Chapter Fifteen
It was a decreased drug cycle, and he was morosely contemplating
the prospect of the
next several hours, which promised to become much worse, when the
door opened and Rachel
slipped in.
She had been silently watching him on the monitor while her boss
was working on his
notes, thinking only that it was a pity such measures were
necessary, until she glanced up and
caught the look of avid enjoyment flitting across Morgan's face.
She wondered briefly, but thought
nothing more of it until she saw it happen several more times,
apparently all when he was also
watching her favorite patient. The queasiness she had been
experiencing off and on since the
combination drug experiments had started came back with a rush.
Muttering an excuse about
making rounds, she excused herself quickly, releasing a noiseless
breath of relief when Morgan
nodded without looking up from his papers.
Instead of the patient wing, however, she headed for the offices.
Once at the
transcriptionist's desk, she called up the computer notes on
Steve, only to shudder with revulsion
as she absorbed the full extent of Morgan's and Wyler's infamy.
After regaining control of her
nerves, she returned to the lab, where she told Morgan she would
close up shop for the night,
assuring him she would stay to keep an eye on "Mr.
Miller," and would call him if anything
noteworthy happened. She then managed to lower the speaker volume
level for Steve's room,
thinking that she was going to have to come up with some way of
obscuring the camera, and
quickly made her way there. She wasn't sure what she was going to
do next, but she was working
on it.
Steve's initial anxiety on hearing the door fled as he saw
Rachel's face, to be replaced
by an involuntary feeling of betrayal when he realized her hands
were unburdened by any alluring
silver needles. He dropped his head onto his raised knees so she
wouldn't see the need in his eyes.
Rachel stood there, irresolute. "Steve?" she asked
hesitantly.
She'd never called him by his first name. Intrigued in spite of
himself, he lifted his head
to peer at her curiously, noting her awkward stance; suddenly, he
realized she was trying to block
the camera, and sat up a little straighter. "You called me
Steve," he said, feeling a little foolish.
She nodded. "Steve, I'm so sorry. I didn't know what Morgan
was really doing -- your
chart's been doctored --"
"To reflect what I am now?" He sounded bitter.
"Life imitating truth or truth imitating
life?"
"Yes," she said simply, knowing she couldn't really
excuse her part in it. "And it says
your name is Steve Miller, and --"
"Forget about it," Steve interrupted. He waited with a
terrible patience as a particularly
severe wave of cramping rode through his body. "You know
otherwise," he added when he could
speak again.
It was a statement, not a question. She nodded again.
"Steve, I can't do anything about
the meds. I can't sneak you any methadone because Dr. Morgan's
monitoring you too closely.
Tell me how else I can help you." He winced as she mentioned
the narcotic. Even the sound of
the word called to him, fired that all-encompassing need, and it
was getting more and more
difficult to concentrate on anything else at all. His voice
strained, he said, "Rachel -- please, call
my father -- Mark Sloan -- and tell him where I am. He'll take
care of everything."
"Where --?"
He concentrated, hard. "He's the head of internal medicine
at Community General
Hospital in L.A. -- call him there, it's probably safer --"
"But --"
He grabbed her arm, of necessity with both hands. The blue eyes
did burn, she realized.
"All right, Steve. I promise." She squeezed his hand,
then ran to the door; on impulse, she turned
back, but he had already withdrawn into himself, huddling on the
cot, rocking slightly back and
forth to cope with the pain. She slipped out and sped down the
hall, back to the office, where she
yanked out the appropriate phone book, found the number, and
hurriedly dialed it.
"Community General. How may I direct your call?"
"Dr. Sloan, please," Rachel whispered, not daring to
speak any louder.
There was a brief pause, then the voice returned. "I'm
sorry, but he's not available. Dr.
Travis is taking his calls."
"Dr. Travis?" Rachel asked, starting to feel a little
hysterical.
"That's right, Dr. Jesse Travis. I'll connect you."
Before the hysteria became full-blown panic, she realized the
name sounded vaguely
familiar. Chasing down the memory, she succeeded in remembering
sitting with Steve and hearing
him mutter "Jesse" a few times in his less lucid
phases. Maybe it would be all right, she thought
anxiously. A young man came on the line, but he had no sooner
identified himself when she heard
footsteps farther down the hall. "Steve. Clinic.
Morgan," she blurted, and hung up, hoping it was
enough.
Chapter Sixteen
Jesse tore up the stairs to the beach house, not wanting to trust
the news to a phone.
"Mark!" he yelled, panting. "I've got
something!"
"Steve -- clinic -- Morgan," Mark repeated
thoughtfully. "But why did she call you?"
"She didn't!" Jesse announced triumphantly. "As
soon as she hung up, I checked with
the switchboard. Annie told me the woman asked for you
first." He looked smug, pleased with
himself.
"Have you ever heard of a Morgan Clinic?" Randy asked,
looking up from the discovery
motion she was drafting.
"No," Mark replied, "but that doesn't necessarily
mean one doesn't exist. And Morgan
could be a doctor's name. I think I'll look into this." He
pulled his laptop over and went online.
