In the Grey (47 page)

“
Fine,” James said. John
heard James breathe.

“
You okay?”

“
Just . . .
well, you know,” James said. “We’re not willing to lose Pershing or
the Fey or her twin or Rasmussen.”

“
What about Troy?” John
asked.

“
Fuck’s sake, Johnny, you
know what I mean!”

“
I do,” John
said.

“
Are you willing to risk
everything?”

“
Yes.” John answered
without hesitation. He was ready to do anything to save
them.

“
You’ll need to check in
on Pershing and Max,” James said. “Rasmussen and, hell, all of
them. Any funny business and you rotate in.”

“
Of course,” John
said.

“
Do exactly as I tell
you,” James said. “Go through the doors.”

John walked into the
hospital.

“
Turn right and then make
an immediate left into the surgeons’ locker room,” James
said.

“
I’m going in right now,”
John said.

“
There should be a man
standing right in front of you,” James said. “You will take his
identification and use the names through the surgery. You won’t be
paid, but what do you care?”

The man held out an
identification tag and card key. John took the identification from
this stranger and the man left the locker area.

“
Any news on Neev?” John
asked.

“
They’re moving her from
the Denver Police out to the FBI as we speak,” James said. “Some
people are coming to speak with her.”

“
What has she said?” John
asked.

“
Nothing,” James said.
“Keep the phone. I’ll be in touch.”

James clicked off the
phone. John turned in place when he heard someone come in the room.
His MI-6 shadow stood in front of him.

The man didn’t say
anything.

He never did.

He simply held out his
hand.

John’s original gold
wedding ring lay in his hand. John picked up the ring. The man gave
a slight nod and left the room.

John’s hand closed around
the ring. They’d used their old rings for their ceremony in
Scotland. When he was finally a genuine, well-paid, non-mooching
vascular surgeon, he’d asked Alex for a new ring. They’d gone
together and bought the ring he now wore every day. It had a row of
small black diamonds set in the center of a brushed platinum band.
It was stunning. It reminded him that all the darkness that had
been his life was now surrounded by shining light. The ring
reminded him of Alex.

John opened his locker. He
pulled off his new ring and set it on the bottom of the locker. He
slipped on his old ring and smiled. His old ring felt like home. He
changed quickly.

“
Doctor?” said his
surgical nurse, Trish, in a tense voice. “Are you here to work on
the Hargreaves case?”

When she realized it was
John, she smiled.

“
Doctor . . . ,” She leaned forward to
look at the identification tag. “Kelly.”

John looked down at the
tag. Sure enough, Jimmy had changed him name from John Kelly
Drayson to Shane John Kelly. John gave a rueful shake of his head.
Shane was the Irish rendition of John. His brother had changed his
name to his baby name – John-John.

“
Trish, she’s been given a
high dose of heparin,” John said. “On the knife. Some kind of
microspheres full of the stuff sealed in by the
coagulant.”

“
Followed by coagulant?”
Trish’s eyebrows shot up with concern.

“
Yes,” John said. “Do you
remember . . . ?”

“
Yes, doctor, I believe
Dr. Drayson has done quite few of those surgeries,” Trish smiled.
“He’s truly an expert, as is his team. Should I call in his
team?”

“
Please do,” John
smiled.

“
I’ll get what we need,”
Trish nodded. “I will also round up our team. You may scrub. We’ll
be waiting for you when you’re done.”

“
Thank you,” John
said.

“
But you’re coming?” Trish
asked.

“
I’m on my way,” John
followed her out the door.

FFFFFF

Thursday
afternoon

November 25 – 3:51 p.m.
MST

Denver, CO

Alex woke in a Colorado
high mountain meadow filled with wildflowers. A tiny bright-red
bugler penstemon tickled her nose. Leaning her hand on a patch of
baby blue eyes, she sat up to look around. Her cricket was waiting
for her among the evergreen trees that edged the meadow. He waved
to her with his red umbrella, and she waved back. Looking across
the meadow, she saw another indentation in the flowers.

Max.

She pushed herself onto
her hands and knees. She had to rest for a moment to catch her
breath, before finally getting to her feet.

She took a step and
stumbled. She felt oddly weak. Her entire body screamed with
pain.

Something moved. She
turned to see Jesse.

“
Jesse!” Alex
waved.

When he was close, she
tried to hug his solid body, but her right arm wouldn’t move. Her
left arm caught his neck. She slumped against him. She hung on for
a while.

“
I’m so weak,” Alex
said.

“
Yes,” Jesse said. “Let me
help.”

Jesse put his arm around
her and helped carry her. A brilliant-white snowy owl took off from
a tall lodgepole pine on the edge of the meadow. The owl circled
the meadow, before landing a few feet from them. The owl
transformed.

“
Hey look! It’s Yvonne!”
Alex said. “Y!”

Alex wasn’t sure if she
could hug her, but Yvonne held out her arms. Jesse helped her stay
upright, and Alex held her dear friend close.

Alex weaved.

“
Let me help,” Yvonne
said.

Yvonne took Alex’s other
side. Together, they staggered across the flowers and rich earth.
Her cold bare feet felt the green tendrils of sage bend against her
weight. Her foot caught on a small purple aster and they almost
fell. Jesse kept them upright.

“
Pick up your feet,” Jesse
said.

A cold wind blew up her
back. The green grass tickled her toes. She tripped
forward.

Nothing was going to stop
her from reaching Max. They continued their weaving, stumbling
journey across the meadow.

