“Let’s start an ice bath for him. Get going people! We can’t waste any time!”
This was why he became a physician, he thought as he helped get the Marine into the tub while ice was brought up. The medical mysteries were what made life exciting.
Chapter 13
“Go Navy, Beat Army, sir!” a voice shouted behind him.
“In your dreams, there Lieutenant,” Keenan responded, not even bothering to turn around.
“We’ll see, sir,” she said with a not-so-military giggle as her footsteps faded away behind him.
“She” was Lieutenant Stacy McMillen, a Navy officer whose office was down the hall. She was a Naval Academy graduate, a specialist in anti-submarine warfare. Why they needed her expertise in the deserts of Iraq, he wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t stay up at nights wondering about it.
As a West Point graduate, the only one in their small section of corridor, he bore the brunt of good-natured inter-Academy rivalry. They had agreed to meet up during the game, which would be broadcast on AFN,[31] along with other Academy grads to watch the big contest next month. Navy had won the last couple of games, but when Keenan had been a cadet, Army had gone on a five-game winning streak against the mids.
“Was that LT McMillen I heard out there giving you shit?” MT asked as Keenan came in the door.
“Yeah, we’re a month away still, but she’s already got her pompoms out.”
“She’s going to be sorry, mark my words,” MT said with conviction.
Keenan had to suppress a chuckle. He was a USMA grad, an alumnus, and while he would watch the game and cheer, this wasn’t life and death. MT wasn’t a graduate. He wasn’t even born American. He was a Thai immigrant who enlisted in the Army, yet he took the football game between the two academies more seriously than Keenan did.
He sure could have done worse, Keenan thought, when he considered his assistant. MT was a conscientious soldier who took their mission seriously, despite the very improbable nature of it. He’d been a truck driver during the initial invasion, and like Keenan, he hadn’t come back whole. He’d lost his left leg to an RPG.[32] They liked to joke that together, they could win a two-legged race, Keenan providing the left leg and MT the right.
Whether it was by design or happenstance, putting them together was a good thing for Keenan. MT helped him cope. His enthusiasm and simple refusal to feel down was infectious and helped Keenan escape the darkness when the moods hit.
MT’s parents had received their immigrant visa to the US only two days before MT was born. Wanting to embrace all things American, his parents gave him an American first name, and while he was growing up, they encouraged him to participate in what they considered to be American activities.
Because of his fitness and build, coupled with his Thai background, most people thought that his nickname, MT, stood for Muay Thai. This frustrated Keenan to no end. As a tall, black athlete, people tended to assume that he played basketball when his sports were swimming and lacrosse. But in MT’s case, the assumption was correct. MT gravitated to Muay Thai, and he evidently had been pretty good, winning the under-18 US Championship.
“So, how was our Amazon, Major?” MT asked with the easy camaraderie they’d quickly developed.
Keenan dropped his assault pack and gratefully took his seat. He was still amazed at how much his leg ached sometimes, the leg that wasn’t there. MT called it “ghost pain.” He had one of those posters with a weight lifter with the caption “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” and above the word “pain,” in bright red, he had inserted “ghost.”
“Well, Spec 5 Teresa Wright is actually kind of an Amazon. She’s a stud: high school b-ball, track. She’s a brown belt in Taekwondo. No one was surprised by what she’d done. I think she’s just a natural ass-kicking soldier. We’ll keep monitoring her, but I doubt anything will turn up.”
“Did you pull blood?” MT asked.
“No, not enough probable cause. Like I said, let’s just keep our eyes on her. What about our Marine?”
“No go, Major. He’s laid up in the hospital with a raging fever. Second time for him, they told me.”
Despite himself, Keenan felt a sense of disappointment. He really didn’t believe any of what he was out there to find, despite the Top Secret documents he’d read. He was only marching on from a soldier’s sense of duty. Still, a small part of him hoped that he would succeed in his mission. The Marine seemed like a possibility, given what he’d heard. It had the flags that Tarnation had told him to look for. But the subjects of their searches didn’t get sick. That was drilled into them. Like a party balloon being deflated, any remote hope that he was actually doing something worthwhile and of value to the service dissipated to nothing.
