by L. T. Ryan
“Kathy,” Sean said. “Emma.”
His wife stood and picked up their daughter, leaning her over Sean to give him a hug. Sean reached up with both arms, wrapping one around Emma, and the other around Kathy. For the first time in more than a week, he felt at peace. Then, he began to cry. He wept for Jules, and the SEAL team, and the tortured souls that were forever trapped in that underground lair of death.
Sean released his wife and child. Kathy set Emma on the chair and handed the little girl a coloring book. Then she turned back to Sean.
“I heard about Jules,” she said.
Sean bit his lip and nodded. He wondered how much she knew and what he should tell her. Hell, what could he tell her? Truth was, he wasn’t sure what had happened anymore. His dreams had been full of so many vivid and horrific events, the lines between reality and fantasy had become blurred.
Kathy saved him from having to make the decision. “Let’s talk about that later, Sean,” she said, gripping his shoulder and squeezing gently.
Sean brought his palms to his face and wiped away his tears, feeling for the first time the growth of hair on his cheeks. He nodded at Kathy, and then looked at the equipment above him. It was then that he realized he was not at Walter Reed. The equipment labels were written in another language and he realized he was in Europe.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Germany,” Kathy replied.
He thought for a minute. There were several U.S. Air Force bases in Germany. He figured they would have taken him to the largest.
“Frankfurt?” he said.
“No,” she said. “Near Munich.”
“Erding?” he said, referring to the Air Force base about half an hour north of Munich.
“No, it’s a private place, Sean. You are here to see Doctor Kaufmann.”
“Who’s that?”
She shrugged. The gesture led Sean to believe she’d only remained a little more informed than himself. “He’s a leader in prosthetics. They used the word pioneer. That’s all I know. The Air Force set all this up. They promised me they’re going to take care of you.” She hesitated, then added, “Take care of us.”
“How’s that?”
“They’ll be in to talk to you. They asked me to let them tell you.”
Sean shrugged, then slid his hand under the sheets toward his left thigh. He felt the bandaged stump that signified where his leg had been severed. He scratched at the bandages that covered the closed wound around his femur. He wanted to pull back the sheets and inspect it, but didn’t out of fear of frightening his wife and daughter.
“How’s it feel?” Kathy asked.
“Hurts,” Sean replied. “Are you going to be okay with this?” he added.
She lifted her shoulders and inch and forced a smile. “I’ll be there for you no matter what, Babe.”
Sean hoped she’d meant it, because he knew he’d need her now more than ever. Recovering from the wound was one thing. Recovering mentally from the things he had encountered in Nigeria was another. He knew that at some point he’d need to tell someone, and he knew that someone would likely be her. He was concerned that the things he had to tell her might be enough to make her run away from him.
“It’s close to Emma’s nap time,” Kathy said. “We’ve been here all morning waiting for you to wake up.”
“Sorry it took so long,” Sean said with a smile.
“You snore, Daddy,” Emma said without looking up from her coloring book.
Sean laughed, perhaps for the first time since Jules had been attacked that night in Nigeria.
“We’re staying across the street,” Kathy said. “They put us up in an apartment there. We have it for a month, although they told us they doubt we’ll be here that long.”
“Okay,” Sean said, deciding not to ask who they were.
“We’ll be back around eight in the morning to join you for breakfast.”
He didn’t want them to leave, but he also knew that it had to be tough for Emma to see her daddy laid up in bed, unable to move. He had no idea what his face looked like, if it were covered in cuts, scrapes and bruises. He wasn’t sure if his daughter knew that his leg had been taken. If she did, then he figured the question on her mind was “how” and sooner or later she’d ask. He knew that he wasn’t comfortable enough to answer that question.
“Okay,” he managed, forcing a smile to linger on his face until his wife and daughter had left the room and were out of sight. A wave of calm washed over him. Despite all that had happened and everything he’d lost physically, mentally and spiritually, he still had his family. He knew that there were soldiers he served alongside whose families no longer had them.
He realized that he hadn’t had solid food since before he entered the facility in Nigeria with Jules, Turk and the rest of SEAL Team 8. His stomach turned and ached at the thought of eating, and he hoped that the hospital would provide him with an early dinner.
It took an hour and a half before a nurse came by with his meal. The food they provided held little appeal for Sean, but he ate it anyway. He needed strength and now was as good a time as any to begin rebuilding it. Before he finished with his meal, there was a knock on his door. He had been expecting the doctor, so receiving a visitor at the late hour was of little surprise.
However, the four men who entered his room were unexpected.
Chapter 20
The first man through the door was tall and lean. He appeared to be around fifty. His receding hair was half-black, half-gray, and he was dressed casually. In fact, they all were. The other men were young, though. They looked to be around the same age as Sean. He didn’t recognize any of them, but figured them to be military, or worse, CIA. The facility in Nigeria was the kind of place the Agency would know about and want to keep tabs on. That would explain why they’d come to see Sean. They wanted to extract whatever information he had.
“Staff Sergeant Ryder?” the older man said.
Sean stared at the man, but did not reply.
