"Donald!" Hands clutching at the small rocks and grass of the cliff side, Red yelled into the agent's face. "Let me go before we both go over!"
Ressler ignored Red. Eyes clenched against the searing pain in his belly; his fingers gripping the criminal's arms, he felt himself inching toward the cliff. He couldn't hold on much longer. Yet he didn't dare let go. As if in fast forward a slideshow hurtled through his mind, offering glimpses of his years on the hunt for Red. Years following him with his coterie of door kickers, always one, but usually two steps behind the fugitive. Years in which he single mindedly pursued Reddington at the expense of everything and everyone else. He'd tried to kill him in Brussels yet Red had slipped through his fingers. The same fingers that were now clutching to the man desperately. And as the scenes flashed through the past two years where everything had changed between them in their merry-go-round of shared life and death experiences, there was no way he could let this man go.
Absolutely no way. Even if he died trying.
"Donald, for God's sake!" yelled Red, slipping further over the edge, his feet unable to find any ground beneath them as blood streamed down his lower left leg and falling onto the rocks below. "Damn it! Let go!"
"No!" Ressler gasped through clenched teeth as spots swam before his eyes. He was drifting. The pain was taking him down as his body shook with the exertion. Fighting against it he opened his eyes to see Red before him hanging over the cliff, his eyes wide as he yelled at him again to let go. Behind him the fog drifted over the ocean, lit in the moonlight in a white haze. The roar of the waves crashing on the rocks below filled his ears, and catching a glimpse below them Ressler saw the bodies of two men sprawled below them in the fog.
He was not going to make it four bodies lying on the rocks. Screaming against the pain as fresh fire tore through his torso. A warm wetness spread on his abdomen, the seeping blood soaking his clothing as his flesh strained to the breaking point. And as he was pulled forward another two inches, shouts came toward him from up the slope.
"Raymond!"
"Agent Ressler!
"Hang on!"
The voices were surreal, floating out of the thick fog closing in around them now as he clung to Reddington. Digging his toes into the damp ground to stop them going over Ressler shut his eyes tight again, concentrating. "Don't!" he yelled as Red slipped even further. He was drifting further. Losing it. Yet still he refused to let go of Red. "Don't you dare," he panted, unsure if he was berating himself or Reddington as his breath heaved against the pain.
Dembe was suddenly beside him, dropping to his knees on the grass and seizing Reddington arms and shoulders. "Raymond, I have you!"
Someone was beside Ressler, holding his shoulder, but Ressler couldn't tell who it was until he heard Shanks close by his ear. "I've got you!" The medic was practically sitting on Ressler now, igniting further pain in his belly under his weight as he cried out at the new wave of pain.
Holding Red's arms, Dembe hauled his boss further back up onto the grassy slope. Now inching back upward as Dembe pulled, Red's breath came in sharp gasps, his air momentarily obstructed as his chest was crushed against the ridge. Kneeling precariously on the cliff edge and in danger of toppling over himself, Dembe wasn't going to let that impede his progress. He pulled harder, edging backward and slowly pulling Reddington back to safety.
"I have him!" called Dembe close to Ressler's ear. "Agent Ressler, you can let go!"
"Agent Ressler!" Aram yelled at him, now at Dembe's side and helping drag Reddington back up with Dembe. "You can let go!"
Fingers were prying his hands from Reddington. "No!" Ressler cried, the black spots thickening in his field of view. In so much pain, he hadn't even felt that his arms had begun to move to the side as he clung to Red. But realizing that the weight on his hands had changed, he opened his eyes to find Red being hauled back over the cliff to safety. And seeing Reddington being safely hauled back up, Ressler finally let go of the criminal.
"Get them away from this cliff face!" called Shanks, now lifting himself up off Ressler as Dembe and Aram dragged Red a few feet back on the grass. As they came back to retrieve Ressler from the edge, he grit his teeth as they rolled him over and half dragged, half carried him from the edge and deposited him near Red.
As Red lay breathlessly on his back beside the agent, his cramped arm fell toward Ressler. "Donald. Never let it be said that you don't know when to quit."
Shanks grinned with relief. "You mean he's a stubborn bastard," he said, patting Ressler on the chest.
"Oh, you don't know the half of it," chuckled Red and closed his eyes as Dembe started to check his bleeding leg.
###
Shanks had two patients and only one working hand, so quickly took charge and assigned tasks. "Aram. Check his belly," he told him, motioning to Ressler.