Chapter 14
Hozan hovered, for lack of a better term. He knew he shouldn’t be there and that he wasn’t doing any good by being around the hospital. Aiden Kaas would either live or he wouldn’t, and as Hozan hadn’t received any instructions yet, he wouldn’t be interfering.
The Seed would be in full attack mode, fighting off Kaas’ white blood cells as those cells tried to overwhelm the invaders. Ironically, if the young man’s body defenses won the battle, they would lose the war. Kaas would die as the Seed was destroyed, releasing the deadly toxins as the cell walls ruptured. His only hope for survival was that his body was strong enough to withstand the onslaught until the Seed won, defeating his body’s defenses. Even then, his ravaged body might not have the strength to recover.
At least the mystery surrounding the infection had probably been solved. Omar Muhmood was reportedly killed by American Marines. Omar wasn’t feral, but he tended to resist the influence of the Council. He was known to hunt humans, and during the Iraq-Iran War, he roamed the battlefields, killing and feeding on soldiers from both sides. The Council had tried to pressure him to stop his hunts, but to no avail. The irony of the situation was that Omar’s father, Nemir, was himself a member of the Council.
Omar had never turned a human to anyone’s knowledge. This would have been against his very nature. Humans were not worthy of the Seed. They were prey, nothing more. A thrill seeker, he was probably trying to push the envelope, taking a Marine in combat, only to fall to them, but not before infecting Kaas.
Nemir’s position was probably why Hozan hadn’t gotten the instructions to end Kaas’ life. Omar was dead, but his Seed flowed through the Marine’s body. Nemir most likely convinced enough members of the Council to let this unauthorized infection run its course. That didn’t mean Kaas was out of the woods. Even if he survived, the order could still come down the eliminate him.
“Hey, the shitter’s overflowing. Can you take care of that, Abdul?”
Hozan turned around. A Marine staff sergeant was staring at him. Hozan was somewhat surprised that he’d been spotted. He must have been letting his mind wander.
“Do you understand English?” the staff sergeant asked, raising his voice as if increased volume alone could bring about comprehension.
“Yes, yes,” Hozan said. “I will take care of it.”
“OK, thanks. It’s pretty gross in there,” the Marine said before striding off.
Hozan turned back around, the staff sergeant and his request forgotten. He wanted to know the moment PFC Aiden Kaas either made the transformation or died in the process.
Chapter 15
Aiden opened his eyes and stretched. He felt great—starving to death, but great. He sat up, intending to get out of bed and go get some chow.
“You back among the living?” a short woman in scrubs asked, stepping up and taking his wrist in her hand, feeling for his pulse.
Aiden looked around in confusion.
Why am I at the hospital? he wondered.
“Pulse is steady,” she said, dropping his wrist and putting her hand on his forehead. “Fever’s broken, too. I’m Dr. Winstead. You’re Dr. Gutierrez’ patient, but we’ve all been monitoring you, and frankly, you’ve had us stumped. I’m just passing th
rough, so let me get Dr. Gutierrez to take a look at you.
“Justin, get Dr. Gutierrez. Let him know our mystery Marine’s conscious,” she told a tall, gangly guy, also in scrubs, who was sitting behind a desk.
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded before getting on the phone.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked Aiden.
“Great, ma’am. Great. But, what am I doing here?”
“Well, passing out with a fever of 107 is a good ticket to our little facility, there, PFC,” she told him, spelling out “Pee-Eff-Cee.”
“Passing out?” He vaguely remembered playing poker, then feeling sick. He’d actually passed out?
“Uh, how long was I out?”
“Two days. You’ve been in intensive care for a day and a half, but this morning, your fever started to come down and your vitals got much stronger, so you were transferred here.”
“What was wrong with me?”
