“We clear?” he asked, keeping one hand curled around Sean’s elbow tosteadyhim.
“You’re clear on our end, but we’ll keep monitoring to be sure. Your flight plan has been filed. See you in an hour,”Katiesaid.
She cut the line. Alexei nodded curtly. “Let’sgo.”
The sooner they left New Miami, thebetter.
* * *
The painin Sean’s head had settled somewhere betweenexcruciatingandshoot me to make it stop. The extraction out of Antonovich’s villa had rattled his skull and the broken bones in his face badly enough that, when Annabelle initiated the vertical take-off and landing in the jet, his stomach twisted violently inreaction.
Trevor had prepared for just such an issue and whipped out one of the travel sick bags packed away in his individual first-aid kit. The plastic opening easily molded around Sean’s bruised face and mouth as hegotsick.
“Dr. Gold, do you copy?” Trevor said as he braced Sean and kept him from keeling over out of his seat. “Agent Delaney definitely has a concussion, but I’m more worried about the contusion on the right side of his face. He has some broken bones around the orbital area. You’ll want to prep a regen regimeforhim.”
Sean spat into the bag as his body finished expelling what little was left in his stomach. Antonovich had fried his bioware and his comms, so he couldn’t hear what Dr. Gracie Gold, the surgeon who headed up the MDF’s Medical Division,respondedwith.
“Copy that,” Trevor said, the concern in his brown eyes difficult to escape. “So, Sean. Gracie says you get to spend the rest of the day in Medical before debriefing with thedirector.”
“That sounds so fun,” Sean muttered as he used the sleeve of his dirty suit jacket to wipe his mouthclean.
Dr. Gracie Gold used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders before a jihadist terrorist group exploded a Splice bomb in the middle of the Ethiopian refugee camp she’d been volunteering in. She was the only survivor of that attack, coming away with the power to accelerate a person’s ability to heal up to three times the normal speed for a limited amount of time. Pairing her power with a regen regime meant healing could happen in hours or days rather than weeks. That didn’t mean it wascomfortable.
Trevor took Sean’s pulse rate and blood pressure with the field version of the med-glove he’d pulled from the jet’s field kit. The medical device was of a shorter design than the elbow-length ones used in a hospitalsetting.
“You lose consciousness when you took these hits?” Trevorasked.
“No,” Sean dutifully replied. “Slept a little afterward, even though I triednotto.”
“Let’s get an IVinyou.”
Sean slowly attempted to pull off his suit jacket, trying not to jar his head while Trevor got up to get the bigger med-kit from a storage compartment up front. Another pair of hands helped remove the offending piece of clothing for him and Sean squinted up atAlexei.
“Thanks,”hesaid.
“You in New Miami why?” Alexei asked. He tossed the suit jacket on the seat behind Sean’s, stepping out of Trevor’s way when the medicreturned.
“Because that’s where Wolcott’s schedule allowed ustomeet.”
Sean undid the cuff of his button-down, rolling his sleeve up so Trevor could slide a catheter and needle into a vein on the back of his hand. Two IVs piggybacked into a single entry point, the saline and glucose bags hanging from a small, floating disk used to secure IVs and other medicaldevices.
“Why weren’t we told?” Trevor asked as he unsealed a quick-heal patch and delicately laid it over Sean’s swollen right cheek. It wouldn’t fix the fracture underneath, but it would take the swelling andpaindown.
“Wasn’t yourmission.”
“You called me,” Alexeiremindedhim.
Sean flinched as another quick-heal patch was applied to the left side of his face. “Because Antonovich’s assassin was going to cut Chloe’s throat, and I figured threatening him with the Pavluhkins might be enough to get him to stay his hand. It was a better option than me trying to shoot him in the face. I’m not as good as your brother withagun.”
“No one as good asKilyusha.”
Sean closed his eyes, slouching in the seat. He tried to ignore the throbbing in his head to answer everyone’s questions, but his concentration was rapidly failing. “I know. Which is why I didn’t try toshoothim.”
“Could havephased.”
Sean cracked open his one good eye, glaring up at where Alexei leaned over his seat. “Then that would have compromised the mission. Wasn’t worththerisk.”
Alexei seemed angry by that answer, but Sean was too tired to figure out why. “They crack your skull. That not worthmission.”