“Are you Staff Sergeant Sean Ryder?” the man asked again.
“Yeah,” Sean replied. “Who’re you?”
The man turned toward the others, and then motioned with his hand. One guy left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. The remaining two men stood by the door, one on either side with their hands crossed in front of their waists. Sean noticed the tell-tale bulge on their right hips, indicating they were armed. And, he presumed, dangerous.
“Who are you?” Sean asked again.
“My name is Kemp,” the man said. “That’s all you need to know. These other men are here to make sure you and I are left alone while we talk.”
“That’s funny,” Sean said. “I would’ve assumed they were here to make sure that I talked.”
Kemp nodded and offered a curt smile. “I understand your apprehension, Sean. You’ve been through a lot these last few days. I’m here to help, not hurt. Work with me and everything will be taken care of for you. Understand?”
“Who do you work for? Are you with the Air Force? The Navy?”
Kemp smiled, and said, “That’s not important, Sean. What is important is that we discuss what happened in Nigeria.”
Sean felt his skin flush and a thin layer of sweat formed on his brow. “What do you know about it?”
“You went there on a support mission,” Kemp said. “The Army lost a company of Rangers, and a handful of operatives from Delta Force.”
Sean nodded.
“You and your partner, Staff Sergeant Julian Hoover, were set to rendezvous with members of SEAL Team 8. But the last contact from them stated that you and Hoover never arrived. They figured that you two were—”
“Wait,” Sean said. “What?”
“They figured you two were blown off course,” Kemp continued, seemingly annoyed by Sean’s interruption. “They backtracked to where they estimated you should have landed, but there was no sign of either of you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin
g about. We were a little behind them, but not by much. It took us maybe a half-hour to reach them.”
Kemp furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side. “No, Sean, you never reached them. You don’t remember what happened after you landed?”
“Of course I do,” Sean said. “How could I forget it? We encountered…” Sean paused, trying to think of a word other than zombie. “A humanoid being attacked Jules and me. We killed it. Then we hustled and found Turk and the rest of—”
“You stepped on an IED, Sean. We determined the spot where you landed, which was damn close to a terrorist training camp by the way. From there, you set off to the south, but you didn’t make it a quarter-mile before you stepped on the explosive.”
Sean shook his head furiously. “That’s not what happened.”
“Are you sure?” Kemp leaned in close to Sean and gestured toward his shortened left leg. “You were the lucky one here. Hoover took shrapnel to the head and died instantly.”
Sean continued to shake his head. “That’s not true. We met up with the SEALs. Ask Turk. As far as I know he’s still a—”
“Who is Turk? By my count, you’ve mentioned him twice now. I’ve never heard that name before.”
“Charles Turksen,” Sean said. “He led the SEAL team.”
Kemp’s lower lip protruded, he shrugged. “I don’t know of a SEAL by that name, Sean.” He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. He stuck his fingertip on the number pad and held a button down for a few seconds, and then he lifted the phone to his head. After a moment, he said, “Yeah, this is Kemp. Tell me, do you have any information on a Charles Turksen, USN, SEAL, maybe goes by Turk?” Kemp looked at Sean and faked a smile. “Yeah, I’m here with him now. He states that they rendezvoused with the SEAL team, and met with this Turksen. Says he was in charge.” Another pause. “Okay, yeah, sounds good. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Sean waited while the man folded his phone and placed it in his back pocket.
“They’re going to dig a little deeper,” Kemp said. “But his initial search had no records of any Turk or Turksen.”
Sean started to rattle off the names of the other men who had perished.
Kemp nodded. “Yes, those men are dead, Sean. They were ambushed almost immediately after they set up camp for the night. Had you not stepped on that explosive, they would have killed you as well. Although, some might argue that they were alerted to the SEAL team’s presence when you stepped on the IED.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Sean said. “But you need to listen to me. I didn’t step on any damn explosive. Those men weren’t ambushed after they landed. We stayed on the ground for almost twenty-four hours, and then we entered a facility. They were doing biological testing down there and there were,” Sean looked at the men behind Kemp, then lowered his voice, “mutated humans in there. Vicious, mindless killers. Those things, zombies we called them, they killed the men. One of them attacked my leg. That’s how I lost it. It wasn’t a damn IED.”
Kemp frowned as he tilted his head. He looked at Sean with soft eyes, perhaps pitying him. “Are you sure that really happened, Sean? I mean, do you hear yourself? Zombies?” He laughed.
“Yes, I know exactly what happened, and I know what I saw in that hell hole.”
“You’ve been unconscious for more than a week, and under quite a heavy sedative. The stuff they gave you has been known to help a man to reach into the deepest recesses of his imagination, and pull out of it some pretty dark and crazy things. Disturbing dreams are most often reported. So are hallucinations. I’ve read stories much like the one you recounted, although aliens or demons are the most common vision. In fact—” Kemp’s ringing phone interrupted him. “I’m sorry. Let me grab this.”
Kemp backed away from the bed and answered his phone. “Didn’t find any record of him, eh? I didn’t think you would. That’s the kind of name I’d remember.”
