= = =CHAPTER 5 = = =

SEATTLE – METRO MEDICAL

MAY 5, 2020

10:45 PM

"Damn-" Dr. Alan Richards, a young man built like a pro athlete, brown hair and green eyes exclaimed at Max's X-ray that a technician had just handed to him. "Her tibia's only hanging by a few bony fragments. With that kind of impact I'm surprised it didn't tear clean off and rip out of her skin."

"Sometimes you get lucky Al." The intern-Sam Marks- stated from his standing position beside the gurney that Max was lying on.

Max's blue sweater had been cut open in the ER examination and the flaps of material now hung on either side of her chest like the skin of a vivisected frog in a high school biology class. Her black bra was visible through the torn fabric. The nurses in the ER saw no need to cut it off because the bruising on her body didn't extend that high up and they wanted to leave her with some dignity in the middle of scrods of men looking at her.

Sam tried his best not to let his eyes wander to the melon shaped flesh of Max's two large breasts, reminding himself of ethics, protocol, his mother in a string thong. But nothing worked and soon he found his eyes settling on the flesh of the areola, which surrounded the tip of her nipple that had been moved out during the fast paced examination. "Man what I wouldn't give to T.U.B.E. her."

"A T.U.B.E. Sam?" Dr. Richards was not amused at the Interns suggestion.

"Yeah you know Al, Totally Unnecessary Breast Exam-"

"I know what the hell it is!" Richards spat back. He set down the X-Ray he had holding down on top of an opened suture kit resting on a metal tool tray. He walked over to a linen closet and opened its doors and grabbed a clean sheet down from the wooden shelf, unfolding its blue cotton length.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked.

"You may find pleasure in her hanging out like this but I don't." Richards notified, draping the sheet over Max's body effectively concealing her breasts from view.

"C'mon Alan I just wanted to have a little fun, I mean the girl's stacked like the Library of Congress."

"Show some respect Sam," Richards growled trying very hard not to punch the booty-chasing intern in the face. Two weeks ago he had caught Sam in a supply closet with a volunteer worker. The man had sex on his brain every minute of every day. "The woman got sideswiped by a damn wasted punk. She might have a husband who doesn't even know she's been in a bad accident."

"I set the breaks in her left pinky Dr. Richards; she has no wedding ring on her hand." Sam responded. For some reason he believed that this was now the appropriate time to address Alan Richards with his professional credentials.

"Oh I see so that gives you the go ahead to start fantasizing about feeling her up?" Richards hissed. It wasn't a question, more like a pissed off disgusted observation. "Look Sam, I picked you as my intern because you're a good doctor. But your bedside manner sucks and if you want to work with women you need to stop thinking of them as walking boff jobs."

"Okay, okay-" Sam held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "I'm sorry I was just having a little-"

"If you say you were just having a little fun again I'm going to come over there and punch you." Dr. Richards warned, cutting off Sam's pathetic version of an excuse. "One of the surgical nurses will be down in a minute to take her to the OR so just sit on the stool with your ass on your hands until they arrive."

"I was just joking," Sam reminded for the twelfth time in five minutes.

Dr. Richards shot him a death glare. "I don't think it was very funny-" He pointed at Max's still form with a single finger. "-and when she wakes up I know she won't either." He turned and walked out of the exam room leaving Sam alone with Max.

XXXXXX

Lydecker carried his black attaché case out to the waiting black military issued Ford SUV. The vehicle sat in the dirty gravel outside of an abandoned fish-canning warehouse that had been transformed into the Manticore Seattle Base of Operations.

"Sir!" Agent Sondaval's voice halted Deck's hand on the latch of the SUV. He ran up to him – his black trench coat flapping behind him from his quick pace.

Lydecker turned, removing his hand from the SUV. "What is it?"

"We've intersected a call made from a detective at the Seattle PD to Metro Hospital. He asked the charge nurse on duty about any young women who have been admitted in the last four hours. She knew of one that was recent."

"Do we have conformation that it was X5-452?" Deck asked.

"The nurse told the detective of a barcode tattoo on the back of the girl's neck and the detective sounded like it struck a match with his inquiry."

"Get the Alpha team ready to set up on the hospital," Deck ordered.

"Yes Sir," Sondaval responded before turning and heading inside the building to alert the Attack Team of their objective.

