Over the police radio, Ali heard the sound of voices speaking urgently back and forth, but she was too preoccupied with concentrating on her driving to listen to what was being said or to guess how much of it applied to the current situation. The only thing she did manage to make out clearly was the single announcement that backup units were en route. Ali’s desperate hope was that those backup units were headed her way.
The boulder the pilot had pointed out earlier turned out to be a lichen-covered monolith. Once Ali reached it, she had difficulty finding a suitable place to pull off and park. She didn’t want to leave the DPS car blocking access for other arriving vehicles.
Finding a wide enough stretch of shoulder, Ali parked, took the keys, and hurried around to the trunk. Inside she found a case of bottled water, a chest labeled First Aid, and a lightweight survival-style blanket. She took the chest, two bottles of water, and the blanket. Not that Sister Anselm needed a blanket for heat right then. It was just the opposite. From what Ali had seen, the injured woman seemed to be baking in direct sunlight with no chance of shade. Ali hoped to use the blanket to create some shelter from the scorching sun.
Carrying the supplies, Ali raced back to the boulder. Once she left the roadway, Ali found she was in desperately rough terrain. Twenty yards or so from the road, she was standing at the edge of a deep ravine. She was shocked. The view of the scene from the helicopter had flattened the landscape. There had been no way to tell the depth of the gully, or that there was a twelve-foot, boulder-laced dropoff between the surface where Ali now stood and the spot where Sister Anselm had landed, lying still and silent, sprawled facedown in the sandy bottom.
“Sister Anselm,” Ali called. “Can you hear me?”
There was no answering response, no movement.
There was no sign of footprints leading up or down the steep path, and there were none leading to or from Sister Anselm’s body. She hadn’t walked there or been carried there. She had been thrown there. Or pushed.
Ali was outraged. The bastard just dropped her, Ali thought. He tossed her away like she was so much garbage.
“Sister Anselm,” she called. “I’m here. I’m coming as fast as I can.”
Again there was no acknowledgment from the prone figure in the sand below.
Ali soon discovered that climbing down the steep bank was easier said than done. For one thing, it was eroded. Places that appeared to offer a firm foothold crumbled when she put any weight on them. Unable to manage the steep descent safely while carrying her load of supplies, she finally gave up. First she stuffed the blanket inside her tracksuit. Then, taking care to aim them in a direction where they wouldn’t pose any further danger to Sister Anselm, Ali sent the water bottles and the first-aid kit tumbling down the bank.
Close to the bottom but with no visible footholds remaining, Ali finally jumped the last three feet or so, making a jarring two-point landing. The sand looked soft but it wasn’t. She grunted as sharp pains radiated out from both knees, then scrabbled across the hot sand to retrieve her supplies. When she finally reached Sister Anselm’s side, she knelt near her head, hoping to shield her from some of the sun’s fierce heat.
“Sister Anselm,” she said. “It’s Ali. I’m here. Can you hear me?”
Again there was no answer.
“Please,” Ali said aloud, praying again. “Please show me what to do.”
For a moment, all she did was examine the extent of Sister Anselm’s injuries. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, her face beet red. That could have been from heatstroke or sunburn, or maybe a combination of both. Her scrubs had been torn to shreds. The pieces of bare skin that were visible were bruised and bloodied. Her right leg lay at an unnatural angle to the rest of her body. Either her leg was broken or her hip was. Her right hand, folded into a fist, appeared to be buried in the sand. Closer inspection revealed a death grip-on her iPhone. Since that wireless device had been Sister Anselm’s only lifeline, Ali made no attempt to pry it loose.
“Help is coming.” Ali tried to sound confident and reassuring, but even as she said the words, she knew she was lying. The kind of help that was available right now wasn’t the kind of help Sister Anselm needed. If she had broken limbs or worse-if her back was broken-she would need to be airlifted from the scene in a real medevac helicopter. There was no possibility that they would be able to load her into one of the cramped seats of the ATF helicopter where Ali and Agent Robson had ridden.
Knowing she must have additional resources, Ali was reaching for her phone when Sister Anselm’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment she seemed puzzled by her surroundings. Then, seeing Ali’s face, she managed a tiny smile.
“You came,” she croaked. “You must have gotten my message.”
“I got all your messages,” Ali returned. “Just a minute.” Punching Redial, she called Dave’s number and let out her breath when he answered after only one ring.
“What the hell’s going on there?” he demanded.
“We’ve found Sister Anselm. She needs an air ambulance as fast as you can get one here.”
“Where’s here?” Dave wanted to know.
“Log on to my e-mail account,” she said, giving him the name and password. “Open the last e-mail from Sister Anselm. You can get the GPS coordinates from that-or else the helicopter pilot can. They’ll know they’re getting close when they see a DPS car parked along the road. Tell them to take a heading north from the big boulder just to the west of the vehicle. We’re down in a gully.”
She could tell he was still writing. “How bad is it?” he asked.
“Bad. They’ll have to put her on a stretcher. Even with one of those, I’m not sure how they’ll get her up and out.”
“Hanging up now,” he said, “so I can call it in.”
Ali turned her attention back to Sister Anselm. Her eyes were closed again.
Ali was sure the injured woman was dehydrated, but with her face sideways in the sand, there was no way to offer her a drink from one of the bottles.
Ali opened the first-aid kit and rummaged through the scrambled mess inside until she found a roll of gauze. She pulled off a hunk of that, soaked it with water from one of the bottles, and then held it to Sister Anselm’s parched lips. Then she poured the water from the other bottle over Sister Anselm’s hair. At the touch of the water on her skin, her eyes blinked open again.
“Water,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“Suck on the gauze,” Ali told her. “When you get the water out of that, I’ll wet it again. Can you move?”
“No. I think my hip is broken. It hurts,” she added. “Hurts like crazy, and that’s good. It means my back isn’t broken, and I’m alive.”
Just barely, Ali thought.
She loaded the strip of gauze with another dose of water. While Sister Anselm sucked on that, Ali peered up at the sun. It was setting, but the stark line of shadow that now divided the gully in half was still a good foot and a half away from Sister Anselm’s overheated body. Hoping to create some shade, Ali pulled the blanket out from under her shirt and flapped it open. By draping the blanket on her left arm and holding it out straight she was able to create a small patch of temporary shade. With her right hand, she pulled a laminated sheet of first-aid instructions out of the kit and used that as a fan.
The whole time she had been climbing down the bank and scrabbling around in the sand, she had been half listening for the sound of gunshots. Even if a shoot-out occurred a mile or more away, she expected that the sounds of weapons being fired would travel long distances in this empty landscape. Once or twice she heard what sounded like the remote clatter of the helicopter’s rotating blades.