Fallen

by Ann Simko

  Despite the pain, he almost made it out of the bed. The monitor alarms sounded again as the guard laid one hand on his shoulder and, with very little effort, held him still. "They gotta go through me first, boy. Not gonna happen, you hear?"

  Ricco just stared. He wanted to believe the guard was on his side, but years of captivity with nothing but lies and pain as constant companions had taught him a degree of cynicism that was beyond measure. It would take more than this man's word to have Ricco believing in him.

  "Relax, Michael. You keep making the alarms go off like that and they're going to knock you out whether you want it or not."

  He was breathing too fast and sweat beaded his face. Ricco willed himself to calm down. He took deep, steady breaths until the alarms quieted.

  The guard released his shoulder and gave him a nod. "There you go."

  Ricco still had trouble grasping the concept of an ally. Since his first question had been met without any harm coming to him, he pushed his lucked and tried for a second. "Who are you?"

  The broad smile returned. "A friend. Better get used to me, boy, for the next couple of days I'm sticking to you closer than stink on shit." He surprised Ricco by extending his hand. "I'm Ito St James."

  Ricco took the hand out of reflex, still not sure what to make of the man.

  A movement outside the door caught Ito's attention. He turned his head and Ricco strained to look past him. Two men stood at the nurse's station, their backs to the door. Both were about the same height, but one was much broader in the shoulders. The slighter of the two had shorter hair. When he turned, Ricco recognized him as the doctor from last night, and his panic escalated. Doctors were a species he had learned to distrust long ago.

  Ito sensed his uneasiness. "Nothing to fear, my man. They are the good guys." He raised his shades and gave Ricco a smile and a wink. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be back."

  The three men met just outside his door, but were too far away for Ricco to hear their conversation. As if on cue, all three turned to face him, and then Ito took a position outside the door, while the doctor led the way to his bed, followed by the other man. Up close, he could tell they were brothers. The only difference was in their eyes. The doctor had bright green eyes, while the other's were black.

  The doctor spoke first. "Michael, do you remember me?"

  Michael, again. He nodded.

  "My name is Dakota Thomas. I took care of you in the emergency room. This is my brother, Montana." He motioned toward the door. "You already met Ito."

  Ricco's gaze flicked to the man outside his door, but he remained silent as he settled his attention on Dakota. A sudden spasm ripped through his back, up his shoulder, and he grunted with the pain.

  Before the alarms could sound, Dakota reached up and silenced them. "My nurse tells me you won't take anything for the pain. Want to tell me why not?"

  Ricco glanced from one face to the next, trying to figure out what they wanted from him. "I just want to stay alert." It was an honest admission. The only thing that scared him more than being sent back to the bunker was the thought of what they might do to him if they put him under.

  "Look, Michael, no one here wants to hurt you, but there are a lot of questions that we need answers to. Someone tried to kill you. Can you tell us why?"

  Ricco's attention was drawn to the other man. Everything about him screamed military. They might not be from the base, that didn't mean he wasn't in trouble. So far, all his questions had rewarded him with answers, so he went for broke and asked another. "You an M.P.?"

  The soldier stepped forward and thrust a closed fist in Ricco's face.

  Ricco, certain he had asked one question too many, flinched, turned his head to the side and closed his eyes, waiting for the strike. When nothing happened, he opened his eyes.

  The soldier opened his hand and let the dog tags slide out. He dangled them in front of Ricco's face, patiently jigging them up and down.

  After a moment Michael Ricco reached up with his good hand and took them. He hadn't realized they were gone.

  "Private Michael J. Ricco." The voice was pure officer.

  Ricco straightened as much as he could in the bed. "Yes, sir." An automatic response.

  "My name is Major Montana Lee Thomas, Ranger Delta Force, retired. Do you understand?"

  Ricco swallowed involuntarily. "Yes, sir." He knew the Rangers were notorious for their bad-ass attitudes. Retired or not, he had no desire to tangle with one, particularly one who outweighed him by at least seventy pounds and had attitude clinging to him like wet on water.

