The Devil's bed

“I know. Put this under your tongue.” She stuck a digital thermometer in his mouth. When the thermometer beeped, she checked it and marked his chart.

“Do I have to be on my stomach?” Bo said.

“Not if you’re careful.” She helped him roll onto his side and propped him with a pillow placed so that it didn’t touch the bandaged wound in his back. He’d been lucky, they told him. The blade had missed anything vital, and the wound had been easily closed. Gauze wrapped his forearm where the damage done to the artery and tendons had been repaired in surgery. “Someone is here to see you,” she said.

Bo looked at the door. Stu Coyote stood in the threshold, a big, white-toothed grin on his broad Indian face. “Okay if I come in?”

“Sure. Thanks,” Bo said to Nurse Rivera as she left.

Coyote stood at Bo’s bedside. “For a national hero, you don’t look so tough.”

“National hero?”

“That’s what the media’s saying. But don’t let it go to your head. They said the same thing about Custer for a while. How’re you feeling?”

“I don’t. They shot me full of painkiller.”

Coyote drew a chair up and sat down. “You’re looking pretty healthy for a man who almost bled to death.”

“The First Lady’s all right?”

“Yeah. You know she saved your life?” He smiled at Bo’s look of surprise. “She put pressure on that wound and stopped the bleeding. Wouldn’t let go until the paramedics got there.”

“No kidding?”

“Damn straight.”

“How about Annie? Is she okay?”

“Annie, Earl, and Nicole Greene are fine. Moses was so quiet, they didn’t even wake up until they heard the shots in the orchard.”

“What about the other agents.”

Coyote’s eyes slid away. “Jake, Dusty Owens, Jon Rude.” He shook his head. “Also Lucy Aguilera from Manning’s team. She was on duty in the house.”

“How about Manning?”

“He took a round in the chest, but he’ll pull through.”

“And Moses?”

Coyote’s face turned hard. “He got away, Bo. Your shots didn’t kill him because he was wearing body armor. We found a mashed slug from your Sig in the grass. When he went over the edge, he fell almost fifty feet. Went through branches that slowed him down, and he landed in some bushes that must’ve broken his fall. In the dark, our guys had a tough time climbing down. By the time they did, Moses was gone. He left a trail of blood leading down to the river, so it looks like he was hurt pretty bad. We found an inflatable kayak hidden in some brush. We figure he probably meant to use it in his escape, but he was disoriented or didn’t have the strength to get to it and decided to try to swim. It’s a big river with a fast current. His chances of making it were pretty slim.”

“But they haven’t found a body?”

“Not yet.”

Bo closed his eyes. “I blew it, Stu.”

“You didn’t blow anything.”

“Four agents dead, and Moses slipped away.”

Coyote put a hand gently on Bo’s shoulder. “Give yourself a break. If it hadn’t been for you, the First Lady’s name would have been added to the list.”

“How’d he breach the perimeter at Wildwood?”

“Dug a tunnel. You know how lax security is out there when we’re not around. He’d been watching everything all along. Remember the van bought in Luther Gallagher’s name? We found it parked on the highway outside Wildwood, disguised as a media van. It was full of surveillance equipment. He’d been monitoring Wildwood since the First Lady’s arrival.”

Bo closed his eyes and shook his head. “The electronic sweep we never did.”

“We also found plastic explosives in the van, along with detonators and timers. We’re speculating right now that he intended to kill the First Lady and her father together when she visited the hospital. We figure he knew that any medical emergency at Wildwood would come to this hospital, so he arranged to have a job that would give him perfect access to Jorgenson’s room. By the way, the guy who had the laundry job before Moses died from a fall down the stairs in his apartment. High level of alcohol in his blood. It was deemed an accidental death at the time. Washington County sheriff’s taking a closer look at that now.”

From the door, another voice spoke, “They’re taking a closer look at a lot of things thanks to you, Bo.” Diana Ishimaru came into the room. Her eyes were at the center of big, dark circles, but she’d pasted a small smile on her lips. “How do you feel?”

“Alive. I guess that’s something.”

“The First Lady and Annie Jorgenson are here now visiting Tom. They’d like to drop in, if that’s all right.”

Bo didn’t reply.

“You did a good job out there. I’m putting you in for a citation.”

“I don’t want a citation.”