After a few minutes, he had narrowed the field down to three
doctors: a urologist ("Highly
unlikely," he commented); a chiropractor ("Don't think
so," contributed Jesse), and a psychiatrist,
one Frank Morgan, M.D. Mark's radar went into ultra-sensitive
mode. Tapping the laptop with
his finger, he stated, "Something tells me this is our
man."
Jesse looked dubious. "But we haven't run across him in any
of Wyler's papers, have
we?"
"Not yet," Mark answered, "but we've only
scratched the surface. At least now we can
do a cross-reference search." He picked up the phone and
dialed. "Cheryl? Mark Sloan. Here's
someone I'd like you to check out -- Frank no middle initial
Morgan, M.D. Psychiatrist. Born
1952, med school looks like somewhere in the Caribbean, 1977. Let
me know. Thanks." He
listened a few more minutes, thanked her again, and disconnected.
Amanda had entered in time to catch the last part of the
conversation. "What about a
Medline search on him?" she asked.
"That's a good idea," Mark commented. "We might
get a clue or two from what he's
published." He was soon searching the Medline archives.
"Hmmm. Seems to have done some very
promising work early on, on psychotropic drugs; then there's a
gap for a few years -- that's
strange --"
The others looked at him curiously as his voice trailed off.
"What is it, Mark?" Jesse
wanted to know. Mark raised his eyebrows. "Looks like he
went out on a limb a bit here in his
research. There's an article from two years ago promoting the
therapeutic value of phencyclidine."
"PCP?" Jesse asked in astonishment.
"Yes. There was a school of thought some years back that it
could be used beneficially
in treating manic depressive disorders, but the theory was
discarded after more thorough studies
indicated it did more harm than good. Apparently, Morgan
disagreed. Let's see here --" He surfed
for a few more minutes, then whistled.
Amanda leaned over his shoulder. "Looks like he got a little
too attached to his pet
ideas."
Mark nodded. "And attracted a lot of flak from some very big
psychiatric guns because
of it." He scrolled down, until suddenly his hand went
still. "I bet this is it."
"What?" Jesse demanded, craning his neck to see.
Mark's tone and face were grim. "His most recent submission
here involves combining
PCP with a variety of narcotic drugs, apparently with the goal of
reducing the paranoid
symptomatology. He specifically mentions methadone."
"Oh, my God," Randy's voice floated over from where she
was working. She stood up
and walked over to the table, bending over to peer at the screen.
"It's all my fault."
The trio stared at her in shock. "What are you talking
about, Randy?" Amanda asked.
Randy ran her hands through her hair. She had gone back to blonde
and pulled it up in
her usual fashion. "He promised he'd take it if I stopped
nagging him about it." Her listeners still
looked confused, so she explained. "He was in pain the night
before, but he wouldn't take any of
the meth Mark had given him. So I made him promise he'd keep it
with him the next day, just
in case. He must have still had it in his pocket when they caught
him." She sagged into a chair,
looking distressed. "It's my fault."
They were attempting to reassure her when the phone rang; Mark
snatched it up. "Mark
Sloan. Hi, Cheryl. There is? Good. No, not just yet. Let me work
on it. Okay. 'Bye." He
elaborated for his impatient listeners. "Cheryl found a
connection between Morgan and Wyler.
Apparently they both own stock in several small boutique
companies, a couple of which the Feds
have been successful in tracing to Wyler's operation. Since they
were only just starting to look
at those companies, they hadn't targeted Morgan. Yet. When Cheryl
did the specific search, the
hits came up." He looked at the notes he'd scribbled.
"He's got a clinic up near Fresno." Mark
looked up, hope blazing in his eyes. "That has to be it, but
we need to be sure before we have
the police go in."
Amanda gave him a shrewd look. "What do you have in mind,
Mark?"
"Jesse, didn't you do a rotation in psychiatry?"
The young doctor nodded. "Yeah. Lot of weird stuff. I
suppose I could toss the jargon
around if I had to."
Mark smiled the famous Sloan smile. "I think we should have
a bright young doctor with
a promising future investigate internship possibilities in
Fresno."
Chapter Seventeen
Dr. Morgan was in the observation lab when the intercom buzzed.
The monitor behind
him showed Steve Sloan, sleeping fitfully. "Doctor, a Dr.
Travis is here to see you." Morgan
surfaced from his concentration. "Oh, yes, the one inquiring
about an internship. I'll be there
shortly."
Jesse was wandering slowly around Morgan's office, examining the
various journals,
collectibles and other items stacked almost compulsively neatly
everywhere. He turned as the door
opened. "Hi! I'm Jesse Travis!" he beamed, sticking out
a hand.
"Frank Morgan. Sit down, make yourself comfortable." He
settled into his desk chair.
"What interests you in my clinic specifically?"
"Well," Jesse said engagingly, "I've done some
research on you, and I think the work
you're doing has a lot of merit, and I'd like to learn more about
it."
Amused, Morgan inquired, "How did you get interested in this
area?"
Jesse grinned at him broadly. "Started as a fraternity
brothers' discussion on the merits
of various mind-altering substances; I won't go into details as
to why it started --"
Morgan laughed. "Got you. Go on."
