The Occam's razor job - Chapter 33 - 1
Title: The Occam's razor Job
Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: The Lonely Hearts Club Job, The Boy's night out Job
warnings: Dead people, language, violence, medical bullsh*t, extreme violence in later chapters, and extreme angst
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
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They were really extremely lucky that Betsy was so steady and calm during a crisis, because they were in complete chaos when they finally arrived. The apartment was full of things from the second apartment, the delivery service took Hardison’s order very thoroughly. Nate was even thinking they would find the bathroom cupboards somewhere.
Betsy placed the hospital bed at the far end of the room, removing his work table from the place where Old Harlan hung, between the wall and the stairs; the table was now posing as the medical console, full of…. things with lights.
Hardison laid Eliot down on the bed, and immediately staggered and crumpled on the floor. He pushed himself away and rested his back on the bookshelf, closing his eyes. Parker was trying to walk to and fro, not looking at the bed and Betsy, but she was limping and her straight line was starting to turn into a circle. Sophie just stood frozen, waiting to see if Betsy needed any help.
It was damn comforting to look at Betsy. Her moves were quick, but calm, routine and without any trace of panic or distress. Nate tried to concentrate just on her, and not on the bloody, lifeless mess under her hands.
He almost missed Hardison suddenly jumping to his feet. The hacker took Sophie by her hand and pulled her to him. “You two,” he whispered. He took Sophie and placed her beside Nate, now facing both of them. His eyes were stricken. And wet. “I have enough of this shit, you read me? I’m done with carrying bleeding people around. No more of that shit! You’re not allowed to get shot, stabbed, cut, anything, ever!”
Nate tried to say something, but Hardison waved his fist in front of his face, wild-eyed. “Nuh - uh! Not a word! I want you to promise I won’t have to carry you! Now!”
“Of course, darling, we promise,” Sophie smiled, stepping on his foot, and he sighed.
“Yep, we promise,” he said without any hesitation. “Don’t worry.”
“And now, I need you to come with me,” Sophie took Hardison by the hand and drug him away. “You have to wash yourself, and change your clothes, and then you’ll get your orange soda and finally sit down, okay?” She hushed the hacker in front of her, and darted a glance to him. He just nodded.
And it was about time. Parker had stopped walking, and was now standing by the bed, with her arms crossed.
“It’s not dripping.” Her voice was almost mechanical. “It’s called a drip, it should be dripping. It’s not dripping. And why isn’t it red? He needs blood, not that… something. It’s not dripping, by the way. It’s… pouring.”
He didn’t need to jump in and take her away. Betsy smiled at her.
“He’s dying, dear.” She managed to say that in an almost comforting way. “Aggressive fluid replacement, and a drip set to a rapid rate, and not on dripping, is the only thing that can save him now. He’ll get colloid infusions first, two full bags in the next fifteen minutes, and blood products, PRBC that’s still being prepared. After that, we wait.” She looked at Nate for a second. “Without all the necessary equipment, I can’t tell if this is a stage three or four Hypovolemic shock. The symptoms and readings are somewhere in between. I’ll know after…if, he reacts to the therapy.”
“It’s not so bad, isn’t it?” he asked carefully. “I mean, it’s not like he is between eight or nine, or…”
“There are only four of them,” she stated calmly. “The full forth stage is massive organ failure and possible brain death. The damage is irreversible at that point.”
“He was walking just fifteen minutes ago. And he talked with Nate,” Parker whispered. “You can’t talk without a brain, especially not with Nate.”
“He should have been down two hours ago, and then things might have looked different. Nate, I need you to help me. I’ll lift him into sitting position, you hold him upright for a few seconds.” He quickly obeyed. She used a scalpel to cut through Eliot’s jacket, then the back of his shirt, dividing the fabric completely before they laid him down again. Nate didn’t know much about emergency procedures, but he noticed that Betsy connected all IV’s to him first and only after that did she think about how to get rid of the clothes around the tubes. It was screaming about critical measures, completely outvoting the calmness in her voice.
The door bell stopped his sluggish thoughts; he was desperately trying to find the question that would give them an answer they wanted to hear.
“It’s a delivery, open the door.” Betsy nudged him to move, giving him a small chest. “Blood samples, going to a laboratory for analysis. After that, turn up the heat to the maximum and make coffee. Move.” She pulled out a phone while she was speaking, and he could hear her while he was giving the chest to the delivery man. “Roth, the highest priority. U+Es/Chem7, FBC, Glucose, Cross-match. Call immediately. Tell Sciortino I'll need him for a house visit at some point today.”
He went to the kitchen, keeping an eye on Parker who still stood guard, and when he heard the beeping of the heart monitor he almost dropped the coffee can. It was one thing to feel that pulse, but to hear it echoing through the room was almost unbearable. Betsy pressed a few buttons and lowered the tone, but it wasn’t enough, she could do nothing to slow it down. It was still frighteningly rapid and labored. He could feel his own breathing speeding up; he left the coffee and just went out of the apartment, not daring to turn back and face Betsy’s eyes.
He went downstairs, into the bar; there were only a few regulars this early in the morning. Cora’s smile was warm and greeting, but it slowly froze when she saw his face. She said nothing, just put the bottle on the table.
It was his first drink in four days, and he barely felt it.
When he raised his hand to pour another one, he saw the blood stain that his sleeve left on the wood. She stared at it. “What happened? Who-?”
“Don’t ask.” He carefully moved away from the table, letting her wipe it up. “I need you to do me a favor… go from back door all the way up to my apartment, and mop up all the traces that we have left. It might be… more of this. Don’t go in there, return here. And if you notice anything suspicious today, call me.”
She nodded and left immediately, and he went to the back door and into the small alley, taking the bottle with him. It took him five minutes before he found it… the pieces of the smashed phone by the wall. He carefully picked up every single piece of it and took it with him. Avoiding looking at the stain of blood near it.
“Are you able to talk?”
"The last guy who asked me that was Barclay."
He didn’t dare to imagine how this place looked in the dark hour before the dawn. But he was, unfortunately, able to fill in all that was left unsaid in that conversation.
Then he looked up, at the windows of the apartment, knowing he had to return. And not wanting to. He stayed there, walking around, until it became harder to be in the alley than in the apartment.
He prepared himself for the beeping, and noticed it was slightly slower.
Hardison was changed, sitting at the dining table with Sophie, holding a hot cup of coffee with both hands. Parker was standing, staring through the window behind them. Five cups were on the table, and for a moment he just looked at them, then poured some whiskey from the bottle into Hardison’s. The hacker darted him a grateful look. He seemed a little calmer, but his eyes were still too fast, too wild.
“She chased us away, and said to sit here.” Sophie nodded him to repeat the process with her coffee.
Betsy joined them in a minute. “He was certainly right about one thing,” she said with a thin smile. “Some rules don’t apply to him. Any man in poorer condition would have been dead a few hours ago. What exactly happened when you found him?”
Damn. Nate stared at her.
“His condition and symptoms, Nate, not the details of the mess he made.”
That was even worse. He described the last fifteen minutes with careful mitigation, knowing that Betsy would fill the blanks.
“You did good,” she nodded when he finished. “I’d hoped he would understand what I’d told him about that chest tube. He had been thinking about it like an enemy that kept him in the hospital, and not like an ally that could save his life. Besides, it’s normal practice in field medicine for a pneumothorax; he told me he did it once, and I knew he would remember that and realize that the principle is the same. He probably used it at some point last night, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long, but that dealt with the danger of drowning and tension hemothorax only for awhile… unfortunately, it couldn’t do anything about his bleeding out. And that is the thing that can kill him.”
“Still can?” Sophie whispered.
“I’m trying to stabilize him for now, and it looks like he’s reacting to the therapy. I have to warn you that doesn’t mean anything certain, complications from that kind of deep shock and blood loss are numerous. But, you saved his life, for now, by lessening the pressure.”
“I need to know something,” Hardison said hesitantly. “If there wasn’t that tube, would it kill him if someone tried to…to…” his eyes fidgeted under hers, and he stopped. “Nothing. Forget it, never mind.”
