Heartshot

Chapter 11

The transfer was flawlessly executed. The ambulance pulled up alongside the airplane as I was trotting across from the patrol car. It took a moment of careful jogging and shifting of the gurney, and then patient, medical staff, and paraphernalia were aboard. The ambulance pulled away promptly. I recognized everyone except a rail-thin nurse and a man who was almost tiny in stature. There was no time for introductions, but I guessed, correctly, it turned out, that the diminutive man was Dr. Chatman. Even as the door locks were thudding into place, the boarding-side engine came back to life.

One of the aircraft officers recited instructions to us about buckle-up, and I noticed that the crew up front was performing whatever checks were needed while the aircraft rolled down the long taxiway. From where I sat, I could turn and see only the right side of Hewitt’s face and neck, down to the white sheet. Tubes and plastic packets of drip joggled and vibrated. Three people were obviously planning to spend their every moment tending and monitoring, and I shifted a little, trying to relax for the takeoff. I must have looked even less assured than I felt, because a hand patted my shoulder and one of the flight officers smiled reassuringly.

“He’ll be fine, Sheriff. We’ll really be hoofin’ it, so it’s only an hour and a half flying time to Albuquerque. And the weatherman promises smooth skies. So relax, huh? He’ll be fine.”

For a good hour, I believed him. And then things fell apart. The first sign was a slight stirring from Hewitt. He hadn’t regained consciousness, but one leg flexed slightly and his head turned to the left. The emergency crew went to work, and I had sense enough to stay out of the way. I had to watch, though. I tried to will their efforts to success. At one point, the EMT officer who accompanied the aircraft slid forward past me.

To the pilot, he said clearly and loudly, “Straight in, Tom. We got a cardiac arrest.”

We were in a gradual descent, and by the high pitch of the engines, it was apparent that the flight crew was taking every advantage of power and gravity, booting that airplane through the sky for all it was worth. In back, I saw those awful electric paddles that come out as a last resort in all the movies and jolt the patient back to life. Chatman vetoed their use this time, though, with a quick shake of the head. At the same time that I saw the doctor plunge an enormous hypodermic into Art Hewitt’s chest, I heard the pilot, just a couple of feet behind my head, say, “Albuquerque approach, Air Ambulance Niner-one-niner is forty south, request change to priority straight on three.”

“Double Alpha niner-one-niner, plan straight in on three. Are you declaring a medical emergency?” The voice of the controller was as calm as ice.

“Niner-one-niner, affirmative.”

“And niner-one-niner, where do you want the ambulance? He’s parked by the Aero Club now.”

“Albuquerque, have him right at the intersection with eight. Can you do that? It’ll save us taxi time.”

“Roger, niner-one-niner. We will hold traffic commencing in five minutes until you’re down.”

“Roger, Albuquerque. Thanks for the expedite.”

“Niner-one-niner, you’re cleared straight in. Report twenty south and then proceed at your discretion. Tower has you.”

I have no idea how fast that Piper Navajo was traveling on the final approach, but any lineup with the runway was done at a dead run. Working at his own dead run was the doctor in back. He had given up the needles and my stomach tightened and churned as I saw him shifting position, face intent and scalpel in hand. With a single, decisive slash, the doctor cut into Art Hewitt’s rib cage. Blood welled up along the eight-inch incision that started just below the left nipple and curved down his side in line with the ribs. The EMT was at Hewitt’s head, working the masks and tubes there, and faintly, over the steady bellow of the plane’s engines, I could hear the click and hiss of the medical machinery. The nurse was hovering beside the physician, and the doctor, sweat now running down his cheeks, had his hand inside Art Hewitt’s chest, rhythmically massaging the young man’s crippled heart. I think, at that point, that the only person breathing in the airplane was Art Hewitt, and that was only by dint of mechanical assistance.

Suddenly the doctor’s face cracked in a grin. “All right!” he cried jubilantly, sounding like a high school football coach after a touchdown. As if in answer, the engines dropped in RPM. I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the bulkhead. Alan Perrone had said something about the Albuquerque surgeon’s being the best he’d seen. I wondered how often Dennis Chatman had done cardiac surgery in a plunging aircraft.

The flight officer squirmed forward and then back. “Touchdown in about a minute,” he told the doctor, and the crew made only brief preparations. Everything was already as tied down as it could be. The EMT at Hewitt’s head stayed close and put both hands on the patient’s shoulders. The doctor ignored them all. His patient’s heart was beating. It wouldn’t have mattered to Chatman if they had been in a balloon floating over the Eiffel Tower. He was working to field-dress the incision and was lost in his own world. I heard the engine beat decrease, and seconds later, the transition from air to pavement came as only the slightest jar.

I found out later that runway 3, from the initial touchdown point to the intersection with runway 8, where the ambulance sat waiting, was almost eight thousand feet long. Our pilot used it all. Slow taxi was not in his book. He let the Navajo roll under considerable power. I opened my eyes and saw the big intersection of two other runways flash past. We must have been humping along at close to seventy miles an hour. Finally the nose dipped and we braked, not violently but insistently. Before the aircraft was stopped, the flight officer had the door unlatched. I looked out as we rolled up toward the ambulance and saw that the aircraft engine on that side was already windmilling to a stop.

“Let’s move it,” the doctor snapped, and in seconds the transfer was made. If I had taken time to blink I would have been left behind. I did see the Gallup police car, and the two men in it. I assumed one of them was Chief White. I could have ridden down with them, but I stuck with the ambulance. The explanations could come later.

It wasn’t many minutes to the downtown hospital, but the nurse found thirty seconds to offer me a handful of facial tissues. I mopped the sweat that ran freely on my face.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“The hell with me. How’s he going to be?”

The nurse nodded and smiled slightly.

“I thought we’d lost him back there for a minute,” I said.

She pursed her lips and looked as if she was going to scold me. “Dr. Chatman does not allow that to happen on his airplane,” she said.

“Damn right,” Chatman said without hesitation.

I suppose the logistics of what they had done was simple for them, but all I could do was sit there and wad Kleenex. Punk, I thought, you’re on a roll. Keep those numbers clicking.

Once inside the hospital, all I could do, along with Chief White and Detective Stan Buchanan of Gallup, was sit, talk, and wait.