Conrad joined them, having walked slowly down the slope as they had run down and hauled Red back onto the grass. In severe pain from his beating at the hands of Broken Nose, Conrad was moving slowly, but still able to assist.
"Conrad, you doing okay?" Shanks asked as he put his arm out to the man, seeing the obvious pain he was in. "Sit down here," he added, and offered his left arm in support as Conrad sunk gratefully to the ground beside Ressler.
"Dembe, there are scissors in the medic kit. Cut that pants leg off so I can look at that bullet wound," Shanks told the man, stepping by Conrad and coming to Red again. "He's losing a lot of blood here."
Ressler could hear them talking, but the voices were distant, as if from the bottom of a barrel. He opened his eyes and turned his head to face Red. "I have some to spare," he said quietly.
Shanks simply looked at him. "What?"
Red smiled at the agent. "I think I'll manage, Donald."
Shanks was fishing his two way radio out of his kit. He was out of range to their base, but maybe if they had boats in the area, one would pick up a signal. Looking out at the ocean that was rapidly becoming invisible in the fog, he spoke into the radio.
"Base, this is Shanks out on Cedar, over." Releasing the mic button, he was met with silence. He tried again, but again got no response.
"We're out of range," he told them, tossing the radio back in his kit and leaning down toward Red as his blood spread in a dark stain on the grass under him. "It doesn't look like it broke your leg, but let's have a look."
Red looked up at the medic. "I don't feel a bullet in there. It went right through," he told the man. "I'll be fine. Pity I can't say the same about my suit though," he said regretfully as Dembe tossed the cut fabric aside.
Conrad motioned to Aram to shine the flashlight on Ressler's belly and in the beam of light, he moved Ressler's jacket out the way. Blood was visible as a dark patch seeping through the fabric of Ressler's jeans.
"Yeah, there's blood here, doc," Conrad informed Shanks, his voice raspy and barely there, the chains that had pressed against his vocal cords having damaged them badly. Shanks looked up from working on Red's bullet wound after ascertaining that the bullet had indeed gone straight through the calf, narrowly missing his fibula.
"I'm not surprised. Take some gauze from the kit here and see if you can stop the bleeding," Shanks told Conrad, as Dembe now took over applying pressure to Red's two wounds. "Dembe, hold that gauze tight."
Still out of it and trembling, Ressler started when he felt hands at his unbuckled belt unzipping his jeans and moving them aside.
"What... what are you...?" he asked, raising his head to see Conrad and Aram either side of him.
"Oh, don't get your hopes up, I'm just checking your belly here," Conrad rasped to him, as Ressler dropped his head again.
Peeling the blood soaked dressing away from Ressler's wound now, the source of the bleeding became apparent. Stitches lay useless on one side of the incision, having ripped out of the opposite side. But what caught their attention was either side of the precise incision. The skin was ragged and ripped. Unable to withstand the strain, it had ripped about an inch along either side of the incision.
Shining the flashlight, Aram let out a gasp. "Whoa!"
"Yes indeed," agreed Conrad, as the flashlight illuminated Ressler's bleeding belly.
Ressler lifted his head again, to look down to his belly, but could see nothing. "How bad is it?"
Shanks leaned over to them, handing them a large wad of gauze, cursing at the sight of Ressler's torn belly. "Your skin has ripped at the incision line," he explained to Ressler, who dropped his head back to the grass again in exhaustion and shut his eyes. "Remember what I said about being stub-" He looked quickly at the trembling agent, then changed his mind and returned his attention back to Red.
Aram was still beside him. "Sorry Agent Ressler. I thought I'd stitched you up good."
At the sound in his voice, Ressler raised his arm and lightly found Aram's arm. "You did... It's my fault..." And if his eyes had been open, he'd have seen the smile that lit up Aram's features.
Conrad unwrapped the large gauze pack, patted Ressler's chest reassuringly and then pressed it to the wound to stop the bleeding. As agony flared in the wound, Ressler gasped, squirming under Conrad and lifting his knees a little in an effort to curl up.
Shanks was still working on Red. The entry wound was cleaner and smaller and as Red grimaced, the medic packed it tight with wadding as Dembe lent a hand, literally. "We'll pack them tight with gauze and it will hold until we can get these two holes stitched up properly."
As he worked on the larger exit wound, it took a lot more to get it to stop bleeding. With Dembe packing the wound for him, Shanks looked back up to Red. "I don't have two good hands to sew you up with, so that will have to wait."