“What have you done so far?” Sophie took over.
“His blood pressure was critically low, I raised it to extremely low, and I’ll keep it that way for a few more hours. It’s called permissive hypotension. If we are at Mass Gen, with a surgical team within reach, I would risk getting his BP up to normal, but not here. Higher BP increases the bleeding…” she looked at them, and sighed. “It’s like when you water your garden and have a hole in the hose… the higher the pressure of the water, the stronger the leak. I gave him enough IV to replenish the blood he lost, but it’s just volume expanders, so he got PRBC to increase oxygen delivery. I’ll know more when the blood results come back.”
“When will he wake up?” Hardison asked the most important question.
She hesitated. “Let’s just concentrate on keeping him alive, okay? We still have to see what will happen in the next few hours… even if all goes well, the night will be hard. I suggest you take some rest.”
“Why is he so cold?” Parker’s voice sounded alarmed; no one noticed her leaving her spot by the window.
“Don’t touch him, dear.” Betsy got up. “It’s normal for temperature to go down, he is filled with cold fluids.”
“It’s not normal, it’s… wrong. He looks dead, and now he feels dead, it’s wrong, it’s…” her voice trailed off as the beeping changed rhythm, speeding up again. “Is he awake? Could he hear me?”
“Probably not,” Betsy led her away back to the table. “But he is not in a coma, he is just unconscious, and that can vary. He will probably drift in and out of it later, and we won’t risk disturbing him with alarmed tones, okay?” She nodded to him before she returned to the bed.
“Okay,” Parker whispered and slumped in the chair. Nate poured whiskey in her coffee, too, and then went to Betsy.
“You should send the kids away,” she said quietly. “Let them go home, get some sleep.”
“No, I can’t… it’s not safe for any of us to be alone now. Too many… things happened last night, we have to stay here, and together.” He forced himself to look at the bed. Betsy had wiped away all the blood and changed his bandages, and looking at him wasn’t so dreadful, but still… he looked dead. Even with that damn beeping. Which was slowing down again, by the way. “He did hear her, right?”
“He maybe heard something. Maybe he would react the same way to the slamming of a door, or any loud noise. Wait until tomorrow before you even begin to hope, Nate.”
He clenched his teeth and said nothing.
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o.0.o
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After five hours, everyone was able to detect even the slightest change in the beeping, and Sophie knew that meant trouble. Parker and Hardison had been walking around for the last hour, unable to rest and calm down, every now and then circling around the bed when the beeping showed that he was, maybe, a little closer to consciousness. Three times their attempts to wake him ended with another tachycardia. The third time Betsy didn’t have to chase them away, they got the message, finally, and they directed their distress to rearranging the stuff from another apartment. They were making noise and talking without pause, but Sophie noticed that Betsy didn’t say anything. She was just watching them all, with silent attention. Her chair was on the other side of Eliot's bed and while watching over him she had all of them in sight.
Nate wasn’t any help. He was just sitting at the dining table, completely lost in thinking. Sophie hoped he was going through all the details of the previous days, but she couldn’t be sure; his eyes were already half crazy because of the beeping, and unreadable. He put away the bottle after a few more drinks, thank god… she thought he wouldn’t stop until he emptied it.
All of them needed sleep badly, especially Parker. The thief was ghostly pale, it was obvious that every step was painful, but she just couldn’t stop. She helped Hardison drag the new sofa around; they’d spent almost twenty minutes trying to find the most perfect spot for it. Nate finally stopped them when they tried to lift it up the two stairs and place it between the dining table and the bed. They settled on the lower corner, near the screens. Sophie hoped they’d try it out; if they stopped themselves just for a minute, the exhaustion would knock them out… but they weren’t that lucky. Parker insisted they had to put Old Harlan on the wall in his place, and Hardison couldn’t say no, as always. The only problem was that his hanging place was on the wall beside the bed, so they maneuvered their way, quietly assuring Betsy they would be almost invisible, and done in a second.
Hardison brought the picture, Parker brought the chair, and they were whispering so Betsy allowed it, probably knowing it would be faster to let them do it, then to endure their reassuring.
They were all very lucky she went over to see if they needed help.
Their whispering became arguing about who would get on the chair to hang the picture, and the low sounds became hisses.
Nate was the first one who noticed that the beeping sped up again and he was already on his feet, Betsy right after him. But, Sophie was the only one that saw Eliot’s hand move. There were catheters in both of his arms, with IV fluids and blood, and his right hand was already disconnecting both IV lines in his left, with economical, routine moves.
“Sophie, don’t-”
Only when Nate’s alarmed voice sounded in her ear did she become aware that reaching with her hand to stop him could be a deadly mistake. She didn’t have time to think, or to pull her hand back when she touched his, and he caught her wrist, twisted and pulled her down, with her elbow stretched to the final point before breaking. She swallowed the cry and remained completely still, staring at his left hand. He pulled it back from the blanket and it hung in the air like a string, with his fingers just slightly bent, not in a fist, aiming directly at her throat.
“Hi there,” she whispered with a smile in her voice, just barely aware of the four frozen silhouettes around them. His eyes fluttered open and focused on her face, but the string didn’t loosen a bit. She couldn’t see anything in his eyes, just a silent alertness. “It’s okay. You can let go now. I’ll just sit here for a while.” She couldn’t tell if he let loose of her hand because of her words, or because he couldn’t hold it anymore, but she managed to slowly stretch her hand. Finally, the hand ready to hit went down too. “Everything’s fine, it’s over. We’re safe,” she continued gently. He remained still and for a moment she thought he was listening to her, but Betsy took one step closer, looked in his eyes, and just shook her head.
He managed to keep his eyes open only a couple more seconds, and Betsy quickly dealt with all the damage, connecting everything back up. “Stay here if you can,” Betsy said, checking the monitor. The jumping lines were quieter. “You’re calming him down.” She pointed to the sofa, with a clear order in her eyes, and Parker and Hardison sneaked away silently.
She took off her shoes and curled up on the bed on his left side; it wasn’t important if he wasn’t conscious enough to understand her, or recognize her. He allowed her to keep her hand on his arm. That was important.
She just sat there whispering quietly about peace and safety, and listened to the slowing of his heartbeat.
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o.0.o
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He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he was pretty certain that all this confusing shit looked strangely familiar, as if he was going through a flashback of a flashback of a nightmare. Only, this time, something was terribly wrong.
Everything was full of voices and all of them were distressed, and he couldn’t recognize anything, or explain to himself what he was hearing. He only knew that he should be out of here, as far from them as he could - and he knew he couldn’t. Something was terribly, terribly wrong with him. Those voices brought the loud, quick sounds that were making him nervous, and it seemed that those sounds made them even more nervous, and that beeping, and the distress in their voices, rose and rose, feeding each other, to the point he thought his head would explode.
He forgot to tell him one important thing.
Before he could think of who was in question, and what that important thing was, a quiet, warm whisper turned the beeping off. There was no tension in that whisper, no distress, it was calm and quiet. It silenced all the other sounds.
He managed to open his eyes just for a moment, only to notice the light. It was yellow, and it was warm - and he didn’t know why, but it brought relief.
He had no idea where he was, and why was important for the windows to stay lit.
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o.0.o
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Nate’s worry grew through the late afternoon when he realized that Betsy had stopped sending Hardison and Parker to rest. In fact, every time they seemed to be on the edge of passing out, she would find something they needed to do. At the same time, she left Sophie to sleep on the sofa for hours, even when the heart monitor she connected again started to speed up.
It was obvious that she wanted just the two of them to be awake through the night, and younger ones solidly knocked out, so he simply stood up and said that he was going to sleep for a few hours.
“Don’t worry, the two of us will be awake,” Hardison said. “We’ll call you if anything changes, go ahead. I’ll go through the stuff I collected….” he ran with his hand over his eyes and face, trying to concentrate. “… this morning. That’ll keep me awake. I’m also working on something that I started yesterday. Remember I told you it would be important only if this ended well?” he glanced at the bed for a moment and sighed. “Whatever. I’ll do it now.”
