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Thirty-six hours after Dorothy arrived in the intensive care unit of a psychiatric hospital, she slowly regained consciousness. She was in bed, under crisp white sheets, smelling of antiseptic, with tubes sprouting from several orifices and veins. Darkness gradually became lightness as her eyes opened. As several slow minutes passed, bleariness gradually became focus. And the big fuzzy lump in a chair beside her bed gradually became the Colonel.
He said, “I’m here to take you home, Professor Anderson, when you’re feeling up to traveling. Until then, when you’re able to sit up and think clearly, you’ll find the most fascinating math problems from around the world waiting for you.”
Almost imperceptibly she smiled at him. She said very softly, “That’s good.” Then she paused to catch her breath from the exertion of waking and talking.
After a bit she said, “For a moment there ...” a pause to catch her breath, “... I missed your duct tape.”
He replied, also with a slight smile, “Oh? Are you free for lunch?”
Her smile grew. It took a few seconds for her to gather her strength to answer, “I’ll check.”
Then her eyes grew worried and, between gasps, she added, “And I need ... to talk with ... a macro ... economist.”
A long pause while she almost fell asleep from exhaustion. Then she said, “Preferably ... an econometrician ... It’s very ... urgent ... ”
She fell asleep.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the Colonel. He pulled a small notepad and pen from his pocket and jotted down what she had said.
Two days later, when she was able to sit up, she found on her bedside table her computer, her phone, her purse with her ID and everything else the FBI had taken. She said, “Thank you.” She didn’t ask how it all came to be there.
The Colonel said, “You’re welcome.” He never explained how it all came to be there. But the short version was, the Colonel had a lot more friends at Fort Bragg than did the FBI agents. And the FBI agents now had a lot more broken noses and black eyes than did the Colonel.
The lead FBI agent also learned two extremely valuable lessons he’d have trouble forgetting: (1) Special Forces colonels aren’t intimidated by badges. And (2) if you pull a gun on one, you’d better shoot really, really fast, before that gun becomes a suppository.