When I awoke, I found myself in a hospital bed with Morgana sitting next to me on my left. I touched my head and felt that it had been adorned with a bandage that wrapped around it.
“Don’t play with it, Richard.” Morgana held my hand in a reassuring grip. “You have had a slight concussion, and the gash on the back of your head has been cleaned up, again. You also have a mild case of hypothermia and a few extra cuts and bruises from your river ride. Other than that, you have miraculously endured your ordeal fairly well.”
“And you . . . and the others? How are they? What about Kyle and Peterson?”
“They are fine, Richard,” Morgana said with a thankful smile.
“How about Smith? Did he — ”
“Dr. MacKenzie,” interrupted a familiar voice, “you have made it back to the land of the living. I am so glad that you came to no serious harm.” On the far side of the room, sat Mrs. Prosper in a wheelchair. She was attended by a very attractive nurse in light blue scrubs who stood on one side of her. And on her other side, was a no-nonsense looking Vermont State trooper. There was also another woman standing behind her chair. She was smartly dressed a dark pantsuit, in her late forties and she looked like she ate steel wool for breakfast.
“Mrs. Prosper? You’re alive.”
“And why wouldn’t I be,” answered the resilient old biddy. “My lungs are a little worse for the wear, but the doctors say I’ll be free to go home tomorrow.” Mrs. Prosper nodded to the trooper and who then rolled my loquacious acquaintance up next to my bed. “You were quite brave in getting me out of that smokey building. I remember one time when my husband Fred and I were on vacation. He had to carry me over a rope bridge. I think it was because I sprained my ankle on a hiking trail or was it — ”
“What happened to Smith and Dolan?” I blurted out, being more concerned with the whereabouts and the condition of the guys who wanted to kill me than the adventures of dead Fred.
“Excuse me,“ said the state trooper as he took a step closer to me, “I am Sgt. Flambeau — ”
Morgana interrupted, saying, “Yes, this is Sgt. Flambeau from the state police, nurse Howell, and Agent Wagner from the FBI.”
“FBI?” I mumbled.
“I’m here to gather any information about what happened back at the Whyte Post Inn,” said the uniformed officer, examining a clipboard as he spoke. “We have no listing of a Smith or Dolan at the inn.”
There was a definite sustained moment of silence that filled the room before it was broken.
“Who are you talking about, Richard?” Morgana said with some trepidation.
I was dumbfounded. How could she say, ‘Who was I talking about?’ What in the world was Morgana talking about? “You know the guys who — ”
“ — Were the EMTs that found you named Smith and Dolan? I image that they are okay. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Prosper?”
“Yes, I’m sure they are,” said Mrs. Prosper a little colder than when she greeted me upon my awakening.
Morgana leaned over me and looked straight into my eyes and held my hand quite tightly. “You ought not to trouble yourself about them. They found you, and you’re pretty much okay. You went through a lot.”
“Indeed, you have,” added Mrs. Prosper. “You were very lucky today, Dr. MacKenzie. You may have gotten yourself killed. We don’t want you to jeopardize your health by over doing it now or by worrying about things that you can’t do anything about, do we? As Dale Evans would say, ‘All the good guys and gals are on the ranch, safe and sound.’ In fact, everyone who was rescued from the inn was brought here to the center. Isn’t that so, Trooper Flambeau?”
“As far as we know. But if Mr. MacKenzie knows about other people, people that may be missing, we ought to find out if — ”
“There weren’t any others at the inn, ” sharply replied Agent Wagner.
“But this man just said — ”
“This man received a concussion and nearly drowned,” said agent with steel in her voice. “I would think that our immediate concern would be his health and not about imaginary people that he may have encountered when semi-conscious. Remember, your superiors said that you were to accompany me, but, and I repeat, you were not to interfere in any way. So far, Trooper, you have been quite helpful; don’t ruin it.”
