Chapter Six
A very familiar face surrounded by red hair was the first image that greeted Danny's eyes when he opened them again. Realizing who it was, a smile crossed McCoy's face and he reached up to caress the woman's face with his healthy left hand.
"Mary." he said quietly, looking into the woman's eyes.
"Hey sleepyhead." the redhead replied, smiling back at him. Her warm hands wrapping themselves around his left. "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Danny replied, noticing that he wasn't in so much pain anymore. Gently dropping his left hand, the tall, brown-haired man slowly sat up in bed and was surprised to see another visitor. "Nessa."
"Hi Danny." the black woman with a British accent greeted.
"How long have I been out?" McCoy inquired, looking back and forth between the two women. "Where's my dad?"
"About an hour." Nessa replied after glancing at her watch. She also decided to answer Danny's second question. "Your father left to get you some new street clothes."
"Street clothes?" a confused Danny repeated as the blonde nurse from before walked in, carrying what appeared to be Danny's dinner: chicken and rice as well as some other food. "Am I being released?"
"Yes." Mary replied as the nurse set the food down on the rolling, bedside table. The red-haired Connell neither sounded nor looked too happy about that fact. Danny assumed it was because, like his father, she too knew what Danny's intentions were after being released from the hospital.
"The doctor wanted to examine you one more time after dinner." the blonde nurse clarified, working on disconnecting Danny's IV. "But you'll be free to sign yourself out after that." After she put a bandage on the entry site, the nurse looked one last time at Danny as she headed out with the IV pole in tow. "Bon appetit."
"Thanks." an appreciative Danny said as the door closed behind the nurse. Famished, he picked up the container nearest to him, which looked to contain some sort of gelatin resting on a leaf of lettuce. McCoy stared long and hard at it, trying to decide whether or not he should actually consume it. "And I thought military rations were bad."
"Where do you think we are, Mom?" Delinda asked, finally sitting up after taking a few moments to wake up properly. The blonde-haired daughter of Ed Deline kept one hand safely in her mother's while rubbing her aching temple with the other.
"I don't know, sweetheart." an honest Jillian answered, looking around in the darkness at the small room surrounding them. She slowly shook her blonde-haired head. "But I don't like it."
Two things suddenly happened at once, startling the Deline women; the door to the room swung open just as someone on the outside turned on the room's previously unused, overhead lights. Both blonde women winced slightly as the light hit their eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness, but immediately kept their eyes open upon hearing footsteps. Two men had entered the room, carrying what appeared to be food and water respectively. The food bearer set down his tray before kneeling in front of the two women. Out of maternal instinct, Jillian hugged Delinda close.
"We can tell the boss that they both appear to be fine." the man called over his shoulder to his friend, who handed him the water. It was set next to the food. "They're a little shaken up, but that's to be expected."
"Who are you guys?" Jillian demanded, glancing back and forth between the two men. "What do you want?"
"The real question is how did someone like Ed Deline land a beauty like you." the man smiled, caressing Jillian's face with his hand. Forcibly, she threw the man's hand off of her before slapping him in the face. Putting a hand to his cheek, the man growled in anger. "You bitch. You'll pay for that!"
"Lay a hand on her, and what we did to McCoy will look like child's play!" the Professor's voice suddenly boomed as the man himself appeared in the doorway to the room. The gray and black haired man nodded outside, issuing his minions a silent yet firm order to leave.
"McCoy?" a curious Delinda repeated as the Professor's men did as they were told. The younger, blonde-haired woman looked up at the man who had just arrived. "What did you do to Danny?"
"Nothing he won't live through." the Professor replied, shaking his head slightly. "I daresay that your father probably had worse in mind after finding the pair of you in bed together."
"What do you want?" a curious Jillian demanded, glaring at the man standing above her. "Why are you doing this?"
"Well, that's the thing." the Professor smirked, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'm not actually the mastermind behind all of this." A laugh suddenly escaped him. "Oh, to see the look on Ed's face when he finds out who is."
"Damn." Jack Keller sighed, folding up his cell-phone. Getting up from the couch, he ran a hand through his dark hair in frustration and looked across the room at Ed. "My sources don't know anything yet about where Jillian and Delinda have been taken."
"Tracing the call to Danny's hospital room is out too." Mike announced, walking into the office. Pausing in front of his employer's desk, the bald, usually jovial man shook his head. "Police are already on it, and Luis is refusing to let us have access."
Both of these tidbits of information were acknowledged by a silent nod from Ed Deline, whose forehead was resting in his hand and whose blue eyes, while aimed at his desk, had a sad, far away look to them. It was obvious that neither his heart nor mind was there in that office, but was instead with Jillian and Delinda wherever they were.
Deline was broken out of this trance when the opaque glass door was heard sliding open. Having given his employees a strict order earlier not to bother him, an enraged Ed looked up, ready to bite someone's head off. Upon seeing who had entered, Deline cooled his anger just slightly and remained silent.
"What's going on?" a curious Danny wondered, sliding the door behind him closed with his healthy, left arm. Both Keller and Mike turned to look at him upon hearing the tall, ex-Marine's voice.
