Resurrection

"I think Congress is about to be bombarded with requests that all pharma companies are investigated, again!" Foxx sighed half-bitterly herself, knowing that international pharma companies were experts at muddying the water and hiding their actual profits through multi-tiered structures that often required a legion of forensic auditors a decade to uncover even as 'they' subverted political will until every investigation fizzled out and dissipated into thin air.

"Well, Mrs. Bates made it." Mused Foxx. "So at least that's a positive. And it was the husband who killed the one Kidnapper! What was his name again?"

"The husband or the kidnapper?"

"The Kidnapper Detective Rossi, I know the husband's name!"

"That was Jerome Wilson. Almost completely unknown, except crimes committed when he was a teenager. Those files have been sealed but we're waiting for your office to supply a petition to the court that they get unsealed!" He was bitter. The defining case of his career was slipping through his fingers.

Everyone except the Feds were sympathetic to his bitterness but it made little difference and already talk had switched to contemplate the Swiss side of the investigation. "Over fifteen people from BioVest had been detained either in Switzerland or France" Said the FBI Chicago office SAIC. "Things are moving fast and law enforcement agencies in Europe and here are wanting to bring the cases to court as fast as possible."

"Justice delayed, is justice denied!" Nodded Foxx.

"Yes, and screwed over, is screwed over." muttered Rossi. "Regardless of who does the screwing."

'Screwed' thought Michael on the other side of the Loop while drinking coffee in the Hospital Canteen with Darius. 'I've screwed up my marriage and myself and worst of all I can't even remember it.'

"It's visiting time already!" Frowned Darius. "Why you still here, man?" He nodded his head towards the elevators to the wards above.

"I'm not sure If I can." Sighed Michael. Every-time I see Mandy I remember what she said to me even if I don't remember what I did. "I don't know how to be with her. I keep trying to discuss it but she won't." His eyes clouded over. "She says it doesn't matter. But it does!"

"You're over-thinking it."

"No, I'm not. Every time I see Mandy I feel like a fraud."

"So, you're hiding? That isn't the Michael I know." Darius tried to inject some positivity into him that would snap him out of his funk, but for the first time he accepted that he wasn't getting through.

Because, Michael wasn't in a funk. It was worse than that. He felt like there were three different people inhabiting the same body. One was the old Michael, clever, strong and capable. He remembered how his family, friends and colleagues would look up to him and hang on his every word. Words that he now had difficulty finding on the fly. Back then they had come easy and on que. Now, he had to stop and think about what he wanted to say. He thought of 'that' Michael as a faded photograph; a ghost lurking in the corners and stairways of his mind, and sometimes looking back at him from mirrors, with pity.

The second Michael was a stranger. No, not a stranger... A someone or something malignant and hidden, like an assassin or a tumor. It was the man who had asked for a divorce and had hurt Mandy to the point where she had nothing left and she ended up in the arms of Robert. He couldn't find that Michael. He knew he was there somewhere. But, it was like looking at a sealed vault with no way in yet knowing it contained a secret he needed to uncover.

The third Michael was slow and clumsy and had none of the first Michael's elan or charisma. He thought of himself as warmed up left-overs from a gourmet meal. The only part of the new man he now was that didn't sadden him, was his ability to perpetrate the violence he had engaged in. If anything he held onto the satisfaction of the hurting he had inflicted and yes even the killing. He smiled grimly reminding himself that it had to be done. Like putting down a rabid dog.

He stood up wearily. "See you later Darius, maybe for a run?" They agreed to call and he went to see Mandy.

She was sitting up in bed cross-legged wearing pjs surrounded by printed statements, affidavits and legal documents awaiting her perusal and signature. She had lost weight and her eyes looked sunken but he thought that she was looking good compared to a couple of weeks before. Medically she was on the mend, having lost a piece of her small intestine and her spleen after both bullets had perforated it and which subsequently had to be removed. She was still tender and had a drainage tube feeding into a small bag attached to her hip. She jokingly told him that she'd never be able to wear a bikini again with the bullet wounds and operation scars on her torso, but in truth she had never wore one before either. The fact that she was on the mend was also obvious in that she was getting bored with her hospital stay, and was starting to complain about the food and the quality of the mattress on the bed.

