FBI: Most Wanted

Knockdown

Chapter 1

Jess and his team moved in on the house. Two to the front, two to the rear. The local police had established a perimeter of two blocks.

"In position, Boss," they all heard Crosby announce on the comms.

"Breach," Jess said softly.

Jess nodded to Barnes as they approached the front door. Barnes tried the knob which opened the door. She pushed it back carefully. She and Jess moved at angles to each other as the began to sweep the rooms. Jess motioned upstairs and moved silently to the staircase.

Hana and Kenny entered the backdoor which had also been left unlocked. Kenny started in one direction as Hana got ready to move into the room off the kitchen.

The house shook with the roar of the explosion. Jess was thrown backward, slamming into the wall opposite the room he had just begun to enter. A gaping hole ran from what had been the roof down to the basement when the bomb blew up.

The ballistic vest had absorbed some of the shrapnel and blast wave; nevertheless, Jess was covered in blood and debris that had sped his way at nearly the speed of sound. His body, half stripped by the shockwave, lay motionless near the top of the staircase he had just ascended.

Knocked down and off her feet, Barnes was also deafened by the concussion. She had a nosebleed and some blood coming from one of her ears, all indicating some kind of head injury from the blast. Hana and Kenny had been spared the shockwave but found their ears ringing. Other sounds came to their ears, but they could not tell what was being said.

Flashing police lights moved in and surrounded the shattered house. A small fire flickered through the haze of smoke, debris, and other falling objects. Clinton called for ambulances and EOD before making his way into the shattered remains of the house. He guided Barnes from the door of the house to their SUVs as dazed Hana and Kenny followed. Clinton looked around for Jess.

"Where's Jess?" he asked of Barnes.

"Can't hear a thing!" she shouted.

Barnes could not focus on him and shook her head. The other two were of no help either. More of the local police began arriving with EMTs. The injured team members were led to the backs of ambulance bays while Clinton made his way back to the wreck of a house.

One of the cops raced after him, "You can't go in there! It's on fire!"

Clinton pushed him aside, "Jess! Jess!" he cried out.

A fire truck arrived and began pulling out hoses and other equipment. Clinton's flashlight could not break through the smoke and debris cloud that filtered down from upstairs where the bomb had detonated. Deciding that Barnes had been downstairs meant that Jess had gone upstairs. He gingerly ascended the stairs, or what was left of them.

Jess lay motionless in a heap and pool of his own blood. His right leg lay at a very odd angle.

"Jess!" Clinton snatched his glove off to check Jess's carotid pulse.

Finding a pulse, thready and weak, but a pulse, made Clinton breathe a sigh of relief. "Can't lose you both, no," he muttered under his breath.

With that, he hefted Jess onto his shoulders and made his way carefully down the broken stairs and outside. An EMT raced over with a fire fighter to place Jess on the ground on a yellow tarp.

"He's lost a lot of blood," Clinton told the EMT.

By this time Kenny and Hana had recovered enough to find Clinton and Jess with the EMTs on the corner of the yard. The EMT cut the ballistic vest from Jess and tossed the parts of it to one side. He pressed gently on his chest for the signs of a traumatic pneumothorax injury. He listened to his lungs and heart quickly.

"What the hell..." one of the local cops exclaimed.

"Trip wire," responded Kenny. "The place was rigged."

The EMT worked ferociously on Jess to get two IVs started and bind up the gaping wounds and staunch the bleeding in his lower body. Hana joined his efforts by applying pressure to the torn leg that pooled blood onto the tarp.

"At least it's not an arterial..." she mumbled.

"Won't matter if we can't get it to stop," shot back the EMT.

Hana removed her jacket and ripped open her sleeve. "I'm O neg. Use me!"

The EMT looked up, took a quick breath, and found the field transfusion kit. By that time, Clinton had taken Hana's place, stopping the blood loss with pressure. If he applied a tourniquet, Jess would lose that leg in surgery. He pressed harder. That Jess was not crying out in pain worried him. Clinton offered silent prayers for his brother-in-law, and for Tali.

Several EMTs gently placed Jess on a stretcher, guided Hana alongside as her blood flowed into their primary patient, and into the ambulance the small herd of people went.

