Alan had brought Don a much-needed sandwich. Don wolfed it down, found a restroom off the ER waiting room, and went in and washed; he put his whole head in the sink and rinsed his hair and washed his face, and toweled off with the handtowel his father had brought, and then he shaved. He ran his fingers through his hair and left it touseled. He changed his pants but left the bloody sweatshirt on until he was through the ER, and threw everything back in the bag, laying the clean shirt carefully on top.

Thankfully, the ER doctor was free and took Don right back to a curtained bay, where he removed the temporary bandage and cleaned Don's arm. He worked quickly, expertly. "Doesn't look like there's any muscle damage, or if there is slight damage, it should heal on its own," he said. "Although it's going to hurt for a while. A few weeks out, if your arm function doesn't feel normal, make an appointment for an MRI, but I don't think you'll need it."

Don took a deep breath as the man went to work on stitching the wound. "I take it this isn't your first rodeo," he said.

The doctor shook his head ruefully. "I can't tell you how many gunshot wounds I've treated. I'm going to write you a prescription for an antibiotic, and you should start taking it right away."

He finished up, rebandaged the wound, and Don put on some deodorant and his clean shirt. He at least looked halfway human now, even if he didn't feel it. He threw his destroyed sweatshirt in the bag and, once he had his prescription paper and signed a form, ventured out to find his father and his agents. They were sitting in the waiting room, and they jumped to their feet as he approached. The clock on the wall said 5:10. Hopefully, Doctor Ceres was still in.

"Okay," said Don. "I'd like to go up and see Charlie's doctor, and I think you should come with me, Dad. David and Colby, maybe you can head up to Charlie's room and try to get into to see him - see if anything has changed. We'll meet you there after we talk to the doctor."

He gave Colby and David Charlie's room number and some brief directions; Cedars Sinai had a whole tower dedicated to intensive care. Before they left, he discreetly handed David his Glock. "I don't feel good about carrying this around without ID on me," he said. "With my luck, security will bust me and kick me out of here. Hang onto it and take it into the office for me when you go back."

As he and his father walked, Don borrowed his father's cell phone and called Megan Reeves, who was managing the office. He filled her in and asked her to come to the hospital after she finished up at work. He told her what he had in mind, and she said, "Absolutely. I'm done for the day here anyway. I'll head right there."

They found the building and Doctor Ceres' office without issue. He opened the door, and he and Alan found themselves in a small waiting room. A woman sat behind a glass partition, and she slid it aside. "Can I help you?"

"Don Eppes, to see Dr. Ceres," Don said

She nodded. "Of course. He has been expecting you. Through that door - just go right in."

They stepped through another door into a short hallway. The doctor's office was at the end of it, and Don rapped on the door.

"Come in."

They entered. "Don Eppes," said Don. "This is my father, Alan Eppes. You said you wanted to see me."

"Yes, please take a seat." Ceres was in his mid-fifties, with olive skin, a receding hairline, and a pleasant round face. "You look better since I saw you last. I wanted to talk about Dr. Eppes' symptoms with you. We are seeing fever, disorientation, chills, and spasms. We've got blood work in the labs, and reports are trickling in. One of them indicates anemia. He is also suffering from respiratory distress, and his lungs show fluid, so an obvious diagnosis might be pneumonia. I think there may be more to this than that, however."

Alan stopped him. "You mean they didn't tell you what he has?"

Ceres looked at him. "Who?"

Don interjected. "The two men who were with him. Robles and Vanderberg."

"They know? They gave me the impression that they didn't know what was wrong with him. I thought they were just there for national security reasons. They told me that Dr. Eppes has some sensitive information that they didn't want him to blurt out. They convinced our admin to let them stay in his room and to refuse all other visitors. Even our staff was not to enter the room if Dr. Eppes was, uh, having a talkative spell - which I disagreed with, and I told them so. I was outvoted."

Don said, "Charlie was on an assignment for six weeks, consulting for the government in D.C. He left for the job a little over two months ago. When he got back, he didn't look well. He had lost quite a bit of weight and seemed tired. Other than that, he seemed normal at the time, and he and I went on a backpacking trip, starting four days ago, in the Sierra Nevadas. On the trip, he seemed to have difficulty breathing."

"A lot of people would, in those mountains," interjected Ceres. "This could be complications of altitude sickness."