When he walked in, she was on the phone to Jason who had come and stayed as long as he could then finally with great reluctance had left, returning to his job.

He had spent a lot of time together with Michael. On his last night they had gone out for a meal and had spoken late into the night. They had drank brandies and Michael had quickly become maudlin and confessed much of what had happened between him and his mother. It was a difficult conversation all round. Even adult children want to believe that their parents' marriage is infallible and sacrosanct but he was understanding.

"You're not helping yourself Dad! If Mom says move on, then why can't you?" He reached across the table and grabbed Michael's hand. "There's no marking time Dad. If you're standing still waiting for inspiration all you're doing is widening the rift between you. Even I can see that!"

Michael sat uncomfortably wondering when his son had become a man and cursing his lost memories and missing time even as Jason gave him one more try. "In flight school they teach you that regardless of what is happening around you, if you're in the pilot's seat your job is to: Aviate, Navigate and Communicate." He fixed Michael with a hard but honest stare. "In other words, don't become frozen in inaction, Dad."

Back at the moment, Michael was confronted by a rapidly improving Mandy and had to stop and ask himself why he was finding it so difficult to reconnect. Mandy noticed his sudden withdrawal and the way his lips tightened and she lost her smile momentarily before forcing it back again. She understood him better than he understood himself, but she couldn't just tell him the problem because he might not accept it. He might consider it nothing more than sophistry or he might even become resentful that she was spoon-feeding him on an intellectual level.

The problem in her estimation was that he had found out that she was 'cheating' with Robert and that was real. The fact that he had served her with divorce papers and was either cheating with another woman or was about to, was for Michael only a theoretical exercise, separate from his emotive self because he couldn't remember it so it wasn't 'real'. It was the equivalent of hearing that something bad had befallen a stranger.

She wondered if he could go back to loving her without first learning how to love and forgive himself. He in turn, took her in, confused by the dichotomy he felt. He wanted to hold her and kiss her lips, undress her and taste her skin and suck her nipples into his mouth and taste her pussy nuzzling it with his lips and run his tongue over her clit like he had done so many times in the past and then enter her and lose himself in her warmth, feeling her body surround him in ecstasy and watch her eyes roll back and feel her shudder under him as her orgasm hit and find his own release deep inside her.

Yet at the same time he wanted to lash out at her for going with Robert, made worse now that they knew that 'he' had ordered the hit on him, and as if that wasn't bad enough, he was left questioning his ability to please her. His perceived personal inadequacies left him struggling with his manhood. He wondered for the umpteenth time what had precipitated his want to divorce her. Certainly, there'd been no woman pop up to claim she loved him or he loved her, or that they'd made each other promises, made plans, developed a conjoint life. Nothing. If she existed, she had disappeared like early morning mist burned off by the sun.

They both pushed aside their thoughts to concentrate on the job at hand. They were surrounded by lawyers on all sides. There was depositions to be completed. Law suites against BioVest and Robert for injury claims. Meetings with Interpol, and the FBI. Meetings with the FDA and EMA - the European Medical and Pharmaceutical governing body.

There were also ongoing requests from industry publications as well as international oncology associations to comment and at times to clarify previous comments. The Professors and HoD's who had helped perpetrate the fraud for financial gain were squeezed into a corner. Some came out fighting but even they were quickly overwhelmed by the volume of evidence against them. Reputations were ruined, jobs were lost and those involved were not only removed from office but had their medical licences revoked.

Mainstream media gave Michael and Mandy their fifteen minutes of fame by turning them into the darlings of whistle-blowing which was then followed by a storm on social media which went against them as often as not. Certainly there were enough people in BioVest who attacked them viciously claiming that they were either wrong or had personal axes to grind, or wanted to close the company and all the good it had achieved for nefarious reasons.

