Chapter 29
Rad slowly became aware of light against his eyelids and the muffled sound of someone moving around the room. He moved his fingers and felt sheets but could tell he was not in his own bed.
When he finally mustered the strength to open his eyes, a young woman stood over him, smiling.
“Are you awake?”
Rad blinked and tried to focus his vision on the speaker. He wanted to speak but found an impenetrable wall between will and action.
“I’m Donna. You’re at Walter Reed. Do you remember how you got here?”
Rad stared over her shoulder blankly a moment without responding, trying to clear his head from the hazy images that seemed caught in a sticky web.
“Lauren,” he finally said.
When there was no response from the nurse, his gaze drifted back to her.
“Lauren,” he repeated. “Where?”
“Is that your wife?” The nurse sounded confused. “I’m sure she’s been contacted.”
Rad closed his eyes in order to summon the strength to talk. “On the chopper.” He ran his tongue over his dry lips and swallowed. “Rescued. Where is she?”
“Radcliff, I see you’ve finally decided to rejoin the living.”
Rad turned his head painfully and watched a good-looking blonde with a folder in her hand and a stethoscope hanging around her neck walk into the room.
“I’m Dr. Bradley. Lindsey Bradley. How ya feeling?”
Rad ignored the warm greeting. “Lauren. She okay?”
“Hello or nice to meet you might be a more appropriate way to greet someone who’s been working night and day to save your life.” The woman’s tone was gentle even if her words were not. She reached for his wrist and proceeded to take his pulse.
Rad struggled to sit up. “Is she okay? Was she hit?”
“Whoa, cowboy.” Dr. Bradley put a restraining hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. Looking up over her glasses she asked the nurse, “Is he talking about his wife or what?”
The nurse shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Rad’s hands curled into fists as he looked from one to the other. “What the hell is going on?”
Dr. Bradley kept her hand on his arm and sat down in the chair beside him. When she leaned in, he caught the faint scent of her perfume. “You’re pretty heavily sedated Radcliff. Maybe you’re a little mixed up.”
Rad bristled at the insinuation as she bent over with a stethoscope and listened to his heart and lungs. “Why am I here?”
Dr. Bradley remained silent a moment as she finished checking his vitals. Then she leaned back in her chair. “You were hit in the thigh with a bullet that ripped you apart to the bone and ruptured your femoral artery. You subsequently almost bled to death on the hop.”
Without thinking, Rad reached down to feel his leg, to make sure it was still there.
“Yes, we saved it,” Dr. Bradley said. “But it was touch and go for a while.”
“How long?”
“How long, what?”
“How long have I been here?”
“You spent a day in a field hospital getting stabilized, then went to Germany where you had your first surgery.” She paused a moment, seeming to study his blank stare. “And you’ve been here about ten days.”
Rad focused his attention on her. “Ten days?” He struggled to sit up again. “Where’s Lauren?”
Dr. Bradley pushed him back down and sighed heavily. “Tell me who Lauren is.”
Rad winched at the pain induced when he turned his head fully toward her, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “She was on the chopper with me.”
He watched Dr. Bradley make eye contact with the nurse, then lower her gaze to the folder she carried.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no record of any other injured combatants coming in with you.”
Rad closed his eyes and tried again to clear his groggy mind. Maybe it is a drug-induced dream. Maybe she hasn’t been rescued at all. Maybe…
But then he remembered holding her in his arms, running to the helicopter, the pain when he was hit. It had to be real.
Rad moved his attention to the doctor again and studied her intently. Was she lying? Was she afraid to tell him the truth? He reached out and touched her arm. “Level with me. Is she dead?”
The doctor still did not raise her gaze to meet his. “Here’s something.” She appeared to be reading from the file. “It says here you were injured in a routine live-fire training accident.”
Rad’s eyes widened. “Training accident?”
He took a deep breath as he grasped two reasons why that would be placed in his chart. Either Lauren Cantrell survived the ordeal and the government didn’t want anyone to know the rescue had taken place—or she had not and they wanted to make it appear she had never existed. His pulse began pounding in his ears as he thought about the latter, and then a machine beside his bed started beeping with an alarm that surpassed the loudness and intensity of his throbbing heart.
