Shadow War. Don Pendleton

of the forgotten New Orleans ward behind Able Team like a bad dream.

      Below them roads stretched out in geometric patterns like gray scars on black skin. The mounds of rubble stretched out, then gave way before a wall of trees that delineated urban buildup from bayou as sharply as a fortress wall.

      In the cramped space of the cargo bay, Gadgets Schwarz and Carl Lyons worked feverishly to keep Blancanales alive. The former Black Beret had often served as the primary team medic, but all of Stony Man’s attention had received combat medic training. They may not have been as skilled as James, or even as skilled as Blancanales, but they knew enough to keep a man alive during a rapid transport. They hoped.

      Schwarz tore the stethoscope from his ears and let the air bleed out of the blood pressure cuff he had wrapped around his unconscious teammate’s arm. He looked over at Lyons.

      â€œPulse racing, BP dropping,” Schwarz said. “Narrowing pulse pressure—he’s at ninety-eight over ninety.”

      Lyons nodded, his face grim. “His heart’s beating faster to try to compensate for lack of volume in his blood vessels because he’s bleeding out so fast. The increased heart rate is dumping more blood out to bleed internally so it’s a vicious cycle. If he doesn’t get under a knife soon he’s done, Gadgets.”

      â€œIVs?” Schwarz asked.

      â€œYeah.” Lyons nodded. “All we can do is try to slam enough volume in there to keep his heart from running dry and seizing into cardiac arrest.”

      Schwarz was already pulling 1000 ml bags of clear saline solution from the medic box set in the bulkhead of the helicopter. Lyons snapped some latex tubing around Blancanales’s arm to try to get a vein to rise.

      â€œJesus, I can see his abdomen filling up with blood,” Gonzales muttered. “It looks like a balloon.”

      â€œShut up. Don’t speak unless spoken to,” Lyons growled. Then he turned and looked at the Mexican informant. “I know you’re hurting, buddy. That’s one nasty gash. You’ve got to put pressure on it, understand? Get the dressings out of the kit at your feet. We didn’t save you to have you bleed out on the way home.”

      Gonzales nodded, and Lyons could see the man was edging into shock. He kept an eye on the Mexican as he prepped the emergency medical equipment he was using on Blancanales. The man’s hands were shaking as he applied the pressure dressing to the ragged, seeping wound in his leg.

      The aqua-green light of the tactical bulbs inside the cargo bay cast the huddled men in the same, strange quasi-illumination as night-vision goggles.

      The Able Team leader secured the needle into a vein on the inside of Blancanales’s arm, then ran the tubing out and spiked it into the bottom of the saline bag held by Schwarz. Schwarz had another 1000 ml bag dangling between his teeth, and he promptly began to squeeze the bag Lyons had just hooked up, forcing fluid into Blancanales’s leaking vascular system.

      Lyons shifted position and began to start an IV in his friend’s other arm. He repeated the process with methodical, almost automatic efficiency. Blancanales would die if he screwed up.

      He might die anyway.

      Lyons spiked the second bag and gently squeezed, pushing the liquid out. He looked down at the face of his unconscious teammate, and in the uncertain light of the helicopter cargo bay the veteran’s skin was ashen gray.

      Schwarz looked out through the windows and saw tangled delta bayou give way to the black waters over the coast. He turned his head and called out to Jack Grimaldi in the pilot’s seat.

      â€œWe close?” Schwarz yelled.

      â€œHow’s he doing?” Grimaldi shouted back.

      â€œNot very good, Jack!” Schwarz answered.

      â€œThen we’re nowhere near close enough,” Grimaldi replied.

      

      â€œI KNOW ,” P RICE SAID . Her voice was flat, emotionless. “I understand, Jack. This is part of the game.” Steel threaded itself into her voice. “I understand how bad he is. I have a flight medic crew with the 160th Special Operations Wing coming to meet you at the rendezvous. They have a flight surgeon, two flight nurses and a paramedic. They’ll get him to the secure wing of Bethesda Naval Hospital.”

      She stopped talking and dots of color grew on her cheekbones. Sitting near her, Carmen Delahunt and Akira Tokaido quickly looked down at their computer screens. They could hear Grimaldi shouting into his com link through the speaker of Price’s encrypted sat phone.

      â€œCan it!” Price snapped. “I know he could die. There is no way I can justify jeopardizing the Farm to risk you setting down at a civilian hospital. End of story! The NOPD is all over that warehouse now, and what do you think the survivors are telling them, Jack? You think a bunch of men-in-black can just show up at a major metropolitan trauma center and frighten an emergency room full of people and a surgical team into keeping quiet?”

      Price lowered her voice and the emotional exhaustion was just as evident as her resolution. “Stony Man is more than just a single operative. You want to save him, you fly your ass off. Stony Base out.”

      She clicked the end button and set the phone down. Her face was a flat affect as she turned toward her office. She heard the soft sounds of wheeled tires and turned as Aaron Kurtzman rolled toward her.

      She managed a smile as she took another mug of coffee from his beefy hand. “You didn’t make this pot, did you?”

      â€œNah, you’re safe,” he replied. “Cowboy made it.” He paused, watching her take a sip of the strong brew. “Hal is en route to where Able Team is taking Gonzales.”

      Price nodded. “You give him the rundown on Rosario?”

      â€œI did.” Kurtzman looked her in the eye. “Just so you know, he concurs with your assessment about keeping Pol out of a civilian hospital.” He stopped. “Even if…” He let the sentence trail off.

      â€œThis is the world we live in,” Price said. “Rosario knows it better than anyone.”

      Kurtzman nodded and Price turned away. She put a hand on Carmen Delahunt’s shoulder as she worked a computer screen, a headset over her red hair.

      â€œWhat’s the word on Phoenix now?” Price asked.

      â€œUnpleasant,” Delahunt answered. “They haven’t initiated communication since informing us they were forced to escape and evade the locals. They haven’t made contact with Charlie Mott at the rendezvous coordinates yet. I have no idea if they’re waterborne or still driving.”

      Price turned toward Akira Tokaido, who had his ear-buds down around his neck for once. He was working two keyboards and muttering into the microphone of his own headset. His finger tapped the enter button on one of his keyboards and the screen of his G5 laptop began to scroll information.

      â€œWhat’s the word on the local law-enforcement response for Phoenix?” Price asked.

      Tokaido didn’t turn his head. His gaze jumped back and forth between his screens and his lips mouthed words. He struck the space bar with his thumb and the scrolling screen froze. First the encryption-decryption software translated the signal, identified the language and then routed it to the proper translation program. The result was a rolling screen that looked like a digitalized version of a court recorder’s transcript.

      â€œThey have three patrol cars on the pursuit now. They’ve called for backup and six more shift patrolmen have responded. They asked for a helicopter, but we caught a break, as the air unit was tied up with something else. The locals haven’t informed any other agency of the