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“Thanks.”
I’m torn. I’m going to be part of a legitimate plan to get Harrison and bring him and his family to justice.
That has to make me happy.
But something tells me that things are going to get a whole lot more consequential now that I’ll be working with the FBI…
CHAPTER 15
Harrison
The Present…
We rushto my father’s mansion where his personal doctor is waiting, and all I can do is hope that we’re fast enough to save Ethan’s life. He’s going in and out of consciousness, and knowing what I know about battlefield wounds, I know I’ve got to keep him alert, so I shake his shoulder gently.
“Hey, Ethan, stay awake,” I say, keeping my voice soft, but insistent. “Stay with me, buddy. We’re almost there. Stay with me…”
His eyes roll up in his head, and I panic and shake him more forcefully. The van screeches to a stop in the underground parking garage beneath the mansion, and the back door opens. The doctor is standing there, a stethoscope around his neck.
“This really should be happening at a hospital,” he says, but he comes in anyway and checks for Ethan’s pulse. “He needs a transfusion right now. Get him inside.”
We lift Ethan and three of us carry him to the elevator and up to the main floor, where my father has his own medical unit set up that cared for him after his stroke when he came home instead of remaining in rehab. There’s a full hospital bed, with telemetry to monitor pulse, respirations and an IV pole in case he needed an infusion. We get Ethan onto the bed, and immediately, the doctor attaches an oxygen mask over Ethan’s face and then he checks the wound. I’d stuffed some tissue from one of the worker’s desks in the wound, but it’s totally soaked through, as is his pant leg. Even now, I see blood pulsing out of the wound.
“Get me that bag,” the doctor says, pointing to the portable first aid kit he has. Inside is what I recognize as Ringer’s lactate, which is what you give to a person who has lost blood or needs fluid. The doc threads it through the IV pole holder and then when it’s in place, he takes Ethan’s arm and finds a vein, sticking the long needle into his flesh. He tapes the needle in place and then turns back to the wound.
For the next fifteen minutes, the doctor fights to save Ethan’s life.
He cuts off Ethan’s pants to expose the wound, and then after sterilizing the skin and wound as best he can, he searches in the wound to find and stitch the injured artery, but I can see it’s beyond what he can do outside of an emergency room or operating theater.
I watch, helpless, as my brother slowly dies in front of me, the doctor unable to repair the damaged artery and stop the loss of blood.
Ethan bleeds out, the Ringer’s lactate not enough to stop it.
In the field during the war, we had special plugs we could insert in a wound that expanded and absorbed blood and coagulated it to stop blood loss, but I know that even if we had that now, Ethan couldn’t be saved. Not if his artery was severed.Nothing but an OR suite with a surgeon and full surgical team could do that.
Ethan dies in front of our eyes.
I cover my face with my hands when the doctor finally pronounces Ethan dead.
Oh, God, oh, God,oh, God…
I should have stopped this stupid operation. I knew it was a risk, and I didn’t put an end to this madness.
Those diamonds were not worth my brother’s life…
I weep. We all do, all of the men who were close to Ethan. My father and I hold onto each other, and I feel his body shaking in my arms.
“Oh, God, my poor boy, my poor poor boy…”
I hold him close and let him cry, while letting my own tears flow.
This is too much.
It’s just too much.
Two brothers in less than a year…
Over the next moments,the remaining members of the family discuss what to do next. We’re faced with how to deal with the aftermath of the robbery and Ethan’s death. While the doctor covers Ethan’s body, I realize that we can’t simply treat his death as normal.
