The minute that news of an accident involving three individuals under the age of 25, in a rural wooded area of the country coupled with unusual circumstances brought the intelligence community to a full alert. The entire 911 transmissions and accompanying rescue, police and ranger broadcast were heard at NSA headquarters. The victim’s name was reported and the destination of the trauma center. Immediately, Chase set up agents to fly out to the hospital and area.
Ten minutes later, Chase’s computer guys had hacked into the hospital database and was reading off the surgeon’s notes.
“Man, it looks bad,” the IT guy reported. “Says he’s coded twice. They have him down as Blake Ravensfoot. The driver of the truck is Wallace Kittredge, 52 and works for Sunshine Logging Products out of Seattle. The other two witnesses are Molly and Timothy Hessions. A married couple. They stated that they were joking about sleeping in a real bed as they walked down the center line of State Highway 89 when Kittredge came around the corner, saw them and slammed on the brakes. He admits he was over the center line and his load shifted, toppling the lumber off the trailer.
“Here’s where it gets weird---he says he watched the younger boy grab the elder around the waist as if he weighed nothing and danced on the falling logs as if he was an acrobat. He said he’d never seen anything like it. Said he saved both of the hikers’ lives.”
“Notify Dr. Cameron. Have him meet me on the runway, we’ll be taking the Lear to the Hospital.”
“Yes, sir.” He went back to his screen as Chase blew out of the Tank, unaware that he and his agency weren’t the only ones departing for Montana.
Homeland was interested in the sudden flare of ticket sales to the state and chatter on the net, cell phones, and news feeds. It wasn’t long before they were in on the act and that prompted the media to take notice.
Within five hours after the accident, a veritable firestorm of activity was bearing down on the sleepy little city of Red Lodge. Hotels were sold out within a hundred miles of the Trauma Center and the hospital switchboard was overwhelmed with phone calls asking about the boy still in surgery. It alarmed the DON enough that she had to use her cell phone to call the Sheriff’s Department and ask for help.
Just about the time Ravensfoot came out of surgery, a three-piece-suited mob was entering the lobby demanding to see the CEO of the Trauma Center. Many of the agents carried serious credentials but the DON was a tough ex-Marine who had seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan. She wouldn’t back down for no damned spymaster and told him so in so many terms. Neither was she impressed with the Director of Homeland Security or the CIA.
“The patient is in surgery and not even God is allowed in there,” she snapped. “You can wait in the patients’ lounge like everyone else. The doctor or nurse will come out and talk to the family then.”
“Family?” the agent demanded.
“His cousins are waiting down the hall.” She pointed but when they ran to the waiting room, the pair was gone. Nor were they in the restrooms, cafeteria or anywhere within the hospital grounds. A review of the security tapes did not show them entering or leaving the hospital. The Agent in charge sent more men out to scour the town looking for the pair that someone suggested might be the same brother and sister who had aided in Strongbow’s former escape. Then, they settled in to wait until the surgeons were finished and Director Chase could arrive to take over the operation.
Strangely, it was the President that was the last to know that Strongbow had been found. The Deputy Director of the FBI personally brought him the news and after he threw one of his famous presidential tantrums, he sent a fast Super Stallion from the nearest air force base with a contingent of armed MPs to guard the boy’s room as soon as he came out of surgery.
Those men were told that no one, not CIA, NSA, NIA or DHS were allowed into the room by Presidential decree.
The Super Stallion landed on the helipad in front of emergency at the same time as Strongbow came out of surgery and was taken to recovery. The sight of heavily armed military police marching through the halls, down the stairs, and off the elevators caused many a doctor, nurse and patient to shriek in fear. And to drop things.
They marched up to the OR doors and told the coordinating nurses who they were, why they were there and who had sent them.
“He’ll be out of the recovery room in an hour or so, just as soon as he wakes from anesthesia,” the head surgical nurse told the Sergeant. She smiled at the team of six wide-shouldered, handsome hunks. “Probably won’t wake up for hours, though. He’s suffered some serious trauma.”
“We’ll wait. I hear the President will be coming on Air Force One,” Sgt. Adams said. “That means Secret Service will be all over this place. Get everything you need before that happens. This place will be on total lockdown once the POTUS gets here.”
“Who is this kid?”
“I don’t know. I just know POTUS wants him protected.”
“He’ll be going to ICU. You can’t stand in there, we try to keep it sterile but outside the electronic doors which are also kept locked, there’s a waiting room down the hallway that feeds only to ICU.”
The Sergeant sent men to guard those egress points and others to disperse the crowds waiting in the patient lounge. They moved off only under threats and invoking the terms ‘presidential decree.’
I was expecting faces to be the first thing I saw when and if I woke up. If I did indeed wake up at all. After freezing time, dancing like a dervish while carrying Robin and trying to heal myself, I wasn’t sure if my body had enough ‘juice’ left to let me survive my injuries.
