State Of The Union

“How’s he doing?” asked Scot as he heard the rhythmic click of a ventilator and saw the tube protruding from Gary’s mouth. A myriad of monitors, with brightly colored displays, quietly whirred and beeped around the head of Lawlor’s bed as if they had come together to form some sort of protective technological halo.

“Not great,” replied Skip. “The bullet just missed his heart, but managed to do some major arterial damage and nicked his aorta. He went into deep hypothermic cardiac arrest. They had to do a cardio pulmonary bypass.”

“Jesus,” said Harvath. “Is he going to be okay?”

“At this point, nobody’s sure. It’s not looking very good.”

“When do you think he’ll be coming around?”

“It was a pretty long surgery. The anesthesiologist told me he used Isoflurane. It’s an inhalation agent, so we have to wait for Gary’s lungs to excrete it before he comes to.”

“How much time are we talking about here? I have some very important questions to ask him,” replied Harvath.

“Twenty to thirty minutes probably, but Scot, you have to be prepared for the fact that he might not be able to answer any of your questions.”

“They’re going to extubate him when he wakes up, right?”

“Probably not. They’ll want to watch him for a while and see how he’s doing and then the decision will be made. If they don’t think he’s strong enough, they’ll leave him on the vent.”

“Will he be able to write? I’ll get him a pen and pad.”

“Scot, listen. Gary is not a young man. On top of the bullet wound, he aspirated a lot of blood and they had to insert a chest tube. He also took some very serious blows to the head, which means there is a high probability that he has some acute intracranial injuries as well. His abilities, especially to communicate, could be severely impaired.”

“Skip, if I have to sit here and take notes while the man blinks out Morse code, then I’m going to do it. The information he has in his head is critical to our assignment.”

“I understand that and believe me, I appreciate what’s at stake here. I just want you to be prepared in case he can’t be of any help to you.”

“If he can’t,” said Harvath, drawing up a chair to the side of Gary Lawlor’s bed and sitting down, “we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

It was one of the recovery room nurses who first noticed Gary Lawlor’s eyelids fluttering. She slid past a dozing Harvath and began speaking to Gary in English as she checked his vital signs. Trawick, who had been across the room speaking with one of the other nurses, saw the commotion and quickly made his way over to the bed. Harvath, now wide awake, slid his chair back and stood up as he watched the nurse soothe her groggy patient and urge him to resist the urge to pull out the tube.

When Gary had sufficiently awakened and she was confident that he wasn’t going to try and pull the trach tube from his throat, she nodded to Dr. Trawick and then proceeded to the foot of the bed to annotate his chart.

Dr. Trawick took a look at Lawlor’s vitals and shook his head before turning to Scot and saying, “A couple of minutes at most, Scot. Okay? Take it slow. And whatever you do, don’t upset him.”

Harvath nodded his head, assuring Skip that he understood and then slid his chair back over next to the bed as Skip and the nurse left them alone. Lawlor’s eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to be focusing on anything in particular.

“Gary?” said Scot, trying to get his attention. “It’s me, Scot. Can you hear me?”

It took a moment, but Lawlor’s eyes slowly tracked over until they made contact with Harvath’s face. Scot couldn’t be sure, but he thought he detected a flicker of recognition. Taking the man’s hand he said, “You’re going to be okay. You’re in Berlin’s Charité Hospital. You were shot, but everything is all right now. As soon as you’re stable, we’re going to move you to Landsthul.” Landsthul Regional Medical Center, located five kilometers south of Ramstein Air Base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, was the largest American hospital outside of the United States. There, Lawlor would not only get the continuing medical attention he needed, but also the security, as LRMC was located on a permanent American military installation.

Lawlor released Harvath’s hand and weakly pantomimed writing. He wanted to tell him something.So much for taking things slow, thought Harvath.

He produced the pen and pad he had borrowed from one of the nurses and, lifting Gary’s hand, helped him grip the pen in his fist and placed it on the pad where he could see it.

Each motion of his hand was extremely labored and whatever he was doing seemed to take forever. Finally, he finished and began drawing slow circles around what he had written on the pad. Harvath looked down and saw the lettersHD followed by a question mark. They made no sense to him and he decided to press harder. “I have spoken with Frank Leighton and-”

Lawlor wasn’t listening. He had begun writing again.H.E.L.M.

Harvath wondered if Gary even knew he was in the room talking to him.