Lethal Treatment

by S A Gardner

  Oh, God.

  Guess I just found my limit. He’d found it for me.

  Stomach heaving, I moaned, “Damn you, De Luna.”

  “Yeah.” He held my eyes, letting me see the terminator side of him. “Give me the drugs, St. James, and go do your real job. Tend the living.”

  Fifteen

  The suction machine whirred and slurped. Matt was whistling his usual tunes as we worked in tandem. Ishmael drummed the rhythm in between monitoring Pierro and adjusting his anesthesia. We had to operate, after all.

  We did to the score of bullets and explosions blasting outside. Damian and his team were setting up an authentic post-guerrilla war stage.

  Inside my head, I only heard Damian’s last words. They looped in my mind like a broken record.

  Tend the living. Tend the living.

  How weird that the same words could mean so many things. Our prisoners had still been the living when Damian had said that, and he’d been about to tend them, too. It felt so strange, to have been in here fighting for one human being’s life, while Damian had been out there ending so many others.

  I cauterized the last bleeding artery lining Pierro’s ribs, that disconcerting burnt flesh scent filling my sinuses. It would remain there for days. I knew. It never really left.

  Matt removed the rib spreader and I moved aside for him to close Pierro’s chest. I transferred to his head to start working on his ear. Ayesha removed the bandage, and again my long-empty stomach heaved in protest.

  On its way to avulsing his scalp, the bullet had blasted the middle third of his ear. Good thing the severed part hadn’t been lost, was still hanging by a thread of tissue. We’d agreed that reattaching it had a good chance of success, due to the rich blood supply in the area…

  “Dammit. He’s fibrillating.”

  Ishmael’s shout pummeled me first. The erratic monitor sounds transmitting Pierro’s haywire heart activity followed, screaming its ominous verdict.

  I stared dumbly at Pierro.

  Then I heard my voice, vibrating with shock and anger. “You’ve been stable all through. We’re finished with the hard part. You’re not fibrillating now, Pierro. There’s absolutely no reason you should, you hear me?”

  On some detached level, I noted how crazy I sounded, scolding Pierro as if it would stop him from flatlining. Then another voice rose, that internal infernal voice.

  But Clara shouldn’t have fibrillated, either. Her heart shouldn’t have stopped. There was no reason. She was young and healthy and—and…

  Agony scorched my lungs, fogged my eyes, burned my heart and reason—

  “Cali, snap out of it.”

  Matt’s growl lashed across my senses. I felt my body respond to his rebuke, falling into the practiced motions of resuscitation on its own accord right along with him and Ayesha. Between us the external defibrillator was readied, charged and the shock delivered in seconds.

  Sinus rhythm resumed at once.

  I stared at the monitor, at the healthy, steady spikes, at the intubated Pierro. He was back.

  Oh, Clara.

  Tasting blood and bile, I turned to Matt, Ishmael and Ayesha, groping for the moment we all needed to touch base, seek comfort and confirmation after such a scare.

  They gave it, received it, then we each turned back to our own parts of the job. I touched shoulders with Ayesha. She pressed against me, her support what kept me on my feet now. We went to work, putting Pierro’s scalp and ear back together.

  Anguish still roiled inside me, poured out of me, muffled by my mask. “Were you trying to force us to finish, Pierro? We can, y’know? Giving you a matching set of ears again isn’t really necessary. So if you want those, you’d better not scare me like that again. I’m not losing you, do you hear? I’m not going out there to tell your friends I have no idea why your heart stopped.”

  “Take it easy on the guy, Cali,” Matt murmured as he placed drains and stapled the last inches of Pierro’s chest incision. “He fought with us while his lung filled with blood then almost got torn apart by the explosion. He bled in and out, then we opened him up and mucked around. That he fibrillated only once and responded this quickly is the miracle here.” Matt was taking it easy on me. He knew my phobias and nightmares. A patient fibrillating on table was foremost among those. “This isn’t out of the blue.”