  "I need answers from you, Private. You were shot. By whom?"

  From the major's tone of voice, it was clear that keeping quiet was not an option.

  "I can't say for sure, sir." An honest answer. He didn't even know he had been hit until he saw the blood dripping from his fingers.

  "All right, then. Here's an easy one. Why were they trying to kill you?"

  An easy one? Ricco could hardly wait until he got to the tough ones. His gaze went from one face to the other while he tried to decide if he could trust these men. He couldn't rule out that they were just playing him. He didn't know who they were, not really, or what they meant to do with him...or to him. He took a breath and decided it didn't matter. They would either kill him, or help him. Either way would be a relief. "I escaped," he said. "They were trying to get me back or prevent my leaving."

  The major stepped closer to the bed, leaned on the bed rail, eyes intense. "Private, we found the bunker."

  Ricco blinked and felt his heart trip faster in his chest. They already know! He tried to keep the fear that boiled in his belly from showing on his face. He almost choked trying to get the words out. "You found them?"

  The major pushed off the bed and turned his back. He took two steps away before turning around once more. "Yeah, we found them." His hands clenched into fists as his dark eyes nailed Ricco to the bed. "Ten dead men in military garb, our town's deputy who went out looking for clues about you, and the two campers who saved your life by calling EMS... All of them dead, executed with a single gunshot to the back of the head. Thirteen people dead, Private Ricco, presumably because of you."

  The major moved forward, clutched the bedrail again, his knuckles whitening. "And now you're going to tell me what the hell is going on before anyone else I know has crosshairs centered on the back of his head."

  "They killed them?" An unwanted slideshow flitted across his brain. He had been kept alone, isolation making him as much a prisoner as bars, but he had seen the other men like him, unwilling participants in an experiment in human endurance. The faces of the men he had survived and the ones he had left behind came to mind, one at time. He never knew their names, they never knew his, but they had shared something only they could ever understand. They were brothers, not of blood, but of a shared bond that went far deeper than blood. He'd heard their screams in the dark, their pleas for death. His own voice had been part of the chorus. A part of him envied that his brothers had finally found their peace.

  Ricco still searched for his.

  His gaze never wavered from the major's, but his head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton. "All of them... They're all dead?"

  "Talk to me, Private Ricco. I'm not known for my patience. You can start with those." He motioned to the dog tags.

  Ricco opened his hand and stared at the tags. He had been issued new ones several times over the years, always showing the same information. He'd held onto them as a link to his past—to home. He blinked back a lifetime's worth of tears as memories rushed the fragile gates that guarded his sanity. "What year is it?" he whispered, and wrapped his hand around the tags, clutching them like a lifeline to a past he had nearly forgotten.

  "What?" The question seemed to puzzle the major. "You don't know what year it is?"

  Ricco shook his head as the major threw a questioning look at the doctor.

  "He doesn't have a head injury, if that's what you're asking." Dr. Thomas turn
ed to Ricco. "You don't know the date?"

  Ricco shook his head again, and wiped his eyes. "They had me there a long time. Always underground. No daylight. I never even knew what time of day it was, let alone what month. After a while, the years just blended together."

  "Who?" the major demanded "Who had you?"

  Ricco looked away from the major's intense gaze and concentrated on the clock on the wall. If he centered all his attention on the sweep-second hand circling the face, maybe he could get through this, maybe he could tell them. Living through the nightmare was one thing, Talking about it was something else altogether. If nothing else made sense to him, one thought was very clear, he would not go back.

  "Military. Maybe, I'm not sure." One face, one name made it through the mental cacophony. The face of the man he would never forget. "I'm not sure of anything except that I am not going back. You won't take me back there, I'll die first. Do you understand that?" He sat up as he spoke, his voice quiet desperation. And then the pain pushed him back down again.

  The doctor pushed the major aside as he stepped to the bed. "Michael, this is ridiculous. Let them get you something for the pain, man. No one's going to touch you in here. You've got a friggin' tree outside your room guarding your ass, plus my brother, who's just as scary as he looks. You want out of here, don't you?"

