First Meeting: Dominic and Archangel
Red Star
The sentry at Guard Station 4 outside Red Star peered out into the pre-dawn twilight. He thought he'd heard something moving out there, that didn't sound like an animal. As the light increased, he saw a bedraggled figure stumbling towards him out of the desert. Scanning carefully, he searched the horizon for any sign of other people, but the area was clear and barren and he'd see them a long way off; there was nowhere to hide, and there was no one else there.
"Help me!" the oncoming figure moaned. "Please!" It sounded like a woman. Making his decision, he moved out to intercept her. As he approached, it became obvious that she had been attacked and possibly molested; her clothing was torn and bloody. Reaching her, he took her arm over her shoulder and helped her into his guard post, sitting her in his chair.
"What happened, ma'am? What are you doing out here?"
"Three men…took my car…dragged me out here and... and…" He'd heard enough.
Picking up his radio, he called the guard commander. "Sir, I've got an injured woman here who just came in out of the desert, reporting being kidnapped and abused. She's a mess – Damn!" he dropped the radio mike as the woman collapsed sideways out of his chair, catching her just before she hit the ground. Once he'd gotten her safely flat, he picked up the mike again. "Sorry, she just collapsed on me. I need medics here, now!"
Archangel did not appreciate being woken at the crack of dawn with a report of an injured unknown woman showing up outside his top secret facility, but he'd never deny anyone in need medical care. Dressing quickly, he hurried down to the infirmary.
"What's going on?" he asked, watching the staff scurry around the injured woman. His assistant, Marella, came over. "She showed up at guard post 4, sir, stumbling in out of the desert. The guard reported she told him she'd been kidnapped in her car by three men and brought out here. The intent was clearly to gang rape her, but as best we can tell, she managed somehow to get away before they actually got that far."
"Were Moffett and his cronies accounted for last night?" Archangel asked sharply.
"Yes, sir. All of them were confirmed in the base and in their quarters all night."
"Well, thank God for that, at least," the spy sighed. "I will NOT have a repeat of Project Proteus on my watch. Have you been able to get any more information from her?"
"Not yet, sir. She seems to have passed out from stress and fatigue more than anything. Her physical injuries are relatively minor, easily dealt with here in the infirmary. Psychologically, of course, will be another matter, and we are going to have to refer this to the police anyway if the perpetrators aren't any of our staff."
Archangel nodded. The infirmary here was equipped for minor injuries and to stabilize severe ones; anyone with serious injuries would be medevac'd to the Firm's hospital at Galen's Keep. And they did have procedures in place for dealing with civilian police if needed. "All right, Marella. Carry on, and let me know if anything new develops." He was about to leave the infirmary when the injured woman jerked awake.
Her gaze darted around the room, and seeing that she was obviously in a medical setting, she relaxed somewhat. Her first words, though, didn't make sense. "Is he alright? Did he make it back here?"
Archangel stepped towards her. "My name is Michael," he introduced himself.
"Angie," the woman said. "I don't see anybody else here being helped; did he make it back?"
"Did who make it back?" Archangel asked sharply.
"The guy who rescued me. Those bastards were just about to…to…well, I guess you know. All of a sudden this guy came flying out of the darkness and bowled all three of them over, hauled me up, shoved me this way, and told me to run. It didn't register for a second and one of the guys who grabbed me started to come up behind him. He spun around, hit the guy with one hell of a kick, and yelled at me again to run and it finally penetrated. I took off, but not before I saw him trying to take on all three of them. He's an amazing fighter, but three on one…"
"Damn," Archangel muttered. That meant they had at least four other people out in the desert, too close to the facility. "Angie, can you give me any more information? Which direction you came to get here, any landmarks around you? How long it took you to get here?"
"It took me hours," she said. "At least I think so. It felt like hours. I know once it started to get light I was coming from the East, but I could have been wandering in circles before that for all I know. And all I saw was desert."
"Thank you," Archangel inclined his head graciously. He was going to need to start a full-scale search and rescue with only minimal idea of where to focus. So much for standard operations today. He was leaving the infirmary when the phone rang. The receptionist picked it up, and he saw her scowl at the voice. "Yes sir," she said coldly. "He's here." Putting the phone on hold, she beckoned Archangel over.
"Moffett," she said shortly. "He's got another bug in his ear about Hawke."
