Invisible Armies

Chapter 43

Once on board the Coast Guard cutter, Keiran strips off his wet suit and greedily wraps himself in the blankets the sailors provide him. He is mostly ignored at first, compared to the two critical medical cases that accompany him. Sophia is given an oxygen mask; her spasmodic coughs are so violent that they have to strap it on to her so tightly that the straps leave marks in her pale skin. Danielle lies on deck, weeping with pain, her limbs contorted as if doing yoga again. It takes Keiran and the sailors several minutes to pull off her wet suit. The bends, Keiran knows, get their name from the pretzel shapes its victims assume, because doing so slightly lessens the excruciating agony in all of their joints. He knows intellectually that she will be OK, they have been rescued in time to save her, but it is almost unbearable to watch her sobbing and writhing in pain, and being unable to do anything about it. Keiran has to be pulled away from Danielle's side by two sailors before he realizes that his presence is impeding more than helping matters.

After a brief conversation between a medic and a pilot, it is decided that the Coast Guard helicopters no longer have enough fuel to reach the mainland, they will have to sail her in. Danielle is put in a cot next to Sophia and hooked up to an IV drip that seems to dull her pain. The initial frenzy of the rescue begins to dissipate. Sailors start clearing up wet suit parts from the rain-drenched deck. The cutter, a vessel maybe half the size of the now-drowned Lazarus, with two small helicopters and a crew of about thirty, throbs as its engines drive them east towards Oregon at maximum speed. Keiran retreats inside, to a tiny room with a Formica table, plastic stools bolted to the floor, and a coffee machine. Sailors pass in and out; several of them look at him, realize they don't know what to do with him, and visibly decide to ignore his presence. He is sitting on one of the stools, wrapped in blankets and sipping bad coffee, when a small blond woman with officer insignia on her shoulders. The name ELLIS is sewn into the front of her white uniform.

"Julian O'Toole?" she asks.

It takes Keiran a moment to remember that this is the false name he adopted at Mulligan's place in Los Angeles, what feels like a century ago. He nods. The woman snaps a sharp salute.

"Sir," she says. "Are you sure there's no one else out there?"

Keiran, slightly confused, thinks of Laurent, somewhere in the water.

"No," he says. "Just us."

She nods. "I understand you can't say much about what happened out there."

Keiran looks at her. Some sort of response seems to be called for, so he nods.

"My brother is in the Special Forces," Lieutenant Ellis says meaningfully.

Increasingly perplexed, Keiran nods again.

"We've been in touch with your unit commander. Once we get in range we'll be helicoptering you straight to the Portland VA Medical Center. There's a hyperbaric facility there where we can recompress your soldier with the bends."

"Unit commander?" Keiran asks faintly, wondering if he heard correctly.

"Colonel Mulligan."

Keiran covers his laughter with an improvised coughing fit. Lieutenant Ellis looks at him worriedly. "Were you exposed to smoke too, sir?" she demands.

"No," Keiran says, smiling indulgently. "No, that's quite all right, Lieutenant, just a little salt water down the wrong pipe."

Mulligan, you bastard, he thinks. You never told me you hacked the military.

** *

"Sir?" the nurse asks.

Keiran opens his eyes and the nurse, about to shake him awake, stops with her arm in mid-prod. The nurse, a slender middle-aged black woman, speaks in a near-whisper, although there is no one else visible in the hall. "Your soldier is awake, sir. She seems to have fully recovered."