  Like Clara. The words he left unsaid boomed in my head.

  Yeah, this wasn’t like Clara.

  As I nodded my gratitude for his defusing insight, the tears choking me eased back. Ayesha handed me a ten blade for the debridement of Pierro’s ear.

  Another explosion vibrated the whole trailer, rocked my already shaky focus. I gritted my teeth and carried on.

  Sixteen

  “Why are you like this?”

  I glared at Ed as I jumped out of IC after him. The transition from the trailer’s warmth to the cold outside was a rude slap, augmenting my irritation to the point of pain.

  “I’m like this because you were in IC without permission,” I snapped. “And because you were making Anna laugh so hard she was in danger of busting a stitch.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He sighed, rubbed his large hand over his eyes. “I deserve to be punched out for that. I was just—you know how it is, Cali.” I started at hearing him say my nickname. He’d never called me anything but St. James, like his leader. “Anna and I, we’re—she’s—everything to me. Seeing her hit, and being unable to run to her, then being forced to take care of business while you took care of her was—hell. I couldn’t wait anymore.”

  His motives for invading IC hadn’t even occurred to me.

  My shoulders slumped. “Jeez. Sorry I kicked you out like that. But the bullet went through her armpit and hit nothing vital. Anna’s going to be just fine, Ed.”

  Anxiety still tinged his gaze, and the need to wipe it away almost had me reaching out to him.

  Not a good idea. Reaching out. Getting involved. It was none of my business. I was involved with my team enough as it was. Didn’t need more distractions. More ties.

  But man, why was he doing that to himself? How did supposedly rational people fall for colleagues who could be blown to bits in front of their very eyes at any time? How had Damian done it? Loving Mel, keeping her by his side, knowing full well that one of them would likely end up maimed or dead with the other looking on?

  Ed finally exhaled, nodded. “In my mind, I know she will be. Thanks to you guys. We’re trained to treat our fallen colleagues, but what you did for all of them was way beyond anything we could have done.”

  I nodded and was about to walk away when his eyes emptied of agitation, only to fill with that curiosity he’d always regarded me with. “But it wasn’t what I asked. I always wanted to know why you’re like this.” He made an encompassing gesture. “Doing all this.”

  A huff escaped me. “Wow. What a simple—and let me add, timely—question, Ed. Don’t you think rejoining the clean up efforts, o we can move out asap, takes precedence over analyzing me?”

  It was two hours since the attack. If our enemies had been in contact with their people when they attacked us, we had to assume reinforcements were on the way.

  But we couldn’t have moved on earlier. We couldn’t have operated on Pierro while on the move, while Damian had to set the stage. My eyes swept the scene, inspecting his handiwork.

  In the moonless night, the post-apocalyptic scene flickered under the flames of our enemies’ burning convoy. The eerie lights seeping from our vehicles tinged it in an otherworldly chill. Damian had pulverized everything, especially the trailers we’d lost, into an indistinguishable wreck.

  Our convoy was aligned again, crouching aloof from the devastation, a dragon-serpent that had mangled and scorched its prey, and the parts of itself that had been damaged.

  As for our enemies themselves—their bodies were scattered consistently with the kind of blitz he wanted to paint. The guy knew his massacres well.

  He and the rest were still d
ealing with the enemy’s arsenal, making it look like someone had attacked them and confiscated their weapons. We were taking only some choice weapons, anything that could be disassembled and camouflaged. Damian was burying what we couldn’t take.

  God, how convoluted and devious it all was. Playing our enemies at their own game made us so much like them.

  No. With our training and abilities, we were so much better. So much worse.

  Ed was still watching me as I turned my eyes back to him, raised his hands. “Hey, I did my quota. And we’re not moving on before Damian says so.”

  I considered telling him I could override his precious Damian, could make him take the stuff to bury elsewhere and move out now. I didn’t. Damian must know what he was doing. No need to flaunt my authority.