“You okay?” the question escaped him before he could stop it.
The hacker hesitated, considering a few answers before he settled on a short one. “No,” he lowered his eyes to the screen again. “But that’s expected, I guess. Go, get some sleep. We don’t want to mess up Betsy’s sleeping arrangements, do we?”
Nate just smiled and let him work.
Betsy seemed occupied with Parker’s switching channels. Nate was pretty sure that she didn’t care what was on the huge screens, that she was just trying to catch a clue about Parker’s mind… or her state of mind. Or maybe the absence of it. The screens flashed by at the speed of light at that point, and the thief stared at them without blinking, with glazed eyes.
“Any change?” he asked, stopping by the bed. He couldn’t tell for sure, but Eliot’s face didn’t look as ghostly pale as this morning, at least the parts of it he could see. The oxygen mask was still covering his face.
“His lungs are mostly clear now,” she glanced at the machine on the floor that was still draining the blood. “And the bleeding has slowed down. You know, Sciortino was right when he said he should be in ICU. There’s no way he could see what state this wound is in without opening him again. He agreed to wait only because the transport would kill him, and because there’s a slight chance that monitoring the bleeding will show us the progress. Especially when he saw… Can you explain the bruise under the wound? Did you see what happened?”
“No, I don’t know anything about any bruises.” But he could guess what happened. Who happened. “That did… damage?”
She looked at him like she would look at retarded two year old monkey that was pissing in her kitchen, and he sighed, feeling exactly like one. “Let me rephrase that… how dangerous is the damage?”
She glanced at Hardison whose every radar was pointed at them, though he seemed deeply occupied with his laptop, and instead of answering she simply took his hand and put it on the side of Eliot’s neck.
“Wh-” he flinched, surprised, but then figured out what she was trying to say. He was too warm to touch. He pulled his hand back, but not before he remembered; years of practice returned in one pained moment, and he knew exactly. Over 100 F already.
“I put him back on his antibiotics, but there's been an almost 24-hour pause, and it’s messed up. The blood results are not as bad as I expected, though they show there’s a present infection. That’s normal for postoperative care of a gunshot wound when it’s treated. When the treatment is discontinued, and when there’s also a nasty hit that messed with the stitches and caused more bleeding… well, it’s not good. Sciortino was resolute; if it goes up to 104, there’s no waiting anymore.” She watched him for a few moments while he stared at him, then continued. “I started with vasopressin, I’m raising his blood pressure now. Bleeding, when we can substitute with transfusions, is now less important.”
He slowly raised his head and looked at her. “What are the chances, Betsy?” he whispered.
“Did you expect he would be alive this morning?” she asked.
“I knew he would.”
“Me too,” she smiled. “Do you want to know what chances he had for that?”
He smiled back, accepting that for an answer, though he knew it was just a professional diversion on her part. She knew better than anybody how different this situation was, and how much weaker he was, literally holding onto life by a thread. But she had to give comfort and hope, it was stronger than her.
The sound of an incoming text message saved him from answering. Bonnano. ‘I’m in the bar, coming up to you.’ Damn, it was too early for that. He had no strength to deal with Patrick now, particularly because he knew why he was here.
“It’s Patrick,” he told Betsy, and went to wake up Sophie. Sleeping would wait.
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o.0.o
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It took exactly three times longer than usual for the cop to climb to the second floor, and fresh coffee was ready when Hardison let him in.
“Coffee,” Bonnano croaked from the door. His eyes were bloodshot.
Parker was now sitting on the kitchen counter, Nate was going through the cups in the cupboard, searching for one big enough, and Sophie’s forehead was on her hands, on the dining table. Bonnano just passed them all and went to Betsy and Eliot.
He came back after a few minutes of quiet talk with her, and he was even darker when he sat at the table.
“Steel is in a safe house,” he said grabbing the cup. “The shootings stopped during the day. The damage is estimated to be in the millions. The number of dead is-”
“No numbers, Patrick.” Nate stopped him, sitting at the table next to Hardison who typed something.
“Yeah, no numbers,” Patrick sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I have no idea what will happen tonight. This... thing… can die out all by itself, or it can continue and escalate.”
“What would you like to happen?” Nate asked carefully, and Patrick looked at him sharply. “Not that I can do anything with it, I just want to know where you stand in all this.”
“I’ve never seen so many cops grinning while preparing for a sleepless night, nor so eager to grab their bulletproof vests when going into shootings,” he murmured. “There is something strangely fascinating about seeing the people whom you've been trying to put behind bars for years, dozens of them, dealing with each other for you, and you only have to watch, stop the shooting, and put them all in custody with clear accusations this time. Half of my men go around with lists in their hands, and scratch names from it; it was Christmas. Yet, on the other hand, the dead…” he trailed off and sighed, glancing at Nate for a second, then decided that he didn’t need to continue in that direction. Nate watched his face lightening with effort. “So, when he is back on his feet, I was thinking… I have a cousin in New York, he’s a captain. Can we send Eliot to New York for three days, and three nights? It’ll be enough time to clean up.”
“And why we would do that?” Hardison asked quietly, looking at him with innocent surprise in his eyes. “He wasn’t connected to those unpleasant events. He was in the hospital the entire night.”
Bonnano blinked. “You don’t have to sell that to me, I-” he stopped, thought about it, and smiled. “Let me see that.”
Hardison grinned and turned his laptop so all of them could see. Parker joined them, peeking over Sophie’s shoulder.
“This is the hospital footage from the last night, I collected only the important parts. Here we see a patient, Daniel Crane, exiting the garage of the ER. Here he disappeared in the darkness, entering a small park with a statue of a woman and a baby, surrounded by trees. And not leaving that area. Three hours later, we see him again going near one camera, and returning to the same park. Demented, poor man. He obviously had no idea what he was doing, and while everybody was searching for him, he just kept himself hidden in the dark. There’s no sign of him on any other camera in the complex. He never left the hospital circle, until the very dawn, when all the nasty things in the town were almost finished.”
“How the hell do you think you can put this into the hosp-”
“I worked directly on the hospital footage, this is their database. It’s already in there. They delete it after three weeks, so ask for it, just in case, so you have a copy if necessary. I’ve spent hours and hours working on it, while doing other things, and I can tell you-”
“Can we skip the ‘behold my genius’ part, Hardison?” Nate stopped him. But he gave him a genuine smile while saying it. “You did good.”
Hardison just bowed with an elegant wave of his hand, and took the laptop back.
“Okay, now that I participated in faking an alibi, I can continue in the same tone,” Bonnano sighed again. “My informants in the gangs have nothing on Eliot. The Armenian one saw a man that came to Aghenazer last night, but he’ll swear he can’t recognize him. Though, all this mess won’t just go away, Nate. All the gang heads are now sitting quietly, asking themselves what the hell happened… okay, except maybe the Irish. They are occupied with the changes after Callahan died.”
“And if they calm down enough to start exchanging notes, that could lead them all to us,” Nate finished. “Yes, I know that’s a possibility, but as far as I could see, Eliot’s actions were well covered. Besides, we now work for Villacorta, we are cleaning up the mess for him. I’ve sent him away for ten days, after we saved him from the Mexicans.”
Bonnano almost choked on his coffee.
“If anyone wants to deal with us, the entire Chilean cartel will be ready to help,” Nate continued.
“You’re not kidding, right?” Bonnano almost moaned.
“Eliot bought us some time until we wait for Villacorta to be charged.”
“In fact, we can offer to Villacorta to run his cartel while he’s in jail,” Hardison said thoughtfully. “I could run gambling, Sophie would be a brilliant madame, Eliot can take over Rojas’ role dealing with the other gangs, if there’s any left…”
“By the way, Villacorta knows a lot about you and your actions,” Nate ran over Hardison’s words. “It might prove necessary, at some point, to tell him you’re finally bought. That would make you useful.”
“Welcome to the Dark Side,” Hardison grinned.
“You’re all insane,” Bonnano shook his head.
“Yep,” Nate grinned as well. “That’s part of our charm.”
