Canyon of the Sphinx (16 page)

Plan A moved into Plan B.

***

Dallas, TX

Baylor was an enormous hospital
in Dallas, Texas, with an excellent reputation. When Marcus arrived via Medivac
helicopter with his wife and a host of Marines and other VIP personnel, he
hadn’t really known what to expect. After the six hour plane ride from the
Yucatan, including transfers, he was just glad to be at their destination. He
didn’t know how much more his wife could take.

Dr. Laura Braddox Ball met them
as they were disembarking the helicopter. She and a host of Baylor trauma
personnel all but shoved the Marines out of the way to get at Dr. Trent. They
even shoved Marcus aside until Colonel Braddox told his ex-wife who he was.
After that, Dr. Ball made sure Marcus was given the presidential treatment. 
They put Kathlyn on a gurney, made sure her forest of I.V. stands were secure,
and rushed her inside.

The first fifteen minutes after
their arrival were the most chaotic. Kathlyn had been drifting in and out of
unconsciousness for hours and was now fully awake as they were working on her.
She would panic if she didn’t see Marcus, so he kept within her line of sight
at all times. Standing in the E.R. as they poked, prodded and otherwise
examined his wife, Marcus was wrought with exhaustion and worry.

Although Colonel Braddox
officially turned control of Dr. Trent over to his ex-wife, he hung around as
they went to work on her. Mostly, he stood next to Marcus and explained what
was going on. He could see the man’s anxiety and wanted to give him some
comfort.

Within an hour of arrival, they
had Kathlyn sedated and settled. The activity around her seemed to quiet for
the most part. All Marcus knew was that she was calm and that she was hooked up
to more medical devices than he had ever seen. Braddox explained the oxygen
saturation machine, the I.V. pump, and other simplified equipment. Dr. Ball
never left Kathlyn’s side, even after most of the nurses seemed to finish and
go about their duties. Finally, when she seemed satisfied that all was well for
the moment, she came over to talk to Marcus.

Dr. Ball was a big woman with
short brown hair and pretty brown eyes. In her youth, she had been a beauty.
She smiled at Marcus.

“Long day?”

“You have no idea,” Marcus
appreciated her kindness, but he wanted to know about Kathlyn. “How is my
wife?”

Dr. Ball’s gaze moved back to
Kathlyn, lying still and quiet upon the gurney. “Well,” she said. “It’s a good
thing you brought her here when you did.”

“I’m scared to ask why.”

She turned back to Marcus,
smiling. “I’m sure it’s no secret. Another few hours in the clinic and she was
going to lose that leg, if not her life. It’s not their fault; they just don’t
have the facilities and capabilities that we do.”

“But she’s going to be okay?”

Dr. Ball sighed. “I’ve seen
worse. I think she’s going to be okay.”

It was too much for Marcus to
take. He slumped back against the wall, vaguely aware that Colonel Braddox had
rolled a stool under him. Both Dr. Ball and the Colonel helped guide Marcus
down onto it so that he wouldn’t collapse onto the floor.

 “And her leg?” Marcus said
weakly. “She’s not going to lose it?”

“No,” Dr. Ball said. “She’s going
to have a scar, but I’m confident we can save the limb. The Colonel pumped her
full of Cephalosporin, which went to work on the bacteria that was literally
eating her leg. We’ve sent a culture up to the lab to make sure there’s nothing
else going on in there, but the wound looks better than I expected. When she’s
stable, I’d like to go in and clean it out really good. Maybe by late this
evening, so tomorrow she should be feeling much better.”

Pale and unshaven, Marcus gazed
at his wife. The cobalt blue eyes filled with exhausted tears. “I can’t tell
you how glad I am to hear that. I… I really thought we were going to lose her.”

Dr. Ball put her hand on his
shoulder. “From what I’ve heard about the risks that woman takes in her everyday
life, I think this little snake bite is the least of your worries.”

