Sam walked into the living room from the dining room area serving as a lab and stopped where Monahan was sitting on the couch. "White ash. The chip is white ash."
Monahan stared at Fujiyama. "Are you tellin' me the murder weapon was a bat used by Babe Ruth in 1918?"
Sam nodded. "That's about the size of it, lieutenant."
Monahan looked over at Brill. "Get on the horn. Let's see if Mr. Vandano has purchased a Babe Ruth bat sometime in the past ten years or so."
The sergeant made a face. "That could be a tough find, lieutenant."
"I didn't say it would be easy, Brill, but if we're gonna tie this piece of salami to the dead body, we gotta start somewhere. You have any luck with the identity of the victim?"
"Walter's working on it. He's got a short list for missing persons in the Las Vegas area for the past two and three years, all fitting the search parameters. He's now running down medical records to try and ascertain if any from the lists were treated for the problems Dr. Asten described."
Monahan smiled. "Good work, Brill. If you're concentrating on Vegas, try some of the auction houses in the area, there are several."
"You got it, lieutenant."
Monahan turned his gaze upon Danny then, who was moping in the chair nearby. "Hey, Danny, how about something to eat? I don't know about anybody else, but I'm starved..."
Tovo pursed his lips. "I was wondering when one of you was going to remember that I was here."
Sam smiled at him. "You need a sous chef, Danny?"
"You volunteering, Charlie Chan?"
"Hey, Charlie Chan was Chinese, Danny, I'm Japanese!"
"Bonsai!" Danny exclaimed. "Come on, I can use an extra pair of hands..."
Tovo and Fujiyama left the room as Brill picked up the phone to place a call. Monahan let out a slow sigh; he felt tired, and leaned his head back against the couch cushion, momentarily closing his eyes. Asten had been right; he wasn't recovered from losing the blood he had given to Quincy. And with the thought of the coroner fighting against a post-op infection, his mind filled with worry as he fell into a troubled sleep.
The three cars pulled off to the side of the road about a quarter mile away from the small white house, and silently waited. Rocky glanced at his watch: if the almanac had been right, night would fall in 24 minutes, and there would be no moon to illuminate the desert. It would take them about five minutes to walk up the road to the house and maybe ten minutes to subdue the unsuspecting men inside. While he knew they would have some handguns and ammo, they were certainly not prepared for the arsenal that Vandano's men were carrying with them. That, and gun for gun, the men were hopelessly outnumbered. If he played his cards right, the entire nasty episode could be behind him in less than an hour. He glanced over at Mickey, who was playing with his shoelace; it wouldn't be over soon enough.
The soft moans caused Asten to jolt awake. He leaned forward in his chair, and quickly lay a fresh compress over Quincy's brow. The fever was intensifying, and with it, Quincy's misery and Asten's concern. He shifted to the edge of the bed, pulled the covers down to Quincy's waist, and began to gently remove the dressing. Quincy groaned in pain as Asten examined the swollen area.
"Shhh, it's all right, Quincy," Asten said softly.
The doctor cleaned the area with surgical disinfectant and the coroner cried out, trying to shove Asten's hands away, but the director subdued his patient gently and finished cleaning the wound. Then he affixed a new dressing and picked up the washcloth sitting in the basin of cold water, wringing it out. He carefully wiped Quincy's chest and neck with it, trying to cool him down, then tossed it back into the bowl and covered his friend with the blanket. Asten glanced at his watch, and decided he could give his patient a little morphine to ease him. Bob filled a syringe and injected it into Quincy's IV. After a few minutes, the coroner's breathing calmed slightly, and his body relaxed a little.
