Chapter 24
Opportunity

Being hungry was the least of his problems, Max knew, as silence descended in his room.

Along the wall in front of him, Michael remained sedated. At the corner of Max's bed, the head of the Special Unit watched Max like a menacing watchdog. Harrington's steely eyes were on him, barely blinking. Even if Max could get up and run, he couldn't leave Michael behind. Was his friend all right? Last time Michael had been shot, that day when they had been trying to escape in the paper warehouse, there had been something wrong with Michael's lungs. I cannot heal him now, he wearily thought. He barely had enough energy to stay awake. The most he could manage would be to collapse and lose consciousness again. And that he couldn't afford. Yet whatever Liz's plan was, it was happening soon.

"What is waiting for you out there, Max? More running?" Harrington's question broke the silence. Max turned to look at him, expecting to find a smirk. Instead, the man was as serious as ever.

"What is waiting for me here, Colonel? A sure and painful death?"

They stared at each other for a moment. It was like their somewhat mediator Anders had been saying: they needed to build trust. Easy to say, yet Max was way past trusting these people. He would take running over surrendering to the FBI every single time.

"Anders has all the right words," Harrington said after a moment, glancing at the door as if expecting someone to come in. "But I'll say it plainly to you: I have orders to bring you back to headquarters as a political refugee. If you run, you're going to slap that trust and make everyone believe you want anything but a peaceful resolution."

Max was too tired to negotiate as Zan would, and he was too scared to believe this man.

"If I don't run, and your orders change, I'll be out of options and in your hands." He was feeling dizzy again. If Liz didn't act soon…

"We both have the same problem, you see?" Harrington pointed out with a slight sigh, changing his position on the chair while keeping pressure on his injured leg. "I cannot trust your intentions any more than you can trust mine. So, what's it going to be? If you could walk away right now, would you keep running while I keep chasing?"

Max turned to look at Michael, unable to say yes.

"What's really going to happen," Harrington continued, "however Anders will phrase it, is that you two are going to come with us. You are going to be debriefed. You are going to be relocated. And you are going to be nice about it. If you have nothing to hide, this is a win-win situation for you. You'll gain us as allies, and you'll stop running."

Anger arose in Max's mind. Why did this man think that was good? "I'll become a glorified prisoner, and that's assuming you'll even trust our version of events. And what happens when you get curious about us? Would I get a polite request to be your lab rat for the day? You don't know the first thing about what we fear, Colonel. That's the real problem here."

Whatever Harrington was about to say, he was interrupted by one of the hospital doctors who had been helping him, the big one. Cramer. He looked at Max for a second, and then went straight to Harrington. He was carrying a platter with several things, from gauzes to syringes. He had come back to apply the stitches to Harrington's wounds.

"Let's see…" Cramer said, oblivious to their previous talk and their heated impasse.

"Now, this right here, Max," Harrington pointed out, taking his hand away from his leg, "should tell you how serious I am about my orders. I got shot on your behalf."

"How are you feeling?" Cramer asked, glancing at Max.

"I'm worried about Michael," he said, the need to check on his friend growing exponentially now that Harrington was not monopolizing his attention.

"I'm sure he'll be fine…" Cramer nonchalantly said, getting the syringe ready. The sight of it made Max shiver. He remembered for a moment having seen Shore by his side, holding him down, someone else getting a syringe ready. He closed his eyes, willing the image to disappear. He did not want to remember the last five days of his life.

"This is going to sting a little…" the doctor muttered while Harrington looked at the door.

"Where's Shore?" the Colonel asked, slightly frowning as the needle went in.

"Just around the corner," Cramer smiled, placing the syringe on the platter a moment later. "Now, Max. Do you feel well enough to run?"

Both Max and Harrington turned to Cramer at the unusual question. It was Harrington who understood it first. "What did you give…"

He never finished. Slowly, he went forward, Cramer catching him in mid-fall. "Just a little something for you to sleep tight…" Cramer said, getting Harrington back on the chair, unconscious.

Harrington had officially been taken out of the game.

"I—I'm not sure…" Max tried to say, watching Cramer taking Harrington's pulse. "I mean… how far I can run…" Max tried to sit, his heart accelerating at the prospect of escape. Cramer finished with the older man, and went to Max's side.

"Don't worry, you're not running anywhere," he pointedly said, taking Max's pulse now. "You shouldn't even be thinking about running anywhere, Mr. 111 fever."

"But… Harrington…"

"It's called misdirection," Cramer answered, going to check on Michael last. "We are making them believe you are going away, but in reality, you're staying two floors up."

"What?"

"Dr. McConnell is setting your room up. Shore is distracting Anders. Now we just hope they'll buy it."

Dr. Shore closed the cell phone with finality. He'd just informed the Special Unit that Harrington was missing and Max and Michael were on the run. Dr. McConnell and Dr. Lake were already gone, the first to the nurse's station, the second to get Dr. Hayden. If the timing was correct, Cramer had already taken out Harrington and was getting Max and Michael ready. Liz was the last one remaining in the hall with the master mind of this plan, Dr. Shore.

She wasn't supposed to, but there was no way in hell she would let Shore out of her sight. Not with Max's and Michael's lives in the balance.