"Well," a chuckling Keller commented, looking up and down at Danny's injured body. "Looks like you definitely pissed off the wrong person, pretty boy."
"Jack?" a surprised Danny asked before looking past Keller to Ed. "What in the hell is he doing here?"
"Mike," a quiet Ed requested, breaking his silence. Leaning back in his chair, Deline folded his hands on his stomach. "Why don't you take Jack into the surveillance room? Show him some of the latest gizmos we've got here."
"But, Mr. D., we haven't gotten anything new since he was last here." a confused Mike pointed out.
"I'm sure that you're bound to have something that I'm interested in, Mikey." a smiling Keller remarked, knowing that Ed was just trying to get the two other men out of the office, so that he could speak with Danny alone.
"All right." Mike nodded as he and Keller headed for the door. "Someone should probably be keeping an eye on the floor anyway."
As the opaque glass door closed again behind the departing pair, the office was suddenly immersed in an awkward silence as Danny and Ed stared at each other, both thinking of what he wanted to say to the other.
"You want to tell me why in the hell you're here?" Ed asked, slowly standing up.
"I was released from the hospital." Danny replied, looking confidently back at the older man. "The docs said that I was in good enough shape to go home."
"I wasn't talking about that, but I'm happy to hear it." Ed said, walking over to just a few feet in front of McCoy. It wasn't that Deline didn't know that McCoy was there to make him change his mind about not taking the ex-Marine on this tentative rescue mission Ed was planning on, but he wanted to hear Danny say it himself. "I want to know why you came here to my office?"
"You know why I'm here, Ed." Danny replied, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Actually, I don't." Ed shook his head, "Because I thought that I made myself perfectly clear at the hospital." Unrelenting, he looked directly into Danny's eyes. "You're not going, Danny. You're more of a liability than an asset right now." He sighed, knowing that he was only inflicting more pain on Danny. "I'm sorry, kid, but my decision is final."
Nodding silently, Danny let Ed's words sink in for a brief moment. He had been thinking on the car ride over to the Montecito about what to do if Ed didn't relentand had come up with a plan B: If Ed wouldn't let him help, then Danny would just have to do this on his own. Sure, it would be harder without Ed's experience, but McCoy thought that, by using the skills he had learned in his Special Ops training, he could manage.
"Then, I guess that I should apologize for wasting both of our time." Danny said, looking at Ed with a meek smile. "Well, I should probably go back home and get some more rest."
"Or start working on this on your own." Ed sighed, wearily rubbing his forehead. Stunned, Danny's smile immediately disappeared. "You forgot that I know you like the back of my hand, kid."
"Then, you know what you need to do to stop me." Danny replied, stuffing his healthy hand into his pants pocket. A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Besides putting me in Intensive Care."
Remaining where he stood, Ed silently stared long and hard at Danny for a brief moment. McCoy could tell from one look in the older man's blue eyes that his mentor was trying to decide what to do with him. Suddenly, the older man sighed and headed for his nearby desk.
"Did you give your commanding officers this much trouble?" Ed casually inquired while unlocking a desk drawer that Danny had never seen him before.
"They didn't deserve it." a grinning Danny fired back as Ed reached into the drawer and pulled something out of it. Seeing that the item in question was a small handgun, the younger man's smile quickly changed into a nervous frown. "Okay, I take that back, and I was just kidding about the Intensive Care thing."
"How that's old line go?" Ed asked as he walked back over to Danny. "If I wanted to shoot you, you'd already be dead?" He offered the gun to McCoy, who reached for it with his healthy, left hand. "Other hand."
Finally understanding what Ed was doing, Danny nodded and slowly extended his casted right arm. The ex-CIA agent was making sure that Danny could still hold and aim a gun with his broken wrist. The ability would most likely be needed on the rescue operation, and if Danny couldn't do it, even he himself would have to admit that Ed was doing the right thing by leaving him behind. Although the white plaster near the base of his fingers made it harder than usual, McCoy was able to get a grip on the gun and aimed it directly at the window in front of him. He was anxious to see if he could squeeze the trigger.
"Break that window and it's coming out of your paycheck." Ed suddenly warned, folding his arms across his chest. Silently smiling, Danny lowered the gun and smiled at Ed. "Well, since you're not leaving me much of a choice, I guess I'm going to have to let you come along on this one."
"Thanks, Ed." an appreciative Danny replied, handing the gun back to his mentor. "So, do you have any idea where the Professor's taken Jillian and Delinda?"
"No." Ed sighed deeply as he locked the handgun back up in his desk. "Jack's contacts don't know anything, and Mike said that Luis is blocking us from having access to your former room and subsequently the telephone number, so we can't get a trace."
"I could probably get in there." Danny realized, rubbing the cast on his arm. "Shouldn't be too hard to fool the staff into thinking that I forgot something."
"Why don't you go do that?" Ed suggested with a nod. "Take Jack with you." Seeing Danny open his mouth to object, Ed immediately cut him off. "I'm not letting you go anywhere alone right now, kid. Got me?"
"Got it." Danny nodded reluctantly, heading towards the surveillance room.
To be continued...