Frank scrambled back on his feet. The young man shouted, "Mabinty! I've got help!" A dog barked. Frank saw movement ahead but what his flashlight beam snared first was the bare white flesh of motionless feet and legs.

A plump young black woman, her face sparkling with sweat in Frank's light, was hunched over a delicate blonde who was early teens at best. The girl was breathing, but her respirations were laboured and gargly. Her face, neck and breasts were heavily bruised. The only clothing in sight was a jacket — probably not hers — over her lower body. Kevin arrived and muttered something under his breath.

Frank activated his radio and called for a "bus." Then he knelt beside Mabinty and the fallen girl. His First Aid certificate was about due for renewal but he remembered the ABC: Airway, Breathing, Circulation. He tilted the girl's head back and performed a jaw thrust. Those helped a little, but not much.

"She . . . had this around her neck," Mabinty said. What she held could at first be taken for a dead snake, but a closer examination showed that it was a black necktie.

The dog — a Saint Bernard — barked again as the kudzu rustled. Someone was coming.

A slender black woman with straight hair done back in a ponytail like Kate Dixon arrived on scene. She was carrying a large EMT kit bag, and her detective's shield was hanging from a necklace.

"Galindez, SVU. You two better split up and look around quick."

Frank and Kevin could guess what Galindez was thinking. The two men went in opposite directions, sweeping their lights. A lot could be hidden in that damn undergrowth. Frank could hear Galindez say, "she needs a cricothyrotomy."

And in the next second his light found more bare, bruised flesh.

"Galindez, when you're free!" Frank yelled.

"Vitals?" Galindez shouted.

"One sec," Frank replied. He knelt beside the girl, who looked very much like an older sister of the kid Galindez was busy on . . . busy indeed, from the sound of suctioning. This girl had taken the same M.O. right down to the necktie garrote. Its knot was tight.

"Loosening garrote," Frank said. It took the longest dozen seconds of his life. Kevin stepped near but Frank shooed him with, "I've got this, make damn sure there's no other vic."

"Almost done!" Galindez shouted. "Anything?"

With the garrote off, Frank addressed the girl's airway. He heard no breathing effort and let the others know. Her pulse felt so faint it might have been a phantom.

"Starting CPR!" In this virus-heavy era you were shy about mouth-to-mouth — you performed chest compressions and hoped that the same action which pumped the heart also pumped the lungs. Landmark the xiphoid process, compress above it, elbows straight . . . Frank quickly worked a sweat and his muscles began to ache.

Galindez finally arrived. She told Frank to stop and find a pulse. Then she inserted a mouthpiece and blew into it.

"Galindez!" Mabinty yelled.

"Is she breathing?" Galindez shouted.

"She's convul . . . "

"Is she breathing?"

"Yes."

"I'll keep them company," Kevin said. "Looks like there's no one else."

"No pulse, resuming compressions," Frank said.

Galindez said, "Still not a good airway, she needs a cric too."

Again Galindez cut and suctioned. Frank's compressions were turning his muscles bright red. He felt as sweaty as though he was having the hardest workout of his life.

Suddenly the girl gasped from the tube Galindez had inserted. Frank stopped compressing.

Galindez, feeling the girl's neck, said, "Yes, a pulse."

The girl let in a series of hitching gasps which became weaker and stopped. Galindez just looked at her watch and kept her fingers on the girl's pulse.

"Aren't we going to breathe for her?" Frank said.

Galindez raised a 'wait' hand. After maybe fifteen seconds, the girl began to gasp again.

"Cheyne-Stokes," Galindez said. "She'll breathe, stop for a while, then breathe again. We won't breathe for her unless the apnea lasts more than 30 seconds."

Frank noticed a scar on the girl's left thigh, quite possibly surgical.

The young man whose name Frank still didn't know shouted, "They're here!"

Soon the scene was crowded with cops and EMTs. One EMT, a stocky man of about forty whose nameplate read GREEVEY, said, "Those crics yours, Ant?"

"Yes."

"Textbook, but we're still 'scoop and run.' You take care."

"You too, Matt."

Frank, Kevin and Galindez stood together as they watched the EMTs leave with their two casualties.

Kevin said, "Ant?"

"Atlanta." She wiped rivulets from her forehead before they could enter her eyes.

Frank realized that his own forehead needed a wipe. His arms, still achy, trembled a little.