by Toby Neal
Dr. Wilson frowned at the army officer. “He is, but there’s something more going on. I was listed as one of Michael’s health care team on his Security Solutions application, and I also provide return debriefing for their staffers, but no one called me about Michael’s arrival. I heard about it accidentally from some other staff people, and when I came to investigate, found he’d been locked up in an isolation unit with a diagnosis of severe brain injury, massive systemic infection, and psychosis.”
Lei clutched the arm of the cheap settee she was sitting on. “What?” Her head swam. Her vision telescoped. “Is he going to live?”
Dr. Wilson patted Lei’s leg sharply, and the touch brought Lei back into her body.
“Here’s where the good news and bad news come in. He did have a severe head trauma. He was in a coma the whole time he was kidnapped, according to the men who returned. They saw him go down after a blow to the head, and he was shot then, too. He was kept in a bed under medical care while they were imprisoned in a nearby structure. The staff here at Tripler apparently initially thought he was psychotic because he has a very different version of events.”
Lei focused on breathing and keeping the urge to vomit in check as Dr. Wilson repeated the broad brushstrokes of Michael’s version of the ordeal. “I had to conclude that he had a very vivid lucid dream during his coma. But the upshot is, he’s going to have a long road to recovery. He’s had some cognitive damage to his short-term memory and processing speed. I’m hopeful that’s only temporary. The infection is dealt with, and he’s recovering from that. I’ve changed his diagnosis to traumatic brain injury only, and I’m having him moved from the isolation unit—but I can’t help feeling someone wants to cover something up, to silence and discredit Michael somehow.”
“You think there was an insider in Security Solutions or the army who was involved with the kidnapping?” Lei asked.
“There might be. Michael has some information he tried to communicate privately, though he was pretty overwhelmed to find out he didn’t really survive killing wild pigs and fighting crocodiles in the jungle.”
“Oh my God. I don’t know which is worse—that he went through all that in his head, or if he really had.”
“I don’t know either, to be honest. He wasn’t in the best shape mental-health-wise going into all this.” They gazed at each other for a long moment. Lying between them was a long friendship and history of knowing the passionate, loyal, dedicated—and damaged—man Lei had married. “We just have to move forward and hope for the best.”
“When can I see him?”
“Not until he’s been debriefed with the brass from Security Solutions and the army. I’ll text you when his assessments and interviews are done,” Dr. Wilson said.
“We have that scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning, if he’s in shape for it,” Westbrook said. The army officer fiddled with his cuffs, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m sure this will all work out just fine, Sergeant. Try to relax. We’ll get your husband back to you in short order.” And to Lei’s surprise, he sketched her a brief salute before turning crisply and exiting the room.
“I think he feels bad about what happened.” Dr. Wilson gazed after the officer’s upright form as the hospital doors whisked shut behind him.
“Thank God you’re on the situation,” Lei said, impulsively leaning over to hug the petite psychologist. “Don’t let anyone give you any shit. Including Michael. And please, hurry. I can’t wait to see him.”
“Will do.” Dr. Wilson pulled back from Lei’s arms. “I’d better get back to him. I want to oversee his move to a different room.”
“See you soon,” Lei said to Dr. Wilson’s retreating back.
I drifted in that gray, dreamlike state between sleep and waking, ticking over the threads of truth and fiction, sorting and sifting. Once, when I was a child, I’d visited my mom’s parents in the Midwest. There was some angst between them that was never spoken of, and we never went again—but now I was back in my grandfather’s barn, my nose filled with the sweet, musty, dense smell of hay.
Mounds of it, loose, lay waiting to be forked into a wheelbarrow. A ladder led to a huge loft, piled high with more golden green bricks of tightly packed hay. Shafts of sunlight shone through knotholes in the old wooden structure, bright and substantial as gold bars. My grandfather stood before me, tall and rawboned, in a pair of overalls. I recognized his piercing, light blue eyes—I saw them every day in the mirror. He always had a toothpick in the corner of his seamed mouth. Today he took the toothpick out and tossed it into the pile of hay.
