Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter 10

Five Days, Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

Craig Donovan lay perfectly still, eyes closed, mentally focusing on the electronic 'ping' keeping pace with his heartbeat.

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

He felt the dull ache of his back, the raw sensation at the base of his skull, the pain at the back of his eyes. He opened his eyes and stared up at the white ceiling.

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

He realized he was almost completely naked under the hospital blanket, an IV hanging from his left arm. He glanced up at the clear fluid, and he watched the drips of whatever wonderful chemical was taking the pain away from the accident.

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

He blinked his eyes, his vision momentarily blurring, the view of the room clouding over. He watched as a shape rose and moved closer to the bed, nearer to him, and he saw the fuzzy light shining around the shape, filling in the aura with a faint haze.

"Craig?" Terrence Simon asked softly. "Are you awake?"

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

For a moment, the agent wished he could stay there, perfectly still, hypnotized by the sound of the heart monitor clicking off every pat of his chest. He knew he couldn't. A tremor rose in him, and he lifted his head quickly ... too quickly. The world suddenly slipped off its axis, and the room began to spin. As the colors of the room twirling in front of his eyes, Donovan felt a warm hand on his forearm.

"Craig, take it easy."

Weakly, he muttered, "Simon?"

"It's me, Craig."

The agent closed his eyes, trying to find some stability.

"Just take a few breaths, buddy. No sudden moves."

Donovan did as the man suggested. After several deep breaths, he felt as though the planet had found its axis again, and the colors began to focus into real shapes – a television hanging on the wall, a sliding closet door on a single track, the five-foot-nine-inch frame of NSA Field Director Terrence Simon.

... beep ... beep ... beep ...

"Turn that off," Donovan mumbled.

"Not just yet, buddy."

"Terry, it's getting on my nerves ... and I said turn it off."

"Nurse!" the man cried out as a woman in white entered the room. "Nurse, could we turn that off. It's keeping my agent awake."

"I can mute it, Mr. Simon," she assured him.

"Thank you."

... beep ... beep ... click.

"Thank you, nurse," Donovan said.

"You're very welcome," she replied.

"How are you feeling?"

With some effort, Donovan lifted his head and smiled at her. "I'm afraid I'll have to take a pass at the next marathon."

"That's understandable," she agreed, smiling. He felt her fingers on his wrist, and he trusted that she was measuring his vitals. She didn't trust the equipment, he guessed, and he had been told by many friends of his that that was the sign of a good nurse. Never put faith in the machinery. Put faith in what you can touch. That was as good a mantra as Donovan could imagine. "Do you know your name?"

"Craig Donovan," he answered.

"Do you know what year it is?"

These were common questions, he knew, for anyone suffering a head injury or major trauma. "The year is 2004," he said, "and I'm another year older, not another year wiser."

"Do you know who's President?"

"Yes, I do," Donovan stated flatly, "and I'm proud to say that I never voted for him."

"Craig," Simon warned.

"Actually, I never voted ... period," the agent corrected.

The nurse – a very attractive blonde with a red stethoscope – smiled down at him. "I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"Thank you."

"Thank you for waking up to see us."

"I had every intention."

"That's good to hear." The nurse glanced over at the director. "You can have a few minutes with Mr. Donovan now, but he needs his rest."

"I understand."

Briskly, she marched noiselessly from the room.

"I never understood how they could do that," Donovan observed.

"What's that?"

"Walk" he said, "without making a sound." He grimaced. "You'd think those shoes would at least squeak."

"Craig, where were you?"

Donovan took another deep breath. He blinked his eyes several times, clearing the cobwebs from his brain. He thought back to the last image in his mind, and, like a wildfire spreading out of control over a dry wooded countryside, everything came back to him. The hotel. The explosion. Marty.

"Marty?" he asked.

"What?"

"Detective Marty Guerrero," he spat through teeth clenched from the pain he felt in his back. "Where's Marty?"

Softly, Simon replied, "Marty's dead, Craig."

Oh, no.