"Well," the young doctor continued, "the next
thing I knew, I was defending using them
for medical purposes. Then, the more I thought about it, the more
sense it made." His smile grew
even more self-deprecating, if such was humanly possible.
Morgan smirked back at him, vanity duly stroked. "How about
a tour, young man?"
"This is my observation lab," Morgan stated, waving a
hand at the various monitor
screens. A pretty brown-haired nurse stood frowning at one of
them. As Jesse glanced at her, he
could have sworn that her hand lifted very casually and sprayed
something on the screen, but,
when he blinked, she didn't seem to have moved at all. He filed
that thought away and
concentrated on Morgan's discourse. "We can monitor as
closely as necessary; some of our
patients are on very precise regimens." The doctor put a
hand on the nurse's arm and drew her
closer. "Let me introduce one of our invaluable nurses,
Rachel Pauling. She's the patients'
favorite, hands down. Rachel, this is Dr. Jesse Travis. He's
looking into doing an internship with
us."
Somehow, she managed to avoid dropping anything, and she hoped to
God she hadn't
revealed anything in her expression. She thought furiously while
she shook the newcomer's hand
and made polite noises. She had to find a way to get him alone
and into Steve's room, especially
now that she had been able to smear up the monitor enough to
obscure the images somewhat. Now
all she needed was a distraction.
Luck for once hadn't taken the day off. Her eye caught frenetic
movement on another
screen. "Doctor, Mr. Collins --"
Morgan glanced at the screen and swore. "Jesse, you're going
to have to excuse me.
Rachel, how about you give him the rest of the tour?" He
started off. "Meet me back in my office
when you're done, my boy, and we'll talk."
Jesse smiled broadly at the attractive nurse. This was great --
except now he was getting
the distinct impression that she was extremely nervous about
something. He made an incredible
intuitive leap. "You're the woman who called, aren't
you?"
She nodded and grabbed his arm. "Come on." She led him
down the hall, and yet another
one, before stopping at a door. She paused before opening it.
"There's something you should
know."
The blond doctor, who had seemed so young moments earlier, looked
at her with kind
eyes far older than his years. "It's all right, Ms. Pauling.
It's been almost three months, after all."
Even so, he was not quite prepared for what he saw. Steve was
sprawled on the bed,
hobbled arms outflung, weariness and resignation evident in the
lines of his body. He was shaking
intermittently. He had lost weight; there were deep hollows above
the scruffy beard, and his face
was all sharp planes and angles. The prominent jaw was like a
knife edge. Jesse thought he could
see ribs under the grimy T-shirt. Shocked, he said the first
thing that came into his head. "My
God, don't they even get clean clothes?" He dropped to his
knees and felt for his friend's wrist.
Steve's pulse was threadier than he would have liked, his
breathing uneven, but until he had a
clear idea of what kind of junk had been pumped into his friend's
system --
He must have muttered something along those lines, because Rachel
said defensively,
"He's been a bit -- difficult lately." As Jesse,
forgetting momentarily that she was on Steve's side,
turned, eyes blazing, she snapped, "You don't understand.
Morgan's had him on a virtual drug
seesaw; off the drugs, on them, back off again. It's all I can do
to get him calm at all, much less
do things like shave him when he insists, even though he can't
stop shaking while I'm trying to
do it. Clean shirts tend to become optional."
Mouth open to retort, Jesse felt Steve flinch uncontrollably at
the sharp tone, and softened
his own voice accordingly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
imply you were -- well, you know," he
stammered, flustered. The expression on her face as she stared
down at his best friend spoke
volumes. He wrenched his gaze away from her stricken face and
turned his attention to the man
on the bed. "Steve? Steve, it's Jesse. Can you hear
me?" He reached to check the supine man's
eyes, when another tremor ran through the thin body, and Steve
moved his head, coughed, and
opened his eyes, to stare in befuddlement at the apparition
leaning over him.
"Steve?"
A hoarse voice Jesse had feared he would never hear again
croaked, "Oh, God. Bad
enough I'm seeing people who aren't there -- now I'm hearing them
too." He closed his eyes
wearily.
Jesse tried again. "Steve, it's really me. Come on, wake up.
We don't have much time."
He put a hand on Steve's arm and shook it gently.
The bruised eyelids fluttered open tiredly, and clouded blue eyes
blinked at the young
doctor. "Jess?" The raspy voice cracked, and Jesse's
throat ached in sympathy. "God help me.
Jesse. I'm not hallucinating, am I?"
"No, Steve," Jesse answered, a little thickly.
"Look, Mark sent me up to check Morgan
out because we thought he might know something. We weren't sure
you were here. But I'm going
to bust you out of here now."
He started to rise, but Steve's hands pulled at him. "No,
Jess." He struggled to sit up,
an awkward process which was painful to watch. Jesse grabbed at
him and helped him to lean
back, shocked at how easy it was for him to manhandle his larger
friend. Steve was panting as
if he'd run a marathon and shaking uncontrollably. "Jesse,
listen to me. Rachel's right. Morgan
keeps flipflopping the drugs. I don't know how long I've got
before this time gets really bad, and
there's no way you could get me past the mountain and his
pals."