Agent Wagner approached my bed, “Get better. You will stay in this room and will have no unauthorized visitors to bother you. We'll leave you and your wife alone, but keep the conversation short and stay away from the topic of today’s events . . . for now. You need your rest. You and I, Mr. MacKenzie, will definitely talk sometime later on.”
“That will be fine. But I would — ”
“Tomorrow morning, arrangements have been made for all the people rescued from the Whyte Post Inn to meet at this facility’s small lecture hall. Attendance is mandatory. Your wife can fill you in on the details. Glad that you’re okay.”
With those words the trooper and the FBI agent departed.
Mrs. Prosper signaled her attending nurse with a nod of her head. “Well, I see that the MacKenzies want to be alone. We ought to leave.”
With many parting of words of gratitude and a prolonged good-bye, Mrs. Prosper ultimately was wheeled out of my room.
Finally, Morgana and I were alone without Mrs. Prosper, Kyle, Serena, and the rest of the cast from Hellzapoppin, and I needed to talk.
“Morgana, what in the world is going on? What has happened to the guys that held us at gun—”
“ — Richard, if you want what is best for me, Kyle, yourself and the others, please, let’s not talk about what had happened . . . not just yet.”
“What are you saying? People tried to kill — ” Morgana abruptly put her hand over my mouth.
“Richard, Agent Wagner said we can talk all we want and ask as many questions that we like at tomorrow’s meeting. But until then, she has strongly requested that we say nothing to anyone about the events at the Whyte Post.”
“Nothing?”
“We can say that the Whyte Post Inn was flooded out, and there was a fire which may have been caused by an electrical shortage which may have resulted from the flood waters. But no more.”
I pulled Morgana’s hand away from me. “Oh really, Agent Wagner has asked us to do that, did she?”
“Yes, she did. I didn’t like the idea, but Mrs. Prosper said it was wise to go along.”
“Your Mrs. Prosper said that it would be wise to go along?”
“She did.“ Morgana leaned closer to me and whispered, “I think there is more to Mrs. Prosper than meets the eye, not like Agent Wagner.”
“You do. Tell me about it,” I said, not caring if I displayed any sarcasm or not.
“Ever since our rescue, all sorts people have come around to speak with her.”
“Speak to whom?”
“Mrs. Prosper, of course. People come to advise her; they defer to her — hospital staff, the FBI, men in suits, doctors, police. It seems people pay more attention to her than. Eh, well, even, to you, I suppose.”
“She’s old and she probably has an extensive social circle. In spite of her loquaciousness, people may find her likable. People worry about her . . . she’s old.”
“No, there is something more to it,” said Morgana. “I feel it. She . . . how can I put it, she’s over involved in the situation.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really. I think that she is more adamant about keeping the events at the inn under wraps than Agent Wagner. In any case, no one is to talk about what happened at the Whyte Post. We are not permitted to speak to the state troopers, hospital staff, the press, relatives, friends about what happened.”
“Really, then what am I to say about what happened to me, eh? I just happened to fall into the river while the place was burning down?”
“Wasn’t that what happened?” said Morgana. “Mrs. Prosper said that after you had helped her out of the building, you were so overcome with smoke that you blindly stumbled into the wat
er and were swept away.”
“That’s her story? That doesn’t come close. You have no idea what happened to me back there, no idea. And now Agent Wagner suggests — ”
“Ordered! She ordered that we be quiet for a time.”
“She wants me to say that I simply fell into a raging river, and — ”
“Keep your voice down!” demanded Morgana. “We shouldn’t even be talking.”
“And your Mrs. Prosper wants me to go along with this stupid story?”
“Mrs. Prosper said that she really wasn’t exactly sure what happened to you at the inn. She did say that she was dizzy with smoke poisoning. She means well . . . as you said, she’s old. And what do you mean by ‘Your Mrs. Prosper’ as if she’s mine?”
“Well, she was on your fund raising committee. I never knew her or talked to the woman before we arrived at the inn,” I said in a bit of a huff.
“She was only a name on a list that I inherited. In fact, it was she who suggested and ultimately organized our meeting at the Whyte Post Inn. Before I was assigned this committee job, I didn’t know anything about her, either.”