Once in the ambulance, another EMT intubated Jess, "This will get us better O2 sats."

"Any known allergies?" one EMT shouted to the half-deafened Hana.

"Not that I know of," Hana replied, reflecting on just how much she did not know about her enigmatic supervisor.

Barnes rode to the hospital in the other ambulance.

Crosby drove one SUV right behind the ambulances, having left the crime scene to the local police to hold until another FBI team got there to process the scene after the EOD techs had made sure there were no more trip wires or booby traps.

Clinton apprised Isobel Castillo of what had transpired and where they were going. He would call Tali from the hospital. He knew nothing of value to tell her right now. Then he called his dad, Nelson, to let him know and to be prepared for the worst. Jess did not look at all good when they loaded him into the ambulance. Only his chest had survived unscathed. Clinton had seen that when the EMT cut off the ballistic vest. The EMT did not insert a chest tube, which from combat medical, Clinton knew was a good things, a very good thing. There was no blood on Jess's shirt under it. Hana Grimes was still attached to Jess giving him much needed blood when the EMT's bundled Jess into the ambulance.

The remainder of Jess's clothes were cut off at the ER and placed into an evidence bag. Twenty units of blood were ordered which sent the area blood bank into overdrive. Cops and FBI agents lined up to replace the units expended to save the life of one of their own. X-Rays and imaging showed the Jess's right femur was broken. The break held its proper place and did not slice through his artery that ran along the inside of the bone. His ribs were cracked in three more places but were not dislocated into his chest cavity. The blast had likely only knocked the wind out of him only because of the vest. There was a hairline fracture to the back of his skull probably where he hit the wall. In short, he was a mess, murmured the lead emergency and trauma physician on duty. It took that team two hours to stabilize Jess for surgery. Most of the free bleeding had subsided using clotting powder and pressure bandages. His pulse and blood pressure were settling into a new rhythm that no longer bounced wildly around. It had been quite a ride for the last few hours.

Dr. Michelle Jaeger washed off her hands and face before exiting the ER working space to speak with the agents outside. By that time, Kenny and Hana had been examined, given some pain relievers. Barnes was still being examined for a concussion and hearing loss. Clinton was outside on the phone with Isobel in the New York City office when Dr. Jaeger came out to speak with someone who was at least related to her patient. Quickly, Clinton signed off.

"I'm his brother-in-law as well as a team member," Clinton started. "How is he?"

She looked him up and down, offering, "HIPPA..."

Crosby's anger got the better of him, "Screw HIPPA! How is he?"

"Brother-in-law?" she spoke softly to which Clinton nodded and looked expectantly.

"I guess that will have to do," she shrugged. "Agent LaCroix is stable for now. We've checked the bleeding and are doing out best to replenish the blood loss. There were no arterial tears that we have found, just massive venous bleeding."

"Can you save his leg?" Clinton asked gently.

"Don't know. That is for the vascular and orthopedic surgeons to determine. He's got a broken femur and a lot of vascular damage to the whole right leg," she responded honestly. "The good news is that the OR is standing by for me to move him there now. The lead surgeon has years of blast damage experience as an Army sawbones in both Afghanistan and Iraq. If anybody can put your brother's leg back together, it's Dillon Brown."

Barnes returned to the team, "So he's alive?"

Dr. Jaeger nodded, "For now. Generally speaking, if you get them here alive, we can keep them that way. That's not to say he is not in grave condition. He is. He will likely spend a fair amount of time in the ICU and months in rehab learning to walk again. That is barring any other serious damage. We did see a small fracture to his skull, likely made on impact with whatever he hit on the way to the ground."

Clinton wore his best game face, "Please, doctor, do what you need to do to keep him alive. He has an eleven year old daughter who lost her mom in Afghanistan to a roadside bomb. She cannot lose her dad, too. Not this way. Not now."

Nodding toward Hana, "Your field blood transfusion kept him alive. Thank you. Quick thinking!"

Hana reached out and squeezed Clinton's shoulder. Kenny moved a little closer to him and brushed his shoulder with his own.

"We are going to do our very best," Dr. Jaeger indicated as she moved back into the ER to send Jess up to surgery.