Jesse frowned, alarmed by references to mountains with friends
and what "really bad"
meant, considering Steve's current condition. He got a grip on
himself. "Steve --"
"No, Jess. I don't have the strength. Go home, get help,
come back. I'm obviously not
going anywhere." He sounded exhausted.
Jesse contemplated his friend, then glanced up at Rachel.
"You'll take care of him?"
She nodded, biting her lip.
Still unhappy about the decision, Jesse pressed on. "Can you
at least get those things off
of him?" he asked, indicating Steve's restraints. Rachel
started to answer, but Steve stopped her.
"Leave it, Jess, please," he said tiredly. "I
don't want to attract Morgan's attention if I don't have
to." He reached for Jesse's arm; the young doctor gripped
the gloved hands and said huskily,
"Hang in there, buddy. We'll get you through this and out of
here."
The man on the bed slowly let out his breath, willing taut
muscles to relax. It didn't
work. "I believe you, Jess. Just don't wait too long. Much
as I adore Rachel's company, I want
to go home." Despite his best efforts otherwise, his voice
cracked again on the last few words,
and Jesse found himself blinking suddenly moist eyes. "We
won't, Steve. We'll be back for you.
I swear."
The cramps were getting worse, and he didn't want Jesse to see.
"Thanks, Jess." He
closed his eyes, suddenly spent. "Tell Dad -- tell them all
I love them."
Rachel tugged Jesse out, and they made quick arrangements for
contacting each other.
Then he returned to Morgan's office and thanked him for his time.
"I'll run this by my adviser,
and he'll be in touch," Jesse stated, thinking wryly that
this dubious statement actually came pretty
close to the truth, and, to use his vernacular, hauled major
convertible butt down the road home.
Chapter Eighteen
He would have expected the knowledge that he hadn't been dropped
in a hole and buried
out of all worldly ken would have helped him handle the
increasingly more frequent attacks of
nausea and cramps, given him something positive on which to
focus. One would have thought,
he mused bitterly, that it would have made the pain easier to
tolerate. His abused body insisted
otherwise, as yet another violent fit shuddered through him. His
response to each successive
episode of methadone deprivation was getting worse.
He looked up hopefully as Rachel came in, then had to avert his
gaze from the tray she
carried. Food was definitely not in the picture. She noticed his
discomfort and put the tray down
as far out of sight as possible. "Steve?" she ventured
softly.
"Mmm?"
She perched next to him, ostensibly checking his vitals.
"What will happen when your
friend returns?" she asked, still too quietly to be picked
up by the monitoring system.
He grimaced. "Hopefully, no one will get hurt. I go home and
try to put myself back
together again. Go back to my life -- and my job -- try to build
them back again --"
"With Miranda," she guessed.
His jaw muscles tightened, not only from the physical pain.
"Randy. If she still wants
me." His gaze dropped to his hands in their Siamese twin
approximation. "I don't know that I
would --" he broke off, gasping, as a particularly vicious
wave of nausea swept through him.
Rachel wasn't sure what to say. Somehow, despite her firm
resolve, her need to keep him
at arms' length had evaporated. "She cares for you?"
she asked, wondering why they had never
discussed the subject, even after Wyler and Solario had finally
lost interest in pursuing the matter
of Steve's wife.
"I -- I don't know anymore. It's been so long --"
Diverted, he gave her a startled look.
"How long have I been here, anyway?"
She debated whether to tell him, and how to tell him.
"Almost three months," she said
finally.
There was a silence, potent and heavy. She waited, watching him
spread and curl his
fingers, as if by habit, not paying any attention to his hands.
Finally, he spoke. "Three months."
His voice was remote. The hands clenched and stayed that way, the
cloth stretched tautly across
the big knuckles. "Three months caged in here, Morgan's
trained rat. Give me a needle and watch
me run." The bitterness was overwhelming; Rachel's chest
hurt in sympathy. He lifted his arms
and stared at the material securing his wrists. "I tried
every way I could think of to get rid of
these, even trying to bite through them, did you know that,
Rachel?" His mouth twisted as he
turned back to look her in the eyes. "And do you know how
often I finally fell asleep, if you can
call it that, thinking of my wife -- and woke dreaming of
you?"
Hand to her mouth, she stared at him, speechless. He didn't seem
to notice her reaction.
"I can even understand the logic behind these things,"
he continued, studying his hands. "Plenty
of times I would have ripped my own guts out thanks to Morgan's
nasty little obsession." He was
mumbling now, the words harder and harder to understand. Rachel
leaned closer, and let out a
startled gasp as he grabbed her arms. "Rachel, promise me --
when they come -- you'll give me
whatever's necessary to get me on my feet so I can take Morgan
out myself." He fixed those
burning eyes on her; she felt like a paralyzed rabbit. "I
have to --"
A fresh torrent of pain slammed through him; the onslaught left
him panting and
swearing, totally distracted from his previous train of thought.
