Chapter 4: Terror
The situation had just been updated to a Category One emergency. Fire and EMS crews from Durham were on their way. Toronto was reaching out to additional nearby cities; Halton, Peer, and York. All hands were on deck. Units from CFB Borden were controlling the streets and had set up a mass casualty triage center at Fletcher Stadium.
Ed had not heard from Clark in several hours; he had been shopping downtown for prom with Mira and Dean, broken off from them to go get a permit for an outdoor party, and then disappeared.
As much as Spike wanted to call and check on Adele, he knew he couldn't. Lines were overloaded or down and he had to keep doing everything he could to track down the bomber. He hoped she would call him as soon as possible.
"Winnie, you haven't heard from Adele, have you?" Spike asked her.
"Spike, she was just leaving work when she called me," said Winnie "I'm sure she's fine."
"Okay, let me know if you hear from her again," said Spike.
"Will do."
"Okay. Thanks."
As Jules made her way through the hole in the debris to the daycare, back at the 911 call center, Spike breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Adele was at the property and nowhere near City Hall, where a second bomb had gone off. Overloaded lines had shut down an entire downtown cell phone zone. The mayor had been caught in the City Hall blast and was being treated, so Sergeant Parker was elected as the decision-maker to talk to the city.
Meanwhile, firefighters, uniformed officers, and EMTs were working as quickly as they could to clear City Hall of both survivors and victims. A firefighter and an EMT entered the stairwell and when they came upon Adele and the fallen beam.
"Hugh, gimme a hand here!" the firefighter called out to the officer. The officer hurried over and helped the firefighter lift the broken beam off Adele's back.
"Check her pulse. I'm bringing in the long spine board," said the EMT, before he rushed back outside.
"Pulse is fast. Okay, David, hold her neck steady and let's turn her over," said Hugh. "One, two, and—" Very carefully, they turned Adele over and began to assess her injuries. "Ma'am? Ma'am, can you hear me?" Adele was unresponsive. "She's got a head injury, looks like a broken arm and wrist. Superficial burns and abrasions."
"Priority red," said David, as Adam reentered the building, carrying the board. "Let's get an I.V. started."
The three men worked quickly to stabilize Adele's head and neck in a brace and secured her body to the board. They started an I.V. of fluids, loaded her quickly into the ambulance, and headed to the hospital.
Things were quickly going from bad to worse. At the university, a dirty bomb strapped to Anson Holt's chest had detonated, killing him, Donna Sabine, and her partner, Jimmy, instantly. Greg, who had been on the scene, was unhurt, but had been exposed to radiation. He had been forced to sign off his contaminated headset and get cleaned up, rendering the team leaderless.
Ed had found Clark at City Hall and Clark was now being treated for his injuries at a hospital. Team Two successfully defused the next bomb at Hudson Trust Head Office.
But there were five bombs remaining.
Minus Greg and Jules, Team One headed to Marcus Faber's residence to find out where the remaining bombs were. They had quickly found them and Greg had signed back on. However, he had to wait until his blood work came back before he could rejoin the team. Since he had to sit tight, he and Jules worked together on more profiling. Jules was at Tony James' residence, asking him questions about Anson Holt and the experiments.
The team now had to split up to diffuse the bombs individually, paired with one firefighter and EMT each, to clear the buildings, at the EMS building, Adelaide Systems, the TV station, and the police station. Despite this, they were not alone. They were in each others' ears and they had each other covered.
At their individual locations, the bombs had all the same schematics. The bomber had picked up the pace. All the bombs were negative for radiation. Sam's bomb had the shortest amount of time left on the timer.
Greg's blood test had come back clean. In the end, Sam hadn't obeyed Spike's order to get out right away, and he was blown off his feet. It was a long ninety seconds before the team realized he was only bruised.
Spike felt a renewed hope that they were going to disarm the rest of the bombs successfully. And they did.
However, they were still missing one bomb.
