Rules of the Hunt (12 page)

Dr. Linda
Foley was working with the senior intensive care nurse, Kathleen Burke.
 
Fitzduane would have one-to-one attention
until he left ICU.
 
If
he left ICU.

Linda Foley
had a sense of unease when she looked at her patient.
 
Something was definitely wrong, not just the
physical things but something else.
 
Dr.
Foley tended to feel this kind of thing.
 
It was a gift and it was a burden.

Working
together, they checked his BP and blood gases through the arterial line;
checked his CVP; checked his oxygen levels; checked his air entry with a
stethoscope; watched the monitors.

Linda Foley
noticed that Fitzduane had high blood pressure and a fast pulse rate.
 
"He's in serious pain," she said,
"poor sod."
 
She prescribed
morphine in the form of Cyclimorph.

Kathleen,
concerned about his body temperature, added some blankets.
 
She checked his wounds for oozing through the
dressings, and changed them where necessary.

Foley looked
around the futuristic-looking room as if for inspiration, and moved her neck to
try to release some of the tension.
 
Her
muscles ached.
 
She was bloody tired and
too much black coffee was fraying her nerves, but she was not going to quit on
this one until it felt right.
 
And so
far, it did not.
 
No, something was
decidedly wrong.

He had been
drifting in and out of consciousness.
 
He
was gradually regaining some — albeit drug-laden — awareness.
 
It was going to be a frightening awakening.
 
In her opinion, the intensive care unit was
about as un-people-friendly as could be.
 
It was a monument to hygiene and advanced technology, but it did nothing
for the human psyche.
 
It was overlit and
cold and sterile and full of cables and bleeping monitors, and it was truly
terrifying to wake up in, even if you knew you were being treated.

In Fitzduane's
case, he would have no sense of continuity.
 
He had been ripped from his normal life, massively traumatized and then
cast ashore in this alien environment.
 
He
would be paranoid and disoriented.
 
All
his systems — cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, immune — had mounted an
immense physiological response to his injuries, and the effect would be total
mental and physical exhaustion.
 
To make
matters worse, the first people he'd see would be masked and gowned.

He would see
only eyes.

His main
reassurance would come from the ICU staff's voices.
 
Voices in ICU were vital.
 
They provided the human element, the link to
the human spirit.
 
In Linda Foley's
experience, recovery was only partly physical; it was predominantly a matter of
the mind... shit, that was it.
 
This
patient's spirit was damaged in some way.
 
How she knew it, she could not say, but that was it.
 
He lacked the will to recover.

In
consideration of his high blood pressure and low body temperature, Foley had
kept him on the ventilator, the life-support machine, for a further six hours
after surgery and then had gradually weaned him off.
 
He was now breathing for himself with an
oxygen mask over his face.
 
He had been
wearing it for two hours.
 
It would soon
be time to remove it.

Fitzduane
opened his eyes again.
 
Kathleen leaned
over him and spoke:
 
"Hello,
Hugo.
 
I'm Kathleen.
 
You've had an operation, and all went
well."

Fitzduane eyes
filled with tears.
 
His vision was
blurred and his throat was dry and sore.
 
He tried to speak.
 
No sound came
out.
 
Kathleen moistened his lips with a
small sponge.

A gasping
sound came out.
 
Kathleen bent
closer.
 
He spoke again, and then
consciousness faded.

"What did
he say?" said Linda Foley.

Kathleen
looked puzzled.
 
"Boots or
roots," she said.
 
"He said he
— they — were dead, I think.
 
He's still
drugged to the eyeballs.
 
He's just
rambling."

Linda Foley
looked down at Fitzduane.
 
Desecrated
though his body was, he was a striking-looking man.
 
He did not look like someone who would
surrender life so easily, and yet the fighting spirit was missing.
 
"Fuck it," she said.
 
"We're missing something here.
 
I'm going to find out more about this
guy."

She turned on
her heel, walked out of ICU, and pulled her mask down.
 
She wanted a cigarette but had quit while an
intern.
 
A good stiff drink would do
fine.
 
In the corridor outside were two
men in combat uniform carrying automatic weapons.
 
"I want to talk to someone," she
said.
 
"Someone
who knows my patient — and quickly."

A pair of legs
also wearing combat fatigues swung off a couch, and a figure emerged.
 
He was in his early fifties, bearded,
hollow-eyed from fatigue, but a commanding presence.

"Talk to
me," he said.
 
"My name is
Shane Kilmara."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Fitzduane was
beginning to remember.

He could hear
the sound of running water and feel Boots against him.
 
Then came flares in the sky and a sense of
unease and a line of blood across the back of his son's head.

He
sobbed.
 
Bullets splashed around the
unconscious boy.
 
He could not move.
 
He wanted to help — was desperate to help, to
do something — but he could not move.

He felt weak
and confused, and his throat hurt.
 
He
opened his eyes, but the light was too bright.

"Daddy!"
said a voice.
 
"Daddy!
 
Daddy!"

Fitzduane
started and cried out.
 
"I'm
coming..." and fell silent.

Linda Foley
looked at the monitors with concern.
 
This might not be the best idea.
 
