Hunt the Jackal Read Online Free

men on the helo, asked, “Where’s Cal?”
    As combat-hardened and mentally tough as they were, they had hearts, consciences, and feelings. Akil’s mouth hung open, forming a big O, but no sound came out.
    “Cal? Where is he?” Crocker asked, momentarily dissociated from his body.
    Akil pointed to Ritchie. “You forgot to…to cover him.”
    Crocker reached into his backpack for his E&E kit, in which he usually carried a tightly folded space blanket, then remembered that he hadn’t packed one this time.
    “Where the fuck is Cal?”
    He was about to climb into the fuselage when he saw Akil pointing to a body lying facedown under one of the wrecked T700-GE-701D engines. Crocker got on his hands and knees, ducked under the still-hot engine, leaned close to Cal’s ear, and whispered, “Cal.”
    No answer.
    Louder, he asked, “Cal, can you hear me?”
    He carefully reached around to the front of Cal’s neck, located the carotid artery, and felt a faint pulse. A sign of hope.
    Turning back to Akil, he said urgently, “Call Davis, tell him we found the helo. Three dead, one seriously wounded and in need of immediate medevac. We’re gonna need to evacuate the bodies. We’re also gonna need additional C-4 to destroy the Black Hawk.”
    Akil choked back the contents of his stomach. “Boss…”
    Crocker carefully ran his hands along the front of Cal’s body. He felt warm blood coming from a wound near his stomach and stopped.
    “Akil, I need your help.”
    When he looked back he saw Monica’s face where Akil’s used to be. The vision was so real and unexpected that he said, “I’m sorry, Monica. But…unexpected stuff happens.”
    She opened her mouth like she was about to start shouting.
    Instead he heard Akil ask, “Boss, who you talking to?”
    Crocker blinked and, seeing Akil where Monica had been a second ago, said, “Come closer. I need you to help me turn him over.”
    Akil wiped tears away with the back of his hand and said, “Yeah.”
    “Hold him under the shoulder. On the count of three. Slow and careful.”
    “Right.”
    “One, two, three.”
    The wound was higher than he thought. Feeling air being sucked into it, he said, “Reach in my med kit. Give me a blowout patch, QuikClot, and the plastic wrapper the QuikClot comes in.”
    Crocker did a quick primary survey of Cal’s ABCs. Airway first. Cal was unconscious but breathing, which meant his airway was clear. Crocker cleared Cal’s mouth of blood and sand, then turned Cal’s head up in the sniffing position to facilitate breathing and made sure his tongue would not obstruct the airway.
    Breathing: somewhat labored, although full and bilateral. Circulation: weak and thready.
    Having completed the primary survey of life-threatening injuries, Crocker moved on to the secondary survey, including a full head-to-toe check.
    Disability: Crocker saw no obvious trauma to the head or face. Cal’s pupils appeared equal in size and were reactive to light, and there was no indication of fluid oozing from his ears or nose. Next, Crocker felt gently along Cal’s neck and back and found no abnormalities in his spinal column.
    Exposure: Crocker checked for an exit wound. But found none. He removed the clothing from Cal’s chest to get a good visual on skin color and feel for other problems.
    With QuikClot and blowout patch in hand, he focused on the wound, ripping Cal’s uniform open, holding the jagged two-inch incision open, applying the QuikClot, then covering the wound with a blowout patch and applying pressure.
    It didn’t look like a high-velocity wound, and hopefully hadn’t done too much damage, like puncturing an internal organ or the stomach and releasing poisonous digestive enzymes. Crocker knew that lung tissue was less dense and had more elasticity than, say, the liver, spleen, or adipose tissue, which have little elasticity and are easily injured.
    All this information was burning through his head as he held the bandage down with one hand