“A little,” she nodded. “Is it really true that your unit can make women see spots?”
“I think it’s time to go,” he hedged. “I’ve gotten myself in enough trouble for one night.”
With Sophia wedged tight between them, they squeezed down the musty hall. The three zigzagged their way to the front door. Unbelievably, the bar was even more crowded.
“Damon, you never answered how long you and Gage have been here?” Andie reminded.
Damon saw the wheels of her mind spinning. “Oh, not too long.”
“Where are you sitting?” she asked.
“Near the fermentation vats.”
Andie craned her neck and honed her vision in on the corner booth. Gage sat at a table littered with the empty bottles. “Not too long, huh?” With humor sparkling behind the warmth of her eyes, she raised a hand and waved. Gage grimaced and slunk down in the booth.
“Thank you, Damon,” she spoke loudly and winked. “I think I can handle Sophia from here. Have yourself a wonderful night. Tell Gage that I wish him the best of luck. He’s going to need it.”
The band geared up for another spine-jarring number. Andie caught Sophia gawking at Damon’s crotch. “I’m sure I’ll be hearing about you soon.” With that, she clutched Sophia’s arm tightly and the two of them weaved off down the street.
* * * *
Edgar watched Andie and Sophia leave before wandering over to Gage. “They cleaned me out of tequila again. I sure hope they make it home okay.”
Gage was beat, depressed, dejected. The women were on their own tonight. He wasn’t up for another welfare check.
“Sorry to hear it, Edgar. Maybe you should talk to your tequila distributor about placing a larger order next month.”
A sea of bodies converged on the dance floor. Gage was relieved to see the amorous brunette had changed tactics and quarry. She had secured Damon by the wrist and was leading him to center stage for a dance.
Gage stood up and stretched. He was exhausted. It was time for bed. Catching Damon’s gleaming eye, he waved him over. The kid frowned and headed his way.
“This better be good. She’s hot.”
“Go check on the Sisterhood,” he ordered.
“Why me? I haven’t been laid for almost twenty-four hours.” He pointed to the brunette. “She’s a sure thing!”
“Stop sniveling. The brunette will still be here when you get back. I need you to make sure nobody bleeds to death from one of Andie’s IV starts. She’s been around since leeching was in vogue. Be sure you tell her I said that.”
“How do you know the brunette will still be here when I’m done checking on the Sisterhood?”
“Because she’s Edgar’s oldest daughter. She always closes the place down.”
Damon’s eyes grew wide with worry.
“Relax. I’m only kidding,” Gage confessed.
Damon gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t scare me like that, LC!”
“Flip the brunette a twenty on your way out. She’s a working girl out of Portland. She’ll probably wait for you.”
Damon looked horrified. “I never pay for sex!”
Gage rolled his eyes.
“Okay, okay. I’ll go check on the girls. Maybe I can get more scoop on Sophia.”
Damon headed off for the nearest exit yelling something about Andie and payback. All Gage could clearly hear was, “See you Thursday morning.”
Gage stood up and left the way he came in.
Chapter 15
BENT
Fluorescent lights flickered inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber and went dark. Andie Daniels stood in the anteroom and made a brief notation in the daily log. She scooped up a few outdated magazines, threw them in the trash and reached for her wrinkled lab coat.
She promised to meet Max for dinner. A message, written with a bar of soap on the bathroom mirror, had ordered her to ‘come straight home after work.’ She had a hunch there was a surprise waiting. Andie had seen remnants of colorful wrapping paper in his wastebasket during a frantic search for her car keys that morning. It was too early for her birthday and their anniversary was months away.
Since their marriage, nursing had become a part-time undertaking done for personal satisfaction. Today had been no exception. For six hours, she entertained a friendly group of diabetics suffering from wound ulcers, while they sniffed higher than average oxygen levels under pressure and listened to classical music.
“Andie?”
“I’m in here.”
The chamber’s office manager rumbled into the anteroom a few seconds after her perfume. Yards of rayon skirt whipped pink roses violently around her chunky ankles. Air flowed in and out of her nostrils in a harsh sound.
“What’s up, Priscilla? You look stressed.”
“We’ve got a problem. I know your shift is over and I’ve notified the on-call nurse but there are two patients being flown in from the coast with an ETA of five minutes. It will take Nicole thirty minutes to get here. Can you stay until she arrives?”
“You bet I can,” Andie replied without a second thought. “What’s the story on them?”
“Two males with serious decompression sickness who’d been diving on a wreck.”
Andie geared up. She shed her lab coat and flipped the switch operating the interior lights and power. Priscilla grabbed two blank charts and started the admission paperwork, following behind Andie while she talked.
“Word from the emergency department is they were trapped inside, overshot their decompression time and had to make an emergency ascent to the surface.”
Andie felt a shiver of intuition crawl down her spine.
“Any concurrent injuries?” she asked with trepidation.
“Unknown. The report I got was a heads-up. A Coast Guard helicopter is bringing them in.”
Andie nodded. “Please let me know as soon as you’ve identified them.”