Red grinned up at the medic. "Oh, that's quite alright, Mr Shanks. You may need that thread for Donald since he keeps insisting on being the hero."
###
Ten minutes later, Red's wound was packed with gauze and his lower leg bound in bandages. "Good as new," Shanks quipped to Red, who gave him a congenial smile from his pale features.
"Well done, Mr Shanks. You're a handy man to have around," said Red as Dembe helped him up to a sitting position. "No pun intended."
"Gentlemen," said Shanks, holding up a small clear bottle. "I have enough pain medication here for one dose only. Which one of you do I give it to?" he asked them, looking from one to the other.
"Give it to him," Ressler and Red both said in unison, each indicating the other.
Conrad laughed at both of them. "Oh, no surprises there," he said, shaking his head at the two men as Shanks shrugged and dropped the bottle back in his kit.
Shanks moved to Ressler and removed the blood soaked gauze that Conrad had held in place. As Aram shone the flashlight, Shanks checked the wound.
"This will hurt," he told Ressler, moving his gloved hand slowly over the incision. "Last chance for that medication..."
"I'm fine," said Ressler, swallowing hard against the pain.
Shanks was true to his word. As he moved the split edges of the incision apart, moving the torn skin Ressler gasped, gritting his teeth as the medic examined the reopened wound. As Aram shone the flashlight, Shanks was just able to see the stitches on the layer underneath through the blood. Some of them had also ripped, but most had held.
"Not as bad as I'd feared in some ways, but the torn skin is a concern," he told Ressler, taking his hand off his belly now as Conrad replaced the gauze. He leaned down to Ressler panting in pain under him. "The torn stitches and skin are on the outer layer. The stitches on the layers below held for the most part. But the tear is bleeding a lot. "
"So, just a flesh wound," Ressler panted, as Aram cracked up beside him.
"Exactly," smiled Red, sitting on the grass beside the agent.
"Let's get it sealed and covered, Shanks told them, standing up again. "We'll also pack it and get him sewn back up later in a better environment. We need to get the hell off this rock." As Conrad held the incision and torn skin together as best he could, Dembe taped it together with several strips of surgical tape, before covering the area with a large sheet of adhesive plastic. Panting under them as they worked, and really getting tired of being manhandled around his privates, Ressler held as still as he could.
"Base, this is Shanks out on Cedar," tried Shanks again on the radio as they literally stuck Ressler temporarily back together. Again they were met with silence.
Looking up at the medic, Aram picked up his phone as he stood carefully up from Ressler and dialed a number.
"Samar, we may need an exit strategy," he told her, walking away from the group and away from the cliff edge.
As he walked down the slope, mindful of the drop off to the rocks a few feet to his left, the sound of a boat reached them from the ocean. Aram turned slightly, phone still to his ear and looking into the fog as the soft glow of white lights approached. Unsure if this was a good development or a worse one, he moved hurriedly back to the group as Red looked toward the foggy ocean.
"Turn off the flashlights," Red told them quickly. "It would appear that our recently departed captor's tardy employee has finally arrived. If we're lucky we have not been seen through the fog yet."
Still lying on the ground beside him, Ressler spoke up. "We're never that lucky."
###
"Donald, you really do need to learn to take on a more optimistic view in life. This is potentially a good development," said Red, before looking up at Dembe. "We need to get down to that dock."
Ressler motioned for Aram to help him up. Grimacing as he sat unsteadily, he looked at Red and Dembe. "You think he's just gonna hand over that boat?"
"I will ask nicely, Agent Ressler," said Dembe, suddenly grinning at the agent before leaving their sides, running low and crouched down along the grassy point toward the pathway that led to the beach.
"You see? We'll be out of here in no time," beamed Red, watching his man run into the fog and disappear from their view.
"You'll forgive me if I don't share your optimism just yet," said Ressler, as they saw the white lights approaching the dock through the fog. He wasn't going to tell Reddington that the last thing he needed to top off his wonderful weekend on an island resort was to go for a boat cruise.
"Besides, we have a Plan B. The boat that Dembe and Frank came in is on the other side of the island." added Red, as the fog swirled around the upper levels of the boat.
"I think we're up to Plan E, actually," said Aram quietly, hunkered down beside Ressler, then looked up as Ressler turned to him. "Oh, did I say that out loud?"
