In the Grey (46 page)

Eoin pointed to the
door.

“
Go ahead,” MJ said as he
set up an IV on Alex.

Eoin jogged up the
half-flight and kneeled down. He had no idea if he’d be able to
turn the lock on this side with it melted on the other
side.

He wasn’t able to. He
leaned through the hole.

“
It’s a no go,” Eoin said
to Colin.

“
It’s all right,” Colin
said. “The Feebs are here. They’ve called for a hydraulic
cutter.”

Eoin nodded.

“
Eoin!” the boys called
him from inside the house.

“
You going up?” MJ said
from the basement.

“
I am,” Eoin
said.

“
Here.” MJ threw him a
couple packets of sleeping salts. “If those don’t work, slap him
between the shoulder blades. If he’s not breathing, call for me.
I’ll hear you.”

Eoin ran up the stairs to
the first floor. He turned the corner and ran to the dining room.
The boys were standing around their father. Troy seemed asleep in
his reclining chair.

“
Is he dead?” Hermes
asked.

“
No,” Hector James said.
“He’s not dead. Look. You can see his heart beat right
here.”

Hector James pointed to
Troy’s neck and Hermes leaned closer to look.

“
I called him and he
hasn’t moved at all,” Hermes said. “My brother shook
him.”

“
He’s drugged,” Hector
James said.

“
He looks like Mommy did
when . . . ,” Hermes nodded.

Eoin winced at Hermes’s
comparison of Troy to his mother’s body at her funeral.

“
Let’s try to wake him,”
Eoin said.

Eoin gave Hector James and
Hermes each an ampoule.

“
Squish it, and put it
under his nose,” Eoin said.

Hector James pressed his
between his fingers and waved it under Troy’s nose. Hermes waved
his under his own nose.

“
That smells pretty bad,”
Hermes coughed and sputtered.

“
Don’t do it on yourself!”
Hector James said.

“
Move over,” Hermes
said.

“
Boys?” Troy asked.
“What . . . ?”

He shook his head. Hermes
put his ampoule under Troy’s nose. Troy pushed it away.

“
I’m okay. I’m okay,” Troy
said. Sitting up, he noticed Eoin. “What happened?”

“
A lot,” Eoin said. “Boys?
Where are Max and Wyatt?”

“
In their bedroom,” Hector
James said. “We peeked in. Mr. Wyatt is lying on the floor. We
didn’t see Mr. Max, but their bathroom door is closed.”

“
They don’t usually keep
their bathroom door closed,” Hermes nodded.

“
How would you know that?”
Troy asked.

Eoin pointed upstairs.
Troy nodded, and Eoin took off.

“
They have a big bath
tub,” Hermes said.

The conversation continued
behind him.

“
It’s no funny business,
promise,” Hector James said. “We use their bathtub when you’re
gone.”

“
They have manly stuff in
their bathroom,” Hermes said. “We’re going to be men
someday.”

“
Yeah,” Hector James said.
“We need to know how to be men.”

“
I’m a man!” Troy
said.

Smiling, Eoin started up
the stairs to the second floor. He jogged along the second floor
and turned up the stairs to the third floor.

He found Wyatt lying on
the floor with his right arm under him. Eoin turned him over.
Wyatt’s wrist was smashed, and it looked like his arm was broken.
Eoin dug around in his pocket until he came up with a bottle of
coconut suntan lotion. He opened the bottle and put it under
Wyatt’s nose.

“
Come on, Wyatt,” Eoin
said. “You can make it back. Come on man.”

Wyatt opened his eyes.
Seeing Eoin, he squinted.

“
What do you remember?”
Eoin asked.

“
Something . . . I . . .
bathroom,” Wyatt said. “Oh my God, Max!”

Wyatt rolled over and ran
to the bathroom. He yanked the chair out from under the door knob.
Max was lying on his side next to the toilet.

“
Max!” Wyatt yelled. “Oh
God! Max!”

Wyatt dropped down on one
knee to check Max. With his left hand, he felt Max’s pulse at his
neck and his wrist.

“
You’re a doctor,” Eoin
said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“
It’s his heart,” Wyatt
said. “The shock and . . . Oh
Max . . .”

Max opened his eyes and
looked at Wyatt.

“
Did you pass out?” Wyatt
asked.

Max nodded.

“
I’m so sorry,” Wyatt
hugged him.

“
Alex?” Max whispered.
“She’s . . . not good.”

“
MJ’s with her,” Eoin
said. “The medics are on their way.”

Eoin pulled Wyatt
away.

“
Are you clear? Is there
anything else in there?” Eoin asked.

Wyatt shrugged. Eoin
snapped his fingers once and then twice. Wyatt gave a slight shake
of his head. As Eoin had seen before, Wyatt shifted to a kind of
hypnotic neutral.

“
You’ll take care of Max,”
Eoin said.

“
I’ll never receive
another instruction,” Wyatt repeated what they had worked
on.

“
All instruction is over
and done,” Eoin said. He’d tried this before, but it hadn’t worked.
It was the only thing he could think of doing now.

“
All assignments received
so far are over and done,” Wyatt repeated. “Over and
done.”

Wyatt nodded. His face
started to smile when he gave a slight shake of his
head.

“
Death is the only
conclusion,” Wyatt said in a guttural tone.

“
No,” Eoin said. “That
plan washed away. I want it washed away. Wash it away.”

Eoin held his hands up to
Wyatt’s ears. He snapped his left fingers and then his right. He
continued snapping his fingers in a slight rhythm.

“
I want it
washed . . . away . . . ,”
Wyatt’s eyes flicked from side to side with the rhythm.
“Done.”

“
Good,” Eoin said. “Wake
up now.”

