The Empty Quarter

by David L. Robbins

  “How long she been like this?”

  “About twelve minutes.”

  “She responsive?”

  “Not much.”

  “You okay?”

  “I can wait.”

  LB cupped the burqa behind the woman’s neck to lift her face to him. He patted her drained cheek two, three times. Her eyes wandered under quivering lids, lips muttered mutely.

  “Princess, you with me? Princess?”

  LB eased her head against the dirt floor. He couldn’t locate a pulse in her wrist, so he tugged up the rest of the drenched skirt to expose the barely pink right leg. Reaching to the inside of the thigh for the femoral pulse, he found it and marked her blood pressure at approximately 70 systolic. He measured the beat against his watch—too fast at 124 per minute. The woman’s body was starving for oxygenated blood, and her heart had sped up to circulate what it had. Capillaries were automatically closing down in the extremities to preserve the remaining blood for the torso and vital organs. All the princess’s systems were under immense stress and she was running out of reserves. Her body couldn’t compensate much longer.

  Like the diplomat said, she’d taken a round to the pelvic area, just above the crease of the groin in the inguinal region. That plastic tourniquet wasn’t likely to work; the damage was above the limb. Judging from her state of shock, the bullet had either torn or severed one of the femoral vessels, and she was fading quickly.

  LB needed to stop the bleeding, right now. Then evac her to a safer spot and a closer look.

  LB shrugged off his med ruck to tear into the top pocket, M for Massive hemorrhage. Immediately, he grabbed the kit holding a Combat Ready Clamp, a CRoC, to shut down the bleeding.

  Wally’s electronic voice over the team freq cut into LB’s ear.

  “Berko, Berko. Juggler. Sit rep.”

  Berko shot back, “Roger, Juggler. Wait one.”

  The young CRO scrambled across the floor to hunker beside LB.

  “Sit rep.”

  LB didn’t take his hands or attention off the princess. Wally had been right earlier when he’d said they were dealing with minutes.

  “Gunshot wound to the pelvis. We need to stabilize, stop the bleeding before I can move her.”

  Berko slid aside to make his report. “Juggler, Berko. Female has gunshot wound to the pelvis. We need to stabilize and stop the bleeding before we can move her. Two male IPs15 have multiple wounds tango two and tango three.”

  Beside the princess, the diplomat looked eager to do something. LB grabbed his wrist to drag it over her soggy bandage.

  “Cofield.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Press right here, both hands. Hard.”

  The big man did what he was told, ignoring the feel and stench of blood. He kept his composure well, under the circumstances. When he leaned to push down onto the wound, a grimace flashed across his features, then disappeared. Blood squeezed out of the spongelike gauze.

  LB assembled the CRoC. The device was built like a little steel gallows, with a base plate, an upright post, and a crosspiece arm. He screwed a T-handle bolt down into one end of the horizontal arm, then attached a rounded pressure disk head to the bottom of the bolt.

  He slid the base plate under the princess’s left buttock, pushing Cofield’s hands off the bandage. With a flick of his knife, LB sliced away the useless tube tourniquet. He tore open a fresh gauze bandage to lay over her bared flesh, two inches higher on the torso, toward the abdomen above the femoral sheath. After extending the crosspiece to put the pressure head directly over the fresh bandage, he cranked the T-handle, lowering the big plastic knob, tightening it like a vise.

  While LB worked, Berko transmitted the sit rep to Wally.

  The package had been badly hit, LB was attending to her now. She was critical, tango one. Two other wounded occupants: a Yemeni national was tango two, and the American diplomat tango three. The truck staring at them had done nothing aggressive, but the Yemeni advised they all evac the hut pronto. Bad guys were headed their way. The Yemeni couldn’t say how many or how close, just close. Someone he called the Abidah.

  LB screwed the pressure head down until the CRoC pushed deep into the princess’s pelvis. With luck, he was on top of the damaged section of the femoral, crushing it shut. Without luck, the woman was good as dead.

  In the exchange between Berko and Wally, LB caught that the tactical situation was collapsing. Wally had heard enough and made the call. He ordered Berko and Team 1 to start evac immediately.

  LB shook his head at the lieutenant. “Sir, she’s got to go on fluids right now. Her blood pressure’s too low. If we evac now, she won’t survive the ride out.”