She and Kathleen exchanged worried glances.

Fitzduane
could feel a small hand in his.

He felt small
lips against his cheek and he smelled chocolate.
 
He opened his eyes.

A small,
rather grubby face looked down at him.
 
"Want some, Daddy?" said Boots's voice.
 
He thrust the remains of his bar into his
father's mouth.
 
Fitzduane could taste it
— really
taste
it.

"Boots is
fine," said a familiar voice.
 
"He was grazed by one round, but he's fine.
 
Now it's your turn to get better.
 
He's wearing me out."

The monitors
went crazy — and then stabilized strongly.

Fitzduane
smiled and, using all his strength, put his left arm around Boots.
 
The little boy lay beside his father in the
narrow bed for a short while and hugged him, then was removed by Kilmara.

Fitzduane was
already asleep.
 
He was still smiling.

Kilmara looked
at Foley and then at Kathleen.
 
"You're a hell of a pair," he said.
 
"You don't know when to quit.
 
Good people."
 
He smiled.
 
"You can join the Rangers anytime."

Linda Foley
and Kathleen Burke smiled back tiredly.
 
They had now done just about as much as they could for the time being,
they considered.
 
Linda's beeper went off
and she shrugged in resignation and went to answer the call.
 
As she was leaving, she turned around and
made a gesture of success.

Kathleen was
played out.
 
She looked at Fitzduane and
not at the monitors.
 
It was unscientific
rubbish, she knew, but she could just see the difference.
 
The man now had an aura.
 
He was fighting back.

"How long
is it going to take to get him fully back into action?" said
Kilmara.

"That's
an impossible question," said Kathleen, taken aback.
 
"And premature.
 
He's still critical."

"Only his
body," said Kilmara.

Kathleen
looked at him.
 
"Four months, six
months, a year," she said.
 
"He's been badly hurt.
 
It
depends a great deal on the individual.
 
Who is he, anyway?
 
Apart from the
odd farmer who trips over his shotgun, gunshot victims are an uncommon
occurrence in this part of the world.
 
And then there are you people."
 
She gestured at Kilmara and the armed Rangers on security duty.
 
"Men with weapons in
my hospital.
 
I don't like
it.
 
I would like to believe it is
necessary.
 
I would like to know
why."

Kilmara gave a
slight smile.
 
"I'll tell you over a
cup of tea," he said, "or maybe something stronger.
 
You've earned it."

They found a
small office beside the nurses' station.
 
A nurse brought in two mugs of tea and Kilmara produced his hip
flask.
 
Kathleen would have killed for a
shot, but she was still on call.
 
Kilmara
topped up his tea, and the aroma of Irish whiskey filled the air.
 
He really did not know why anyone drank
Scotch.

"Your
patient, Hugo Fitzduane, is an anachronism," he said.
 
"The first Fitzduane to come to
Ireland
was a
Norman knight seven hundred years ago.
 
I
sometimes think Hugo has more in common with him than with the twentieth
century.
 
Hugo still lives in the family
castle and retains values like honor and duty and putting his life on the line
for causes he believes in and people he cares about."

Kathleen
leaned across and read Kilmara's name tag.
 
"And what's your connection with him, Colonel Kilmara?"

"He
served under me in the
Congo
,"
said Kilmara.
 
"You fight beside
somebody and you get to know what they are like.
 
We became friends.
 
Hugo left the army and became a combat
photographer and went from one hot spot to another, but we stayed in touch.
 
A few years ago, he decided he had had
enough, but then he ran into something pretty nasty on his own island.
 
It was a terrorist thing and he put an end to
it with a little help from my people.
 
There
was a lot of killing.
 
After it, he just
wanted to settle down in his castle and raise a family.
 
He is quite a gentle man at heart."

Kathleen
nodded, her mind going back to Fitzduane's desperation, then his transformation
when he realized his son was alive.
 
She
knew she was calloused by the day-to-day realities of her job, but she had been
touched by what she had seen.

"So he
has a wife?" she said.

Kilmara shook
his head.
 
"That didn't work
out," he said.
 
"Hugo looks
after Boots."

"And now
we come to the matter of why this gentle knight living in isolation off the
west coast of Ireland should be struck down by assassin's bullets," said
Kathleen.
 
"This was no training
accident."

"It was
no accident," agreed Kilmara.
 
"And I suspect it is no deep mystery, either.
 
The counterterrorist world is characterized
by action and reaction.
 
If you get
involved, you are always at risk.
 
I
think this is a simple revenge shooting for what happened three years ago.
 
These people thrive on vengeance."

Kathleen
shuddered.
 
"Warped
minds.
 
It's sick.
 
But it's been three years.
 
Why wait so long?"

Kilmara
shrugged.
 
"That we don't know as
yet.
 
But delayed revenge is more common
than not.
 
The target starts off taking
extensive precautions and being alert to every nuance.
 
And then time passes and he starts thinking
the threat is less likely and he lets his guard down a bit.
 
And so it goes.
 
And there is also the saying..."

"‘Revenge
is a dish best eaten cold,’" completed Kathleen.

"Just
so," said Kilmara.