by Radclyffe
“No way,” Melissa objected, looking up from her viewfinder. She’d begun filming in earnest as soon as they’d gotten close. “This story is in there. I’m coming with you.”
“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Jude said sharply, her temper flaring with a mixture of worry about Sax’s whereabouts and her own terror of walking into that dark hole in the ground. “We need footage of Deb for the documentary.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to get that later. Right now, we need to be where the action is. You know damn well it’s inside that tunnel,” Melissa insisted. “You stay with Deb and let me go in.”
Jude wanted to agree. Everything she feared was in there. And so was everything she cared about. If it had just been the story, she might have given in to the nausea that clawed at her throat, turning her blood to ice, and sent Melissa in alone. Maybe. But Sax was in there, too. She couldn’t just stand outside and wait. She needed to go in, for herself and everything that mattered.
“We’ll go together.” She grabbed the sleeve of Melissa’s jeans jacket. “Come on, before they get organized and try to keep the press out.”
“Stay close, will you,” Melissa shouted as they ran. “I don’t want to lose you in there.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right on your back—just like always.”
“Today, I won’t mind,” Melissa said fervently.
They made a hard right around a barricade the police were setting up to prevent unauthorized people from going into the tunnel. Someone shouted, “Hey, you can’t go in there!”
Melissa and Jude ignored the voices calling them back, and within moments, they were obscured from sight by the dense curtain of roiling smoke and plumes of fire.
Chapter Thirty
September 3, 6:37 a.m.
The main overhead lights were out. The rescue teams had not yet rigged the portable arc lights, and the only illumination in the tunnel came from the safety lights at ground level, which were working sporadically at best. Entire sections were nonfunctional, casting the underground highway in patches of murky yellow and foreboding shadow.
Fortunately, the air was still breathable despite the noxious smoke pouring from around the overturned truck. Firefighters were already hosing it down with flame retardant foam as Jude and Melissa skirted the throng of workers at the entrance.
“Follow those guys,” Jude shouted above the din. She pointed to emergency medical personnel, identifiable by their tackle boxes of medical equipment, who were inching their way past the rubble at the mouth of the tunnel to reach the stranded motorists deeper inside.
After climbing over bits of concrete and debris from the wreckage, they emerged on the other side of the tanker and got their first view of the real scope of the disaster. Cars were piled up as far as they could see, several overturned and burning, and the first rescue workers on the scene were rushing from vehicle to vehicle, assessing the status of the occupants. Victims were sitting or lying beside many of the wrecks, some being attended to by paramedics while others waited, confused and disoriented, for someone to lead them out. Here and there, EMTs were starting IVs and intubating the more seriously injured.
“Do you see Sax?” Jude asked urgently.
The faces of many of the rescue workers were already smudged with smoke and grime. In the murky light that flickered and flared as electrical circuits burnt out and small fires began, everyone had the eerie appearance of figures in a waking dream. Until she was right up next to someone, Jude couldn’t even be certain if they were male or female. Most of the emergency workers were garbed in some form of hospital apparel, and only the firefighters in their heavy asbestos coats were easily recognizable.
“Do you see anyone from St. Michael’s?” Jude repeated.
“No,” Melissa replied grimly, trying not to think about the extent of the carnage. “Let’s just keep going and see how far this goes. They must be somewhere close by. Eventually, we’ve got to run into them.”
“Look at the ground,” Jude remarked hollowly. The water on the floor of the tunnel was already six inches deep. There were tons of rock and water above their heads, and she wondered how long the damaged infrastructure could sustain the tremendous pressure without flooding or collapsing completely. She glanced ahead and could see only darkness beyond the first thirty feet. Every instinct in her body screamed for her to leave. She craved daylight and fresh air with an exigency that bordered on frantic. She bit her lip, refusing to let her fear show, desperate to stave off the wave of dizziness and surge of nausea that threatened to bring her to her knees. She tasted her own blood.
“What do you think?” Melissa stared at the water slowly eddying around her boots. “Turn back or look for them?”