“Well, this charming bunch is not allowed to leave this place until I see if the streets are safe. And who knows about you, and what. Stay low and don’t attract any attention to yourselves,” he glanced at the bed. “You are without protection, and besides, you have to be here because of him.”
“I was planning just that. I need time to think.” Nate said.
“About what? I'm serious, Nate, don't go out there. A gang war is the worst thing that could happen to a town.”
“No, it isn’t. The only thing worse than that is terrorism. If we count only one man’s doings, and not natural catastrophes.”
Bonnano looked at him, studying his smile. “Okaaay…” he said carefully. “You’re right, it's not bad tactics... when you're in deep shit, think about how things could be much worse. But let’s concentrate on the gangs and cartels for now, shall we? Terrorism is way out of our league. I’ll call you if anything new happens.”
“Sounds good to me.” Nate glanced at the door. And smiled. “Now, you can call him and tell him he can come in. We don’t bite… more than usual.”
Bonnano darted him a speculative look, but all three of them gave him raised eyebrows.
“Someone’s at the door?” Hardison got up. “Do you want me to-”
“No, Patrick will open the door.” Nate held him in place.
“How did you know?” Patrick got up.
“You don’t usually need six minutes to climb two stories.”
“Yes, I usually don’t.” Patrick watched him with strange look in his eyes for a second, then went to the door.
Letting Randall Coddington in.
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***
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His arm was in plaster, his nose was covered, and his knee was in some sort of plastic cover. He came in, helping himself with a crutch, and Bonnano helped him with the two stairs.
Sophie and Hardison looked stunned, but Parker was on her feet, making a dull sound; it was not growling, it was something almost prehistoric, low and dangerous. Bonnano and Coddington stopped and stared at her. She was wearing Nate’s old pajamas and her hair was still wet from showering. She looked cute, beautiful, and deadly insane.
“Parker, sit,” Nate said calmly and the sound slowly vanished. He glanced at the bed and Betsy, and added, “Just in case, keep your voices low and calm, okay?”
“It is time for a formal introduction,” Bonnano was grinning. “This is Randall Coddington, known by his street name Fernando. Randall, these are the associates of Leverage & Associates. And these are, believe it or not, my friends. Randall is my friend too. Very close friend.”
“It is very nice to meet you,” Coddington smiled, showing his teeth. His hair was still in braids, though he wasn’t wearing Chilean colors anymore, just unobtrusive gray shirt and jacket. Bonnano nudged him and he reluctantly sat at the table.
“Kill him,” Parker murmured. “Kill him now.”
“Parker, stop,” Nate repeated, feeling Sophie’s and Hardison’s eyes on him.
“I told you, after your first… incident, in the hospital corridor, that I don’t want to talk about him,” Bonnano continued. “It wasn’t the time for that, he was transferred to another hospital and taken out of your sight, and there wasn’t a point in clearing this stuff further. It could wait, especially when Eliot started to hurry things up, and we were occupied with that. But, you obviously figured it out. When and how?”
“Just this morning,” Nate said. “We were listening to Eliot’s conversation with Villacorta, he framed Cuchillo as a State Police informant, and told him about Coddington as well. And Villacorta didn’t know about it, it hit him hard, though he didn’t show it. If Villacorta didn’t know Coddington was State Police, how he could buy him to be his dirty cop?”
“So, you’re saying,” Coddington said carefully. “That he didn’t only break my clavicle and ribs, but also got me almost killed by revealing my true identity to Villacorta?”
“Yes,” Nate smiled. “You were extremely lucky this morning, because you were called to your execution. If you didn’t see our van, and decided to check it, you would probably be killed.”
Coddington stretched his leg, glancing at Sophie who was observing him. “So, Miss Devereaux, you saved my life, then, stopping me from going to Villacorta?”
She put both elbows on the table, slowly rested her chin on her hands, and smiled at him. Coddington flinched. Nate hid his smile; most people couldn’t endure that stare more than two seconds.
“Can we start from the beginning?” Hardison asked. “We have recorded him trying to kill Eliot in a warehouse, Nate stopped him from doing that for the second time in the hospital, and you claim he isn’t bought? Pardon, you two,” he glanced at Nate, “claim he’s not dirty?”
Bonnano thought for a second. “Well, have you ever asked yourself why I was so close to the warehouse, and why the ambulance car was already on its way in when you called me?”
Nate looked at Coddington. “You called them?”
“I called before we entered the building,” the younger cop nodded. “Four of us were just following you, and our task was to give a sign to those who were waiting here for your return. You’d left, we scattered, and then Cuchillo spotted Spencer going back and called us again, deciding we could deal with one. He told us that just before we went in the warehouse, so I had a very little time to improvise. I made my calls and went in after them just in time to see Cuchillo shooting him.”
“Well, you improvised brilliantly, I must say, because I watched your performance,” Sophie said coldly. “All that circling, laughing, kicking… someone will say you played the role of your life. Or you didn’t play at all.”
“I didn’t play anything, I was trying to knock him out in the beginning,” he smiled bitterly. “I was even thinking about shooting him once more, just to put him down before they finished him. If they thought he was dead, it was only chance for him. Patrick and the ambulance were on their way, they would find him in a few minutes. But, it ended just a little different than I expected… in one moment our helpless victim stood up and crushed us completely.”
“Why didn’t you tell him who you were when he fought you back?” Hardison’s eyes were still narrowed in suspicion.
“Good point,” he smiled again. “I was the last indeed, because I was always a little behind them, just in case, so I had enough time to tell him everything, right?” He darted a cautious look towards the bed. “But, problem is, I was too stunned to even think. I just stood there, watching him speeding those three steps, with that look in his eyes… and everything went black. Have you ever tried to explain something while a man takes three quick steps towards you, and you saw him knocking down armed men, after he got shot, all in about five seconds? I think I had a time for one very eloquent blah. First meeting with Leverage & Associates, result broken bones.”
Nate smirked. “And what about the attack at the hospital?”
“Nothing special. Doing my duty, answering a wake up call that told me Ramon was on his way to third floor already, running through corridors like an idiot, in pain, I must say. Then, barely succeeding in stopping Ramon from killing a respectable member of Leverage & Associates in time, again. After that, just when I went to check if the honorable member was alive and well, another man showed up, the one I was not formally introduced to yet, so I couldn’t be sure if this murderous freak was really the one Patrick was talking about, or another threat. And I had no time not even for a blah, ‘cause I had to save my life. So, another meeting with Leverage & Associates resulted in a broken nose,” he glanced at Nate again. “Your skill with blades is… unique.”
This time was Nate’s turn to flinch. “There were two of them in the corridor; one on the stairs, and one came in the elevator when you went down.”
“Didn’t know about them. You mean Villacorta send cleaning party after us? Or for us?”
“I’ll ask him the next time.”
By this time, even Sophie was smiling. Parker’s eyes were almost shut, and she was not looking at Coddington, she was checking the others to see their reactions.
“And, finally, my third contact with Leverage, this morning, ended with hurt ligaments and a headache.” Coddington grinned as well. “I’m really surprised that the two of you,” he nodded to Parker and Hardison, “didn’t get a chance to lay your hands on me.”
“I’m not violent type,” Hardison murmured, suddenly seeming occupied with his coffee.
Parker tilted her head, and smiled. “While you were in the hospital, I put laxatives in your food every day,” she said. “But not only in yours, I did it to all three of you.”
Coddington went green. “You… you…”
“Oh, I wonder if it was before or after I changed your check lists, and put you on proctology tests two times a day?” Hardison murmured again. “But not only you, the rest of the warehouse gang too.”
Coddington went red. “Patrick, can we go now? I’m not feeling very well…”
“Sure, sure.” Patrick’s face was calm, but his eyes were laughing.
“God, I’m so happy my cover was blown, and I’m being transferred, and I’ll never see you again!” he finally said, wearily, hoisting himself up. Bonnano helped him with his crutch, barely managing to hide the smirk. “You’re a murderous bunch. You would probably kill me the next time.”
Nate went to see them out. “Where are you transferred to, by the way?”
“I’ve asked for Hawaii, the furthest from Boston. But they gave me Portland.”