  “So we have time,” Ed said. “I mean—I know why I’m doing this, why my team is.”

  Did he? Did he really know what made Damian tick? Beyond the obvious? Now that would be something I’d want to hear.

  “So why are you?” I challenged.

  Devil-blue eyes sparkled at me in the dimness. “Me first? Sure. It’s simple. We’re professional soldiers. We left one army, enlisted in another where we thought we could do more good, have more flexibility and resources, and where our specific abilities were most needed and appreciated.”

  I doubted that was all. Not for Damian, at least. But until he chose to enlighten me, I only had presumptions. I was probably way off base.

  “Your turn.” Ed raised a challenging blond eyebrow.

  I pulled a mocking face. “Yeah? You tell me less than nothing, and expect what in return? A detailed biography?”

  His grin widened. I guessed I had to give him something.

  But what would that something be? Did I even know why I was like this? I mean, really?

  I’d always had heretical leanings, out-of-the-box traits. I’d beaten up my first bully at three, proving I’d inherited my father’s ferocity and extreme sense of justice. By the time I’d been a teen, I’d been doing everything to break free of the system.

  Then I’d stood at Clara’s grave. Then at Jake’s empty one. Then I’d watched as Dad had been taken away for life, as Mom had walked away for good. Then I’d been stripped of everything I’d worked for and exiled by the two men who should have been my biggest allies.

  Had it taken all those blows to make me “like this?” Or would I have ended up like this anyway?

  One thing was certain. I never thought I’d ever come this far. There were still times when I found it surreal.

  Ed was still waiting for some kind of answer. I sighed. “Got a couple of days while I recount my life story? Then you can sift through the whole mess, and decide why I’m like this. Then you can tell me.”

  Then something clicked. I frowned. “Wait a minute. Why are you asking? You’ve got me on file in PACT, with a full background and psyche profile attached. You probably have more insight into what makes me tick than I’ll ever have.”

  He chuckled. “What can I say, babe? You’re classified material. My clearance doesn’t get me access to your files.”

  Now that was surprising. As Damian’s second-in-command, he had clearance all the way to the White House.

  Come to think of it—and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before—this made it weird, in all caps, that PACT would risk sending two of their top men on the same mission. Or on a mission at all.

  From what I understood, Damian had risen very high in the ranks of PACT, with only Fitzpatrick outranking him. Tactical commanders stayed home behind huge desks in war rooms orchestrating stuff, not running around the world’s hotbeds risking their invaluable experience and irreplaceable hides in extreme-risk field operations.

  Hmm. Was Damian being punished then? Had he been demoted? Was that why they’d put me in charge? To rub his nose in it?

  I could see a lot of questions heading Damian’s way.

  And slamming right back in my face unanswered.

  But Ed was in the dark about me. So why had Damian withheld the lowdown on me from his closest man?

  And here came the man in question, flowing toward us in the dark like an encroaching force of nature.

  I was getting fancy in my exhaustion. But what could I say. The guy was a hunk of divine artwork.

  He came to a deceptively relaxed halt three feet away, that space-shrinking aura of his at full blast. His eyes moved from Ed to me, cooling in the transition.

  I smirked at him. “Hey, De Luna. Do you know what makes me tick? Ed was asking.”

  He ignored my question, delivered his intended communication. “We found a SINCGARS unit with a maximum range of thirty miles in the command vehicle before we destroyed it.” SINCGARS, or Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems. Extensive communications knowledge was one of the skills he’d hammered into me. “That wasn’t reassuring, until we found an SSB vehicular radio.” Single Sideband models varied in range, depending on the band, terrain and other factors. Its presence probably meant their base was much farther than thirty miles. “Fifteen minutes ago a man started yelling on it for status report.”

  They’d probably expected radio silence while their attack force destroyed us and confiscated our convoy. They must have gotten suspicious when almost three hours passed with no word.

