Will straightened at the long table and with moist eyes stared questioningly at the young sailor.
"The casualty that was brought aboard, sir--she's awake and asking for Colonel Collins."
Everett was through the door before the pharmacist's mate could move out of the way. He was unceremoniously shoved aside and watched in shock as Ryan and Mendenhall quickly followed.
Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan stood over the small figure on the bed. The lights had been lowered and they could see the IV that was pumping O-negative blood into her tiny arm. There was an oxygen line running into her nose, held in place by a piece of tape. Her shoulder wound wasn't covered; the bullet hole was held open by four stainless steel clips. Her bleeding had stopped. Her hair was still damp but had been brushed back. She looked as weak as any person Everett or the others could remember ever having seen before.
The men were quiet as they watched the rise and fall of her chest. Everett turned to the senior hospital corpsman.
"She was dead. I ... I felt no pulse at all," he whispered.
"Well, sir, that's what happens when you don't have any blood. No blood, no blood pressure. She was damn near bled out and that's why you felt no pulse." The corpsman wrote something down on her chart and then looked at Everett.
"She's a strong young lady. She'll make it. As soon as we can get her transferred to the Iwo, a doctor can take that bullet out of her shoulder."
"God," Mendenhall said as he stared down at Sarah, one of his only friends.
Everett waited until the corpsman had walked over and sat at his desk, then he leaned over and touched Sarah's cheek.
He pulled back when her eyes fluttered open. They stayed that way for a moment and then slowly closed.
"Where's ... Jack? Did he ... save the ... world?" she asked weakly, her words slow and full of cotton.
"Yeah, Sarah, he did." Everett leaned over and whispered into her ear as Sarah slowly went back out. "Go back to sleep, we'll be here for you."
Mendenhall and Ryan lowered their heads, dreading the time when Sarah would have to be told about Jack.
"Yeah," Everett said as he straightened. "He saved the world."
EPILOGUE
THE LAST OF THE ANCIENTS
EVENT GROUP CENTER NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Niles Compton walked slowly beside the president of the United States. The commander in chief looked far older than his fifty-two years. He walked with his hands behind his back. His Secret Service detail was nowhere to be seen, having been left behind in Niles's outer office. The president had decided that if he couldn't be safe here, he wouldn't be anywhere.
"I'll always have doubts about the moves I made. How many lives did I cost in the end by not acting decisively?"
Niles didn't answer at first; he just looked straight ahead at the long and curving corridor of level seventeen. Alice Hamilton and Virginia Pollock were ten steps behind and didn't hear the president's concern.
"I think you have to judge yourself just how many people you saved. To look at these things any other way is nonconstructive."
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement."
Niles shrugged and then looked at his old friend. "The world has changed, but we get no wiser. We always expect our enemies to be easily identifiable and never, ever one of our own kind. The most dangerous enemy is the one who thinks like we do, has the same dreams of controlling those people who we think are below us, when in fact ..." Niles paused. "You did the best anyone could have done, and I now believe the world is a more trusting place today because you took the time to prove an innocence when others wouldn't listen. Now you have a leg up in the area of credibility, and in this world, Jim, that counts for a lot."
Niles came to a door with a marine corporal standing guard outside. The back letters on the door read CONTAINMENT.
"And now your opinion on these two," the president asked.
Niles nodded for the guard to unlock the door.
"My opinion is that we can learn a lot from them. But I also believe they are traitors to their country, traitors to the peace they claimed to embrace. They and their kind knew all there was to know about the Juliai Coalition for over two thousand years, and yet they remained silent through their arrogance. You and I lost a lot of good people because this group was allowed to flourish, and they were a part of that. No matter how noble their intentions."
The door opened and Niles stepped across the threshold and froze. The president saw the director's shoulders sag he looked into the simply furnished two-room containment apartment.
"What is the--"
The words froze in the president's mouth as he saw what Niles was staring at. Carmichael Rothman and Martha Laughlin sat peacefully on the small couch. Her head rested on his left shoulder and they looked as if they were sleeping. On the small table before them was Carmichael's medication for his cancer. The bottle was on its side and the morphine was gone.
Niles walked into the room and felt the wrists of both Ancients and found no pulse on either. He picked up the note that lay beside the empty bottle and read it and then handed it to the president.
"Guilty," it said.
Niles walked to a small chair and sat down and rubbed his hands over his face.
The president looked at the old couple with a curious look on his face. Then he put the note back down beside the bottle and shook his head.
"All their knowledge and wisdom ... they couldn't have found a better way to atone for their silence?"
Niles looked up. "People of their intelligence have a terminal disease. It's called lack of imagination. No," he said, standing and walking to the door. "In their minds, they had no other way to go, and that's why their kind is now extinct."