Morgana curled her lip and held it in place with her teeth in sort of a bit. She sometimes did this when she was going to say something which she believed would trigger a harsh reaction on my part. “Richard, I don’t know the proper context to interpret what has happened. You spent more, shall I say, more intimate time with Mrs. Prosper than I have had in the past twenty-four hours, so you probably know more about her than I do. But, as I said, she has shown to have a great deal of clout around here. She told me that it was at her insistence that a helicopter went out to search for you.“
Morgana eyed the doorway while I concluded that Mrs. Prosper must have been hell fire on wheels when she was in her prime. I also had some thought on the character of Mrs. Prosper’s dead Fred.
”She is not just some little old alumna from college,” continued Morgana. “She is a force to reckon with, and she almost frightens me. At the same time, Richard, I do trust her. Let’s do what she and Agent Wagner asks. You can always shoot your mouth off at the meeting tomorrow, okay.”
Morgana again held my hand and brought it up to her lips and kissed it.
“Fine,” I said, “but can you tell me something about your rescue. How did you and the others get away?”
“I don’t know if I should, Richard,” said Morgana apologetically and averting her gaze from mine, “I promised Mrs. Prosper, that I wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Morgana, we can talk to each other,” I said calmly. I went through too much to have Morgana not to clue me in on what took place at the inn during my absence. “That is why she left us alone just now.”
Morgana thought a moment, gave a nod and began. “It is hard to say, really, everything occurred so quickly. After you had been ordered to go upstairs, things had become dangerous and confusing. At one point, I thought that you were . . . killed. What actually happened to you?”
It was then my turn to squeeze her hand gently with reassurance and affection. “Hey, I’m the most banged up of all the survivors, I get the say who speaks and when. You go first. Tell me what happened to all of you when I left.”
I thought that my comment would earn a smile from my wife, but it didn’t. Her eyes revealed to me that something bad had happened and that ‘something’ was going to be difficult for her to talk about. Again, I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay; tell me.”
“Well,” started Morgana, “we were all — ”
Voices.
Responding to some chattering out in the hall, Morgana stopped speaking; her eyes focused on the closed door to my room. After several seconds, the unseen talkers’ voices faded away. Morgana looked down at me and began again her strange tale about how Kyle’s great stroke of luck and his unique physical prowess saved the day.
#
CHAPTER 16
“Things got, shall we say, very heated just after Serena went upstairs,” Morgana spouted her tale like a punctured tire does air. “We all had one fearful thought — that she and everybody else were not going to get out of the ordeal alive. Smith, Williams, and one of the new guys were going to kill us — Did you know that two mean looking accomplices of Smith’s had shown up, each wielding a shotgun?”
“I do, I even met one . . . Tell me what happened before someone comes in on us.”
“You met one?”
“Never mind that. What happened down in the lobby?”
“Yes, well, we were all on the floor, huddled together. Then that redheaded man, called Dolan, came back into the lobby carrying a green satchel, the type that a cyclist would wear. I feared that it contained some kind of explosive because Smith and Dolan referred to it as a Baghdad Surprise.”
“A Baghdad Surprise?”
“Yes. They talked about the satchel making their escape ‘look good.’”
“Make it look good?”
“I can’t say for sure, but to my mind, I think that Smith and Dolan planned to blow up the place with all of us in it . . . and make the explosion look like an accident.”
“Kind of makes sense, I suppose. What happened next?”
“I remember hearing a low rhythmic thumping sound from somewhere outside . . . And the sound grew louder. Then before I knew it, several smoking canisters came crashing through the front window. One of these landed by your brother and Peterson, who, I might add, unbeknownst to me, had covered up the fact that they somehow freed themselves from the handcuffs.”
“How did they do that?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Morgana said in a higher pitched voice, annoyed with my interruptions. “Ask Kyle when you get to see him; I would like to know too.”
“Peterson and his love for magic, I bet,” I muttered and grinned.
