Three months ago
"Tell String I'll only be gone a couple'a hours."
"Sure, Uncle Dom."
Jo's soprano rang in his ears still as he began the start-up sequence. With the ease of many years' experience he flash scanned the instrument panel -- everything was green on his gauges and lights. He positioned both hands and feet on the controls, waiting impatiently for the rotor to reach take-off rpm. The engine temperature was almost at optimum, where he liked it. Just another few degrees....
What the...? That was String heading toward him at a dead run. What was that he was yelling? Talk about--?
He never heard the explosion. First the fireball was around him then it was under him, crystal blue sky in all other directions. For the briefest instant he thought he saw String's body being tumbled along the tarmac like a rag doll in a high wind, then he saw nothing at all.
*
"String--!" With a start Dominic Santini opened his eyes, jerking upright then flopping weakly back when his limbs refused to participate to keep him there. He'd been asleep for a long time now, and he'd dreamed almost constantly, most of them taking the form of old memories both good and bad. But they were comfortable memories, and lately he'd preferred them to the nightmare wakefulness brought at irregular intervals.
A tiny hand on his shoulder and soft feminine voice urged him to remain where he was, and he complied more out of necessity than cooperation. He blinked several times, finally focusing on the pretty oriental girl staring down at him. A face he'd seen several times in his uncertain ... recent? ... past.
"Stay where you are," the girl admonished again, her slender fingers wrapping around his wrist. "I will go find the doctor in a moment."
Her pink lips moved silently in a count and Dom lay obediently quiet, allowing his memory to sift back. It was a slow process as it always was the first few minutes of consciousness, beginning with a searing pain stabbing deep into his heart. String, boy.... Santini wet lips that were cracked and dry, his voice grating as though from long disuse. "H-how long this time?" he asked wearily, having to forcibly banish the dark horror that threatened to wash him back into the obsidian nothingness he'd just quitted.
The girl ignored that. She always ignored his questions, as though his blood pressure and pulse were the only important things to her. They were all like that -- the therapists, such as they were, the impersonal technicians who'd swarmed over him the first couple of times they'd let him wake up, the physicians. The only one who ever spoke to him was that Russky woman, and she wasn't the most helpful of informants. And there'd been a man in a suit.... He frowned, wishing that face would focus in for him; he felt it was one he would recognize if only he could have had a clear view, but the man had appeared only a few times in the beginning to laugh scornfully at him, then had not returned.
The oriental girl said something, breaking his muddled train of thought, but the words were indistinct, as though she was speaking in a tunnel. "Huh?"
"I said, wait," she repeated louder, this time in his left ear. Oh.
She released his wrist and pulled a sheet up over his shoulders. Her heels clicked on the floor as she left, leaving Dom to stare up at the fluorescent light bulb that stretched half the length of the room. He tilted his right ear upward, striving to hear the buzz of the bulb; nothing. He turned his head, his left ear immediately perceiving the sound he sought. From the blast concussion, probably, he analyzed, trying for the umpteenth time to make sense of his situation. Where was he? He glanced around cautiously, unsurprised to find himself in what resembled a modern hospital ward, for they were the same surroundings that had greeted him every time he'd been dragged from what that Russian doctor had called induced coma. Was it a hospital then? Or was he a prisoner, as his instincts screamed at him?
He took a deep breath and braced himself to take stock of his body ... or what was left of it. Cautiously he raised his arms, letting the sheet fall away. It was still a shock to stare at his right hand -- missing the small and ring fingers clean and part of the third, the rest scarred and gouged by burns and missing flesh. He clenched it, pleased to see the remaining fingers curl into a loose fist. At least he still had use of the thing; a little therapy should return full mobility, the doctor had said.
His left arm was next, relatively uninjured save for the pink lines of scar tissue that dotted it from wrist to shoulder. Using this method he slowly worked his way down his body. The effort involved in lifting his head was horrendous but the relief at finding himself relatively intact worth every the effort. Until.....
"Holy--" he whispered, reaching the end of his scan. He'd known, of course -- they'd told him the first time he'd awakened that his right leg had been mangled by the explosion, his right foot ... gone. They'd told him about the broken bones, too -- an even dozen of them -- as if the agony he'd been in hadn't been enough to tip him off. There was no pain at all now except for a deep ache that started in his skull and radiated through every inch of his body. The woman doctor had broken it all to him gently ... for a Russky. But still it was a shock each and every time he was confronted with the visual.
"I'm a cripple," he croaked, laying his head back on the pillowless cot. "A useless, old cripple." Despair rose to choke him, like acrid bile. He'd never fly again like this, not in Airwolf, not in his own craft, maybe never even walk. "Why did they save me?" he asked, directing the question to a nearby equipment tray. "I'd've been better off dead than like this."
