Honor Thy Mother & Thy Father Ch. 06

The Doctor said, "Let's crack his chest."

Sergeant was out of the viewing room in a flash. He was about to go in to the operating room, when a nurse stopped him. "Where the heck do you think you're going?"

"He is not going to die. I will not let him die."

"If you want to go in there you have to change into greens."

"Nurse, help me or so help me God will go in as I am."

A moment later Sergeant was dressed all in green and walking through the door, with the nurse pulling him along.

Alan's chest was wide open, and Sergeant could see his heart was not beating. The doctors' hand was on it and squeezing the life-giving fluid through his body manually. Another physician asked, "What is he doing in here."

Sergeant replied, "Shut the fuck up, and do your job."

He leaned down by Alan's ear and said, "So you think your job down here is done. You are going to let that bastard you were going to testify against get away, again. You are going to let them find the people you were guarding, and let them get killed. What about Susan and the baby; are you going to abandon them? What is she supposed to do now? How is she supposed to survive without you? She is very fragile. She would have no idea how to raise a child without a man to help her. She has had a shit life, because of the men who have abandoned her. Now you are going to abandon her too. Way to go, Alan, just another bastard leaving a wonderful woman to drown, just when she needs you the most. Go ahead die. It is the easy way out. It is the same way out you took with your second wife. You looked for oblivion at the bottom of a bottle, and found it. Now you are looking into it by dying. You chicken shit bastard; always taking the easy way out."

Sergeant stood up, walked slowly away from the operating table, and stopped. He turned around, looked at Alan and yelled at the top of his lungs, "You will not die, not today you bastard; not until I get even with you." He took out his service revolver and put a bullet in the wall right next to the heart monitor. He said, "Beep you son of a bitch, Beep like you are supposed to for a good man."!"

Apparently, out of fear of sergeant's next gunshot being aimed better, the heart monitor beeped. Then it beep again, and again and continuously after that. Sergeant looked at the surgeon, who had been squeezing Alan's heart.

The surgeon was watching the heart beat on its own.

His nurse said, "Congratulations Doctor, you saved another one."

The doctor replied, "Don't thank me. Put down on his chart: Resuscitated by bullet."

Sergeant waited for the doctor to come out of the OR to explain what had happened to Alan, and why he was back in surgery after he appeared to be fine up in his room.

The doctor came out and asked him to look at the scans with him. He explained when Alan came in all the x-rays showed one bullet entered his body and the damage done was minor and were easily handled. When he came down the second time they thought they were just going to have to close him up again, but they wanted to be sure so they took more x-rays. They found another bullet further inside his body, hidden by his diaphragm. It had nicked the lower chamber of his heart. At that time the heart was not bleeding, so no one noticed it. When the young woman tackled him, she hit him so hard, the bullet went through the heart muscle, and he started to bleed profusely. We ran into trouble immediately, because he has A Negative blood, which is extremely rare. We started to recycle his blood as quickly as we could, and put a call out to area hospitals for more. With everything that was going on, in and around this hospital, nothing could get here. So we were doing the best we could to save your friend. I closed up everything I could from the back. When we turned him over, he coded. He did not respond to any external treatment. When I opened his chest, and felt his heart it was not leaking any blood. I feared that he had lost so much blood during the operation that we were going to lose him. Every line we had going into him was wide open, and I was pumping his heart manually trying to keep blood flowing into his brain, to prevent permanent damage. I do not know what you said to him, nor do I care. However, when you shot the wall, I think you put a period at the end of your sentence, and he heard you. I am just happy you did not kill one of our machines."

"Thanks Doc, you saved a very brave man in there. You may never hear about what he does, or how he goes about doing it, but people like you, and I are better off, because of people like him."

"I guess he is one of the people works for an agency with letters?"

"Who are you talking about Doc?"

"The patient I operated on."

"What patient is that Doc?"

"The man in... Oh, okay. I think I will have lunch."

"You will remind your staff that it is going to lunch?"

"You can count on it."

