The man’s eyes were on Sarah.
‘It was a mistake to shoot you,’ she said softly. ‘A dreadful mistake. We want to help you now. Do you understand?’
Once more, a tiny nod. He understood English, then. He was wearing trousers that must once have been neat, and a shirt that once might even have been a business shirt. His black brogues were coated with dust.
‘Azron,’ he whispered, in a voice that was thickly accented. ‘Help…Azron.’
‘Is Azron your son?’ she asked.
Alistair had an oxygen mask ready to put over his face, but Sarah gave an urgent shake of her head. The man’s need for oxygen was imperative, but there was another imperative that had to be considered. She thought back bleakly to the amount of blood she’d seen in the plane. Someone else was in trouble.
‘Yes.’
‘Where can we find him?’
‘Not…’ The man stared at her with eyes that were glazing with shock and with pain. ‘Not…’ He looked past her and his eyes rested on Barry. Barry who stood at a loss behind them, uniformed, his hand still holding his gun.
‘Not find,’ he whispered, and closed his eyes.
They loaded him into Alistair’s truck and closed the doors. Alistair and Sarah stayed in the back with him-Sarah was still acting as a human pressure pad and she couldn’t shift. Max drove.
‘I’ll report this,’ Barry said grimly, and Alistair winced.
‘You do that. Just stay out of my way.’
Claire moved forward to close the doors on them, and as she did Sarah looked backward. And frowned.
Had she imagined it?
Nothing.
Or…was it?
A wisp of cloth behind the buildings. A fleeting glimpse.
She almost called out. Almost. But Barry was still there. His hand was still on his gun.
She’d imagined it. She must have.
Amal groaned and she turned her attention to him. To imperatives.
They came so close to losing him-but somehow they didn’t. Somehow they succeeded.
For the next two hours Sarah and Alistair worked with the desperation of people who knew that their best efforts might well be in vain. The wound was dreadful.
The bullet had tracked in through the right lung. The gaping, sucking wound in the man’s back was whistling with air as well as blood. By the time they reached the hospital Sarah could feel the man’s trachea shifting to the side. The pressure of one collapsing lung, with air build-up in the cavity outside the lung in the chest wall, was causing everything else to shift, to shut down. Tension pneumothorax…
‘We need to put in a chest drain,’ she told Alistair as she listened to his chest. ‘I can’t.’
‘I can,’ he told her. ‘At least I think I can. I have the equipment. I’ve seen it done.’
‘I’ve read about it,’ she told him, and he gave a rueful grimace.
‘There you go, then. What a team. What are we waiting for?’
What were they waiting for? Expertise, she thought bleakly. That was what they urgently wanted here.
Expertise was in short supply. They were all this man had. They were all that stood between this man and death.
What had Sarah been told? She thought back to the publican’s blunt assessment of the situation.
‘We’re a one-doctor town. We know that. It’s a risk we take.’
The locals accepted that they had one doctor here and that in an emergency he might not be able to cope.
It was bad enough, but to have such a situation with a gun-happy cop…
‘What did you say to him before he lost consciousness?’ Alistair asked. He was fighting to put together equipment and waiting for a call he’d put through to Cairns to get some emergency on-line assistance from a specialist surgeon. Sarah was adjusting oxygen-the man needed more, but his lungs were losing capacity all the time.
‘He was frightened for his son.’
‘His son?’
‘Out at the farm I found three forged Australian passports prepared for Amal Inor, his wife Noa, and his five- year-old son Azron. I figure this guy must be Amal. He talked about his son. Azron. Which confirms it. I asked him where they were, but Barry was there. He was too frightened.’
Alistair grimaced. ‘Even if he pulls through we’re not going to be able to talk to him.’
‘No. We had that one opportunity. And because of Barry…’
‘Barry’s out of here,’ Alistair told her. ‘Even if I have to run the guy out of town myself.’
They took X-rays, confirming air in the right thorax. They cross-matched blood for transfusion and Alistair contacted locals with the same group. ‘They’re used to it,’ he told Sarah. ‘This is a small community. There’s never any trouble getting blood donors-everyone knows they may need it themselves some day.’ Then, with the assistance of a specialist thoracic surgeon, teleconferencing from Cairns, they managed the next step.
A chest tube was inserted into the chest cavity using a local anaesthetic.
Their patient was drifting in and out of consciousness. There was no way Sarah was risking a general anaesthetic, and he didn’t need it. Alistair had administered so much morphine he’d hardly even need the local anaesthetic she did administer.
Then she watched as Alistair carefully inserted what was needed. The trocar and cannula consisted of an outer tube inserted right into the chest, with a tiny valved suction tube inserted in the centre. Once in position, the outer tube was withdrawn, leaving the inner tube in place. The tube was connected to an underwater seal, which allowed the air leaking from the damaged lung to exit through the tube but no air back again.
The intention was to seal the lung. It would let the man breathe until more permanent repairs could be made.
And, blessedly, it worked. The tube in place, they could concentrate on stopping the bleeding.
The wound was a gaping mess. He’d need specialist surgery to repair it completely-he needed to be moved to Cairns-but they had to get him stable first. They worked on, and by the time Alistair stood back from the table Sarah was as exhausted as Alistair looked.
‘That’s it.’ Alistair’s whole body seemed to slump. ‘We’ve done all we can.’
‘He has a chance,’ Sarah whispered.
Alistair nodded. ‘A good chance. I think. Barring complications.’ He lifted the man’s hand and held it in his. ‘What did you say his name was?’
‘Amal. As I said, it’s a guess, but I think I’m right.’
He nodded. ‘Amal, can you hear us?’
Amal’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at them with eyes that were cloudy from drugs and pain and shock.
‘Amal, you’re safe now.’ Alistair’s voice gentled as he realised the man was taking in what he was being told. ‘You’re safe. But we need to find your family. Can you help us?’
Amal gazed up at them some more. He simply looked. Nothing.
‘Amal?’
There was a weak shake of the head. A tear appeared at the corner of the man’s right eye and trickled down his dusty cheek.
He closed his eyes.
This wasn’t sleep, Sarah thought. He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t telling them anything.
He was still terrified. If they had shot him, imagine what they could do to his precious wife and son.
‘I’ll kill him.’
She’d never seen him this angry. Sarah followed Alistair out to the sinks, then stood back and watched as he hauled off his gown and turned the taps on full. Water spurted out of the faucet so hard it hit the bottom and burst up again, splashing over his shoes. He didn’t appear to notice. He’d held himself under rigid control while he was operating, she realised, but now combined tension and rage were threatening to overwhelm him.
