by David Archer
Noah stared into his face for a moment, trying to figure out exactly what the kid meant, then concluded that he was being sarcastic. “I didn't exactly volunteer for it,” he said, and all of them laughed.
“Boss, you're getting a whole lot better at making jokes, lately,” Moose said. “That one almost sounded like you knew what you were saying.”
Sarah pushed both of the men out of the way, and leaned down to kiss Noah full on the lips. Moose whistled, Neil groaned, and Larry Carson said, “If that's what you get for getting shot, I need to go find me a gunfight.” Another round of laughter made its way through them, but then things settled back to normal.
Sarah had already told Moose and Neil what had transpired in the nightclub, and Moose had told her about climbing up onto a nearby building to play sniper. He went over it again for Noah, and then Larry Carson took his place beside the bed.
“You might not have managed to kill Nicolaich,” he said, “but you did something almost as good. The fact that you took out so many of his operatives really pissed off his bosses at SVR. He ran an illegal operation for personal reasons using SVR assets, everything from people to equipment and favors from other governments. He was completely renegade on this, and has been officially disavowed by the Russian government as of this morning. There's a half-million-dollar bounty on his head, so he's not going to be showing himself anytime soon. His entire operation is under investigation, and is almost certain to be shut down. Under current Russian law, the government is not permitted to operate death squads the way the KGB used to do, so a few more heads besides his are going to roll before it's all over. I talked with our boss lady right after that news came out, and she said I'm supposed to put you on your plane and send you home the minute the doctor says you can travel. I got him to admit that you're stable earlier this morning, and he says you can probably fly home sometime tomorrow. He was a little worried about letting you get on a plane at first, because there's some risk of blood clots after surgery, but when he looked at everything they did, he said you shouldn't be in any real danger.”
“Then tell him I'm ready to go on today,” Noah said. “If all I'm gonna do is lie around, I can do that in my own house. Besides, I think I've earned a vacation.” Noah suddenly looked over at Sarah, and then turned back to Carson. “On second thought, scratch that. Call the Dragon Lady and tell her that I need to be here for at least three or four more days, then convince the doctor to go ahead and release me tomorrow. I think all four of us deserve a vacation, and we should take it right here in Moscow.”
Larry grimaced. “Actually, I don't think that's a very good idea. You really did kill off a lot of their people, and a few of them were important enough that they would have survived this shit storm. The government here wants Alexander Colson and Company out of the country as soon as possible. Nothing but the diplomatic immunity I got you when you arrived has kept them from demanding we turn you over right now.”
Noah shrugged, but doing so tugged on muscles all the way down to his leg, so he winced. “Fine, then send me on home, and when I get well enough to walk I'll take the whole team to Disney World.”
“Disney World?” Neil asked. “Can I hold you to that, Boss? I've always wanted to go to Disney World, and never had the chance.”
Noah looked at the kid who idolized him as a big brother. “You bet you can,” he said. “Like Sarah said, the team is like a family. We can take a family vacation, and you guys can even invite Elaine and Lacey to come along, if you want.”
Neil suddenly looked like he was going to panic. “Lacey? Um, don't you think I ought to get to know her a little better before I ask her to go to Disney World?”
Moose wrapped an arm around Neil's neck. “Kid,” he said in a loud stage whisper, “you and me have really got to have a talk about women.”
The team stayed with him the rest of the day, and the embassy kitchen fed them all lunch and then dinner. Doctor Novotny came in late in the afternoon and pronounced Noah fit to leave his care, and then suggested that Moose, Neil and Sarah should go and get some rest, so that Noah could do the same. Sarah took fifteen minutes to kiss Noah goodbye, but finally Moose managed to drag her out. The three of them headed back to the base house, to get everything packed up for the trip home.
Larry Carson came in to see Noah one more time that evening, and handed him a box. “We had to send the car to the repair shop, and we're lucky that our mechanic is an honest one. He found this up under the driver's seat, and I'm pretty sure it belongs to you.”
