with the rain, a deeper rumble that built and emerged until it was clear: the rhythmic thumping of a helicopter. She thought, They can't be flying in weather like this.
But the sound built steadily, and then the helicopter burst low through the ocean fog and roared overhead, circled, and came back. She saw the helicopter swing back over the water, near the fishing boats, then case sideways to the rickety wooden dock, and back toward the beach.
It was looking for a place to land.
It was a big-bellied Sikorsky with a blue stripe on the side, with the words "InGen Construction." That was the name of the construction company building a new resort on one of the offshore islands. The resort was said to be spectacular, and very complicated; many of the local people were employed in the construction, which had been going on for more than two years. Bobbie could imagine it-one of those huge American resorts with swimming pools and tennis courts, where guests could play and drink their daiquiris without having any contact with the real life of the country.
Bobbie wondered what was so urgent on that island that the helicopter would fly in this weather. Through the windshield she saw the pilot exhale in relief as the helicopter settled onto the wet sand of the beach. Uniformed men jumped out, and flung open the big side door. She heard frantic shouts in Spanish, and Manuel nudged her.
They were calling for a doctor.
Two black crewmen carried a limp body toward her, while a white man barked orders. The white man had a yellow slicker. Red hair appeared around the edges of his Mets baseball cap. "Is there a doctor here?" he called to her, as she ran up.
"I'm Dr. Carter," she said. The rain fell in heavy drops, pounding her head and shoulders. The red-halted man frowned at her. She was wearing cut-off jeans and a tank top. She had a stethoscope over her shoulder, the bell already rusted from the salt air.
"Ed Regis. We've got a very sick man here, doctor."
"Then you better take him to San Jose," she said. San Jose was the capital, just twenty minutes away by air.
"We would, but we can't get over the mountains in this weather. You have to treat him here."
Bobbie trotted alongside the injured man as they carried him to the clinic. He was a kid, no older than eighteen. Lifting away the blood-soaked shirt, she saw a big slashing rip along his shoulder, and another on the leg.
"What happened to him?" "Construction accident," Ed shouted. "He fell. One of the backhoes ran over him."
The kid was pale, shivering, unconscious.
Manuel stood by the bright green door of the clinic, waving his arm. The men brought the body through and set it on the table in the center of the room. Manuel started an intravenous line, and Bobbie swung the light over the kid and bent to examine the wounds. Immediately she could see that it did not look good. The kid would almost certainly die.
A big tearing laceration ran from his shoulder down his torso. At the edge of the wound, the flesh was shredded. At the center, the shoulder was dislocated, pale bones exposed. A second slash cut through the heavy muscles of the thigh, deep enough to reveal the pulse of the femoral artery below. Her first impression was that his leg had been ripped open.
"Tell me again about this injury," she said.
"I didn't see it," Ed said. "They say the backhoe dragged him."
"Because it almost looks as if he was mauled," Bobbie Carter said, probing the wound. Like most emergency room physicians, she could remember in detail patients she had seen even years before. She had seen two maulings. One was a two-year-old child who had been attacked by a Rottweiler dog. The other was a drunken circus attendant who had had an encounter with a Bengal tiger. Both injuries were similar. There was a characteristic look to an animal attack.