The desire for the drug was
merciless. He could taste it, feel it, touch it almost; his world
was rapidly shrinking down into
one crystal clear need. Sweating, he subsided onto the bed,
shivering. Rachel reached over and
brushed the hair from his forehead, wondering how she had gotten
herself into this predicament.
Her beeper went off but, before she could even check it, he had
grabbed her arm again with a
grip like a vise. "Rachel. Please -- don't go, stay with
me."
The blue eyes didn't burn; they swallowed her alive. "I'll
stay," she whispered.
Chapter Nineteen
A tiny beeping, like an electronic gnat, roused her. She realized
with a small shock that
she had drifted off for a while, sitting there on the bed,
although her hand was still automatically
stroking his hair. He slept like one dead, head in her lap, both
gloved hands hanging grimly on
to her other hand. A twist of her head gave her a view of the
pager. Sighing, she dislodged Steve
gently but firmly, rubbed her eyes, and slipped out to answer the
call.
She faced a furious Morgan nervously, perspiration starting to
trickle down her back.
"What the hell were you doing?" he raged. "I've
been paging you for over an hour!"
"I'm sorry, Doctor," she stammered. "I was so
tired, I dropped off for a little while and
didn't realize it."
He opened his mouth to shout at her, but paused, starting to pace
in a small, tight circle.
"You've been with me a long time, Rachel," he said
suddenly, making her jump. She said
nothing, afraid to speak. "You've always helped me
unquestioningly, provided me unconditional,
invaluable support," he continued, still pacing.
Oh, no. He was going to fire her, before she could see this
through. How was she going
to convince him to change his mind? She opened her mouth and
closed it again as he held up a
cautionary hand. "I realize that it's difficult sometimes to
keep from caring too much about your
patients," Morgan went on, "but you have to realize
it's for your own safety."
Stung to speech finally by his condescension, she retorted,
"They trust me -- more than
they trust you. They can tell I have their welfare at
heart!"
"Unlike me?" he asked sarcastically. "I'm sure the
Board of Health would remember that
if and when you ever found yourself the subject of an unethical
practices review, wouldn't you
agree?"
She stared at him, aghast. "You'd pull me down with you,
wouldn't you?"
He snickered, then seized her arm and pulled her close to him, no
humor in his eyes.
"You've been with me too long, Rachel. You belong to me, not
to some drug addict ex-cop who
doesn't know enough to keep his nose out of other people's
business." His grip tightened as she
instinctively tried to pull away. "I'm reassigning you. You
won't be taking care of Miller any
more."
In her fury and her fear for Steve, she forgot all caution.
"Miller?" she inquired,
emphasizing the name heavily.
Morgan's face started to purple. "Just how much do you
know?"
"I know his name's not Miller!" she snarled. She tried
again to pull away, but his grip
was too strong. "You bitch," he said quietly,
menacingly, grabbing for her mouth as she opened
it to scream for help. She bit him; the next moment, her vision
went black as he swung a fist and
connected, hard.
He stared down at her where she lay crumpled on the floor. She
was still breathing, but
it looked like he had broken her jaw. She could have ruined
everything, he thought; suddenly
furious, he started kicking.
Chapter Twenty
Steve paid little attention to the door when it opened. After
all, the options for any
surprises were fairly limited. Nevertheless, he was startled when
Morgan came in with only the
mountain in tow. "Where's Rachel?" he asked blurrily,
as the attendant unbuttoned his sleeve.
"She's dealing with a crisis," the doctor answered
shortly. Steve digested that for a
moment, wondering why he was feeling a small flicker of alarm. He
persisted anyway. "She'll
come later?" he asked hopefully.
Morgan slanted him a quick glance, then returned his attention to
the syringe he was
preparing. "Depends," he said, holding it up. The flash
of metal caught Steve's attention; despite
himself, his eyes fixed on it and refused to budge as he hungrily
watched it approach, until he
became aware of Morgan's avid gaze. He tore his eyes away with an
effort and tried to project
indifference, but he doubted he was particularly convincing.
Morgan smirked and injected him
with the solution; then, suddenly, coldly furious with the man
who had suborned his best nurse,
he added, "You won't be worrying about her for a while in
any event."
Even though his perceptive abilities had been dulled
significantly by Morgan's brutal
concept of drug therapy, he instinctively knew that something was
wrong, and danger lay ahead.
He debated whether to respond, finally opting to keep his mouth
shut, until Morgan stepped back
and ordered, "Lie back on the bed."
The worrisome itch started to smolder into a three-alarm fire.
"Why?" Steve asked, no
longer sure silence was wise. He watched, fascinated, as a muscle
started to jump in the doctor's
jaw, until a sudden unexpected movement from the mountain slammed
him onto his back. Shocked
and winded, with the added disadvantage of the huge hand pressing
him down, he was totally
unprepared to discover that the padding in the bed contained
similarly padded restraints, at chest,
elbows, knees and ankles. "What the hell is this?" he
growled, as the nausea from the drug
mixture started to hit.
Morgan loomed over him. "It's for your own protection,
Miller."