Archangel sighed. His aircraft designer and lead test pilot didn't get on at all. Hawke just looked at the man like he was an insect, but Moffett had a habit of badmouthing the young pilot to Archangel every chance he got, trying to get him thrown off the project.
"Yes, Dr. Moffett," he said as he picked up the phone.
"That damn stupid kid of yours hasn't shown up for this morning's simulator run," Moffett sneered. "He's probably sleeping late or something. Tell him to get his ass down here!"
Archangel said briskly, "I'll get right on that," and hung up the phone before Moffett could launch into another diatribe about Hawke. Marella saw his concern.
"What is it, sir?"
"Hawke hasn't shown up for the simulator run."
"He never misses a run!" Marella interjected. "No matter how much crap Moffett gives him."
"I know. And he does tend to take walks out at night if he can't sleep. And barreling in to save a woman from being assaulted would be just like him. I think we'd better make sure he isn't in his quarters and then get a search going."
An hour later, Archangel had reluctantly allowed Moffett to fly the morning's simulator run, and was being fed regular reports from the search teams out scouring the land around Red Star. Two hours later, he received a report form Jimmy FiveHorse, one of the security commanders who was full-blooded Native American and had grown up in similar territory. He also happened to be one of the few people on the base that Hawke interacted with to any large degree. They'd both been Special Forces in Vietnam.
"What do you have for me, Jimmy?"
"We've found the attack site, and one man dead, neck broken; probably one of the assailants. Must have been a hell of a dust-up, but if it was Hawke, he's more than capable of that." Jimmy would know; he and Hawke often sparred together in the gym.
"Any sign of Hawke?" Archangel asked worriedly.
"Nothing specific yet. We've got tire tracks, supporting the woman's story that her car was brought out here, and two tracks, one walking, one dragging, moving from the fight area to the car. I'd say if Hawke was here, he killed the one, beat the crap out of another, and the two left took off. There's no sign of gunfire, at least."
Well, that's somewhat reassuring, Archangel thought. If Hawke hadn't made it back yet, he was probably injured, but at least not losing blood from a gunshot wound. But it was now midmorning, the sun was high, and it was getting damned hot out there. If Hawke didn't make it into shelter soon, he was going to be in trouble.
He was just about to instruct Jimmy to continue the search when the man came back over the radio. "Got another trail, sir. Process of elimination says it should be Hawke's. Only problem is, it's travelling parallel to the edge of the base, not towards it."
"Where exactly are you, Jimmy?" Archangel already had large scale maps of the desert surrounding the site out. Jimmy gave him the coordinates and as Archangel inspected the map he found a glimmer of hope. "Is the trail heading northeast, Jimmy?"
"Yeah."
"Hawke's survival training's kicking in. There's a rock outcropping a couple of miles northeast of where you are. I bet he realized he couldn't make it back to base and headed there for shelter."
"On it. Sending the choppers that way now. I'm following the trail on foot in case he didn't make it all the way." Jimmy's connection cut out. Archangel could picture him loping off, at a trot, scanning the ground all the while, looking for his missing friend.
Half an hour later, Jimmy radioed again. "Got him, sir. He made it to the rocks, but the sun's too high for them to give much shelter. He's got his flight jacket over his head and arms to keep the sun off, but he's completely out, and he's probably in heat stroke. We need med-evac, now; the infirmary isn't going to be able to handle this. I've already called for it."
"Damn!" Archangel hung up the phone. Hawke had been out there in the desert for hours – heat stroke and dehydration in addition to whatever other injuries the would-be rapists had inflicted. He called Marella in.
"Marella, we're heading for Galen's Keep. Jimmy's called in med-evac for Hawke; he's in bad shape."
Galen's Keep
Another hour later, Archangel was pacing the trauma bay at Galen's Keep, rising alarm over the fate of his test pilot and operative driving his steps. Hawke had made it to the facility alive, but his temperature was over 106, he was severely dehydrated, injured, and delirious. Archangel could hear him yelling back where the medics were trying to work on him.
Marella came out, flustered and disheveled. "I don't know what to do with him, sir. He's too strong and too out of his head to even assess him, much less treat him. We can't even keep an IV in him or a cooling blanket on him. He hasn't had any convulsions yet, but if we don't get his temperature down, he will. We tried sedating him; it didn't even slow him down. Restraining him didn't work either; it made him think he was back in the POW camp."
