The Last Soldier Standing by Timothy J. Ryan - HTML preview

Chapter 131

Eric never liked hospital.The death, pain and agony that lurked within them were too much for him to tolerate. The doctor’s hands trembled as Jenny gently cradled them in her loving hands. Jenny tried to easy Doctor Brown’s anxiety with a smile as they walked down the hall towards Dennis Paterson’s hospital room. The walls of the dimly lit hospital encroached upon Eric’s feeble persona. Bitterness and resentment plagued Jenny’s heart as she remembered the agony and trauma that Dennis recently endured. The ferocity of the bomb explosion in the Arlington cemetery three weeks ago almost killed Dennis. The agent endeared three painful skin graphs surgeries.

Jenny paused a couple of door down from Dennis’s room and gazed into Eric’s eyes. She tried to smile, but only empathy lurked in her soul and anger besieged her otherwise loving heart.

Jenny fought back tears as she asked Dennis’s doctors for a diagnosis. The twenty something doctor paused briefly, cast his deep blue eyes on his chart and quickly uttered, “He lost his kidney, broke three ribs, burnt sixty present of his body. Though he died three time while he was in surgery, he is still clinging to life.”

The computer geeks were suddenly sedated with portentous thoughts as they contemplated the veracity of doctor’s illuminating diagnosis. They tried to put a face of bravado upon their sadden face in an attempt to cover up their anguish.  Jenny slowly pushed open the door to Dennis's dimly lit room. Grief stricken, Jenny moved closer to Dennis’s bed, she could still smell the stench of smoked that linger on his body. A small lamp on a nearby nightstand, cast an eerie glow onto Dennis’s solum face. Despite the soft lighten, Eric could still see the burnt mark on Dennis’s face.

Tears trickled from Jenny's face as her thoughts drifted back to the last time she saw agent Paterson alive. Though its been three weeks since the explosion that devastated the Arlington cemetery, Jenny could vividly remember the bloody seen. The cemetery was engulfed in fire and thick black smoke after a bomb erupted. The eruption killed Martinez and senator Anderson immediately.

Theories and speculation on what really accrued at the cemetery was still headline news three week after the explosion. Despite a thorough report from the FBI, conspiracies abound that the senator committed suicide after the murder of his girlfriend Penelope Bagging.

Eric’s heart was filled with anxiety as memories of that tragic explosion infiltrated his soul. It has only been two weeks since the doctor eulogized twelve of his friends and fellow FBI agent murdered by Robert Dubinsky in the Georgetown park. Even after three weeks of investigation, the FBI was still ambivalent about what happen at the Arlington cemetery. The only person that knew the truth lied asleep on the hospital bed.

“We better go,” Jenny quickly whispered. As the agents got up from their chairs,

Eric saw Dennis’s blazing blue eyes suddenly open. A smiled slowly crept across Dennis’s scorched face as he uttered, “Isabella is that you?”

The room was shrouded in anxiety as Dennis slowly woke from his nightmares.

A jovial smile adorned Eric’s face. “I thought I lost you my old friend.”

Dennis’s face suddenly turned white with terror as he cast his blue eyes upon Eric Brown. “Did Jenny survive?”

Tears stream down Jenny’s beautiful face as she proclaimed, “It okay Dennis, I am here.” Jenny’s hands trembled as she lightly touched Dennis’s burn hand.”

Confusion lurked in Dennis’s heart for a couple of moments as he struggled to remember that tragic day. “What happen I can’t remember anything. What happen to senator Anderson?”

Grief stricken, Jenny sat alongside Dennis, held his hand and sympathetically uttered, “I am sorry Dennis, the senator is dead.”

The cheerful sound of a child’s laughter burst into Dennis’s room. The hospital room was suddenly illuminated by the laughter of a young girl with long blonde hair and a pink dress. An astonished look emerged from Dennis’s once gloomy face as his only daughter jumped upon his bed. Jenny was animated as she cast her eyes upon Dennis’s daughter Isabella. The delightful child smiled as she cradled herself in her father’s loving arms.

Friends, relative and fellow FBI agents paid their respects to their hero, Dennis Paterson. The room was besieged with friends and coworkers well past the hospital visiting hour.

Just before midnight, when Isabella was sound asleep in her father’s arms, Eric whispered, “What happen in the Arlington cemetery?”

Dennis’s face suddenly went blank, all the joy he felt in his heart suddenly evaporated. His mind drifted back to the last time he saw his friend and partner Craig Holloway alive. Dennis’s hands started to trembled as he reflected upon my sinister, scorned face. Even though it been over three weeks, Dennis still had horrible nightmare of the explosion that almost killed him. Though Dennis tried to smile to cover up is inner demons, Eric could still tell that agent Paterson was still living in fear.