Greg realized it was likely right there in the stadium.
Later, Team One waited impatiently in the emergency waiting room, for an update on Greg's condition. Marcus had shot at him numerous times on the catwalk, hitting him once in the leg and twice in the vest. But before Marcus could fire the fatal shot between Greg's eyes, Ed had neutralized Faber.
As soon as they left the triage scene, Spike pulled out his phone to call Adele and check up on her. Her phone went straight to voicemail. He thought this was unusual, as she always answered her phone, one way or another, or called him, but he decided to give it a little more time. Maybe she was somewhere she couldn't hear her phone or answer it or call him.
After what seemed like forever, a doctor came out to talk to the team, regarding Greg's condition. His injuries were serious, but he was going to make it.
The team let out simultaneous sighs of relief at the news. Spike pulled out his phone to try calling Adele again. Again, the call went straight to her voicemail.
Steve, Jules' paramedic ex-boyfriend, had just come in with another patient, when he noticed the team sitting in the waiting room. He entered the waiting room and approached them.
"Hey, guys, are you all here for Adele?"
Spike's head snapped up. "What? What are you talking about, Steve? She's missing! She's... Wait, did you just say she's here? Oh my God..." He ran his fingers through his hair and buried his face in his hands in horror.
"Calm down, Spike. She's upstairs, ICU," said Steve. "Come on, I'll take you."
"Wait, we can't all go," said Ed calmly to the others. "Let's just have Spike and Jules go for now. Everyone else, go home, get cleaned up, get some sleep. Spike or Jules will call as soon as they know more."
"Jules, are you sure?" Steve asked. "You should really stay off your leg."
"It's just upstairs, I'll be fine," Jules said firmly. She placed her arm around Spike's back, giving him the supportive touch he needed. "Come on, Spike."
Spike nodded slowly and went with Jules and Steve upstairs.
Spike gazed down at his wife, once again a victim to serious injuries. She was hooked up to countless machines and monitors, including a ventilator, providing her with essential oxygen, medications, and nutrients, and monitoring her heart rate, blood pressure, pulse oxygenation, and other vitals.
Within Spike, what began at first as shock and stunned silence quickly morphed into anger and resentment.
He turned and gave Steve a nasty glare, which melted into one of despair. His voice shook when he spoke.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"Spike—" Jules began.
"She's been unconscious the whole time," said Steve. "She had no I.D. There was no way anyone knew who she was until I saw her."
"It wasn't your fault, Steve," Jules said quietly. "You did everything you could."
Spike shook his head slowly back and forth, not looking anywhere but at Adele. He let out a shaky sigh of exhaustion and anguish.
"What exactly happened?" Spike asked Steve.
"My buddy who found her said she was on the north stairwell, in the parking garage, when the bomb went off," said Steve. "She was thrown onto the stairs and when she landed, a beam broke off and came down on her."
Spike buried his face in his hands. "Oh my God..."
"I'm gonna go get a doctor, Spike, okay?" Steve asked him.
Face still buried in his hands, Spike nodded and Steve left the room.
"I just can't believe this happened, again," Spike said softly. "All that time I was out there and I never once checked on her. Made sure she was okay. I thought... I thought she was off-site of City Hall. Winnie said she was leaving work when she called SRU."
"Spike, this isn't your fault," Jules said firmly, grasping his shoulders. "You couldn't have prevented this. You had to do your job. Look how much you did prevent, how much destruction never happened, how many lives you— we— saved, because of what all we did, because of what everyone came together and did today."
Spike gently stroked the cast on Adele's left arm and wrist, which had broken in her fall. He couldn't find words to say about how he currently felt.
A few minutes later, Steve reentered the room, followed by a doctor.
"I'm Doctor Craven, primary physician on Mrs. Scarlatti's case," said the doctor. "I trust you are family?"
"Yes," Jules broke in, before Spike could speak. "This is her husband, Spike, and I'm her sister-in-law, Jules."