“What’s that?”
I shook my head gently. “ Nothing. Go on.”
“Well, without warning, a smoke canister came smashing through a window and lands by Kyle. Your brother then sprang to his feet as quickly as if he had just sat on a hornet’s nest and shouted erroneously, of course, ‘Grenade!’ That put everyone in a panic and sent them scrambling for safety. For Kyle, staying on his feet was short lived. Your brother never acquired a steady balance when he stood up. His rapid rise instantly turned into a free fall. He went backwards into the table behind him.”
“The table?”
“You know, the table that had the large orange glazed ceramic pot of the hot mulled cider. Well, he landed on it and broke it.”
“He broke the pot?”
“The table and the pot that it was on.“
“The table that looked like some fancy boards laid over a pair sawhorses?”
“That’s the one. Your brother slammed into the edge of the table, dislodged the boards which flipped the pot of hot cider over onto the thug with the shotgun who stood guard nearby. Getting scalded by the cider, he inadvertently let a round off from his gun that went harmlessly into the ceiling.”
“That was fortunate.”
“But you see, not only did the cider pot go over, but also the alcohol burner that kept the cider warm and the demijohn, that was located on the table’s lower shelf. That also fell over and broke.”
“The demijohn?”
“That blue glass bottle . . . Kyle’s encounter with the table sent it crashing to the floor where it shattered.”
“Oh, the big blue bottle. What a pity. I kind of liked that thing. It had a nice design. It caught the light in an interesting way.”
“I guess so.” Morgana gave a fast glance at the doorway to be sure that no one had come by, let go of my hand, and punched my upper arm. “The pity, Richard, was that it contained the denatured alcohol that was used to refill the warming device. The spilt alcohol raced across the floor, followed by blue and yellow flames. The chasing fire got to the decorative paper table cloth that was draped over the table and set it ablaze. The table was next to catch fire . . . and then some rugs on the floo
r. It seemed that fires were popping up all over the place.”
“But I heard more than one shot fired,” I said as I tried to visualize Morgana's scenario.
“Let me finish . . . By this time, choking clouds of smoke filled the lobby. Shots seemed to come from the direction from the top of the staircase. A man, dressed in black, came into the lobby from the direction of the kitchen with some type of gun that emitted a laser beam. I saw Babak crawling on the floor and heading in the direction where I last saw Arezoo, only to disappear into the rapidly thickening pall of smoke. I heard more shots. Who fired them and at whom, I couldn’t tell.”
“Where were you?” I asked.
“I crawled under the small coffee table where I thought it would be safe, but that was quickly dispelled when the green satchel somehow got kicked or thrown under the table next to me. I am embarrassed to admit it, but when that sack tumbled from out of nowhere and landed right by me, I let out a scream that could probably have been heard all the way in town . . . It was so unlike me to do something like that.”
It was then my turn to console Morgana. “Hey, so would anybody scream if a bomb flopped down next to him. You even said that Kyle screamed when a smoke canister landed next to him.”
“Thanks a lot, Richard, for comparing me to Kyle . . . I didn’t hear Serena scream like a hysterical old woman.”
What Morgana precisely meant by her comment about Bo, I wasn’t sure, but it had me wondering about my ex-girlfriend’s role in the firefight at the Whyte Post Inn. So with all the sympathy and domestic caution I could summon up, I said, “Serena is a strange person.”
Morgana slightly straightened up in her seat. “She is, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she always took a more dangerous path in life, the road less travelled — ” a contributing factor that ultimately led to our break-up many years ago. “She has probably been in many shoot-outs in her line of work over the years. I’m surprised that she has made it through life unscathed, as far as I can tell.” This comment was indeed speculative on my part. I really had no idea about what Bo had been doing for almost thirty years.
“Do you think? How many gun fights do FDA agents get into?” Morgana’s speculation revealed that she didn’t still know everything about Bo.
FATED TO THE PURPOSE (Richard and Morgana MacKenzie Mysteries Book 2) Page 20
