Chapter 4: an army of followers (rated T); never so many on one person (rated T)
Trauma Bay, Atlantic Ocean, December, 2014
"You can see where it entered here, fractured this rib, fragmented, went through and exited there. This fragment buried itself in the right upper arm, right here." There were nods and sounds of agreement among the knot of surgeons and staff staring at Kara Stanton's x-rays.
"Pretty damn amazing that it didn't do more damage. Smashed the hell out of the rib, but other than that, not much to do here. She's a lucky woman." The group stepped down to the next set of x-rays, labeled Martine Rousseau, and one of the junior surgeons gave a quick review of the history for the rest.
"Thirty-six year old Caucasian female with no significant past medical history, struck obliquely in the antero-lateral right neck with a bullet fired from a handgun at close range. Neuro was intact on admission. Entry was lateral to the trachea. She was taken for urgent exploratory surgery to control hemorrhage and found to have injuries to the external jugular vein and the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which were repaired. Carotid artery was intact. She's received two units of packed cells, and her vitals have been stable following surgery." The discussion turned to antibiotics, drains, and lab work results before the group moved on to the final patient, John Greer.
"This is a seventy-five year old Caucasian male with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and a forty-five pack-year smoking history who sustained blunt-force trauma to the mid right anterior chest wall, resulting in fractures of these two ribs – and producing the pneumothorax you see right here. A chest tube was placed prior to transport here, and this is today's x-ray. Cardiac evaluation has been unremarkable thus far. The patient is alert and talking – asking for a cup of tea." There were chuckles all around among the surgical team.
They went on to the ward, where their three patients were convalescing. The low ceiling and fluorescent lighting above a dark green floor made the whole room seem small and claustrophobic, but staff seemed unaware, bustling among the three beds.
At the first bed, a dark-haired woman sat up watching the Team approach. A tall, slender, gray-haired man in scrubs stepped forward and offered her his hand.
"Miss Stanton, welcome to the medical ship, RFA Argus. I'm Doctor Steele and these are the members of the surgical team responsible for your care while you're here." Kara raised her hand toward Steele's, but flinched as the motion pulled at the wounds on her right arm and chest wall. Steele noticed, and reached forward to her hand, just holding it there in his own, without shaking it, to make her pain any worse.
"You're a very lucky woman, Miss Stanton. The bullet that struck you bounced off a rib and ricocheted forward, away from any of your vital organs. It came to rest inside your arm." He saw her eye move to a small jar on the tray table nearby, and recognized what was inside the jar. The bullet fragment from her arm was inside. He reached over with one hand and lifted it up, shaking it slightly to make it rattle inside the jar, and then he turned around to show it to the Team behind him.
"A souvenir from your stay aboard ship," he said with a small smile, when he turned back to Kara. She said nothing, but just watched his eyes.
"How do you feel today?"
"Hungry," she said with no hint of a smile. She pulled her arm back, slowly, to her side but the pain was worse coming than going, and she splinted on the right side.
"We can give you something for pain, Miss Stanton. Don't be afraid to ask."
"I just need some food, and coffee, lots of coffee" she said, with a barely-suppressed edge to her voice.
"Yes. You're American, right, Miss Stanton? Always refreshing to have an American on board." He reached for his stethoscope and listened through her hospital gown to her heart and then he leaned her forward in the bed to listen to her lungs. He thumped her on the back with his fingers, and they could hear the satisfying hollow sound with each thump.
"Excellent. Let's feed this patient," he said, smiling, and moved on, stopping to squirt clear gel on his hands, rubbing the gel over the surfaces. He stopped at the next bed, which was empty, and picked up some small paper squares in his left hand. With his right hand, he tore open the squares carefully, and then lifted the exposed white alcohol wipes inside.
While the group followed, he absently rubbed the wipes all over the surface of his stethoscope, and threw them into the trash. Then he squirted hand gel on his hands again. The others in the group watched him silently, and then moved around the bed of the next patient, a tall, muscular blonde woman.
One of the younger surgeons read off her blood pressure, pulse, her maximum temperature and the total amount of drainage from the neck wound this shift.
"Miss Rousseau, welcome to the hospital ship, RFA Argus. This is your team caring for you during your stay. I'm Doctor Steele," he said, and he saw her nod her head at the Team and then to him.
"Do you know what happened to you yesterday?" he asked, and she nodded her head, yes.
"You were struck in the neck by a bullet that appears to have been fired at close range from below you. It struck here, in the front next to the windpipe, and hit one of the muscles in the neck and then a blood vessel behind it. It's what we call a through-and-through wound. The bullet left the body. Do you understand?" He waited for her response, and she nodded her head up and down.
"I understand," she said, with a British accent just like theirs, but her voice was hoarse, just a whisper, and she grimaced a bit when she spoke, as though her throat were sore.
"The hoarseness will go away soon," Steele said. "It's from the breathing tube they put down your throat during the surgery. Can you tell us how you're doing today?" She nodded again and leaned forward toward them in the bed.
