Chapter 32

The light was going as they approached the cage. The last rays lay long across its dirt floor and painted prison stripes across the figure that was huddled against the trunk of the ragged banana inside. "Auggie?" Annie said in a whisper that trembled. "Auggie?" There was no response.

"Let me go first, Annie," Cotton said gently. They hadn't bothered to lock the cage when they tossed Auggie in for the last time. They had just slammed the door and hurried to set up their ambush. "Hold on to her, Stu, while I check." Cotton pulled the door open and stepped inside. 'Please, God, let him be alive.' It was something Cotton had prayed more than once. Often the answer had been 'No.' Still he prayed.

He squatted beside the still form and pressed two fingers just under the notch in the jawbone where the big artery ran. There was a pulse, not strong, but steady and there.

"He's alive."

Annie gasped in relief and tried to pull away from Stu.

"Wait, Annie," Cotton said. I want to check for breaks. Then I'll bring him out to you."

Cotton ran broad, powerful hands over Auggie's legs. His feet were in bad shape covered in cuts and bruises, but nothing seemed broken. There was little beyond skin over his ribs, but they were all whole as was his left arm and shoulder. Auggie had his right arm guarded between his body and the tree trunk. When Cotton lifted it, there was a grunt of pain and a hoarse "No!"

"It's alright, Auggie. It's Cotton. "We've come to get you; you're safe now. Come on, let ol' Cotton see that arm, so we can help you." It was a calm, cool shower of words that seemed to help.

"Cotton?" Auggie's voice was so broken Cotton could barely understand him.

"Yep, it's Cotton. Annie's here too and your buddy Stu. We came for you. You knew we wouldn't leave you. No man left behind, Augs, nobody."

Auggie relaxed and let Cotton examine his arm. It didn't seem to be broken, but it was a mass of swollen, infected, ugly bites and bruises.

Cotton snapped his first aid kit off his belt. "I'm gonna just ease this into a sling, buddy, so we can move you without it hurtin' too bad. You'll have help real soon."

Cotton looked outside the cage. Annie was frozen in Stu's grasp. A look of desperate longing and fear only enhanced the beauty of her face and magnificent eyes. His men, with the prisoners in tow, and Shane, with his Benelli still ready for use, had joined them.

"Shane," Cotton called, "run to the chopper and tell them the fight's over. Tell Jack to warm up the turbine; we've got an injured man we need to get back in a hurry. Spread a blanket in the ship so we can lay him down when we get there. Hurry!" With one horrified glance back, Shane sprinted away.

Cotton secured the sling from his kit around Auggie's neck and eased his arm into it. Then he simply gathered him up in his arms and slid sideways out of the cage. Annie was beside him instantly.

"Walk with me and talk to him, Annie. No matter how careful I am, it's going to hurt. Try to distract him if you can get through." Cotton pointed at Hawk with a jerk of his head. "Put those two bastards and the little Chinaman in the cage. Lock 'em up. Somebody else can sort them out."

"I'll stay," Stu said. He had a satellite phone out. "I'm calling in our cleanup crew. There may be valuable intelligence information still here if they took off as fast as it looks like they did. There's a lot I don't understand about this, and I intend to find out all I can. I'll stand guard on the prisoners tonight. There'll be a ship and some experts here by morning. I'll see you guys later. And, by the way, you were all great. It was an honor to be along." He was already dialing as they walked away toward the helicopter.

The rotors were swinging slowly when they arrived. Hawk and Limey made quick work of stowing the guns and other equipment while Cotton knelt to put Auggie down on the blanket Shane had ready.

Annie flung herself down on the deck beside Auggie and pulled his head into her lap, cradling it as she bent close to shelter him from the blasts of air that rushed through the chopper as they lifted. Her hair had come undone from its braid and hung around his face like a curtain.

He was enveloped in Annie's scent; strands of silken hair brushed across his face. Her delicate fingers fluttered across his body, almost afraid to touch him anywhere.