“Keep going.” Jude reached into one of the cargo pockets of her vest, found her halogen flashlight, and switched it on to supplement the diminished lighting.
As they passed the wreckage of the deadly early-morning commute, she spied a few motionless forms inside crushed vehicles, lying in the awkward poses only death could confer. Fortunately, most of the victims she saw appeared to be alive, although many would require assistance getting out of the tunnel. The fact that the rush-hour congestion had already begun by the time the accident occurred meant that traffic had been moving fairly slowly. She prayed that would mean fewer fatalities despite the large number of people who seemed to be injured.
“Over there!” Melissa pointed in the direction of several demolished vehicles facing north in the southbound lane. “Isn’t that Nancy?”
Jude squinted into the gloom and felt a surge of relief as she recognized the head trauma nurse. “Yes! Sax must be with her.” She didn’t wait for Mel’s reply but hurried as quickly as she could between the jumble of vehicles toward the team from St. Michael’s.
As she drew near, she saw Sax leaning through the door of an overturned four-wheel-drive vehicle. Her heart jumped, and her first instinct was to run to her. All she wanted was to touch her, just touch her, and feel the solid certainty of her body. Instead, she forced herself to slow down and take a deep breath. “Just keep the focus on Sax, Mel. She’ll be recognizable to every viewer. We can’t get anything better than this.”
Moving carefully around open instrument packs and tackle boxes filled with drugs, Jude edged closer to the car until she was nearly touching Sax’s shoulder. When she peered into the vehicle, she saw a man trapped by the collapsed steering column.
“Nancy, get another flashlight in here, will you?” Sax ordered tersely without looking around. “I need to tie off this bleeder, and I can’t see a damn thing.”
“I’ve got one right here, Nancy,” Jude said, holding hers aloft and pointing it into the interior of the front seat. The car was on its side, and the bucket seats were angled nearly perpendicular to the ground. The unconscious middle-aged man was suspended in midair by a spear of metal penetrating his shoulder.
Sax glanced up quickly at the sound of Jude’s voice. “It’s treacherous down here. I’d be happier if you were doing your thing outside somewhere.”
“Ditto,” Jude replied. “But here we are. Can I do anything besides hold this light?”
“You think you can pass instruments to me? That’ll free Nancy up to check other victims.” Sax turned her attention back to the deep gaping gash in the man’s upper arm. “Seeing as you’re staying and all.”
“I can manage. If I don’t know what it is, just describe it to me.” Jude allowed herself one brief caress along Sax’s shoulder. “And I missed you, too.”
“All right, Ms. Castle,” Sax replied, registering the touch and smiling to herself. “You’re hired. Hand me a hemostat.”
Melissa got as close as she could and, for the next eight minutes, she documented some of the most exciting footage she had ever shot. Sinclair worked without a single break in her concentration or the slightest hesitation in the swift, smooth rhythm of her hands as she clamped and sutured and tied, controlling the bleeding, and then extricated the
impaled motorist so that the paramedics could lift him out onto a backboard.
“Okay.” Sax rested back on her heels as her patient was taken away. She wiped her forehead with her bare arm, managing only to smear the sweat, smoke, and blood splatters around. Glancing at Jude, she smiled dolefully. “A success, I hope. Let’s pack up this gear and keep going. Nancy will be triaging, so keep an eye out for her. If there’s anyone that needs acute surgical attention, she’ll call for me. Otherwise, we’ll just direct the paramedics to the ones that need to be evacuated first.”
“Understood,” Jude replied, hastily rearranging supplies in the drug box.
Thirty minutes later, they were nearly at the end of the line of involved vehicles. Rescue workers were approaching from the New Jersey side of the tunnel, although several vehicles burning out of control at that end had hindered their progress. Others worked steadily behind them, transporting the injured to safety as quickly as possible. It seemed to Jude that the water level had risen several more inches.
“Looks like most everyone is out,” Sax said as the EMTs moved a woman with a fractured leg onto a stretcher.
“Things don’t look too stable down here,” Jude observed. “I think we should consider getting out ourselves.”
