Chapter Five

          Luke walked out of the Albuquerque airport and breathed deeply. The dry desert heat struck him as primitive and angry. It was similar to the way he was feeling. He had tracked Jax, Jerry and Bobbie to the state of New Mexico; now the trick was locating them inside the state's borders. He waited until the rental car was available for him and threw his duffel bag in the backseat. The sooner he began, the sooner he would find them.

          "Lucky! You are alive!" Tony almost shouted. Then he sat down right where the Keeper had left him and wept.

          "Tony! How did you get here? How did you find me?"

          "I didn't find you. I was eavesdropping on a conversation that Jerry had with your father about six or seven months ago... and it got me wondering. So I followed Jerry around and finally learned he thought you were alive somewhere." He hung his head as he thought of his bad behavior, spying on his ex-wife's new husband. "After a few more days of following him, the Keeper's 'associate' caught me. I've been here the whole time since then. Practically right down the hall."

          Lucky sat in stunned silence. If Tony was here, and he figured out that I'm alive, something must have happened to Jerry, he thought. Or maybe there are others here as well. Lucky had really never given that idea any consideration. Maybe he and Tony were just two of many captives. If this was so, what had prompted the Keeper to put them together now?

          "Have you seen anyone else since you've been here?" Lucky asked.

          "No, you're the first besides that maniac."

          "If you've been here so long, where did the bruises come from?"

          Tony paused before he answered, "I seem to be the Keeper's favorite punching bag."

          "Oh Jesus." Lucky helped Tony to the bed and made him lie down.

          Tony asked, "Did he give you his name?"

          "No. He only refers to himself as 'The Keeper'."

          The possibility that he wasn't alone anymore and there might be others as well made Lucky's mind reel. He had to find out for sure if anyone else was there.

          Jax was alone, looking uncomprehendingly at the vitals monitor to which Jerry was attached. Frustrated with the limit of his own understanding he turned to face the window. It had been three days and Jerry had steadily improved. The doctor said that if he continued to improve, he'd be taken off of the ventilator very soon. For now, the drug-induced anesthesia and paralysis was still necessary. The doctor explained to Jax that they had to keep Jerry quite heavily drugged to keep him paralyzed, because patients that are conscious at all would try to buck the ventilator. Occasionally, Jerry moved restlessly and moaned in his "sleep." Jax imagined he was relieving the fire. He was better off in an unconscious state - he would not be able to breathe on his own anyway, nor should he move too much and disturb the healing of his damaged skin.

          Bobbie came back in from calling Lucas, Lady Jane and John. The "secure" phone link from Auckland, New Zealand to Taos, New Mexico and then to the hospital was provided by the WSB, thanks to Mac Scorpio. Mac had relented when asked for help. Although he still hated Jerry, Mac could tell that no matter what happened, Bobbie was going to love him and stand by him.

          "How are they?"

          "Lucas says to say hello. And when are we coming to get them? Your parents are hard at work on the computer. Candace cooed at me." Bobbie frowned as she looked at Jerry's motionless figure. She missed her children. She missed her husband. She wished it was two days ago and she could have stopped what was about to happen to change their lives forever.

          "Stop it Bobbie," Jax said, reading her mind, or maybe just the expression on her face. "You can't change this. He'll be ok. He has to be." As if on cue, his rebellious and reckless older brother moaned.

          "Jax, go get his doctor. Go!" Jax bounded out the door in search of the doctor and Bobbie touched her husband's pale forehead with the back of her hand in a caress that was as much about nursing as it was about love. She was unconsciously taking note of the state of his health at the same time she loved him. He shouldn't be at this level of consciousness, not yet. The doctors said they'd try to remove the ventilator later on if he was doing well.

          Dr. James, the hospital's lead pulmonary specialist hurried in, followed by several technicians and nurses. The doctor came around to the side of Jerry's bed and shooed Bobbie and Jax out, but not before each of them had a chance to quickly kiss him... Bobbie on his forehead, and Jax on his cheek.

          "There's your kiss, you big idiot." Jax whispered, wishing that Jerry's eyes would open and shine with the mischief and pleasure that usually resided there. "I love you." Jax whispered as the nurse pushed him aside.

          Out in the hall, Bobbie explained the procedure to Jax. "First they'll reverse the paralyzing agent, in this case that's the fentanyl. Then they'll slow down the ventilator and make sure he'll try to breathe instinctively." She was speaking from her objective nurse's training, trying not feel the fear the wife inside of her was experiencing.

          "Isn't that risky? What happens if he can't breathe?"Jax asked.