“Ten dollars to whichever of you boys finds it first,” he said. “Nothing like your first lesson in finding a needle in a haystack.”
I remembered diving enthusiastically into the hay pile with Jared, galvanized by the quest to get that “needle.” After what seemed like hours of burrowing, winnowing, and sorting, we’d had to give up on earning the princely sum of ten dollars.
I felt like that now. The truth was somewhere in my head, elusive, blending with so much else. Deep in the snarl of confusion that was my mind, there was something important I needed to know, and share.
I did have a few things I was going to carry forward from this head-trip adventure—I had to go back to solving active cases. While I’d been good as a trainer, I needed the physical and mental challenge of being on the streets as a detective. Maybe my role could be modified to working cases as a mentor to new detectives.
Yeah, I’d like that, and it would be active enough to keep me feeling alive.
And I still believed I’d met Anchara in that shed and she’d decided to stop haunting me. I hadn’t had a single tormented vision of her death since she’d appeared to me, and I usually had some flashback involving her every day.
I pictured that first drink—the ice cubes in the brown liquid. The smell, opening my nostrils. The taste. The feeling of warmth as the liquor made a path to my stomach. I could think about it, and while it still appealed, it didn’t fill me with longing for oblivion like before. I wasn’t going to drink anymore, and I felt confident I’d be able to follow through with that resolve. Alcohol’s hold on me was broken, too.
The sound of the door unlocking brought me fully awake, and I tossed the sheet off my legs and sat up straighter, surprised to see Dr. Aquinas. He was in civilian clothing: a blue polo shirt and chinos. He wasn’t wearing the surgical mask I’d always seen him in before.
“Hey. I remember you,” I said. “Dr. Aquinas.”
He smiled pleasantly, turning to the man following him. “Told you he was more conscious than he even knew he was.”
Major Forsythe, from Camp Trifecta, followed him in. The major turned and shut the door deliberately.
I frowned. “What’s this about? Is this my debrief interview?”
“Yes, it is,” Dr. Aquinas said. “Just relax.”
I was expecting the debrief, but I was damned sick of hearing I needed to relax. I tightened my abs, coiling my energy, every sense alert. My gut told me these two weren’t here for any good reason.
Major Forsythe came and stood close, looking down at me. He was spit-polished to a regulation shine, and his eyes on me were river-stone cold. “This is part of your exit debrief. What do you remember?” he barked.
As soon as I heard Forsythe’s voice, I knew this was the man who’d posed the newspaper against me and taken a proof-of-life picture. This was the officer whose back I’d seen exiting the room.
This was the needle I’d been looking for. I tried to keep that recognition out of my face and voice.
“I don’t remember much, sir. I just learned from Dr. Wilson that I went on a whole mind trip during the coma. I thought I escaped. Blew up some choppers, fought snakes and crocs.” I had no difficulty chuckling weakly and flapping a trembling hand. “I think I’m pretty fucked up.”
Both of them stared at me speculatively. They were making up their minds on whether I was too far gone to be credible, or if I was a loose end tha
t needed clipping off. Forsythe glanced at Aquinas and lifted his chin slightly. That was all the warning I had, but it was enough.
Chapter Thirty-One
I threw myself off the bed on the opposite side from the doctor, landing in a crouch as Aquinas plunged a syringe into the pillow where I’d just been. The hospital gown bagged and flew open, exposing my backside as I landed—but that was the least of my worries.
Forsythe cursed. “It has to look like natural causes.”
Adrenaline pumped through me. I’d killed guards, blown up helicopters, fought crocs, snakes, and the elements. I wasn’t going to be slaughtered like a veal calf in its fattening stall.
I threw my weight against the metal rail of the wheeled bed, hoping like hell it wasn’t locked in place—and it wasn’t. The unexpected vigor and direction of my attack knocked Forsythe and Aquinas off-balance, and I rammed them both backward, pushing with all I had until I’d pinned them against the wall with the bed. I threw the brake on to lock it in place and ran to the door, pounding on it and deepening my voice authoritatively.
