Reaching into another pocket on my vest, I pulled out my familiar roll of electrical tape. Not as useful as duct tape, but it was a lot more compact. Grabbing the guy's arms, I slung them over my shoulder and pulled.
"Hold on a bit, man, come on," I encouraged him. He didn't answer, just muttering something deep in his delusional state. Grabbing his wrists, I quickly looped five or six wraps of tape around his hands, leaving the rest of the roll dangling as I leaned into the controls. It shifted some of his weight onto my back, kind of like wearing a huge backpack, but with his butt still on the seat. I couldn't ride at full speed, but I could ride.
It took me nearly twenty minutes to get back to Mount Zion, and more than once I nearly lost my balance going around curves. We were plain lucky that I didn't run into any of the cops, but got home unmolested. I pulled into the garage, where Sophie and Tabby were already there, both of them in surgical masks, both as a precaution against infection and as a way to hide their identities. If he woke up, he wouldn't know who we were.
"He's unconscious," Sophie said as I staggered, trying not to collapse to the concrete as I dismounted. Getting off a motorcycle with two hundred odd pounds of dead weight on your back is hard. "Come on, quickly."
Tabby and Sophie both grabbed one of his legs as I headed through the house towards the bell tower. My lower back was on fire, but I kept going, adjusting him as best I could. Each step was agony, my legs trembling, but I reached the top where Sophie had laid out the foam rubber mat and her surgical kit.
I knelt down, letting Tabby and Sophie maneuver the guy onto the mat. Slipping his arms over my head, I sagged down and gasped, sweet cool air flowing into my lungs. "What happened?" Tabby asked.
"Genius boy over there started shooting the Gangster Disciple donut shop with a goddamned hopped up air gun," I said, "not knowing their tactics. But he didn't complain, took one in the back as I drove us off."
"He's been shot in the right lung," Sophie said, her voice icy and tense the way I knew she was when she was in her doctor mode. She rolled him onto his stomach after checking his chest. "It's still inside, I need to get it out. Then I need to stop the bleeding."
Reaching for her bandage scissors, she started at the neck of the guy's shirt, cutting down the back and pulling it open. I looked up at Sophie, who was intent on her patient. "How can I help?"
"Plasma, two units on the table, get me a line ready to go. Green IV needle, that's 18 gauge. Tabby, grab that pole and bring it over here so Mark can hang those bags."
Tabby didn't move, and I glanced up at her. She was frozen, staring at the man on the mat as Sophie peeled his shirt back. "Tabby?"
She didn't say anything, and I ignored her, grabbing the pole and setting it up. I set up the plasma line as best I could, and knelt down next to Sophie. "Want me to run the line?"
After my last bit of surgery, I'd told Sophie that I wanted to learn the basics of medical treatment. Starting with dummies and mannequins, she had worked with me up to doing some techniques, including running IV lines and even some basic stitching. I wasn't even good enough to call myself a nurse's assistant, but I could help out.
"Yes. Right arm," she ordered me. I found the arm, and pulled the sleeve down, exposing a series of tattoos. Whoever this guy was, he had some impressive ink on him, stuff I wanted to look at later. I found the large vein on the top of his forearm and tied it off, sinking the IV in on the first try. The large gauge needle would allow us to feed him plasma as quickly as possible, and I loosened the tourniquet.
I turned my attention to Sophie, who was working hard to find the slug. She had spread the entry wound open and was working with forceps. She found the round and pulled, withdrawing it from the wound and dropping it onto the floor. "Mark, over here, I need light."
For the next forty tense minutes, Sophie used her skills to patch him up. She had to put stitches both internally and externally, a task she had told me before she wasn't sure of, and twice had me wipe her forehead as sweat got in her eyes. Finally, sighing, she finished the last stitch on his back. "He'll make it."
We both were surprised when we heard a sob from Tabby, who I had tuned out after she had frozen. There wasn't time for concern at that instant, but now there was. Stripping off the surgical gloves that I'd pulled on when I was preparing the IV, I stood up and took her in my arms. "Tabby, what's wrong?"
"It's him," she said, sobbing. "It's him."
"Who?" I asked, stroking her hair. Tabby sobbed harder, and I looked down at Sophie, who shrugged. Reaching for her bandage scissors, she cut his balaclava off. The first thing I saw was black, slightly wavy hair, then stubble. Sophie kept cutting until his face was exposed, and eased the mask up and off of him. "Oh, shit."
Lying on the mat, still unconscious, was Patrick McCaffery.
To Be Continued…
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