Under the roar of the rotors she whispered, "Oh, God, Auggie, hang on, hang on. I love you so much, sweetheart.

The cream of her voice flowed through him, coated the pain of the past days and soothed it. This was no fever dream. Annie had found him. He had given her the tools, and his trust, and she had done it. He was safe.

"Please, please don't die; don't leave me. I need you. I love you." Her tears dripped unnoticed, to cut trails through the dirt and dried blood on his face.

She always forgot how sharp his hearing was. Her plea pulled him back from a slow slide into the bliss of unconsciousness. His eyes fluttered open for a moment. "Won't die," he murmured. "Promise. Never leave you, Annie."

Someone tugged at her, shouted in her ear. She held on to Auggie with all her strength. Finally a voice broke through.

"Ma'am, ma'am, Miss Annie! Let me at him. Please! He needs my help!"

She looked up. It was one of Auggie's geek squad, the oldest one. Suddenly she remembered; he was an EMT. He could help Auggie.

Reluctantly she moved aside a little. Mark dropped down beside her and pulled his kit close. He shook out a clean blanket and spread it over Auggie. "I need to find a vein and get an IV running," he shouted in her ear. "We have to get some fluids into him. You can help." He searched rapidly, rejecting one spot after the other. "He's so badly dehydrated."

Mark slapped the back of the wrist on Auggie's good arm and a blue vein finally popped. He ripped open an alcohol wipe and scrubbed it hard. "Stretch the skin tight over the vein," he instructed Annie, "while I try to get in."

She stretched the feverish skin over the vein and tried to keep it centered as he slid in a butterfly needle, probed once … twice and got a show of blood. "Thank God, thank God," Mark Henry whispered as he swiftly taped everything down, hooked up a bottle of IV fluids and got it running. "Hold this up," he told Cotton, who stood over them ready to help in any way he could. Cotton gripped an overhead brace in the rocking ship with one hand and held the bottle aloft with the other. Annie got the feeling it wasn't the first time he'd done something like that.

"This vein won't hold up too long," Mark told the hovering group. "But it will work for now. When we get him to a hospital, they'll probably make a cut down into a major vein. Meanwhile, let me see what I can do with his arm."

Annie watched as Mark unfolded a sterile bandage, gently eased the arm from its improvised sling and rested it on the clean gauze. She had to look away and breathe slowly for a minute. It was swollen almost double. A mass of rips and puncture marks, pale in some spots and fiery red in others, covered it. She could feel the heat from the infection against her own skin.

"Jesus!" Mark breathed. "He needs a surgeon."

"We don't have one of those at hand." Cotton's voice was hard and dry. "You're the medic; do what you can. Clean it up; scrub it with antiseptic, slather it in whatever antibiotic you've got and wrap it. I don't want him to wake up and start groping at it."

Mark did as Cotton directed, placed Auggie's bandaged arm in a clean sling and let Annie gather him back into her lap.

She kissed him anywhere she thought it wouldn't hurt and held him as close as she dared. "Stay with me, Auggie," she said over and over. Stay with me. You'll have help soon."

"Look at that," Mark said to Cotton. He had managed to get a blood pressure cuff onto Auggie. "His blood pressure was out the roof when we got him here. Since she started talking to him, it's settled down into an almost normal range. Do you think he can hear her?"

"I've seen stranger things," Cotton said. "Why do you think we're here? She threw the rule book out the window and went after him like a bloody tigress. If he can hear anyone now, it'll be her."

Mark stood and used gauze to rig a tie to the overhead brace for the IV bottle. Cotton steadied it until he was certain it was secure.

Mark touched his arm and asked, "Is he going into the hospital in Miami?"

"No," Cotton said. "He can't. He has to hold on until we get to The Farm."

"Is it near Washington?"

"They don't give out maps to that place, but D.C.'s closer than Miami. Why?"

"Can you get some supplies brought to the plane in Miami?" Mark asked.

