Cabe had been right, Katherine had been extremely upset over what was going on at the hospital and had ordered several teams of agents to act as back up for Cabe and to investigate exactly what the issues were going on there. They'd been there just before that start of hour five of Walter's surgery. One medical agent sat observing the surgery and would relay word to another agent who would bring the news to Paige and Cabe every fifteen minutes. Meanwhile two agents stayed close by Paige and Cabe to ensure no one gave them a hard time anymore. The hospital administrator found himself answering questions with another set of agents while going through the hospital's procedures.
The longer it was taking the quicker Paige was becoming unglued. The wait alone with it's almost double length of time for the surgery was bad enough but she still couldn't shake the feeling from the ER. Several times she told Cabe as soon as Walter was medically clear to transfer she wanted him taken to Cedars. Cabe smiled each time as he patiently waited for her to finish and then he'd hug her and reassure her that he had it all set up and cleared with Katharine to get him moved.
While the fifteen minute updates were nice, Ralph still tried to stay minimally present as he continued to observe the surgery for any news that he could relay to help his Mom as well as settle his own nerves. Normally he was fairly calm and matter of fact but his Mom's nervous energy was seeping into him and he began having anxiety bouts himself.
Florence sat in her cell again. Feeling used, defeated and extremely ticked off. Nothing had gone according to the plan she was assured would be in play if she got caught. She was never supposed to get in front of a judge let alone having to speak with an attorney about her case. The court appointed attorney was about worthless as far as she could tell from their brief on camera consultation before she had to appear in front of the judge on camera to plead guilty or not.
She sat cursing Collins silently. Sure the money had come through for her and she had most of it transferred to an overseas account so she could skip out to a country without extradition and live a well pampered life, but now, what good is the money if she was behind bars.
"Hey, Florence," an agent spoke softly as he stepped up close to the bars of her cell.
Florence looked up with hope in her eyes. 'Has my escape finally arrived?' She questioned silently as she nodded standing up and stepping over closer to the bars.
The agent grinned. "Here is your final payment for your services from Collins."
Florence's eyes opened wide as she saw the silencer on the end of a barrel of a gun pointed at her and then a small flash of fire from it.
The agent flashed his badge at the two army guards standing outside of the small curtained room where Collins was still handcuffed to the gurney. The guards both nodded as they pulled the curtain back and the agent grinned. "Well, well, well, the mighty Mark Collins. Such a fabulous genius and yet you still got caught. Something wrong with all that brain power?" The agent laughed as Collins growled and shook the gurney in frustration.
The agent waved his hand as he continued to laugh. "No, no, please don't get up."
Both of the army guards snickered.
The agent looked at them. "Do you mind bringing him out to my car and getting him transferred into it?"
The guards shook their heads as they walked in and began moving the gurney out.
The agent looked at him. "You'll be happy to hear I called ahead to ADX Florence and got you a special cell waiting for you. Seems for some reason all the inmates think you are the head of a major child pornography ring. They really don't like you already." He told him conversationally as they moved down the hallway.
The two guards chuckled as Collins continued to growl and thrash about.
"Hey, but don't worry my friend. They all have been advised that if you die from anything while there that they would all pay for it. So while you are probably looking at some painful beatings, you won't have to worry about dying." The agent grinned down at Collins.
Hour six and Ralph sighed a breath of relief as the surgeons all stood down and stepped away from the surgical table. He looked at Walter lying there and his vitals all stable if a bit on the low end. He looked at Allie and grinned. "Their done, I think Dad is going to be okay."
Allie smiled as she reached over and hugged him before he jumped up and ran over to where Paige was still pacing. "Mom, the surgery is over. Dad is fine."
Paige felt such relief as tears flooded her eyes and she bent over a bit to hug Ralph tightly.
Allie stepped up and told Cabe and he let out his breath as he hugged her.
A moment later and the door to the hallway going back to the OR opened and the Dr they'd met in the ER stepped out and pulled his hat off as he moved over to Paige. "Ms Dineen. I'm so sorry I didn't get word out to you and for it taking so long. My mind was on trying to save Mr. O'Brien after I screwed up and nicked an arterial vein. But with the help of a couple of colleagues we got the bleeding stopped and damage is repaired now. The next twenty four to forty eight hours will be critical but I believe he will be fine. He's a fighter, he obviously has something to live for or I am sure he would have died a couple of hours ago. Are there any questions I can answer for you?"