          "There really is no other way," Bobbie answered honestly. "The machine will still be there if he can't. At the same time they lower the fentanyl, they'll taper the narcotic to a lower dose that won't suppress his involuntary respiration as much. They'll probably leave the Valium in his system to keep him from panicking. If he tries to breathe on his own, they'll set the ventilator to 'assisted' so it would kick in and help him each time he starts to take a breath. After that he'll still be heavily drugged, but not paralyzed. If it doesn't work, everything including the medication will stay the way it is now, with the ventilator breathing for him."

         "So we're not really any closer to hearing his voice or what he knows about what happened to him." Jax said, thinking of the Angel Fire police officer that had been by twice to see if Jerry's condition had changed.

          Bobbie continued, "Well, we are a little closer as long as this procedure goes well. But, without the drugs he'd wake up and be very scared. His instincts would take over and his gag reflex would come back well before he woke up enough to comprehend the world around him. Without the drugs he'd be afraid and then start gagging and chewing on his endotracheal tube." Jax quickly realized why he had become a businessman and not a doctor; the thought of all of this was making him queasy.

          "So anyway, the doctor and technicians stand around to witness the procedure. It happens very quickly so they can take control and reverse it if it doesn't go well." Never one to miss an entrance, the doctor came out of Jerry's room and walked to where Jax and Bobbie stood in the waiting area.

          Jax was startled by how quickly the doctor had come to them. He looked at his watch and then at Bobbie to see her reaction to the speed at which the doctor had done the procedure. She didn't seem upset, and she said, "Was there any change?"

          "Well, we set the ventilator to 'assisted' so it will kick in and help him every time he starts to take a breath on his own. But he still has to be kept sedated." Bobbie nodded.

          Jax was beginning to understand exactly what was happening to his brother and immediately went on the defensive. "Did you find out anything from this test? Because if you caused him pain for no reason, I will take you and this hospital to court and I'll-"

          "Jax!" Bobbie halted his diatribe. "Be patient."

          Jax looked at the doctor with a contrite expression and said, "Sorry, I'm just so uptight."

          Dr. James replied, "That's perfectly understandable Mr. Jacks. Now, I'm sure the other Mr. Jacks wasn't perfectly comfortable with this last procedure, but there really was no other way to see how he's progressing. The only thing we have to gauge his advancement is if his CO2 levels are good enough."

          "What then?" Jax asked, trying not to imagine the pain and terror his brother might be experiencing.

          "Then we would continue to wean him off the ventilator."

          "So what happens now?" Bobbie asked anxiously. The first forty-eight hours of any accident were usually the most critical in terms of if a person would eventually live or die.

          "His levels seem to be improving, so we're going to leave him on the sedating drugs, but at a slightly reduced dosage, the ventilator will work in the 'assisting' mode. If anything should go wrong there is an alarm on the ventilator."

          "Thank you, doctor," Bobbie whispered as she turned to go back and sit at Jerry's bedside.

          "Yeah, thanks," Jax murmured and followed Bobbie into Jerry's room.

          The Keeper sat quietly in his lair. A small smirk played around the edges of his lips. He was not a man prone to smiling. But today, his predilection for doing evil deeds made him smile - if just a little. He had waited thirty years for these events to unfold. Patience. It was a virtue he'd learned with much difficulty. But the learning had led to planning. And although he'd been unable to control the exact circumstances that had brought his plan to fruition, events had conspired with him. Making his wishes come about almost poetically. As he approached his seventieth birthday, still in peak physical and mental condition, all his forbearance had paid handsome dividends. He gazed at the bank of monitors on the far wall. They showed all of his prey in various settings and locations across the globe. Soon the monitors would be unnecessary. The players in his plan were converging as he watched... and waited. Patience, a virtue, yes. But hate, revenge and retribution... those were evils... his kind of virtues.

          Several hours after Jerry's last visit from his doctor, a nurse hurried into Jerry's room. She was late making her medication rounds and need to move quickly. She smiled at Bobbie and Jax as they left the room to allow her to check Jerry's vital signs and the administration of his medication. Briskly, she checked every monitor and every gauge on the machinery keeping Jerry alive and free of pain, and she wrote hasty notes in his chart. She looked at her last set of notes and noticed a discrepancy in the dosage of the sedatives dripping by intravenous into Jerry's blood stream. Her last visit had read .9 every half-hour; the machine was currently set for 9 per hour. How did that happen? That's too much medication, the busy nurse thought, as she lowered his dosage. Since she was in such a hurry she didn't read as carefully as she usually would; she never noticed that the decimal she thought she saw was actually a period from the previous sentence in the chart.

          Bobbie and Jax went back in as soon as the nurse scurried by them. Bobbie said to Jax, "She sure was in a rush."

          Jax looked back over his shoulder and through the open door, "No wonder she was hurrying. She probably didn't want to be yelled at anymore. Her supervisor looks like a tyrant."