For Michael it was overwhelming and spinning out of control made worse since he had stopped his SSRI's and his bi-polar condition was acting up making him paranoid. It first manifested on his drive home from the hospital after an arduous day of depositions followed by Zoom and Teams meetings with the European lawmakers when he noticed a car following him home. He came off Lake-Shore and it stayed with him. He made a number of random turns until it was gone.

The next night it was a different car and that one followed him almost all the way home. He called Detective Rossi who came by. They assigned a patrol car to his street and Rossi personally tailed him for the next few days but there was nothing. As soon as the police protection ended he was followed again.

Mandy became concerned over his behaviour and eventually, she had a meeting with Rossi and Karina Andersen. They collectively reached the opinion that there was no-one following Michael, who was probably having a mental breakdown. With much deliberation and a carefully gentle intervention Karina convinced Michael to book himself into a psychiatric hospital.

Asked later, he freely admitted that he was suffering from PTSD leading to anxiety which in turn was leading to feelings of persecution driving his paranoia. This was all brought about from both the night they were kidnapped, tortured and almost killed but also from his earlier brush with death and unexpected resurrection.

Karina Andersen told him that 'his mental chickens had come home to roost.' The only thing that surprised her was how long it had taken.

His hospital stay had a number of benefits not least was that he found himself cocooned from the fire-storm that he and Mandy had lit. He spoke to her almost daily even when she flew to Europe to testify. He testified live from his hospital via a Teems Meeting linkup.

When she was back she visited him as much as she could but she was once again in and out of courtrooms both testifying in criminal and civil cases. She was busy taking on the world while he considered himself to be doing nothing more than gazing at his naval, yet he needed it, and wanted that passive existence while his brain tried to catch up to his body.

The resident Psychiatrist in consultation with Karina Andersen considered that part of Michael's problem was that he had not stopped long enough to mourn his previous life. Then his new life was baptised in a conflagration of violence. If that wasn't enough it had transpired that even his self-perception of his previous life was wrong and he swimming in dark waters.

'Yes, Michael! Finally." Karina Andersen was working with him on his PTSD recovery. "Say it again."

"I am who I am. I am what I am." Michael repeated his personal Mantra. "I forgive myself for the things I have knowingly or unknowingly done" A tear ran down his cheek. "I deserve a happy life. I will work towards a happy life."

Karina looked at him for a long moment. She had spoken to enough people since his awakening to understand who he had been before, but who he was now was no less interesting or attractive. Despite his own misgivings, viewed from the outside Michael was quite the man, she thought to herself.

He had learned to walk, albeit with a slightly high stepping motion which was almost unnoticed but it ensured that his 'lazy foot didn't drag. He wore an invisible hearing aid and his speech was almost clear except when he got excited and went into an adorable stutter. More importantly, watching him stop to think over important questions lent him an air of sincerity that all found endearing.

He was well read and knowledgeable on many subjects and although she understood that he wasn't quite the brilliant man he was before, he was still no slouch and she judged him to be at the least above average in intelligence and his critical thinking although somewhat ponderous was invariably spot-on.

"It's time!" she smiled and pushed him out of the nest.

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Chapter VII: Second Life (Part 1)

Mandy took a sip of her cappuccino. Her flight would be called soon to start her new life. She was leaving Chicago for good and starting off in the Bahamas to spend some time With Jason and Vera. That would be Jason's significant other who was a Marine Biologist on the island.

Mandy had spent the last week tidying up the details of her, or was it their, old life. The house had been sold fully furnished. She and Michael had both opened new accounts in their own names. The two accounts boasted almost seventeen million dollars each.

That made them wealthy.

Not rich. In her mind rich was a different number altogether but wealthy enough to enjoy the good things in life and never have to work another day unless they wanted to... And maybe she would. The FDA had approached her suggesting a position overseeing old and new drug applications forensically but she had, at least for the time being turned them down.

It was almost twenty six months since Michael had been shot. Two months since the final court case had ended. She smiled with satisfaction thinking of the legal blood-bath that had ensued.