Spike allowed himself the smallest of smiles at Jules' quick thinking; then he refocused his attention on the doctor.
"I'm Todd," said Craven.
"Tell me everything, don't leave anything out," Spike said quickly.
"Her blood test came back clean of radiation," said Craven. "Unfortunately, her troubles don't end there. She has a broken arm, a broken wrist, three broken ribs, and head trauma. There are three additional critical patients ahead of her. She will get a CT, MRI, and EEG as soon as possible. She was lucky she landed sideways on the stairs, like she did, or the beam might have broken her back and possibly paralyzed her."
Spike nodded, slowly absorbing it all.
"We'll get her down for those tests as soon as possible, so for now, all we can do is wait," said Craven. "I need to attend to other patients for now. May I suggest you go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat and drink? I'll have an orderly bring a roll-away cot for you. It's going to be a long night."
"Thank you, Todd," said Jules, as Spike was speechless with shock. A moment later, Craven left the room. "You want me to call her folks?"
Spike swallowed hard and nodded. Jules took his cell phone from him, placed a consoling hand on his shoulder, then stepped out of the room.
Three hours later, the tests were completed. Once again, they sat in silence, listening to the doctor's report.
"She suffered a concussion, and there's edema and localized swelling on her temporal lobe," said Craven. "We won't know if there's any cognitive impairment until she's out of the coma. I want to hold the sedation for now, so we can see what else is going on. I asked to be paged when she wakes."
"What if she's in pain? Shouldn't we give her painkillers, just in case?" Spike asked.
"An opiate would only deepen her coma, Spike," said Craven. "I want her to wake up. Though perhaps she's hurting, she doesn't seem to be in extreme pain."
Spike shook his head in disagreement with the doctor, as much as he understood what Craven's intentions were. As the doctor left the room, Jules looked outside, hearing thunder rumbling.
"It's raining." They both looked out the rain-smeared window. "Spike?"
"Yeah, Jules?"
"It looks like she's dreaming."
Adele's eyes were moving rapidly under her eyelids.
Spike sighed. "If it isn't a nightmare," he said quietly.
"Come on," Jules said, "let's go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat. It's going to be a long night."
Hours later, Adele still hadn't woken. Doctor Craven was puzzled.
"I ordered another CAT scan, to keep up with what's going on with her brain," said Craven.
"Why do you think she hasn't woken up yet?" Jules asked.
"It's hard to say," said Craven, looking at Spike, who was stroking Adele's hand with his thumb. "Sometimes patients just don't seem to want to wake up. Can you think of any reason why?"
Spike and Jules shook their heads.
"Unfortunately, I don't have an answer. In the morning, I'm going to contact her primary neurosurgeon," said Craven.
"Well, why wait until the morning?" Spike asked. The doctor looked long and hard at him. "I'm sorry, I'm just tired."
"You should go home and get some rest," Craven advised. "There's nothing more you can do here."
"No, I'm not leaving her," said Spike, shaking his head furiously.
"Spike, it won't do her any good if you two end up here, too, collapsed from exhaustion, too," said Craven.
After considering this for a long moment, Spike nodded and got up from his chair. A nurse entered the room and moved the cot bed out of the room.
"I promise to call you at nine a.m. with an update; sooner, if she shows signs of waking," said Craven.
Spike nodded again, then left the room with Jules. Sam had taken their car home, so Spike gave her a ride home. Spike parked the car and waited for Jules to get out, but she didn't move. She turned toward him and placed a hand on his knee.
"I know it's going to be really hard the next couple of days, but get some rest, okay?" Jules said. "I'm worried about her, too. But her folks are taking care of the twins, so for now, you just take care of you."
Spike nodded.
"Do you want me to call you in the morning and check on you?"
Spike shook his head. "No, I'll be fine."
"Okay. Call me if you need me, no matter what time it is," said Jules.
Spike nodded, then Jules got out of the car and walked up the front steps to her house.