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Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: The Lonely Hearts Club Job, The Boy's night out Job
warnings: Dead people, language, violence, medical bullsh*t, extreme violence in later chapters, and extreme angst
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
***
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They were really extremely lucky that Betsy was so steady and calm during a crisis, because they were in complete chaos when they finally arrived. The apartment was full of things from the second apartment, the delivery service took Hardison’s order very thoroughly. Nate was even thinking they would find the bathroom cupboards somewhere.
Betsy placed the hospital bed at the far end of the room, removing his work table from the place where Old Harlan hung, between the wall and the stairs; the table was now posing as the medical console, full of…. things with lights.
Hardison laid Eliot down on the bed, and immediately staggered and crumpled on the floor. He pushed himself away and rested his back on the bookshelf, closing his eyes. Parker was trying to walk to and fro, not looking at the bed and Betsy, but she was limping and her straight line was starting to turn into a circle. Sophie just stood frozen, waiting to see if Betsy needed any help.
It was damn comforting to look at Betsy. Her moves were quick, but calm, routine and without any trace of panic or distress. Nate tried to concentrate just on her, and not on the bloody, lifeless mess under her hands.
He almost missed Hardison suddenly jumping to his feet. The hacker took Sophie by her hand and pulled her to him. “You two,” he whispered. He took Sophie and placed her beside Nate, now facing both of them. His eyes were stricken. And wet. “I have enough of this shit, you read me? I’m done with carrying bleeding people around. No more of that shit! You’re not allowed to get shot, stabbed, cut, anything, ever!”
Nate tried to say something, but Hardison waved his fist in front of his face, wild-eyed. “Nuh - uh! Not a word! I want you to promise I won’t have to carry you! Now!”
“Of course, darling, we promise,” Sophie smiled, stepping on his foot, and he sighed.
“Yep, we promise,” he said without any hesitation. “Don’t worry.”
“And now, I need you to come with me,” Sophie took Hardison by the hand and drug him away. “You have to wash yourself, and change your clothes, and then you’ll get your orange soda and finally sit down, okay?” She hushed the hacker in front of her, and darted a glance to him. He just nodded.
And it was about time. Parker had stopped walking, and was now standing by the bed, with her arms crossed.
“It’s not dripping.” Her voice was almost mechanical. “It’s called a drip, it should be dripping. It’s not dripping. And why isn’t it red? He needs blood, not that… something. It’s not dripping, by the way. It’s… pouring.”
He didn’t need to jump in and take her away. Betsy smiled at her.
“He’s dying, dear.” She managed to say that in an almost comforting way. “Aggressive fluid replacement, and a drip set to a rapid rate, and not on dripping, is the only thing that can save him now. He’ll get colloid infusions first, two full bags in the next fifteen minutes, and blood products, PRBC that’s still being prepared. After that, we wait.” She looked at Nate for a second. “Without all the necessary equipment, I can’t tell if this is a stage three or four Hypovolemic shock. The symptoms and readings are somewhere in between. I’ll know after…if, he reacts to the therapy.”
“It’s not so bad, isn’t it?” he asked carefully. “I mean, it’s not like he is between eight or nine, or…”
“There are only four of them,” she stated calmly. “The full forth stage is massive organ failure and possible brain death. The damage is irreversible at that point.”
“He was walking just fifteen minutes ago. And he talked with Nate,” Parker whispered. “You can’t talk without a brain, especially not with Nate.”
“He should have been down two hours ago, and then things might have looked different. Nate, I need you to help me. I’ll lift him into sitting position, you hold him upright for a few seconds.” He quickly obeyed. She used a scalpel to cut through Eliot’s jacket, then the back of his shirt, dividing the fabric completely before they laid him down again. Nate didn’t know much about emergency procedures, but he noticed that Betsy connected all IV’s to him first and only after that did she think about how to get rid of the clothes around the tubes. It was screaming about critical measures, completely outvoting the calmness in her voice.
The door bell stopped his sluggish thoughts; he was desperately trying to find the question that would give them an answer they wanted to hear.
“It’s a delivery, open the door.” Betsy nudged him to move, giving him a small chest. “Blood samples, going to a laboratory for analysis. After that, turn up the heat to the maximum and make coffee. Move.” She pulled out a phone while she was speaking, and he could hear her while he was giving the chest to the delivery man. “Roth, the highest priority. U+Es/Chem7, FBC, Glucose, Cross-match. Call immediately. Tell Sciortino I'll need him for a house visit at some point today.”
He went to the kitchen, keeping an eye on Parker who still stood guard, and when he heard the beeping of the heart monitor he almost dropped the coffee can. It was one thing to feel that pulse, but to hear it echoing through the room was almost unbearable. Betsy pressed a few buttons and lowered the tone, but it wasn’t enough, she could do nothing to slow it down. It was still frighteningly rapid and labored. He could feel his own breathing speeding up; he left the coffee and just went out of the apartment, not daring to turn back and face Betsy’s eyes.
He went downstairs, into the bar; there were only a few regulars this early in the morning. Cora’s smile was warm and greeting, but it slowly froze when she saw his face. She said nothing, just put the bottle on the table.
It was his first drink in four days, and he barely felt it.
When he raised his hand to pour another one, he saw the blood stain that his sleeve left on the wood. She stared at it. “What happened? Who-?”
“Don’t ask.” He carefully moved away from the table, letting her wipe it up. “I need you to do me a favor… go from back door all the way up to my apartment, and mop up all the traces that we have left. It might be… more of this. Don’t go in there, return here. And if you notice anything suspicious today, call me.”
She nodded and left immediately, and he went to the back door and into the small alley, taking the bottle with him. It took him five minutes before he found it… the pieces of the smashed phone by the wall. He carefully picked up every single piece of it and took it with him. Avoiding looking at the stain of blood near it.
“Are you able to talk?”
"The last guy who asked me that was Barclay."
He didn’t dare to imagine how this place looked in the dark hour before the dawn. But he was, unfortunately, able to fill in all that was left unsaid in that conversation.
Then he looked up, at the windows of the apartment, knowing he had to return. And not wanting to. He stayed there, walking around, until it became harder to be in the alley than in the apartment.
He prepared himself for the beeping, and noticed it was slightly slower.
Hardison was changed, sitting at the dining table with Sophie, holding a hot cup of coffee with both hands. Parker was standing, staring through the window behind them. Five cups were on the table, and for a moment he just looked at them, then poured some whiskey from the bottle into Hardison’s. The hacker darted him a grateful look. He seemed a little calmer, but his eyes were still too fast, too wild.
“She chased us away, and said to sit here.” Sophie nodded him to repeat the process with her coffee.
Betsy joined them in a minute. “He was certainly right about one thing,” she said with a thin smile. “Some rules don’t apply to him. Any man in poorer condition would have been dead a few hours ago. What exactly happened when you found him?”
Damn. Nate stared at her.
“His condition and symptoms, Nate, not the details of the mess he made.”
That was even worse. He described the last fifteen minutes with careful mitigation, knowing that Betsy would fill the blanks.
“You did good,” she nodded when he finished. “I’d hoped he would understand what I’d told him about that chest tube. He had been thinking about it like an enemy that kept him in the hospital, and not like an ally that could save his life. Besides, it’s normal practice in field medicine for a pneumothorax; he told me he did it once, and I knew he would remember that and realize that the principle is the same. He probably used it at some point last night, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long, but that dealt with the danger of drowning and tension hemothorax only for awhile… unfortunately, it couldn’t do anything about his bleeding out. And that is the thing that can kill him.”
“Still can?” Sophie whispered.
“I’m trying to stabilize him for now, and it looks like he’s reacting to the therapy. I have to warn you that doesn’t mean anything certain, complications from that kind of deep shock and blood loss are numerous. But, you saved his life, for now, by lessening the pressure.”
“I need to know something,” Hardison said hesitantly. “If there wasn’t that tube, would it kill him if someone tried to…to…” his eyes fidgeted under hers, and he stopped. “Nothing. Forget it, never mind.”