Noah opened the box to find his Glock, and he grinned. “I hope he didn't take it out back and try to get a little target practice in,” he said. Carson looked at him strangely, but Noah declined to elaborate.
Morning came, and the doctor stopped in just long enough to sign Noah's release order. The rest of the team came in a half hour later, with everything packed and ready for the flight home. Noah was loaded into a wheelchair and pushed out to the parking garage, where the ambulance was waiting for him once again.
“What's that for? I don't need an ambulance, the doctor released me.”
“That's to help you make it out of the country alive,” Carson said. “Diplomatic immunity only goes so far in Russia. After the things that happened the day before yesterday, there are agents of the government here that would ignore it if they got a chance to blow you away. If you ever decide to come back to Russia, change your hair color and make sure you have a different name. Now, get into the ambulance, all of you, so that we can get you to the airport alive.
Noah shook his head, but did as he was told. Moose and Neil brought all of their bags over from the Land Rover, and then they climbed in. Sarah had already gotten in and was sitting beside Noah on the padded stretcher, leaving the guys to sit in the tiny jump seats that folded down from the side.
The ambulance took a circuitous route, so they finally got to the airport about an hour and a half later. The paramedics, who were actually CIA agents in paramedic uniforms, helped Noah up into the plane while the rest of them waited on the ground. When the agents stepped down once again, Sarah was the first one up the steps, followed by Moose and Neil.
Sarah had just gotten into the plane when a car suddenly came screaming through the gate, and gunfire erupted. One of the CIA agents went down instantly, and the other produced a pistol and began firing at the car. There were three men in the vehicle, and the two on the passenger side were firing automatic weapons.
A few bullets hit the plane, and then Neil screamed and fell to the tarmac as a bullet ripped through his lower leg. Moose spun on the stairs and jumped down, scooping Neil up in his arms and then turning to run back up the stairs. He made it to the hatch, but had to turn sideways to get Neil through, and that's when a bullet struck him in the back. He fell into the plane, landing on top of Neil, and Sarah grabbed hold of them to help them crawl further inside.
Down on the tarmac, the remaining agent rolled out from behind the ambulance he was using for cover and fired several shots in quick succession. The car sped away, and the shooting stopped. The agent turned to his partner, but there was nothing he could do. The man had taken a bullet through his throat, and had already bled to death.
Sarah appeared in the hatch of the plane, screaming for help. “They've been shot, two of our guys have been shot! We need help, we need it now!”
Noah had slid off his seat on the floor, and was keeping pressure on Neil's leg. The bullet had passed all the way through the boy's thin calf muscle, and the bleeding was already beginning to slow. Sarah was trying to help Moose, her unbandaged hand pressing on the hole in his back.
Several people had come running from the terminal, trying to see what was going on. One of them announced that he was a doctor, and the agent ordered him into the plane, then jumped into the ambulance and grabbed one of the paramedic emergency boxes. He ran up the steps of the plane with it and passed it to the doctor, who was bending over Moose.
The doctor snatched the box and ope
ned it, found a pair of scissors and quickly cut Moose's shirt away. The bullet hole was a little lower than halfway down his back, and two inches left of his spine. The doctor examined the wound, and muttered in Russian that Moose was a very lucky man. The bullet had passed into him away from his heart, and just below his left lung, slightly above his kidney. He was in no immediate danger, but surgery would be required to repair damage to his intestines. The doctor called to the CIA agent, still thinking he was a paramedic, to bring up a stretcher.
The agent spoke to the doctor in Russian, and the conversation went on for several minutes. Finally, the doctor reached into the emergency kit and began applying bandages. When he was finished, the agent helped him get Moose into one of the seats, and then the doctor inserted an IV line, connecting it to a bag that he found in the ambulance. Working through the agent as an interpreter, he explained that Moose was in shock from the wound, and that the solution in the IV would help his body to endure it. The IV should last long enough for the plane to make it to London, they said, and then the doctor turned to wrapping Neil's leg. Neil would not need an IV, the doctor said, but he gave him an injection of morphine for the pain and to let him sleep on the flight to London.