"Better than yesterday," she said in a hoarse whisper, and a chuckle went up around the group. Steele smiled.
"Yes, you were very fortunate as well, Miss Rousseau. A little further to your left, and this story could have had a very different outcome." Steele stepped forward toward the side of her bed, and listened to her heart and lungs. Then he listened to her abdomen for a few moments, and stepped over to look at the bulky dressing on the right side of her neck, with the little soft plastic bulb pinned to her gown. A small amount of dark bloody fluid sat in the bottom of the clear bulb.
"If you continue to do this well, and I have every expectation that you will, then we can get this drain out tomorrow morning, and start feeding you. Today, let's try some ice chips and see how you do with those. And, if you need medication for pain, Miss Rousseau, don't hesitate to ask your nurse, okay?"
He placed his hand on her shoulder, and stepped forward where she could see him without turning her head to the right. She looked very comfortable. Steele thought to himself that these two women were remarkably calm for the situation. Remarkably calm.
There had to be more to this story than what his Team had been told a few days ago. They'd got word of their new orders: proceed at maximum speed to intercept a U.S. helicopter with three casualties on board and provide all assistance needed. Concise and unhelpful. The orders gave no details to help them prepare for the wounded. Perhaps the last patient, John Greer, could enlighten him.
Steele walked from Martine's bedside, and followed the same hand- and stethoscope-cleaning routine as he walked further down the bay to the end bed. There, a slender man with a thick head of white hair sat upright in his bed, and as Steele approached, he realized he recognized the patient.
Anyone who'd ever met John Greer would never forget those eyes. Icy blue. Even with the wide smile crossing his face, his eyes never changed.
"So this is where they keep you, now that you're retired," Greer said, as he reached out to shake the surgeon's hand.
"John, I can't believe it's you. I had no idea," Steele said, shaking his head, shocked that a man he had known decades ago could be here, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, aboard his ship like this.
"What happened to you? How – " but Greer cut him off before he could ask more probing questions.
"We ran into a spot of trouble. Had to leave in a hurry." Even after all of these years, Steele could see in Greer's eyes that this was a topic he shouldn't pursue, at least not in public. Later, he could circle back for a more private discussion.
"Let this be a warning to all of you," Greer said dramatically, addressing the Team with a smile, "don't try to haggle over the bill with a New York cabbie. They're brutal," he said and the whole group broke up, laughing, as Greer lifted his hand like he was aiming and pulling the trigger of a gun; once, twice, three times.
He smiled at them, but Steele could see that his eyes didn't smile with the rest of his face.
Cold. His eyes were so cold. Steele looked around at the others to see if they'd noticed the same thing, but the rest of them were distracted by the joke, and not paying attention.
Steele examined Greer, and then looked at the site where the chest tube protruded from the chest. Greer grimaced with the examination of the stab wound there, where the thick, stiff plastic tube had been pushed between two ribs. Every time he took a breath the pain from the tube jammed there between the ribs, hurt him. Steele looked at his face and nodded.
"Hurts like hell, I know. We'll get it out of there soon, John. We want to be sure that the leak in the lung has sealed completely. We don't want to have to put this back in, do we?"
"I can wait. I'm a good patient. I'm in your capable hands," Greer crooned, in his low deep voice. Steele could see the Team mesmerized by him. His voice. His eyes. The cadence of his speech. Greer had always had the capacity to mesmerize a crowd like this. He should have been a man of the cloth, Steele thought to himself. He would have had an army of followers.
Manhattan, December, 2014
The apartment was dark inside. And on the coffee table in the living room the two mugs that had held Reese's coffee and Gelila's tea, sat together, both untouched and cold now.
Bear was asleep on the couch where they'd been sitting when Reese first got there. Things had taken a detour from his original plan, to stop by for a few minutes to pick up Bear. He was going to go back with Bear to the safe-house tonight. It was too late to drop him off at the library office with Finch.
That had been his plan, but Reese wouldn't have minded a little extra time with Gelila, if it wasn't too late for her.
His Team had been putting in long hours at the safe-house, on computers and the phones, working the leads to try to get ahead of Greer. Everyone was frustrated, irritated, getting on each other's nerves. It was time to take a break. He'd told the rest of them that he was going out to get Bear. He needed some air, and he knew Shaw wanted to go back to the hospital to see how Marco was doing. At this hour, there was little chance of running into Marco's family there.
And he could see the look in Root's eyes when Shaw got up to get showered. This strain between the two of them needed to get handled, one way or the other. They needed to fight it out, or fix it somehow. And he didn't want to be there for it.
So, he'd come here, instead. Back to Gelila. He wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get. He'd dropped out of sight again these last few days after the ambush with Greer's Team at the hospital.
He and Fusco were on Medical leave from work downtown, recovering from their injuries. So, no one would be looking for him tonight.
He was tired, and everything hurt, so he probably wasn't going to be much company. But he was looking forward to seeing her again. There was something about her that made him feel settled inside, calmer somehow.