Cabe had stepped up as the Dr had moved out towards Paige and put his arm around Paige's shoulders.
"When can I see him?" Paige asked almost fearfully that he was lying to her, despite Ralph's news that Walter was okay.
The Dr smiled. "He'll be in recovery for about an hour before being moved to his room. I'd like for him to just rest for a half hour and then I'll have the nurse come get you to sit with him for a half hour before moving him up to his room. Is that acceptable?"
Paige nodded with a slight smile. "As long as he is okay that is more than okay."
The Dr nodded as he shook Cabe's hand and walked off.
Paige turned to Cabe and hugged him fiercely before hugging Ralph and Allie.
Cabe looked at the three of them. "None of us have eaten in a good while, let's go to the cafeteria and get some lunch or is it dinner time now?" He looked down at his watch and saw it was pretty close to six p.m. and nodded. "Dinner time it is."
Paige shook her head. "I'm staying here. I couldn't eat right now if I had to."
Cabe nodded. "Okay, we'll go down and eat and come back. If you get in to see Walter before we get back up here tell him we're here and we love him."
Paige smiled as she nodded and watched them leave the waiting room. She reached down and set her watch to count down twenty five minutes.
Cabe whispered to one of the agents. "Make sure you guys stay with her."
The agent nodded as he continued to maintain his presence.
The agent was driving through Barstow California but instead of getting onto I-15 and heading east he took SR-247 south. Collins looked up at the agent. "Taking the scenic route or has our plans changed about going to ADX Florence?"
The agent looked up in the rearview mirror. "You should know. It was your plan if you ever got caught. Speaking of which, how the hell did you get caught?"
Collins grunted. "Walter certainly surprised me. He convincingly acted the part of bumbling grieving boyfriend and fooled me completely. I still don't know how he was able to search for me. All of the surveillance I had put into the Garage and I failed to detect anything to the contrary."
The agent moved the car over to the side of the road and climbed out. He opened the backdoor and helped Collins climb out and he unlocked his handcuffs.
Collins smiled as he stepped into the front of the car rubbing his wrists as the agent walked over and got into the driver's side and they took off down the road. "So what about Florence, did you take care of her as directed?" Collins looked at Carlson.
Carlson nodded. "I gave your man an id to get him into the holding cell. If he did his part she should already be on a flight out of the country.
Collins smiled. "Good. When we get to Mexicali, Mexico we'll be able to get on transportation to get us some place safe too."
Carlson nodded.
Paige smiled down at Walter as he lay there in recovery. Her fingers playing in his hair as she periodically bent over and kissed his forehead, cheeks and lips. How much she had missed that these past months. If she was honest a part of her was a little mad at his deception but she could understand why he did it. But at this point she didn't care about that. Only that he was alive and she was with him. They were going to have a lot to talk about when he woke up though.
Her phone rang and she pulled it out and saw "Dr Rizzuto." She smiled as she hit answer. "Hello Dr Rizzuto."
"Ms Dineen, my apologies, I got your message early but had been swamped all day. Is everything okay?" Dr Rizzuto asked.
Paige nodded as if he could see her. "Yes, I am now. I was wondering though, I know you mainly focus on business partnerships but do you do any couples counseling?"
"Not normally to be honest. But I have, what is going on?" Dr Rizzuto asked.
Paige smiled. "Well it is a bit much to get into on the phone but if all works out I'd like for Walter and I to start coming for some counseling. It might be a while though. He just got out of surgery for a gunshot wound."
Dr Rizzuto kind of chuckled. "Just tell me you aren't the one who shot him."
Paige laughed in spite of herself. "No it wasn't me."
Dr Rizzuto smiled. "That's fine. I'd love to work with you both. When he's recovered enough just give a call and we'll get you scheduled in so we can talk."
Paige nodded. "Thank you Dr Rizzuto." She hung up and looked at Walter. "I hope you don't mind. I think we could both use a little professional help to be sure we're okay."
Katherine Cooper moved through the hallways until she arrived at the holding cells. "What the hell happened?"