“We're diverting to London, then?” Noah asked.
“I'm afraid so,” the agent said. “Under the circumstances, we can't take you back off the plane, none of you. Since the doctor says both men are likely to survive, the only thing we can do is get you to the nearest friendly hospital. I'll see to it that arrangements are made for an ambulance to meet the plane at Heathrow, and get them the treatment they need. I'm afraid that's the best solution, and I know it sucks.”
“No, I understand,” Noah said. “Let's get the flight crew on board, and get this plane in the air as soon as we can.”
The flight crew had been in the terminal when the shooting occurred, and were among the people who had come rushing out afterward. The copilot gathered up the team's luggage and carried it to the storage compartment, while the flight attendant worked to rig up something to hold the IV bag high enough for gravity to make it work.
Fifteen minutes later, they were in the air. Both Moose and Neil were out cold from medication, leaving Noah and Sarah awake.
Sarah looked over at Noah. “It just occurred to me,” she said, “but I haven't thanked you for coming after me. Thank you, Noah. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Noah looked her in the eye. “I had to,” he said simply.
Sarah grinned at him. “I know, I know, don't tell me. It was the logical thing to do, right? Take care of your team, and all that?”
Noah tilted his head in a half shrug. “Yeah, it was the logical thing to do. That was part of the reason I did it.”
Sarah's eyebrows rose. “Part of the reason?”
Noah nodded his head. “Yeah. Part of the reason.”
Sarah stared at him for a moment, and it dawned on him that her breathing was getting rapid. “What was the rest of it?”
Noah looked at her for almost a full minute, then smiled. “The rest of it is because it dawned on me that I don't want to live in this world without you.”
Sarah's eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open. “Noah...”
“Don't ask me to explain it,” he said, “because I can't. I wish I could tell you that I feel something, emotionally, but I still don't. The truth is plain and simple; I simply didn't want to go on living in this world if you had died. Therefore, the only thing I could do was see to it that you didn't die. I know that's not what you want to hear, and I wish I could say those words to you, but this is all I can offer. Something inside me has decided that I need you in my life. I want to be with you for as long as you can stand to have me around, however long that may turn out to be. I don't want to be apart from you anymore than I absolutely have to be—and if it ever happens that we could actually be together, like really together, then I would be more than willing to have children with you. Sarah, if that's not enough, or if I'm going about this the wrong way, I'll understand, but...”
Sarah unbuckled her seatbelt and all but threw herself across the narrow aisle. She dropped to her knees beside him and reached up to take his face in her hands, then kissed him as passionately as she could.
“It's enough,” she said, with tears of happiness streaming from her eyes. “It's enough, Noah. Just don't expect me to keep my own feelings quiet. I love you, Noah Wolf, I really do.”
She sat on the floor beside him throughout most of the flight, only getting back into her seat when the flight attendant told her they were getting ready to land. The two of them had talked over many different things, and while Noah's emotionless condition hadn't changed, he had come to recognize some part of his own humanity in acknowledging his need for her. To Sarah, that was close enough to those three little words, but she couldn't help believing that he would finally say them to her someday. Until then, she would wait and love him enough for both of them.
The ambulance was waiting at Heathrow as promised, and all four of them were taken to the London Bridge Hospital, reportedly one of the finest hospitals in all of England. Moose was rushed into surgery, but Neil was admitted and placed in a room. A doctor named Billingham cleaned and redressed his wound, complaining the entire time about the incompetence of Russian doctors. When he saw Noah and heard what had happened to him, he insisted on admitting him as well and ordered x-rays and blood tests to be sure “those Russian idiots didn't stitch up their own fingers inside you!”
