Protecting His Own. Lindsay McKenna

her last week, and thrilled to be able to send the wheelchair back to Supply.”

      “It will be eight weeks total before she can put real pressure on that ankle and the pins in it,” Sam said. “Hopefully, we can get her out of here by that time, back to Montana, and she can begin physical therapy at that point, to bring it back to almost full use.”

      Lifting a pot from the coffee dispenser, Morgan held a cup in Sam’s direction as she stepped into the room. “Coffee?”

      Laughing huskily, she said, “You need to ask a navy person if they want coffee?”

      Chuckling, Morgan poured her a cup. “Right now, Laura is keeping busy by helping the pediatric ward take care of the babies. My wife is especially fond of Baby Jane Fielding, the little girl we found buried in the rubble while I was still out there in the field looking for Laura.”

      “Ah yes, that cute little tyke,” Sam murmured, smiling. “Well, at least Laura has something to do. That’s important for her right now.” She came over and extended her long, thin hands toward the white ceramic cup he held out. “Coffee…” she sighed. “Nectar of the gods and goddesses….”

      “Marines like java, too.”

      “Yeah, marines aren’t far behind on that one,” she said genially as she watched Morgan pour himself a cup.

      “Even ex-marines like me never lose the habit. It’s ingrained, I think.”

      Laughing, Sam slid her hands around the thick cup and lifted it to her lips. “Understandable. The navy pays marines their checks twice a month, so they’re a part of us whether they like to admit it or not.”

      “There’s the rub,” Morgan said. “Marines like to think they’re a stand-alone service, like the army and Air Force.”

      Sam took a chair in front of Morgan’s desk, rearranging her white lab coat and the stethoscope hanging around her neck. “Yeah,” she said wryly, “I know. I run into that attitude all the time. Marines are too proud to admit they’re a part of something else. I think they forgot the concept of teamwork a long time ago.”

      “Maybe so,” Morgan murmured as he sat down in the squeaky desk chair. “But the esprit de corps of the marines is known around the world and it’s very real.”

      Sam sipped the coffee gratefully. She’d just gotten off a twelve-hour tour of duty, and it was 0700. She had twelve hours of rest coming to her before she went back on duty in the emergency room of the base hospital. “No question about that. It’s just that marines have a real problem working with anyone but their own kind. You used to be one. You know that.”

      Grunting, Morgan nodded. “No question, at times, that it gets in the way of good teamwork with others,” he said, studying the young woman before him speculatively. Sam’s shoulder-length red hair curled about her thin, proud shoulders, a bright contrast to the white lab coat she wore over her standard navy issue light blue, long-sleeved blouse and dark blue slacks. Despite his concerns about her ability to work with others, Morgan knew Sam was a damn good surgeon. She had saved his wife’s badly injured ankle after Laura had been dug out of the rubble of the hotel they’d been staying in. If not for the doctor’s knowing hands in surgery, Morgan knew his wife might have lost her whole foot.

      In fact, Sam, the head of E.R. for the navy hospital on Camp Reed, had insisted upon performing the surgery herself when she’d heard that Laura was married to the famous Morgan Trayhern. Morgan was forever grateful for Sam stepping in. Especially since the M.D. had already put in fourteen hours in E.R. that day, trying to help the hundreds of patients flowing through the doors in the wake of the earthquake. The hospital was on triage standing, and when Morgan had flown in with Laura, he had wondered if they’d get any help at all.

      He remembered seeing Sam in the busy passageway just inside the double doors of the hospital when he’d arrived with Laura, who had been carried in on a stretcher by two marines. With her bright red-gold hair, Sam had been hard to miss beneath the fluorescent lights. The hallway was jammed and crowded. Morgan had heard the moans, the cries, had seen the obvious shock on the faces of dozens of people sitting on the floor, lying on gurneys, or standing and holding their bloody wounds, waiting for medical help.

      Laura had been in deep shock herself, Morgan knew. Making his way through the crowd, he’d grabbed hold of Sam’s bloody white lab coat to get her attention. Automatically, he’d sensed she was in charge, because of the way she gave orders to the corpswaves and corpsmen, as well as the nurses. Her voice was cool, calm and authoritative. When she spoke, people settled down and listened. It was obvious Sam Andrews knew how to get things done, and that was the type of person Morgan wanted helping his wife.

      When he’d grabbed her sleeve, Sam had stopped, turned her head, and then stared at him in surprise. Morgan had introduced himself, though he’d seen recognition in her eyes. For once, his legendary reputation had paid off. To Sam’s credit, she’d dived through the crowd to examine Laura’s mangled extremity, and then had called two orderlies over to take Laura up to an operation theater for immediate surgery prep.

      Morgan would never forget the intense look of compassion in Sam’s eyes as she’d turned back to him. Gripping his hand briefly, she’d promised him that she would perform the surgery on Laura herself, and that everything was going to be fine. He’d nearly broken down and cried then. The genuine understanding in her eyes of what he was going through after nearly losing his wife in the hotel collapse had touched him deeply. Sam was a noble person, with such integrity and grit that Morgan had sworn he’d somehow repay her. Right now, he was going to do that, but he wasn’t sure she’d be thankful.

      Leaning back in his chair, he said, “Sam, I’m pulling you from the ranks to help me. You’re the head of E.R. for good reason, and I need someone with your brains, moxie and abilities. Right now, we have an epidemic starting to flare up in the L.A. basin.”

      Nodding, Sam sobered. “Yeah, I know. It’s inevitable, Morgan. The basin has no good local sources of water. I knew it would happen. A lot of people are gonna die if we can’t get someone in there to help, and soon. I know thousands of people are leaving the affected area and our agencies are trying to take them in, but they’re overwhelmed, too.”

      “No disagreement. We have info that roughly a hundred thousand people have walked out of the area seeking help. But there are still those in the area who need medical attention. That’s why you’re here, Sam.”

      She sat up and crossed her legs, resting the coffee cup on her knee. “Oh?”

      “Yeah.” Morgan eased upward and placed his own cup on the desk in front of him. “Starting tomorrow morning I want you to go into area 5 with a Recon team to protect you, and set up three sites for medevacs—medical evacuation areas—where people can get help for the dysentery, typhoid, food poisoning and other acute medical emergencies that are cropping up. Many people can’t walk ten or twenty miles to get out of the area, either because they are injured too badly or ill, elderly, or they are parents with children who might be more at risk on the road. These centers are being put into each area to take care of the people who are left behind. Plus, critically injured people have to be flown out ASAP because our road system is completely destroyed. We need you to formulate a medical system in one area, make it work, refine it if necessary, and then take that model to the other areas. You would be the advance medical team going in, setting up things for the regular teams.” He looked into her narrowing green eyes. Morgan could see she was very interested in the project. That was good. Maybe that would make up for the part he knew she probably wouldn’t like. “You think outside the box, Sam. I saw that when Laura was brought in and we were standing there in the passageway of the E.R., waiting for medical help. I watched as you assessed a lot of different triage situations, set things in motion and catalyzed everyone around you. You’re efficient. You grasp the whole of a problem, but you get the details right, as well.”

      “Thanks,” Sam murmured, pleased. “Maybe you could suggest to the higher-ups to write that on my next six-month fitness report,” she said with a chuckle. Twice a year every person in the service was rated. The members on