Moisture wet his cheeks and he reached up to wipe it away, feeling the ridges of scar tissue starting on his neck and extending up onto his cheek; his eyes were untouched, blessedly, mercifully, for if he'd ended up blind also, he would most certainly have gone mad. Next he probed his abdomen, his ribs easily felt through the loose skin and untoned muscle that now covered them. He was thin, must've lost fifty pounds. "Glad my old Italian mamma can't see me," he muttered with a weak, semi-hysterical chuckle. "She tried for years to fatten me up. If she'd ever gotten a'hold of String...."
That stopped him cold, that portion of his memory slamming into his conscious like a locomotive through a barrier. String's body being tumbled along the tarmac like a rag doll in a high wind. The explosion would have killed him, rose unbidden. Had to have killed him. He was close enough to have been caught in the main blast. The pain returned, far worse than the loss of his foot was the loss of the boy he'd raised as his own. All gone now, he thought despairingly. Awww, String. First I lost Sally Anne, then Saint John. Now you. I'm sorry, son. I tried to protect you kids the best I could -- most of the time from yourself. Looks like I didn't do a good enough job at it. Hope you and Saint John are at least together. Wouldn't be fair if you were separated even now. Maybe ... maybe I'll be joining you soon?
"Yeah, maybe," he repeated out loud just as the door opened to admit another familiar figure to the room. She was of medium-height and well built, neither voluptuous nor skinny from what Santini could see through the lab coat. Her short, dark brown hair framed a long face and bright brown eyes, and her smile -- she smiled often -- was an exciting cross between gentle maternalism and a sensual caress. "What's up, Doc?" he greeted her with sour humor.
She picked up a chart from a nearby counter, offering him that beautiful, warm smile. "You are, obviously. How are you feeling?"
He shrugged. "I been better."
"And you have been worse," she reminded him, crossing to stand by his cot. She scanned the chart, biting her full lower lip in thought. "From what I can see here, you are doing quite well. The bones have all healed completely and the burned skin has regenerated with a minimum of scarring."
"Ha!" He lifted his arm, turning it so that the ugly pink tissue caught the light. "What do you call this?"
She grasped his hand, forcing it back down to his chest, then patting it soothingly. "I said a minimum, Mr. Santini. With so much of your body burned, some scarring was inevitable. Nothing compared to what you could have had, trust me."
"Why should I?" he demanded, studying her in turn, searching for a clue to her motives, any hint as to what she was up to. She looked tired, he noted, her hair lank, circles under her magnificent eyes as though from overwork or lack of sleep. "That would just make your job easier, wouldn't it?"
"My job?" she probed, dropping the chart on the equipment tray.
He nodded, face stone. "Did you think I didn't know who you are, Doctor Zarkov? Or that I'd forgotten what you did to String almost two years ago?"
Another smile lifted her lips, one of delight. "I didn't realize you had recognized me! How clever of you to keep it to yourself for so long."
"I never forget an enemy," he stated flatly.
The bed dipped to his left as Doctor Anastasia Zarkov seated herself at his side, her soft accent chiding him. "Who says I am your enemy?"
His gaze hardened. Did she think he was some rookie? "Lady, after what you put String through, you sure ain't no best friend of mine."
"He ... was upset?" she asked carefully, holding his steady gaze with a questing one of her own.
Dom felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. Upset? Oh, yeah, String had been upset, all right. A picture flashed through his thoughts, and he saw again Stringfellow Hawke's haunted gaze when Dom had forced out of him the full story of Zarkov's impostor. The empty bottle of brandy had stood as mute testimony to Hawke's having been unable to face the situation without help -- the type of help he rarely sought from a bottle and had refused to accept from Santini. The image was gone in an instant then Dom was again aware of the woman's piercing eyes boring into him. He felt like he was being studied through to the bones, an uncomfortable feeling at the best of times; he hoped he showed her nothing. "So how long am I out for this time?" he asked, abruptly and deliberately changing the subject.
She stared at him another moment, then pulled back. "Do you mean you did not like your accommodations until now?" she joshed easily.
Dom couldn't restrain the shudder that wracked him. "Accommodations? Is that what you call them?" Yeah, he liked them all right. The death-like cold seeping into his shattered bones, the choking feeling that came with confinement, the darkness closing in when they sealed him into a tube the size of a coffin. Not once only -- they'd awakened him several times to run tests and give him therapy before sealing him away again.
Ever the perceptive psychologist, Zarkov noticed his shudder and patted him again, an action that Dom was ashamed to admit gave comfort he so badly needed right then. "The Yakeyama chamber saved your life, dear Dominic. It was designed to protect burn victims from infection and to nourish the healing tissues. Without it you would be dead." Dom pressed his lips together barely aborting the statement that he would have infinitely preferred that fate. "I see you have a slight touch of claustrophobia," she went on, still studying him. "If you like, we can discuss this at another time."