"I think," Archangel said, "it's time to call in the big guns. I'm going to go get Dominic Santini."
Santini Air, Van Nuys Airport
To say that Dominic Santini was surprised when a white helicopter landed on his patch of asphalt and a man and woman dressed all in white got out would have been an understatement. They obviously didn't need his air service, since they had a chopper and a pilot of their own. So why were they here? Never the less, he approached them. "Can I help you folks?"
"I certainly hope so," the man in white said. "I'd prefer to talk inside, if you don't mind. Lauren?"
The white-clothed beauty with him pulled a piece of electronic equipment out of her white shoulder bag and proceeded them into the hanger.
"What's she doin' in my place?" Dominic yelped.
Archangel laid a restraining hand on Dominic's arm. "Just making sure we'll be secure. You'll understand in a minute. I'm here about Stringfellow Hawke."
If he'd intended that as a reassurance, it didn't work that way. "He ain't here," Dominic said firmly. "And I don't know where he is or when he's comin' back."
Lauren reappeared and gave Archangel a nod. "I know that, Mr. Santini," Archangel said. "And I do know where he is."
As they stepped into Dominic's office, Archangel proffered his ID; the one that listed his name only as "Archangel". Dominic eyed it with suspicion.
"You're a spook," the Italian stated flatly. "Probably the guy who keeps dropping String back at his cabin with more holes in him than he had when he left and leaving me to take care of him when he can't tell me how he got hurt."
Archangel raised an eyebrow. For all the older man looked like a genial, unassuming fellow, he was clearly quick on the uptake. "I have a perfectly good hospital," Archangel said defensively. "It's not my fault if Hawke keeps signing himself out of it against medical advice."
"Stubborn kid," Santini grumbled as he seated himself at his desk. Archangel saw Lauren's mouth quirk up in a slight smile. "Why are you here now?"
Archangel countered with another question. "Do you know anything about what Hawke's doing now?"
Dominic raised his ball cap and scratched his head before replacing the cap. "He ain't said much," he admitted. "Just that he's test piloting something that he wishes he could tell me about, because sometimes he don't even believe it's real."
Archangel nodded. "Yes. I'm in charge of the project he's working on."
This statement had a surprising effect on the old Italian. His eyes went wide in horror, and then his face twisted in grief. "Ah, no!" he cried, standing up and slamming his ball cap down on the desk. "No! Whatever damn fool thing you've got him trying to fly crashed, didn't it? It crashed, and it took my boy with it!" He leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk.
Lauren was faster. She reached Dominic's side and guided him to sit. "No, Mr. Santini, that's not why we're here. There was no crash, and Hawke is very much alive. There couldn't have been a crash, the project is still in the simulator phase."
Dominic wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. "Is that the truth?" he demanded of Archangel.
"Yes, Mr. Santini. No crash, and Hawke is alive. He is, however, injured, running a raging fever, and too delirious for us to be able to treat him, because he's fighting us off every time we get near."
Dominic stood up again. "Well, why didn't you just say that, instead of being all hush-hush about it? I'll get my spare clothes and my ditty bag. And while I'm doing that, you get on the horn and tell the people in your 'perfectly good hospital' to get him to the quietest place they can. It'll help. And you can tell me what happened to him on the way." He bustled out the door.
Archangel stroked his moustache. "Interesting fellow," he observed. "It seems that Mr. Santini more than makes up for Hawke's poker face."
"He is rather volatile, isn't he?" Lauren smiled. "What did he mean about getting Hawke somewhere quiet helping, I wonder?"
Archangel thought for a moment. "I'm not sure," he admitted. Dominic returned at that moment, bustling around closing up doors and setting a Closed" sign in the window. He rounded on Archangel.
"You ain't moved, and I'm guessin' you ain't made that call, Whitey. Get on it!"
Archangel raised an eyebrow at the name calling, and then scowled at Lauren who'd hid a smirk behind her hand. "I haven't," he admitted. "I don't understand how that would help."
Dominic stopped and stared at him, waving his arms energetically. "Don't you even know the kid? It's that crazy hearing of his. He don't handle it too well when he's hurt or sick!"
