Talion Justice Read online

  Everett’s eyes followed the gurney down the hall until she saw Naomi, who waved her over.

  “Go on, scrub in,” Naomi said. “I’ll pick up Kate.”

  Everett squeezed Naomi’s hands and thanked her. Then she got to work.

  The EMTs gave a quick rundown of the patient: forty-year-old Caucasian male; unconscious; extensive bleeding, loss of blood; stab wounds and blunt force trauma; pulse erratic and dropping; intubated, breathing labored.

  “Looks like his buddies gave him one hell of a beating,” one of the EMTs said. “Found him in an alley eight blocks from here. No defense wounds. Must have got him while he was passed out. Poor bastard.” The EMTs wrapped up with the efficiency of a racecar pit crew. On to the next one.

  Everett leaned in to get a good look at her patient. This one smelled the same as the others, but he was different somehow. He wore the same long hair and shaggy beard but was better groomed. His clothes tattered but clean. She parted his lips with gloved fingers. He had all his teeth, and took care of them too. She started administering to the man, hooked him up and got his vitals stabilized.

  Dr. Aarav Chabra (aka Dr. Douche) walked up to Everett as she worked through her trauma progression. He looked over her shoulder, calm as a Sunday morning.

  “What do we have here, Everett?” Dr. Chabra asked. “Another homeless warrior?”

  “This one’s life threatening, Doctor. He needs emergency medical treatment. Stat.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, nurse,” Dr. Chabra said curtly. He asked Everett for the patient’s vital signs and medical treatment rendered. He barked a few orders, then turned on his heel to leave.

  “You’re not done here, Doctor,” Everett said.

  “The patient is stable. Not life threatening,” Dr. Chabra said, not turning around. “Call me if—”

  A piercing alarm sounded as the patient went into full ventricular fibrillation, making Dr. Chabra jump.

  “He’s coding, Doctor,” Everett shouted, as she turned to the crash cart and reached for the defibrillator. She handed the paddles to Dr. Chabra, who gave the patient a few jumps, to no avail. He waited a few moments, then gave a few more. He stepped back and placed the paddles down.

  “I’m gonna call it. Time of death is—”

  “No!” Everett screamed.

  She pushed Dr. Chabra out of the way, grabbed the paddles, and gave the patient another jump. The rest of the trauma team rallied around Everett, crowding Dr. Chabra away from the bedside. He grumbled in the background as the team continued to work frantically. Everett ordered epinephrine and kept paddling. After several minutes, she recovered a thin but steady heartbeat. They restored the patient’s vital signs and kept his airway open. This man would not die tonight.

  Dr. Chabra stalked out of the room, sputtering something about insubordination.

  End of shift. It had been a long day for both Everett and her daughter Kate, who had spent most of her day on the wing doing homework and playing on her iPad. Everett would have to make arrangements for someone to watch Kate during her three-day suspension. Her ex-husband would be of no use there. Everett wondered if her daughter needed to see a counselor, if maybe she was acting out because of the divorce. The thought saddened her. They would have a long talk tonight.

  Naomi sat with Kate as Everett ran up to the ICU to check on her patient. It wasn’t every day she saved a life, and besides, she wanted to get another look at this man. She bounded up the three flights of stairs, entered the ward and checked in with the nurses. They were friendly, as usual. ICU nurses were the best. It must have something to do with the clarity one gets from facing down death every day.

  Everett sat down with the nurse in charge, a woman named Marie, and got the update on her patient. He was in critical but stable condition and had not yet regained consciousness. The ICU had run a battery of lab tests on him, with results due back in a day or two. The man had no ID, but they were working on that too. Everett thanked the nurse and walked down the long hall to her patient’s room, last door on the left.