“I think you’re right. Let’s head back.”
They had nearly reached the beginning of the pileup, just behind the tanker, when they ran into Deb coming in. Speaking rapidly, her stress apparent, she said, “The structural engineers are afraid part of the ceiling is about to give way. We’re double-checking to make sure all of the injured are clear.”
“All clear back there,” Sax indicated the area behind them with a jerk of her head. “Who’s running the show outside?”
“Kirkland showed up.” Deb gestured toward one of the attending surgeons from Sax’s department. “I just left long enough to do this final canvass.” She didn’t mention that she had gone in against the orders of the police because she knew that the three of them were still inside. “Let’s get...”
A low rumbling that rapidly built to a roar drowned out her words. The ground beneath them seemed to lift and undulate as if shaken by some giant hand. The four women struggled to keep their footing as bits of concrete and tile began to rain down.
“This section is collapsing,” Sax shouted. She grabbed Jude and Mel by the shoulders and pushed them in Deb’s direction. “Run!”
They and the few remaining paramedics still in the tunnel sprinted toward daylight, a distance of fifty yards that seemed like fifteen miles, as chunks of debris fell faster. Even Melissa finally gave up filming and simply cradled her camera against her chest, put her head down, and ran. One by one, they vaulted over the final barrier of twisted metal and chunks of concrete while close behind, clouds of pulverized stone bore down upon them.
Jude had just cleared the tunnel mouth when she realized that Sax was no longer by her side. Barely able to see through the billowing dust, she reached out and caught Mel’s sleeve.
“Did Sax pass you?” she screamed over the roar of destruction freight-training in the tunnel.
“No! She’s right behind—” Mel looked over Jude’s shoulder, her expression one of dawning horror. “Oh God. She’s still in there.”
Jude wasn’t aware of making the decision to turn back before she found herself plunging into the darkness. “Go back,” she screamed as Mel caught up to her.
“No way.”
“There!” Jude exclaimed, pointing to a swatch of blue next to the overturned truck, just barely visible under a powdering of stone and ash.
Sax lay facedown, a trickle of blood streaming down her neck. A four-inch gash on the back of her head bubbled with blood, bone visible at the base.
Jude fell to her knees next to her unconscious lover, ignoring the shards of glass, metal, and jagged rock that tore holes in her jeans. Tentatively, she reached toward Sax. She was afraid to touch her. She had no idea what death felt like, and she was afraid that she might find out. Her fingers hovered just above Sax’s shoulder, the shoulder she had caressed not long before. This can’t be. She isn’t supposed to get hurt. She’s the one that makes everything else all right.
“Can we move her?” Melissa yelled, her fear making her voice shrill.
“I don’t know,” Jude said harshly.
“We’ve got to!” Melissa watched huge slabs of concrete slide from the walls onto the roadbed. “We don’t have any time.”
Suddenly, Deb’s voice calmly instructed, “Let me in there, Jude.” She slid her fingers under Sax’s jaw, checking for a pulse. “It’s a good thing I saw you two lunatics running back this way.” After a few seconds, she raised her head and met Jude’s gaze. “She’s alive.”
“She’s not moving. Her head...” Jude’s voice was rising rapidly, and she felt things begin to break apart inside. She clenched her fists so tightly that the nails dug into her skin. “Deb...what about her neck...”
“I know, Jude. But we have to get her out of here. I’ll stabilize her neck and shoulders if you two can lift her body. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Melissa and Jude slung their camera straps over their shoulders and reached for Sax. With Deb directing, they maneuvered the trauma surgeon’s unresponsive body clear of the tunnel, onto a stretcher, and into the nearest unoccupied EMT van. The three then piled into the back as well.
Deb quickly executed the routine resuscitation maneuvers. As she wrapped a tourniquet around Sax’s upper arm, she yelled to the driver, “St. Michael’s. And call ahead for the neurosurgeon. Let them know we’re bringing in Dr. Sinclair. You got that? Tell them Dr. Sinclair is down.”
