Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“Bill?” The voice was louder, to his right, not his left. It said, not quite so distinctly, “The perforation is in the left, not the right,” and then more directly, “Yes, Bill. You’re talking. We can hear you. You’re all right. You’re fine. You’re going to sleep now and it’ll be a lot better in a while.”

The blackness wasn’t the blackness of dying. The pain stayed in his head, although not so bad-bearable even-and there was a dream that he knew wasn’t really a dream. Of people being in the air, as if they were flying: Burt Bradley and the sheriff with the tractor whose name he couldn’t remember and the Highway Patrol commander whose name he couldn’t remember, either, but then he could-Petrich, Alan Petrich-and an explosion although he couldn’t hear any noise this time. But there were voices he could hear, real voices that he could hear much more clearly.

One said, “You feeling better this time, Bill?” and Cowley felt himself-distantly heard himself-say, “Yes,” because he did, compared to how it had been before. He could endure the pain in his head now. He hadn’t been aware of the ache in his chest the first time but that was bearable, too, as long as he didn’t breathe too deeply.

“My name’s Pepper. Joe Pepper. You’re in the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, and I’m your neurologist. You understand what I’m telling you, Bill?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good!” Pepper said enthusiastically. “That’s very good indeed. I’ve taken away all the harsh light and I want you to open your eyes. I’ll tell you when we’re going to shine a beam directly in, OK?”

“OK.”

“Open now.”

There were several people-the movement of several people-around the bed, but he couldn’t distinguish anything about them. Everyone had more than one face and body, each superimposing on the other, although they didn’t quite fit, each outline slightly off center. He said, “I can’t see. Not properly. It’s blurred … like ….”

“Here comes the light,” warned Pepper. “We’re going to hold your eye open.”

It hurt but not so much as before, and a different voice said, “No corneal or retinal damage. I’m pleased with that. Looks like it’s all down to you, Joe.”

Pepper said, “There had to be some good news.”

“I thought I’d been killed,” said Cowley. The blur wouldn’t go but it didn’t hurt any longer to keep his eyes open.

The neurologist said, “You’ve got a pretty severe concussion. You were against a tree so you were either blown into it or something hit you. You’ve got twelve stitches in the side of your head but there’s no skull fracture. You’ve got a busted rib, on the right. And your left eardrum is perforated …”

“My eyes …?”

“Temporary,” assured the other voice. “You’ve jarred, maybe even bruised, the optic nerve. It’ll go, very quickly.”

Pepper said, “And the hearing in your left ear will get better, although it won’t ever be quite like it was before. Considering, you’re one hell of a lucky guy.”

“What about everyone else?” asked Cowley. He already had the impression that his hearing was clearer.

“No need to talk about that now,” Pepper said at once.

A woman’s voice, pleasantly soft but urgent, said, “We need the debrief. He turned back. We need whatever it was-”

“Who’s that?” demanded Cowley.

“My name’s Darnley, Bill. Pamela Darnley. I’m from the bureau. You feel able to talk to me?”

“What unit?”

“Terrorism. You OK to talk to me?”

“Of course I’m-” began Cowley, impatiently loud, but he had to stop because of the quick burst of pain at his own noise. More quietly he said, “How many dead?”

The woman said, “A lot. Seventeen.”

Cowley squinted at the blur of faces at the bottom of his bed, wishing he could see her. “Burt Bradley dead?”

“Lost his right arm completely. And his right leg, below the knee. And he’s blind.

“Jesus Christ! The rest?”

“Every one.”

“I saw-” started Cowley, but she came in too quickly.

“That’s what I need to know! What did you see?”

“-bits of bodies,” Cowley finished.

There was a silence around the bed. She said, “It was a hell of a mess. You sure you can go on with this?”

“I’m your case officer! Sharpe. What happened to Sharpe?” That was the sheriff’s name, John Sharpe. His chest throbbed from the fresh outburst: the broken rib, he supposed.

“Dead,” she said.

“Petrich?”

“Dead. The only local guy to survive was Steven Barr. He was farther away than you; didn’t get touched. But he saw you turn and start to go back. Say something?”

Cowley carefully moved his head toward where he imagined the neurologist to be. “What day is it? I mean, how long have I been here since it happened?”

“It’s the day after. The afternoon. Less than twenty-four hours.”

“How long before my eyes clear?”

“Forget it,” said Pepper. “You’re not doing anything for a long time.”

“Neither are seventeen others guys, are they?”

He’d slept again, although he hadn’t wanted to, but when he opened his eyes once more there was a definite improvement in his vision. The ophthalmic surgeon who’d examined him before said the nerve was obviously only jarred, which was good, and Pepper, who turned out to be a young but completely bald man, decided it was OK for Pamela Darnley to go on with the debriefing.

Even close up he couldn’t properly discern her features, although he could see she was dark-haired, worn short, and had large glasses, which were black framed. She smelled good. She told him she’d set up the tape recorder on the edge of his bed and that the moment he felt like stopping he had to-Dr. Pepper was sitting in on the interview with them-but the bureau wanted everything he could remember, particularly why he’d turned and started to shout at the moment of the explosion.

“The video and still camera?” demanded Cowley. “They survive?”

“The video was relayed automatically. So we’ve got it all. The still camera was badly smashed, but they’re working on that now to see what they can salvage.”

“What about the video commentary?”

“That’s with the video. That’s OK.”

“Anything on it about jungle training? Raking their tracks?”

She didn’t reply at once. “There’s something about raking the ground. I don’t remember anything about jungle training: I need to check.”

“While they were waiting for the tractor, to pull the boat out, I talked with Jefferson Jones. He told me that they’d literally cleared their tracks. He said, “These guys got jungle training, for sure.” Soldiers-particularly special unit guys who might also know how to fire a missile from a moving boat-get jungle training. And special unit training always involves booby-trapping abandoned materiel. That cruiser was very specifically abandoned and the trap set to get the maximum number of people-bureau personnel-around it by initially giving the wrong location.”

“That all?” She sounded disappointed.

“If I’d worked it out five minutes earlier seventeen people wouldn’t now be dead and Burt Bradley would still have his arms and legs and eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pamela.

“The wrong-location call to the Highway Patrol been traced?” he asked.

“A public booth in a mall at New Rochelle.”

“The cassette we’ve got is a copy.”

“The original’s gone. Wiped.”

“Shit! Any claimed responsibility yet?”

“No.”

“How’d the bomb work?” he demanded.

“Bombs,” corrected Pamela. “From the amount of recovered metal, there were at least three.”