The police officers from the Sedona Police Department went to every sporting goods store, and borrowed every Colt Semi-Automatic AR 15 rifle they had in inventory and thousands of rounds of ammunition for them. The owners did not ask the police to sign a receipt for any of them, nor did they charge them for the ammunition. They had been listening to the radio and television broadcasts and knew that their city was under siege. When Sheriff Walberg heard that the men and the SUVs were headed back towards Sedona, he advised the citizens to put their cars in the middle of their streets to form a barricade to keep these men from using their communities to hide in. This tactic worked wonderfully. It also helped to keep the police force advised as to where these bastards were, in relationship to the next roadblock. When the citizens on Rolling Hills Road informed the Sheriff that the cars had just passed them, and were heading east on 89A, Sheriff Walberg knew that they had entered the killing zone. He formed the final barricade at the entrance to the First Circle entering the city. He had thirty-five men guarding that point. He placed the fifteen men from the FBI on the north side of the road, to shoot at the driver's side of the car, and they would walk up the ravine towards the post office, after the cars passed them.

Ten Sheriff's deputies were placed on the south side of the road, and were to use their shotguns to shred their tires. After disabling the cars, they would use the AR 15's, and cut down any one of the men who were trying to escape towards the bank.

Sheriff Walberg and his ten men were at the circle. They would lay down a barrage of bullets straight down 89A that would not allow these men to get out of their cars and fire back. If the men did not surrender, they would die, entombed in their vehicles.

As the driver of the lead car entered the straightaway heading towards the first circle, he saw the blockade. He said, "Fuck them, I am going through." He pushed the accelerator to the floor, and was able to see the men standing behind the cars. He already killed two police officers today, so several more did not bother him. The speedometer reached 110, when he saw puffs of smoke coming from the left side of the road. His windshield exploded. The driver side window exploded. His head exploded. The car hurtled headlong for a short distance. It hit the center median, and hurtled into the air. It landed on its roof, on the west bound side of the road, skidded down the embankment and stopped just short of the post office parking lot. The second, third and fourth cars experienced similar carnage, but also were mangled because of their tires being blown out on the passenger side. The second cars right front tire blew just as the driver died. He pulled the wheel to the right. The SUV went to the right, down the embankment did a somersault in the air, landed on its roof, killing all inside. The driver in the fourth car hit his brakes hard, and dove for the safety of the seats. The problem is, when you are doing 100 mph; you still have to look where you are going. Car number three had two tires blow out. The driver hit the brakes, spun the car 270 degrees, and came to a safe stop on the roadway. Amazingly, the driver survived the fusillade of bullets, but the passenger in the left rear seat was dead, along with a passenger in the right front seat. He put his hands in the air, and sat up just in time to see car number four impact his car, and him. Car number four caused a spark that ignited the fuel that leaked onto the roadway from car three's fuel tank. It ignited both cars into a conflagration that could be seen and heard for miles. The battle, if it could be called that, was over in less than one minute.

Three men walked out of the courthouse at 11:10 a.m., and got into their car. They driver backed up and was getting ready to enter the flow of traffic, when a young officer ran towards them waving a piece of paper.

They did not want to cause any problems, so they rolled down their window, and waited for him to reach the car. He said, "I am sorry sir. I hope I am not disturbing you, but you forgot your receipt."

The driver looked at the piece of paper and it was a receipt for the $15,000 dollars they had paid for their fines. The driver said thank you very much. It has been very nice visiting your fair city, and we will be back.

The young officer pulled his gun and said, "I am sorry sir you are under arrest."

The driver asked, "Why?"

"You are driving with a suspended license."

The driver said, "Oh crap, I forgot officer let me pull back in to the space." He was about to make a run for it, when he felt a gun placed behind his ear.

"Put the car in park, and do not move a muscle."

Martin shifted the lever into park; and both hands on the steering wheel. Before anyone else in the car could move, the car doors were opened and the men pulled out unceremoniously.

