Any Opportunity Will Do Ch. 16

Kat and Josh lay in hospital, wounded from the aftermath of the siege. Alexei has been captured, and the law starts its process, keeping the lovers apart..

This is a story full of Characters, with two lovers at its centre. As in life nothing is sure, and I have not yet written the end, so if you have suggestions on what should happen to the people in my story, please let me know and I will try to incorporate some of your suggestions.

*

He felt the pain as he started to rise up into consciousness, deep inside his chest, each breath seemed to cause a sharp ache. His whole body felt like lead, and it took a real effort to open his eyes. As they fluttered open the light hurt his pupils so that he closed them and just listened to the sounds around him. Trying to remember where he was, his drug muddled brain just drifted at first, nothing making sense. Feeling someone take hold of his wrist, he tried again to open his eyes, and looking through slits he watched as a nurse took his pulse, "Am I still alive?" he asked in a thick slurred voice.

"Mr Morrison, welcome back, just relax." the quiet gentle voice of the nurse told him as she moved to check on the drip bag running into the cannula attached to his hand. "Your doing fine."

Trying to move, but finding he had no strength, and any slight movement caused flashing pain in his chest, Josh lay looking around him assessing his situation. "Am I in hospital?"

"Yes Mr Morrison, you're here in intensive care. Everything is going well."

Closing his eyes with exhaustion he drifted back to sleep, the pain killing drugs pumped into his body and the remains of the anaesthetic draining him of any strength, giving him the blessed healing of rest and the oblivion of sleep. The nurse checked the bottle attached to the tube draining his chest of the dark stained fluid gathering, keeping his lung and chest cavity free of fluid, and then the bandage covering the wound on the side of his chest, marring the otherwise firm skin over his tight firm pectoral muscle.

Outside the Police guard sat reading his paper, and looking up as the nurse poked her head out the Intensive Ward doors, heard the words he had been waiting for hours to hear, "He's come round." Smiling down at the man to told him, "Vital signs are OK." Getting out his radio he called in the report, and then continued reading his early evening edition newspaper, which included the report on the incident that his charge had been shot during, as well as the death of his colleague. The young Policeman was being hailed a hero, killed as he tried to protect the beaten woman from being shot by Alexei, he had died as the bullet meant for Katrina had hit his heart.

Meanwhile on another floor of the hospital Katrina lay giving her first statement to the two Detectives, the skin on her body feeling tight and painful as the horrible livid welts caused by the beating with the crop throbbed. Tired and scared she told them about how when she arrived at Heathrow Airport, believing she was being employed as an Au Pair for a young couple, she had then been whisked away and taken to a house where she had been beaten and raped continually by the men that had collected her, and forced into prostitution up in a house in Nottingham. Tears streaming down her face, she told them what she knew, giving as much as she could, but it became to much and after a while the compassionate Detective told her that they would leave her to rest and continue when she felt a little better. The young Policewoman assigned to sit with her had listened, her heart breaking for the terrible experience her charge had been through.

Turning her face in shame towards the wall, Katrina cried, for her lost innocence, for her lost hopes and dreams, and for Josh, who no-one would tell her if he had survived the surgery or not.

*

John drove the car off the Ferry onto the small port, and following the slow procession of cars out of the main entrance, turned right towards the road that would take him to Newport and the main Hospital where he hoped he would find Josh and Katrina.

At the same time Phil Amery was leaving the main Police Station in Newport, having sat in with a series of interviews that were being conducted with Konstantin, who was singing like a bird.

A list of houses throughout the country where woman were being held and forced to work in the sex trade had been sent to the main Head Quarters to co-ordinate raids to be set up, and all the relevant agencies gathered together to give the support that would be required for such a big and complex plan.

Parking his car in the main car park, and looking for the small change needed to pay for the Hospital Parking he watched as a Mercedes pulled into the space next to his, and watched as the man, his face swollen, his clothes covered in dirt and looking exhausted stormed towards the Hospital Entrance.

Forgetting to get his parking ticket he followed the man, a gut feeling that he might be John Brewer whom he had been in contact with from the first, and walked behind him as John went up to the main information desk demanding to be told which ward Josh Morrison was in. The middle aged pinched faced woman with a tight bun looked at the man, and moving back a little in her chair as if threatened by the glaring John, explained that any press enquiries or visitors had to wait over there, pointing to a seating area to the left, which was packed with people, all looking curiously at the man starting to get irate at the desk.

"Look I'm his friend, tell me where he and Kat is, NOW."

Moving forward, showing the woman and John his identification, Phil Amery nodded at John putting out his hand to shake, "John Brewer? I'm Phil Amery, we meet at last. Come with me." Turning on his heel, leaving the receptionist with her mouth gaped open and the visitors staring, John went with Phil, asking him how Josh and Kat are.

