Groves—as burly as a fullback but tender as a nurse—was crouched over the girl, examining the wound. There were two long gashes in her cheek, bloody smears on her tawny skin. The venom, some of the most powerful in the animal kingdom, was already coursing through her veins.
Her father, wailing and praying aloud, rocked on his sandaled feet. Even the mule brayed in dumb alarm.
Diaz handed Slater the kit, already open, and Slater, his hands moving on automatic pilot, went about administering the anticoagulant and doing his best to stabilize her, but he knew that only the antivenin, in short supply these days, could save the girl’s life.
And even then, only if it was used in the next hour.
“Round up the nearest chopper,” he said to Diaz. “We need to get this girl to the med center.”
But the soldier hesitated. “No offense, sir, but orders are that the med runs are only for military casualties. They won’t come for a civilian.”
Groves looked over at Slater with mournful eyes and said, “He’s right. Ever since that chopper was shot down three days ago, the orders have been ironclad. EMS duties are out.”
Slater heard them, but wondered if they were really prepared to stand by and let the girl die. Her father was screaming the few words of English he knew, “Help! U.S.A! Please, help!” He was on his knees in the dust, wringing his woven cap in his hands.
Her little heart was beating like a trip-hammer and her limbs were convulsing, and Slater knew that any further delay would seal the girl’s fate forever. Someone this size and weight, injected with a full dose of a pit viper’s poison—and he had seen enough of these snakes to know that this one had been fully mature—could not last long before her blood cells began to disintegrate.
“Keep her as still as you can,” he said to Groves and Diaz, then ran back to the jeep, grabbed the radio mike, and called it in to the main base.
“Marine down!” Slater said, “viper bite. Immediate—I say, immediate—evac needed!”
He saw Groves and the private exchange a glance.
“Your coordinates?” a voice on the radio crackled.
The coordinates? Slater, the blood pounding in his head from his own fever, fumbled to muster them. “We’re about two klicks from the Khan Neshin outpost,” he said, focusing as hard as he could, “just southwest of the rice paddies.”
Groves suddenly appeared at his side and grabbed the mike out of his hands, but instead of countermanding the major’s order, he gave the exact coordinates.
“Tell ’em they can finish the rations dump later,” Groves barked. “We need that chopper over here now! And tell the med center to get as much of the antivenin ready as they’ve got!”
Slater, his legs unsteady, crouched down in the shade of the jeep.
“You didn’t need to get mixed up in this,” Slater said after Groves signed off. “I’ll take the heat.”
“Don’t worry,” Groves said. “There’ll be plenty to go around.”
For the next half hour, Slater kept the girl as tranquilized as he could—the more she thrashed, the faster the poison circulated in her system—while the sergeant and the private kept a close watch on the neighboring fields. Taliban fighters were drawn to trouble like sharks to blood, and if they suspected a chopper was going to be flying in, they’d be scrambling through their stockpiles for one last Stinger missile. Nor did Slater want to go back to the outpost and ask for backup; somebody might see what was really going on and cancel the mission.
“I hear it!” Groves said, turning toward a low rise of scrubby hills.
So could Slater. The thrumming of its rotors preceded by only seconds the sight of the Black Hawk itself, soaring over the ridgeline. After doing a quick reconnaissance loop, the pilot put the chopper down a dozen yards from the jeep, its blades still spinning, its engine churning. The side hatch slid open, and two grunts with a stretcher leapt out into the cloud of dust.
“Where?” one shouted, wiping the whirling dirt from his goggles.
Diaz pointed to the girl lying low on the embankment between Slater and the sergeant.
The two soldiers stopped in their tracks, and over the loud rumble of the idling helicopter, one shouted, “A civilian?”
The other said, “Combat casualties only! Strict orders.”
“That’s right,” Slater said, tapping the major’s oak leaf cluster on his shirt, “and I’m giving them here! This girl is going to the med center, and she’s going now!”
The first soldier hesitated, still unsure, but the second one laid his end of the stretcher on the ground at her feet. “I’ve got a daughter back home,” he mumbled, as he wrapped the girl in a poncho liner, then helped Groves to lift her onto the canvas.
“I’m taking full responsibility,” Slater said. “Let’s move!”
But when the girl’s father tried to climb into the chopper, the pilot shook his head violently and waved his hand. “No can do!” he shouted. “We’re carrying too much weight already.”