Healing the Wild – Chapter 7
In the Captain's Quarters…
Nathan was in his room, staring at a map of Colombia, wondering just how he and his crew were going to pull this off. His PAL unit beeped. It was O'Neill.
"What's going on, O'Neill?"
"Sir, I'm receiving a message from the chief of police in Cartagena. He wants to speak with you."
"Put it on in my cabin."
"Yes, sir."
His vid screen came on and an older man with dark skin wearing a police uniform greeted the captain on the other side.
"Captain Bridger. My name is Chief Luis Fernando Rodriguez. I understand your ship is headed towards our shores."
"Hello, Chief. Just how much were you told?"
"Enough to know that one of your crewmembers was taken hostage by Alfredo Diaz. Our squads have been trying to capture him for a while now. He is certainly not good for tourism."
"Well, I'd appreciate your help in this matter, but you do know the threat I received about involving police or the UEO."
"Yes, your admiral Noyce made it quite clear. Not to worry, nothing will be shared about your involvement. We have made several attempts at arresting Diaz in the past but it is increasingly hard to identify who is making the drops. It's always someone different. Diaz is a smart man. He never attends these deals himself, as he has plenty of men to do it for him."
"Well, now he's using my female crewmember to help as well."
Rodriguez nodded, knowingly and paused before continuing.
"If she is, indeed, helping him, it may give us an edge in identifying who is involved. Could you send us a picture of her?"
Nathan nodded. "I'll have my people send you a picture immediately. Just…if she is involved, please…whatever you do, make sure she remains safe."
"Absolutely, Captain. When will you be arriving?"
"We should be in your area in a few hours."
"I shall have a contingent meet you at the dock."
"We'll be in touch. And Mr. Rodriguez… thank you for your assistance."
"Believe me, Captain, we thank you as well. It is in both our interests that this goes smoothly. I don't know how much longer our people can handle the increasing amount of violence."
"We'll do what we can. I'll turn you back over to Mr. O'Neill to handle the image transfers."
"Thank you."
He pressed a button on the vidphone panel which forwarded the video call to O'Neill.
Nathan reached for the Comm Unit on his desk. "O'Neill, send Mr. Rodriguez some recent photos of Dr. Westphalen from her files. Make sure he gets what he needs."
O'Neill chimed on the other end. "Aye, Cap."
Back in Diaz' estate…
After a couple of hours of driving, Kristin got out of the limo as quickly as she could, hating the looks she got from some of Diaz' men throughout the ride. Some of them mumbled to each other in Spanish and it was clear they were talking about how she healed herself and about how tight her dress was. Diaz stepped out after her and spoke up.
"Dr. Westphalen, I suppose you must be hungry after that little adventure."
She avoided his gaze. "I've lost my appetite."
"Well, perhaps you'd like to join us for a celebratory drink in the courtyard? You did very well for us tonight. I would like to somehow make it up to you. Despite what you may have heard, I am not all bad."
She raised her head and looked right at him, unflinching. "I would like to be left alone for the night. I really need to get some rest."
Diaz contemplated for a second before responding.
"Yes, of course. You may retreat to your room. Besides, you should take off that dress so we can get rid of the evidence."
Manuel piped up at that moment. "I'd be happy to take it off." The other men giggled as he gave one of his friends a high-five.
Kristin looked down, trying to ignore the comment and dirty looks, and noticed a big stain of blood on the front and hem…probably from Jorge's gun shot wound…or maybe her own…or both. She felt sick as she started walking towards the direction of her room. She heard Diaz calling behind her.
"I hope you sleep well tonight, my dear. I have another job for you tomorrow. I'll send one of my men to come get you in the morning."
She paused for a second before continuing her walk. She was grateful her back was to Diaz and his men as she was able to hide the few tears ran down her cheeks. She was overwhelmed, exhausted and feeling absolutely helpless, but she had to be strong. She tried to enjoy the hot shower, but it did little to comfort her. At least she was clean. She dried her hair and put on a nightgown, feeling as though she really needed to sleep. She was also fighting off waves of nausea and had a very nasty headache. As she made her way to the bed, she heard a knock at the door. Putting a robe over her nightgown, she answered it to see Diaz, accompanied by two of his armed men.
"I wanted to make sure we picked up that dress. My men will dispose of it properly."
Kristin nodded and went to grab the dress, handing it to him and avoiding eye contact without saying a word. He smiled at her.
"I know this is quite a shocking lifestyle change for you Ms. Westphalen. I don't expect you to warm up to me so quickly." He reached out a hand to cup her cheek and forced her to look at him. "But I do hope you realize it would make it so much easier on you if you just accept that this is your life now…and embrace it. I'll take it easy on you since this was your first…how shall I say, assignment. Next time, I expect you join us afterwards. I'm sure Cynthia and Jeremy would appreciate it as well. You do understand, don't you?"
Kristin nodded as best she could with her chin in his hand, relieved when he let her go.
"Good. Oh, I took the liberty of bringing you something to eat, since I know you are probably hungry after these exertions, despite what you said earlier." He nodded to the side and one of the men produced a sandwich, which she reluctantly took.