I came awake slowly. In great pain and my first sounds were an involuntary groan at that. The ring of faces staring back at me made me flinch in more pain. The doctors and nurses moved efficiently around me, one of them adjusting my IV and instantly, I was awash in a lovely drugged haze. Morphine haze. I floated on that for a while as the sounds of medical activity happened around me. I heard the drone of machines and the mutter of voices, the sounds of other people in pain and voices of loved one trying to soothe them.
The faces I didn’t expect to see were military in MP uniforms dressed in BDUs and armed with automatic rifles and Glock handguns. I recognized the rank of the man in charge, he was a 30 something Master Sergeant in the Air Force. His name was on a Velcro patch on his chest. Adams. He had piercing green eyes, dark brows over deep-set eyes and sandy brown hair cut in regulation length. Tanned and ruggedly handsome, he wore a tight-lipped look as if he had to refrain from bursting out in laughter.
“Master Sergeant,” I said, lifting the mask off my face. Even so, my voice was a thin whisper. Only one arm moved, the other was encased in a heavy plaster cast. The rest of me felt as heavy as if a mountain sat on me. Or a ton of plaster.
“Blake?” I swiveled my head towards the voice of a doctor wearing greens. He was short, slender but ramrod straight so that he appeared taller than he was. His arms were hairy but so clean that he squeaked. He wore a surgery cap over his hair but his face mask was hanging half on/half off so that it hung from his neck like a midget’s bib.
“I’m Dr. Pentelli. You’re just coming up out of the anesthesia, Blake. I’m one of the surgeons that worked on you. How are you feeling?”
I tried to grin but it was sloppy and when I spoke, I slurred as if I were drunk. “Morphine buzz.”
“We’ll try to keep you comfortable. Can you feel your feet, Blake? Try moving your toes.” His dark blue eyes looked down at my feet. They were too far away for me to watch them. Besides, I already knew that my spine was fractured.
“L4, 5, 6, remember?” I reminded them. “I know what that means.”
“How do you know what kind of damage you had? You were right on with every diagnosis, just as you told the flight nurses.”
“Not Dougie Howser,” I chuckled. “Nor son of doctors. I read. Eidetic memory.”
“Where are your parents? The people you came in with have vanished.”
“Gone? My cousins?” Good. Mairy and Robin had taken my advice and split. I knew that I could escape once I’d healed but getting all three of us out of custody would be too difficult even for me.
“Know I’m paralyzed,” I said, trying to take a deep breath and not succeeding. “Pneumothorax?”
“Inflated. Seems to be holding pressure. Your sat levels are at 90% hence the O2. We had you on a ventilator tube for a couple of hours until we saw that you were breathing fairly well on your own.”
“Who the grunts?”
He looked at the armed guards. “There’s a regular three ring circus going on out there. Every agency from D.C. is parked wherever they can find a spot, waiting for news of your condition. Who are you, Blake Ravensfoot?” He paused. “And why is the President coming to my hospital to talk to you?”
“President? Of the hospital?” I was puzzled. “I have insurance.”
“President of the United States,” he returned and I dropped my mouth under the mask. Things were worse than I could imagine if the President was on his way here.
I tried to raise my body but all I managed to do was get my one arm under me and even that was difficult. Pentelli felt it and placed his palm lightly on my chest with the barest touch and fire wrapped me in a second skin, scorching me to the bone. Somehow, I’d forgotten about my broken ribs.
“Broken ribs, Blake,” Dr. Pentelli reminded me gently. “If you’re thinking you’re going to escape---well, besides the fact that both of your legs are broken, your pelvis crushed and your arm fractured, your spine is beyond repair. I’m afraid that you will not walk again.”
“Gee, doc,” I drawled. “That’s some great bedside manner you got there. Good thing I don’t believe you or I might be really depressed.” I closed my eyes and when I opened them, some time had passed because there were different nurses around me and the shadows coming in the windows were lower and softer.
One of the nurses, a younger woman with improbable pink hair saw that my eyes were open and took my vitals. As she finished with that, she asked me if I thought I could eat or drink something. I was very thirsty and said yes. While waiting for her to return, I drifted off again and when I woke, this time, I found myself in a completely different room. A private one with armed guards just outside my door. The walls were all windows from the waist up and I could see out to the nurses’ station, all the rooms were circled around the center station so that the nurses could watch all of us from one point.
I was in severe pain and tried to keep it in but the minute my eyes opened, one of them got up and came in my room. She took one look at my face and slid a needle into my IV. Within seconds, I was floating away again and she lifted my eyelids, running a flash in them before she patted me on the arm.
“Try to sleep, Blake,” she said softly. “No one will bother you until the doctors release you.” I closed my eyes again and did what she said.