But the similarity to the final days of his father's illness, gripped Bob hard in the gut, and he had to swallow down the emotion that had risen in his throat. Quincy had sensed it and called him on it earlier, and although he'd denied it, the coroner had been right. For as much as Asten pretended he was over the toll of taking care of his father in the last months of his life, and even for as much as he wanted to believe it, he was lying to himself. Quincy had been right: he had never forgiven himself for not being able to save his father from the pain and agony that were his at the end. It was the reason that Robert J. Asten could no longer bear to handle patients - not dead ones, and certainly not live ones. The inability to cope with human pain and suffering had driven Asten to administration and the relative safety of a desk. Occasionally he had to lend a hand in the lab, but seldom did he perform autopsies, and even more rarely did he attend to a live patient. Yet in the past week he had been thrown into the ring without a safety net: two autopsies and a fairly complicated surgery had been his lot, and Bob didn't know how much longer he'd be able to sit by Quincy's bedside before his hands began to shake and his nausea turned to vomiting.
He felt the warm hand caress his face, wiping away the tears that had streamed down his cheeks. "Bob," Quincy said weakly, "please don't torture yourself."
"I couldn't save him," Asten said softly, his voice shaking with sadness, "what if I can't save--"
But Asten cut himself off when he realized what he was about to say and to whom. The thick hand on his face continued to calmly caress his cheek.
"You've brought me this far, don't count me out yet." Quincy swallowed hard, his throat sore and dry from the infection that was raging through him. "You're a good doctor, Bob, and I'm counting on you."
"You didn't always think so on either account, Quincy."
The medical examiner's hand dropped from Asten's face to hold the man's hand tightly in his own. "That's not true. You just forgot what being a doctor is all about because you've been behind a desk for so long. When you lost your dad, you also lost a piece of yourself, and with it, your confidence." Quincy squeezed the hand in his hard. "But I haven't lost confidence in you. You'll see..."
The strain of the conversation caught up with him, and Quincy closed his eyes in exhaustion. And Dr. Robert J. Asten held tightly onto his friend's hand, and wept.
It was dusk when the helicopters took off from the roof of the Federal Building on Wilshire. It had taken far longer than Sequana had anticipated to break through the pilot's reserve, finally convincing him it was for the good of everyone that he tell them where Asten and Fujiyama had gone. Once he had described the route to them, the little ferret Larousse had expertly used the FBI computer system to search through housing records, discovering that Monahan had recently inherited a house just outside of Victorville. Damn the man for being so slow in transferring the title into his name; if it hadn't been for Larousse, they probably wouldn't have found them very quickly even with the pilot's description.
He looked at his watch: with any luck they'd be there shortly after nightfall. And Sequana couldn't wait to bust every last one of them for interring with a federal investigation. He knew his ass was in a sling with his superiors, but before he was recalled to Quantico, he was damned well going to have company in the take down. Donovan and his local bozos were going to pay for their interference, and for allowing Anthony Vandano to walk away free as a bird. He shook his head: he even wanted to take it out of Quincy's hide because the man failed to convince Vandano that he was Michael. He'd think of something to do to the medical examiner, to say nothing of his boss, technician and that restauranteur, Tovo. Each of them had been responsible for at least five points of his elevated blood pressure. And the clock was ticking...
Night had fallen, and Vandano's men were quietly making their way toward the house, its soft yellow light lending a silky glow to the desert floor. Rocky waited for all ten of them to get into position, and then he closed in behind one of the rental cars parked out front.
"Hey...youse in the house... I'm gonna give ya one chance and one only to come outta there with your hands up, and in exchange we'll make it real easy on youse."
Monahan started awake at the noise from outside, and both he and Brill grabbed their weapons, and turned out the lights as they moved toward the windows. They peered outside into the dark.
"See anything, Brill?"
"No lieutenant, it's just as pitch black from my window as it is from yours."
"Danny, Sam," Monahan whispered loudly, "turn out the lights in there and come out here, stay low to the ground." The two men crouched low and came toward Monahan. "Brill, give Danny a piece."
Brill handed Tovo a 9mm handgun and Danny stared at him. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"
"Unless I'm wrong," Monahan said, "we're gonna need all the firepower we can get very shortly. Sam," he said to Fujiyama, "go into the bedroom, turn out any lights that are on, make sure all the windows are closed and then get both Asten and Quincy out here."
"But lieutenant," Sam argued, "we can't move Quincy, it's too dangerous."
"Sam, I want everyone here in this room, on the floor, where I can protect you. Dangerous is going to be anywhere else in this house, no just do as I say, and close all the doors behind you."