“Good question, there. I wish we knew. Dr. Gutierrez will have more than a few questions for you, if I know him—and I do—to try and figure that out. Speaking of the devil, here he is.”
Dr. Gutierrez came up to the bedside, felt Aiden’s wrist first, then his forehead just as Dr. Winstead had done.
“How are you feeling, there, son?”
“Great, sir, just like I told the lady doctor. I mean, the ma’am. The officer,” he stammered out.
Dr. Winstead laughed and said, “Well, I am a ‘lady doctor,’ so no harm no foul. I’m going to leave you in my esteemed colleague’s hands while I go get some chow.”
The mention of chow made Aiden even hungrier, but he had to sit there for a barrage of questions from Dr. Gutierrez about everything that happened to him leading up to his passing out. The doctor finally gave way to a corpsmen who drew six vials of blood, and it wasn’t until after the blood was drawn that he had a chance to wolf down a dry ham and cheese sandwich that didn’t do much to assuage his hunger.
Another two hours passed before Dr. Gutierrez came back, studying some papers.
“The initial bloodwork is done, but like before, there’s nothing there that can explain your fever. I thought it might be CCHF given your headache, but that’s a negative on that.”
Aiden had no idea what “CCHF” was, and as the doctor seemed to be talking more to himself than to Aiden, he didn’t want to ask.
“Well,” the doctor said, looking up at Aiden, “I’m going to keep you here for observation for a couple of days. We were about to medivac you to USAMRIID before you took a turn for the better, but we might still want to do that.”
“You-sa-what?” Aiden asked, confused.
“Oh, the U.S. Army Infectious, no, wait a second . . . U-S-A-M-R . . . U.S. Army Medical Research, uh, . . . I-I-D . . . Institute of Infectious Diseases. Yeah, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. I had to think about that for a moment. It’s at Ft. Detrick, and they’re the military experts on this type of thing. They’d be able to figure out why you’ve gone unconscious twice now with high fevers.”
“You’re sending me there?” Aiden asked.
He would have thought he would jump at the chance to go back to the States, but suddenly, he was not too sure of that.
“That would probably be the most prudent course of action, so yes, but it’ll be up to hospital commander to make that call.”
“Sir, look, I feel fine. Great, in fact. I’ve had fevers before when I was a kid, and they always broke. No problem, really. You said there were more tests. Can we just wait for that? I want to go back to my squad, and I can wait there until you find something out, right?”
“You’ve had them before? That’s not in your records,” he said, looking at Aiden’s chart as if that piece of information would suddenly manifest itself there.
“Yes, sir. Many times. I’ve been checked out by all sorts of specialists, and they said it’s just the way I am.”
All of that was a blatant lie. Aiden had never lost consciousness before, but he was pretty sure Dr. Gutierrez had no way to prove that. He offhandedly wondered if the punishment for lying to a Navy doctor was the same as lying to a Marine officer. Part of him was screaming to just agree to go to Ft. Detrick, wherever that was, and get the hell out of Iraq. He could get back, and then start working his bolt for a VA pension.
“That doesn’t tell me much. They could have missed something, after all.”
He leaned forward and used his fingers to open Aiden’s right eye wide and peer into it.
“You really want to get back to your buddies, don’t you,” he asked Aiden.
“Buddies” wasn’t a term Aiden would use, but he readily agreed.
“OK, I tell you what. You have no symptoms now. Zilch. We can use the bed here for someone else, so I’m going to let you go back to your squadbay. I’ll give you a light duty chit, and I want you to hang around until I see the rest of your bloodwork results. But I want you to wear a mask until you hear from me. I don’t think you are infectious now, but I don’t want to take that chance and have your entire squad come down with something.”
“Aye, aye, sir! No problem with that!”
“Let me work this up, and we should have you out of here in about 20 minutes.”
It was actually closer to 40 minutes before Aiden was out the front hatch of the hospital, a mask over his face. The mask wasn’t much, but the pliable strip inside that helped mold the mask to the nose was uncomfortable. As soon as Aiden was out of sight from the hospital, it came off and was put in his pocket. He felt too good. He couldn’t be sick feeling like he did.