Jenny smiled, held Dennis’s hand and uttered, “The last time I saw you alive, you were kneeling over Craig Holloway’s body.”

An unsuspected tear trickled from Dennis’s face as he gazed into Jenny’s beautiful blue eyes. “Craig holloway was not who I thought he was. He fooled everyone, even the FBI, into thinking that he real name was Craig Holloway. The truth is that behind that innocent, charming face, my partner was not really my friend after all. His real name was Taylor Hanson.”

Dennis finally started to remember the tragic events that unfolded in the Arlington cemetery three weeks ago. “Martinez real name was David Cooper.”

“My friend Andre informed me that the treasure that David Cooper was searching for was eight hundred bars of gold the eighty-six platoon stole from a warehouse just outside Sainte-Mère-Église, France during the D-day invasion. The bars of gold where know as Raubgold aka stolen gold. In 1943 German invaded France and stole over 100,000 gold bars from the French government and stored it in German protected warehouse through Europe,” said Doctor Brown.

“David Cooper confessed that Father Gregory Mansion helped saved his life after senator Anderson shot him,”said Dennis.

“That is where Private Cooper must have met up with a Nazi soldier named Robert Dubinsky and forged a plan to kill Jeff Anderson and steal the gold for themselves. David changed his named to Martinez and Robert changed his name to Albert Kandinsky,” Jenny theorized.

“What happened to the gold that the platoon stole?” Dennis inquired.

“When I got to Deloris Spencer’s house, our old boss Dexter Framingham confessed that he conspired with David Cooper to steal the gold and murder Kevin Spencer. Dexter escaped aboard Ken’s boat with the gold,” Eric uttered.

“How much is the gold worth now?” Dennis inquired.

“Let’s see, the price of gold today is $ 370 a troy oz. Eight hundred bars equals 319,666.65 troy Oz. A big grin crossed the doctor Eric Browns’s face as he said, “The gold that Senator Jefferson Anderson and his platoon stole in 1944 is now worth  $118,276,660.00 American dollars.”

Hate filed Doctor Eric Brown’s eye as he vowed to revenge Deloris’s brutal murder, retrieve the gold and murder the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dexter F. Framingham.

“Where you able to retrieve my Walter PP pistol from the Arlington cemetery? Taylor had it on him just before David Cooper murdered him.”

“Taylor Hanson is still alive. We never found a Walter PP pistol in the cemetery,” Jenny stipulated.

A bewildered look emerged on Dennis’s faced as he uttered in disbelief, “He alive? Where is he right now Jenny?”

“Two door down Dennis, but he is still in a comma.”

“I want to see him now, alone. Jenny you watch over my daughter.”

Animosity lurked in Dennis’s mind as he thrust open the door to Taylor’s hospital room. Light from the hallway streamed into the darken room and cast an eerie shadow on his old partner's frigate face. Malevolence filled Dennis’s eyes as he glared at the person he once called friend. Undaunted by the fear that rumbled in his gut, the FBI agent ferociously lurched into the hospital room and slammed the door behind him. An irrational wrath erupted inside him as he cumbrously made his way towards the bed. Dennis stumbled on a nightstand and flicked on the switch of a small lamp. The dim light that protruded from the lamp cast a pale unfaltering light upon Taylor’s cold face. Dennis clutched his hand as he tried with all he might not to kill his former partner.

“You bastard, how could betray your country and my trust by joining Martinez’s plot to kill senator Anderson?”

Dennis cold, unsympathetic heart softened as his eyes filled with tears of sorrow. “I know you and Dexter conspired to kill my old partner so you could take over as my new partner. The gun you were going to kill me with in the cemetery was my Walter PP pistol.  You stole my Walter PP pistol and replaced it with an identical gun. Then used my gun to kill my old partner and Kevin Spencer. Someone must have removed my gun from the cemetery. Even thought I don't have any proof yet that you murdered my partner, by the time you awake from your comma, I swear I will have proof that you killed my old partner.”

Dennis crumbled to his knees and wept on his former partner’s body. The door abruptly opened and screams of his daughter woke him from his morbid thoughts.

“Dad please come home.”

Dennis’s face lit up as his daughter Isabel rushed toward him and hugged him.

Dennis smiled at his daughter, grabbed her hand and walk somberly out the hospital room. He stopped briefly at the door, cast his eyes upon Taylor one last time and wiped away an unsuspected tear from his face.

The end