Sam gulped hard but did as Monahan asked just as the first wave of bullets peppered through the windows of the house, smashing into objects in the living room. The two ex-cops and Tovo fired back, but couldn't see the targets in the dark.
"I'd love to see what it is I'm shootin' at," Danny said.
"Be judicious, we don't have that much ammo, and I'm bettin' that our friends out there have a helluva lot more. Shoot only when you have to, in order to keep them guessing."
"Lieutenant," Brill whispered to Monahan, "we're probably outnumbered all the way down the line."
"I know that," Monahan snapped, "just do like I tell you. We're buying time."
"For what?"
"For me to think of some way outta this mess, that's what."
Outside, Vandano's men fired a large barrage of bullets at the house, blowing out all of the windows, sending hot lead into the wood frame and stucco of the building. Monahan and Brill once again returned fire, but only with a limited spread.
"I don't got a good feeling here," Danny muttered.
"Just hang tight, Danny," Monahan said, "I need you to stay with me on this."
Asten jerked awake at the sound of gunfire and a second later, Sam was in the room, panic contorting his normally refined features.
"Dr. Asten! Vandano's men are outside, shooting at us!"
"I can hear that, Sam. Where's Monahan?"
"He, Brill and Danny are in the living room by the windows, shooting back at them. He wants us to check the windows, cut the lights and bring Quincy out into the other room."
"Is he nuts? We can't move Quincy!"
"I told him that, but he said he wants us all in the same room."
"It sounds like he's planning on a Vandano siege."
"Well, it is their party, I doubt they showed up without a lot of men and a lot of ammo."
"Good point. Let's take care of the windows, lights and doors in the back of the house first. Then we'll try and move Quincy."
The two men went through the bathroom, secured the window, then into the second bedroom, doing the same. They closed the doors and then headed toward the main room again. Sam picked up Asten's bag, and several blankets. Asten pulled the covers off Quincy, tucked the IV into the waistband of the coroner's pants, and gently shook the man awake.
"Quincy, I'm sorry, but I'm going to need your help."
He forced his eyes open through the fuzz that clouded his brain. "What's going on?"
"We've got company outside, Quince," Sam answered, "and they're not too friendly."
"I need to move you, Quincy," Asten explained, "and I need you to try and help me."
"Bob...I can't..."
"You've got to try, Quincy. I know it's going to hurt like hell, but there isn't any choice."
Asten put his arms around the coroner's upper body and hoisted him into a sitting position, causing Quincy to cry out in pain. He shoved the man's legs over the edge of the bed and then tried to pull him up, but Quincy had no strength for it, and holding his abdomen, screamed in agony. And the sound of the man's misery caused Asten to freeze.
"Dr. Asten?" Sam's gentle voice questioned. "Dr. Asten, what is it?"
Asten forced himself to breathe again, and shook his head. "Nothing..."
With no choices available, he bent down and flung Quincy over his shoulder, the coroner groaning in torment with the move. The two men quickly moved out to the living room, Sam closing the final door behind them. As gently as he could, Asten laid Quincy down on the floor, and Sam covered him with the blankets. Bob pulled a pillow from the couch and put it under the coroner's head, although he doubted Quincy could feel anything but the pain in his belly. The medical examiner's tense cries struck Asten in the heart as surely as any weapon could have, and he took Quincy's hand in his.
Monahan's voice raised above the sound of gunfire. "Sam! Push the desk in front of the door leading to the back of the house. I don't want any company in here without ample warning!"
"Yes lieutenant!"
Brill leaned toward Monahan. "This is bad, lieutenant..."
Monahan glared at the man for stating the obvious. "No kidding, Brill."
"Lieutenant," Danny said, "don't you have anything bigger than these little handguns?"
Under other circumstances, Monahan would have been amused at Tovo's sudden prowess with a gun, but given their predicament, he wasn't. "I didn't bring any SWAT gear with me, Danny, I wasn't exactly planning on this kind of party." Then he remembered. "Hey! Brill, get into the kitchen, look under the sink. My uncle used to keep a double barrel in there with a box of ammo!"
