Page 24 of Resuscitation
“First one running.” Kelly crossed behind Nick, who was cutting away Connor’s pants, leaving him totally exposed.
“Let’s roll him, then we’ll get the second one going and a Foley.” Sara glanced at Mercer, who had turned away from his brother’s naked body. He was going to like the idea of a Foley catheter—a tube inserted in the urethra—even less, but without an ultrasound or CT, her diagnostic options were limited.
In the background, the intercom crackled into action, announcing, “Attention all patients. The staff is busy with a Code Black at this time. Please move to the waiting room. Thank you.”
Carefully, they rotated Connor to his side. As Sara searched for an exit wound, she felt relief. Wayne must’ve bamboozled Mercer’s guy into believing her Code Black explanation. Between him and Angie, maybe they could still get the patients out.
“No exit wound,” she announced. They rolled Connor back.
“That’s good, right?” Mercer asked.
“No. It means the bullet spent all its energy inside his body. The bleeding you see here is only the tip of the iceberg.” Sara turned to Nick. “I saw some surgical sets left behind. They’re in the storage closet. Grab anything labeled ‘trauma’ or ‘vascular’ and bring them. Oh, and grab as many towels as you can. I might need to open his belly.”
Nick’s eyes went wide at that. “On it,” he said, moving toward the door. One of Mercer’s men, the one with the mohawk, joined him, gun drawn.
“Kelly, open those packs of Kerlix and the widest Ace you can find, let’s get a pressure dressing on this.” Sara began packing the wound with saline-soaked sterile gauze, applying firm pressure that made her patient moan in pain. His breathing became more rapid and shallow.
“Hey, Doc, what’s this about a Code Black?”
Sara glanced back at the door to see Luca, the security guard.
Time stopped.
Sara opened her mouth to warn him, but no words came.
Luca frowned at Sara, then his eyes darted to the other men. He froze, taking in the sight of three armed guys in SWAT gear staring back at him.
One of the gang moved first, raising his weapon.
“No!” Sara shouted.
Luca went for his sidearm. It wasn’t even a gun, only a taser.
A rapid volley of gunfire erupted, deafening in the confined space.
Kelly screamed.
Luca jerked, bounced against the door jam, his taser falling, unfired, hitting the floor a second before the bulky weight of his body followed.
Sara ran to him, checking for vitals. One of the shots had blown out half his skull—the impact of automatic weapon fire at such close range was devastating. She hadn’t seen anything this bad since leaving Toledo.
She sat back on her heels. “He’s dead.”
ChapterEleven
Friday,February 13th, 8:43 P.M.
Alyssa immediately knewsomething was wrong when she saw Blake raise his hands. It took her a moment, the snow was so thick as it whipped through the night, for her to realize that the police officer he’d tried to help was now pointing a gun at him.
Why would a cop do that? Unless he was the reason for the dead cops lying everywhere. Alyssa moved into the driver’s seat with a half thought of ramming the man with the ambulance, but the gunman was too close to Blake.
She turned to her phone, but Wayne had hung up on her. Sonofabitch. Quickly, she dialed the county dispatcher.
“Update on our situation,” Alyssa told him after identifying herself. She couldn’t believe how calm she sounded, but that was part of the job: respond first, react later. “There’s now an armed man pointing a weapon at my colleague. I believe he might be responsible for your dead officers.”
“State police are on the way as well as Potsdam PD. They should be with you in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?”
