CHAPTER 3
"What do you mean I can't see him?" Dom demanded.
"I'm sorry Mr. Santini, but he's sleeping and we've been trying all afternoon to have him get some rest. He won't take anything help him sleep and has been insistent on talking every nurse here's ear off."
"I didn't get punch in the stomach to be told I couldn't see him, let me through," he ordered.
"Punched- don't you-"
"It's between me and him right now, now if you'll excuse me…"
Their argument was abruptly interrupted by shouts from behind the door, the nurse being startled long enough Dom could shove by.
"Get them off, get them off!" Saint John yelled, trying to shake off an invisible pest. "Spiders, get them off!"
"Saint John," Dom coaxed, trying to wake him. "It's alright, it's alright.
He grew suddenly still for several minutes before starting up again.
"Get away from me with that. Go away. Biến mất."
Again Dominic tried to wake him with little more luck.
"Take it away, I'll do it."
"Saint John, it's me Dom. You're at the FIRM clinic, not over there."
Gradually his surroundings became clear and the nightmare melted away.
"Just a bad dream," Dom said.
"Just a dream," Saint John repeated, "just a dream."
"You want to tell me what it was about?"
Saint John shook his head. "Not just a dream, real."
"Nah, you've been here all along. I've been right here beside you."
"It happened. It's real."
"What happened? What was real?"
"I did it, I took it and ran."
Saint John Hawke, Captain, United States Army…"
"Yeah, yeah. Enough of the Geneva convention crap. I have a job for you, Hawke. You've made it clear you don't want to be here and quite frankly you're a pain. I'm going to give you an opportunity better than you deserve though. You deliver certain goods where I tell you - back to the states- and when you return I'll pay you. That simple."
"Yeah, right," he scoffed. "Why would I come back?"
"So you can get paid. There really isn't anything waiting for you over there anyway, but when you come back you get your money and more to take back; when you return there will be more money waiting on you."
"Sounds too easy."
"It is easy. If you do exactly as I told you, I will do what I said. If you don't' you will be subject to whatever treatment I feel you deserve and all the pesky creatures that live in that little bamboo box with you. If you try to take the goods and run, I will hunt you down and kill you. So what is your answer?"
"Let me think about it."
"I want an answer," Nien Quan Thuc demanded.
"You're asking me to make a life changing choice here, pal. I need a while to think on it."
"A while you shall have."
One month later…
It was infected, no doubt about it. He looked at the gash running down his leg, the sole prize he had received during his latest escape attempt. It was deep, infected, and he couldn't even sleep anymore half the time because he was burning up with fever. He needed help soon or he would loose the leg, maybe more….
"Get out," his captor ordered, pulling him by the collar. "You make a choice yet?"
"Yeah, I'll do it."