  She stood at his bedside watching him. He was one among many other patients in the ICU, separated by curtain partitions. The machines that kept him alive hummed, adding their voices to the mechanical ensemble. The nurses had cleaned him up, and the color had mostly returned to his face. His nose had clearly been broken, and not for the first time, it appeared. His eyes were swollen from the beating he’d sustained. She checked his hands, and the EMTs were right. No evidence he’d fought back or tried to defend himself. Looking closer, she noticed how clean and clear his fingernails were. Odd for a homeless man. Straight white teeth as well. Again, odd.

  Everett fiddled with the electrode patches on his hairy chest, checking for solid contact. Something red caught her eye. She brushed the chest hair aside and saw a tattoo. An emblem, about three inches square. It was a spread eagle on top of a shield bearing a helmet with a sword. Looking closer, she saw the words Duty, Honor, Country… then… West Point. Everett jumped back. Her patient was a veteran, a West Pointer. Her brother had graduated from the Point as well, class of ’95. He was a full colonel now, stationed at Fort Bliss. Her dad had fought in Korea. Everett’s pulse quickened. She had never encountered a homeless man from the Point.

  She examined his face more closely. It was a ruggedly handsome face, under all the abrasions and the scraggly beard. He had sharp features and a strong chin. Everett reached out and traced a finger across his full lips. It was only then that she noticed the long-faded scar high on his left cheek. It split his eyebrow before moving up into his hairline. She ran her finger along the scar. The man had the face of a pride lion.

  Everett knew a nurse at the VA. They had been college roommates and had stayed in touch. She would give her a call tonight.

  She would help Everett put a name to the man in the bed.

  Chapter Two

  August 12, 2016

  Hospital Intensive Care Unit

  Washington, DC

  I awoke to darkness. My eyes, dry as parchment, blinked open. I was in a room; looked like a hospital. I was flat on my back in a bed. The sound of rhythmic beeps and buzzes filled my ears. A man was groaning next to me. I tried to turn my body in the direction of this disembodied wail but was restrained by straps that secured me to my bedrails. I jerked, but the restraints held. I surveyed my enclosure, about the size of a prison cell, with curtain partition walls three feet from either side of my bed. The curtains were dark blue and plain. I was grateful I couldn’t see the groaning guy next to me. I was glad he couldn’t see me.

  I was hooked up to a bunch of equipment, which added to the macabre symphony of this place. The wide-gauge needle stuck into a vein in the crook of my arm gave me the drugs and nutrients that kept me alive. I wanted to pull the tube out of my nose, but they had strapped my arms to the bed as well. I became aware of the awkward pressure of a catheter in my penis. At least I hadn’t been conscious for that. My entire body ached. I tried the restraints again, choked back a flash of claustrophobia when they again held firm. All I wanted to do was get out of this bed.

  My head was fuzzy. My memory of how I got here was a jumble of disjointed images, like a poorly edited movie. I hovered above myself, winced as the blows again found their mark. I saw the fists, then the feet. And some kind of bat or stick. I was in an alley. It was dark, but the streetlights showed my attackers’ faces in shadow. I recognized a few of them. Other homeless guys from the block. I didn’t care enough to fight back, which only emboldened them more. They pulled at my pockets, stole my bag and all my meager possessions. They bounded off, laughing and cavorting as if at Mardi Gras.

  They left me to die. I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and awaited death.

  But now I know death did not come for me that night. That made me neither happy nor sad. Just empty. Why Death had passed over me in that alley that night was his business. I realized this largesse only meant I had more days to fill, more life to squander. I turned my head away f
rom the groaning man, closed my eyes and silently cursed the skeletal demon and his scythe. If the man in the black hooded robe comes for me tonight, I will not fight back.

  A nurse awoke me with a gentle shake. She had shiny blond hair pulled back tight. She smiled wide when my gaze met hers. Her eyes, unlike my own, were clear and danced with life. She wore different scrubs than the ICU nurses.

  “Good morning,” she said. “My name is Jill Everett. I work here at the hospital in the ER. Do you remember me?”

  I just looked at her in silence as her eyes roamed my face.