“What have you done so far?” Sophie took over.
“His blood pressure was critically low, I raised it to extremely low, and I’ll keep it that way for a few more hours. It’s called permissive hypotension. If we are at Mass Gen, with a surgical team within reach, I would risk getting his BP up to normal, but not here. Higher BP increases the bleeding…” she looked at them, and sighed. “It’s like when you water your garden and have a hole in the hose… the higher the pressure of the water, the stronger the leak. I gave him enough IV to replenish the blood he lost, but it’s just volume expanders, so he got PRBC to increase oxygen delivery. I’ll know more when the blood results come back.”
“When will he wake up?” Hardison asked the most important question.
She hesitated. “Let’s just concentrate on keeping him alive, okay? We still have to see what will happen in the next few hours… even if all goes well, the night will be hard. I suggest you take some rest.”
“Why is he so cold?” Parker’s voice sounded alarmed; no one noticed her leaving her spot by the window.
“Don’t touch him, dear.” Betsy got up. “It’s normal for temperature to go down, he is filled with cold fluids.”
“It’s not normal, it’s… wrong. He looks dead, and now he feels dead, it’s wrong, it’s…” her voice trailed off as the beeping changed rhythm, speeding up again. “Is he awake? Could he hear me?”
“Probably not,” Betsy led her away back to the table. “But he is not in a coma, he is just unconscious, and that can vary. He will probably drift in and out of it later, and we won’t risk disturbing him with alarmed tones, okay?” She nodded to him before she returned to the bed.
“Okay,” Parker whispered and slumped in the chair. Nate poured whiskey in her coffee, too, and then went to Betsy.
“You should send the kids away,” she said quietly. “Let them go home, get some sleep.”
“No, I can’t… it’s not safe for any of us to be alone now. Too many… things happened last night, we have to stay here, and together.” He forced himself to look at the bed. Betsy had wiped away all the blood and changed his bandages, and looking at him wasn’t so dreadful, but still… he looked dead. Even with that damn beeping. Which was slowing down again, by the way. “He did hear her, right?”
“He maybe heard something. Maybe he would react the same way to the slamming of a door, or any loud noise. Wait until tomorrow before you even begin to hope, Nate.”
He clenched his teeth and said nothing.
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o.0.o
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After five hours, everyone was able to detect even the slightest change in the beeping, and Sophie knew that meant trouble. Parker and Hardison had been walking around for the last hour, unable to rest and calm down, every now and then circling around the bed when the beeping showed that he was, maybe, a little closer to consciousness. Three times their attempts to wake him ended with another tachycardia. The third time Betsy didn’t have to chase them away, they got the message, finally, and they directed their distress to rearranging the stuff from another apartment. They were making noise and talking without pause, but Sophie noticed that Betsy didn’t say anything. She was just watching them all, with silent attention. Her chair was on the other side of Eliot's bed and while watching over him she had all of them in sight.
Nate wasn’t any help. He was just sitting at the dining table, completely lost in thinking. Sophie hoped he was going through all the details of the previous days, but she couldn’t be sure; his eyes were already half crazy because of the beeping, and unreadable. He put away the bottle after a few more drinks, thank god… she thought he wouldn’t stop until he emptied it.
All of them needed sleep badly, especially Parker. The thief was ghostly pale, it was obvious that every step was painful, but she just couldn’t stop. She helped Hardison drag the new sofa around; they’d spent almost twenty minutes trying to find the most perfect spot for it. Nate finally stopped them when they tried to lift it up the two stairs and place it between the dining table and the bed. They settled on the lower corner, near the screens. Sophie hoped they’d try it out; if they stopped themselves just for a minute, the exhaustion would knock them out… but they weren’t that lucky. Parker insisted they had to put Old Harlan on the wall in his place, and Hardison couldn’t say no, as always. The only problem was that his hanging place was on the wall beside the bed, so they maneuvered their way, quietly assuring Betsy they would be almost invisible, and done in a second.
Hardison brought the picture, Parker brought the chair, and they were whispering so Betsy allowed it, probably knowing it would be faster to let them do it, then to endure their reassuring.
They were all very lucky she went over to see if they needed help.
Their whispering became arguing about who would get on the chair to hang the picture, and the low sounds became hisses.
Nate was the first one who noticed that the beeping sped up again and he was already on his feet, Betsy right after him. But, Sophie was the only one that saw Eliot’s hand move. There were catheters in both of his arms, with IV fluids and blood, and his right hand was already disconnecting both IV lines in his left, with economical, routine moves.
“Sophie, don’t-”
Only when Nate’s alarmed voice sounded in her ear did she become aware that reaching with her hand to stop him could be a deadly mistake. She didn’t have time to think, or to pull her hand back when she touched his, and he caught her wrist, twisted and pulled her down, with her elbow stretched to the final point before breaking. She swallowed the cry and remained completely still, staring at his left hand. He pulled it back from the blanket and it hung in the air like a string, with his fingers just slightly bent, not in a fist, aiming directly at her throat.
“Hi there,” she whispered with a smile in her voice, just barely aware of the four frozen silhouettes around them. His eyes fluttered open and focused on her face, but the string didn’t loosen a bit. She couldn’t see anything in his eyes, just a silent alertness. “It’s okay. You can let go now. I’ll just sit here for a while.” She couldn’t tell if he let loose of her hand because of her words, or because he couldn’t hold it anymore, but she managed to slowly stretch her hand. Finally, the hand ready to hit went down too. “Everything’s fine, it’s over. We’re safe,” she continued gently. He remained still and for a moment she thought he was listening to her, but Betsy took one step closer, looked in his eyes, and just shook her head.
He managed to keep his eyes open only a couple more seconds, and Betsy quickly dealt with all the damage, connecting everything back up. “Stay here if you can,” Betsy said, checking the monitor. The jumping lines were quieter. “You’re calming him down.” She pointed to the sofa, with a clear order in her eyes, and Parker and Hardison sneaked away silently.
She took off her shoes and curled up on the bed on his left side; it wasn’t important if he wasn’t conscious enough to understand her, or recognize her. He allowed her to keep her hand on his arm. That was important.
She just sat there whispering quietly about peace and safety, and listened to the slowing of his heartbeat.
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o.0.o
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He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he was pretty certain that all this confusing shit looked strangely familiar, as if he was going through a flashback of a flashback of a nightmare. Only, this time, something was terribly wrong.
Everything was full of voices and all of them were distressed, and he couldn’t recognize anything, or explain to himself what he was hearing. He only knew that he should be out of here, as far from them as he could - and he knew he couldn’t. Something was terribly, terribly wrong with him. Those voices brought the loud, quick sounds that were making him nervous, and it seemed that those sounds made them even more nervous, and that beeping, and the distress in their voices, rose and rose, feeding each other, to the point he thought his head would explode.
He forgot to tell him one important thing.
Before he could think of who was in question, and what that important thing was, a quiet, warm whisper turned the beeping off. There was no tension in that whisper, no distress, it was calm and quiet. It silenced all the other sounds.
He managed to open his eyes just for a moment, only to notice the light. It was yellow, and it was warm - and he didn’t know why, but it brought relief.
He had no idea where he was, and why was important for the windows to stay lit.
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o.0.o
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Nate’s worry grew through the late afternoon when he realized that Betsy had stopped sending Hardison and Parker to rest. In fact, every time they seemed to be on the edge of passing out, she would find something they needed to do. At the same time, she left Sophie to sleep on the sofa for hours, even when the heart monitor she connected again started to speed up.
It was obvious that she wanted just the two of them to be awake through the night, and younger ones solidly knocked out, so he simply stood up and said that he was going to sleep for a few hours.
“Don’t worry, the two of us will be awake,” Hardison said. “We’ll call you if anything changes, go ahead. I’ll go through the stuff I collected….” he ran with his hand over his eyes and face, trying to concentrate. “… this morning. That’ll keep me awake. I’m also working on something that I started yesterday. Remember I told you it would be important only if this ended well?” he glanced at the bed for a moment and sighed. “Whatever. I’ll do it now.”
“You okay?” the question escaped him before he could stop it.