Marcus chuckled. The tears
spilled down his cheeks and he wiped them away. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Dr. Ball said. She
patted his shoulder. “She’s not asleep. Go talk to her for a few minutes, and
then I would like for you to get something to eat and perhaps some sleep. You
look like hell.”

Marcus laughed, then. “Trust me,
I feel like hell.”

“Then go and talk to her for a
minute and the Colonel will treat you to dinner in the hospital cafeteria.”

“Absolutely,” Braddox agreed.

“Ah, the tightwad speaks,” Dr.
Ball snorted. “Will miracles never cease?”

Dr. Ball and the Colonel grinned
at each other, obviously some private joke between them. “Do you have any other
questions for me, Dr. Burton?” Dr. Ball asked him. “If not, I’m going to go
check on scheduling an O.R. for later on tonight.”

“Just to clean out her wound?”
Marcus asked.

“Yes,” she said; she was coming
to suspect that he didn’t believe her about the purpose of the operation, as if
fearful she was really going to remove the leg and not tell him. “I have to
anesthetize her to do it. You really don’t want to do that kind of thing with a
local.”

“But she’s going to be fine?”

“Yes, Dr. Burton. She’s going to
be fine.” She gave him a tug on the arm. “Go tell your wife good-bye for the
moment. The Colonel has to eat soon or he’ll start getting crabby.”

Marcus had to force himself away
from the negative thoughts of impending doom to those of hope. Dr. Ball and
Colonel Braddox made everything sound so confident and positive.

 He stood up, unsteadily at
first, and made his way over to the gurney where his wife lay. She was horribly
pale, her eyes sunken and closed.  He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

 “Sweetheart?” he whispered. “Can
you hear me?”

Her eyelids fluttered, then
slowly opened. She gazed up at him with a drug-induced expression.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he kissed her forehead
again. “Dr. Ball says you’re going to be fine. She says you’ll be feeling a lot
better by tomorrow.”

She sighed, the green eyes
closing. “That would be nice.”

“I’m going to get something to
eat. Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

“I want to eat, too.”

Marcus turned to the doctors,
standing a few feet away. Dr. Ball came up on the opposite side of the gurney.

“Tomorrow, Dr. Trent,” she said.
“I’ll have breakfast with you myself.”

Kathlyn’s eyes opened again, focusing
on the woman. “Sausage and eggs.”

“How about broth and gelatin?”

“Pancakes and bacon.”

“No deal. The highest I’ll go is
oatmeal. Maybe.”

Kathlyn wrinkled her nose. “If we
are going to bargain, I wanted to start high.”

Marcus glanced at the doctor. “If
she’s trying to bargain, I think she’s feeling better already.”

He left his wife with Dr. Ball
watching over her. When he ate, it was in huge quantities. When he slept, it
was like the dead.

Everything was going to be all
right.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

March

Los
Angeles, California

Los Angeles had some of the top
rehabilitation clinics in the world. It was also Kathlyn’s home town. Once Dr.
Ball had cleaned up her wound and made sure she was out of danger, they moved
on to the next step of rehabilitating the leg. It had taken some weeks, but by
late spring, things were coming along quite nicely and Kathlyn had proven to be
a rotten patient. They told her to take it easy and all she wanted to do was go
back to where she had been before all of this happened. It was like trying to
tie down a cloud.

Marcus and Kathlyn had rented a
nice apartment in the Studio City suburbs of Los Angeles. Not only was it near
the clinic where Kathlyn had been having weekly rehab, but it was also near the
medical center where Marcus' father was having radiation treatments for lung
cancer. The spot on Al Burton’s lungs had been cancer and he’d had his left
lung removed about the time Kathlyn was recuperating in Dallas. It had been a
tremendous strain on Marcus, wanting to stay with his wife yet wanting to be
with his father. Now, with Kathlyn in almost finished with rehab for her leg,
he could do both. He found himself being the pillar of strength for both his
wife and his parents. It was a strain, but he was holding up. Marcus Burton
was, if nothing else, resilient.