Robert had received life for his part in Michael's attempted murder and another fifty years to run consecutively for his part in their kidnapping and torture. Number Two as she had called him, was Kenneth Wilson. Turned out that number One and number Two were cousins. Anyway, he had received two Life Sentences with no possibility of parole and it looked like he wasn't fitting in well in the prison population considering that he had already been stabbed on two occasions.

Of the BioVest top executives, four had been extradited and stood trial in the US and of the four, two had received life without parole and the other two, twenty five years each. The rest of the Exco members, all eleven of them, had been tried in Europe and their sentencing hadn't been handed down yet but it wouldn't be kind.

She and Michael had jointly and severally sued Robert and BioVest receiving a settlement from Robert of just over six million dollars. Leaving him with almost nothing, not that it would matter where he was going.

The Biovest suit had paid out forty five million. Thirty five to Michael and ten to her. They had sued for the equivalent of one hundred million dollars but the judgement in European courts was typically less than a jury might have awarded in the US. The second monetary blow to BioVest was the European, Medical and Pharma authority, EMA's, imposition of a five hundred million Euro fine which left BioVest tottering once added to the expenditure on Hexalidomine whose applications for registration were withdrawn world-wide and then the sharks circled.

Their lawyers had taken twenty percent of the award totalling ten point two million. She and Michael had opened an account with seven million for Jason and the rest they decided to split. Initially she only wanted her portion but Michael had not only insisted but had become intransigent until she gracefully acquiesced.

They had agreed to donate the proceeds from the house sale to the University of Chicago Medical School and a further five hundred thousand to the Chicago Vet's Association in tribute to Darius and the help he had given Michael over and above the job. Michael also transferred the deed of his SUV to Darius' much to the latter's embarrassment.

Unfortunately all the travel, court-cases, briefs and de-briefs and the associated stress, meant that the relationship between Michael and Mandy was best described as numbly, semi-detached.

She had tried to interest Michael in relocating to Fort Lauderdale and living on the canals. He said he'd loved to, but not yet. He was on some sort of personal quest that both excluded her and kept him on a single minded and secretive mission. She tried repeatedly to connect with him, but it seemed that the last five months had done their relationship no favors. Their shared harrowing ordeal and her subsequent convalescence had initially drawn them together, but the months that followed had pulled them apart. Sadly she had to admit that their relationship had become obscured and brittle, leaving her at a loss on how to reconnect.

Karina Andersen had advised her to give him space. "Let him come to you." She suggested.

She called Michael just before she boarded. "Bye Mike, I love you." Her voice suddenly broke as emotion swept over her unexpectedly. She thought she had run dry of tears and burnt out all her high emotion but clearly, not all.

"I... I love you too Mandy but there's something I have to do first." She could hear the worry even fear in his voice.

"Don't take too long."

"Please Michael'. She thought. I can't lose you again. - You've managed to get him back twice. There won't be a third time said the irrational side of her brain.

Michael though that the cooling Autumn temperatures reflected the temperature of his heart and soul perfectly. His whole life felt cold and grey while his mind played wistfully, with images of Mandy in the Bahamas. He found himself envying her uninhibited freedom and all that sun, sea and an escape from the hard fast pace of Chicago.

But he wasn't ready to be free. Not yet.

He started calling in markers until he got the telephone number of his previous personal assistant.

"What do you want Michael?" She didn't seem very well disposed towards him.

"I need your help, please Jorgia."

"I'd rather you just lose my number." She was about to put down when he appealed to her one more time.

"I'm sorry to impose on you Jorgia. Please give me five minutes. I promise to never call you again."

"Ok, you've got five minutes"

Time to cut to the chase, but he was having a hard time initiating the conversation. "Umm, you know, be - before I was shot and everything that followed?"

"Ye-es?"

"Was... Was I seeing someone?"

There was a long silence.

"You know, before I got shot and everything?"

"Why Michael, do you want to reconnect with your floozie?"