Steve stared at him in disbelief. "That's what you said
about these things," he objected,
trying to wave his hands.
Morgan's expression was not pleasant. "If my theory is
correct, you're not going to want
to be too mobile." He leaned down to ensure that Steve could
hear him. "And you won't be seeing
Rachel any more."
This was too much. Steve lunged uselessly against the padding.
"What the hell did you
do to her, you bastard?" Morgan's startled reaction was not
encouraging. "Where is she?" Steve
snarled, not giving up on his attempts to free himself. He winced
as the mountain placed a hand
on his chest and pushed.
Morgan had had enough. "She's been reassigned. Flores here
--" (Flores? Steve thought
crazily, what an incredibly inappropriate name for the gargantuan
goon) "will be taking care of
you, assuming you survive today's regimen." He turned on his
heel and stalked out. Flores the
mountain tendered a toothy grin and followed.
After several more fruitless attempts to break loose, Steve
finally conceded defeat. The
restraints were unbreakable. He was also starting to feel
extremely disoriented, and the violent
movements weren't helping any. Neither was the stone in his chest
when he thought of Rachel.
He had had no right to involve her; he should have been able to
cope with his own ambiguous
feelings for her without putting her in harm's way. The last
thought he remembered, before he
slid through a spiraling chasm of confusion into a nightmare
world, was that it was all his fault.
Chapter Twenty-One
He surfaced finally, shaking with pain and rage. His throat was
raw, he assumed from
screaming; the memory of the earlier hallucinations alone was
enough to make him violently ill.
Somehow, he had made it through them, even though he recognized
absently that he had locked
the man who had survived the recent technicolor horror away in a
small place in his mind. Slowly
taking in the dreadfully familiar white walls, he realized that
his loathing for Morgan had
deepened into a icy, violent hatred. The doctor had better hope
he had plenty of protection if Steve
was ever able to get free. Temporarily forgetting his inability
to tear loose earlier, he strained
once more, until the tightening bands reminded him. Coldly,
analytically, his mind frighteningly
clear, he began to consider his options.
Returning to the observation lab after a short break, Morgan
glanced at the monitor
showing his star patient and stroked his beard thoughtfully.
Something wasn't right. The monitor
showed Steve lying quietly, eyes closed, but something about the
quality of his stillness betrayed
the tautness of his body, an almost fierce concentration on rest,
and which made the hairs rise on
the back of the doctor's neck. Curiously, Morgan checked the
readouts from the monitoring
system in the restraints themselves (a notion he had had when
designing them), and his trepidation
increased. The chart showed a great deal of disturbance earlier,
which apparently coincided with
the duration of Steve's latest drug experience, but the
subsequent readings disturbed him. Steve
wasn't sleeping; his vitals were far too quiet for the type of
turmoil which Morgan would have
expected to show on the monitors. He drummed his fingers on the
table, contemplating the main
screen pensively.
His ruminations were interrupted by a voice from the intercom.
"Dr. Morgan? I have the
oscillator calibrated." Morgan cheered up. This should be
interesting. "Thanks, Jonathan. Make
sure the room is set up; we'll be using it soon." He
returned to his scrutiny of Steve's readings,
debating what kind of mixture he wanted to utilize next. Rachel's
defection had made him
nervous. It might be time to accelerate the study, if for no
other reason than to ensure that
Lieutenant Sloan deteriorated to the point where he would no
longer be a viable threat. He
punched the intercom and spoke briefly, then addressed his
attention to the matter of the drug
solution.
Steve watched dispassionately as the door opened. Maybe now,
maybe later, as far as he
was concerned, Morgan's control of the situation was coming to an
end. He had not reached this
epiphany easily; it had been necessary for him to confront and
subdue a demon he hadn't known
he possessed. The old Steve might never have had an opportunity
to make its acquaintance. The
new Steve, having been forced to acknowledge its existence, had
resolved not only to learn from
it but ultimately master it. A trace of the initial struggle and
its result must have shown in his
eyes, because Morgan felt the proverbial goose walk over his
grave as he entered the room. He
shook it off as excess paranoia. What did he seriously expect
Sloan to do under the circumstances?
The voice from the bed was cold. "I'm not done with the last
dose yet, thank you. Go
away."
The doctor stared at his impertinent patient in amazement. Sloan
should still have been
semi-coherent at best. The goose wandered back the way it had
come. He determined to ignore
it, and signaled to Flores. "Get him out of there, secure
him, and bring him to Lab 3." He turned
towards the man on the bed. "I hadn't planned on your being
quite this lucid for this experiment,
but it may actually enhance your experience. Try not to annoy
Flores so much that he has to cause
you any undue discomfort."
Steve sneered at him and gave the mountain a bright, insincere
smile. "Flores, old buddy,
old pal. Where are we going?"
Morgan needn't have worried. Steve was not concerned with anyone
or anything except
Morgan's hide, and, to get to it, he was quite willing to
cooperate with the big attendant. He
didn't resist as Flores released him, even when the muffles came
off, to be replaced by leather
cuffs connected by a length of chain, and secured his ankles in a
similar fashion. Nor did he
object when Flores nudged him towards the door, partially holding
him upright and guiding his
wobbly steps. He hoped the mountain was disappointed.