Aram looked past Ressler to Red. "Even if Dembe gets that boat, how are we going to get down to it?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Agent Mojtabai," Red told him as they watched the boat lights glide in to a stop at the dock mooring.
"I don't like this. I should be down there," said Ressler, attempting to climb to his feet without much success.
"Dembe will take care of it," Red told him, still looking toward the lights in the fog as the boat bobbed on the ocean. "Sometimes, Donald, you just need to sit back and let others do it."
Ressler exhaled heavily, trying to see through the fog and hating to admit that Red was right.
As the boat dropped anchor, a shot rang out from below them, momentarily lighting up the dock in the muzzle flash. Dembe had made his move.
"Damn. We just came to that bridge," said Ressler, gritting his teeth as they tried to see through the fog and ascertain what was happening.
Shanks was sitting beside Conrad as the man gasped and leaned forward. "Conrad, hang in there," he told him, leaning forward and listening to Conrad's chest as they sat on the grass. "Looks like we could be on our way soon."
A return shot came from the boat cabin, followed by a second shot from the dock. As the sound of running feet reached them from the dock, Ressler looked at Aram in frustration. "I need you to get down there!"
"Um..."
As Aram hesitated, Conrad leaned forward, clutching his stomach as Shanks tried to check him in the dark.
"No need Aram. Look," said Red as the lights of the boat flashed on and off a few times. "See that? Morse code for 'DZ'. Dembe has the boat," he told them before turning his attention to Conrad.
"Well I'll be. That was almost easy," said Aram, standing up from Ressler and looking out at the foggy dock.
"It's always easy when you're just sitting back watching," Ressler told his colleague.
Aram turned to him. "Actually, it's not. I watch you, Liz and Samar out in the field all the time. I can assure you, there are times it's not easy."
Ressler looked up at him from the ground as he regarded him silently. He'd watched from the safety of the war room while Liz was on the train with Harrison Lee, and sat in surveillance vans while she was in the field. Aram was quite right. He nodded to his colleague then turned to Conrad who was obviously suffering the effects of his beating.
"Lie down and let me look at you," Shanks was asking Conrad, who was shaking his head.
"I'll be fine," he rasped.
"I'm surrounded by obstinate patients today," sighed Shanks turning his attention to below them as the fog swirled in the moonlight.
"Here he comes," said Red as a dark figure emerged from the fog. "Dembe, I trust everything went successfully?"
"Of course," he answered Red, barely breaking a sweat at his exertion. "We have a boat."
Red looked at Ressler, grinning. "There you go, Donald. Our luck just changed."
###
A series of excursions by Dembe and Aram up the slope and back to the boat, bearing one man at a time between them was under way, getting each wounded man on board. Conrad was brought on board first, Shanks walking beside him worriedly. As they placed him on a cot inside the small boat cabin, Shanks turned on the lights and examined his patient, despite his protests.
"I'll be fine, doc," he rasped unconvincingly, but this time the medic wasn't having it. Lifting up Conrad's shirt, he pressed his hand to his belly as the man gasped in pain again.
Looking closer, Shanks swore. "Damn! I missed it in the dark!" Shanks' worried eyes shot to Conrad. "Shit!"
"What...?" Conrad asked him, panting as he lay on the cot.
"Your skin is so blue I didn't see it, even under the flashlights! You're bleeding internally. Your abdomen is full of blood," explained Shanks, now seeing the tell tale bruising in the bright light as Conrad's abdomen filled with blood. Setting up the blood pressure cuff awkwardly with his one good hand on Conrad's wrist he waited impatiently. And as the reading came up on the cuff, Shanks swore again.
"I'll be back!" Leaving his patient a moment he raced up on deck to check the progress. Aram and Dembe were approaching with Ressler between them, carrying the agent despite his futile protests that he could walk.
"We need to move it!" Shanks told them as they stepped aboard and sat Ressler on a bench seat on the deck.
"What's wrong?" Ressler asked the medic, seeing the concern.
Shanks pointed back to the cabin. "He's going to die on us if we don't get out here very, very soon."
Aram and Dembe heard and jumped down to the dock and ran along the wooden boards, soon lost in the fog in their quest to retrieve Red.
"Is there anything you can do?" Ressler asked the medic, sitting uncomfortably on the foam seat as the boat rocked gently on the waves.
"Getting him out of here is all I can do," he said, turning back to the cabin door. "But I have an idea on that."
