Nikki inhaled deeply then let the air out; it was cold enough that she could easily see her own breath, and that of the woman pinned in the passenger seat—but there was no sign of any breath coming from the driver.
She felt herself beginning to panic. Christ, what to do? What to do? She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them. Then she brought them to her face to blow on them, and saw them—covered with blood.
And it came to her: this man needed a crike—an emergency cricothyrotomy—right away. No, no, not right away: stat.
And—yes, yes, yes—Eric knew how to perform one, and so she knew how to do it, too.
But he—she!—needed a scalpel, or at least something really sharp.
“Oh, God!” said the pinned woman, looking now at her husband, whose blue color was becoming more pronounced. “Oh, God—he’s dying!”
Nikki undid the man’s seat belt, and, with great effort, pulled him out onto the cold wet pavement, laying him on his back. She didn’t have a razor blade or knife—not even back in her purse. But there were shards from the car’s broken mirrors, and she found one that was long, narrow, and pointed.
The top part of the man’s Adam’s apple was crushed. She moved her fingers down about an inch until she felt the bulge of the cricoid cartilage. She backed up a bit, finding the valley between it and the Adam’s apple—the cricothyroid membrane.
She knew she should sterilize the mirror fragment and the man’s skin, but there was no way—and no time!—to do that. She held the shard as firmly as she could without cutting herself, and she drew it horizontally down the man’s neck, above the membrane, but—
But she didn’t even break the skin. Knowing how to do it wasn’t the same as having the guts to do it, it seemed.
“What are you doing?” shouted the man’s wife, who could only see that Nikki was on her knees at the side of her husband; her husband’s body was mostly out of view.
It was a good question. What the hell was she doing?
What she had to do. What she—what Eric—had trained to do.
She took another deep breath, then tried the cut again, this time at least breaking the skin. But she had to go twelve millimeters deep—except she had no idea how much twelve millimeters was. Damn! It was—it was—
About half an inch.
She pushed the glass in further, making the incision. Blood welled up, thick and dark, and—
Damn! The glass broke; the sharp tip was now stuck in the wound. Nikki threw the rest of her impromptu scalpel away and it clattered against the pavement. She used her thumb and forefinger to dig out the piece of glass, tossing it aside as well. The tissues pressed together, closing the incision.
Nikki reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a ballpoint stick pen—one with her firm’s name emblazoned across it; a good real-estate agent always had a pen handy to close the deal. She pulled out the writing tip and its attached tube of ink, and fumbled in the cold to pry off the blue end cap until, at last, she had a plastic tube open at both ends.
She was supposed to insert the tube about twenty millimeters, and, well, if twelve was half an inch, then…
She pushed the tube into the incision. And then she blew into the tube and placed her palm flat on his chest. It rose! She paused for five seconds, blew in again, waited another five seconds, exhaled once more, counted off five more Mississippis, again and—
And the man’s eyes fluttered open.
She waited to see if he was breathing well on his own—and he seemed to be; she was pleased to see puffs of condensation blowing out of the end of the tube.
Nikki rolled back on her rump, drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them, and just sat there, waiting for her own breathing to stabilize. After a minute or two, she reached up to touch her nose to see if it was still bleeding; it wasn’t—but it certainly was tender to the touch.
Off in the distance, she heard sirens; God only knew when trained medics would get here, but…
But she was a trained medic now, it seemed. And as much as she’d freaked out at the hospital, as much as she really didn’t wish to intrude on Eric’s and Jan’s lives, as much as she just wanted things to be the way they had been before this craziness began, she had just saved a person’s life.
And that was something she’d always remember.
Chapter 42
“I need to get back in action,” Seth said to Susan Dawson.
Susan spread her arms to encompass the drip bags, the vital-signs monitor, and more. “You’re still recovering, Mr. President.”
“I can lie in bed anywhere. I need to go home.”
Susan’s voice was gentle. “Sir, the White House is gone.”
“Yes, I know. It’s—yes.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I know. But the country needs to see that it has a leader, and…”
He trailed off, and after a while Susan prodded him with, “Sir?”
He considered how much to tell her. It was Saturday, and Counterpunch was scheduled to commence Tuesday morning Washington time. “There’s something big coming up, Susan, and I need to be available for it. I can’t lead from here.”
“Nothing is more important than your health, sir.”
“This is.”
She nodded. “All right. Where would you like to go?”
“Camp David.”
Camp David was located sixty miles north-northwest of DC, in Frederick County, Maryland. Following in the footsteps of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Seth had named the camp’s Evergreen Chapel as his primary place of worship—neatly sidestepping the need to be seen at a public church each week. The site of the historic peace talks between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, and of numerous meetings between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, Camp David was one of the most secure facilities in the nation, guarded by an elite unit of Marines.
“What if something goes wrong?” asked Susan. “What if you need medical attention?”
“It’s a military facility,” Seth said. “It’s got an excellent infirmary, and Dr. Snow and the rest of the White House medical team will relocate there. And the First Lady is on her way there now to get things set up for me; she’s flying in from Oregon.”
“What about Mount Weather?” Susan asked. “Isn’t that where most of the White House staff are now?”
Seth really wanted to take a long pause before he went on, but that was hardly the way to demonstrate that he was fit to be moved. “Camp David is the designated fallback location for the Executive Office of the President under the Continuity of Operations plan. And that’s where I want to lead from.”
“Yes, sir,” Susan said.
“I want Singh and his equipment relocated there, too. Both he and it are far too valuable to be anywhere but a secure installation.”
“Very well, sir. Will do.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Seth said. “Make sure that Leon Hexley is moved there, as well.”
Susan frowned. “Are you sure that’s wise, sir, given his contact with Gordo Danbury?”
“One of the foremost lessons of history, Agent Dawson: keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.”
Bessie Stilwell was exhausted. She wished her son had taken better care of his health, wished that he’d had a less stressful job, wished that he’d stayed in Mississippi.
But Mike had done none of those things, and so she’d been pulled into all this craziness. Linked minds! Meeting the president! A trip to Los Angeles! Visiting a TV studio! And now a flight back to Washington on a military jet. It was all much too much.
Darryl Hudkins had dozed for most of the return flight so far—and that had let Bessie relax. At least when he was unconscious, he presumably wasn’t riffling through her memories.