Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

Thursday night. Jesus, he'd lost two days.

"You're going to be okay. Henderson shot you full of Versed. The ART squad pulled you out of that warehouse. Do you remember?"

He shook his head. His memory held nothing between killing Randall and waking up drugged in his cold concrete box, squinting against the round shimmer of Dr. Henderson's lenses. Henderson had proceeded to beat him senseless.

"We've got to get Leah out." His voice, hoarse with dehydration, was unrecognizable. He managed a few sentences to fill her in, the effort leaving him exhausted.

He heard a scratching of pen on paper; God love her, she was taking notes. "Were there more than five kidnappers?"

Eyes still closed, Tim counted sluggishly, then shook his head.

"We found seven garbage bags sharing what was left of Randall Kane and Stanley John Mitchell." Her voice wavered; Tim could tell she was overcome, sticking to shop talk to hold herself together. "We hooked and booked the other three."

A cranky female voice – "Officer, you'll need to ask him questions later."

"I'm his wife."

"Oh."

When Tim smiled, something poked into his lower lip. He heard her make a soft noise – she was grinning back – then he felt her cool hand on his forehead, and she said shakily, "Boy, oh, boy."

He reached for her, and she took his hand and pressed it to her chest. After a moment he moved his palm down. She unbuttoned her uniform, and he slid his hand through, resting it on her stomach.

Some forty-five minutes later, a harried doctor blew through the room, eyes glued to a chart. He addressed Tim as Mrs. Gonzalez and told him his baby was safe in the nursery and his hysterectomy had gone smoothly. Only Tim's pained chuckle had made the doc glance up, then he'd checked Tim's vitals, mumbling about idiot nurses, and scurried out.

Dray went to raise hell.

Soon after she got back, two physicians sounded the doctor-patented knock-and-open at the door. "Mr. Rackley?"

"Uh-huh."

"We worked on you Tuesday night. Your wife said Dr. L. didn't discuss your condition with you?"

"He said I can resume breast-feeding immediately, as soon as I'm off Percocet."

"If you can find someone to breast-feed you, have at it."

The other doctor with him, an attractive blonde with faint but pervasive facial scarring, laughed. She passed him a clipboard, and he squeezed her wrist to thank her. Tim's eyes went to their matching platinum wedding bands.

"You sustained multiple rib contusions and a hairline fracture on the right sixth. Not much you can do about the break, but be careful. I reset your nose. No septal hematoma, so you'll just have to tough it out for a while." His fingers fluttered gently around Tim's right eye. "No orbital fracture, no internal injuries, but you're beat up all over. Your right knee is probably in the worst shape – you have multiple torn ligaments and extensive bruising and swelling. We had to shave part of your goatee -"

"No problem," Dray said.

"- so we could get that lip stitched up. I had plastics come down, and they did a fine job, nearly twenty-five sutures. We don't want to disappoint the paparazzi, right?"

He extended a hand, and they shook, Tim's IV tube pulling tight. Tim recognized him and started to say something, but the doctors' pagers went off simultaneously. Like mirror images, they tilted the units, scanning the text screens. They filed out before Tim could thank them.

Just before the door closed, Tim heard the male doctor's voice once more, directed at his wife. "Nice to meet a fellow tabloid star."

The ICU attending finally cleared Tim to a private room with a phone. He was dialing before the nurse withdrew. He reached the marshal at home and recounted his experience, beginning to end. The fading buzz of his painkillers and Tannino's palpable relief had made the conversation take a few demonstrative turns, but they'd both steered back to the case each time. Dray sat bedside, holding his hand.

"Leah's being held under duress," Tim said. "And I'd say my face removes all doubt as to what TD's henchmen are capable of. We need to move."

"Let me get on it right away," Tannino said. "I'll touch base first thing."

Tim received a flood of visitors for the rest of the night. Bear dropped in first, but he kept getting misty-eyed and stepping out into the hall to make calls on his cell. Palton, married fifteen years, brought flowers for Dray. For the first time Tim could remember, Denley didn't crack any jokes. Smelling of aftershave, Freed left his date in the lobby so he could run up. Guerrera gave Tim the St. Michael medallion from around his own neck and said Tim could wear it even though he wasn't Catholic.

Tim took it, figuring he needed all the help he could get.

Before leaving, Guerrera hooked Tim's head with his wrist and tugged him in for a brief, awkward hug that hurt Tim's ribs.

By eight o'clock most of the ART members had called or stopped by. Nothing like saving someone's life to make you feel indebted to him. Tim's mind moved again to Leah clinging to him in the icy current, teeth chattering.

Once Bear reappeared with a pizza and a six-pack, Dray left to get Tim some clothes and toiletries. Tim couldn't drink because of the Percocet, but Bear didn't need much help with the six-pack. Or with the pizza, for that matter.

Tim asked after Precious; the ricochet had shattered her femur, and Denley had mentioned she was going to be put down. Like grounded spy planes, tactically trained dogs have too much intel embedded in them to be released from government control.

Bear wiped red sauce from his chin. "Actually, I'm gonna take her. I figure Boston needs a friend." He mistook Tim's distracted silence for amused disapproval, and his tone gained a slightly defensive edge. "You know Miller calculated she's saved seventeen lives. The boys are gonna pitch in for her surgery."

"Count me in. I owe her for that shotgun-rigged garage door in Tarzana."

Bear finished up and crammed the pizza box diagonally in the tiny trash can. He bent his head as if lost in thought, wrinkles gathering beneath his chin, his eyes going a little shiny. He cleared his throat as if he were going to say something, but he just squeezed Tim's arm and left.

Tim used the control on the nightstand to click off the lights. The blinds were still open, the city casting a pale blue glow across the blankets. He elevated the mattress so it pushed him into a sitting position, then stared blank-eyed at the empty room for a while.

Being alone made him uncomfortable.

He realized that was because he was trying so hard not to think about what had just happened to him. It was only in the quiet that emotion reattached itself to what he'd endured. He'd been trying to hold off sensation since he'd first come to in the concrete room, but now the details came floating back in a dirty tangle, like a drain-dredged snarl of hair.

His breathing grew ragged. In seconds he was drenched with sweat, his heart double-thumping – a problem he'd encountered now and again since Croatia.

He stared at the call button but couldn't bring himself to push it.

When the doorknob turned, he tried to call out Dray's name, but his throat felt like a tightening fist.

Thomas stepped through the doorway, squinting at Tim's shadow. "Hey, Rack, you up?"

Tim managed a nod.

"Look, I just wanted to say" – Thomas studied the floor, shifting his weight uncomfortably – "all that shit…between us before…" He took note of Tim's expression for the first time. "You all right?"

Tim nodded, his chest hammering up and down.

"You want me to call a nurse?"

Tim shook his head.

Thomas stood staring at him for a bit. Then he walked forward cautiously and sat beside Tim on the mattress. Tim's breathing evened out, the faint, asthmatic rasp slowly fading from his inhalations.