Lab 3 was a stark, sparsely furnished room divided by a
double-thick plexiglas partition
stretching across most of the room. One side housed an
utilitarian chair with arms. The other
contained a couple of folding chairs, a desk, and what looked
like a projector sitting on a table.
Flores pushed him through the more densely populated section
towards the other side.
Despite the big man's prodding, Steve stopped at the partition,
reluctant to go any farther.
Something about the room and the chair, innocuous though they
seemed, made his skin crawl.
Flores took his refusal to move personally, shoved him inside the
room and into the chair hard,
waking memories of earlier painful encounters with the big man's
fists, and secured the shackles
to it. Closing his eyes, Steve concentrated on the ice demon.
Morgan wasn't going anywhere, and
neither was he. There was plenty of time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There were moments during the subsequent interval when he found
himself grimly
hanging onto that thought. From Morgan's expression while he
administered the injection, and the
way it burned as it took effect, he surmised he had received a
hefty amount of PCP, apparently
more than usual. Why they were performing their experiment here
rather than in his little white
home away from home was less clear. At least, it was until the
lights in the room started getting
weird, and images started traveling across the walls at varying
speeds and irregular intervals. For
not the first time during his captivity, Steve briefly regretted
not having indulged in the usual
mind-altering substances available during his misspent youth;
otherwise he might have had some
frame of reference as to what to expect.
When he finally came to himself, the room was dark. He moved
uncontrollably, and
discovered red heat where his wrists had rubbed raw patches from
the straps. He smiled slightly,
wryly, oddly grateful for the pain; without it, he had come
dangerously close to wandering away
from reality altogether. As it was, it took him several minutes
to recreate the sense of self
hovering on the brink of shattering, to reforge in it that same
icy chill he had embraced earlier
for survival. It was ironic, he thought; his encounter with
enlightenment had actually brought him
a certain degree of it. He knew as definitely as he could feel
the pain in his wrists that he was
going to get out of there, and he was taking Morgan with him.
Unaware of his patient's plan for his future, Dr. Morgan was
nevertheless startled by the
clarity in Steve's eyes as he examined him. Obviously, he was
going to have to increase the
methadone. "Get him out of here," he ordered,
displeased by the results of the experiment.
There was no point in fighting the mountain, although Steve
winced as the straps briefly
pulled tightly against his wrists while Flores released him from
the chair. He stood still
momentarily, getting his bearings. Flores was standing behind
him, and Morgan had started out
of the room. Steve took a surreptitious step, and then another,
away from the big man and called
out to the doctor. "Hey, doc!"
Morgan turned reluctantly as Steve edged towards him as much as
he dared without
arousing suspicion. "What do you want?" he asked
disagreeably.
"I just want to know," Steve started to say, then
deliberately let his eyes slide toward the
doctor's left side, as if someone was there, as he pretended to
cough. Unbelievably, the doctor
fell for it, and Steve, summoning up reserves which he wasn't
totally sure were there, fell on him.
Before either Morgan or Flores could react, Steve had the doctor
literally by the throat. "You
should have had him replace those muffle things," he panted
triumphantly. "I couldn't have done
any damage with them." He yanked on the chain slightly, and
Morgan gurgled in protest, clawing
at it uselessly. "But this -- it doesn't matter how much
strength I do or don't have -- I don't really
need much, do I?" He yanked again to prove his point,
ignoring the doctor's reaction.
There was a brief, pregnant silence, while Steve considered his
options and the others
waited to hear them. Finally, he said, "All right. This is
what's going to happen, Morgan. You
and I are going to move this way, very, very, very carefully
towards the door, and no one is
going to get in the way. When we get outside, we're going to go
to your car, very carefully, same
rule applying to anyone we find out there. Then you're going to
give me the key for these things."
"Let me guess," Morgan sneered. "Put them on
myself, and let you drive us to the
nearest police station?"
Irritated, Steve retorted, "Something like that."
"And if I don't, you practice choking me, is that it?"
Steve was rapidly tiring of Morgan's tone. "Funny, I don't
see any inherent flaw."
Morgan waved his hand. "Actually, there are two. One is the
fact that there is more PCP
in your system than you realize, and you're not thinking very
clearly."
Steve laughed derisively. "You've been shooting me full of
the stuff for the last three
months -- why should a little more be a problem?"
Morgan was silent a moment. "Then there's number two."
"Enlighten me," Steve said with heavy sarcasm.
"What you don't know, obviously," replied the doctor,
"is that we have a contingency
plan for this sort of thing. While you were expounding on your
plan, our own immediately went
into effect. There are armed guards on the other side of that
door, and behind those skylights,
ready to take you out as soon as the opportunity arises. I'm sure
you're familiar with the
methodology." He tried to swallow, but Steve's grip was too
tight. "If you're lucky, it'll only be
a tranquilizer dart; only half of the guards use bullets, and
they try to avoid firing if possible. But
I can't promise anything."