Felix said, "We have warrants for your arrest on multiple counts of attempted murder and kidnapping. Just so you know most of your men are dead. The rest are under arrest in Sedona. You will be joining them there, as co-conspirators in a capital murder case involving five police officers. This state does have the death penalty. You will never leave it. We love visitors like you; the kind that stay forever."

19. Declarations and Desire

The inside of the C-130 was quiet, almost like a mortuary for most of the trip. Patricia and Jemma never left Susan's side, unless William approached her. If he did, Patricia stepped away from her. He could find no way to break the impasse between Patricia and himself, although he desperately wanted to. There is no way to convince a child, who has lost the person who had raised her since birth that you did what you thought was right, when she believes there was an easier and a better way for you to handle the situation. "Does she think that during those years I didn't think of it also? When my wife passed away, does she think I didn't want to bring Laura to me? What stopped me? Why didn't I? What were the reasons that I didn't bring her to me in Italy? The answers are in my head, why can't I find them. I must have notes; where did I put them. Where was I, and what did I do after my wife died. I must find out so I can tell Patricia what was happening in my life."

As soon as the C-130 Hercules landed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, Susan's cell phone rang. She had two messages from Sergeant. When she read them, she started laughing. Everyone turned towards her as she stood up and yelled, "He's alive. I told you he was not dead. I told you he would not leave me. Look at the pictures they sent me. Look at them."

Jemma and Patricia read the notes simultaneously, and then they looked at the pictures of Alan making faces as he was having his head shaved.

Jemma asked, "Why is he having his hair cut off?

Susan replied, "It's a long story, but I would bet my cousin had something to do with it."

Patricia looked at Stephano with a glint in her eye. She asked Susan, "Do you think your cousin could do me a favor?"

Susan looked at Patricia and then at Stephano, and back at Patricia. She said, "I don't see why not, I think he would look cute that way."

Stephano looked at the pictures, smiled at Patricia, and said, "Say yes and I will be bald at the altar."

Patricia growled, "Is there anything I can say or do, to get you to go away from me?"

"Yes, there is one thing."

"Please tell me what it is. Whatever it is I will do it. I will give you every penny I have. I will move to another continent. I will never wear shoes again. Just tell me what it is, and I will do it."

"Marry me!"

Patricia screamed so loud that everything in the inside of the aircraft rattled.

Patricia went to the back of the Range Rover, took out her computer and her little case, and walked down the ramp and onto the tarmac. Everyone else grabbed their things, thanked the crew of the C-130, and deplaned. They congregated alongside it, and waited for the Air Force bus that would take them to their overnight quarters.

The Range Rover would be taken to the service bays to be looked over for any damage caused by its strange arrival into the cargo bay of the C-130. If the technicians at this base could repair a B-2 bomber, they felt they could repair a car.

Patricia sat down on the pavement, opened her computer, and sent a quick message to Steve. "Hello Steve this is the naked woman of your dreams. I have changed locations due to the imminent threat of danger. I am told that danger has passed, and I am breathing a lot easier than I was before. There is a possibility that I will see a PhD. about my PhD. I want to do it in an area that is very close to my heart at this moment. I am trying to set up an appointment using the prime numbers of our last years' class schedule as the date followed by the day and hour. The meeting place will be your favorite and mine,' 'Lovers Lanes." Patty

"Patty, why are you being so cryptic; are we being monitored? Steve"

"Steve, a friend said something recently that has me wondering, and to answer your question, I am not sure. If I am not sure, I have to be careful, and so do you. The fox may be in the henhouse, or I might have a screw loose, because of all the pressure I am under. I will know soon enough. Use the clues and I will meet you there." Patty

"I used $372 of your money. Steve

"It is your money. You have to pay taxes on it."