The medic's voice faded as he went back to the cabin, leaving Ressler alone on the deck. Looking down into the waves he suddenly saw the clothing and back of a body floating in the water - the former occupant of the boat that Dembe had taken out. Lifting his gaze from the body he noticed the fog around them was closing in even further, cocooning the boat in a small area as the dock disappeared out of sight not far in front of him. The beach was invisible, as were the rocks and cliff face. He wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but this was a little unnerving. And in the first relatively quiet moment he'd had since he'd put her on the helicopter, he reached into his pocket for his phone and dialed Liz's number. She answered almost immediately.
"Hey," he said, glad to hear her voice.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked.
"Oh, I'm great," he lied, listening to her snort at the other end of the line as she knew he was lying.
"Did you find Red and Conrad?"
"Yeah, we got them," he told her, deciding not to tell her just how he had got Red and the entire cliff hanging episode. "Conrad's in bad shape after they beat the tar out of him though. Those bastards. Shanks just said he needs to get him out of here. We're on a boat now though," he told her, exhaling heavily. He didn't elaborate on the boat either. Just let her assume it was the boat Dembe had arrived on.
"Oh my, I bet it was that broken nosed man!"
"I'd bet money on it. How about you? They check you out?" he asked, looking impatiently toward the foggy end of the dock as he waited for Aram, Dembe and Red.
"Yeah," she replied, "I'm okay. A couple of bruised kidneys and a slight concussion, but I'm good."
"That doesn't sound good, Liz. You at the hospital?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, trying to find a position that didn't put as much strain on his belly.
He noticed the hesitation. "Not exactly…"
"What does that mean?" he asked, lifting his head to peer into the fog again, almost willing the figures of the returning men to appear.
"I'm at the Coast Guard station, in their medical bay and-"
Ressler stood quickly, interrupting her and gasping in pain "You are? Liz, we need the chopper here! We're on a boat but it's slow and I don't think we have time to get in. Conrad needs help now. Shanks isn't sure he's going to make it."
"What? Oh my god!" he heard her move her phone down and call out to someone, "Marshall! We need to get back out there!"
Half listening to Liz on the end of the phone and turning to Shanks as he came back on deck, Ressler spoke to the medic. "Liz is still at your base. She's trying to get the chopper out here."
"I'm way ahead of her. I radioed them from the cabin of the boat. They're suiting up now!" Shanks told him. As Ressler nodded in reply, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Dembe and Aram returning with Red between them, moving as quickly as they could along the dock.
He could still hear Liz in his ear yelling to Marshall in the background. "I'm coming with you!" She put the phone to her ear, as Ressler heard the sound of the helo engines firing up in the background. "I'm on my way back out there!" she told him, her voice getting drowned as she approached the chopper. "Where exactly are you?"
"Tell them to meet us at the lighthouse beach!" he told her, "In this fog they need to know exactly where we are. We'll make our way around there now!"
###
Reddington refused to let anyone else operate the boat, his left leg bandaged as blood seeped through the dressing a little, he sat in the captain's chair.
"Hand me those charts," he asked Dembe, who was standing beside him as Red maneuvered the boat back from the dock. Reaching for the chart he gave it to Red, who scanned it quickly and found their island. "Okay, good. No surprises of half submerged reefs in our path. Excellent."
In the cabin below, Conrad was not doing so well. Shanks had no saline left to even set up an IV to keep his blood pressure up. He lay with eyes closed and would have appeared deathly pale if it were not for his blue skin. His face was a bloody mess, despite Shanks' attempts to clean it somewhat. Aram sat on the bunk across from the injured man and the medic. Partly because he was concerned for Conrad - but mostly because he just needed to sit down and regroup.
"Um, if it's not to rude a question, why is he blue?" Aram asked the medic.
"He told me that he's consumed and bathed in colloidal silver for years after being diagnosed with several medical conditions. While he swears the silver helped and kept him alive, this is the result of prolonged exposure," Shanks informed him, keeping his fingers on Conrad's wrist as he listened to his weak pulse.
On deck, Ressler sat alone watching the dock disappear behind them as Red turned into the ocean swell and sounded the boat horn twice. Ressler had been given his instructions. Listen for any returning boat horns. In this visibility, Red had told him, they needed to alert their presence to other boats that might be in the vicinity.