The agent on duty shrugged his shoulders. "An agent came in with some legal papers so I let him on back. He came back a few minutes later and said thanks and left. I did my sweep about an hour later and found her on the floor bleeding."
Katherine sighed. "Just great, I was hoping we'd get some answers from her in exchange for some leniency. What about the cameras? Didn't they capture anything?"
The agent shook his head. "I was dealing with a prisoner transfer at the time so I wasn't watching."
Another agent spoke up. "I played the recording backwards and while that camera showed him walking to her cell the other one wasn't recording and when he got to her cell that one stopped recording. After he turned and started walking back the one back there came back on. So all we do is see him walking away from the cameras."
"Well we got tons of cameras in this place. Run the footage from each one for that time frame and get me a clear image of this guy." Katherine demanded.
The agent nodded as he left.
Katherine looked at the blood on the floor where Florence had been lying. She pulled out her phone and made a call. "Cabe, how is Walter?"
Cabe smiled. "He's out of surgery. Allie and I brought Ralph down to have supper while Paige stayed up there waiting to see him. She should be in his room right now. The Dr said the next two days would be crucial but he was pretty optimistic."
"Oh Cabe, I'm so glad to hear that. But we got another problem." Katherine told him.
Cabe's gut twisted as he waited.
"Florence was shot in her cell. A fake agent came in with a valid id and shot her. She's in surgery now but I don't know if she will pull through or not." Katherine told him.
Cabe nodded. "Well, at least we got Collins, even if she doesn't."
"My thoughts exactly, but I still would have liked to have her to leverage some information out of her. Collins won't be so easy to get it from. I'll let you get back to your dinner." Katherine told him.
"Thanks Katherine." Cabe said before hanging up. He looked at Allie and Ralph. "Apparently Collins arranged for a hit to take Florence out in case she got caught. She's in surgery now."
Ralph grinned darkly. "Good, serves her right."
Cabe slowly nodded as he made a mental note to speak with him and Paige about his attitude.
Crossing the US border proved little in the way of a hindrance to them and after just five hours they arrived at their destination in Mexicali. They had dumped the car at a local chop shop and walked to a local crop duster who Collins had arranged transportation with quite some time ago in case he ever needed to escape.
Collins looked at the man and nodded and as Carlson walked by the man shot him in the back. Collins just smiled. "Sorry about that but I can't risk you growing a conscious and telling anyone where I am going."
Collins and the man dragged him over to a barrel. The man opened the barrel and Collins saw it was about half full of some liquid. A quick sniff told him it was some kind of avgas. Working together they lifted Carlson up and lowered him into the barrel and then the man sealed the lid before they walked over and climbed into the plane. They took off about twenty minutes later.
The army surgeon sat at the table retelling the story about having to operate on Collins. None of them had ever heard of a stun gun rupturing a testicle before but they'd found it funny and a good bit painful to contemplate.
Greetings! Hope you all are well! The wife is doing better and worse if that makes sense. While her EF has rising from 20-25 to 43, her BP keeps dropping down and they may have to move her to ICU until it stabilizes. They placed a tube of some kind into her chest Friday to help them do the stints this week. I got to spend a couple of hours with her Friday after the procedure. Then I woke up Sat with some congestion, a bit of a cough and some phlegm. Joy, joy. No fever or other symptoms of anything, so I am pretty sure it was sitting in the cold, windy bus shelter waiting to come home Friday. But can't risk it, or getting worse by going up there so...*blah*
Lucy - No, evil cliffhangers are not my thing now. LOL Sorry about that. Sure played out that way though huh? At least it is only a few days for an update and not a truly evil one like Pamz pulled on us with her last chapter! *argh*
Kyria - I am so glad you guys are enjoying me piggybacking on Pamz's story with this.
Franxine - Well while I was talking to Lucy on Twitter the other day, I thought of something for the Knight story, but in order for it to be true, I'd have to delete the entire Drew storyline and rewrite it. But there isn't a good way to make it work for the Lady Knight story so I don't know if I should just leave it alone or not. I might put it to a vote when I update Lady Knight again. But I also have a pre-birth story idea for Knight. So I might post about it then.
Thank you guys for your continued thoughts and prayers for the wife! They are much appreciated!
To the Adventure! -Tim