Lydecker climbed into the cabin of the SUV and cranked on the engine that barely made a sound because of the extreme measures that had been taken to ensure that the motor remained as silent as possible to mask the sounds of its arrival anywhere. Keeping an eye on the road he placed the black walkie-talkie to his mouth and pressed the gray call button set into the side.

"I want the name of the Seattle Detective who cold-called Metro Hospital asking about 452's whereabouts and I want it in the next five minutes."

"Yes Sir," came a staticy reply.

Deck set the radio down on the vacant bit of space on the seat beside him and rove the SUV over the hilly gravel that lead back into the city.

A thick line of Evergreen pine trees covered the land in front of the fish cannery's dirt clearing. The thirty-year-old trees were among the only things to survive the gas line rioters in 2013. Men who had been laid off by the Seattle Gas Company because of the Pulse had trip lined the entire wooded area with propane gas bombs to avoid police arrest for refusal to leave their jobs. Three acres burned that day but the ever-present rain had soaked through the bark of the older trees, effectively forming a natural shield against the flames. It was because of this that the trees miraculously remained almost completely untouched by the blaze. The land had healed over the next eight years and the only remnants of the fire that remained were the tiny flesh colored flecks of the inner pulp of several tree trunks where the orange flames burned off some of the bark before the water smoldered out their attempt.

It was behind one of these trees- a particularly winding giant with more burned knotholes on its trunk then the others – that the silhouette of a lone figure partially emerged from behind the cover that the tree had provided. The individual was a man, young, blonde, dressed in a leather jacket, ivy green shirt and faded jeans. Zack watched Lydecker's departing SUV, waiting until it completely disappeared from view before venturing out fully from his camouflage. Across from him – less then twenty yards away in the cannery's clearing – Agent Sondaval led a group of heavily armed Attack Team members into a waiting black Ford SUV – the same model as the one Lydecker had just driven off in.

"All units reconvene at the ambulance bay of Metro!" Sondaval barked out orders to the team leaders though his tone lacked the authorative command that Lydecker possessed. He was a little boy telling am elite group of trained soldiers what to do. "But nobody goes in until word is received from base command understand?"

"Yes Sir," the Attack Team leader responded moving around Sondaval to load his unit into a waiting black SUV. "Move it out!" The leader ordered to his men waving them inside the SUV's open door.

The vehicles all roared to life at almost the same time in the darkness and headed down the wet dirt road like a motorcade rally.

Zack abandoned his shelter of trees and hiked down the steep ravine –artificially created by a 20-foot high pile of fertilizer – to a pile of green tree frawns stacked in a jumbled heap beside a Hyssop Bush with wilting leaves. Zack pulled the large frawns from their resting spot and revealed a black Honda Shadow GS motorcycle hidden underneath. He threw the frawns a good ten feet away so they wouldn't get sucked into the bike's exhaust pipe and jumped on the dew damp leather saddle seat. The motor cranked powerfully and Zack raised the kickstand and took off through the trees, avoiding the main road so he wouldn't he spotted by Agent Sondaval.

XXXXXX

FOGLE TOWERS

The phone beside Logan's computer rang twice in two quick spurts before Logan got there to pick it up.

"Yeah?"

"Logan it's Matt," Detective Sung's voice came over the receiver as he sat on top of his small black desk in the middle of the police precinct. "I think I may have what you're looking for. At 10: 05 PM a Paramedic unit responded to a 911 call by a witness who saw a Hummer slam into a woman on a black sports motorcycle at the intersection of 8th and 22nd Ave."

Matt's information knocked the air out of Logan's lungs with the same brute force of a sledgehammer's blow. Logan fumbled behind him for his computer chair. "Are you sure it's her?"

Matt's nod could almost be heard over the phone. "Paramedics on board the rig described the woman's features as Hispanic, early twenties, pretty. And when the searched her they turned up a Sector Pass identifying her as Max Guevara." Matt paused because he knew it was a lot for Logan to take in. "They took her to Metro Medical."

"Was there any information on how bad the wreck was?" Logan was calm in his tone but inside he was shaken imagining Max being broadsided by a vehicle that easily outweighed her Ninja by 1500 pounds.

"Only one other witnesses testimony that placed the driver of the Hummer at the Seventeen-Red Club Bar an hour before the accident occurred."