  Damian went on. “I told him we, their target, must have detoured, that they were ambushed instead by a rival outfit. We manufactured evidence proving said outfit’s complicity in the massacre.” I couldn’t even begin to think how they’d done that. But I was sure it was foolproof. “We also buried twenty bodies so they’d think they had traitors who orchestrated the whole thing and fled the scene with their enemies.”

  Thoroughly fiendish. And I bet he’d done far more. Damian was a details fanatic.

  I had a dozen questions, then I opened my mouth and only blurted out, “You speak Russian?”

  His look said the question wasn’t worth wasting a breath to answer it.

  Hey, it was a valid question. I’d never thought Damian spoke anything but good ol’ American. And Spanish, of course.

  Must be another undercover power, knowing far more than he appeared to. I definitely had a thing for a guy with a versatile tongue. Uh—pun not intended.

  Come to think of it, definitely so. I’d had a sample of his tongue’s versatility that other night. Wondered what he could do with it, when he wasn’t drugged…

  Whoa. Crazy tangents alert.

  Another tangent followed, something I’d forgotten.

  Jake had spoken Russian. And seven other languages. All fluently. It had been among the things that had impressed me out of my mind about him. His staggering genius, the humbling effortlessness of his uptake, retention and deduction, the perfect networking and utilization of every shred of knowledge he’d ever come across. Compounded by his freedom from rules and his remorseless wit—let’s just say “soulmate” had been used copiously during the year we’d been lovers. When I’d finally buried him in my mind, I’d reverted to contented celibacy.

  Okay, not so contented. Not after Damian. It had only become enforced by his unavailability, and with me unable to consider intimacy with anyone else.

  The man in question was still talking. “We’re done here, and we’re moving out in five minutes. The rocky terrain won’t leave trails for them to follow. We’ll still have to make a large detour to Malka, to get out of their way. And to get ourselves seen for an alibi, too.” He looked at me. “Pierro and Anna?”

  It was Ed who answered him. “They’re doing great. A regular miracle worker is our Cali, isn’t she, Dam?”

  “Yeah, isn’t she?” Damian said, without opening his mouth. Ventriloquist abilities, too? Wouldn’t surprise me.

  He must also be into pyrokinetics. He was fuming.

  What now?

  Was he again remembering the night in Sudan? When it had been him I’d struggled to save? With Mel’s, Ben’s and Idi’s hacked bodies right beside us in that
truck?

  Anger wasn’t good for the soul. I’d make him vent it. On the object of his rage.

  I cocked my head at him. “Five minutes are long enough to sum me up, don’t you think?”

  I wanted his mind off whatever darkness was tainting it now. Also hearing what he’d say about me would give me a lot of insight.

  His protracted look was simmering, disturbing. Disturbed?

  I sure hoped I messed him up a fraction as much as he did me.

  He turned his eyes to Ed. “At sixteen, St. James’s younger sister Clara, went in bouncing and excited into an OR for elective mole removal and esthetic repair, and came out a corpse.”

  My lungs emptied with the sucker punch.

  I knew he could be a merciless bastard, but I still hadn’t expected he’d mention Clara’s loss, and so callously.

  My vision clouded, my breath shortened.

  Dammit, no. I’d pushed him into this. I’d see it through.

  Give me you worst, De Luna.

  He impassive eyes met my challenge, my consent for him to go all out received and acknowledged. Everyone was boarding the trucks. We’d follow in a minute. He’d make it enough.

  “Clara’s doctors came out with condolences and no explanations.” His words were still directed to a now somber Ed. Each hacked into my nine-year-fresh wound. “She just fibrillated, didn’t respond to resuscitation efforts. There was no autopsy ordered. The verdict was, it happens. They used the system to bury her and their mistake fast.

  “At just nineteen and with one year left of med school to go, St. James lost her beloved sister to the system, and the kind of medical practitioner it spawned. She was already ripe for rebellion, but that was her trigger.”

  He kept his eyes on Ed. Strange. I would have thought he’d have a ball seeing me shrivel up.