Riptide by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page A

medium-sized vein that had already retracted.
    “When you have a moment, Captain Neidelman would like to talk to you.”
    Hatch nodded, tied off the vein, checked the tourniquets, and rinsed the wounds. He picked up the radio. “Yes?”
    “How is he?” Neidelman asked.
    “He’s got a fair chance of survival,” Hatch said. “Provided there’s no screwup with the helicopter.”
    “Thank God. And his legs?”
    “Even if they recover them, I doubt there’s much chance of reattachment. You better review some basic safety procedures with
     your team leader here. This accident was entirely avoidable.”
    “I understand,” said Neidelman.
    Hatch switched off the phone and looked toward the northeast and the nearest Coast Guard station. In three minutes, perhaps
     four, they should see the bird on the horizon. He turned to Streeter. “You’d better drop a marker flare. And get this area
     cleared, we don’t want another accident on our hands. When the chopper comes in, we’ll need four men to lift him onto the
     stretcher, no more.”
    “Right,” said Streeter, his lips tightening.
    Hatch saw that the man’s face was unnaturally dark, blood throbbing angrily in a vein on his forehead.
Tough luck,
he thought.
I’ll repair that relationship later. Besides, he’s not the guy who’s going to live without legs for the rest of his life.
    He glanced again at the horizon. A black speck was approaching fast. In a few moments, the dull thud of heavy rotors filled
     the air as the helicopter shot across the island, banked sharply, then approached the small group gathered around the pit.
     The backwash from the blades whipped the sawgrass into a frenzy and kicked dirt into Hatch’s eyes. The door of the cargo bay
     slid back and a rescue platform came bobbing down. The injured man was strapped aboard and sent up, and Hatch signaled for
     the platform to be sent down again for himself. Once he was safely on board, the waiting paramedic shut the door and gave
     the pilot a thumbs-up. Immediately, the chopper banked to the right and dug its nose into the air, heading for the southwest.
    Hatch looked around. There was saline already hung, an oxygen bottle and mask, a rack of antibiotics, bandages, tourniquets,
     and antiseptics.
    “We didn’t have any O negative, Doctor,” the paramedic said.
    “Don’t worry,” Hatch replied, “you’ve done okay. But let’s get an IV into him. We’ve got to expand this guy’s blood volume.”
     He noticed the paramedic looking at him strangely, then realized why: shirtless, covered in a crust of mud and dried blood,
     he didn’t look much like a Maine country doctor.
    There was a moan from the stretcher, and the thrashing began again.
    An hour later, Hatch found himself alone in the silence of an empty operating room, breathing in the smell of Betadine and
     blood. Ken Field, the wounded man, was in the next bay, being cared for by Bangor’s best surgeon. The legs could not be recovered,
     but the man would live. Hatch’s work was over.
    He fetched a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to drain the day’s accumulated poisons out with it. He took another
     breath, then another. At last he sank heavily onto the operating table, leaned forward, and pressed his balled fists tightly
     against his temples.
This didn’t have to happen,
a cold voice was whispering inside his head. The thought of how he’d sat there on the
Plain Jane,
idly eating lunch and playing with the seagulls, made him ill. He cursed himself for not being on the island when the accident
     happened, for letting them proceed before his office and equipment were in place. This was the second time he’d been unprepared,
     the second time he had underestimated the power of the island.
Never again,
he thought, raging:
Never again.
    As calm slowly returned, another thought insinuated itself into his mind. Today was the first time he had set foot on Ragged
     Island since the death of his brother. During the