"Probably," Cotton said. "What do you need?"

"I could use another half-dozen bottles of Ringer's, some broad spectrum IV antibiotics, a stretcher, clean sheets and blankets, and a lot of ice. We need to get his fever down as soon as we can."

"Let me get on the horn, and I'll see what I can do." Cotton moved into the co-pilot's seat and picked up the mike.

The rest of the flight into Miami was quiet. Mark stayed close by Annie and Auggie, while Shane stayed out of the way in the back of the chopper. Cotton's two men stowed their gear, broke out snacks and beer from the cooler and kicked back.

The chopper set down in a remote area of Miami International Airport to find their private jet waiting. While they were making the transfer, an unmarked panel truck pulled up and a fire plug of a man jumped out. He had cauliflower ears and a much broken nose.

Cotton went to meet him, hand outstretched. "Howdy, Blackie. Good to see you again, man. Were you able to help us out with them things?"

"Got em all, good buddy. Since you said they were for a friend, it's all good stuff – straight out of a medical supply warehouse. Well, all 'cept the antibiotics. I tell you, the controls on them dang things are so tight now… " Blackie shook his head in disgust.

"Anyway, these are fresh and safe – came straight off an EMT's ambulance. He's a good kid, wouldn't never sell 'cept his little girl's sick with som'thin' the damn insurance companies won't cover, and he needs money bad. 'Fraid the price is pretty steep."

"What's the damage?" Cotton asked.

Blackie handed him a carefully printed and itemized bill. Cotton glanced at it and said, "Hold on a minute."

He caught up with Annie as she was about to follow his men, who were carrying Auggie on the newly acquired stretcher onto the plane.

"Can you write a check for these medical supplies? The price is a little steep, but it's all good stuff, and your corpsman says he needs them."

"I can cover whatever we need," Annie said. "Auggie made sure of that."

"Good." Cotton handed her the bill. "Make it out to 'Blackie's Sweets' and add a 25% supplier's fee."

"Blackie's Sweets?" Annie glanced at the case of Lactated Ringer's Solution being loaded onto the plane and raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, he runs a company that supplies candy to vending machines. This is just a small sideline for a few old buddies. Be glad we have him and be generous."

Annie fished out the checkbook Auggie's banker had given her and got busy. With one check finished, she looked at Smilin' Jack and raised an eyebrow in question. "You go on with your man, Miss Walker," he told her. I've got your address. I'll send a final accounting in a few days. Ten minutes later they were in the air.

The flight from Miami to Dulles Airport was the longest of Annie's life in many way's and in others, the shortest. They fought hard to bring down the fever that raged through Auggie's body with applications of ice and cool water. Mark continued to pour fluids and antibiotics into his mentor's system as fast as he dared.

Auggie roused just as they set down, and he beckoned Cotton to his side.

The big ex-soldier squatted by his one-time commanding officer and said, "Howdy, Cap'n, good to have you back with us."

Auggie didn't have time or voice to waste. Each word was forced from strained and bruised vocal cords. "Cotton, don't leave Washington. Guard Annie. He's still out there. Somebody tipped him you were coming. All fees, expenses – on me." He broke off, coughing hard.

When Cotton began to rise, Auggie caught his arm. "Thanks. Owe you another one. Come see me soon as they let you."

"Right, gottcha. You get well; I'll be here." Annie handed him the van keys; Cotton and his men shouldered the equipment and headed for the terminal.

Annie gave Mark and Shane money for the taxi ride back to their homes, thanked them once more, and reminded them again not to talk about the events they had just taken part in.

When they had gone, Annie climbed into the waiting military ambulance. She settled beside an already sedated Auggie and dozed as they drove south and east into the night toward a secure medical facility. Once there, she knew she faced a barrage of questions. At the moment, she didn't much care. She had Auggie back, and that was all that mattered.

Part Two, the End

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Part three of this trilogy, "Blind Justice" will be available soon.