Disclaimer: I don't own JAG. Do you think I would post my stories here if I did??
A/N: Thank's again for the reviews. It's unbelievable that everyone seems to like the story. But please keep writing reviews!! I know this chapter is rather short, but I'm really busy at the moment.
Part four
The police had arrived at Harm's apartment just a few minutes after the ambulance left. The apartment was sealed off to preserve eventual evidence. Forensic technicians soon examined every inch of it minutely. Not much was found. The fingerprints belonged to either Harm, Bud or the ambulance people. It would take a day or two to analyze the hairs and fibers which were found at the scene. That would hopefully give better results. But there were hints that it wasn't an attempted suicide. The gun gave an important clue. Only Harm's fingerprints were found, but they were all weak. When a person commits suicide by shooting himself, the fingerprints one the gun usually are very clear, since a desperate man typically grips the handle of the gun very hard. But this wasn't the only clue. The slightly open door questioned that this was a suicide attempt. A man about to commit suicide doesn't leave the door open. If he has made the difficult decision that suicide is the only possible way, he wouldn't want to be saved last minute. So he would make sure to close the door, or lock it if possible. And then it was Harm's state of mind. There were no indications that he was suicidal, or depressed at all for that matter. He was the same person as always, healthy, both physically and psychically, with a good sense of quite goofy humor. You don't try to commit suicide just from one day to another, usually months of thinking and preparing lies behind.
It was Monday morning; the Admiral had to go to the office. He had to rearrange the work schedule. With Lt. Col. Mackenzie on leave until further notice and with a chance that Cmdr. Rabb never would be back, Commander Turner and Lieutenant Roberts would have a lot of work the next weeks. But there was too much work for them alone, so a substitute for Harm had to be hired in. Both Bud and Harriet had gotten the day off; it wouldn't be rational to make them come to work after a traumatic night at the hospital.
The atmosphere at JAG was not as it used to be. It was like everyone waited for Harm and Mac to arrive, but at the same time knew it wouldn't happen. The employees did the work they had to do, went through the cases that absolutely couldn't wait, but their minds were somewhere else.
At the hospital there were no changes. The anesthetics had worn off, but Harm wasn't conscious. He was in a coma. There were no signs that he would wake up in the near future.
Mac hadn't been lying down at all during the night; she had just been wandering restlessly around as in a trance. She desperately wanted to sit by Harm's side, holding his hand and being there for him. Doctors and nurses almost continuously rushed in and out of Harms room. There was almost constantly someone in his room, checking his vitals and looking after the machines. Why she wasn't allowed to sit by his side was a puzzle to her. She wouldn't be in the way in the case of an emergency. She was just afraid that Harm would die surrounded by strangers.
Bud's body was aching everywhere as he tried to stretch his limbs after a night alternating between walking back and forth an lying down on two chairs he had pulled together. The chairs hadn't been comfortable, oh God his back was killing him, and his feet had started to get sore because of his walking up and down the hallway. The shoes he wore were fairly new and not used enough to be comfy. But he tried not to think about the little pain and soreness he experienced. What Harm had to go through if he survived would be so much worse.
Harriet had joined them late Sunday evening; she was exhausted because of her travel and managed to sleep for an hour or two. But it wasn't a calm sleep. The same terrible dream about Harm in a pool of blood on the floor had haunted her over and over again. Bud had told her about the terrible minutes he had experienced so vividly that it had sneaked upon her in her dream, there with herself starring as the person who found Harm. And she found him over and over again, every time more blood-stained. She was relieved when she finally awoke, she didn't know if she could have handled to have the dream again. The little sleep she'd got didn't do much good; she was almost more exhausted now than before she fell asleep.
A detective together with a uniformed policeman came to question Bud about what he had seen in Harm's apartment.
"Besides your injured friend, did you see anything out of the ordinary in the apartment", the detective asked in an official tone.
"I was focused on helping Harm, eh Commander Rabb, so looking around in the apartment wasn't exactly my first priority," Bud tried to think. He would do everything to help finding the person who had tried to kill Harm. But he couldn't remember anything and felt useless. Then suddenly something came back to him. "It was really strange though, that he wore his dress whites. It was Sunday, and we were going to a football game", he remembered that he had been wondering about that a few seconds the moment he found Harm.
The detective questioned Bud for half an hour and then went on to Mac. Hen wanted to know a little more about Harm, his mental state, if he had enemies and other relevant information.
"Of cause he has enemies", Mac answered dejected when the question came up. "He is a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General corps, hundreds of people have probably ended up in jail because him. Many of them who can be characterized as completely unscrupulous, they would feel no remorse in killing him, or anyone else for that matter".
At the motel, the man had just paid for some extra days. He had to stay longer, make a new plan and finish what he came for. The article in the newspaper revealed which hospital Harm was admitted to, so he had to get more familiar with the place. It should be quite easy to take Harm out, if he really was in such a serious condition like the newspaper said. At first he would just keep himself updated on Harm's condition, and wait. He couldn't let him wake up, that would be the end of his life as a free man, but nothing would be better than if Harmon Rabb Jr., his hated enemy, died without more "help". Either way, that son of a bitch would not leave the hospital alive!