  “Time?”

  “Three minutes.”

  “Try to make it two.”

  LB tugged from his med ruck a bag of lactated Ringer’s and an IV catheter.

  Berko got back on the horn. “Juggler, Berko. Preparing to move. Two mikes.”

  LB shouted to the lieutenant. He lifted one hand from the princess to gesture at her and the diplomat. “Get these two in the GAARV. Bring Mouse to the back door. Send Jamie in with more blood and a litter. I’ll hook her up, then we’ll put her into the cage and roll. Leave Mouse on the .240.”

  The young CRO transmitted the order to Mouse and Jamie. The lieutenant’s voice and actions were holding steady. He was fitting himself into the rhythm of the mission. Outside, the GAARV raced forward on his word.

  LB lifted the princess’s right arm out of the dirt to lay it across his lap. He rolled up the burqa’s sleeve, searching for a vein. The flesh of her arm, like her legs and face, lay smooth, a span of white without ridges or hue, washed out by her blood loss. LB peeled away a small bandage on her forearm, revealing a tiny puncture, a needle wound.

  “What’s this?”

  The diplomat rattled his head as if he didn’t know.

  LB tossed Cofield a Velcro tourniquet from his med ruck.

  “I can’t get a vein. Wrap this around her biceps.”

  The diplomat secured the strap around the woman’s arm. LB tapped on her chilly skin, raising a poor, greenish vessel to his needle. He slid the point in and plugged the fluid bag’s line into the cannula. Opening the port, LB handed the bag to Cofield.

  “Hold this up.”

  “All right.”

  “Long night?”

  “Roger that.”

  “You ex-something?”

  “Ranger captain.”

  “No shit. Me, too.”

  “Why’re you a PJ sergeant?”

  “Let’s save that for after we get out of here, sir. Get ready to evac.”

  Across the hut, Berko lifted the Yemeni with the Kalashnikov to his shaky feet. The pickup truck did nothing but watch and beam its brights through the windows. The LT hurried the Yemeni near the rear door while Mouse roared closer.

  Cofield lifted the clear fluid bag higher.

  “I’ll stay ’til you go. I can help.”

  LB took the fluids from him.

  “You’ll go when I say, sir. Stand next to the door and get in the vehicle.”

  LB turned his face to give the diplomat nothing to argue with. The man rose, a much bigger figure than when LB first saw him minutes ago folded and wary in the shadowy dirt. Cofield scooped the big handgun off the ground and shuffled for the door behind Berko and the Yemeni.

  LB laid his hand across the princess’s brow. She remained cool and wrung out. Her lips had stopped moving, her eyes closed. He checked for a distal pulse in the leg below the wound and found nothing. Shifting his fingertips above the CRoC’s jaws, he found a proximal pulse closer to the body core, a hummingbird beat in her pelvis still too fast but firmer; her blood pressure had stopped its decline. LB sliced away the gauze wrapping to inspect the exit wound.

  He plucked out
several scarlet gauze pads shoved inside the jagged hole. Wiping a clean pad over the puncture, LB waited for another tongue of blood to fall. It did, followed by another seconds after.

  The CRoC had shut down the major bleeding, but she continued to lose ground. She still might crash; the fluids flowing into her veins carried no oxygen. She needed rich blood moving through her, lots of it to replace what she’d lost.

  The GAARV crunched to a halt in the gravel next to the mud hut’s door.

  Jamie burst in the doorway, a unit of blood in each hand. These had been stored in a cooler in the back of the GAARV. The instant Jamie cleared the opening, Berko ushered the Yemeni out. Before exiting, the wounded man spoke over his shoulder.

  “We need to leave.”

  LB waved at Berko to get him out of the hut.

  Wally chimed in: “Team 1, you got one minute.”

  LB didn’t answer, busy snaring out of the air the first chilled unit of blood tossed by Jamie, even before the young PJ landed on his knees beside him. LB rolled and worked the bag to make sure it would flow evenly. From outside, Berko handled Wally’s prodding, replying, “Roger. One mike.”

  In the doorway, Cofield hung back, pistol in hand. LB had no time to shout and chase him out the door. The guy had paid a lot tonight for the right to stay with his princess. LB let him back in.

