Free Wounds - Book 2 by Ilsa J. Bick Page B

stripping off protective, sand-colored armor.
    Another soldier stomped up, rifle in hand, the hump of a radio at his left shoulder and now she saw that the mystery of just how anonymous Saad expected they could be was solved. Besides the armor, the soldier wore dark protective eyewear and a helmet with a low brow that flared around his ears. Thick ropes of sodden hair straggled over his shoulders, and water cascaded over the helmet.
    “You’ll have to put your hair up.” She practically had to shout to hear herself over the rain. “Why the glasses? How can you see?”
    “Polarized. I see fine,” said Saad. “They wear their glasses all the time, though. A good sniper can take out an eye, of course, but the glasses stop shrapnel.”
    “Seven soldiers. Seven uniforms. But I make eight.”
    “Change of plans,” he shouted over the rain as Mara splashed over, though Lense could only tell it was her because of the jaw. “Sorry. There’s no other way.”
    Lense thought something was up. When they’d been crouched atop a flat mesa before the rain, Mara slithered over, a communications device in her hand. She’d whispered into Saad’s ear, and Lense watched the color drain from Saad’s face and his expression darken. When she asked what was wrong, Saad only shook his head. Then he and Mara moved back in a low crouch from the rim. She couldn’t hear what they said, but they were arguing.
    Now she said, “But what am I supposed to do?”
    At that, Mara palmed her rifle in her right hand and nudged Lense with the barrel. “Exactly what you’re told.”

    First, she went to check on Julian. It was the second time she’d been to the OR that day, but the first that she’d seen Julian since that morning. Julian was asleep atop green surgical sheets; another was draped over his body, and she saw by his bare shoulders that they’d removed his gown. There was a face mask over his nose and mouth to give him more oxygen, one of the things she wanted to make sure the anesthetist hadn’t forgotten. Very important.
    They were just putting up the drapes to cover his torso and leave his head free. They’d prep his head with antiseptic soap while she scrubbed. When she returned, she’d have them position the remaining drapes in a tent over Julian’s face, leaving only the crown of his head exposed. Then she’d make her incision marks with a purple felt-tipped pen and then, well, she’d go to work.
    She was sorry Julian was asleep. She didn’t want him to feel pain and he must’ve been worried, maybe frightened when she wasn’t there. But maybe it was better this way. He looked very strange without hair, and his scalp was much paler than his normal complexion. For some obscure reason, she cinched up the sheet to cover him just a little more. She didn’t know why. But he looked defenseless. Vulnerable.
    Everything depends on me now. I’ll be as fast as I can, Julian, but I have to be careful, or this has all been for nothing.
    The room was chilly. Her primary surgical nurse for this wing, not the hard-ass major, was laying out instruments. The anesthetist was there, checking over his syringes. He complained about the cooling blanket because it made the anesthesia trickier. But she was firm, and he gave up because, she figured, he knew it wasn’t his ass on the line.
    As she turned to go, her gaze fixed on a glass-enclosed viewing room high on the near wall just behind Julian’s head and opposite the door that led from pre-op. There were four chairs in the viewing room, a vidcom on the wall for communications through this wing, and that was all. The room was dim and would stay that way. Like a performer on stage, Kahayn didn’t really want to see Blate and Nerrit, not too clearly. But they would have an excellent view. Maybe that’s why they called it a surgical theater.
    In the adjacent scrub room, Arin was already lathering at a large, rectangular, metal basin. They wore identical garb: blue surgical scrubs, blue