Seek and Destroy (5 page)

    "Tell me, would I have made it if you hadn't done whatever treatment you did?"

    She lowered her glasses to the end of her nose and locked her gaze with his. He felt the heat from her breath tickle his cheek. It smelled of rich coffee and peppermint breath mints. If he turned his head just right, maybe adjusted his chin, he could just reach her lips. He tried to move, felt a surge of pain and gave in to defeat.

    "Sugar treatment. Active charcoal. The norm. It absorbs the Ricin, but doesn't remove it. Without the treatment, the Ricin would have killed you in a matter of days. That's why we had you in ICU for so long. We had to be certain the treatments worked."

    She pushed her glasses back up and went about redressing his wound. After she'd finished, she paused and looked at him. "You really are lucky to be alive. The bullet entered under your right shoulder blade at just the precise angle needed to hit your collarbone and ricochet back onto your shoulder blade, shattering it before going after some of your organs. Luckily it wasn't after your heart. Another inch to the left and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

    David swallowed. He knew the hazards of the job. Didn't mean he had to like them. "Holy hell. You paint a," he stated and swallowed again, "very vivid picture."

    She smiled then. The darkness of the room disappeared, replaced by a glow that seemed to center around her.

    Just what kind of drugs did they have him on?

    

    

    "What I can't understand," McKoy started and shook her finger at the air as she paced back and forth. "And believe me, I've tried to figure this out since first meeting you." She stopped and turned to him. "How did you get shot?"

    He threw a look at Weber, wondering if the question sounded as crazy to him as it did to David. "Come again?"

    "What I mean is, the angle of the wound doesn't make any sense. It's almost as if-" She stopped herself with a slight giggle and adjusted her glasses. The noise landed in his chest and he caught what little breath he had in his lungs. "Never mind."

    She had his full attention. "As if what?"

    Licking her lower lip before pulling it between her teeth and pulling a groan out of him as he watched her every move, she shook her head. "It's like you would've had to have been flying through the air in order to have the bullet enter at that angle. Like you flew into the path at that precise moment." She laughed, and it, too, landed in his chest with amazing force. "As good as you NASSD agents are I'm sure flying is not one of your many talents."

    He really did fly. He jumped in front of that bullet milliseconds before it would have taken Weber down. And if his memory served, and to date it has never failed him, his shoulder had been centered directly in front of Weber's chest when the bullet slammed into him.

    Holy shit. If David hadn't jumped in front of him when he did, Weber would have been killed. Dead. As in hasta-la-bye bye. He looked over to Weber. No words were needed. He'd come to the same conclusion.

    "Some shrapnel couldn't be removed," she continued, pulling his gaze back to her.

    Well. This just kept getting better and better. "How much is left?" He asked.

    She paused. When Weber growled with impatience, she continued. "Let's just say you'll be setting off the metal detectors in the airport from now on."

    So much for going in undetected, David thought wryly. He closed his eyes against what it all meant. Deep down, he knew. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew. His days in Field Ops were numbered, if not over all together.

    "Goddamn it, McKoy!" Weber stated. "Why wasn't I briefed on any of this?"

    She blinked twice at him, seemingly not comprehending the question. "I just told you."

    Weber looked ready to pop. "I meant before now."

    "Would it have made any difference?"

    "Why the hell am I always the last to know? I'm a director, for Christ's sake! That entitles me to something, doesn't it? You are supposed to brief the director
before
briefing the agent. Classic NASSD. Jesus, it's in the goddamn rulebook!"

    This time McKoy did jump at Weber's barking. Hell, the entire hospital wing had to have heard him. "I'm not NASSD, but I do know that is not in the rulebook."

    "It's common sense, McKoy."

    "Common sense," she argued, impressing the hell out of David she would stand up to Weber in the mood he was in, "would dictate I tell the person the news is affecting. It doesn't make any sense to tell you, then turn around and tell him the same thing. If you are in the same room, which you are, then it makes sense to tell you both at the same time."