"Got room on your couch?" he snapped back, attempting to dismiss the horror that filled him at the very thought of the tube. But still, he had to know, had to ask again. "How ... long before I have to go back in?"
She laughed, a merry sound in the cold chamber. "There is no need. The Yakeyama chamber has done its job and you are as well as it can make you." She tilted her head, scanning his sheet covered body. "A little therapy to restore your muscles, prosthetic for your leg...."
"My leg," he groaned involuntarily.
She took his mangled hand between both her own, chafing it with her thumb. "You can live an active, productive life once again. You are a strong man; I know you can adjust to this." He knew he was being duped -- knew this attractive woman to be the enemy she was. But despairing, alone and afraid, he nevertheless returned her clasp for all he was worth, absorbing her offered comfort even as he squeezed his eyes shut over new tears.
Productive. Productive for whom? My family is gone. My daughter, Alan and Carmella, Saint John.... Aw, String, losing you hurts most of all. I loved you like my own son, kid. At least ... at least you didn't have to go on alone, after all. That would have killed you anyway if only a little slower.
"It wasn't right to make me go on like this," he groaned, feeling his tenuous control slipping away. "There's no room for a useless old cripple in this world. You should have let me die."
Zarkov continued to chafe his hand, her melodious voice losing its maternalism and becoming throatier, almost seductive. "But you are useful, my dear Dominic -- useful to us."
That snapped his eyes open, white fury filling him from head to foot and temporarily chasing away the grief. "Against whom?" he demanded, releasing her hand and using it to wipe his eyes. "With String gone, there isn't anybody left who cares."
The sound of the door opening prevented the depression from crushing him under again. He turned his head, gawking at the sight of what was to him the equivalent of the devil himself walking into the room. "You," he snarled, feeling himself go cold.
"So, you do recognize me." John Bradford Horn smiled urbanely, minutely adjusting one diamond cufflink. "I've seen you several times in the past few months; you never recognized me before." He cocked a brow at Zarkov, who rose to her feet.
"He's never been aware enough to do so," she said, answering the unspoken question. "His mind should clear rapidly now that his body has healed. Another couple of days...." She spread both hands, fingers wide. "Even the cobwebs will be gone by then."
"Past few months?" How long had he been unconscious? A glint caught his attention -- the light catching in the gemstones and sending up a brief prism of color. So civilized, he thought, abhorrence welling in his heart. But I'm not fooled. I remember what you did to String. I was the one who had to pick up what was left of him. You and Zarkov. Disgusted, he transferred his attention to the man's face, the smooth handsomeness of the pale skin, the perfect cut to the fair hair. "How many months?"
Horn abandoned his cufflink to pluck a thread off his tan jacket, each movement designed to convey superiority. "It's been thirteen weeks since your ... death."
"Thirteen.... Three months?" Dom's mind reeled with the information. Three months out of his life. Three months since String was.... "It's June?"
"Early July," the industrialist supplied helpfully. "And the time is...." He glanced at the platinum watch on his wrist. "My goodness. Four o'clock in the morning. Time passes when enjoying oneself, eh?"
All this was too much for Santini to absorb at once. He barely heard Horn beckon Zarkov to the far side of the room. They spoke quietly for several seconds, him authoritative, her protesting something. Finally, Dom saw her sigh and nod. What were they up to? Whatever it was, he knew, it wasn't going to benefit him at all.
Zarkov returned to the cot, taking up a stand at its foot where she could see Santini's face. Horn gestured through the open door, precipitating a scuffling and the sound of more footsteps. Three figures appeared then, one of whom drew Dom's breath away in a gasp. "String!"
Stringfellow Hawke stood -- drooped might be the more appropriate term -- between two guards, who supported him by twisting his arms behind his back. Pale and bruised and barely conscious, he made a valiant attempt at walking, but from the way he sagged it was obvious that their hold was the only thing keeping him on his feet. At Santini's astonished call he lifted his head slowly, dulled blue eyes gazing in his general direction.
Santini regarded him in mute shock for several seconds, then slowly forced himself to sit, pure reflex securing the sheet around his waist. "String, boy," he said, recovering his voice and a fraction of wits at roughly the same time. "You're alive! Are you all right?"
Slowly, ever so slowly, Hawke blinked, seeming to focus only with difficulty. "D-Dom?" he croaked, a single spark lighting those horribly blank eyes.
"Yeah, kid." Santini licked his lips, body and mind both numb. "It's me. How are you feeling?"
"Yes, my boy," Horn asked from his post to the side. A thin smile lifted one side of his mouth. "Why don't you tell us how you're feeling. Tell ... Dominic."