Achangel understood instantly. "Of course!" he muttered. "To those ears of his, the trauma bay has to be cacophony. No wonder he won't stay in the hospital. Lauren, go start up the chopper and tell them to move Hawke to the secure corridor. That should be the quietest place." He rose to his feet.
Dominic was looking at him in some concern. "Why the hell do you got a 'secure corridor' in your hospital?" he asked suspiciously as they moved towards the helicopter.
"As you said, we're 'spooks'," Archangel replied. "We need a spot to treat captured enemy agents."
"Hah!" Santini replied. "I bet you treat'em. You just better not be putting my boy in some kinda cell."
"No, Mr. Santini, I wouldn't do that to him. I know his background, and I rather like him, even though he is aggravating in the extreme. This is a normal hospital set-up, just isolated and easy to secure."
They climbed into the helicopter and Lauren took off immediately. "I'm sorry, Mr. Santini," Archangel said, "but I am going to need to ask you to wear a blindfold. The location of the hospital is classified."
Dominic humphed, but allowed Archangel to blindfold him. "OK, Whitey, I can't see a thing. Now tell me how String got hurt."
Archangel sighed, figuring he was now stuck with this nickname. "String sometimes goes walking in the desert at night," he explained. "Last night, he encountered a woman being attacked…"
"And jumped in to help her," Dominic finished. "Of course he did. How bad off is he?"
"It was three on one, Mr. Santini. It appears that Hawke killed one and badly injured another, but was injured himself and was not able to get back to our facility before the sun came up. The woman only appeared at the facility around dawn, and collapsed when she did. The sun was well up before we knew that Hawke had gotten the men off her, gave her a chance to get away, and was still missing, The woman wasn't able to give us much information about where the attack happened, so even though we started a full-scale search immediately, it took several hours to find him. By then the sun had risen enough that the shelter he had found wasn't doing him much good anymore. When we left the hospital to get you, his temperature was still over 106 and he was too delirious and reacting too violently for the staff to be able to treat him."
"Damn," the old man muttered. "Probably thinks he's back in 'Nam, I know he had heat stroke at least once when he was over there."
"Yes, that would fit with what he's been saying. He keeps saying he needs to find St. John and thinks the IVs we're trying to get into him are truth serums."
Dominic cocked his head. "You know about St. John?"
"Yes, Mr. Santini, I do. And I've had agents working on his case since I met Hawke. It was the only way I could keep him on his assignments if he heard anything that might lead to St. John."
"Thank you," Dominic said softly. "I'm guessing you haven't found anything, though."
"Not much, I'm afraid," Archangel admitted sadly. "Rumors, hints, possibilities. Nothing I can tie together for Hawke."
"Damn."
Galen's Keep
The rest of the ride was relatively quiet. When they arrived at the hospital, Lauren carefully guided the still-blindfolded Dominic until they were well inside the building and away from any exits. Then she stopped them and removed the blindfold.
"You don't need this anymore, Mr. Santini."
"Thanks. Ok, Whitey, where's this secure corridor of yours?"
"We're heading towards it, Mr. Santini," Archangel replied. "As you'll likely appreciate, it's deep within the complex."
Marella met them a few minutes later. "Any change?" Archangel demanded immediately.
"A little," she said. "The quieter environment is helping. As long as we stay away from him, he's resting under the cooling blanket, but we still can't get close enough to him to get an IV in. As soon as we get within touching distance, he's fending us off again. We haven't even been able to get another temperature reading, but I suspect it's dropped at least a bit. Mr. Santini, my name is Marella. I'm Archangel's principal aide."
Dominic looked her up and down. "If Whitey's an Archangel, does that make you a regular angel?" he asked, gesturing towards her white clothing.
"Not a regular one, but an angel, yes," Marella answered simply. They were approaching the secure corridor now, and suddenly they heard an angry outburst from behind the door, the smack of a hand hitting flesh, and a cry of pain. "Damn it, I told them not try to get another IV in until we got you here." Dominic took off at a run, bursting through the closed double doors and flying unerringly toward the room where they could hear Hawke yelling at someone to get away from him with their damn drugs. Archangel and Marella raced at his heels, surprised at how fast the old man could move. They almost ran into him as he stopped at the door of the room, sizing up the situation before moving slowly and carefully into String's line of sight. The younger man was glaring down at a woman on the floor a few feet away from the bed, who was holding a hand to her cheek.
