“Okay,” Bo said, nodding. He was alert and engaged. That was good, Quinn thought. As long as he was engaged, he could fight to live.
“Outstanding,” Quinn said. “Now reach in the right thigh pocket of my pants and get my wound kit. I can’t let go or you’ll start bleeding again.”
Bo nodded, breathing deeply. He was no stranger to pain — and Quinn was certain he was causing quite a bit digging around next to torn muscle and chipped bone.
The size of a fat wallet, the Cordura pouch held the basic gear to treat a gunshot wound — windlass tourniquet, coagulant gauze for stuffing the wound, H bandage, chest-seal, and a three-inch needle. He’d seen firsthand how many soldiers died of blood loss while they waited for a medevac. Since his first deployment, he rarely went anywhere without the small kit.
“High or die, brother.” Quinn talked him through application of the tourniquet, pulling the nylon strapping tight, then twisting the pencil-size metal windlass to further compress the artery above the wound.
Halfway through the process Bo suddenly looked up. Turning, he grabbed the pistol from his lap and shot over Quinn’s shoulder, deafening him in the process.
Quinn glanced back to see one of Borregos’s men fall on his way to reach Pollard.
“If I’m going to die,” Bo groaned, “might as well take someone with me.
Thibodaux, in a fierce gun battle with two Chechens working their way around the cook shed, hardly had time to look up.
The tourniquet in place, Quinn slowly released his grip on the artery. Blood oozed but didn’t spurt.
“Good job,” Quinn said, pushing the wound kit into Bo’s good hand. “There’s a packet of QuikClot gauze in there. Shove as much of it in the wound as you can.” He pulled the 1911 from his holster. “I’m going to help Jacques kill the guys who shot you.”
CHAPTER 60
Gunfire pinged off the heavy generator as Quinn slid in beside Thibodaux. The big Cajun turned too late as one of the bullets cut a fuel line, spraying him in the face with a slurry of metal shards and diesel fuel.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled, wiping a forearm across his face.
Quinn felt a wave of dread tighten in his throat. Fighters learned to protect their eyes at all costs. A wound in the arm or leg was preferable to being blind in battle.
“How bad?” Quinn said, throwing a double tap into the sweating face of a man with a red beard and naked upper lip who crept toward them on his belly.
“Bad, l’ami,” Thibodaux spat. “My right eye is toast.”
Another series of shots popped amid the undergrowth. A moment later Daudov staggered out, bleeding from a wound to his throat. A fusillade from Borregos’s men finished him off. Quinn was about to fire but caught a glimpse of Aleksandra ghosting through the thick vines.
An eerie silence settled in over the jungle camp immediately after the Chechen leader’s body slumped to the ground. Pistol in both hands, Quinn scanned the tree line while he worked to slow his breathing. He looked at Bo, who gave him a weak thumbs-up with his gun hand.
Thibodaux scanned the jungle with his good eye. “Two rounds and one peeper left, l’ami,” he said. “Afraid I’m not much help to you.”
“We want the professor,” a voice yelled from the jungle shadows. “We have no fight with you.”
Quinn looked at Pollard, who held a small notebook at waist level.
“I’m coming out,” Pollard yelled. He dropped the notebook to the dirt at his feet, then looked at Quinn. “They’ll kill us all if I don’t go with them. Your friend needs a doctor. Please, save my wife. She doesn’t deserve this.” Raising his hands, he walked like a condemned man to disappear into the jungle with Borregos and his men.
Aleksandra bolted from the trees a moment later and ducked behind the generator. “You should have shot him,” she hissed. “They need him to detonate the bomb. I am empty or I would have done it myself.” She held up her H & K, slide locked to the rear. Her eyes flew wide when she saw Bo.
“What happened?”
“Chechen bullet,” Quinn said, frowning. “Where did you go?”
“I wounded Zamora,” she said. “He fell in the river and drifted away. I’ve been picking off his men one by one.”
“And Monagas?” Quinn asked.
“I’m not certain,” she said. “He went down, but I could not find the body.”
“No time to look now,” Quinn said. “We have to get our wounded back to town.”
Bo shook his head. “You can’t just let the bomb get away from you.”
“I know,” Quinn said. “I’m working on that.”
The Indian girl Pollard had been holding suddenly stirred.
“Please,” she said, her voice a rasping whimper. In the aftermath of all the shooting, it was difficult to hear anything.
Still unconvinced Borregos meant to keep his word, Quinn ducked as he sprinted to the girl and dragged her behind the overturned table. He relaxed a hair when no one tried to shoot him.
“I had to pretend to be dead,” she whispered, “or I don’t think Dr. Matt would have left me.”
Quinn found that she wasn’t far off from her pretense. Three bullets had torn into her side, shattering ribs and narrowly missing her heart. Her chest rattled as she struggled for breath. Dirt and leaves covered a grisly exit wound that had torn away most of her right shoulder blade. She didn’t have long.
“Zamora has another camp,” she whispered through cracked lips. “A coca plant with an airstrip.” She coughed. “Promise to help Professor Matt and I will tell you where it is… ”
Quinn bit his lip.
“Of course,” he said, leaning in so he could hear the girl’s instructions over the incessant ringing in his ears.
The flat roar of a boat engine carried in from the river. Baba Yaga was already moving.
CHAPTER 61
Marie held her hands over her baby’s ears to shield him from the horrible woman’s rant. Even Pete’s perpetual scowl had fallen into a twitching frown of nervous puzzlement at the latest volcanic eruption.
“This is not like him.” Lourdes tromped back and forth in the living room, spinning at each corner to turn and stare accusingly at Marie and Pete in turn. “He always calls me back. It is not like him at all.” Tears welled in her black eyes. Her lips quivered like a frightened little girl’s. Wheeling, she looked down at Marie, her words gushing out in a fountain of emotion. “He knows what his calls mean to me. Why would he do such a thing? Do you think something has happened to him?”
Marie relaxed her hold on Simon, letting him squirm around to face her. She didn’t know what to say. One minute this woman was threatening to kill her and eat her baby, the next she wanted to confide her innermost fears.
Lourdes buried her face in her hands. “Why won’t you call me, Valentine?” she sobbed in frustration.
Marie suddenly realized that if something had happened to Zamora, the same thing could have happened to Matt. Her chest tightened and for a moment she thought she might be having a heart attack. She’d heard of women her age whose hearts had just given out under severe stress — and heaven knew what she was going through qualified.
As horrible as the woman was, there was something so genuine about the way Lourdes wept. Sadness was sadness, even in the heart of a madwoman.
“Maybe he’s lost his phone,” Marie offered, attempting to console her. “Matt sometimes misplaces—”
Lourdes’s head snapped up. Her bloodshot eyes seethed with anger. “You dare compare Valentine with your stupid excuse for a man! He cannot even protect his own family.” She spat on the floor to show her contempt. “I am surprised he was man enough to father your child — if the boy is even his.”