with a brutal mix of confusion, dread and hope. There was no blood on him—but if he’d been shot in the back, she wouldn’t see it. Were they shooting real bullets now?
Had he or hadn’t he been shot?
A hundred feet away, his hoarse warning hit her, explaining everything. “Tear gas…” Then he succumbed to a fit of uncontrollable coughing.
So that was it. In his exertion he must have gulped deep of the irritant chemical. Like breathing in fire…
The next second, her instincts kicked in. She couldn’t risk exposure too. She ran back to the van, as far away as possible from the incapacitating fumes that she could now see rising, even among the sheets of rain pounding down on the combatants. But in their desperation to escape, the mob was getting even more dangerous, spreading towards Armando in nightmarish tentacles.
But he was ahead, fast and strong and heading to…
Oh, God, where was he going?
He was no longer heading in her direction. He’d end up in the middle of the riot again, the way he was blindly… But of course! He was blind. His eyes must be burning, profusely tearing, lids squeezed shut with blepharospasm—beyond his ability to open them again.
Her mind raced. Rushing out to lead him back was out of the question. One way, then—she had to be his eyes. If he could hear her frantic shouts over this nightmare…
“Armando—turn right! Right!” He stopped. He’d heard her, thank God. “Make a ninety-degree turn. A bit more. Yes, yes—that’s it. Keep going in a straight line now. Faster. There’s a sidewalk in about twenty paces. I’ll shout to you to stop before you reach it.” She had to stop then, to catch her breath, grind her teeth. Every shouted word was lancing a hot arrow into her chest and abdomen.
“Stop!” He did, still heaving with racking coughs. She forced more directions out. “Just one more step and you’ll hit the edge of the sidewalk—yes, you’re there. It’s high, more than a foot. Yes, yes—now four of your paces and you’ll come off it. No—watch it!” He stumbled off the sidewalk and fright forced the air out of her. He straightened, his body language hesitant and anxious as she gasped for oxygen, fighting against the mounting pain. She failed in both but still shouted, “It’s all clear to where I’m standing. Just follow my voice.”
In twenty seconds he’d stumbled to her and she took some of the woman’s weight off him, directing him until they had her on the stretcher. She harnessed her in, then turned to him.
His face was drenched in tears, his nostrils flaring convulsively, his eyes spasmed shut as tears gushed down his cheeks and off his hard jaw. Every inhalation shrieked in, and came out in frightening barks of abrasive coughing. She pushed him through the doorway leading to the driver’s compartment and shoved him down in the passenger seat.
Rushing back to the patient compartment, she snatched a look at the mayhem outside. The man Armando had roused had stumbled out of danger. The other casualty, whom he’d managed to drag aside, hadn’t. She had to rush to him.
She kneeled by their casualty, prying off the rebreather mask Armando had placed on her face. It would protect her against the tear gas.
Armando’s labored words carried to her, and a jolt of horror paralyzed her in mid-motion. “He’s…dead. Rubber bullet…through the…eye.”
She knew so-called ‘safe’ rubber bullets could cause considerable damage, according to the distance they were fired from and the area of the body they hit. She hadn’t known they could kill.
Now she knew.
Urgency bubbled over inside her. Help those you can.
She reached for Armando, shook him. “Keys, Salazar.”
He only pointed to his right back pocket, almost coughing his lungs out again. Moving his convulsing, massive body was almost impossible. She was pummeling him in frustration by the time she had him supine over both driver and passenger seats. Now to fish the keys out. Her fingers felt like wet spaghetti and his jeans—were they painted on or what?
Get those keys. No time to think where you’re shoving your hands.
At last she succeeded. Too late. The mob’s sentinels had reached them. One pulled the driver’s door open, jumped in, shouting in Spanish at her. A blind need to protect surged inside her, blanking out the pain. She leapt over Armando, rammed the man back, snatched the door from him, slammed it shut and central-locked the van.
Time slowed. Her mind raced. Everything was suddenly in pinpoint focus, one thing filling her awareness.
Get Armando and the woman out of here.
In a vacuum of calm, she shoved Armando back in his seat, jumped into the driver’s seat, fired the engine and put the van in motion, showing the mob who were now battering it with their fists and ramming it with their bodies that she wasn’t about to let them stop her or enter it, yet still managing to give them enough time to move out of her way.
It was street after street of that. Suspended in reaction, she drove on and on until her path cleared. Then she floored the pedal. Armando’s choking curses rose as his unrestrained body bounced off hers then slammed against the door with every violent pitch. Strange—her mind didn’t register that she was driving roughly. Then his harsh wheeze filtered to her above the screaming engine noise. “Stop. Far enough…”
How he knew that with his eyes closed, she didn’t know. She had no idea where they were. All around were the rolling plains of the magnificent pampas, only a few cars on the horizon of the near-deserted road.
She slowed down, pulled up off the road, eyes flying to the clock.
Unbelievable.
Only thirty-five minutes. From the moment her cab had refused to go any further when the riot alert had broken out, leaving her to reach her destination on foot, and she had gotten mixed up in all that.
She turned to Armando. His coughing was abating, but his lips were blue with oxygen deprivation and his eyes were still spasmed, tears still pouring.
“Water…in…the back…”
She understood. To counteract the effects of tear-gas after removal from exposure, eyes, nose and mouth had to be copiously irrigated with water or saline. In seconds she returned with four bottles. He made an urgent gesture demanding she hand them over.
“Shouldn’t you be breathing easier by now? Maybe a bronchodilator…”
He twisted a bottle open, choked, “See to…our casualty…”
He was right. Simple triage made their casualty the priority. She left him rinsing his eyes and went to the unconscious woman.
Laura snatched a look at the woman as she turned on the suction/aspiration and wall-mounted oxygen outlets, snapped on gloves and chanted under her breath, “A, B, C, D, E.”
As a surgeon, she usually didn’t get to handle the ABCDs of emergency resuscitation, but they’d been so deeply ingrained in her during her early training, they were second nature. Mentally ticking off the procedures, she simultaneously and seamlessly implemented them.
Thrust