The president watched Niles turn at the door.
"The way it was always meant to be."
PACIFIC OCEAN 200 MILES EAST OF JAPAN
Major General Ton Shi Quang, former commander of the People's Army, was dressed appropriately in a white silk shirt and white muslin pants as he drank ice tea on the fantail of a two-hundred-foot yacht owned by one of William Tomlinson's corporations. The crew members had orders to take it slow and easy during their trip to Taiwan, where Shi Quang would receive his reward for loyal service to the Juliai Coalition.
His escape from Korea had been planned well in advance of his treasonous actions and he had left the coastal waters on a fishing boat for his rendezvous in the Sea of Japan. He knew that at this very moment he was one of the most hunted men in the world; but with what he earned, he would find no difficulty at all in vanishing into a broken world still reeling from the Coalition's strike. The reward offered by America for his capture was insulting for a man of his stature and very much a useless gesture on their part.
A waiter brought him a fresh glass of ice tea and then walked to the galley entrance of the luxurious yacht. After placing the tray just inside the doorway, he suddenly turned and walked briskly to the streamlined bow of the ship, where he met members of the crew.
The waiter placed a small, portable beacon on the bow of the ship and then gestured for the men to get over the side of the yacht.
The captain stepped from the well-appointed bridge and yelled down, asking what in the hell they thought they were doing. It was too late; the fifteen crew members had started the small outboard and were already fifty feet away. That was when the captain heard the roar of aircraft overhead.
The general squinted into the sun-filled sky. He never saw death as it struck seconds later. Two American-made AMMRAM missiles smashed into the $22 million yacht and blew it to pieces.
Pulling up and out of their attack run, two U.S. Navy Super Hornets from the carrier USS Roosevelt screamed back into the skies.
The judge and jury, consisting of five hundred dead U.S. sailors, had rendered their verdict against Major General Ton Shi Quang.
FBI BUILDING WASHINGTON, D.C.
William Tomlinson and the woman code-named Dahlia sat in the small room. Tomlinson was wide-eyed and had
not said a word since being placed in the room next to his former assassin.
Carl Everett walked into the room, followed by Mendenhall and Ryan. They stood with the door open but did not move, with the exception of Everett, who pulled something from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of the two handcuffed prisoners. Then he stood stock-still and waited.
Thirty seconds later, the president of the United States entered the room and sat across from the two Coalitionists. He stared at them for a full fifteen seconds.
"I believe you signed a document that pardoned me from any crime I may have committed in return for the cooperation I gave your people," Dahlia said when she realized that Tomlinson was content just to sit and stare.
The president did not say a word in response. He just pulled out a set of notes he had written. He adjusted the cell phone that Everett had placed on the table to make sure every word was heard.
"William Tomlinson and Loraine Matheson, AKA Dahlia, you are being charged with treason and crimes against humanity. As president of the United States, acting at a time of war, you are hereby sentenced to death. Said sentence will be carried out in two days at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary."
The president started to rise, but stopped when Dahlia shook her head.
"You can't do this. We ... I demand a trial under the laws of the Constitution!"
The president looked closely at the woman, then his eyes darted to Tomlinson, who was now aware of where he was and looking at Dahlia. Tomlinson shook his head.
"Power is the ability to be ruthless," he mumbled.
"Correct, Mr. Tomlinson. If the world finds out that I broke the law by hanging you, so be it, I can live with that."
The president stood and left the room.
"The man that saved your worthless life died. He would not have favored the actions of the president, because he was the most just man I ever knew. I know this because in a very short time he became my best friend," Everett said as he leaned on the table. "But one thing my friend never understood--that sometimes bad people need to end badly. You will, at the end of a rope."
Everett straightened, retrieved the cell phone, and started from the room, but then he stopped and faced the two Coalitionists one last time.
"I am not like my best friend, as much as I want to be. As much as I strive to be just like him. I know that I will sleep well with the knowledge you two will burn in hell for the millions you have killed."
Everett stopped outside in the hallway with Will and Ryan watching him. He raised the cell phone to his ear and spoke.
"You get some rest. It's all over. We'll be home soon."
Carl closed the cell phone and tossed it to Ryan, who caught it and then followed Everett and Mendenhall down the hallway.
Three thousand miles away, Niles Compton easily removed the phone from Sarah McIntire's weak grip, then he slowly closed it and placed it on her nightstand.
Then Sarah rolled over onto her right side and cried for the first time over the loss of Jack Collins.
Outside the closed door of Sarah's room, the Event Group went on.
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Ancients (event group thriller) Page 45