He chuckled, and his head rolled back and forth. While the rest of his team worked at loading the boat and casting off, she bent close to him. “I asked you once before, but you didn’t answer. It’s helpful for me to know. Are you an addict, Ozzy?”

He pried his eyes open and looked straight into hers for several moments before speaking. “Yes. Got hooked in medical school. We just used to play around with it, you know, then one day I realized how often I thought about doing it again. Had to leave my residency. Too many temptations.” He laid his head back and looked up at the sky.

“Hey,” she said, putting her fingers against his neck, “thank you for taking the morphine today. I know it was a hard decision.”

He rolled his head over and looked at the jungle. “I couldn’t have made it otherwise. They’d never leave me behind. It wasn’t a hard decision. It just sucks. I got my five-year coin a few months back.”

They made quick work of loading the rucksacks and weapons into the boat. Peña handed everyone drab-green life vests. As he handed one to Cynthia, he explained, “If you submerge in the water, it should automatically inflate. If it doesn’t, pull this cord. If that doesn’t work, blow into this tube.”

She glanced down, felt the cord, and identified the tube, then nodded.

He handed her two more vests and said, “Can you rig Drumstick and Ozzy? I need to get on the motor.”

“Yes. Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said, then worked her way over to Sanders. She hated to jostle him and moved very carefully. “I need to lift you just a little,” she said after slipping his arm through the hole. “You okay?”

“Better than a skinny tick on a fat deer,” he said as he raised up.

She smiled and fastened the vest, taking care not to jostle his chest tube. She held a canteen up to his lips and encouraged him to drink. “Imagine how much better it will be when you’re in a clean bed with some pretty nurse tending to you.”

“Can’t imagine better,” Sanders said, then closed his eyes. His color looked good, and his skin felt cool to the touch.

She maneuvered to Ozzy with the other vest as the boat started drifting. “Hey, Ozzy, we have to put this on you.”

He rolled his head toward her and opened one eye. “Got any water?”

His canteen sat in his lap where she’d put it, so she held it to his lips, and he greedily drank about half of it. “Okay, let’s get this vest on you.”

He helped, lifting his arm, moving his body as needed. His skin felt hot, dry. She retrieved her stethoscope from the cargo pocket of her pants and listened to his chest. His heart raced like he’d just run a mile.