The boat picked up speed and as Ressler held onto the handrail, clutching his belly with his other hand, he looked up. While the fog surrounded them, enveloping the ocean and land in a thick blanket, above him was not quite as thick. Seeing glimpses of a dark starry sky through swirls of fog, he didn't feel quite as trapped. As Red steered them around the point toward the north end of the island, sounding the horn twice again, a faint light appeared off to his left. It was familiar. Lowering his gaze from the sky above, Ressler looked to the north west and saw the rotating beam of the lighthouse breaking through the fog.
Aram left the cabin and went up the stairs to join Red and Dembe. "Um, how do you know where you're going in this fog?" he asked, looking dubiously outside at the white mist around them.
"Instruments, Aram. You see?" Red pointed to the console.
Aram really didn't see. "Aaahh, yes."
On deck, Ressler wasn't hearing any other boats nearby, much to his relief. As Red rounded the island the lighthouse lay before them now; the beacon clearly visible, while the white column below it faded into the fog. Coming closer, Ressler could hear the sound of the surf hitting the rocks and sure hoped Red knew what he was doing in this reduced visibility. But of course he did. The man knew the ocean.
"We're almost at the lighthouse, Conrad," Shanks told him leaning down to the man who half opened his one good eye in acknowledgement.
Ressler watched as the lighthouse grew, its beam turning faithfully above them. Now right beside it Ressler looked up at the white column rising from the dark rocks as Red took them past it. As the sound of the boat engine changed, Red turned the vessel into the small beach, cutting their speed as the surf hit the rocks either side of them. Coasting in as close to shore as he could get, Red cut the engine and dropped anchor just a few feet from shore in the shallow water.
"Help me get him on deck!" Shanks called up to Dembe and Aram. Both coming down the small staircase, they dropped down into the cabin and lifted Conrad as gently as they could between them.
"Here they come!" Ressler yelled down to them, hearing the first sounds of a distant helicopter.
"And not a moment too soon," muttered Shanks as Dembe and Aram moved Conrad up the stairs, then lay him on the deck at Ressler's feet.
Conrad was gazing up at the lighthouse, lying on the wooden deck of the small boat as Shanks kneeled down to him, listening to his heart through his stethoscope. The helicopter was louder now as faint lights appeared in the sky.
"Just hang on, okay? They're coming!" Shanks told him, leaning down to him. Conrad nodded, then suddenly convulsed, vomiting up dark blood onto the deck.
"Oh, God. That's not good," said Aram, instinctively stepping back from their injured companion on the crowded deck as Shanks rolled Conrad to his side.
Red was beside him now, sitting down heavily on the deck and putting his hand to his friends forehead. "You stay with me. Help is coming." Conrad's hand moved and Red took it in his own, hanging onto his friend. "Don't you give up on me!" he told Conrad, leaning down.
Conrad mouthed something to Red, but was unable to form words. "Conrad, I don't know what you're saying. I'm right here, my friend," Red told him. Conrad took his hand from Red and placed it on the deck.
The medic looked up at him "His heart rate is dropping dangerously low!"
On the deck, Conrad's hand moved, dipping his finger in his own blood then moving to the clear deck.
"Is he writing something?!" Aram leaned down to look, shining his phone light to the man.
"He is," said Red as the sound of helicopter grew, filling the air, its searchlight now igniting over the ocean.
"What…what is that?" Ressler asked.
"It's a number." Red looked at his friends finger moving to his blood then back to the deck.
"108," said Aram.
Ressler looked at Red. "What the hell is 108?"
"Conrad, what are you trying to tell us?" Red yelled over the sound of the approaching chopper, leaning down to his friend as Conrad's hand dropped to his side, his message complete. "Conrad!"
The roar of the helicopter was above them now, illuminating them in bright light, Conrad's numbers clearly visible.
"He's going to arrest! There's barely any blood pressure!" yelled Shanks over the helo as it hovered over the beach now, preparing to land.
And surrounded by new friends and one special old friend, Conrad's vision began to fade. Feeling Red's hands on him, he met Red's eyes and nodded very slightly.
"Rest easy my friend," Red told him, close to his ear now. Behind him, Dembe was saying a prayer, his hand reaching past Red to find Conrad's back.
Conrad turn his gaze to the lighthouse. In his years on the island it had been his constant companion. And above him now in the night sky, it shone brightly through the fog, illuminating his exit from this world. As his life faded, he held the beam of light as he slipped down into darkness.
And shining out into the foggy night, the lighthouse was the most comforting and very last thing Conrad ever saw.