The response was hardly the one Santini expected. That single spark flared, blazing in Hawke's eyes like laser light. His bruised face twisted, lips drawn back in a fierce snarl. "Liar!" he screamed, lunging so suddenly at Santini that he nearly slipped the restraining hold of the two guards. He twisted, the deceptive might in his slim body straining his brawnier captors to their utmost. "I'll kill you!"
Shocked all over again, Dom stared, finding only hatred in the boy's returning stare. "String, don't you know me?" he asked the fighting, growling pilot. Forcing himself out of his numb horror, he transferred his look to the smugly smiling Horn, the renewed hatred in his own heart restoring his equilibrium like a dash of cold water. "What did you do to him?" he demanded. "Or was it you?" he asked the coolly watching Zarkov.
She ignored him as if he hadn't spoken at all, all traces of the maternal warmth she used to such effect replaced by a clinical detachment. "I told you it would work this time," she told Horn. "Apparently even showing him Santini won't break the conditioning if Hawke doesn't believe he's real." She cocked her head, pressing a forefinger against her lips. "Who could have foreseen that he'd accept the word of Coldsmith-Briggs so thoroughly that we couldn't even dislodge the notion with my control techniques. It really was an excellent idea, you know. Had we not been able to turn the paranoia he's been using against us to our advantage, he might have succeeded in beating us. However, this test was truly unnecessary."
Coldsmith-Briggs? Dom acknowledged wildly. Michael is here? But ... I thought he was in Hong Kong! He glanced back at String wonderingly. The longish brown hair had fallen forward across the fine boned face, shading the young pilot's eyes. From beneath this fringe his eyes burned on the far side of madness.
"Perhaps, my dear," Horn was replying. "But I did want to know."
"You did want to enjoy the spectacle," Zarkov retorted tartly. She gestured to the guards, ignoring Dom's vehement protest. "Take him to an isolation cell -- away from Archangel. We'll be sending him out with Morris shortly."
The guards swung the struggling form around, stopping suddenly. Dom craned his neck until he could see that the blockage was a slender form, as blond as Horn, and wearing a blue silk robe thrown over some kind of negligée. The girl was beautiful -- would be beautiful, Santini corrected, had she been able to erase the look of sick horror that twisted her delicate features into a grotesque mask.
"Stringfellow." Dom had to strain his damaged hearing to hear her low words. "I ... I didn't know you.... I was looking for my father...." Santini couldn't see Hawke's face, but the girl trailed off at his expression.
"Whore," Hawke spat, his voice laden with such deadly venom that the person Dom recognized as Angelica Horn took an involuntary step backward.
Horn caught her when she stumbled, sliding a supporting arm around her waist and studying her worriedly. "It won't work this time, my dear," he said in her ear. "Right now he hates your pretty face as much as he does mine."
Recoiling as if from a snake, Angelica jerked free from her father's hold, spinning to face him with a look of pure loathing. "We're becoming monsters. Monsters! Human beings wouldn't treat each other this way."
Horn held his arm out to her another moment, then let it slowly drop to his side, and Dom could see a shade of doubt cross his handsome features. "Not monsters, my dear, masters who know how to get what we want."
"Yeah, at the expense of a good man who's suffered too much already," Dom volleyed, feeling some bleak thread of satisfaction when the girl's fingers flew to her cheeks. "By tearing up String's mind -- tearing apart my family...."
"Family," Angelica echoed as though from a distance.
"He's my son in every way that counts." Dom spoke the words from his own heart to the girl's, hoping against hope that they would touch an ally rather than another enemy. "I raised him as my own. I love him as my own."
Angelica went if possible even paler than she was. She offered Dom a single look so full of regret that Dom felt himself take hope. An ally for certain. "I'm sorry," she murmured, turquoise eyes filling. With a helpless glance at her father, she turned and fled, robe swirling as she ran.
Horn watched her leave with an enigmatic expression, then again gestured to the guards. They dragged Hawke out of the room, followed by Dr. Zarkov, who spared him a backward glance. "Get some rest," she advised easily. "I'll check on you later."
"We both will," Horn promised over his shoulder, following her out. "I'll have some clothes sent in for you, Mr. Santini."
The door clicked shut leaving Dominic Santini more confused than ever before. On the one hand, the joy at seeing his foster son still alive overshadowed and temporarily crowded out the despair he felt at his own crippled condition. He'd've gladly offered both legs if it would have helped String. Then there was the fear -- fear for what they'd done to the boy, what they were going to do to himself. Even fear for Michael Coldsmith-Briggs -- Archangel. Santini had never considered him a friend -- had even resented the fledgling trust that Hawke was developing in the man. But that he'd acted as a friend to them both in the past was undeniable.
"Hang on, kid," he told the absent Stringfellow Hawke, only peripherally aware that death had ceased to be an acceptable alternative to existence. "I'll get you out of this somehow." Yeah, somehow. But what could one crippled old man do against the army of one of the richest men on the planet?