Priscilla reached into her pocket and produced a scrap of paper. “Here,” she handed it to Andie. “I scribbled their names down. I was in quite a hurry, my writing’s barely legible.”
Andie read the names, inhaled sharply.
“Priscilla, do me a big favor.”
“Anything.”
“Call my husband and let him know I won’t be home til late.”
* * * *
Pain.
An explosion of excruciating pain.
Agony wracked every joint in his body, contorting him at violent angles
“Damon?” he called out. “Damon!”
“Relax,” came soothing words. “Let us help you.”
It was the voice of morphine. The same voice that had answered the same question innumerable times, knowing he could not remember the answer and would not be able to for quite some time.
Through the haze of drugs, he recalled paddling down and down, deep into murky black water that swallowed all light. Without their headlamps visibility was zero. He glanced at his compass and GPS coordinates. They were right on track. Ahead of him, a steady trickle of bubbles rising to the surface belied his diving partner’s position.
A few moments later Zena, shining bright and broken, came into view. He had glanced at his depth meter and then at his watch, calculated the safety margin at one hundred thirty-seven feet.
Eight minutes and counting.
Memories floated by as he swam into the torn belly of the helicopter and paused to take a look around. A multitude of fish had already claimed the twisted wreck as their home. They stared at him with disdain. Jagged bits of glass and metal protruded everywhere, eerily illumined by the light of their lamps. He made an open-fisted hand signal to Damon and turned to the cockpit. In single file, they cautiously swam through the helo. Spiny red rockfish scurried out of the way.
It took him three precious minutes to locate the dog tags and another two minutes to dig them free with his knife. The chain on which they were attached had wedged beneath the broken pilot seat. He felt Damon tapping on his ankle.
&nb
sp; Hurry up.
Gage stuffed the tags into his vest pocket and scanned his watch again. Two minutes remained. He checked the air gauge. Fifty psi left in his tank. They were cutting it short. He motioned to Damon and floated into the back of the mangled helicopter with a minimum of movement.
Only their lights cut through the desolate blackness of inner space. Damon turned and gave a light scissor-kick of his fins. A bevy of curious fish scattered.
What happened next Gage witnessed in the classic slow-motion of disaster.
The pressure hose from Damon’s scuba tank brushed against Zena’s inflatable life raft and hooked the emergency inflation pull-cord. With his next sharp stroke toward open water, the hose yanked the cord from its bindings.
On the Richter scale of vibration, it felt like an eight. The raft explosively inflated, rupturing their eardrums and filling the limited space they occupied. Damon was pinned against the hull. Blood flooded the water around him.
Gage thrashed on the gurney and called out again.
“Damon? Damon!”
The voice of morphine returned.
“You’re safe. Everything will be all right. Relax.”
* * * *
The bends.
Another name for the physiological disorder caused by a rapid decrease in atmospheric pressure. Liquid nitrogen, always present in the bloodstream, is released as bubbles into bodily tissues. Bubbles cut off the oxygen supply. Lack of oxygen causes nausea, pain in the joints and abdomen. In severe cases there is shock, paralysis and death.
There is only one cure.
Andie secured the main entry door, toggled the controls and rapidly brought the chamber’s depth down to six atmospheres, forcing nitrogen bubbles back into a liquid state. Her ears popped wildly while she chewed on cherry bubble gum.
She glanced over at her two patients. Both men rested quietly, their vital signs monitored continuously with the results displayed on a large control panel screen. Over the next several hours she would bring them slowly back to the pressure at sea level.
Damon sported a three-inch gash on his right thigh. It was not a life threatening condition and a tight bandage had been applied to stop the bleeding. Once out of the chamber, the laceration could be properly sutured.
First things first.
Despite receiving small, frequent doses of morphine, the narcotic effects were short lived. Both men would awaken suddenly, thrashing, call out in confusion and pain. With the liberal protocols of the chamber’s medical director, Andie generously supplemented the morphine with an anti-anxiety medicine having the added benefit of amnesia. If all went as she planned, the two men wouldn’t remember a thing. She engaged the wireless communication system between the chamber and outer room.
“Priscilla? Are you out there?”
“I’m here.”
“This cut on Damon’s thigh is really deep. He’s going to need some antibiotics and a tetanus booster. Is Nicole here yet?”
“She just arrived,” Priscilla replied. “I’ll have her bring them in when she pressurizes.”
“Any word from Frankie?”
“I just got off the phone with her. I broke the news gently like you asked me to but she’s pretty shaken up.”
“All right,” Andie sighed. “Thanks.”
A flashing yellow light on the temperature panel caught her attention. She made a few adjustments and jotted some notes on a chart.
A cheery voice greeted her a few minutes later.
“Hey girl, I’ve got the drugs you wanted, along with two big chocolate bars for us.”
Andie chuckled. “Fabulous! Take your time pressurizing. Max isn’t expecting me until later this evening and I want to make sure these guys are alright before I go home.”
“Sounds good to me. I still have some paperwork I need to do from yesterday. Anything else you want while I’m out here?”
“I don’t think so,” Andie replied. “Hey, Nic! I can hear the outer office phone ringing almost constantly. How’s Priscilla holding up?”