“Need help with this patient!”
Aquinas crawled up and out from behind the bed and leaped on me from behind, the needle in his fist. We did a nightmare chicken dance as he climbed my back, arms around my shoulders and legs around my waist, trying to stab me with whatever was in that deadly syringe.
The door flew open and two orderlies stood there, faces blank with surprise as I slammed Aquinas back into the wall, trying to dislodge him. Forsythe extricated himself from behind the bed, yelling.
“Take that man down! He’s a danger to himself and others!”
Magic words in a mental health ward.
I just hoped that the needle that would finally get me wasn’t the one in Aquinas’s hand. I managed to get a grip around the man’s wrist as the orderlies tackled us and bore me to the ground.
“He’s trying to kill me!” I screamed. “Check what’s in this syringe!” I managed to keep the syringe away from my neck, but it was bound to go in any second as I was overpowered.
“He’s aggressive and psychotic! It’s just a sedative,” Aquinas yelled. I shut my eyes, breathless with pain, as the heavy orderlies wrestled with me and one of them sat on my wounded chest, but I didn’t let my death grip on Aquinas’s wrist go.
“Stop this immediately! This patient is in my care!” Dr. Wilson’s voice, high and clear, pierced the chaos. “He trusts me, Dr. Aquinas! Let me help.”
Dr. Wilson appeared above me, limned from behind with the overhead light like an angel. She caught and held back Aquinas’s hand. The syringe trembled, just above my skin. “Calm down, Michael. I’m here now, and you’re in my professional care.”
I went instantly limp, dropping my arms to the ground, knowing that I had to play this right or I was still dead, right in front of her.
“Yes, Dr. Wilson. Thank you,” I said meekly.
The orderlies sat on me an endless moment longer to make sure I was subdued.
“Get a restraint vest,” Dr. Wilson barked. “I don’t want him to have any more medications right now. He’s having enough trouble with reality.” I didn’t like her words. Her expression was blandly disapproving, as if I were a naughty preschooler, and I knew she was playing to the observers. A third orderly appeared, carrying a straitjacket. The only thing between me and death right now was a petite blond woman with steely eyes. “You have to put this on, Michael. You’re not safe to yourself or others right now.” I heard the warning in her words. She was trying to protect me.
I allowed the men to slide the straitjacket onto my arms and bind them across my chest.
Once I was restrained, Dr. Wilson turned to Aquinas and Forsythe. “Please go. You’ve upset my patient. Clearly, seeing you reminded him of his ordeal.”
Forsythe straightened his uniform. His face was congested with rage. “This man is psychotic. Dangerous. I’m going to recommend that he be locked up permanently.”
The major strode out, chest puffed like a courting pigeon. I remembered the first day I’d met the man. I’d committed the cardinal sin of being taller than him, and he’d never forgiven me for it.
Aquinas recapped the syringe and went to slide it into his pocket, but Dr. Wilson gave a charming, collegial smile. She extended her hand, palm up. “Hey. I might need that. He could still get aggressive, and I’d like to be prepared.”
Aquinas looked at me. I saw the battle in his eyes. On the one hand, I might act up and she’d inject me and end his problem for him. On the other hand, she might listen to my paranoid ravings and have the syringe tested.
“I’d like it back if you don’t use it.” He slapped the syringe into her palm. “I’ll be in touch about the lieutenant’s progress.” He strode out.
Dr. Wilson turned to the orderlies. “He’s safe with me.”
“But, Doctor…”
“But nothing. He’s meek as a lamb. Aren’t you, Michael?” She patted my bound arms.
“Yes, Dr. Wilson,” I said robotically, a whacked-out expression in place. It must have been pretty good, because the orderlies let go of me, moving reluctantly toward the door.
Dr. Wilson flicked her eyes again at the corners of the room, and I gave a slight nod. We still had surveillance.
“I think my chest might have opened up again.” I lifted one of my strapped-down arms as high as it would go to show the spreading bloodstain I’d felt dampening the material. “Perhaps I could get some medical attention?”