***
"Tell String I'll only be gone a couple'a hours."
"Sure, Uncle Dom."
Jo's soprano rang in his ears still as he began the start-up sequence. With the ease of many years' experience he flash scanned the instrument panel -- everything was green on his gauges and lights. He positioned both hands and feet on the controls, waiting impatiently for the rotor to reach take-off rpm. The engine temperature was almost at optimum, where he liked it. Just another few degrees....
What the...? That was String heading toward him at a dead run. What was that he was yelling? Talk about--?
He never heard the explosion. First the fireball was around him then it was under him, crystal blue sky in all other directions. For the briefest instant he thought he saw String's body being tumbled along the tarmac like a rag doll in a high wind, then he saw nothing at all.
*
"String--!" With a start Dominic Santini opened his eyes, jerking upright then flopping weakly back when his limbs refused to participate to keep him there. He'd been asleep for a long time now, and he'd dreamed almost constantly, most of them taking the form of old memories both good and bad. But they were comfortable memories, and lately he'd preferred them to the nightmare wakefulness brought at irregular intervals.
A tiny hand on his shoulder and soft feminine voice urged him to remain where he was, and he complied more out of necessity than cooperation. He blinked several times, finally focusing on the pretty oriental girl staring down at him. A face he'd seen several times in his uncertain ... recent? ... past.
"Stay where you are," the girl admonished again, her slender fingers wrapping around his wrist. "I will go find the doctor in a moment."
Her pink lips moved silently in a count and Dom lay obediently quiet, allowing his memory to sift back. It was a slow process as it always was the first few minutes of consciousness, beginning with a searing pain stabbing deep into his heart. String, boy.... Santini wet lips that were cracked and dry, his voice grating as though from long disuse. "H-how long this time?" he asked wearily, having to forcibly banish the dark horror that threatened to wash him back into the obsidian nothingness he'd just quitted.
The girl ignored that. She always ignored his questions, as though his blood pressure and pulse were the only important things to her. They were all like that -- the therapists, such as they were, the impersonal technicians who'd swarmed over him the first couple of times they'd let him wake up, the physicians. The only one who ever spoke to him was that Russky woman, and she wasn't the most helpful of informants. And there'd been a man in a suit.... He frowned, wishing that face would focus in for him; he felt it was one he would recognize if only he could have had a clear view, but the man had appeared only a few times in the beginning to laugh scornfully at him, then had not returned.
The oriental girl said something, breaking his muddled train of thought, but the words were indistinct, as though she was speaking in a tunnel. "Huh?"
"I said, wait," she repeated louder, this time in his left ear. Oh.
She released his wrist and pulled a sheet up over his shoulders. Her heels clicked on the floor as she left, leaving Dom to stare up at the fluorescent light bulb that stretched half the length of the room. He tilted his right ear upward, striving to hear the buzz of the bulb; nothing. He turned his head, his left ear immediately perceiving the sound he sought. From the blast concussion, probably, he analyzed, trying for the umpteenth time to make sense of his situation. Where was he? He glanced around cautiously, unsurprised to find himself in what resembled a modern hospital ward, for they were the same surroundings that had greeted him every time he'd been dragged from what that Russian doctor had called induced coma. Was it a hospital then? Or was he a prisoner, as his instincts screamed at him?
He took a deep breath and braced himself to take stock of his body ... or what was left of it. Cautiously he raised his arms, letting the sheet fall away. It was still a shock to stare at his right hand -- missing the small and ring fingers clean and part of the third, the rest scarred and gouged by burns and missing flesh. He clenched it, pleased to see the remaining fingers curl into a loose fist. At least he still had use of the thing; a little therapy should return full mobility, the doctor had said.
His left arm was next, relatively uninjured save for the pink lines of scar tissue that dotted it from wrist to shoulder. Using this method he slowly worked his way down his body. The effort involved in lifting his head was horrendous but the relief at finding himself relatively intact worth every the effort. Until.....
"Holy--" he whispered, reaching the end of his scan. He'd known, of course -- they'd told him the first time he'd awakened that his right leg had been mangled by the explosion, his right foot ... gone. They'd told him about the broken bones, too -- an even dozen of them -- as if the agony he'd been in hadn't been enough to tip him off. There was no pain at all now except for a deep ache that started in his skull and radiated through every inch of his body. The woman doctor had broken it all to him gently ... for a Russky. But still it was a shock each and every time he was confronted with the visual.
"I'm a cripple," he croaked, laying his head back on the pillowless cot. "A useless, old cripple." Despair rose to choke him, like acrid bile. He'd never fly again like this, not in Airwolf, not in his own craft, maybe never even walk. "Why did they save me?" he asked, directing the question to a nearby equipment tray. "I'd've been better off dead than like this."