“The media’s got the story and they’re going nuts. The place is locked down tight and a security guard is posted at every entrance.”
“I take it that Priscilla is responsible for that?”
“She’s in her element,” Nicole answered. “Rambo in a muumuu.”
“Just make sure the guards let Frankie through when she arrives. She’s really freaked out. If they try to delay her, she might pull a Terminator and drive her car through the front office.”
“Priscilla has already spoken with them about Frankie.”
Andie laughed. “Of course she has.”
Nicole approached the inner chamber window. “So, how is your darling husband?” She drawled the question suggestively. It was no secret that the couple enjoyed a very healthy sex life.
“Whatever do you mean?” Andie toyed with her.
“Oh please, you get laid more than anyone I know.”
Andie turned to the window and gave her a toothy smile. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Just satisfying my highly curious nature.”
“If you’re really that curious, you should take us up on that offer to join the Sisterhood. You’d learn all sorts of things.”
Nicole cocked an eyebrow. “That’s exactly what my husband is afraid of.”
Andie glanced over at the screen displaying vital signs. “Let me give these boys a little more amnesia medication and I’ll tell you about the new outfit Max bought me last week.”
“Deal.”
Nicole gazed around the chamber while she waited for Andie. The Fairhaven Hyperbaric Center was large and well designed, boasting a floor width that allowed patients to recline on gurneys against both walls while the staff maneuvered down the center of the aisle. A small bathroom had also been installed. The seven-foot ceiling, covered with jokes and funny pictures, reduced the claustrophobia patients often experienced. There was also a television and stereo system to combat the boredom of hours spent in the tube.
“So Andie,” Nicole whispered. “Lauren told me the younger guy is nicknamed Swordsman. She also said that he’s sleeping his way through the Sisterhood and doing it very well, if you get my meaning.”
Priscilla chose that moment to hustle up to the outer window and peer inside. Her plump cheeks were flushed with excitement.
“Damon is a legend in his own mind,” Andie answered. She jotted his respiratory rate and blood pressure on a clipboard then turned her attention to the expansive control panel displaying the breathing mixture of gases and chamber contaminants. Monitoring the panel was as important as tending to the patients.
“The word among the girls is that he’s quite a stud,” Andie continued. “In fact, Claire still breaks out in a sweat just talking about him. His unit is supposedly perfect, according to all reports.”
“Really?” Nicole made a whistling sound. “Perfect in what way?”
Andie cleared her throat.
“Dimensions, I believe. Along with appearance and firmness.”
Nicole blew out a wistful sigh. “Hmmmm. Andie, don’t you think it’s time to check that leg dressing and make sure it’s secure?”
“Past time, I think,” she replied officiously.
Both Priscilla and Nicole had their noses pressed against main chamber viewing windows, leaving oily smudges on the reinforced glass, while Andie gently eased the blanket away and exposed Damon from the waist down.
Priscilla gasped.
Nicole shrieked. “That’s impressive even at half-mast.”
“They call him Swordsman?” Priscilla squealed. “Why, he’s more like Eleven-and-Change. I bet he’s popular with the ladies.”
“You have no idea,” Andie drawled blithely.
Nicole started to laugh.
Damon’s eyelashes fluttered. He yawned and mumbled, “I’m not a sword, I’m a bayonet.” Just as quickly, he was asleep again.
Gage began thrashing on the cot. “Frankie? You’re not a pity-
fuck,” he raged in delirium. “Listen to me! Frankie, where are you?”
Andie grabbed a syringe from her vest pocket and rushed to his side.
* * * *
Frankie was sick with fear. Worry had churned her stomach into a queasy knot despite the solid reassurance Quinton did his best to give her. She had called him in stark panic, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other with the cellular telephone stuck in her ear; treating red lights and stop signs as mere suggestions. She hadn’t felt so helpless in years. Quinton and his family were on their way. Frankie had a head start on them and lived only an hour from Fairhaven.
Cylindrical hay bales and miles of farmland flew by her window. Her mind barely registered the slope-roofed red barns and acres of dense corn stalks and rye grass swaying in the morning breeze. Ordinarily the trip would have been a lovely drive with the sultry voice of some jazz diva to keep her company. Right now she would have given anything for her own personal helicopter.
Frankie swerved the Land Rover into the hospital parking lot, jumped out and sprinted across the pavement like an antelope. At the main entrance she flashed her Coast Guard identification to a nervous security guard, barged into a vacant outer office and ran headlong into a robust lady identifying herself as Priscilla. Frankie blinked twice, trying to simultaneously digest the woman’s rapid speech and read the nametag verifying who she claimed to be.
Coffee? Donuts?
No, she didn’t want either.
Tea? Water?
No thanks.
Yes, she knew it could be hours before Gage and Damon would be out of the chamber.
Yes, she knew they were in the best of hands.
No, she didn’t need to sit down.
Yes, someone else was coming to be with her.
Yes, she realized both men would be admitted to the hospital overnight for observation, perhaps longer if there were complications.
No, she really didn’t need to sit down. What she needed was to see them. See Andie. See for herself that the men were alive and well.
Guarding the Coast Page 18