"Yes, but he's hiked before with no issues. He started to feel ill - feverish, chills. He had no appetite at first and then nausea and vomiting later. We got through two days of it before he told me that he thought he was in trouble - and there's something else. Apparently, Charlie had this condition while he was on assignment. He was sure it had come back. He wouldn't tell me what it was because he said I might be able to guess at the assignment. He was under orders not to say where he'd been."

Ceres frowned. "That would mean those two agents - Robles and Vanderberg - would probably know what it is. Why wouldn't they tell me? I can't divulge anything in a patient's record anyway because of HIPA laws."

Don hesitated - he hated to say this in front of his father, who had been quietly taking it all in, but it had to be said. "I'm not sure they necessarily have his best interests at heart. I talked to them this afternoon, and they admitted they might know something, but they're waiting for some kind of approval from Washington."

Ceres drew himself up; Don could almost see outrage radiating from him, but he kept his voice level. "Let's be clear here. Dr. Eppes is extremely ill. Depending on what this is, we may not have time to wait for bureaucratic B.S."

Alan was nearly vibrating with fury in his chair. "I can fix the situation. I'll call the local news station and go on the air. They'll be sorry they tried to hide anything."

Don held up a hand. "We may not have to. I have an idea. I have a couple of agents up there now, checking to see if anything has changed and whether they have gotten whatever approval they need. If Robles and Vanderberg are still playing coy, I'd like to send in another agent; one they haven't seen before. I'd like her to go in masquerading as a nurse or a member of your staff, just to see if she can pick anything up. In the meantime, Doctor, now that you know they're holding back, maybe you can push things with them. Go in and talk to them; bring up the HIPA laws, whatever you need to do. Maybe even create enough distraction so that my agent can talk to Charlie."

"If he's awake and lucid enough to talk," said Ceres. "He's been in and out of consciousness."

"That's a chance we'll have to take," said Don. "We may have to send her in more than once. And in the meanwhile, maybe I can try to go up through my organization."

"Which is?"

"I'm FBI."

"And what in the hell are those agents? Their ID said Department of Defense."

"I don't know," Don admitted. "I think possibly CIA."

Alan's cell phone rang, and he fished it out and handed it to Don, who answered. "Okay, we're in Doctor Ceres' office. Meet us here."

"Megan Reeves is here," he said. "My agent."

Dr. Ceres scratched his head. "I'm not sure about all of this. It is irregular. Maybe the right approach is to demand that they get their approval within the next two hours. That we can't afford to wait longer than that."

"I'm not sure the deadline would mean much to them. In fact, if they thought that Charlie was that sick, it could encourage them to stall."

''What do you mean?"

"Think about it. If Charlie dies, their problem goes away."

They stared at him, shock on their faces, and Alan looked at Dr. Ceres, beseeching.

Ceres nodded. "You're right. If you think they would go that far, we have to do everything we can to find the truth. I'm all in."

…

Twenty minutes later, Don, Alan, and Dr. Ceres were in the ICU's waiting area. David and Colby saw them and met them in the hallway.

"No luck," said David. "They wouldn't let us in and wouldn't give us any information. It doesn't sound like anything has changed."

Don saw Megan, dressed in scrubs, appear at the end of the hallway, near the nurses' station, and he inclined his head toward her. "Well, we've got a plan. Megan is going in to pretend to check on Charlie. While she's doing that, Dr. Ceres will start a conversation with the agents, to distract them. We're giving them a chance to give him the information if he agrees to keep it private, according to HIPA laws. If they don't, he'll start an argument, and Megan will use that distraction to try to talk to Charlie."

"What if it doesn't work?" asked Colby. "We got a quick peek through the window. It looked like Charlie was sleeping."

"If they don't give the doctor any info and Charlie isn't conscious, then I don't know if it will get us anything. If it doesn't, all we can do is watch for Charlie to wake up and try again later. Just between us, A. D. Merrill is making some calls to Washington as well, trying to push this up the ladder, but that may take a while."

"Ok," said Ceres. "Let's get this show on the road. I need to talk to your agent." He walked down to the nurses' station to confer with Megan.

"I want to see him," said Alan quietly.

"Me too," said Don. He led his father down the hallway, and they stopped at the window and looked into the room. Charlie was lying pale and motionless in the bed, his eyes closed. Alan made a soft exclamation when he saw him.