    "I don't give a rat's ass whether it makes sense to you or if it's in the goddamn rulebook. Follow
my
rules or I send you back to daddy and find someone who can." He emphasized his point by driving his finger at her, his teeth clenched.

    She backed up until she ran into David's arm on the side of his bed. As much as it hurt, he retreated his arm before he reached around and pulled her to him.

    She took a few preparatory breaths. Her words seemed hurried, eager to say something to get the director's anger back under check. "W-We expect him to be out of here within the next few days or so, now that we know the threat of death is no longer imminent."

    "Good," David said. "So it'll be back in the field in no time."

    "Not so fast." She turned and looked at him. "You can't simply bounce back from this. You need to take a break from the field."

    Shit. He was afraid of that. "How long of a break?"

    She hesitated and looked down at her wringing hands to avoid his eyes. As she brought her eyes up, she looked to Weber for guidance. "You know what needs to happen, sir."

    Shaking his head, he protested. "No."

    "Do you really want me to do this? Or would you rather I make a call?"

    Weber narrowed his eyes as he looked at McKoy. His expression hardened. His breath grew labored. His nostrils flared. As he clenched his hands into fists, he looked down and shook his head. JT came to his side and rested her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her.

    "You have to," JT told him gently.

    Weber shook his head again, dropped his gaze to the floor.

    "SD Weber," McKoy urged.

    "I'll take it from here," Weber growled, his voice terse, full of something David rarely heard from him. Emotion. Regret. The look in those eyes told him everything he needed to know. "Snyder."

    "No, Weber." He fought to keep his voice steady, refused to accept defeat. He fought the bullet. The poisoning. That had to count for something. "Don't take me out of the field. I can still do this."

    Visibly swallowing, Weber nodded. "I have no doubt, David. But I can't have you back out there, not knowing what we now know."

    Weber never called him by his first name. The resentment toward ICE grew with a vengeance. NASSD joined ICE on the top of his shit list. They were discarding him like some waste of space.

    They did the same thing to Sam Wise. He was still in physical therapy when ICE charged in and dropped the bomb. "Convenient how ICE is here already."

    "I didn't know about the Ricin," Weber defended.

    "And yet you still involved ICE," he retorted. "Why are they here then, Weber?"

    "It was originally supposed to be a temporary transfer. Just until you fully recovered."

    "Like
Sam Wise
?" He clenched his jaw until that hurt, too. "His transfer was temporary. That was over three years ago. Why is he still there?"

    "Sam Wise will never be able to run again. He walks with a cane, for Christ's sake."

    McKoy broke in. "I brought Special Agent Wise in after his injury. I never presented his transfer from NASSD to ICE as temporary. He knew it would be a permanent move."

    Interesting tidbit, and one Sam Wise never told him. Whether or not it held an ounce of truth didn't matter. Wise still waited around for the call that would put him back out in the field. David wondered which agency continued to string him along. ICE? NASSD?

    Both?

    Right now he didn't have very fond thoughts for either one.

    Weber sighed. Oh great. That sigh meant he wanted to open up. And in front of someone outside of NASSD. On any other day, he would have jumped at the chance to have Weber open up, since he did it so rarely. But something told him this wouldn't turn out well, at least for him.

    He decided to just come out and ask. No need prolonging the inevitable. "Am I out?"

    "No," Weber answered without hesitation. "You know you'll always be a NASSD agent. But..."

    "Here it comes. The big
but.
"

    The good doctor/agent added her two cents. "You've lost mobility, David. The doctors had to take half of your right lung. Your spleen. You may never get full use of your right shoulder again." She counted on her fingers all of the reasons why he was the poster child for a transfer from NASSD to ICE.

    Sure. When Hell froze over.

    "It isn't a matter of jumping right back into the field," she continued, as if it would make a shit bit of difference to him. "For an everyday average guy, he'd barely notice the change. But for a Field Ops Agent? The situations you get into could prove fatal."