Overwhelmed with a kind of grief he never anticipated, Donovan dropped his head back to the pillow. He ignored the sudden onset of stars and fireflies flickering at the borders of his vision, and he blocked out the shiver of flame that shot up his spine. Instead, he felt the cold churning of his stomach, and he knew he wanted to throw up, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't give his body the satisfaction of letting it out. He wouldn't refuse the pain, the suffering, the news of losing his friend. He ground his teeth together more tightly than before, and he closed his eyes, forcing hot breath through his nostrils. He wouldn't let the pain go away that easily. A man had died. It was his fault that a man had died. He should've been there. He should've been at the door instead of allowing Marty the chance to play the role of the hero. He should've refused the man's desire to involve himself so centrally in such a delicate matter? What had he been thinking? What had Donovan been thinking?

How could today have gone so horribly wrong?

"What happened?" Donovan finally mustered the courage to ask.

"I was hoping you could fill me in on the finer points," Simon replied gently. "What I know is that you were following up on a lead when you checked out of the office."

"DeMarco," the agent explained.

He bit down harder, and he heard the crunch of his teeth grinding together.

'DeMarco?' he thought to himself. 'Where are you, you sonuvabitch?'

"Richard DeMarco," the director said. "Yes. I know. I received your report, the one you filed before you left. From what I understand, he's on American soil. I don't quite understand why."

Donovan forced the cold anger back into his stomach when it tried to climb into his chest. "He took a plane from Paris, Simon, and he walked into our country like he was an ordinary citizen."

The director shuffled his feet where he stood. "Yes," he agreed. "I've made a few calls to the Pentagon on that matter. It doesn't make any sense. I understand that DeMarco wasn't exactly on any immediate hot lists, but we should've – at the very least – been alerted to his arrival in Washington." Easily, Simon approached the bed, and he placed one hand on the raised side guard. "What are you looking at him for? That arson job at Essential Storage?"

Slowly, Donovan nodded. "Guns, Simon. The bastard tried to burn up a bunch of guns."

"Yes," the man said. "I've a few calls over to the Pentagon on that, as well. It doesn't make any sense. It makes damn little sense, if you ask me, and I'm hoping that the real geek squad – those profilers – might be able to shed some light on what the man was thinking."

"He knew exactly what he was doing." Donovan opened his eyes, and the world had found its calm from the storm once more.

"Which was what?"

"Sending a message."

"To whom?"

"I don't know ... not exactly ... but I think it was to anyone who knew he was here."

"You mean ... to us?"

"Why not?" Donovan asked. "We're the ones most likely to be interested in whatever the man is either up to or anything he does while he's in our country. Why not send us a message that he can do this and get away with it?"

Simon winced. "But he wasn't getting away with it. You and Marty were going out to take him into custody."

"He boobytrapped his motel room, Simon," the agent continued. "He knew someone would come looking, and that would be his second message."

The director scratched his head. "I don't know, Craig. You had a terrible fall. That explosion threw you head over heels. You landed about fifteen feet from where you were standing. I'm not sure ... I'm not sure you're thinking clearly."

Barely above a whisper, Donovan said, "Efnisian."

"What's that?"

"Efnisian," he repeated.

"Yes," Simon said. "That's DeMarco's codename. If I remember your report, it's something from Celtic mythology ... isn't that right?"

The flood of facts washed over Donovan, and the anger gurgled deep inside him again. Biting down, he forced it into his gut – where it could fuel his desire for revenge against the man, the terrorist, the fanatic who took the life of his friend, a colleague, a decorated police detective – and he allowed himself to fill with hatred, with passion for what had to come next. But, through it all, he remembered the story of Efnisian, and he remembered what little he knew about the storage arson.

"That fire at the storage unit?" the agent said. "Marty told me there was a body found."

"Yes," his superior agreed. "Emile Luga. The police have several ongoing investigations into arms trafficking, and Luga was named in quite a few of them. What? Are you saying that those weapons ... those weapons were for DeMarco?"

Efnisian threw the Irish lords into the burning cauldron, Donovan remembered, and he even threw a blood relative.

"I keyed in a message requesting an identity search on Luga," the man explained. "What did you find?"

Simon glanced down at his hurt agent, and he grimaced at the man. He knew that the news was going to mean something to him, but he wasn't quite certain what significance it would pose in the grand scheme of things ... if there were such a thing.

"According to records we obtained from the State Department, it's pretty conclusive that Luga was one of DeMarco's only known relatives," Simon stated. "He was his nephew."

END of Chapter 10