  “You were in pretty rough shape when you got here. We thought we were gonna lose you.” Everett looked over my head to the monitor that displayed my vital signs. “You’ve been upgraded to fair condition. Your lab work’s not back yet, but your vitals are stable. Glad to have you back. You were in a coma for six days; did they tell you that?”

  I looked away. They had drawn my curtains back enough for me to see to the left and right of me. The groaning guy was gone, his bed empty.

  “Are you in any pain?” Everett asked. “Can I get you anything?”

  I shook my head no. Everett’s face went slack, and her smile faded. Extinguishing her light made me feel bad. Shame, my long-lost friend. I tried to answer her but choked on the grit lodged in my throat. I cleared it out with a loud grumble. The voice that filled my ears was foreign to me.

  “Take these straps off me,” I said.

  “You need them,” Everett responded. “The nurses say you kept trying to pull out your nose tube and IV. You need your fluids and medications. It’s what kept you alive these past six days.”

  I just looked down at my arms, strapped down to the bed at my sides. A medical straitjacket. Everett’s eyes followed mine.

  “If I get the nurse to remove your limb restraints, will you promise me you won’t pull out anything?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you promise me, Frank?”

  My stomach knotted. No one else at the hospital had called me by my name. Everyone referred to me as John1. I had assumed I was booked in as just another John Doe vagrant, living on the streets of our nation’s capital. I didn’t know what the 1 stood for. I didn’t have much use for ID, having drifted around the country these past five years. And whatever I did have had been taken from me in the robbery that had put me in this bed.

  I searched Everett’s face for answers. Her smile slowly returned. She glanced around the room, then approached closer and leaned over me.

  “I know who you are, Frank Luce,” she whispered. “I saw your tattoo. Had your blood sent to the VA. A friend of mine ran it for DNA and checked the army database. Sent me what she could from army records. It was not a lot, but enough.”

  I shifted in the bed. Tried to get away but couldn’t move. Damn straps.

  “I knew you went to the Point from your tattoo. My brother did, too. Class of ’95. But I had no idea you were awarded the Medal of Honor. My friend told me the army was fast-tracking you, and then—bang!—you resigned less than a year after the award.” Everett grabbed the plastic bedrails with both hands, then lowered her face towards mine. She smelled good. I had forgotten how good a woman could smell.

  “Your file said you went to work for the USIC,” Everett said. “I had to look that up: United States Intelligence Community.” She lowered her voice again. “Is that like CIA or something?”

  I paused as my senses, now alive, took her in. She smelled like lavender. On a Rocky Mountain summer breeze. What to say? I had to say something, as flowers are not to be ignored.

  “Something like that,” was all I could muster.

  Everett looked me up and down. “What happened, then? You’re—”

  One of the ICU nurses came in and approached my bed. She placed her hand on Everett’s shoulder, causing her to flinch.

  “I see you’ve finally met John1,” the woman said to Everett. She turned to me. “You know, this lady has been up here to see you almost every day this week. Glad you two are getting acquainted.” Everett stepped aside and gave the ICU nurse bedside access. She gave me a once-over and looked satisfied.

  “Yeah, John1 was just telling me how grateful he is for all the ICU nurses have done for him. Isn’t that right, John?” Everett asked me with a smile and a nod of her head.

  “Sure,” I said. It’d been a long time since I played ball.

  “Thank you John1,” the ICU nurse said, with a pat to my leg. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to the other nurses.”

  “And John1 says he’s ready to have his limb restraints removed. Right, John?” Everett said.

  I said I was. The ICU nurse made me promise to behave myself. I gave her my word, which she considered for a while. She then sighed heavily and said she would remove them, but that they were going right back on if there was any monkey business. She actually used that exact term. I chuckled despite myself. In my defense, monkeys are funny.

  The removal of the straps was heaven. I flexed my arms and shook them out. Readjusted myself in my bed.

  The ICU nurse told Everett to wrap up her visit, said I needed my rest. We both watched her walk across the ward to another patient.

  Everett quickly replaced the ICU nurse next to my bed.

  “Thank you,” I said, still shaking the blood back into my limbs.