  Ricco nodded.

  "Great. Then let the nurse give you something for pain. You're not doing yourself any favors by playing the tough guy, okay?"

  Ricco's tone turned to one of quiet desperation. "I can't stay here. You don't understand." His nurse came into the room with a syringe in her hand, and stood waiting. Ricco looked from the nurse to the major, then back to the doctor. "It's not safe while I'm here—for anyone."

  "What if we take you someplace else, someplace safe?" the major said.

  "Do I have a choice?" He knew the answer before he asked the question. It had been a long time since he had any choices left to him.

  The major folded his arms over his chest. "No."

  "Kind of what I thought." Ricco forced a smile. "Do you really think you can help me?"

  "I won't know that until I hear the rest of your story, but until then, I suggest you do as Dakota tells you, and trust me to keep you safe."

  Trust me. The words sounded foreign, like a language he knew as a boy, but had forgotten long ago. Ricco was used to doing as he was told, but trust? He didn't think he could do that, not yet, maybe not ever. He let the smile fade from his face. "Will you promise me one thing?"

  "Depends."

  "If you can't help me, if it looks like he might take me back... I want you to kill me. Will you promise me that?"

  The major leaned down and looked him square in the eye. "I can promise you one thing Private. It won't come to that. Whoever this bastard is, you have my word he'll never touch you again." He straightened, regained his composure. "Now, shut up and let them help you."

  "Yes, sir." Ricco decided he might have to like this man, despite his misgivings about Rangers and authority in general.

  The doctor nodded to the nurse, and she crimped the tubing, preparing to push the drug into the IV line. "Just lay back, honey. This is going make you a little sleepy."

  "Wait." Ricco stopped her. "You never told me the date. What year is it?"

  The two men exchanged looks, appeared to reach a silent decision. "It's the year 2014, Michael," the doctor said.

  Ricco stared at him, not fully comprehending. He saw the doctor give a nod to the nurse. This time, he didn't stop her. He watched her push the drug into the line, and as the narcotic dragged him under, he wondered how he would explain the rest of his story to Major Thomas, and what the major would think of him when he learned the truth.

  Chapter 7

  Ricco's eyes glazed over with the effects of the morphine. The kid fought to stay awake, but the narcotic was stronger and soon won the battle. Dakota watched the monitors until Ricco's vital signs leveled out. "Be generous with the pain meds. He's not going to ask for them," he told the nurse.

  "I figured as much." She went to a computer outside the door to begin her charting. When Dakota followed and hovered she stopped typing and smiled up at him. "I'll call you if anything changes. Promise."

  He took the less than subtle hint and glanced at the name tag clipped to her scrubs. "Okay, Ivey, I can take a hint."

  She returned to her typing. "And I can do my job a lot better without you hanging over my shoulder."

  Dakota gave her a smile and a nod of approval. "I like them sassy." He walked back to the nurse's station without giving Ivey a chance to reply.

  He took Ricco's chart from a rack at the desk and wrote an order while intermittently glancing at Montana "Well, what do you think?"

  "We need to get him out of here."

  Dakota flagged the order and replaced the chart. "He's not in great shape. We won't be doing him any favors if we move him right now. Besides, I thought that was the whole idea of putting the moving wall outside his door." He hooked a thumb in Ito's direction.

  Ito ignored the comment and continued to stare in the direction of Ricco's room.

  Sweaty and filthy from his time in the bunker, Montana had taken the time to change before meeting Ricco. In his frayed jeans, white tee, and open long-sleeved denim shirt, he should have looked out of place, as he leaned back against the nurse's station with his arms folded across his chest, as if daring someone to make him move." You have his pain under control. I say we move him now while we have the chance."

  "I can't guard him if I can't secure him, and I can't secure him here." Ito didn't look away from Ricco's room as he spoke.

  "Why not?"