Moisture wet his cheeks and he reached up to wipe it away, feeling the ridges of scar tissue starting on his neck and extending up onto his cheek; his eyes were untouched, blessedly, mercifully, for if he'd ended up blind also, he would most certainly have gone mad. Next he probed his abdomen, his ribs easily felt through the loose skin and untoned muscle that now covered them. He was thin, must've lost fifty pounds. "Glad my old Italian mamma can't see me," he muttered with a weak, semi-hysterical chuckle. "She tried for years to fatten me up. If she'd ever gotten a'hold of String...."
That stopped him cold, that portion of his memory slamming into his conscious like a locomotive through a barrier. String's body being tumbled along the tarmac like a rag doll in a high wind. The explosion would have killed him, rose unbidden. Had to have killed him. He was close enough to have been caught in the main blast. The pain returned, far worse than the loss of his foot was the loss of the boy he'd raised as his own. All gone now, he thought despairingly. Awww, String. First I lost Sally Anne, then Saint John. Now you. I'm sorry, son. I tried to protect you kids the best I could -- most of the time from yourself. Looks like I didn't do a good enough job at it. Hope you and Saint John are at least together. Wouldn't be fair if you were separated even now. Maybe ... maybe I'll be joining you soon?
"Yeah, maybe," he repeated out loud just as the door opened to admit another familiar figure to the room. She was of medium-height and well built, neither voluptuous nor skinny from what Santini could see through the lab coat. Her short, dark brown hair framed a long face and bright brown eyes, and her smile -- she smiled often -- was an exciting cross between gentle maternalism and a sensual caress. "What's up, Doc?" he greeted her with sour humor.
She picked up a chart from a nearby counter, offering him that beautiful, warm smile. "You are, obviously. How are you feeling?"
He shrugged. "I been better."
"And you have been worse," she reminded him, crossing to stand by his cot. She scanned the chart, biting her full lower lip in thought. "From what I can see here, you are doing quite well. The bones have all healed completely and the burned skin has regenerated with a minimum of scarring."
"Ha!" He lifted his arm, turning it so that the ugly pink tissue caught the light. "What do you call this?"
She grasped his hand, forcing it back down to his chest, then patting it soothingly. "I said a minimum, Mr. Santini. With so much of your body burned, some scarring was inevitable. Nothing compared to what you could have had, trust me."
"Why should I?" he demanded, studying her in turn, searching for a clue to her motives, any hint as to what she was up to. She looked tired, he noted, her hair lank, circles under her magnificent eyes as though from overwork or lack of sleep. "That would just make your job easier, wouldn't it?"
"My job?" she probed, dropping the chart on the equipment tray.
He nodded, face stone. "Did you think I didn't know who you are, Doctor Zarkov? Or that I'd forgotten what you did to String almost two years ago?"
Another smile lifted her lips, one of delight. "I didn't realize you had recognized me! How clever of you to keep it to yourself for so long."
"I never forget an enemy," he stated flatly.
The bed dipped to his left as Doctor Anastasia Zarkov seated herself at his side, her soft accent chiding him. "Who says I am your enemy?"
His gaze hardened. Did she think he was some rookie? "Lady, after what you put String through, you sure ain't no best friend of mine."
"He ... was upset?" she asked carefully, holding his steady gaze with a questing one of her own.
Dom felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. Upset? Oh, yeah, String had been upset, all right. A picture flashed through his thoughts, and he saw again Stringfellow Hawke's haunted gaze when Dom had forced out of him the full story of Zarkov's impostor. The empty bottle of brandy had stood as mute testimony to Hawke's having been unable to face the situation without help -- the type of help he rarely sought from a bottle and had refused to accept from Santini. The image was gone in an instant then Dom was again aware of the woman's piercing eyes boring into him. He felt like he was being studied through to the bones, an uncomfortable feeling at the best of times; he hoped he showed her nothing. "So how long am I out for this time?" he asked, abruptly and deliberately changing the subject.
She stared at him another moment, then pulled back. "Do you mean you did not like your accommodations until now?" she joshed easily.
Dom couldn't restrain the shudder that wracked him. "Accommodations? Is that what you call them?" Yeah, he liked them all right. The death-like cold seeping into his shattered bones, the choking feeling that came with confinement, the darkness closing in when they sealed him into a tube the size of a coffin. Not once only -- they'd awakened him several times to run tests and give him therapy before sealing him away again.
Ever the perceptive psychologist, Zarkov noticed his shudder and patted him again, an action that Dom was ashamed to admit gave comfort he so badly needed right then. "The Yakeyama chamber saved your life, dear Dominic. It was designed to protect burn victims from infection and to nourish the healing tissues. Without it you would be dead." Dom pressed his lips together barely aborting the statement that he would have infinitely preferred that fate. "I see you have a slight touch of claustrophobia," she went on, still studying him. "If you like, we can discuss this at another time."