“I need to talk to my CO,” he said impatiently.
“You need to calm down is what you need to do.” Dr. Bradley nodded to the nurse who pushed a button on the machine, silencing the alarm. “See what you’re doing to yourself?”
“I need to talk to my CO,” Rad repeated. When there was no response, he reached up and wrapped his fingers around the doctor’s wrist. “Right away.”
Dr. Bradley gave him a serious and sympathetic smile. “Okay. As soon as you wake up.”
He blinked in confusion. “I am awake.”
“You won’t be in another few minutes.” She nodded to the nurse who stood near his IV bag with a syringe.
“No! No! Don’t!” The sound of his voice made his head pound like it was in a torture device and caused the machine to start beeping again.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Bradley said, “but you’re scheduled for another surgery on your leg. In the meantime, I’ll look into the missing Lauren.”
Rad thought by the tone of her voice she knew more than she was admitting, but he had no time to dwell on it. He fought with every ounce of strength to combat the effect of the drug, but it was no use. He looked up pleadingly at the nurse, then at the empty syringe, and remembered nothing more.
Rad lay in his bed two days later staring at the ceiling when he heard someone enter the room.
“Did you have a nice talk with your CO?” Dr. Bradley said the words lightly as if the two of them were friends who had known each other for years.
Rad shrugged. “I guess.”
“I take it he couldn’t tell you anything.”
“Nothing I didn’t already know.”
Dr. Bradley sighed and sat down. “I’m sorry about the other day. The surgery was scheduled. There was nothing I could do.”
Rad didn’t respond.
“Well, look what I brought you.” She stood and pushed the wheelchair a little closer to the bed. “I thought a nice spin in the courtyard would do you good.”
“A wheelchair?” Rad stared at it for a moment, and then raised his gaze to meet hers. “No thank you.”
Dr. Bradley shook her head. “Look, superman. Your leg was blown apart and you basically bled out on the way here, so no need to feel like a weakling for sitting in a wheelchair for a few weeks.”
Rad just turned away. He was tired of arguing with her. All he wanted to do was get out of the hospital so he could start looking for Lauren. McDunna had promised him he was doing everything in his power to find her, but Rad wanted to do more.
“Your chart says you’re not eating much.”
Rad didn’t know if she was trying to make conversation or actually wanted to discuss his eating habits. “Maybe it should tell you I’m not hungry.”
When he looked up at her silence, she was biting her lip.
“I’m trying to make you better so you can get out of here.”
“Here’s an idea.” He turned his head away and stared at the ceiling as he talked. “If I could get out of here, I would probably eat—and then I would feel better.”
“Radcliff, if you think I’m going to partake in your pity party, you are grossly mistaken. The only way you are going to get out of here is if your health improves. And the only way your health is going to improve is if you eat.”
The phone on the stand beside Rad rang, and Dr. Bradley reached down and answered it. “Hello?” She looked at Rad sternly. “Yes, he’s here. Hold on.”
She handed him the phone. “It’s someone named Wynn.”
Rad took the phone. “Hey, brother. When you coming to break me out of this joint?”
He watched Dr. Bradley roll her eyes, and then proceeded to talk to Wynn as if she were no longer in the room.
“Yeah, that was my doctor.” He cocked his head to the side and squinted as he stared her. “Yeah, I guess so. She’s kind of tall, blonde… What’s she wearing?” Again he studied the doctor, who was wearing navy blue scrubs. “Right now she’s got on this little short skirt and heels. Yes, high heels. Red. They match her lipstick.”
Not pausing in his conversation, Rad said, “Hold on, I’ll ask.” He smiled and moved the phone away from his mouth. “He wants to know if you give sponge baths.”
Dr. Bradley grabbed the phone. “When can you come get him?”
She handed the phone back to Rad and turned to leave. “I’m going to see about getting your discharge papers together. You’ll be moving to a rehab building. I’ll make a call to warn the staff.”