Page 35 of What is Found

“Like having a stuffy nose. Tension pneumothoraxes often resolve on their own.” He held up his wrist. “Started a stopwatch to see how often you need to release air. You should do the same. Over time, the intervals ought to lengthen, but I can’t be certain. What you really need is an x-ray, which you actuallymightget sooner rather than later.”

“Oh? How you figure?”

“I activated the bat-signal.” He detailed what he’d found in the van then said, “I don’t know much about sat phones other than they work pretty well even in bad weather.”

“So, help might be on the way,” Davila said.

“Mightisn’t the same asis,especially with the snow, but let’s hope so.” He snapped off his latex gloves, one after the other. “At least to get you off this rock and to a hospital for an x-ray and maybe a proper chest tube. Might not be as horrible as wethink, but you can get that arm taken care of, too, and some decent IV antibiotics.”

Davila watched him put away his gear and then, after a few seconds, said, “How did you know?”

“That there was trouble? The kid.” In the excitement, he’d forgotten about the boy. He turned, found the kid wedged into a corner. A Glock lay in the middle of the container where Matvey had dropped it.Sheesh, Worthy, how’d you forget a thing like that?Scooping up the weapon, he jacked out the magazine, checked the chamber then locked the slide. “Kid fired off a couple rounds. Must’ve figured I couldn’t hear him shouting.”

“I don’t remember evenhearinga shot,” Davila said. “In a tin can like this…”

“Yeah, the blast would’ve pretty loud. In the morning, we might even find the holes where the bullets punched through.”

“Smart kid.”

“Saved your life.”

“Yeah. Think it’s about time you cut off those zip-ties?”

He did. “Matvey,” he said then mimed that the child should hold out his wrists. “You did good.” What was the word?“Khorosho.”Slipping his knife under the plastic loop, he cut the zip-tie around the child’s wrists.“Khoroso.”

“Spasibo.”As the boy rubbed his wrists, a tentative smile twitched over his lips. “Spasibo, Chawn.”

He wished he knew the Russian fordon’t mentionit.Instead, he beckoned the child to follow and sit with them. “Here,” he said, holding the boy’s sleeping bag open. “Stay where it’s warm.”

After a pause, the boy ventured closer then made asalaamgesture, bowing low, pressing both hands together before taking John’s hand in his and kissing it. “Spasibo,” Matvey said. “Tenk-oo, Chawn,tenk-oo.”

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s nothing.” He was embarrassed. Pulling his hand free, he said, “You don’t need to do that. I don’t own you.”

“Hate to break it to you,” Davila said, as the boy cocooned himself in a sleeping bag, “but I think the jury’s out on that.”

“Mmm.”He changed the subject. “Listen, it’s impossible for me to say if and when this pneumo will get better. Could be a day or two. Could be a week. Could be you don’t get over this until you get a proper chest tube.”

“Meaning life will suck for a while.”

He nodded. “Although you could argue having a life to thinkissucky is better than none at all.”

Davila chewed on that for a moment. “What if this gets better?”

“You mean, as in you don’t need to let out any air?” He shrugged. “We can run the experiment of leaving the stopcock closed and see. If you make it through a day without trouble, then I could pull it.”

“If you did, could I keep going?”

“Keep going,” he repeated, the words comingautomatically until his brain caught up. “As in gowithme?”

“Yeah, as in go with you.”

“Honestly? Probably not. If there’s a piece of bone floating around in there, the same thing could happen again.”

“But it might not.”

“Maybe.”

“That didn’t sound very optimistic.”

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