Free Absolute Zero by Chuck Logan Page B

out in that weather. No way.”
    Lastly, he looked at Allen who waited a beat and called it: “We open that belly or he’s dead. Make a decision. Fast .”
    “Okay.” Mike hitched up his belt, squared his shoulders, and nodded to Allen. “Take him downstairs to the OR and scrub in. But Amy—I want all your stuff in recovery in case we have to reintubate. I mean, syringes full, everything. No one’s going to say we weren’t on top of this.”
    Then Mike saw Broker and Iker standing there leaking puddles of lake water and ice melt. He cleared his throat and motioned to the paramedic. “Shari, get these guys something dry to wear.”
    As they retreated back toward the garage, Broker watched Brecht, Amy, and the nurse shove the gurney toward the open elevator. Allen walked last, his hands held high, poised. Amy bent over Sommer, worked his jaw between her hands, opened his mouth, and looked into his throat. “Oh shit, this guy’s got an airway from hell,” she said merrily.
    “But you can intubate him?” Allen asked.
    “I can intubate him anywhere, anytime,” she shot back, a little cocky, a little high on the action.
    The elevator doors closed behind them.

Chapter Nine
    Milt lay in the ER room cubbyhole draped in a floral-patterned hospital smock with an IV in his arm and an ice pack on his swollen right shoulder.
    “That smock had to be recycled from Martha Washington’s drapes,” Broker said. He was feeling good. Tired as hell but good.
    “Oh please ,” Shari groaned. Then she bent over Milt and said, “You probably tore a muscle and went into spasm in the plane.”
    “I’d rather break a bone than tear a muscle,” Milt said as his eyelids fluttered and he struggled to stay awake.
    “I hear you,” Shari said.
    “Hank?” Milt asked, drifting.
    “Allen is operating,” Broker said.
    “For the report, what happened out there?” Iker asked.
    Milt twitched, a modified shrug. “Straight-line winds dropped on us. Worst water I’ve seen on a lake. Hank had a hernia and he paddled his ass off. That’s when he blew his gut. He and Broker swamped. Broker pulled him out.” His eyes rolled toward Broker. “Guess he got his adventure to write about,” Milt said, smiling weakly.
    A lean woman in a blue smock and trousers came up silently in tennis shoes. She wound her dark ponytail into a hair net and pulled on latex gloves.
    “Some day, eh, Nancy?” Shari said.
    The nurse raised her brows, which emphasized the circles of fatigue under her eyes. “I worked all night watching two wards, now I still got them plus recovery when they bring that guy up.”
    They chatted quickly, then the nurse syringed a dose of pain reliever into Milt’s IV, pointed to the puddle of water on the floor, and politely waved them off.
    Broker and Iker followed Shari back into the empty garage. Sam and the Tahoe were gone. It was a busy afternoon.
    Shari opened a locker, threw them towels, and turned her back. While they stripped and dried off, she rummaged around, clucking, obviously enjoying the fact that the two sweatshirts she heaved back to them were decorated with really hideous logos. Mismatched sweatpants followed.
    While Shari made appropriately disparaging remarks, they put on the dry clothes and blue slippers. They went back into the hospital and padded down a corridor walled with floor-to-ceiling plate glass that churned, aquarium-like, with silent snow.
    “Worse than the Halloween storm in ninety-one,” Iker said. Broker, too tired to comment, plodded on to the staff lounge and flopped on a couch. In less than a minute he was chin on chest in a deep nod. He came up from the nod and heard Iker ask Shari what was going on downstairs in the operating room.
    Shari pointed to her stomach and drew her finger down to her crotch. “They cut him open and lift out his intestines. Then they snip out the perforated section and sew it back together. After that they wash out his stomach cavity real good. They have to repair