A few feet away, Alex saw
him.

She tried to run, but
pitched forward onto the ground. She crawled on her hands and knees
to Max’s body.

“
Still warm,” she
whispered.

Alex curled up around her
twin’s body. She put her chin on his shoulder and her nose right
next to his neck.

Max sighed.

The weight of his body
pressed into hers and they seemed to merge.

She felt a sense of deep
relief. She was exactly where she should be, where she
belonged.

“
Alex?” Max
whispered.

“
I’m here,” Alex
said.

“
Good,” he
said.

They fell into a sound
sleep.

FFFFFF
Thursday afternoon

November 25 – 4:11 p.m.
MST

Denver, CO

“
Doctor . . . uh . . . Kelly,
sir,” Trish ran into the private room where John, Alex’s family and
team were waiting. John looked up from his conversation with
Patrick and Mrs. Harris. “You need to come now.”

John followed Trish into
the ICU where he heard the sound of a loud argument coming from the
area near Max’s bed. John’s heart squeezed with anxiety. He ran
faster.

“
What the fuck are you
talking about?” the head of the ICU said.

“
We did not do this,”
John’s favorite ICU nurse, Eloisa, said. A sixty-four-year-old
Vietnam War nurse veteran, Eloisa suffered no fools and no arrogant
doctors.

“
You expect me to believe
that she floated over here? By what? Magic?”

John skid to a halt near
Max’s bed. Alex was lying with her wounded side up and her body
around Max’s body. Trish rushed to Alex and began assessing her
condition.

“
I ordered them to be
together.” Used to being in charge, Patrick had no problem stepping
in front of John. “They cannot survive without each
other.”

“
Who let you in here?” the
ICU doctor asked. “Where the hell is security?”

Two steely-eyed Marines
stepped out from behind the bed. They gave the doctor a level
stare.

“
Did you do this?” the
doctor asked.

The Marines did not
respond. John joined Trish at Alex’s side. She had disconnected her
IV but not torn it out.

“
You have no authority
over them,” Patrick said.

“
Ask them,” the doctor
commanded.

“
Report,” Patrick gave the
strong, one-word command.

“
The Lieutenant Colonel
crawled in here on her own volition, General,” one Marine
said.

“
I told you,” Patrick
said.

“
You expect me to believe
that after major surgery and blood loss that could only be remedied
with cord blood, the Lieutenant Colonel walked over here and got
into this bed?” the ICU doctor said. “I’m not a fool.”

“
Then stop acting like
one,” Eloisa looked him up and down and went to the bed.

“
We are not responsible
for what you believe or do not believe, sir,” the second Marine
said. “We are reporting what happened.”

“
We are only responsible
for the protection of Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves and Maxwell
Hargreaves,” the first Marine said.

“
They cannot be together,”
the ICU doctor said. “Maxwell Hargreaves is too weak.”

“
He’s not now,” Eloisa
said.

The doctors, nurses, and
Patrick turned to look at Max’s heart rate and metabolic monitor.
Max’s heart was beating stronger, and his blood pressure was near
normal.

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves is my patient,” John said. “She appears to need a new
bandage and a new . . .”

Another ICU nurse wheeled
a monitor over to them. John stepped out of the way to let her
work.

“
She cannot be here,” the
ICU doctor said.

“
They’re identical twins,”
Patrick said. “They cannot survive without each other. Trust me,
I’ve tried it all their lives.”

“
There’s no such thing as
male-female identical twins,” the ICU doctor sniffed.

“
Single zygotic,” John
said over his shoulder.

“
They look like twins to
me,” Eloisa said. “These are not the first twins we’ve had in here.
Now get out of the way so we can do our jobs.”

“
You want me to believe
that these two are . . . ,” the ICU doctor
started.

Trece stepped in front of
the doctor. Towering over the man, Trece’s sheer bulk caused the
man to step back. Trece pulled the curtain between them.

“
He can’t do that!” the
ICU doctor said.

“
Actually, that man can do
almost anything he wants,” Patrick said. “You’d be hard pressed to
find anyone who could stop him.”

John’s nurse Trish came
out from behind the curtain.

“
Dr. Kelly has ordered
another bed,” Trish said.

“
Good thinking,” Patrick
said.

“
If this goes
south . . . ,” the ICU doctor
started.

“
We won’t blame you,”
Patrick said.

“
You’d better not,” the
ICU doctor said.

“
Doctor, would you mind
taking a look . . . ,” a nurse came up to the
ICU doctor.

She smiled at Patrick and
pulled the doctor away from the beds. An orderly wheeled a bed next
to Max’s bed. John, Trish, the ICU nurse, and the orderly moved
Alex onto her back and into her own bed. John took Alex’s left hand
and placed it next to Max’s right. Max’s fingers stretched for her
fingers.

John smiled when they held
hands.

“
How . . . ?” Eloisa looked up at Patrick.
“They are about as unconscious as a person can be.”

“
I don’t ask,” Patrick
said.

“
I think they are one soul
in two bodies,” John stepped out from behind the
curtain.

“
That’s what they say,”
Trece said. He opened the curtain to let the nurses out and give
them some room.

For a moment, Patrick and
John stood back to watch.

“
He’s doing a lot better,”
Patrick said.

“
So is she,” John said.
“And Samantha?”

“
She’s in a room
upstairs,” Patrick said. “Wyatt’s in with her. They’re still out,
but their doctors think they will both be fine. Steve’s here
somewhere.”