Wounded Earth (38 page)

It was over. The General looked back at his bodyguards and instantly regretted an order he had issued a month before in a fit of self-drama. Each of them raised their sidearms and fired, saving the General from the humiliation of capture. Then they shot themselves.

Little Austin Davidson stood among the fallen bodies and the rising smoke. Then he started running and didn't stop until he jumped into the arms of the cameraman who had stood in front of him all day and filmed the whole thing.

* * *

One-Eye and his outlaws listened to the radio broadcast of the General's surrender. To a man, they melted into the woods, hoping to escape across the site border. They left the BioHeal site team locked in the equipment shed, unharmed. As he fled, One-Eye remembered the wounded prisoner lying under a pine tree. He was mildly glad that he hadn't killed him, but this was no time for mercy, so he just left the man lying there in the dark.

* * *

Larabeth surfaced. It had been a long, ugly dream, full of vicious blades and pain. Vertigo seized her and she realized that she had never dreamed of falling before.

She wanted J.D., but she didn't know where he was. She didn't know if he was anywhere any more.

Where was her baby? She had hurt this much when her baby was born, but somebody had snatched it away. Not this time. She tried to get up and run, tried to cry out for her child, but someone was holding her and choking her. She could see who it was if she could just get her eyes open.

Someone said, “I'm going to lose this woman, if you don't do your job.”

A voice near her head said, “I don't want to give her much more anesthesia, Doctor, not when she's this fragile.”

“I need to find the source of this hemorrhage. Right now. I don't care if she's awake or asleep, just keep her still.”

The pain ebbed a bit and the voices in Larabeth's ears blended into a gray roar. One voice penetrated, saying, “I have never seen so much goddamn scar tissue. What happened to this woman?”

Larabeth was falling again. She thought maybe J.D. was with her now. There was a baby crying somewhere near, but she still couldn't see. Somebody asked, “Can you get a good look at the spleen?”

Larabeth had fallen so far that she couldn't hear the answer.

* * *

Agent Chao stretched. He was sitting in that chair again, the waiting room chair that sat, alongside dozens of twins, in every American hospital. Its design had been sleek and modern in 1968, but it had never been comfortable. Its back slanted just a bit too much for ergonomics, and the orange vinyl upholstery stuck to his back. He had spent months, cumulatively, in chairs like this one, while his mother's kidneys failed and his father faded deeper into Alzheimer's disease.

Cynthia Parker looked. . .unusual. Her jeans were filthy and her shirt was stiff with blood. She even had blood in her hair, but she refused to wash up until she spoke with the doctors. Still, she blended into the closed society in this room. The people in the ICU waiting room all looked alike. They had waiting eyes, and Agent Chao remembered what it was like.

“I'm surprised to see the Agent-in-Charge here, in person,” she said.

“I'm constantly in touch,” he said, holding out a hand clasping a cell phone, “and the situation is well in hand. Once we knew the Army of the Resurrection was waiting for a cavalry that was lurking in the Georgia woods. . .” He slid the phone back into his pocket. “We have you to thank.”

“You have my mother to thank.”

“That's why I'm here. I want to shake her hand.”

“I just want to hold her hand.”

Cynthia lapsed into silence. Everybody in the room was watching the television hanging on the wall. CNN was broadcasting footage of a group of toddlers being escorted, safe and sound, into the arms of their waiting parents. Their guards—three large badge-wearing, gun-carrying G-men—were dabbing at their eyes.

“All the children are safe,” Cynthia said. “You did it, Agent Chao.”

He didn't respond. He was having some trouble with his own eyes.

Larabeth's surgeon was approaching. Agent Chao pretended that his cell phone had vibrated, then he withdrew to a corner to answer a nonexistent incoming call.

* * *

“Dr. McLeod is stable,” the doctor said stiffly. Cynthia saw his attitude and dismissed it. He had looked askance at her ever since he'd asked her if there were other family members to notify and she'd said, “I don't know.”

She'd considered trying to cover the situation by saying something like, “We've been estranged,” but she figured she didn't owe this doctor an explanation or anything else, not unless he saved her mother's life. And J.D.'s, too.

“Mr. Hatten and Dr. McLeod are both in the recovery room. He is stable and is receiving intravenous fluids and antibiotics. We repaired the laceration on your mother's back. The muscles were involved and she'll need physical therapy, but she should regain normal range of motion, or something like it. We set her ribs and took out her spleen. We may be able to avoid surgical repair of her pelvic fractures. She's had some blood and she may need more.”

“What's her type?”

The surgeon gave her a don't-you-know-your-mother's-blood-type look and said, “O-negative.”

“Good. Me, too. Take some of mine,” Cynthia said. “And check J.D.'s type. He can have some of mine, too. I saw how much he lost and I'm sure he could use it.”

The surgeon looked her up and down as if he wasn't sure she could spare any blood. She spread her hands and said, “I'm fine. Really.”

“You'll have to be typed and cross-matched and checked for infectious disease, and that'll take a few days, but Mr. Hatten and Dr. McLeod are very sick people. They may still need your blood.”

“I hear you saying that you think they'll still be alive in a few days.”

“Probably. We can never discount the danger of infection or blood clots or the unknown. A lot depends on their recuperative powers—neither of them is twenty-five any more. But, yes, indications are good that they'll pull through.”

Cynthia shook his hand, thanked him, and asked for directions to the nearest shower. Maybe she could find some clothes in the gift shop. Then, when she was presentable, she was headed straight for the blood bank, where she would force someone to take a pint or two. All her life she had wished for blood relatives. Here was her chance.

* * *

Agent Chao was pleased to hear that Dr. McLeod and Mr. Hatten would probably live. It would be a pleasure to tell Yancey the news. The young man had called at least five times since they went into surgery.