"Are you saying that the guy who hit Max was drunk?" Logan screwed calm and went to rage.

"It's the scenario I gave you earlier Logan. The driver was around your girlfriend's age, nineteen most likely and was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a vehicle that really should only be operated by trained military personnel. The cops from my precinct that arrived on the scene say that the kid was babbling on and on how the light had been green on his side. But aside from being temporarily color blind the only other injury on him was a minor gash on his forehead from where he made contact with the windshield."

"I don't think I have time to hear anymore Matt," Logan interrupted. "I need to get down to Metro." Ten years of learned restraint from having to give Eyes Only broadcasts on military rapists and political murders was the only thing preventing Logan from tracking the kid down who had careened into Max and beating him to a bloody pulp.

"I understand," Matt informed from his end. Then his voice dropped down to the personal level of a friend. "I'm sure she'll be fine Logan. Any girl who can survive being side swiped by a two and a half ton truck is a fighter."

"Yeah-" was the first thing Logan could think of as a response. "Thanks Matt."

"Anytime." Sung replied. "I'm just sorry for the reasoning behind it."

Logan hung up the call after that, not wanting to bother going through the process of a formal telephone conversation good-bye. His brain was racked with nothing but thoughts on getting to Max so the basic task of standing up from his computer chair was now as complex to him as trying to solve a difficult cryptograph. Just when he was finally grasping the maneuver he had known how to do since he was three he heard the sounds of heavy foot falls on the hardwood floor directly outside his office. His hand slid quietly over to the handle of the drawer where he kept his black handgun. His fingers closed around the trigger, but before he could pull it out of the drawer a voice halted his actions.

"You might want to save bullets for a fight you can actually win." Max's brother Zack was leaning against the framed shoji screen walls like of the office casually, as if he were stopping by for a beer. Without waiting for a response Zack stepped inside Logan's office.

"As much as I'd love to get into a debate on knocking before you come into somebody's house I have more pressing matters to attend to." Logan stated in an edgy voice. He never liked Zack. He considered him tolerable in the same way people put up with mosquitoes because they knew they were stuck with them.

"I know you're talking about Max's accident," Zack stated watching Logan's gaze change to bewilderment as to how he knew that. "Manticore wasn't a playground; we actually learned useful skills like recon."

"Who were you set up on to find out that Max had been in a wreck that literally happened three and a half hours ago?" Logan asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Zack replied smugly taking a step closer to Logan. "Lydecker's got feelers everywhere waiting for one of us to be exposed. One of his lackeys was conversing at base camp and he was ordered to deploy an Attack Team Unit to bring her in from the hospital."

"Well we have to stop them before they get there," Logan notified. The threat to Max's safety had just gone to a higher state of alert now that he knew Lyecker was looking for her.

"Max wouldn't be in this shit if it wasn't for you," Zack growled. He liked Logan as much as Logan liked him. "She had plenty of chances to get out of Seattle but she stayed because of your sorry ass."

"Well right now my sorry ass is the only thing standing in between her and a military convoy back to Manticore. So I suggest you work with me before you loose another sister to Lydecker."

Zack was more then pissed at Logan's choice of words. "Don't sit there and tell me about who I lost to Manticore. There my responsibility to look out for, got that? I'll stop Maxie from being taken back there even if I have to die to do it."

"I think we finally can agree on something," Logan said. Max was a woman they both cared for extremely. Zack was an arrogant asshole around Max 95 percent of the time by Logan knew that Zack would risk his own life to save any of his brothers and sisters.

"I don't have time for this pussy shit Cale," Zack spat staring at Logan like he was reprimanding a three-year-old. "If you want to help get Maxie shut your mouth and get started." He snatched up Logan's gun from where it laid in an askew fashion on the computer desk, checking the clip for bullets. "You better be packing more then this." He clinked the gun back together in his fist and walked out with it.

Logan didn't follow immediately. He wasn't a trained dog that came at Zack's command. However, as much as he despised Zack and his cocky attitude he knew that he had to help him otherwise Max would be in a hell of a lot of trouble if Lydecker got to Metro first. If she was as bad off as he suspected her fighting skills would be amateurish for an X5 soldier. There's no way in hell I'm letting Lydecker take her back to Manticore. He grabbed his Aztec keys from his computer desk's middle drawer and finally trailed after Zack.