"Mr Morrison is in intensive care, the bullet removed, and recovering, and Katrina is under guard in a private room, her wounds being tended to. She'll physically recover, and the marks will fade, but the mental scars may take a lot longer, if ever they fade at all."

"Can I sit with Josh, see him?"

"I'll get you cleared, but it might take awhile."

Walking up the stairs, Phil pulled out his mobile and called the relevant person to get permission. After a long conversation during which a lot of comments like, 'no problem', and 'no sweat it's taken care of', they reached the door of the Intensive Care Unit, a Policeman sitting on a red plastic chair by the door.

"Wait here John, I'm going in. As soon as I hear its OK you can come in, until then just sit down and make yourself as comfortable as you can." and he disappeared into the unit, leaving John staring through the small pane of Opaque glass in the door, unable to make out a thing.

"Please sit down Sir," the copper pointed to another red plastic chair further up the corridor, and walking over to it he slumped down, waiting for Phil to give him the nod to go in.

*

Phil looked down at Josh, now a little more alert; his body connected to tubes and drips, and pulled out a chair next to the bed. Sitting down he introduced himself and asked him how he felt.

"Like I've been shot in the chest by a bullet." Came the sarcastic reply, "How's Katrina, they won't tell me much. Is she here?"

"Yes she's here and she's OK."

"Can I see her?"

"Not quite yet, we need to get your statements first. Independent statements on what happened. Do you think you're up to it yet?"

"I'm a bit woozy, but I think I can remember most of it. Up until I passed out that is. Not sure of everything."

"No problem. We'll get what you remember for now, and then if anything else comes to you later we'll get that."

"Did you get that bastard?"

"Yes."

"and........"

"And nothing. I'm sorry but I can't tell you anything at the moment, except he's in custody."

"What happens now?"

"Now you get better, and we do what we do."

"What about Katrina? What happens to her?"

"She'll be looked after."

"You're a closed mouthed fucker aren't you? Not giving anything away."

Phil just smiled and getting up told Josh to rest and that someone would be in tomorrow to take his statement if he felt up to it."

Josh lay there, watching as the tall man walked out of the ward feeling as helpless as a new born baby, frustrated and angry that everything had been taken out of his hands, and that there didn't seem anyway to get to see Katrina and make sure how she was. He lay there memories of watching her being beaten by Alexei playing in his mind, and his remembering his feelings of helplessness and rage that he had not been able to stop her being hurt by the bastard.

Seething feelings of revenge started to take seed.

*

The afternoon sun tried to break through the clouds, and the trees made deep rustling sounds as the SWAT team made their move. Entering the grounds they made their way carefully towards the house, and breaking down the well enforced front door with the specially adapted battering ram made for just these types of raids, they swarmed through Alexei's home, looking for evidence.

Eventually they made their way up to the attic door at the top of the house, and trying to open it and finding it locked, kicked it down before entering. The men came to a sudden stop at the sight that greeted them.

Lying on the bed was the Polish girl, her eyes wide open in fear, her body curled on its side, naked, her hands bound behind her back, leg chained to the metal frame at the bottom of the bed.

One of the men made a move, taking off his flak vest and then removing his jacket, he placed it around her, covering her up and releasing her hands, as another man looked around for a way to undo the metal cuff surrounding her ankle. Finding the key on the table, which was pushed back away from the bed, he released her leg, shouting out for his partner to get the ambulance for her.

She lay there watching, all strength drained, unable to react, her mind numb, her body hurt, eyes wide as she was rescued from the attic room and taken away into the outside world, a place she had been stolen from only five days before.

*

Handcuffed to a bed in another Hospital room, guarded and watched lay the Russian Alexei Romanich, the bullet removed from his thigh, his anger at being caught and restrained a palpable anger emanating from his prone body.

Nurses tended him, as they had with Josh, checking his drips and wound, but with a natural reticence for they sensed in this man a real evil, his face watching their every move, his eyes despite the drugs spiteful and with a cold hard stare. His high priced Solicitor had been summoned and was negotiating with Police for better treatment and to have him moved up to London.

Whilst Konstantin was giving more and more information about Alexei's empire, working to make sure he was given a light sentence to it would be served in an open prison if possible.

Making a deal with a devil left a bad taste in the mouth of the law, but it meant achieving results quickly and efficiently, thus allowing them to release the women who were held around the country and giving them back their lives.

*

Whilst elsewhere others either mourned their loss, or grabbed for their five moments of fame.

Leeching off the misfortune of others, accepting their pieces of gold for selling their stories to the press.