Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who is following this story. I'm having so much fun with this tale but I'm a nervous, self-conscious wreck about my writing. Would you take a few minutes and let me know what you think so far in a review? I appreciate so very much everyone who has already left one. You motivate me to keep plugging along on this story that is evolving into something I never expected. Thank you!
The first hint of trouble came in the form of a muffled gasp of pain. Officer Franklin tuned out the conversation his partner was having with the cute nurse that had just gotten on duty and strained to hear the sound again. Had he really heard that or was it something imagined? Cop instincts kicking in, Franklin focused harder and could now clearly hear the sounds of a struggle coming from inside the room he was meant to be guarding. Grabbing his oblivious partner by the collar, he sprinted back to the post they had abandoned minutes ago.
Shock kept him rooted to his spot in the doorway for a fraction of a second. Agent Peter Burke was down, collapsed against Caffrey's bed with a large orderly looming over him. A syringe protruded grotesquely from the agent's thigh and the man standing over him was wielding a second hypo. Immediately sensing the danger radiating from the orderly, Franklin ran forward and tackled the imposing assailant to the ground, grabbing at the syringe while trying to avoid being stuck himself. The two men fumbled for purchase of the syringe, but Franklin was unable to dislodge it from the orderly's hands. The officer watched in sick fascination as the man managed to position the syringe properly and plunge the shot into his own chest before stilling.
Franklin had his handcuffs out in a flash but could tell they were not going to be necessary. The man slumped onto his back, manic eyes darted back and forth from Franklin to the emptied syringe sticking out from above the man's heart. A ghost of a smile spread across his face and something like a laugh gurgled from deep in his chest. Franklin watched the man take several shallow gasps of air then stop moving altogether. Kneeling down beside the still figure, he checked quickly for a pulse but knew he wouldn't find one. Officer Franklin had been a cop long enough to know that the man before him was dead.
Franklin's attention was pulled back to the FBI agent as people began rushing in to the room. Diana, if he remembered her name correctly, was feeling for a pulse at Agent Burke's throat and calling his name desperately. The senior agent was not responding. A doctor pushed through into the room and was beside the agent, an ear to his chest.
"He's barely breathing. You need to clear this room and get a gurney in here now!" Franklin's partner was in motion almost immediately. He cleared the extra people from the room expertly, making space for several ICU nurses to enter. Franklin quickly relayed what he had seen to another doctor that had shown up to help. He handed over the syringes he'd taken from the orderly and Agent Burke's leg and several others that were on a cart near Caffrey's bed. The doctor took the syringes, alerting his colleague that he would get them over to the lab a.s.a.p. to find out what was in the shots.
A board appeared beside the prone agent and gentle hands rolled him onto his side and then back onto the board. It took several people to lift Agent Burke from the floor onto the gurney in the tight space of the ICU room. The doctor listened immediately to Burke's chest again, anxiously searching for signs of life, but the Agent's chest was silent. A heart monitor appeared at his side and the machine thankfully registered a weak heartbeat.
"Let's get him into a free room. I want him intubated." An ambou bag obscured Peter's face, desperately needed oxygen being pushed forcibly into the agent's lungs. The gurney was wheeled out of the room and anxious eyes followed its pell-mell course down the hallway and into a spare room. Franklin followed behind and took up guard at the new door, his partner staying behind to watch over the still unconscious, but now safe, Caffrey.
Agent Burke was intubated quickly, a machine taking over for Peter's repressed lungs. Nurses and doctors buzzed around his still form and Franklin heard snippets of their conversation.
"This looks like morphine overdose. He's stopped breathing but his heart is still going. Shooting him up with Naloxone won't hurt. Draw up a chem. panel and check the markers for morphine first and check on those syringes Barton took."
Franklin fought back an urge to fire questions at the doctor but a commotion at the end of the hall quickly drew his focus. Elizabeth Burke was trying desperately to get through a crowd of nurses and coworker's barring the way, demanding loudly to see her husband. Franklin made his decision before the idea even formed in his mind. Striding down the hall purposefully, he parted the crowd with an authoritative growl and pulled Elizabeth through by her arm. The woman picked up immediately on what he intended to do and allowed herself to be led past Neal's room, past the crime scene tape and the shrouded body of the dead orderly. She didn't ask any questions, just followed Franklin silently until they reached Peter's room.
"She can't go in there just yet," a nurse said, greeting them at the door. "Give the doc a few more minutes." Franklin nodded when he realized Elizabeth was in no condition to respond. Thanking the nurse, he stood silently beside the stoic woman, offering her the only comfort he had, his presence. Her shoulders shook briefly at one point, but by the time he had turned his head, Elizabeth Burke was back under control.