  The catheter in the woman’s arm was connected to a plastic tube that branched into a Y halfway up, allowing another fluid bag to piggyback. LB plugged the unit of O negative universal donor blood into the line, then switched off the fluid. Instantly the clear tube ran crimson.

  Jamie handed over the second unit. “I’ll get the litter.”

  “Go.”

  Jamie, strapped into every pound of metal and medicine that weighed down the rest of the PJs, bounded away as if he’d never had bullet holes in his own legs. The notion gave LB heart that the princess could survive this night and be whole again. But the CRoC, while saving her life, had also choked off all circulation to her left leg, from the hip to her toes. Her flesh could live without oxygen no more than five or six hours before it died; the longer the blood flow stayed restricted, the greater the chance of lethal blood clots, lactic acid—any number of nasty elements—building up in the pool of her leg. If LB got the princess in the GAARV in the next few minutes, and they managed to roar out of here at top speed with no trouble, they wouldn’t reach Sharurah for two more hours, three tops. They’d need to stay off the road, travel by infrared lights and NVGs across the sand, salt flats, ridges, and dunes of the Empty Quarter. The flight from the Sharurah airport by private jet to Riyadh would eat up another hour, then an ambulance ride into the city. At best, the princess was five hours from this dirt floor to bright lights and cold steel, the definitive care of a proper hospital. It was going to be a coin toss whether she’d lose her left leg up to the hip.

  Cofield left the doorway to kneel by the princess’s side. LB gave him the draining unit of blood to hold up.

  “All right, Captain. Tell me in twenty seconds. What’s happening?”

  Cofield rested his free hand on the woman’s sleeve, protective. He’d fired and taken bullets for her.

  “This is a Saudi princess. There’s a tribe from Ma’rib, the Abidah, trying to stop us from taking her out of Yemen. Khalil says al-Qaeda’s mixed up in this, too. They bribed two other desert tribes to stop us, the Bani Yam and the Sai’ar. I got us past the first roadblock. Guns came out at the second. She got hit. We all did. I figured our best chance was to get under cover, wait for you.”

  “That truck out front?”

  “The Sai’ar. We killed a couple of them. Then they followed us.”

  “Who’s the local?”

  “Khalil. An army colonel. He was the driver.”

  “Looks like he was great company.”

  “He’s not. But the man’s got stones.”

  Jamie burst in the door with the Stokes litter, Berko close behind. Wally called in.

  “Berko, Juggler.”

  “Go.”

  “Torres called from the ROC. She’s got an unarmed ISR16 Predator overhead that just picked up a convoy of five light trucks. They’re closing in on the N5 turnoff, three miles out. High rate of speed. Time to go.”

  “Roger. Putting the package on the stretcher now.”

  Jamie laid the litter beside the princess. Cofield scooted out of the way, keeping the blood and fluid bags high, lines untangled. The first blood unit was already two-thirds empty; a faint blush had crept into the princess’s cheeks. LB thought to lower the burqa’s veil but needed to keep a handle on the woman’s color before granting her modesty. Together, Jamie, LB, and Berko shifted her onto the litter. LB took the grips at her head, Jamie the feet. Together they stood erect, lifting the stretcher with Cofield beside them. LB backed toward the door and the GAARV grumbling next to the shot-up Mercedes. Berko stayed on their six.

  LB led the way, careful to tread only in the wedges of shadow cast by the watching pickup truck’s beams. Jamie and Berko followed his lead. Cofield, holding the bags, trying to stay beside the litter as they maneuvered for the door, got snared in the spotlight. He was lit up clear as day, sneaking out the back.

  A burst from an automatic weapon—distinct pops, another Kalashnikov—drubbed the mud bricks of the hut’s facade. Puffs and shards sailed in the windows. Jamie and Berko halted, bent knees to the dirt. Cofield dodged out of the light. No one was hit. LB tugged on the stretcher.

  “Let’s go.”

  He edged his backside out the door before another short volley battered the hut. Under the flail of bullets, Mouse shouted from behind the GAARV’s starboard gun for orders. That same moment Wally’s voice crackled over the team freq. Berko handled the reply.

  “Juggler, Berko. Shots fired, no casualties. Loading now. Hold your position.”