"Got room on your couch?" he snapped back, attempting to dismiss the horror that filled him at the very thought of the tube. But still, he had to know, had to ask again. "How ... long before I have to go back in?"
She laughed, a merry sound in the cold chamber. "There is no need. The Yakeyama chamber has done its job and you are as well as it can make you." She tilted her head, scanning his sheet covered body. "A little therapy to restore your muscles, prosthetic for your leg...."
"My leg," he groaned involuntarily.
She took his mangled hand between both her own, chafing it with her thumb. "You can live an active, productive life once again. You are a strong man; I know you can adjust to this." He knew he was being duped -- knew this attractive woman to be the enemy she was. But despairing, alone and afraid, he nevertheless returned her clasp for all he was worth, absorbing her offered comfort even as he squeezed his eyes shut over new tears.
Productive. Productive for whom? My family is gone. My daughter, Alan and Carmella, Saint John.... Aw, String, losing you hurts most of all. I loved you like my own son, kid. At least ... at least you didn't have to go on alone, after all. That would have killed you anyway if only a little slower.
"It wasn't right to make me go on like this," he groaned, feeling his tenuous control slipping away. "There's no room for a useless old cripple in this world. You should have let me die."
Zarkov continued to chafe his hand, her melodious voice losing its maternalism and becoming throatier, almost seductive. "But you are useful, my dear Dominic -- useful to us."
That snapped his eyes open, white fury filling him from head to foot and temporarily chasing away the grief. "Against whom?" he demanded, releasing her hand and using it to wipe his eyes. "With String gone, there isn't anybody left who cares."
The sound of the door opening prevented the depression from crushing him under again. He turned his head, gawking at the sight of what was to him the equivalent of the devil himself walking into the room. "You," he snarled, feeling himself go cold.
"So, you do recognize me." John Bradford Horn smiled urbanely, minutely adjusting one diamond cufflink. "I've seen you several times in the past few months; you never recognized me before." He cocked a brow at Zarkov, who rose to her feet.
"He's never been aware enough to do so," she said, answering the unspoken question. "His mind should clear rapidly now that his body has healed. Another couple of days...." She spread both hands, fingers wide. "Even the cobwebs will be gone by then."
"Past few months?" How long had he been unconscious? A glint caught his attention -- the light catching in the gemstones and sending up a brief prism of color. So civilized, he thought, abhorrence welling in his heart. But I'm not fooled. I remember what you did to String. I was the one who had to pick up what was left of him. You and Zarkov. Disgusted, he transferred his attention to the man's face, the smooth handsomeness of the pale skin, the perfect cut to the fair hair. "How many months?"
Horn abandoned his cufflink to pluck a thread off his tan jacket, each movement designed to convey superiority. "It's been thirteen weeks since your ... death."
"Thirteen.... Three months?" Dom's mind reeled with the information. Three months out of his life. Three months since String was.... "It's June?"
"Early July," the industrialist supplied helpfully. "And the time is...." He glanced at the platinum watch on his wrist. "My goodness. Four o'clock in the morning. Time passes when enjoying oneself, eh?"
All this was too much for Santini to absorb at once. He barely heard Horn beckon Zarkov to the far side of the room. They spoke quietly for several seconds, him authoritative, her protesting something. Finally, Dom saw her sigh and nod. What were they up to? Whatever it was, he knew, it wasn't going to benefit him at all.
Zarkov returned to the cot, taking up a stand at its foot where she could see Santini's face. Horn gestured through the open door, precipitating a scuffling and the sound of more footsteps. Three figures appeared then, one of whom drew Dom's breath away in a gasp. "String!"
Stringfellow Hawke stood -- drooped might be the more appropriate term -- between two guards, who supported him by twisting his arms behind his back. Pale and bruised and barely conscious, he made a valiant attempt at walking, but from the way he sagged it was obvious that their hold was the only thing keeping him on his feet. At Santini's astonished call he lifted his head slowly, dulled blue eyes gazing in his general direction.
Santini regarded him in mute shock for several seconds, then slowly forced himself to sit, pure reflex securing the sheet around his waist. "String, boy," he said, recovering his voice and a fraction of wits at roughly the same time. "You're alive! Are you all right?"
Slowly, ever so slowly, Hawke blinked, seeming to focus only with difficulty. "D-Dom?" he croaked, a single spark lighting those horribly blank eyes.
"Yeah, kid." Santini licked his lips, body and mind both numb. "It's me. How are you feeling?"
"Yes, my boy," Horn asked from his post to the side. A thin smile lifted one side of his mouth. "Why don't you tell us how you're feeling. Tell ... Dominic."