The apartment also enabled the Burton
children to join their parents in a normal, homey atmosphere. It was the one truly
pleasant aspect of the situation that kept them all sane; the family wasn’t
split by half a globe distance. All Marcus had to do was walk into the living
room to see his children fighting over a stuffed frog. Trent pulled, Ethan
kicked, and Eden wisely stood back to reap the benefits from the fall out when
the two brothers went at each other. Sometimes Marcus would just stand there
and watch. Their screams sounded just like heaven to him.

Tony had flown all the way back
to Egypt with Kathlyn’s mother to retrieve the children while Kathlyn and
Marcus were in Dallas. It wasn’t his job, playing nanny, but everyone else was
consumed with closing up Marcus’ field office, so he received permission from
his superior officer to escort Sallie Trent to Egypt to pick up her grandkids.  Once
the children were retrieved, however, his assignment was effectively over
although neither Kathlyn nor Marcus had known at the time. Jobe McGrath still
hadn’t told Marcus about his dig shutting down because of Kathlyn’s condition.
It had been very awkward, and painful, for Tony to tell them he was returning
to Egypt. He was really being shipped off to the embassy in Cairo for a new
rotation, but he had been forbidden to tell them that.

For all Kathlyn and Marcus knew,
everything was still as it should be. Everyone had kept up the act for their
sake; they’d been through so much already and those that knew and loved them
were fearful that one more major incident would break them.  As it was, Kathlyn
had pulled through her illness and was on the road to recovery, which meant
resuming her life where she had left off.  To her, everything was back to
normal. Now she was having the confrontation with Marcus she had been avoiding
for days.

"You're out of your
mind."

"No, I'm not. It's my
job."

Marcus exploded. "It's not
your job. You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Marcus, I was contracted by
UIR to help Dr. Murphy find his lost city. That's exactly what I intend to do.
I can't let this set-back scare me off of what I love to do."

Marcus was livid. "Five
weeks ago that damn project nearly cost you your life. Now you want to go back?
What in the hell is the matter with you?"

Kathlyn sighed with frustration
and looked away. "It's what I do. You know that. I think I can help Murphy
with his objective. I've got to at least try; I never even really got the
chance."

Marcus' jaw ticked furiously. He
put his hands on his hips and paced around like a caged animal. "Kathlyn,
you know that I have always let you do what you needed to do. Against my better
judgment, I've always let you make your own decisions even when I knew they
were bad ones." He looked at her. "So I'm asking you, as your
husband, not to go back to the Yucatan. I don't want you to."

She looked at him.
"Why?"

"Because I don't."

"You have to give me a
better answer than that."

Eden was walking now. She toddled
up to her father and threw herself on his leg, hugging it. Marcus could never
get very mad with his daughter around; she was like putting water on a fire. He
picked her up and was forced to keep his tone down.

"Because it's not safe.  I'm
going back to Egypt and you're going to be half a world away from me again and
I don't like it. Besides, you're still limping on that leg. It's not up to full
strength and you know it."

Kathlyn glanced down at her right
leg; it was normal size now, as pretty as ever except for an ugly scar the size
of a small apple on the back of her calf. The muscle was damaged and she still
had pain in it, but she hadn't lost the leg. Eventually it would be as good as
new.

"I'm almost as good as I
was," she said quietly. "Honey, I love you and I respect your wishes
and opinions, but I want you to respect mine, too.  You always act like I'm
being stubborn and defiant if I don't do exactly what you want me to do."

"That's not true," he
said. "How many times have we had this conversation, Kathlyn? Since we've
been married, you've gone on every single assignment given to you whether or
not I wanted you to go. I haven't stopped you from going on one, not one. But
in this case I am asking you to please respect my wishes and come back with me
to Egypt."