"You are a very valuable asset to me. I can't very well have you starving to death, can I? Have a good night, doctor."
With that, he and his men walked off. In the distance she could hear some of Diaz' men celebrating. Kristin just closed the door, and sat down on the bed. She took a few bites of the sandwich, which helped her grumbling stomach, but she was still feeling too tired to concentrate. She put the rest of the food aside and went to bed, trying to think of a way to escape, but knowing it was useless in her position. What gave her hope was knowing that the SeaQuest was currently doing everything in its power to help her. With that thought, she quickly drifted off to much-needed sleep.
Back on the SeaQuest bridge…
Nathan was deep in thought when O'Neill spoke up.
"Captain, sorry to bother, but we just received another call from Chief Rodriguez in Cartagena. He says it's fairly urgent."
"Put him through on the main screen."
The now familiar face of Chief Rodriguez came into view.
"Captain, I must inform you we have received word that there was a violent drug deal in Barranquilla just a few hours ago. Two men who were allegedly making a trade were found shot to death in a hotel room. I had my men scan the hotel surveillance cameras. They were able to see the men speaking with a woman in the hotel lobby. I'm afraid it was your Dr. Westphalen."
He pressed a button on the keyboard and a photo came up showing a surveillance shot of Kristin dressed provocatively, smiling and drinking wine with two men at a hotel bar. Nathan's eyes opened wide, the image frozen in his mind. He sat down slowly at his desk in disbelief. He honestly couldn't believe his CMO was being forced to help in drug dealing. No doubt Diaz was threatening to hurt someone in her family or anyone else. But there she was in front of him in a tantalizingly tight dress. He wanted nothing more than to see her in a lab coat working on one of her projects in the safety of the science labs on SeaQuest.
"Yes. That's her."
"I'm afraid she was a pawn in Mr. Diaz' work, as we suspected."
The word "was" stuck out at Nathan, leaving an awful taste. He hesitated to get out the next words, fearing the Chief had ominous news. "Is she still alive?"
Rodriguez paused, looking upset and taking off his hat. "They found some blood in the room that did not belong to either of the two men. We believe it might be hers. I am sorry, Captain. We don't know exactly what happened to her yet, but we are fairly certain she was shot. And Mr. Diaz does not just waltz into our hospitals for the wounded. We assume that she…"
Bridger cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "Now, Mr. Rodriguez, I will NOT have you making too many assumptions about the fate of my crewmember. Unless you have concrete evidence I refuse to believe anything happened to her."
"My apologies, Captain. I do not mean to jump to conclusions…I merely wanted to let you know what we found…and I thought it would be wise not to get your hopes up." Rodriguez nodded, placing his hat back on. "I will let you know if we have any more leads."
"Thank you. We should be there shortly."
"I'll meet you at the dock personally."
Nathan hung up the call and immediately sank down in his chair with a heavy sigh. She HAD to be alive. Even if she was shot, surely she would have healed herself, right? Given the events of the last few hours, nothing seemed impossible now. He noticed the worried looks on his crew. They were all visibly worried.
"Everyone, we have no reason to believe Doctor Westphalen is not okay. We have to operate under the assumption that we have a rescue mission on our hands. Do not let this distract you. Is that clear?"
He saw a few of them nod, though he knew it still didn't calm their fears. "Commander Ford, what's our ETA?"
"We should be close enough to send a launch in 15 minutes, Captain."
"You're in charge while I'm gone."
Ford nodded and watched as his captain headed towards launch bay.
Back in the SeaQuest lab…
Lucas was writing down numbers in the notebook when he noticed a pattern emerging.
"Hey, Doc. According to Dr. Westphalen and my numbers from two days ago and the numbers we're seeing now, this fish has had a significant drop in enzyme activity. And I checked some of the other fish and they are all showing major drops as well. One even had enzyme levels that dropped by 85% since yesterday. That can't be normal."
At that very moment, Lucas noticed one of the small blue fish floating near the surface.
"Dr. Reese. Look!" He pointed at the fish. "That's the same fish the doc and I saw regenerate itself the other day. It wasn't looking so great earlier, but now it's just acting very sluggish."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
Dr. Reese grabbed a net and fished out the weak fish. It was barely able to keep itself from tilting to the side. He placed it in another, smaller tank.
"This fish looks sick."
"That's also the one that had the 85% drop."
The fish suddenly convulsed, jerking back and forth. Within seconds, it slowly started swimming normally again.
Dr. Reese looked confused. "That's incredible. Maybe they're reaching equilibrium...we need to test this one again and see if it's dropped completely."
Lucas looked puzzled for a moment. "So…doesn't that mean they're just back to normal? No more healing power?"
"I suppose so, but I don't know."
"So this serum that you created, that they were exposed to… it's just a temporary boost."
"It would appear so."
"That means…the doc." His eyes widened with fear. "How much time does she have left before the serum runs out on her, too?"
Dr. Reese shared his concerned look. "I don't know."
"We've got to tell the Captain. She's in more danger than we thought."