The last part of his speech was a little ragged, as Steve
instinctively sought the security
of a wall against his back, hauling Morgan with him. "All
right, then," he growled, "we'll wait.
See how long it takes for my arms to get tired." He wasn't
sure what he was going to do next,
but this would at least buy him some time to think.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Captain Newman glanced up, then groaned inwardly as he received a
visitation from
Mark and Jesse. Cheryl came in behind them, excitement gleaming
in her eyes. "Doctors. What
can I do for you today?"
Mark got right to the point. "We've located Steve. He's
being held at the Morgan Clinic
outside Fresno."
Newman reached for the phone. "I'll alert the local
authorities, and we'll have him out
of there fast. Is Morgan tied to Wyler?"
"Yes," Mark said, "and we need to be careful.
There are legitimate patients and medical
personnel there, a nurse Pauling in particular." He was
clearly itching to get on the road.
"All right," the captain replied. He pressed buttons
and spoke briefly with a junior
officer, then soon had a conference call involving his FBI
counterpart on the Wyler investigation
as well as the Fresno County sheriff on the line. Within minutes,
the rescue force was on its way.
En route, Newman received a call from the sheriff. "Thanks,
George. Guess we'll find
out more when we get there." He elaborated for the benefit
of the others. "There's something
going down at the clinic. The sheriff said it sounded like a
hostage situation, but he hadn't gotten
there yet and didn't know much. Just that the place was in
lockdown, and he'd make sure we were
allowed inside."
Mark and Jesse exchanged worried looks. Hopefully, the lockdown
had nothing to do
with Steve, and they would be able to liberate him without any
additional difficulty. Somehow,
though, they both knew they were engaging in substantial wishful
thinking.
Chapter Twenty-Four
And, smack dab in the middle of the trouble, Steve was getting
tired, sore, hungry, and
extremely irritable. His wrists and shoulders burned, wrists from
the shackles and shoulders from
the strain of keeping Morgan on a choke hold. He had found a
position which put less strain on
the higher arm, although he would still have vastly preferred to
be somewhere else altogether. He
tugged on the chain briefly, eliciting a satisfying squawk from
Morgan; he was damned if the
doctor was going to be less uncomfortable than he was.
The deputy with the bull horn who had been annoying him for the
past fifteen minutes
or so read his evidently prepared text into it again.
"Release the hostage and give yourself up
before anyone gets hurt," he droned sonorously and
repetitively.
What a moron, Steve thought in irritation. I hope I don't sound
that brainless when I'm
handling this type of situation. He resolved to be a little more
sympathetic to the nuances of
language, and possibly even the perp, during his next hostage
crisis. In the meantime, he wished
fervently that someone would confiscate the bull horn, which was
essentially superfluous anyway.
The deputy was in the next room, and the walls were paper thin.
Steve would have heard him
even if he had whispered. He raised his own voice anyway.
"The only way I'll come out is with
this scumbag coming with me, and the only person to whom I'll
surrender is Jim Newman,
LAPD. Get him here, and maybe we'll talk."
Following the sheriff to the incident scene, an already perplexed
Captain Newman heard
his name being yelled out by a voice he hadn't heard since he'd
told its owner in no uncertain
terms to stay home until his knee mended. "Sloan, what in
the name of all that's holy is going
on?" he bellowed.
Chaos ensued. Stunned, Steve relaxed his grip for a second,
enough for Morgan to yell
something inarticulate at Flores. From the corner of his eye,
Steve saw the mountain start to
approach, and instinctively flinched away, yanking on the chain.
Just as instinctively, Morgan
leaned back with the chain instead of forward against it, and
drove both elbows as suddenly and
viciously as possible into Steve's ribs. The resulting distance
between them as Steve winced back
was enough. Just as Newman and company burst through the door,
they heard the sound of
automatic rifle shots, and Steve went down, pulling the doctor
with him. Flores was there
immediately, freeing the doctor, who, when the big man would have
turned on Steve and pounded
him to a pulp, grabbed him and whispered something in his ear.
Flores nodded; moving
unbelievably quickly for such a big man, he disappeared from the
room, his exit unnoticed as the
new arrivals began to take charge.
Jesse managed to arrive first where Steve lay half-conscious,
blood puddling beneath him
onto the floor. His right arm was a mess, but he smiled at Jesse
serenely. "Hey, Jess. Couldn't
miss out on the fun, huh?"
Jesse made himself return the smile. "You know it, big guy.
Now try to relax while I do
something about this bleeding." A shadow fell over Steve's
body, and the injured man glanced up,
eyes beginning to tighten with pain. "Dad?" he said in
disbelief, his voice betraying him.
Mark dropped to his knees next to his stricken son. "Steve
-- son --" His throat failed
outright, and he reached for the good hand, thinking the boy
needed a hospital, and fast.
Steve Sloan clutched his father's hand. It was obviously real.
"Dad," he repeated, and
gave him a singularly sweet smile. "Can I go home now?"
Mark found his voice somehow. "Yes, son, it's all
over." He watched his son smile
slowly again and lapse into unconsciousness with a sigh like a
sick child. "You're going home."
End Part II
Part III: Coming soon
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