Robles and Vanderberg were sitting on the other side of the room. They looked up at the window, Vanderberg expressionless, and Robles smug, and Don stared back at them. It made him furious just to look at them, and he thought to himself that it was probably a good thing that he had given his gun to David because he had an overwhelming inclination to use it. Don decided to rattle them a little and try to wake Charlie up before Ceres and Megan walked in. He rapped on the door and opened it.

"This is my father, Alan Eppes. He would like to see Charlie for a moment."

Robles and Vanderberg stood, and both of them glanced at Charlie at the same time. Charlie's eyes flickered open, then shut. Robles said, "He's sleeping anyway. Why don't you make yourself comfortable in the waiting area, and we'll call you if he wakes up and is, well, in his right mind."

Don's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Did you hear from Washington?"

"Not yet." Robles was curt, his manner abrupt.

Ceres appeared behind them in the doorway, with Megan in tow. "Excuse me, gentlemen. We need to examine Dr. Eppes, and I would like to have a discussion with these - agents."

Don and Alan stepped aside to let them through, and Megan, her face expressionless, held Don's eyes for just a moment as she passed him. She headed straight for Charlie's bedside, and Ceres walked over to confront Robles and Vanderberg.

Don stepped back and shut the door. Alan protested. "Wait, I want to hear this."

"We will," Don assured him. "But I have a slight change of plans. You see how Robles is talking to Ceres, but Vanderberg is watching Megan and Charlie closely? If they don't give Ceres the information he wants, the plan is for Ceres to start an argument and create a distraction, but it won't work if Vanderberg ignores him. Here's the change of plans - if it comes to that, we're going to go in and help. We're going to argue, get right in their faces, so we can completely pull their attention away from Charlie."

Alan nodded with grim satisfaction. "My pleasure."

"Okay, I'm going to open the door again so we can listen in."

He pulled the door open and thought, "here we go."

….

Megan Reeves walked over to Charlie's bedside. They had given her a thermometer, and she held it to Charlie's forehead, as she said, cheerfully, "Hello, Dr. Eppes!"

Charlie's eyes flickered open, but only halfway. They looked glassy, and it looked as though he didn't recognize her. Behind her, she could hear Dr. Ceres say, "It has come to my attention that you know something about my patient's illness. Gentlemen, I know you have security concerns, but I assure you, anything you tell me will be confidential - it has to be, due to patient privacy laws."

Megan glanced around behind her and saw that one of the agents was watching her closely. Agent Vanderberg, according to Don's description. She looked at the thermometer and said, "Hmm, maybe I should retake this reading." It read 104, which she thought sounded way too high. She figured that perhaps she had done it wrong, but the second reading came out the same. She smiled at Charlie, trying to catch his eye as she reached for his chart. He blinked at her, frowning. "How do you feel, Dr. Eppes?" she said loudly.

No response, other than a deeper frown. 'Charlie doesn't even know where he is,' she thought with despair. "He doesn't recognize me. He won't be able to tell me anything."

Behind her, Ceres had begun arguing with Robles, but Vanderberg still had his eyes on her and Charlie. The conversation was loud enough now that she chanced a whisper. "Charlie, can you hear me?"

Don and Alan suddenly stormed into the room, shouting, which startled her; it was not in the script. Megan glanced back and saw that they had pulled Vanderberg into the argument. It was now or never, she thought. Charlie's eyes had tracked over to the group, and Megan hissed, "Charlie! You need to tell me what you know!" and suddenly Charlie looked up at her and grabbed her wrist like a drowning man, pulled her down, and whispered in her ear. Her eyes widened, and she nodded.

She straightened and walked out of the room, which was her signal to Ceres that she had what she needed. She heard Ceres snarl, "If I were you, I'd get on the phone to my superiors and tell them to get off their asses. This is inexcusable!"

She turned in the doorway to see Don ushering Alan out, somewhat firmly - the senior Eppes looked like he wanted to take a swing at Robles. She walked down the hall and around the corner into the waiting room, and they followed her there. Colby and David joined the group as they all clustered around her.

"I got it," she said. "It's malaria."

...

A/N: Congrats to Sharon, for guessing what it was - and for kindly PMing instead of commenting, so she didn't spoil it for others. But what kind of malaria is it? The medical staff still has work to do, and Charlie is fading fast...