Crisis Four by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page A

stop. The other vehicle lurched in behind us, and as soon as it had cleared the ramp I could feel the aircraft start to lift off its hydraulic suspension. Moments later, we were in a hover.
    We swayed to the left and right as the pilot sorted his shit out and the loadies lashed down the tyres with chains. Hertz were going to be one very pissed-off rental company.
    We were no more than sixty feet off the ground when I felt the nose of the Chinook dip as we started to move off and turn to the right.
    Chaos erupted inside the aircraft. The Regs spilled from their vehicles, shouting at the loadies, ‘White light! Give us white light!’ Somebody hit the switch, and all of a sudden it was like standing on a floodlit football pitch.
    The inside of the other wagon looked like a scene out of ER . Glen was still on his back, but they’d ripped open the front of his coveralls to expose the chest wound. Blood was everywhere, even over the windows.
    Reg 2 ran over to a loadie who was still at the heli ramp checking it had closed up correctly. He shouted as loudly as he could against the side of the guy’s helmet and pointed to the rear wagon. ‘Trauma pack! Get the trauma pack!’
    The loadie took one look at the bloodied windows, disconnected the intercom lead from his helmet and sprinted towards the front of the heli.
    Everybody had a job to do; mine was simply to get out of the way. I left Sarah sitting in the back of our Previa sorting out her laptop, and moved to the front of the Chinook. I knew where the flasks and food would be stowed and, if nothing else, I could be the tea lady.
    As I moved to the front of the aircraft I met the loadie on his way back with the trauma pack, a black nylon bag the size of a small suitcase. I stepped to one side and watched him open the bag as he ran, bouncing off the front wagon and airframe as he momentarily lost his balance.
    At that moment Sarah jumped out between us with the laptop and power lead in her hands. She was shouting at him, ‘Power! I need power!’
    He went to push her aside, yelling, ‘Get out of the fucking way!’
    ‘No!’ She shook her head angrily and put her hand on him. ‘Power!’
    He shouted something back at her; I didn’t know what because he was now facing away from me, pointing towards the front of the aircraft.
    She moved quickly past me towards the cockpit, so bound up with her own obsession that she didn’t even see me. I continued on, heading for the bulkhead behind the cockpit. I picked up one of the aluminium flasks, which was held in place by elastic cargo netting, and started to untwist the cup. Coffee not tea, and it had never smelled so good.
    As I turned and started to walk down towards the rear Previa, flask in hand, I could hear them, even above the noise of the heli, shouting with frustration. Two drips were being held up and a circle of sweaty, dusty and bloodstained faces was working on him. As I got closer I could see they were rigging him up in shock trousers. They’re like thick ski salopettes, which come up past your hips and are pumped up to apply pressure to the lower limbs, stemming blood loss by restricting the supply and so keeping more blood to rev up the major organs. It was a delicate procedure, because too much pressure could kill him.
    Reg 2 looked as if he was on the case big time. He was holding Glen’s jaw open, breathing into his mouth with the safety pin still in place. I was close enough to see his chest rise. Someone had his hand over the chest wound, ready to depressurize. Once Reg 2 had finished inflating his lungs a few times he shouted, ‘Go!’ Another was astride him, both arms outstretched and open hands on top of each other on his chest. ‘One, two, three…’
    There was obviously no pulse and Glen wasn’t breathing. He was technically dead. They were filling him up with oxygen by breathing into his mouth, then pumping his heart for him, whilst simultaneously trying to make sure that no more of his fluid