"Now, Elizabeth, go get Isabel and meet us on the fifth floor before she gives the plan away by being caught in the middle of the hospital," he told her as he looked down the hall.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked bluntly, her eyes going down the hall to Max's room.

"Because I know Washington politics and I do believe Max deserves better. Now, go get Isabel."

"So they were lying? About the deal?"

"No, they were serious about it. Just not everyone agrees with it. Now, Ms. Evans, I really need to find Anders and get him going in the right direction. We all have something to do, go."

"Something's wrong," Isabel said, pacing from one corner of the room to the next, her only company a young doctor who didn't look to be over 30. "You said Max was stable," she pointed out, her need to flee this place crawling under her skin.

"I said he was stable for now," Dr. Holt pointed out, writing down something on his laptop. Although he looked calm, the tension in his eyes was betrayal enough of his own anxiety. The other doctor, Susan Lake, had left them alone to find out what was going on about fifteen minutes before. "With the fever he was sporting, and his general intolerance to drugs? I wouldn't bet on him recovering in the next twenty-four hours."

"We don't get sick," she exclaimed, feeling so exposed by saying just that much. "Whatever they did to him, he'll fight it."

"Oh, I know he will," Holt said with patience. "But I doubt he's going to keep fighting it for twelve hours straight."

"I need to find him. Find them. Michael's… he's just gone."

The light flickered in the bulb above, a sure sign Isabel was losing her grip on her emotions.

"Hey…" Holt stood up, trying to soothe her, she guessed. Maybe wondering if he should flee. "Look, I'll call her, okay? See what's taking so long…" he offered, taking out his cell phone.

He hadn't even dialed the first number when the door opened.

"Liz!" Isabel half shouted as she saw her sister-in-law enter. "Where are they?" she asked, eager for answers more than ever.

"They are taking them to the fifth floor. They want to hide them," she explained, turning worried eyes to Holt and then back to Isabel. "They say we need to stay out of sight, so the Special Unit will buy that we are on the run again."

"What? What?" Isabel asked, outraged. "We have to get them out of here, not hide in a corner!"

"He almost died," Holt interrupted from his spot in the room. "I admitted him yesterday, right before the train-derailment chaos started. He saved a little girl across the hall two hours after that, and it completely drained him. The longer he stays here, the better his chances are."

Isabel closed her eyes at that. Of course you would, she thought at Max. She wanted to strangle him, to yell at him, but it was impossible. Of course you would, she repeated, feeling both proud and resigned by this point, and so, so helpless.

"We have to stay…" Liz whispered, turning to looking at her right as if she could actually see them. "They kept telling me, too, that Max might get worse in the next few hours, and he did look wiped out."

"You saw him?"

"Yeah, sort of… They've been helping Max since last night…" Liz trailed off, looking anxious herself, her eyes going to Holt without really knowing what else to do. Shaking her head, Liz turned her attention to Isabel. "Shore said to stay out of sight , so we just need to blend in," she said in a practical tone. Hiding in plain sight was Max's favorite technique.

"Okay," Isabel said, determination fueling her. "It's a hospital, right? Filled with patients, nurses and doctors… We just need to look the part," she murmured, looking at Liz's clothing. Her nerves were at the frying point, so concentration eluded her at the moment.

"We're caught in the middle here," Holt started to say. "We have too much conflicting information coming at us. Look, we want him safe, away from anyone who hurt him, or who might hurt him, that much is clear to us. Let all this die down get him better, let the government cool off, and then maybe something can be achieved."

Getting the image right in her mind, Isabel's hand swept over Liz's jeans and black sweater, transforming them into minty scrubs in the space of five seconds. "You haven't been a blond in a while," she said, going to the hair.

Something dropped to the floor, and both Isabel and Liz turned to look at Holt, who was sitting uneasily on his stool, his notes sprawled at his feet, his mouth halfway open.

"We'd better hurry," Isabel said, turning her attention to her own disguise. Liz went to Holt, maybe to explain, maybe to ask some questions. Isabel didn't care. She turned her attention to changing her clothes into scrubs and a lab coat, and turned to call Liz. Her sister-in-law was actually hugging Holt in a rather awkward manner.

"You saved him," Liz said a moment later, "Thank you."

And with that, they both left the room.

There were many awkward things Lieutenant Colonel Anders had done in his life in the name of diplomacy and international cooperation. Waiting for an alleged alien king to be alone in his room didn't even have a ranking on that list.

He'd heard Shore's call to the Unit saying the kids were on the run and Harrington was missing. But Anders had seen Max not fifteen minutes before. There was no possible way Max would have been able to pass Harrington's perimeter outside the hospital, not in the state he was in, and much less with an unconscious Michael to slow them down.

So he'd tagged along behind one of the doctors who had been helping Max, and had learned from a helpful nurse that the good old doctor had requested a private room on the fifth floor. So he'd waited, and sure enough, in had come Michael, and a few minutes after, so had Max.

He didn't know where Harrington was, or his long time friend Shore for that matter. But that was of little consequence compared to what he had to do now: Sit down with the leader of another planet, convince him the United States had his best interests at heart, and hope for the best.