  "Because, Doctor, this is a public building. All kinds of people coming and going. Some of them work here, some of them don't. I can't secure what I can't control. Whoever is after this kid would have a field day if we keep him here."

  "Yeah? Reality check here, guys. We are talking about Caliente." Dakota glanced at Montana, who ignored him. "The same Caliente we grew up in."

  Montana finally said, "The same Caliente Michael Ricco ended up in, the same Caliente that is thirty miles away from a hidden underground bunker and thirteen murdered people. Small towns aren't immune to evil, they just hide it better."

  "I read Stephen King too. But come on, you don't really think they would try something here, do you? With all these people around, and Mr. Personality guarding the door?"

  "I would."

  Dakota rolled his eyes. "Well, you would also break up a bar room brawl unarmed and outnumbered and call it a fun night. I am talking about people who would shoot an unarmed man in the back. That's cowardly. Besides, how do they even know he's here?"

  "They followed the blood trail, same as us. They were shooting at him, so it wouldn't take a lot of deduction to realize he's wounded. They also know the authorities are involved, because of Tommy. Cal told me he was carrying a badge, but it wasn't on his body. They also know that every moment they wait they risk the chance of Ricco talking. They will want to—"

  Montana stiffened, suddenly on full alert.

  Ito exploded from complete stillness to sudden action and pushed past him.

  "What the hell?" Dakota turned in time to see a man in a white lab coat casually step past Ivey and enter Ricco's room.

  Montana pulled his gun from beneath his loose denim shirt. "Stay here, don't move."

  Dakota felt like he was stuck in molasses, as the action played out before him in slow motion.

  Ivey stood between Ito and Ricco, her hands on her hips. The annoyance on her face turned into fear as Ito took bore down on her. He pushed her out of his way as he ran into Ricco's room.

  Ivey tripped over the computer chair and fell with a grunt onto the floor.

  Ito tackled the man in the white coat just as he was reaching for Ricco's IV tubing. The man went down and a syringe flew from his hand. Both men went flying across the room to crash into a storage bin. Medical supplies spilled as the b
in flipped.

  Ito fought to bring his weapon up.

  White-coat made a grab for the gun, but Ito was quicker and outweighed him by a good fifty pounds.

  Just then Montana pulled back the slide of his weapon and chambered a round. The snap of the weapon echoed throughout the unit.

  Dakota waited for the sound of gunfire, but instead he heard Montana's quiet voice. "Hands,"

  White-coat heard him too. He stopped his struggles and brought his hands up and out, away from his body.

  Ito trained his weapon on him. They were both sweating and breathing heavily. Ito stood, never taking his eyes from the man. "Who the hell are you?"

  White-coat dropped his head to the tile floor. "I'm a dead man." With one quick motion, he grabbed the syringe near his outstretched hand and pulled the cap from the needle.

  Montana and Ito shouted in unison, "Freeze!"

  But the man only smiled and plunged the needle into his own neck.

  Montana lunged, but too late. The plunger had already been depressed. He pulled the needle from the man's neck and tossed it on the floor. "Who sent you?" He handed his weapon to Ito and lifted the man's head. "Come on, who sent you?" He slapped his face. "Tell me, you shit!"

  Dakota remembered how to move and ran to Montana's side.

  The man smiled once more, but he never said a word. His eyes glazed over. His body convulsed. A wet gurgling sound came from deep in his chest as he slumped against Montana, dead eyes staring.

  Montana felt for a pulse. "Fuck!"

  "Wait." Dakota turned to the shocked staff gathered at the door. "Get me some Epi!"

  "Dakota..."

  Dakota knelt down next to White-coat and ripped open his shirt. He grabbed an Ambu-bag and started to pump air into the dead man's lungs.

  Montana stopped him. "Dakota, he's dead."

  "Where the hell's the Epi?" Dakota started CPR. The man beneath him twitched and flopped like a marionette whose wires had been cut. It was his last dance, the dance of the dead. Behind him, the staff remained immobile. They already knew what Dakota hadn't accepted.

  "Dakota, he's dead," Montana said again.