Brill nodded and crouching low, ran into the kitchen. He looked in the cupboard under the sink and sure enough, a double barrel Winchester was there next to a box of cartridges. He grabbed them and made his way back into the living room. He handed both items to Monahan, who quickly opened the weapon and loaded it.
"Lieutenant?"
"What?"
"Are you sure it shoots? I mean it doesn't look like it's been fired or cleaned in a dozen years."
"Beggars can't be choosers, Brill, just stand clear when I fire it..."
Monahan stood by the window, aimed toward the car that he was fairly certain one of them was hiding behind and he pulled both triggers, simultaneously firing both barrels. But the recoil sent the butt of the shotgun into his shoulder, and Monahan flew backward to the floor, cracking his head painfully against the wood. Brill bent over him, gently picking his upper body up.
"Lieutenant? You all right?"
"Yeah," Monahan said unsteadily, "that sure packed a helluva wallop."
"You shouldn't have fired both barrels like that."
"I meant the floor connecting with my head, Brill."
"Oh."
"Hey, do you hear any gunfire?" Monahan asked.
"No."
"Well then, I got what I wanted - their attention."
Brill helped Monahan to his feet, and the two ex-cops hovered by one of the windows.
"Now that I have your attention," Monahan yelled out the window, "What in the hell do you want?"
Rocky yelled back, "I thought I made it clear. I want you outta there."
"Fat chance," Monahan responded.
"Don't you make me come in there, cop, if you do, it's gonna be a lot worse for you."
"If you're gonna kill us either way, I'm not gonna make it easy for you. And I promise you, before it's over, I'm gonna cut a few of your boys in half with this shotgun."
In response, Vandano's men once again began firing at the house and its occupants. Monahan and Brill ducked, and Danny remained hidden behind the next window over. Crouching down, Sam ran toward Monahan.
"You have another gun?"
Monahan handed Fujiyama his own service revolver. "You ever shoot one of these, son?"
"No. I just point and pull the trigger, right?"
"That's right," Monahan said picking up the double barrel. "Okay fellas, let 'em have it!"
The four men fired into the dark abyss outside, wondering if they'd be lucky enough to hit anything. Asten sat on the floor up against the couch, cradling Quincy's head in his lap. He gently massaged the coroner's neck with his hands, trying to keep him still.
"Stay calm, Quincy. I know you're hurting, but try and take slow, deep breaths."
"It sounds like World War III out there, Asten..."
"Yes, it does. But there's nothing you can do to help, so just lie still."
Asten watched as Monahan reloaded the barrels and fired again, still being thrown off balance by the recoil. Brill, Danny and Sam fired their weapons intermittently, enough to keep the men outside at bay, but not enough to waste ammunition frivolously. And in the middle of the all out war being waged in the California desert, Asten's thoughts turned to Melissa, just as they had when he had found himself a newlywed soldier, ducking into a foxhole in Korea. He closed his eyes momentarily, silently praying that he would see her again, but when Quincy groaned in distress, Asten looked down into the disquieted gray eyes. The doctor continued to softly rub his patient's neck.
"You're tensing up and it's making the pain worse, Quincy."
"We're in the middle of a gunfight and you don't want me to tense up?" Quincy responded through gritted teeth.
"Close your eyes." When Quincy didn't obey, Asten sternly repeated, "Close your eyes, doctor." The gray eyes slowly closed, and Bob forced his voice to sound calm, despite the fact that his heart was pounding in his throat. "I want you to concentrate on the movements of my hands on your neck. Just focus on that and take even breaths."
Hearing the calm confidence in Asten's voice, Quincy did as he was told and fixated on the soft hands soothingly manipulating the muscles in his neck, and after a few minutes he felt some of the pain dissipate, and he let out a large sigh of air that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.
"That's it," Asten's gentle voice said, "don't pay attention to anything else, just relax."
And in the eye of the storm, with bullets flying and gun nozzles flashing, Quincy was lulled to sleep by the composure of a man he often read as an adversary, but truly knew as a friend.