          Bobbie peeked out the door too. "Ooo. That's terrible." Bobbie and Jax looked at one another and shrugged. Then they took up their previous sentinel-like positions on opposite sides of Jerry's bed once again. Jax buried himself in the Wall Street Journal and Bobbie decided to read a magazine. Something interesting caught her eye and she wanted to show the article to Jax.

          Bobbie began to say, "Jax you have to see..." but abruptly stopped when her eyes landed on Jerry's. For a split second nothing seemed unusual about that, then Bobbie stood and let the magazine fall to the floor. Jerry's eyes were open. Widely. He looked at her with his terror mounting behind the chocolate brown irises.

          "Jax!" Bobbie said in a loud voice, "Jax!"

          "What?"

          "Go get Dr. James. Hurry! Hurry!" Jax looked down at his brother and saw that his eyes were open.

          "Oh my- what the...?"

          "Jax, just go. Go!" Jax obeyed and Bobbie turned back to Jerry.

          "Jerry, honey, don't try to talk," she said as he made a noise deep in his throat, and looked at her in panic. The monitor showed an increase in his heartbeat from the anxiety. "Shh. Jerry, you need to stay calm. The machines are helping you breathe. There was an accident. I'm not sure you remember. You have what is called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome or ARDS. It'll be a while before you are well enough to talk." Bobbie was sure that Jerry's coming around was purely a mistake. His dosage of medication miscalculated. He is probably scared to death, Bobbie thought. "Honey, I'm going to try to answer all the questions that are probably rolling around that thick skull of yours so that you will get some peace. Yes, you were burned. Your skin is healing. Your lungs were damaged, that's why you need a respirator. You have to rest and fight - all at once. The doctor was giving you a drug called fentanyl, along with some Valium to keep you pain-free and very sedated so that you can recover without too much stress." She didn't mention the induced paralysis that had been necessary to keep him still.

          "Candy and Lucas are fine they are with your parents." Jerry's eyes welled up at the thought of his children. The tears snaked down the sides of his face off into his mane of black hair. "Jax is here - he brought me here," Bobbie continued as she gently wiped the tears from Jerry's cheeks. "In case you don't remember, here is New Mexico." A flare of recollection burned in his eyes. "Jax told me everything he knew about what you were up to, you stubborn man." Her breath caught in her throat. "But I love you anyway." Jerry's expressive brown eyes pleaded with her to forgive him, all the while the love he felt shined from them as well.

          Just then the doctor rushed in followed by the nurse that had been by earlier. The doctor did a quick examination of Jerry and then looked at his chart. Her face reddened with anger. She asked Jax and Bobbie to step out into the hall for a moment, while she talked to Jerry's nurse.

          Out in the hallway, Jax grabbed Bobbie and whirled her around, "He's getting better, I know it!"

          "Jax, don't get your hopes up too high. This is probably an effect of an incorrectly lowered dosage of the sedating drugs." What she didn't tell Jax was that this was dangerous - it was unwise to bring a patient in such a deep state of sedation around too many times, so this may be the last time, mistake or not, until a time that Jerry could breathe on his own. If and when that time happened.

          Jax nodded as he put Bobbie back on her own two feet. "I understand that, Bobbie. But it was so good to see him looking back at me just now." Bobbie smiled a tense smile and nodded her head once.

          "I know. It was. But let's wait to hear what the doctors say."

          Jerry Jacks had never been more frightened or miserable than he had been at that moment when he first regained awareness. He was helpless. At the mercy of machines, and doctors -- both of which he disliked intensely. Bobbie was here. Jax was here. His children were, for the moment, safely with John and Lady Jane. But what about the others? Damn! Jerry railed at his own stupidity as he followed the doctor around with his eyes. Trying to keep everyone safe and unafraid, he had told no one what he knew.

          All he could do while the doctor fiddled with the machines and gauges and asked him to try and breathe when it felt like he had a small car sitting on his chest, was worry. He tried to focus on the problems at hand, but the narcotics were making him dizzy and confused. Occasionally a clear thought came to him. He was the only one who knew how many people's lives were at stake and he couldn't tell anyone. He couldn't speak, he couldn't write; he couldn't get his computer to tell them either. Bobbie told him the computer was with John and Lady Jane. At least Dad had the computer, he knew all the codes Jerry had used during his racketeering escapades, hopefully, the crimes they committed in the past would be helpful in giving John the information the WSB needed in the present. Hopefully he'd find a way to break the new codes, if he'd accept help from someone else. My past misdeeds may serve us well for a change, he thought ruefully. Now, if only I can make Jax understand me somehow. This was his last thought before the sedatives took him back to a tranquilized state.