  “Move it. Convoy is two miles out.”

  Mouse twirled a hand in small circles. Come on, come on.

  At LB’s back, the shadows around him shifted.

  The pickup’s headlights had pulled away from the hut.

  Jamie shoved on the stretcher, prodding LB in the thighs. “Let’s go. Go.”

  LB froze in the doorway.

  The pickup’s headlights led the way moments before the truck came speeding around the corner. Mouse waited for the Sai’ar, ready with the .240. The mission’s rules of engagement dictated return fire only; that truck was now a hostile. Mouse hugged the gunstock.

  A man in a loose, blowing tunic rode in the passenger window of the moving truck, a weapon clearly in his grasp and aimed at the GAARV. Mouse followed with the nose of the .240. The pickup carved a wide rooster-tail arch around the hut and the GAARV. It didn’t fire. The chance was worth taking: LB tugged on the handles of the Stokes litter to load the princess.

  He took only one step forward before the Sai’ar opened up. A volley drilled more holes into the Mercedes and drummed against the GAARV, flinting sparks against its armor. Mouse depressed the .240’s trigger, answering fire. The mounted automatic blasted to life, and the ammo belt waggled, feeding rounds. Mouse’s bullets struck up founts of dirt around the speeding pickup; some bit into the metal panels. The gunner in the pickup’s window emptied his magazine at Mouse, who did not cringe behind the .240. Over the banging of the guns and the jangle of spent brass casings, Mouse screamed at LB.

  “Get back inside!”

  Before he could move, the Yemeni spy burst out of the GAARV, pushing past LB and the stretcher into the hut’s back door.

  LB surged backward away from the corona of bullets wailing all around Mouse. He heaved against the litter frame to push Jamie and the princess back into the hut. Cofield staggered through the door behind them.

  Inside the hut, LB and Jamie set the litter on the dirt. LB took his rifle in hand; Jamie spread himself across the moaning princess. Abo
ve their heads, a burst of rounds slammed into the mud wall, ripping off a corner section, flinging it over LB, Cofield, and Jamie in bits and dust.

  The Sai’ar truck kept rolling fast, firing until it crossed out of sight behind a corner of the hut. Mouse eased off the trigger. LB lunged outside to Mouse, and to inspect any damage to the GAARV. Over the team freq, Wally barked.

  “Team 1, can you evac immediately? Repeat, immediately. Torres has the convoy one mile out and approaching. Confirm and we will engage that truck. Confirm.”

  Inside the GAARV, Mouse poked up his head with puffed cheeks and a shaking helmet. A trickle of blood ran from his left ear down his neck; he’d lost the lobe. The vehicle wore a dozen dents but had survived the onslaught, too. The trunk of the Mercedes had been hit and come unlatched, to stand on end like a frightened tuft of hair.

  Behind the wall, the headlights of the Sai’ar swung around in a loop, lighting long cones of blank earth. The truck halted behind the hut’s wall, out of the line of fire but in position to leap to the attack again if the PJs tried to get away.

  LB turned for Berko. The young CRO had crawled to a window in the front of the hut. The muzzle of his rifle lay on the mud sill.

  “LT?”

  The young lieutenant came to his knees, to gaze west up the road. When he reeled his head back in, he shook it at LB.

  “Okay. Tell Wally.”

  Berko pressed his PTT.

  “Juggler, Juggler, Berko.”

  “Go.”

  The front of the young lieutenant’s camo uniform brightened once, twice, again.

  “Negative, Wally. Negative. They’re here.”

  Wally went silent. Berko sank beneath the mud sill, rifle trained.

  Swirling headlights flooded the hut, bleaching the air and dust. Tires and engines scrabbled over the cinder track leading from the main road. Five technicals rushed into a fast circle around the hut. Every truck had a big machine gun bolted to the bed and a man standing spread-legged behind it; each vehicle as it cut around the hut spilled armed men who jumped out of the beds and passenger doors to take cover in the grooves and ruts of the archaeological digs. Inside a minute, LB’s team was ringed by more than two dozen dug-in enemies with automatic weapons. The newly arrived pickups finished their loop to park side by side facing the front of the hut, confronting it with five heavy machine guns and their joined, blinding lights.