"Not if I don't reported as income. I could say it's a gift. Steve"

"I would check with a tax attorney. If you prorate the $1,000,000 over five years I think your taxes will be less than the one-year gift tax would be. Patty"

"Is there anything you do not know? Steve"

"Yes, and you know what that is. Patty"

"There you go again. You could not leave it alone. I was doing just fine and then you had to hit me with that. Now I am going to be hard all day. Thank you. Steve"

"Steve, don't be angry with me, but I think I've met the man that I am going to marry. It is very complicated. It is extremely complicated. I do not know if I can do it. He wants me, and honestly, I want him. There are things between us that can never be solved and I am very concerned that my heart will be broken. He is a wonderful young man and I trying to keep him at arms distance. He is so good at getting past my defenses, and getting into my heart. I do not know why I am telling you this because I am hurting you. I guess it is because I have no one else to talk to, and you are my friend. Patty"

"Patty, I want to be more than your friend. I want to be more than the person then got you out of the hospital. I do not know how long you have known this person, but it could not be that long. Knowing your history, do not jump before you give yourself a chance to experience other people in more normal situations. As I told you before, every man in our class wanted to date you, and many of them would have put a ring on your finger before we left graduate school. Do not commit to any one person before you give yourself a chance to look at the outside world. Someone better, for instance, me, could be out there looking for you. Steve"

"He has asked me to marry him, and I have not answered. I will not answer him until I am ready to make a decision that will affect me for the rest of my life. That includes giving someone else the opportunity to show me what the outside world is like. Patty"

"Okay, that works for me. I will work out the math and I will see you at our meeting place. Please be happy, I do not want to see you sad." Steve.

"Sir, Alan Robbins is confirmed dead at the Verde Valley Medical Center, of multiple gunshot wounds. That is the only good news. Of the 32 men you sent to Arizona only seven remain alive and they are all in captivity. All the others are confirmed dead. It is all over the news. Nine police officers are dead. There is going to be hell to pay for this operation. The other families are going to come down on you hard for this."

Bruno Valentino replied, "It did not happen here. Get some fancy West Coast lawyers to them quickly, and make sure these men keep their mouth shut, while they are in jail."

"Sir, Arizona is a death penalty state."

"Shit. Okay make sure the people in jail know that we have them covered. If they have families make sure the families are getting the best of everything. If they are allowed conjugal visits make sure they get the best. I want the lawyers to be at their beck and call. I do not want these men to be alive to go to trial. Do you understand me? I do not want it to point towards us."

"Yes Don Bruno, I understand. I will take care of it."

"Don Bruno, you have the phone call, it is Stephano."

"Stephano, my son, where are you, are you okay?"

"No dad, I am not okay, and as to where I am, I have no idea. I am upside down, looking into a large hole, which I am being lowered into. Mister Zabo said you reneged on a deal, which was supposed to save my life. He gave me this cell phone to talk to you for as long as the battery holds out, or until I am so deep into this cave that there is no longer a connection. Say goodbye to mom for me, I am sorry it ended this way. I can understand you not wanting to go to jail. I guess that's it. All my education wasted. The family dies with you. Goodbye dad."

"Do not hang up on me, please Stephano, do not hang up on me."

"You will be pleased to know he did not hang up on you, Bruno. He just threw the phone down into the pit, where he is going. I told him all about our deal. I asked him what he thought his chances were of walking into his home in two months. Do you know what he said; do you know how much faith he had in you? He said the chances he would walk into your home in two months were 100 percent. Can you imagine that Bruno. Your son had that much faith in you. Do you know what I told him when he said that to me, I told him he was a fool? I told him he did not know his father at all. As soon as you and I made that deal, we pulled up stakes and moved 700 miles from where we made our last transmission. We knew you would trace our last position.

You sent thirty-two men to Arizona, and Stephano and I are in Montana. You are absolutely brilliant Bruno, and you get smarter every year you get older. I am going to stay here and watch your son die. Then I will come to New York and kill you. It is not the way I wanted it to be. It is not the way I hoped it would be. It is the way you forced it to be. Another innocent human being has to die, because Bruno Valentino has no honor. His twenty-three-year-old son has to die because his father has no honor. Goodbye Bruno, the next time you hear from me will be from the business end of the gun."

"Don't hang up William."

"Why Bruno what are you going to promise me now: Your left lung? I don't want it. We had an agreement, and you voided it. There is nothing else to talk about."