Milwaukee Deep
Chapter 26

Dr Jensen sat in front of the small laptop. He stared at the screen, looking over the same data, again and again, unsure what to do next.

Sam walked into the hospital room.

“Phil,” Sam said as he approached his friend, “how is it all coming along?”

“Sam,” Jensen replied standing up, “good to see you - did you have any trouble getting here?”

“Trouble? Somewhat, but I’m here now. I dumped the car and my phone and caught a cab in, well actually four cabs in, so hopefully no one knows where I am. Anyway, more importantly, what’s going on?”

Jensen took a deep breath and glanced quickly at the computer – he then turned back to face Sam.

“Well, first we’ve got Alice and Michael in the next room having their initial session.”

“Really?” Sam moved in close to the adjoining door, curious to see what was going on.

“Sam,” Jensen called out, “leave them alone for now – Alice told me she’d fill us in once she was finished, so be patient.”

“Okay,” Sam walked back to where Jensen was standing, “so how goes the other side, you know, your tests?”

“Well before you walked in I had just finished typing in a hypothesis on the growth of the tumour.”

“Well, is it malignant?” asked Sam.

“That’s the thing, Sam – I don’t know anymore. You see it’s stopped growing, in fact the strangest thing is happening - it’s decreasing.”

Jensen walked over to the laptop.

“See, look for yourself.”

Jensen turned the screen around and revealed two MIR scans of Burton’s chest cavity.

“The one on the right is the scan I took back at my surgery – here is the growth attached to his heart. Now the second scan is the one I took today – it shows that same growth, only this time it has decreased by fourteen percent.”

“It’s decreased? Well I guess that’s great, but can that happen?”

“Well theoretically, no – not without any treatment. I mean this thing is healing itself,” Jensen replied, “Look, I punched in the calculations into this computer and by all accounts it states that within thirty days the cardiac mass would have disappeared.”

“Are you certain that’s right?”

“Look for yourself,” Jensen rubbed the back of head, staring at the laptop screen again – he’d lost count how many times he had sat there looking at the data. He turned back to his friend.

“Sam,” he said softly, “Michael has no white blood cells at all, so by all accounts he should be very, very sick, if not dead already. Now to add to the list of things mysterious, it looks like he’s actually curing himself.”

Sam turned to Jensen – he could tell his friend was at a loss on what to do next.

At that moment Dr Alice Durham opened the connecting door and entered the room.

“Gentlemen, I think you need to see this.”

Sam and Phil glanced at each other and followed Dr Durham back into the adjoining room.

Michael Burton lay still on the hospital bed, his eyes closed, his body frozen.

“I took it upon myself to hypnotise Michael,” the doctor said, “he is currently in a deep sleep so he cannot hear us.”

“Is he okay?” Sam asked.

“Yes he’s perfectly fine. I called you both in here, because I need you to hear what Michael has been telling me.”

“What has he been saying?” Sam asked.

Dr Durham looked across at Sam.

“Somehow I think it’s best you hear it directly from him.”

Anthony Perks stood back and watched the mess unfold. Leaning on his car, with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he could see the group of CIA agents cluster around the frightened group of who had been witness to the incident at the gas station. The agents were full of questions, trying desperately to gain as much information as they could so they could piece together the whereabouts of Sam Crease. Perks noticed Harding standing metres from the group deep in conversation with another agent.

“You know we look like idiots, don’t you?” Harding said as he stared at Agent Cheapston.

“I know,” replied Cheapers, his head down, his eyes unable to look into Harding’s.

“You know? I told you not to go in hard, but you didn’t listen did you? That’s twice you’ve gone in hard and twice you’ve fucked it! Now wait until the press arrive, let’s see how you handle that!”

Cheapston kept looking at his shoes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” he replied

“Yeah, like you took care of this mess.”

Harding reached forward and wrenched out Cheapston’s ear piece from his ear and placed it in his own, grabbing hold of the receiver with his other hand.

“Cooper, Karidis, Esterson, give me an update on your sweep.”

Karidis replied first.

“Sir, we can confirm that Crease was picked up by a cab at the gas station – he put in a call at around one o’clock for a pick up to go to LaGuardia – my team is currently performing a sweep of the airport, but my guess is he used the trip to shake the tail. I think he’s still here in New York - Cooper’s checking with airport officials regarding passenger logs and flights.”

“His wife flew out to San Francisco not that long ago, any chance he’s there?” Harding asked

“No I don’t think so – call it a hunch but I think he’s still here. You see it’s easy to trace a call to the cab company, so the destination from the gas station was easy to get, but it’s more difficult to chase down a cab ride leaving the airport given all you do is hail and away you go.”

“Good point,” Harding replied, “Cooper how goes it with the passenger logs?”

“No sign of him yet, Sir. My team’s checking the logs at the moment – I’ll let you know if we replace anything.”

“Okay,” Harding responded, “Karidis, my bet is he’s definitely not within the surrounding area – you and your team get back here A.S.A.P and help with the interview process.”

“Yes, Sir,” came through the response over Harding’s ear piece.

Harding put the receiver down and looked at Cheapston.

“Cheapers, I want you to get to the cab company right away and get me a list of all of places that every taxi-cab went to from LaGuardia since one o’clock, do you understand?”

“That’s going to be tough.”

“I know - I’ll call you in an hour for an update.”

Harding turned around and walked back to where Perks was standing.

“How’s it coming along?” asked Perks as he saw Harding approach.

“He’s gone – we won’t replace him,” replied Harding, “Your man’s smart, Perks, smarter than I thought.”

“What did you expect? He was trained by me,” Perks replied, a wry smile creasing his face.

Harding smiled back.

“Do you think there’s any way you can contact him?” Harding asked, “I’m almost certain he’s with Burton now.”

Perks threw his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Harding?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m still not sure why Sam’s doing all of this running around. He doesn’t know about Burton’s situation and if he did, knowing Sam, he would have brought him in, so there’s something else.” Perks looked into Harding’s eyes, “I know Sam, Tom, he’s protecting Burton for some reason and I think you know why.”

Harding looked at Perks’ cigarette butt on the ground.

“When your man dropped off Burton at his home two days ago we had him. Instead of going in soft, we went in hard.” Harding paused.

“Yes, and?”

“Well we killed his wife during the operation and we shot Burton in the shoulder. He escaped and found Crease to help him.”

“Which obviously Sam is doing right now,” added Perks.

“That’s why we need to replace Crease – why I need you to help me. Now are you sure there’s no way we can contact him?” Harding asked.

“Well given that his phone is sitting in that gas station, my options are limited.”

Perks pulled out another cigarette.

“Have you tried his wife?” he asked

“Yes, but she’s now in San Francisco with her parents,” replied Harding.

“Do you know where to contact her?” Perks asked.

“Wouldn’t be too hard to replace,” replied Harding.

“Do that. I’ll talk to her – tell her what’s going on. If I know Sam, he’ll contact her soon. Hopefully she can then tell him we need him.”