He was heading right for the DFAC. He’d eat, then report back to Sgt Rickman. As he passed the gym, the sounds of weights being lifted reached out to him. He paused. His stomach was growling, and he needed chow. But he felt great, stronger than he’d ever been before. He turned into the gym.
This wouldn’t take long. He’d prove to himself that he was fine, better than fine. He didn’t need a mask as if he wasn’t sick.
There were two people lifting when he got in and another three on the cardio machines. He took off his blouse and went to the bench press. He lifted 325 before with Dontrell and the others. He felt as if he could easily go another 100.
He had to count up the weights. The Olympic bar was 45 pounds. Then the large plates were 45 pounds, too. He was up to 405. He grabbed two 10 pounders and added them to the bar. There: 425.
He lay down on the bench and put his hands on the bar. Taking two deep breaths, he pushed up with everything he had. The bar moved, but only a fraction and only on the right side. It was too heavy! He tried to lower it back, but his right arm started to give out, and the bar came down, missing the hook. The left side was still on its hook, so the bar was tilted, and the plates started to slide off the right side.
Panic set in as he tried to push the right side of the bar back up. He realized he wasn’t going to get it up, and the whole thing was going to crash down.
“Whoa, there, cowboy!” a voice called out as someone rushed forward, strong arms grabbing the right side of the bar with both hands.
The bar was quickly put back on the hook. Relief swept over Aiden as he looked up at the Marine who’d helped him.
“That’s some load there, way too much for you. What were you thinking?” the Marine asked him.
In only his trou and t-shirt, Aiden couldn’t tell the man’s rank, but he was older, so he was undoubtedly senior to him.
“Sorry, sir, and thanks,” Aiden told him. “I’ve done almost this much before, and I guess I thought I had it.”
“You’ve lifted this much before” the big Marine said, looking down at Aiden’s much smaller and less-developed body, disbelief evident in his voice.
“Well, not this much, but I did 335 pounds two weeks ago.”
Aiden could tell that the guy didn’t believe that, either.
“Well, cowboy, 425 is just a smidge more than 335. Next time you’re thinking about going for broke, how about ge
tting yourself a spotter?”
“Uh, yeah, I will, sir. For sure.”
Aiden was deflated. He’d felt so sure of himself, so strong. He wondered if his fever was to blame. Maybe it was giving him poor judgment somehow. He just wanted to get out of there. He got up and grabbed his blouse.
“You really shouldn’t be lifting alone. If you really want to lift, give me a shout sometime. CWO4 Khalil. I’m the MEF armory chief.”
“Thanks, sir,” Aiden said, shaking the proffered hand. “Well, I’m on my way to chow.”
He turned and started to walk out of the gym.
“I’m serious, there, cowboy. No lifting alone,” the chief warrant officer’s voice followed him out.
Aiden needed time to think. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was positive that he had the potential to do much more than bench 425 pounds. The power was building inside of him, just looking for a way to get out. He just didn’t know how to unlock that potential yet.
Chapter 16
Aiden looked ahead, trying to pick out his route. He was back on point, leading the squad up a wadi. Their mission was to move unseen to a road still some 400 meters ahead where they would set up a blocking force while the other two squads conducted a house call on a run-down shack alongside the dusty road. A “house call” was the term they used when intel thought a person of interest was in a building.
The darkness was a welcome relief to the searing heat of the day. Aiden felt amped, his senses singing with energy. He wanted to run to their position, to howl out to any insurgents that this was their territory and to come and take it back if they dared.
He’d felt like this ever since getting back from the hospital. He knew he couldn’t sit still, so he never told Sgt Rickman that he was supposed to be on light duty. He had gone on four missions since then, but to his disappointment, nothing had happened. They’d gone out and come back without contact. That should have made him happy, but he needed something to happen.
The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy Page 6
