached to the blue, oval-shaped rubber bag that would start pumping air into him.
Mike watched her get into position. She leaned over the man, ready.
“Have you got paramedics posted here at the terminal?” she demanded, squeezing the appliance.
“Hell, no.” Mike looked up and barked at a younger man dressed in business clothes. “You! Get to a white phone! Call security for help. Tell them we’ve got a cardiac case in terminal three. Tell them to call an ambulance, pronto!”
“Sí, sí!” the man shouted, and he turned and worked his way through the crowd.
“Okay, let’s get on it,” Ann whispered.
Mike appreciated her cool efficiency as he knelt on the other side of Antonio and placed his hands just below the man’s sternum. He laid his large palm flat against his chest, then nodded in her direction. “Give ’em air. Two breaths.”
“I know CPR.”
He heard the warning clip of her voice. Scowling, he concentrated on his part of the two-person procedure. After two breaths, he leaned over Tony and delivered a powerful downward push over the sternum. The heart lay under that long, flat bone that held the rib cage together.
In moments, they were working like a well-oiled team. Houston forgot the pandemonium around them, forgot Elena’s sobbing. He counted to himself, his mouth thinned, his nostrils flaring.
Two minutes into the process, he rasped, “Stop CPR.” Anxiously, he placed his fingers against Antonio’s neck.
“No pulse.” He leaned down, praying for the man to at least be breathing. “No breath.”
“Do you know him?”
Houston gave a jerky nod as he repositioned his hands. “Yes. Start CPR.”
Ann squeezed the bag-valve mask, delivering a long, slow dose of oxygen into the man’s chest cavity. She saw the patient’s wife kneel down at his feet, sobbing and praying. She was so young and pretty—she couldn’t be more than in her late twenties.
“How old is he?”
“Forty-five.”
“Perfect age for a CA.”
“Yeah, isn’t it, though?” Mike continued to push down on the man’s chest again and again. He kept looking at Tony’s color. “Damn, this isn’t working.”
“How long before an ambulance arrives with a defibrillator machine?”
“Too long,” he muttered. “Too damn long. Stop CPR. We’re going to do something different.”
Ann watched as Houston jerked