The hacker hesitated, considering a few answers before he settled on a short one. “No,” he lowered his eyes to the screen again. “But that’s expected, I guess. Go, get some sleep. We don’t want to mess up Betsy’s sleeping arrangements, do we?”
Nate just smiled and let him work.
Betsy seemed occupied with Parker’s switching channels. Nate was pretty sure that she didn’t care what was on the huge screens, that she was just trying to catch a clue about Parker’s mind… or her state of mind. Or maybe the absence of it. The screens flashed by at the speed of light at that point, and the thief stared at them without blinking, with glazed eyes.
“Any change?” he asked, stopping by the bed. He couldn’t tell for sure, but Eliot’s face didn’t look as ghostly pale as this morning, at least the parts of it he could see. The oxygen mask was still covering his face.
“His lungs are mostly clear now,” she glanced at the machine on the floor that was still draining the blood. “And the bleeding has slowed down. You know, Sciortino was right when he said he should be in ICU. There’s no way he could see what state this wound is in without opening him again. He agreed to wait only because the transport would kill him, and because there’s a slight chance that monitoring the bleeding will show us the progress. Especially when he saw… Can you explain the bruise under the wound? Did you see what happened?”
“No, I don’t know anything about any bruises.” But he could guess what happened. Who happened. “That did… damage?”
She looked at him like she would look at retarded two year old monkey that was pissing in her kitchen, and he sighed, feeling exactly like one. “Let me rephrase that… how dangerous is the damage?”
She glanced at Hardison whose every radar was pointed at them, though he seemed deeply occupied with his laptop, and instead of answering she simply took his hand and put it on the side of Eliot’s neck.
“Wh-” he flinched, surprised, but then figured out what she was trying to say. He was too warm to touch. He pulled his hand back, but not before he remembered; years of practice returned in one pained moment, and he knew exactly. Over 100 F already.
“I put him back on his antibiotics, but there's been an almost 24-hour pause, and it’s messed up. The blood results are not as bad as I expected, though they show there’s a present infection. That’s normal for postoperative care of a gunshot wound when it’s treated. When the treatment is discontinued, and when there’s also a nasty hit that messed with the stitches and caused more bleeding… well, it’s not good. Sciortino was resolute; if it goes up to 104, there’s no waiting anymore.” She watched him for a few moments while he stared at him, then continued. “I started with vasopressin, I’m raising his blood pressure now. Bleeding, when we can substitute with transfusions, is now less important.”
He slowly raised his head and looked at her. “What are the chances, Betsy?” he whispered.
“Did you expect he would be alive this morning?” she asked.
“I knew he would.”
“Me too,” she smiled. “Do you want to know what chances he had for that?”
He smiled back, accepting that for an answer, though he knew it was just a professional diversion on her part. She knew better than anybody how different this situation was, and how much weaker he was, literally holding onto life by a thread. But she had to give comfort and hope, it was stronger than her.
The sound of an incoming text message saved him from answering. Bonnano. ‘I’m in the bar, coming up to you.’ Damn, it was too early for that. He had no strength to deal with Patrick now, particularly because he knew why he was here.
“It’s Patrick,” he told Betsy, and went to wake up Sophie. Sleeping would wait.
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o.0.o
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It took exactly three times longer than usual for the cop to climb to the second floor, and fresh coffee was ready when Hardison let him in.
“Coffee,” Bonnano croaked from the door. His eyes were bloodshot.
Parker was now sitting on the kitchen counter, Nate was going through the cups in the cupboard, searching for one big enough, and Sophie’s forehead was on her hands, on the dining table. Bonnano just passed them all and went to Betsy and Eliot.
He came back after a few minutes of quiet talk with her, and he was even darker when he sat at the table.
“Steel is in a safe house,” he said grabbing the cup. “The shootings stopped during the day. The damage is estimated to be in the millions. The number of dead is-”
“No numbers, Patrick.” Nate stopped him, sitting at the table next to Hardison who typed something.
“Yeah, no numbers,” Patrick sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I have no idea what will happen tonight. This... thing… can die out all by itself, or it can continue and escalate.”
“What would you like to happen?” Nate asked carefully, and Patrick looked at him sharply. “Not that I can do anything with it, I just want to know where you stand in all this.”
“I’ve never seen so many cops grinning while preparing for a sleepless night, nor so eager to grab their bulletproof vests when going into shootings,” he murmured. “There is something strangely fascinating about seeing the people whom you've been trying to put behind bars for years, dozens of them, dealing with each other for you, and you only have to watch, stop the shooting, and put them all in custody with clear accusations this time. Half of my men go around with lists in their hands, and scratch names from it; it was Christmas. Yet, on the other hand, the dead…” he trailed off and sighed, glancing at Nate for a second, then decided that he didn’t need to continue in that direction. Nate watched his face lightening with effort. “So, when he is back on his feet, I was thinking… I have a cousin in New York, he’s a captain. Can we send Eliot to New York for three days, and three nights? It’ll be enough time to clean up.”
“And why we would do that?” Hardison asked quietly, looking at him with innocent surprise in his eyes. “He wasn’t connected to those unpleasant events. He was in the hospital the entire night.”
Bonnano blinked. “You don’t have to sell that to me, I-” he stopped, thought about it, and smiled. “Let me see that.”
Hardison grinned and turned his laptop so all of them could see. Parker joined them, peeking over Sophie’s shoulder.
“This is the hospital footage from the last night, I collected only the important parts. Here we see a patient, Daniel Crane, exiting the garage of the ER. Here he disappeared in the darkness, entering a small park with a statue of a woman and a baby, surrounded by trees. And not leaving that area. Three hours later, we see him again going near one camera, and returning to the same park. Demented, poor man. He obviously had no idea what he was doing, and while everybody was searching for him, he just kept himself hidden in the dark. There’s no sign of him on any other camera in the complex. He never left the hospital circle, until the very dawn, when all the nasty things in the town were almost finished.”
“How the hell do you think you can put this into the hosp-”
“I worked directly on the hospital footage, this is their database. It’s already in there. They delete it after three weeks, so ask for it, just in case, so you have a copy if necessary. I’ve spent hours and hours working on it, while doing other things, and I can tell you-”
“Can we skip the ‘behold my genius’ part, Hardison?” Nate stopped him. But he gave him a genuine smile while saying it. “You did good.”
Hardison just bowed with an elegant wave of his hand, and took the laptop back.
“Okay, now that I participated in faking an alibi, I can continue in the same tone,” Bonnano sighed again. “My informants in the gangs have nothing on Eliot. The Armenian one saw a man that came to Aghenazer last night, but he’ll swear he can’t recognize him. Though, all this mess won’t just go away, Nate. All the gang heads are now sitting quietly, asking themselves what the hell happened… okay, except maybe the Irish. They are occupied with the changes after Callahan died.”
“And if they calm down enough to start exchanging notes, that could lead them all to us,” Nate finished. “Yes, I know that’s a possibility, but as far as I could see, Eliot’s actions were well covered. Besides, we now work for Villacorta, we are cleaning up the mess for him. I’ve sent him away for ten days, after we saved him from the Mexicans.”
Bonnano almost choked on his coffee.
“If anyone wants to deal with us, the entire Chilean cartel will be ready to help,” Nate continued.
“You’re not kidding, right?” Bonnano almost moaned.
“Eliot bought us some time until we wait for Villacorta to be charged.”
“In fact, we can offer to Villacorta to run his cartel while he’s in jail,” Hardison said thoughtfully. “I could run gambling, Sophie would be a brilliant madame, Eliot can take over Rojas’ role dealing with the other gangs, if there’s any left…”
“By the way, Villacorta knows a lot about you and your actions,” Nate ran over Hardison’s words. “It might prove necessary, at some point, to tell him you’re finally bought. That would make you useful.”
“Welcome to the Dark Side,” Hardison grinned.
“You’re all insane,” Bonnano shook his head.
“Yep,” Nate grinned as well. “That’s part of our charm.”