Since Sarah didn't need to be admitted, even after the doctor checked her own injuries and redressed them, and since she told the doctors that she was Noah's fiancée, at which he only smiled, a spare bed was wheeled into his room for her. Moose would have to be there for a couple of days, at least, and Doctor Billingham saw absolutely no reason to release any of the others any sooner. Noah started to complain, but Sarah hushed him with a kiss.
“Hey, you want a vacation, right?” Sarah asked him, so Noah stopped complaining. The two of them lay in his room all that day, watching British television programs.
Moose came through surgery with no problems, and it turned out that the bullet had only damaged a small part of his pancreas and intestines. The pancreatic damage was negligible, once it had been cleaned, and repairing his intestines had only required the removal of a four-inch section. Other than that, he simply needed rest and time to heal. He would be sore, the doctor said, for a couple of months, but he should be able to return to work within four to five weeks.
Neil had finally awakened, and nearly panicked at finding himself in the hospital. Sarah heard him yelling, since he was in the next room, and went to calm him down. He finally chilled out when he was allowed to get into a wheelchair and visit Noah and Moose.
When Moose awakened, Noah, Sarah and Neil were all in the room. He looked at Noah and Neil in their wheelchairs and raised his eyebrows. He started to speak, but found his throat was sore.
“The doctor said you'd have a sore throat for a day or so,” Sarah told him as she raised the head of the bed so that he could see them more comfortably. “They stuck a tube down your throat to make sure you could breathe during surgery, that's why. You're going to be fine, there's no permanent damage that will cause you any trouble. The doctor will be in to explain it to you himself when he gets time.”
Neil willed himself up close to the bed and looked up at Moose. “Hey, lug nuts,” he said. “Remind me to do something special for your next birthday, okay?”
Moose narrowed his eyes and looked at him. “Why?” His voice came out as a croak, but it wasn't too hard to understand what he was saying.
Neil rolled his eyes. “Oh, as if you didn't know. You only saved my life! When the bullets started flying and I got hit, you came back down the stairs to get me. You picked me up and carried me up the stairs, even while they were shooting at you, that's how you got a bullet in the back. Yeah, I'm thinking I need to do something really special for you.”
Moose
managed a small smile. “Gotta take care of the little brother, right?”
Neil suddenly fell into sobs, and reached up to grab Moose by the hand. He tried to say something, but words just wouldn't come out.
“I think he's trying to say he loves his big brother,” said a voice from the doorway, and they all turned to look. Allison Peterson stood there, her arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb. She looked at Noah. “Camelot, I don't know how you did it, but you took this team and turned it into a real family. I got your after-action report from our station chief in Moscow, and I've got to tell you, you did a helluva job over there.” She looked at Sarah. “Sarah, I know you might not believe this, but I'm awfully glad he brought you back alive. Camelot is my favorite team, but don't tell any of the other teams I said that or I'll call you all liars.”
Sarah smiled at her. “You know what, Dragon Lady? You're not half as ferocious as you have everybody thinking you are.” She walked over and opened her arms, and the men were astonished when Allison spread her own and embraced the girl in a hug.
“Well,” she said afterward, “this is a first. I've never had an entire team get shot up and beat up in a single mission. Usually it's one or two who get hurt, and then a few missions later one of the others. But Team Camelot does everything in a big way, I guess. Can I hope that you've gotten your quota of injuries out of the way for a while?”
“Yes!” Neil and Sarah said together.
Allison nodded her approval. “Good. I'm putting you all on recuperation leave for the next six weeks. The doctors say you'll all be fine in a month, but I want you all to be working out and back in shape before I send you back into the field. When you're released here, we'll fly you all home so that you can start getting yourselves back into operational condition. Everyone is now convinced that you are our best team, and there are some things happening in the world that will be needing your attention sometime soon. I had to come over here on some other business anyway, so I moved it up on my calendar just enough to let me come and visit you in the hospital. And incidentally, that's something else you don't tell anyone. This is the first time I've ever gone to visit any of our people when they were laid up. We don't want anyone thinking I'm playing favorites, now do we?”