    Here it comes. He kept his glare on Weber and ignored the angelic agent. "Well? Am I out or not?"

    Weber shook his head and lowered his eyes. "It's the hardest goddamn decision I'll ever have to make." JT leaned against him as he brought his eyes back up and rested them on his best friend. "It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Damn it
, Snyder." He sighed again.

    He swallowed several times to ward off the way the constriction in his chest had his eyes burning. He stared at the rails on the bed. "Just say it and get it over with."

    "I'm sorry, my friend." Weber locked his gaze with his. "Please understand. I have no other choice. It's too much of a risk putting you back out there."

    "
Risk
?" He ignored the shooting pain in his shoulder and ribs as he stiffened. The burn in his eyes grew to a fury as he locked his gaze with his director's. "Don't piss in my face and call it rain. That's bullshit. You want to talk about
risk
? I
risk
my life every fucking day for this agency. The minute I become a
risk
, the minute the table is turned..." He lost some of his steam when McKoy rested her hand on his arm. "The agency turns." He focused on the way her fingers curled around, the way her short nails tickled his skin as she moved them back and forth. The bile in the back of his throat subsided.

    "You've got it wrong," Weber defended. "I can't put you out there again.
I
won't risk it. I have no doubt you'll be able to stay up with the rest of the agents physically. That isn't the issue."

    "The Ricin," he finished hoarsely, his eyes still focusing on McKoy's hand on his arm.

    "If you so much as walk into a room where they are manufacturing that shit, it will kill you. Do you get it now? It. Will. Kill. You. I can't lose you, Snyder. Not as an agent. Not as my friend. Please. Understand."

    Oh yes. He understood. He took a bullet for his country. And in return, he got screwed.

    "The ICE Agency has agreed to take you as a transfer," McKoy added as a consolation prize.

    He eyed her leg. "Why you? Are you, like me, too much of a risk for your agency to send you in on a
real
mission?"

    "I beg your pardon?"

    He clenched his jaw to keep his anger in check. He knew she'd been injured in the field, but didn't know if anyone else did. She didn't walk with a profound limp, but he noticed how she favored her right leg. If he mentioned her injuries,
where
she'd been when she'd gotten them, he'd be exposing his own cover on the op. Up until five minutes ago, he didn't even know ICE had been involved.

    Did she know he'd been the other agent in that field? Did she recognize his eyes as the ones she'd stared into moments before the blast? He couldn't risk the possibility of exposure.

    "No thanks, Angel. Not interested."

    Her cheeks splashed with fresh color at his comment. Something flashed in her brilliant blue eyes, clouding them darker. Panic? Skepticism? "What did you just say?"

    Definitely panic. "I said I'm not-"

    "No." She cut him off. "The name. Why did you call me Angel?"

    He wasn't about to tell her the truth. "Figured it fit. You're in white." How
lame
.

    Obviously she didn't believe him. "I personally collect all NASSD Field Ops agents," she started out slowly.

    "Not this one." He shook his head and slowly closed his eyes. This sucked. Being passed off to ICE? He thought of Sam Wise sitting behind a desk wishing he were dead. The man actually thought his transfer to ICE was a fate worse than death. What did that say about the intelligence agency? "Why not just take my sidearm and finish me off?"

    "Hey wait a minute. Working with ICE won't be so bad." McKoy pulled her hand back as she attempted to defend, but he didn't give a shit. He was NASSD, through and through. No way would he go to work for the egocentric ICE agency.

    Weber tried. "Snyder,"

    "No way."

    "You don't have a choice."

    He riveted his eyes to Weber. "The hell I don't. This is my life. If I want to risk it, it's my choice."

    "And what about the life of your team?" Weber threw back. "Snyder, you are supposed to be a lead now. I can't put you in charge of an op and risk the lives of all the other agents."