“Well, this charming bunch is not allowed to leave this place until I see if the streets are safe. And who knows about you, and what. Stay low and don’t attract any attention to yourselves,” he glanced at the bed. “You are without protection, and besides, you have to be here because of him.”
“I was planning just that. I need time to think.” Nate said.
“About what? I'm serious, Nate, don't go out there. A gang war is the worst thing that could happen to a town.”
“No, it isn’t. The only thing worse than that is terrorism. If we count only one man’s doings, and not natural catastrophes.”
Bonnano looked at him, studying his smile. “Okaaay…” he said carefully. “You’re right, it's not bad tactics... when you're in deep shit, think about how things could be much worse. But let’s concentrate on the gangs and cartels for now, shall we? Terrorism is way out of our league. I’ll call you if anything new happens.”
“Sounds good to me.” Nate glanced at the door. And smiled. “Now, you can call him and tell him he can come in. We don’t bite… more than usual.”
Bonnano darted him a speculative look, but all three of them gave him raised eyebrows.
“Someone’s at the door?” Hardison got up. “Do you want me to-”
“No, Patrick will open the door.” Nate held him in place.
“How did you know?” Patrick got up.
“You don’t usually need six minutes to climb two stories.”
“Yes, I usually don’t.” Patrick watched him with strange look in his eyes for a second, then went to the door.
Letting Randall Coddington in.
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***
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His arm was in plaster, his nose was covered, and his knee was in some sort of plastic cover. He came in, helping himself with a crutch, and Bonnano helped him with the two stairs.
Sophie and Hardison looked stunned, but Parker was on her feet, making a dull sound; it was not growling, it was something almost prehistoric, low and dangerous. Bonnano and Coddington stopped and stared at her. She was wearing Nate’s old pajamas and her hair was still wet from showering. She looked cute, beautiful, and deadly insane.
“Parker, sit,” Nate said calmly and the sound slowly vanished. He glanced at the bed and Betsy, and added, “Just in case, keep your voices low and calm, okay?”
“It is time for a formal introduction,” Bonnano was grinning. “This is Randall Coddington, known by his street name Fernando. Randall, these are the associates of Leverage & Associates. And these are, believe it or not, my friends. Randall is my friend too. Very close friend.”
“It is very nice to meet you,” Coddington smiled, showing his teeth. His hair was still in braids, though he wasn’t wearing Chilean colors anymore, just unobtrusive gray shirt and jacket. Bonnano nudged him and he reluctantly sat at the table.
“Kill him,” Parker murmured. “Kill him now.”
“Parker, stop,” Nate repeated, feeling Sophie’s and Hardison’s eyes on him.
“I told you, after your first… incident, in the hospital corridor, that I don’t want to talk about him,” Bonnano continued. “It wasn’t the time for that, he was transferred to another hospital and taken out of your sight, and there wasn’t a point in clearing this stuff further. It could wait, especially when Eliot started to hurry things up, and we were occupied with that. But, you obviously figured it out. When and how?”
“Just this morning,” Nate said. “We were listening to Eliot’s conversation with Villacorta, he framed Cuchillo as a State Police informant, and told him about Coddington as well. And Villacorta didn’t know about it, it hit him hard, though he didn’t show it. If Villacorta didn’t know Coddington was State Police, how he could buy him to be his dirty cop?”
“So, you’re saying,” Coddington said carefully. “That he didn’t only break my clavicle and ribs, but also got me almost killed by revealing my true identity to Villacorta?”
“Yes,” Nate smiled. “You were extremely lucky this morning, because you were called to your execution. If you didn’t see our van, and decided to check it, you would probably be killed.”
Coddington stretched his leg, glancing at Sophie who was observing him. “So, Miss Devereaux, you saved my life, then, stopping me from going to Villacorta?”
She put both elbows on the table, slowly rested her chin on her hands, and smiled at him. Coddington flinched. Nate hid his smile; most people couldn’t endure that stare more than two seconds.
“Can we start from the beginning?” Hardison asked. “We have recorded him trying to kill Eliot in a warehouse, Nate stopped him from doing that for the second time in the hospital, and you claim he isn’t bought? Pardon, you two,” he glanced at Nate, “claim he’s not dirty?”
Bonnano thought for a second. “Well, have you ever asked yourself why I was so close to the warehouse, and why the ambulance car was already on its way in when you called me?”
Nate looked at Coddington. “You called them?”
“I called before we entered the building,” the younger cop nodded. “Four of us were just following you, and our task was to give a sign to those who were waiting here for your return. You’d left, we scattered, and then Cuchillo spotted Spencer going back and called us again, deciding we could deal with one. He told us that just before we went in the warehouse, so I had a very little time to improvise. I made my calls and went in after them just in time to see Cuchillo shooting him.”
“Well, you improvised brilliantly, I must say, because I watched your performance,” Sophie said coldly. “All that circling, laughing, kicking… someone will say you played the role of your life. Or you didn’t play at all.”
“I didn’t play anything, I was trying to knock him out in the beginning,” he smiled bitterly. “I was even thinking about shooting him once more, just to put him down before they finished him. If they thought he was dead, it was only chance for him. Patrick and the ambulance were on their way, they would find him in a few minutes. But, it ended just a little different than I expected… in one moment our helpless victim stood up and crushed us completely.”
“Why didn’t you tell him who you were when he fought you back?” Hardison’s eyes were still narrowed in suspicion.
“Good point,” he smiled again. “I was the last indeed, because I was always a little behind them, just in case, so I had enough time to tell him everything, right?” He darted a cautious look towards the bed. “But, problem is, I was too stunned to even think. I just stood there, watching him speeding those three steps, with that look in his eyes… and everything went black. Have you ever tried to explain something while a man takes three quick steps towards you, and you saw him knocking down armed men, after he got shot, all in about five seconds? I think I had a time for one very eloquent blah. First meeting with Leverage & Associates, result broken bones.”
Nate smirked. “And what about the attack at the hospital?”
“Nothing special. Doing my duty, answering a wake up call that told me Ramon was on his way to third floor already, running through corridors like an idiot, in pain, I must say. Then, barely succeeding in stopping Ramon from killing a respectable member of Leverage & Associates in time, again. After that, just when I went to check if the honorable member was alive and well, another man showed up, the one I was not formally introduced to yet, so I couldn’t be sure if this murderous freak was really the one Patrick was talking about, or another threat. And I had no time not even for a blah, ‘cause I had to save my life. So, another meeting with Leverage & Associates resulted in a broken nose,” he glanced at Nate again. “Your skill with blades is… unique.”
This time was Nate’s turn to flinch. “There were two of them in the corridor; one on the stairs, and one came in the elevator when you went down.”
“Didn’t know about them. You mean Villacorta send cleaning party after us? Or for us?”
“I’ll ask him the next time.”
By this time, even Sophie was smiling. Parker’s eyes were almost shut, and she was not looking at Coddington, she was checking the others to see their reactions.
“And, finally, my third contact with Leverage, this morning, ended with hurt ligaments and a headache.” Coddington grinned as well. “I’m really surprised that the two of you,” he nodded to Parker and Hardison, “didn’t get a chance to lay your hands on me.”
“I’m not violent type,” Hardison murmured, suddenly seeming occupied with his coffee.
Parker tilted her head, and smiled. “While you were in the hospital, I put laxatives in your food every day,” she said. “But not only in yours, I did it to all three of you.”
Coddington went green. “You… you…”
“Oh, I wonder if it was before or after I changed your check lists, and put you on proctology tests two times a day?” Hardison murmured again. “But not only you, the rest of the warehouse gang too.”
Coddington went red. “Patrick, can we go now? I’m not feeling very well…”
“Sure, sure.” Patrick’s face was calm, but his eyes were laughing.
“God, I’m so happy my cover was blown, and I’m being transferred, and I’ll never see you again!” he finally said, wearily, hoisting himself up. Bonnano helped him with his crutch, barely managing to hide the smirk. “You’re a murderous bunch. You would probably kill me the next time.”
Nate went to see them out. “Where are you transferred to, by the way?”
“I’ve asked for Hawaii, the furthest from Boston. But they gave me Portland.”
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