“
Awaken,” Wyatt gave a
slight shake of his head. “What just happened? God, what happened
to my arm?”

Wyatt’s right arm lay limp
at his side.

“
We washed everything
away,” Eoin said. “You’re not dressed.”

“
Where’s Max?” Wyatt
asked.

“
Bathroom,” Eoin said.
“The paramedics are on their way. You need to get
dressed.”

“
I need Max,” Wyatt held
out his left hand to Eoin. “Thank you.”

Eoin shook his hand. Wyatt
nodded, and Eoin left their bathroom. He was down the stairs when
he heard Max laugh. Eoin smiled.

Now he had to make one of
the most difficult calls he’d ever made in his entire
life.

“
Go,” Patrick Hargreaves
said.

“
Sir, Alex and Max are
dire,” Eoin said.

“
From the situation we
discussed?”

“
Each person passed out
afterwards,” Eoin said.

A host of sirens wailed
toward the house. Eoin looked out the second-floor landing window
to firefighters running toward the building with the Jaws of
Life.

“
Thank you,” Patrick said.
“And my children?”

“
They’ll be on their way
to the hospital very soon.”

“
I’ll tell their mother,”
Patrick said.

“
Yes, sir,” Eoin
said.

“
Would you like to go with
us?” Patrick asked.

“
To see the bastard that
did this?” Eoin asked. “Yes, sir.”

“
Tomorrow or Monday,
depending . . .”

“
Yes, sir,” Eoin
said.

The phone went dead. Eoin
looked at the phone to make sure he hadn’t lost the connection.
Patrick Hargreaves had hung up on him. Eoin closed his eyes for a
moment and called John. He had just finished his conversation when
he heard someone coming toward him.

“
Eoin?” Leena asked. “Neev
is awake.”

“
Thank you,” Eoin said.
“Max needs a medic. Heart trouble.”

“
Shit,” Leena said. “The
LC is touch and go.”

Eoin nodded and followed
her back to the basement.

F

Thursday
morning

November 25 – 5:39 a.m.
MST

Denver, CO

John stood just outside of
the entrance to the emergency department at Denver Health. Over the
last few years, this emergency department had become a kind of home
away from home. In this ED, he was a well-liked, capable surgeon.
He usually zipped in, did his work, and went home to his
life.

This morning was
different.

This morning, the people
he loved most were in surgery.

This morning, his best
friend Max was in the middle of emergency open heart surgery. The
man he’d come to love like a brother, Arthur Rasmussen, was being
evaluated for surgery to relieve the pressure on his swelling
brain. Samantha was in surgery for her broken chin and jaw. Wyatt
was in surgery for his shattered wrist and arm. The ever-mysterious
Steve Pershing had torn his deep stitches and was in surgery
getting it repaired. His running mate and friend Troy had suffered
an allergic reaction to whatever Neev had given him, and was
fighting for his life in the ICU.

And his Alex.

He couldn’t bear to think
on it. He’d told himself that Alex was stabbed; she was fortunate
to have been stabbed on her right side; and she was lucky to have
been given the coagulant by the ever unflappable Hector James. This
morning, she was in surgery to clean out pieces of body armor,
shards of the knife blade, and find the bleeding
vessels.

This might be the morning
that she didn’t recover.

They’d told him not to get
his hopes up. She’d already been through the ten pints of whole
blood they kept stored for her. They couldn’t find the leaking
vessel.

“
It would take a surgeon
of your skill to find it,” the ED doctor had told him over the
phone. “Know anyone like that?”

“
I
could . . . ,” he’d tried.

“
We don’t dare. Insurance
liability and all that. Why don’t you go to the waiting area? We’ll
let you know as soon as we know anything.”

He rubbed his face with
his hands.

What if Alex and Max
died?

He’d never survive. He
took a step toward the ED and stopped.

What was he going to
do?

A man walked into him. He
hit John so hard that John stumbled forward.

“
Get out of the way,” the
man said in a stiff London accent.

Walking fast, the man
turned to look at him. The man was his MI-6 shadow. He raised an
eyebrow at John and disappeared into the hospital.

The left pocket of John’s
white doctor’s coat felt heavier. John put his hand into the
pocket. His fingers wrapped around a cell phone. Dazed, he held the
phone up to his ear.

“
Listen and don’t talk,”
James Kelly, his brother and MI-6 operative, said. “The knife was
covered with microspheres of the anticoagulant, heparin. This
particular wound, although more effective on the left side, is
designed to be unsurvivable because the wound itself pushes the
microspheres further into the body, where they release the heparin.
Standard coagulant seals the heparin inside the body and proper
surgical procedure hastens the spread of the heparin.”

“
It’s our understanding
that there’s been excessive bleeding,” James said. “They’re calling
for another surgeon.”

Not wanting to respond,
John nodded. That’s what he’d do if he was the surgeon in
charge.

“
We caught a gal on the
way into Max’s party,” James said. “We believe her when she says
that someone asked her to bring a coagulant, but you know, that
would kill him. We’ve adjusted his surgical team.”

Horrified, John took a
swift breath.

“
Exactly,” James said.
“Here’s our question: can you save her?”

John nodded.

“
Johnny, can you save our
girl?” James repeated. “Why aren’t you answering?”

“
You told me not to
talk!”

“
You were always so
literal,” James chuckled. “Thanks. That’s the first laugh I’ve had
all day. Can you save her?”

“
Of course,” John
said.

“
Are you good enough,
Johnny?” James said. “No ego or tough guy here. The hospital says
you’ve done it before.”

“
A half-dozen times,” John
said. “Car accident on the way home from a hip-replacement, cardiac
patient meets his radial saw – that sort of thing. I have a team
that works on this type of case quite effectively.”