The response was hardly the one Santini expected. That single spark flared, blazing in Hawke's eyes like laser light. His bruised face twisted, lips drawn back in a fierce snarl. "Liar!" he screamed, lunging so suddenly at Santini that he nearly slipped the restraining hold of the two guards. He twisted, the deceptive might in his slim body straining his brawnier captors to their utmost. "I'll kill you!"
Shocked all over again, Dom stared, finding only hatred in the boy's returning stare. "String, don't you know me?" he asked the fighting, growling pilot. Forcing himself out of his numb horror, he transferred his look to the smugly smiling Horn, the renewed hatred in his own heart restoring his equilibrium like a dash of cold water. "What did you do to him?" he demanded. "Or was it you?" he asked the coolly watching Zarkov.
She ignored him as if he hadn't spoken at all, all traces of the maternal warmth she used to such effect replaced by a clinical detachment. "I told you it would work this time," she told Horn. "Apparently even showing him Santini won't break the conditioning if Hawke doesn't believe he's real." She cocked her head, pressing a forefinger against her lips. "Who could have foreseen that he'd accept the word of Coldsmith-Briggs so thoroughly that we couldn't even dislodge the notion with my control techniques. It really was an excellent idea, you know. Had we not been able to turn the paranoia he's been using against us to our advantage, he might have succeeded in beating us. However, this test was truly unnecessary."
Coldsmith-Briggs? Dom acknowledged wildly. Michael is here? But ... I thought he was in Hong Kong! He glanced back at String wonderingly. The longish brown hair had fallen forward across the fine boned face, shading the young pilot's eyes. From beneath this fringe his eyes burned on the far side of madness.
"Perhaps, my dear," Horn was replying. "But I did want to know."
"You did want to enjoy the spectacle," Zarkov retorted tartly. She gestured to the guards, ignoring Dom's vehement protest. "Take him to an isolation cell -- away from Archangel. We'll be sending him out with Morris shortly."
The guards swung the struggling form around, stopping suddenly. Dom craned his neck until he could see that the blockage was a slender form, as blond as Horn, and wearing a blue silk robe thrown over some kind of negligée. The girl was beautiful -- would be beautiful, Santini corrected, had she been able to erase the look of sick horror that twisted her delicate features into a grotesque mask.
"Stringfellow." Dom had to strain his damaged hearing to hear her low words. "I ... I didn't know you.... I was looking for my father...." Santini couldn't see Hawke's face, but the girl trailed off at his expression.
"Whore," Hawke spat, his voice laden with such deadly venom that the person Dom recognized as Angelica Horn took an involuntary step backward.
Horn caught her when she stumbled, sliding a supporting arm around her waist and studying her worriedly. "It won't work this time, my dear," he said in her ear. "Right now he hates your pretty face as much as he does mine."
Recoiling as if from a snake, Angelica jerked free from her father's hold, spinning to face him with a look of pure loathing. "We're becoming monsters. Monsters! Human beings wouldn't treat each other this way."
Horn held his arm out to her another moment, then let it slowly drop to his side, and Dom could see a shade of doubt cross his handsome features. "Not monsters, my dear, masters who know how to get what we want."
"Yeah, at the expense of a good man who's suffered too much already," Dom volleyed, feeling some bleak thread of satisfaction when the girl's fingers flew to her cheeks. "By tearing up String's mind -- tearing apart my family...."
"Family," Angelica echoed as though from a distance.
"He's my son in every way that counts." Dom spoke the words from his own heart to the girl's, hoping against hope that they would touch an ally rather than another enemy. "I raised him as my own. I love him as my own."
Angelica went if possible even paler than she was. She offered Dom a single look so full of regret that Dom felt himself take hope. An ally for certain. "I'm sorry," she murmured, turquoise eyes filling. With a helpless glance at her father, she turned and fled, robe swirling as she ran.
Horn watched her leave with an enigmatic expression, then again gestured to the guards. They dragged Hawke out of the room, followed by Dr. Zarkov, who spared him a backward glance. "Get some rest," she advised easily. "I'll check on you later."
"We both will," Horn promised over his shoulder, following her out. "I'll have some clothes sent in for you, Mr. Santini."
The door clicked shut leaving Dominic Santini more confused than ever before. On the one hand, the joy at seeing his foster son still alive overshadowed and temporarily crowded out the despair he felt at his own crippled condition. He'd've gladly offered both legs if it would have helped String. Then there was the fear -- fear for what they'd done to the boy, what they were going to do to himself. Even fear for Michael Coldsmith-Briggs -- Archangel. Santini had never considered him a friend -- had even resented the fledgling trust that Hawke was developing in the man. But that he'd acted as a friend to them both in the past was undeniable.
"Hang on, kid," he told the absent Stringfellow Hawke, only peripherally aware that death had ceased to be an acceptable alternative to existence. "I'll get you out of this somehow." Yeah, somehow. But what could one crippled old man do against the army of one of the richest men on the planet?
***