Jude knelt by the stretcher, completely unaware of what Deb was saying or doing. If there was a world beyond this six-by-six-foot space, she had no sense of it. Everything that mattered to her was just inches away in the form of the dark-haired woman who lay so frighteningly still.
Chapter Thirty-One
September 3, 8:21 a.m.
As the double doors of the ambulance swung open, Pam Arnold climbed up onto the rear running board and peered into the interior. She hadn’t truly believed the frantic, garbled radio transmission, but as soon as she’d heard it, she’d hurried down to see for herself. She’d even left her resident alone in the trauma bay to continue with the evaluation of a firefighter who’d fallen from an extension ladder. Blinking from the glare of the vehicle’s ceiling lights, she surveyed a scene she would not soon forget. For a few seconds, trying to absorb the reality before her, she forgot why she had been called.
The trauma fellow, her back braced for balance against the partition that separated the transport section from the cab, was attaching EKG leads to the chief of the trauma division, who lay unresponsive on the stretcher, naked from the waist up, an IV running into her left arm and a stiff cervical collar immobilizing her neck. The film person—the redhead—was on her knees next to the gurney with Saxon’s left hand clasped between both of hers. She turned at the sound of the doors opening, and the look she gave Pam was wild—not with hysteria, though that would have been understandable, but with a kind of ferocious protectiveness. In the far corner of the small space, a grimy, bedraggled blond in a ratty baseball cap held a camera at eye level.
Pam shook her head. This is not happening. Saxon Sinclair is not lying on that stretcher. In the next instant, she squared her shoulders and narrowed her gaze, totally focused on the patient. As she stepped inside, she asked brusquely, “Is she stable?”
“Vital signs are rock solid,” Deb answered steadily, pulling the sheet up to cover Sax’s breasts while watching the blood pressure monitor. “Pupils are equal and reactive but sluggish.”
“No respiratory problems?” Pam leaned down to flick her penlight into first one, then the other, of Sax’s eyes. She edged aside a few inches to allow the EMTs to pack up the monitors so they could remove the stretcher from the ambulance.
“Nope—she’s breathing fine all on her o
wn. She never lost her pulse or pressure.”
“Was she ever conscious in the field?”
“No, she’s been unresponsive since we found her,” Deb said a bit dispiritedly, “but I think we’re dealing with just the closed head injury.”
“What about the blood?” Pam nodded toward the stain on the sheets and the streaks down Sax’s neck, lifting and flexing Sax’s limbs. “Good tone, no hyperreflexia,” she muttered.
“Her head is cut—something hit her.” Jude winced as she stood up. Her legs were sore from the lacerations she’d not noticed earlier, and her muscles were cramped from kneeling on the rough corrugated floor of the ambulance.
“Stein?” Pam glanced from Jude back to the trauma resident for confirmation as the paramedics slid the gurney from the truck. At Deb’s nod of assent, Pam said, “I want to get her right to the CT scanner. They’re holding it for us. You good with that?”
“Yes. I’ll go with you, just in case there’s a problem.” Deb climbed out, Jude and Melissa right behind her.
Hurrying alongside the wheeled stretcher being steered by the paramedics, Pam was about to suggest that the civilians wait in trauma admitting, but one look at the redhead’s face made her change her mind. Mentally sighing, she figured it couldn’t be any more of a zoo than it was already going to be, considering who the patient was. Besides, it didn’t look like anything short of a nuclear blast could budge the woman from Sinclair’s side.
“What’s your name?” Pam asked as they commandeered an elevator.
Distractedly, Jude replied, “Jude Castle.” Her eyes never left Sax’s face, scouring for some kind of movement. Sax, wake up, for God’s sake. Just open your eyes. Just...just come back. She smoothed the backs of her fingers over Sax’s cheek. “Can you tell anything yet?”
The eyes she finally lifted to Pam’s were dark with anguish. Pam had seen the look a thousand times. She would have given her the stock answer—too soon to tell, I’ll know more later—not because she didn’t care, but because she couldn’t share every single person’s pain and still be able to work. But it was Saxon Sinclair lying there, and this woman so obviously loved her.