“Back on the bed!” Dr. Wilson commanded, clapping her hands. “Move this man to surgical! Stat!” She was using the need for medical attention to get me moved. Damn, this woman was good.
The orderlies hopped to, opening the door and getting behind the mobile bed to push as I climbed back into it. Dr. Wilson walked briskly along beside me and undid the straps on my arms as she pretended to be checking the extent of the bleeding.
“I have to call for more help,” she whispered. “And get this syringe tested. Pretend to be out of it.”
I gave her that glassy stare I was getting good at. “Yes, Doctor.” If the situation weren’t so serious, I knew she would have laughed. Now she just touched my shoulder.
“You’re going to be okay.”
We got on the elevator with the orderlies and got off at the surgery floor, where Dr. Wilson raised some hell. As soon as she had an emergency surgery team working on me, she caught my eye and used her chin to point to a phone.
I gave a tiny nod, and she disappeared.
I was still vigilant as the medical team got the straitjacket and gown off me and unpacked the wound, which had opened up during the activity. I got it repacked and restrapped. Dr. Wilson appeared again, holding a clipboard.
“This man has a new room assignment,” she said. “And a police guard.”
Two strapping police officers had followed her in. Dr. Wilson dismissed the hospital staff and directed the officers to wheel me away. Once out of the surgery unit, Dr. Wilson took us up to the maternity ward. The officers wheeled me past rooms where babies cried and laboring women moaned, to a small room way on the end.
“No one comes in or out without my say-so.” Dr. Wilson handed a paper to the officer. “He’s off the hospital roster. These are the people who can see him. Check with me about anyone else. And there’s a woman on her way—Sergeant Texeira. Curly brown hair, athletic build. His wife. She can come right in.”
The officers nodded and took up stations outside the door.
Lei was coming. My heart pounded with anticipation, and I felt a grin pulling up my mouth. “Dr. Wilson. I owe you my life.”
“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Caprice Wilson said, but she smiled back. “Now, tell me what happened that caused those men to almost kill you back there.”
“You were right about what happened to me. I was unconscious and head-tripping, but I didn’t know that. I woke from the coma on the last day of captivity, but couldn’t physically respond. I was stuck in my b
ody just hearing stuff. Those two were talking, and they took a proof-of-life photo.” I described what I’d heard and seen. “I can testify to recognizing both of them as being involved with the kidnapping. But I worry I’ve been discredited already.”
“I think that syringe I got from Aquinas might help with that.” Dr. Wilson’s smile was tight. “I had a feeling you were being set up in some way. But I didn’t realize how far they’d go to shut you up. I’m calling my friend Ben Waxman at the FBI. He’s the Special Agent in Charge of the Honolulu branch.”
She got out her phone and began pacing back and forth as she talked to the FBI. I settled back and rested, waiting for my wife. Anticipation made my stomach jumpy and my hands twitch.
Dr. Wilson looked up at me with a broad grin, the phone still to her ear. “Turns out Ben knows all about the kidnapping. Sophie Ang was already working on it, off the books, and has a file going on Forsythe and Aquinas. We’re going to get them.”
I smiled back in relief. “Thank God.”
The door slid open with a tiny snick. A curly brown head appeared, followed by Lei’s slender form. She was wearing her usual work outfit, a black tank top and jeans, and athletic shoes that squeaked a little on the polished floor as she advanced into the room.
Lei’s eyes flew open when she saw me on the bed, so wide and dark I couldn’t see the pupils. Her lips, usually pink and lush, leached of color. The freckles stood out on her skin like cinnamon on milk.
“Lei!” I cried in alarm. Dr. Wilson saw Lei’s knees crumpling and caught her before she hit the ground.
“For gosh sakes, who’s my patient now?” Dr. Wilson exclaimed with mock impatience, her voice wobbly. She supported Lei over to me by main force, Lei’s arm over her shoulder. I reached for my wife, groaning at the pain from my ribs, and hauled Lei up, lifting her onto the bed with me.