Staying well away from the bed, Dominic called softly, "String? It's me. You're safe, kid, nobody's trying to hurt you."
String's head jerked up. His eyes were glassy, and he was obviously having trouble focusing them. "Dom?" he said confused.
Dominic took two steps closer, stopping as soon as he saw String tense. "Yeah, kid, it's me. Can I come closer so you can see me better?"
"I'm not in 'Nam?" String said, confused. Clearly Dom being here didn't fit with where he thought he was.
"No, kid, you're not," Dominic reassured him. "You're in… Well, I don't know exactly where, but in California, in Archangel's hospital. Can I come over beside you?"
String nodded, but watched warily as the older man slowly moved closer, giving a sharp "Stop!" before Dom got within touching distance. "Is it really you? Can't see too good."
"It's me, String. You got heat stroke, that's why you can't see right. I'm going to put my arm out so you can reach it. Find the scar on my arm, you'll know it's me." He waited for String's nod before slowly reaching out to him. String's own hand reached out, feeling over the forearm until he traced the line of an old surgical scar Archangel hadn't noticed before. He relaxed, laying back on the bed.
"Dom. What's going on? Why do they keep trying to stick needles in me?"
Dom stood close to the bed, holding String's hand. "You got stuck out in the desert, String. You're seriously dehydrated, your temperature's through the roof, and you're delirious. They're trying to get you cooled off and get fluids into you. Will you let them, now that I'm here?"
String nodded, not letting go of Dom's hand. "Yeah. You won't let'em hurt me."
"Never, kid. Never."
Marella brought a chair in for Dominic to sit down, and with Dom's careful coaxing, the nurse – a new one, the one String had hit having been sent to check her cheek checked out – was able to check String's temperature, announcing it was down to 105.5, and to get an IV into him. She rearranged the cooling blanket over him, and explained to Dom that the small piece of humming machinery at the foot of the bed was pumping cool water through the blanket to gradually bring String's temperature down. The IV fluids were also cooled for the same purpose. Now that String had Dom with him, he was resting quietly, and soon fell asleep.
"Thank you, Mr. Santini. You've obviously had experience with him in this state before," Archangel said quietly from his post by the door.
"Not exactly the same," Dom replied "But confused, not sure where he was after nightmares, yeah. I've had lots of practice with that. Nobody as young as he is should have been through everything he has." He shook his head sadly. "Poor kid."
Archangel agreed. "I'm always amazed at how strong he still is, after everything. I suspect having you to rely on has helped with that." He moved away from the door frame he'd been leaning on. "Now that he's calm, I need to get back to other matters. The button there clipped to the sheet will call the nurse if you need her, and she'll be in to check on him frequently. Please let her know if you need anything as well – food, a drink, that sort of thing." He started to step away, then turned back and said, "If he comes around enough to ask, please tell him that he got to the woman in time. He stopped them from molesting her."
Dom nodded, then took his eyes off String for a moment to look directly at Archangel. "Thank you, Archangel," he said softly. "Thank you for caring about him."
A day later, Archangel and Marella were at the nursing station, watching the video monitor from String's room. Dominic was still sitting close to the bed, and he and String were talking quietly. The younger man's face was alive in a way that they had never really seen before, and he even smiled and laughed at some of the things Dominic was talking about.
"Absolute trust," Archangel mused. "Hawke has absolute trust in that man. He's so wary I'd never have expected that. And there are emotions hidden behind that mask. I was starting to worry that he'd shut them off entirely."
"Yes," Marella agreed. "Hawke's a different man when he's with Mr. Santini. I almost don't recognize him."
"Santini's kept him human, I'm certain," Archangel said. "We'll have to remember that, and make sure we get him to Hawke if Hawke ever needs him again." Marella nodded.
In String's room, Dominic was telling String about how Archangel had come to get him. "So I'm there in the hanger, minding my own business, and Mr. Clean shows up out of nowhere with his white helicopter and his pilot dressed in white, and sends his pilot in to scan my hanger for bugs or somethin'…"
Hawke's face split into a grin. "Mr. Clean?" he laughed. "You didn't call him that to his face, did you?"
"Not yet," Dominic said, grinning slyly. "Been calling him Whitey!"
Hawke threw back his head and laughed in delight. "Dom, you are one of a kind," he said, smiling. "I doubt there's anybody else that would dare to call him names like that. It's good for him."