He thought of how she'd taken care of Bear that night at the Vet office downtown. He'd brought Bear in with broken ribs from the fight in Queens. He didn't know she'd be there that night. And he wasn't sure how she'd react after she saw him there in the waiting room.
He'd missed his appointment with her, to pick up Bear the first time. Gelila had had every reason to be upset. Harold had gone in his place. That night when he'd promised to come for Bear, he and Shaw had been doing the same thing they were doing tonight – recovering from an ambush. Their luck had better change soon, or the Team would cease to exist.
Reese was lying back against her, propped up on pillows against the headboard. The soft light in her bedroom made the colors glow: oranges, browns and black made the room feel comfortable. She was reaching around to his chest, rubbing a white cream onto the skin, careful not to press too hard on the large bruises.
When she'd seen the marks tonight on his chest, after he'd tried to keep her from lifting his shirt, he thought he'd lost her. The look on her face – he was sure she was going to tell him to get out and never come back.
No matter how bad things had ever gotten for him through the years, it was always worse for anyone else in his life.
The people who cared couldn't take it after a while.
The not knowing – when he'd be gone, when he'd be back, where he was, and what had happened to him when he came back messed up. It was too hard for them to see it, and what it did to him. Too hard for anyone who really cared.
Most of them who did what he did for a living had learned the hard way – that this life was a relationship-killer. Solitary was better in the long run, at least for everyone else.
But here she was, dabbing the white cream on his skin, while he leaned back against her. He could hear her breathing near his ear. And she would whisper to him every once in a while, "does that hurt?"
No, he would say, and she would touch her cheek against his, and kiss him softly on his ear with her lips. He could feel how warm she was, her skin against the skin of his back.
He thought of her in the Call Room that night when she was lying there against him. Her skin was so warm that night, too. He felt like he would float free if she wasn't there, holding him down. The weight of her body on his made him feel safe. Like he could sleep. In her arms that night, he had slept, at last.
When she was through treating the bruises on his chest, she had him sit up for a little while, while she smoothed the cream onto the marks on his ribs in back. The color of the long wide bruises was slowly changing over to green, from the dark purple color they'd been before.
Reese could sense that she was imagining what might have made them. A wood baton.
The Zheng had used them to try to beat information out of Shaw and him.
They wanted to know where Finch was. So they'd used the wood batons on the two of them, and the long purple bruises were from the blows with the wood batons. The Zheng didn't get what they'd wanted from them, but they'd left the two of them alive in the basement that night, like a warning to the rest of the Team.
It was a few days later when he'd finally put it all together, that this was the work of someone from his past, someone who knew him better than anyone else alive – Kara Stanton.
As the one who'd trained him in black ops when he'd first arrived in the CIA, and as his partner on more missions than he cared to remember, she knew everything about him. And she spoke Mandarin, like the Zheng. She'd been the one who'd sent them.
Kara knew every side of him; she'd seen him do his best – and his worst. Every act of compassion. Every cruelty. She knew every secret he had.
She'd stripped him bare of everything about himself. He hadn't seen it happening at first. And then, when he did, it was too late.
She'd cracked him like an egg and sucked out every morsel, like a marauding bird attacking an unprotected nest.
He should have been more careful. He thought she'd have his back. She was his partner. But that meant nothing to her in the end. She just followed orders.
"Hey, you're a long way away. Come back to earth," she whispered near his ear. He closed his eyes as she leaned back with him, landing them gently on the pillows behind her. He could feel her reaching out to the side. She put the jar with the white cream in it on the table, and then she lifted up a long green piece of a plant. It had a thick, soft, spiky shape. And she squeezed it from the tip back to the opening at the end. He opened his eyes to watch her do it.
"This is aloe. It's good for burns. The cream is arnica. I use it for bruises all the time."
The fresh green plant had produced a clear gel when she squeezed the fleshy part.
Gelila reached around him, back to the center of one of the dark bruises on his chest. She let the gel drip off her fingertips to the darkest area at the center, and then moved it around, lightly, until the burn was completely covered by the gel.
"Does that hurt?" she asked.
"Stings a little," he told her, and she made a little sound near his ear. Then she reached over to the table and took another piece of aloe. She stripped it of the gel inside, and then let it fall on the dark center of another bruise, then another, and another, until she had covered each one.
There was only one thing she knew that could have made these marks. Reese had been wearing a bullet-proof vest when he showed up with Bear at her office that night. She had undressed him herself, so she knew about the purple bruises on his ribs, and one on the arm above his right wrist.
But these angry, painful ones on the chest weren't there that night. These were new. They were from gunshots into a vest, like the one he was wearing that night.
The injury from a bullet hitting a vest looked just like this: a large dark bruise from the force of the bullet slamming into the vest above the skin; and the burn mark in the center, where the fibers of the vest got so hot from stopping the bullet, that it burned the skin beneath them. She'd seen this before – but never so many on one person at one time.