Sean leaned back until his pillow enveloped him. What was going on? None of it made sense. His mind swam in doubt as he tried to recall what had really happened in Nigeria. His own vision seemed so real and accurate. However, he could picture Kemp’s version with clarity. Logically, which made more sense? That he’d lost his leg due to a zombie bite, or an explosive? Could he be one hundred percent positive that he had in fact met up with the SEALs? That first encounter with one of the zombies, not thirty minutes after landing, seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie. Things like that don’t happen. It made sense that he’d dreamt it. He’d heard of that kind of thing happening before to people under sedative and heavy pain killers, both of which had been in his system. Morphine dreams, he’d heard the phenomenon called. Men would recall vivid encounters with everything from women to aliens to sea creatures. Zombies were within the realm of possibility when they were imagined.
“Like I said, Sean, there is no record of a Charles Turksen ever serving in the U.S. Navy. And most certainly not as a SEAL.”
Sean nodded, though he didn’t know what to believe at that point. “I,” he paused a beat, “I don’t know what happened.”
Kemp placed his hand on Sean’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Sean. You’ve been through a traumatic event. The kind that can cause a man to doubt many things in his life.” Kemp straightened, his face became solemn again. “Someone will be by your home when you get settled back in the U.S. They’ll show you photographs of the area. In part to see what you might remember. You know, little details that might come back over time. They’ll also show you where you were found, your condition, and what happened after you were rescued. If you wish to see it, that is.”
“Okay,” Sean said.
“You are a lucky man, Sean. You’re the only one that survived. Someone, or something was on your side that night.”
He doubted it. “Anything else?”
Kemp looked over his shoulder and nodded. The man on the right side of the door stepped forward and handed him a folder. Kemp opened it and laid it on Sean’s lap.
“What’s this?”
“Discharge papers and information on how your settlement will work, future benefits, things like that. The government is going to take care of you, Sean. In a few days you’ll have enough money in your bank account that you’ll never have to worry about bills, and college for your daughter, and all of the other little financial stresses ever again. You’ll also continue to receive a check in the amount of your current pay, plus full benefits for you and your family, for life. And the prosthetic procedure is on the government as well.” Kemp turned and started toward the door. He stopped and spun around. “There’s a number on the last page in that folder, Sean. If you’re ever unsure about what happened, or you think you’re going to discuss those crazy dreams, you call that number and speak to the man who answers. He’ll be able to help you.”
Sean flipped to the last page in the folder and saw a ten digit number scribbled on a piece of yellow legal paper. There was no name or anything else written on the page, only the number. “Who’ll answer?” he asked without looking up.
There was no reply.
Sean lifted his eyes and scanned the room. The men had left, the room was empty. He leaned back into his pillow and allowed his mind to replay events that he thought had happened in Nigeria. Each time he watched a scene play out, it seemed more surreal than it previously had. He accepted the fact that Kemp had been right. The events took place in his head, not real life. He needed that to be the truth.
Sean looked over at the half empty tray of food next to his bed. His stomach growled in response, but he didn’t have the desire to eat at that moment. Instead, he closed his eyes and decided to get some sleep. It was not to happen, though.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Mr. Ryder? I hope I’m not disturbing.”
Chapter 21
“I’m Dr. Kaufmann,” the bearded man said with a thick German accent. He approached Sean’s bed and extended his hand. Sean took it while he studied the weathered face in front of h
im. The doctor’s hair was white with a few speckles of black. His blue eyes stood out against his red nose and cheeks. “I’m going to give you a new leg, Sean. A leg, which while it’ll be made from titanium, will organically bond with your femur bone. You, like almost all of my patients, will find that you have feeling and sensation in your artificial limb.”
Sean raised a curious eyebrow, which was met with a smile by the doctor.
“I know,” Kaufmann said. “It sounds crazy.”
“You have no idea,” Sean said, smiling.
“This discovery was quite the shock to us all when my first patient recounted being able to feel the ground beneath a foot that had been dust for over twenty years. What I do, well, it’s called an osseointegrated titanium implant. The short of it is that there will be direct contact between the titanium implant and the bone. You can look at it like I fuse them together, and then the bone bonds with the titanium, sort of growing into it. The long of it—”
“I don’t want to know the long of it, Doc.”
“Fair enough,” Dr. Kaufmann said. Sean presumed the disappointed look on the man’s face was because he wouldn’t get to share the science behind the procedure. “Basically, the attached implant will end where your knee had existed. You’ll have two titanium leg attachments that will connect with the permanent prosthesis, forming a joint. One will give you a full range of movement and will be better for everyday activities. The other is specially designed for running. Despite the prosthesis being in two pieces, most of my patients say they can feel their entire leg, and even the sensation of stepping on the ground. They feel the soles of their feet and can even replicate the feeling of wiggling their toes. Some can feel cold and hot through their new legs. Best of all, no one will be able to tell you have a prosthetic leg if you are wearing long pants. You might have a slight limp, but surely nothing that says, hey this guy has a fake leg.”
