“I’ve come to check on you. You are one of my people, and we were friends once. Besides, I can’t imagine inedible Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital.”
“Feeling guilty and brought me turkey to compensate?”
Noah ignored the guilty comment and pulled up a chair near the bed. “Your team survived climbing into a gasoline tanker yesterday.”
“There’s a job for Haz-Mat,” Jacen said wearily.
“There were kids inside.”
“Someone didn’t want to wait. Clarke or Rodriguez?”
“They’ve been on administrative leave since Veteran’s Day,” Noah said.
“Carver then. Knight isn’t ready to control those behaviors.” Jacen might have had six broken bones, but his mind was fine. “He alive?”
“I checked on him first. He’s recovering in the ICU. They expect him to be fine.”
“Why’d you let him become a firefighter? He’s had too many years of being in charge and making his own decisions. He isn’t gelling with the team because he thinks he’s an exception to protocol. I was making progress by drilling him endlessly to do the protocol without letting him think about it.”
“I believe he has long-term potential,” Noah hedged.
“There’s a politician’s answer, Chief Baker,” Jacen said formally.
“Use your head; you’ll figure it out.” Should Jacen ever return to his position as Captain, he needed to understand the method behind Noah’s apparent madness.
Jacen thought, and Noah knew the moment the light bulb went on. “He isn’t going to be a firefighter. He’s for Rescue Alpha.”
“That’s an interesting idea,” Noah said. “Why would I want that?”
Now Williams got it. “You sneaky… This how you got the MetroGen Emergency Department to sign on. He’s married to their chief. If he survives one year of firefighting, he goes to Rescue Alpha.”
Noah shrugged his shoulders. “I’m slightly insulted you believe I’d make such a large exception for one paramedic.”
“You don’t intend on him to be a paramedic. You want him to be the battalion chief of 10,” Jacen said as the first person outside of his inner circle of department heads to actually understand. Hastings and McClunis both were in on it. Cordova suspected since he was heading Battalion 10 and had resisted any attempts to discipline Carver.
“If so, it would solve a significant number of my problems. MetroGen takes command of the program in five years’ time.”
Understanding dawned on Jacen. “You need me to indoctrinate him as a firefighter, gain his loyalty because you made an exception for him, and have him take over the Battalion. How calculating.”
“I’d consider it a good utilization of resources. It’s what the department needs,” Noah answered, not detailing the great lengths he had gone to acquire Carver. From the moment James Haskell had reported an unassisted C-section Carver performed in an ambulance, Noah had planted the seeds which grew into fruition the following year. Carver quit his job, and Noah had offered Dr. Manika Gupta-Carver a way out for her husband.
“And you’ll do whatever it takes for the department, won’t you? You always do. Never take a single step out of line if it could hurt the department. Not even if it kills your best friend,” Jacen growled.
“I saved your life.”
“You ended it. Why did you send them to find me? They could have saved Rodriguez and left me behind. Just fall asleep, drift away, the same way I wanted to… How long do you think she waited for us before she died?”
Noah forced himself to remain calm. “No, Dre was dead the moment the gunman opened fire. If you went in, I’d have two body bags.”
“I’d be better off than I am now.” Jacen gestured to his broken leg and hips.
“Wills—”
“Look what it left me with—nothing! No wife! No children!” If possible, Jacen’s eyes got even harder and colder. “Ten years, fifty grand, and finally, she got pregnant. She was at the bank to pick up the money to pay off our IVF bill.”
His words pierced Noah to the bone. “The scene wasn’t secure. Dre wouldn’t have wanted you to go in. Baby or no baby.”
“You don’t know that,” Jacen accused.