Yancey would make a good agent. He was already a good agent. And now that Babykiller was dead, Chao could get rid of Lefkoff once and for all. The Bureau had been looking for Lefkoff's boss for years, but apparently Lefkoff was not just an incompetent agent. He was an incompetent crook, too. Babykiller's underlings had never trusted Lefkoff with a particle of useful information. It would be a pleasure to prosecute the mealy-mouthed traitor.

* * *

Danka sat silent under the steely gaze of a federal agent. All day, the young red-headed man had studied the security personnel under Danka's supervision. Danka could see him evaluating their red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands and he wished the Agent-in-Charge would think of something for this guy to do, because he apparently had time to kill.

By dusk, the Fed had ferreted entirely too much information out of one of Danka's straight-arrow employees. Taking a foot-long flathead screwdriver out of Danka's own toolbox, he had pried open the desk drawer holding plastic bins chock-full of mind-altering substances. Danka had suddenly found himself on the business end of a government-issue handgun.

* * *

Ricky had been watching CNN all day and he had an unlucky premonition. He needed to disappear. He packed his belongings in a duffel bag and helped himself to a couple of gold chains out of Cindy's jewelry box. He wondered if she would miss him.

* * *

J.D. woke up to a familiar voice. It was Larabeth's voice, but it wasn't. It was the voice of a younger Larabeth. He had argued with that voice and sworn at it, long ago when he was younger, too.

No, he was wrong. It was Larabeth's voice, but Larabeth wasn't in the room. Cynthia was. The hospital room television was playing VH1 and Cynthia was singing along. She had her mother's voice.

“You're not Janet Jackson,” he said.

“No, but maybe I can stay awake if I sing along with Janet,” she said.

“Larabeth?” It hurt him to talk and he was ready to sleep again.

“After you passed out, my mother and I had a hair-raising adventure, but her doctors think she's going to be okay.”

“Mother?” he squeaked out.

“I figured it out.”

“I told her she should tell you. I told her a long time ago.”

It felt so good to rest. J.D. let sleep take him.

* * *

Larabeth willed her eyes open, because she heard her daughter's voice saying, “How are you feeling?”

She heard herself say, “Bad.”

She found that she could focus well enough to see Cynthia pull a chair to her bedside, but her brain was mush. Probably she was on an all-powerful painkiller. Or maybe a concussion was garbling her neural pathways. Whatever was wrong with her mind, it had apparently rescinded her inhibitions, because she heard herself say, “How can you look at me when I gave you away?”

There. It was said. She'd been too weak, all these years, to say it, and now she was too weak not to say it.

Cynthia laid a bunch of daisies on her bedside table and tried to take her by the hand, but they were both full of needles and tubes. Larabeth felt her daughter's cool hand on her cheek and remembered that daisies always made her think of little girls. The tears came back.

Cynthia said, “I've always known you had a good reason for giving me up. I had no reason to blame you. I loved my parents, my adoptive parents, completely. They never let me forget how much they wanted me and how long they waited for me. I miss them every day. But that doesn't mean I never wondered about you.”

Larabeth wasn't ready to be forgiven. “I thought it was best. Daddy thought it was best. I was just a little girl.” She fought the broken ribs for another breath and her voice faded. “I've loved you all your life.”

Cynthia said, “Shh,” and brushed Larabeth's lips with her fingertips. “That's all I need to know.” She edged her chair closer, trying not to jostle the hospital bed, and carefully laid her head on Larabeth's pillow. “I'm going to sit here while you rest, Mother.” Then the stresses of the day claimed Cynthia, and Larabeth watched her daughter fall asleep at her side.

Larabeth
sat on a porch swing, one of several hanging at odd intervals on the wrap-around porch of Guillaume's home. Her cane was sitting on the swing beside her and she looked toward the day when she could walk without it. Just a few more weeks.

J.D. sat beside her. His color grew better by the day and the stubble on his head was starting to look like hair. He might always hold his bad shoulder stiffly, but eighty-five percent of normal range-of-motion wasn't half-bad, or so their physical therapist said. After every therapy session, she and J.D. compared notes. They had a wager riding on how soon they would be physically able to consummate their marriage.

Cynthia leaned against the porch railing, swaying to the music. She had hooted when J.D. offered to give her his place on the swing and told him to enjoy his convalescent status for a little while longer. Larabeth enjoyed looking at her in the late afternoon sunshine.

She had known it would be hot and had tried to dress accordingly, but the cotton sundress clung and her legs stuck to the slatted seat of the swing. She could have opted for shorts and a tank top. Many attendees had. But she was a native-born southerner and the rules of proper behavior had been ingrained in her from an early age. This was a funeral, and she must wear a dress. Since it was after Easter and before Labor Day, it was permissible to wear white shoes.

She found the old customs comforting and, oddly enough, the heat was comforting, too. Larabeth had lived her entire life in subtropical climates. The damp heat made the air palpable against her face. It was maternal in its embrace. The occasional breeze was delicious.

Guillaume's will had been specific about his wishes and his friends at GAIA had made them happen. They had even been considerate enough to wait for Larabeth's recovery. She did so want to help them remember her friend.

It had been quite a funeral. Actually, memorial service was a more exact word. His body had long since been cremated and the ashes scattered in a place which, at his request, remained undisclosed.

Larabeth thought his remains were, even now, mingling with the soil in his beloved vegetable garden, behind the house. Generations of Langlois men and women had lived in this house and many of them had probably tended yellow crookneck squash in that very spot. The soil could use the extra spark of fertility that only her friend could provide.

After a private service in a nearby church, Guillaume's friends and followers gathered at his home. A Dixieland band, which had been specifically requested by name in the will, had led the crowd through the neighborhood. Everyone carried umbrellas in the grand old tradition of the jazz funeral parade.