  Everett smiled, then grew serious. “Look, Frank, we don’t have much time. You’re obviously—”

  “I’m obviously what?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Everett stammered. “I meant, well, you’re on the street now, Frank, and have been for quite some time, I suspect.” She cleared her throat. “I can help. I mean, I want to help. There are services. I can put you in touch with some good people I know. They’ll help you.”

  “Why don’t you go help someone else? I don’t need it.”

  “Everyone needs help now and then, Frank. Let me help you. You can trust me.”

  I looked away. Trust and I had been estranged for many years.

  She was like a gawker at a fatal car accident, unable to turn away from the carnage. And I was the state trooper controlling the accident scene, running police tape around the accident perimeter, shooing away bystanders.

  But I did not tell Everett any of this. All I mumbled was “Go help someone else.”

  Everett’s eyes went cloudy. She stepped back from my bed, arms crossed over her chest. It was then I realized I had been wrong about her, that there was more to her than being the savior to my human wreckage. Her lower lip trembled into a frown; her face contorted in anguish.

  We each held our silence. The beeps and buzzes in the ward now took on the cadence of a ticking clock.

  “Just go,” I said, and turned my face away from her. “Please.”

  Everett choked back a sob. I listened to her footfalls as she left my bedside and slowly walked away across the ICU.

  I pulled the bedsheet up to my chin, squinted my eyes closed, and withdrew back into my darkness.

  Chapter Three

  August 17, 2016

  Georgetown Coffee Shop

  Washington, DC

  Prisha Veda Baari sat at a table in her new local coffee shop. It was only a ten-minute walk from her tony townhouse in Georgetown, a historically upscale enclave of the movers and shakers in Washington, DC. There had been an incident at her old coffee shop, which involved Prisha screaming at the manager trainee and hurling a full cup of coffee against the wall just over the young woman’s head. This outburst had earned Prisha a lifetime ban. She would have called corporate and had the trainee fired, but this establishment was a startup. So she’d calmly walked a few blocks over and found a new place to plant her flag.

  From her very first visit, Prisha knew which table was hers. It was a four-top against the wall in the back. It was the only table that had an unobstructed view of both the door and the large window overlooking the street. The fact that this table was one of only two four-top tables in the busy shop mattered not to her.r />
  Prisha was serious about her coffee. She typically had a cup in hand throughout her long workdays, which is to say most days. Like any addict, she had acclimated to the caffeine and sometimes took her last cup as late as ten p.m., to no effect. But she always took her first cup early. And in a coffee shop, never at home. It was one of the few things for which she was punctual, for punctuality led to routine, and routine made one predictable—a bad thing in her line of work.

  Prisha had easily charmed Adam, the morning manager at her new shop. Adam was a young man, and Prisha had never had any problems gaining the affection of young men. Or men of any age, for that matter. Prisha was long and slender, with thick raven hair that fell below her shoulders and looked equally good worn up or down. Her dark eyes were large and expressive, in contrast to her sharp features. Almond skin gave her an exotic look that hit men like catnip.

  After her successful exploitation of Adam, it was simply a matter of shuffling the pack order of her fellow morning coffee patrons. Prisha knew that they, like her, had their own morning coffee rituals. So she convinced Adam to let her into the shop fifteen minutes before opening, so that she was firmly ensconced at her new table when the early morning regulars shuffled in. The dirty looks and grumbling from the table’s former occupants were of no consequence to Prisha; quite the opposite, in fact. She reveled in their discomfort and struggled to hide her smirk. It took only a week of this before the regulars had begrudgingly accepted their new queen.

  And so it was on this warm Wednesday morning in August that Prisha was at her table sipping her second cup, which Adam had delivered to her upon her signal for a refill. As usual, she was facedown in her laptop, an oversized thumb drive protruding from the USB port, furiously tapping away at the keyboard, earbuds in both ears. The universal sign for ‘Leave me the fuck alone.’ Most people were happy to oblige.