Chapter 10

Epilogue

I walked up to the counter, and the receptionist smiled at me. “I’m here to see Thomas Jackson,” I said with a smile of my own.

“Your name please?” asked politely.

“I’m Sharon De Clercq Jackson, his wife.”

The young woman nodded, tapped a note into her computer, and turned to a small printer at her left hand as it began to work. It spit out a business card sized paper, and she handed it to me with a smile. “He’s now in Room 215.”

“Thank you, I remember where it is.”

“Visiting hours are over at eleven P-M for spouses. Good day to you.”

“Thank you.” I walked toward the double doors, stopped for a moment to apply the sticker to my jacket lapel, and continued through the doors. As I walked, my mind went back over the events of the prior six months.

Thomas and I had gone to meet my FBI agent friend and my father at a rural Kansas airport. I saw my friend approaching with several colleagues, when Thomas had sensed that something was wrong. One of his former coworkers had later told me that Thomas had an uncanny ability to sense danger. He could never explain it to them, but he was never wrong. I had hurried back to the plane and picked up my rifle, and that’s when the shooting started.

Thomas had dragged Daddy away, and he also shot Roland in the hand. I saw a woman shoot Thomas, and I shot her, and then I shot the third man when he also shot Thomas. Our pilots came out of the jet, and the other two men jumped into a car and drove away.

Thomas, Roland and the man I shot were still alive. Thomas was the worst injured, so we put him in the Cessna, and I flew to Wichita Airport, and contacted them on the emergency frequency. I told them I had a shooting victim aboard, and had a Life Flight helicopter meet us on the runway. Daddy and his pilots took the other two men to another airport, which got them to the hospital as well.

The next two weeks were a blur. My parents called their friends and business associates, and I was soon surrounded by an army of lawyers and security people. I’d had to leave Thomas alone at the hospital for a week. We were both facing charges for the shootings in Kansas, and we were also wanted for questioning in Oklahoma for those shootings, and for the airplane theft. Daddy put me on one of his planes and took me to Interpol’s headquarters in France, where I delivered the USB drive to one of their senior officials.

Then, I demanded to see Thomas, and, after a day of negotiations, I was granted a stay on the pending charges. When I did make it back to Thomas’ side, he was taken out of an induced coma, and we spoke to each other for the first time since he’d been shot. Somewhere along the way, my brother had contacted a judge he knew, and we were issued an executed marriage license, dated the night we took our vows over the phone.

Thomas’ wounds had been serious; he was shot through the right lung, in the right thigh, and in the lower left abdomen. He had been given enough blood and fluids to replace his total volume twice over, and it was a miracle that he survived. That was a direct statement from the trauma surgeon who treated him at the first trauma center.

His recovery and rehabilitation had been a difficult process for us both. Our legal issues were, thankfully, put on hold until Thomas was well enough to travel. He had no home, no dependents, or assets beyond a single checking account and his Federal pension, so that wasn’t a problem. What had been hard was that Thomas had never faced a serious injury or illness.

He had lost some muscle tissue in his right leg, a third of his right lung was gone, and he’d lost three feet of small intestine. The abdominal wound had also caused a nasty case of sepsis, and that had nearly finished him. For all of his strengths, Thomas’ impatience with his own recovery process made for some rough days. At least, it did until I gave him the news I’d been holding for three months. I was pregnant.

That, for him, changed everything. He stopped fighting, and started working. His focus changed from getting back to what he had been, to getting better so we could go on with our lives. I never doubted that we would get through this, and day by day, we did it.

I tapped on his door, as it was mostly closed.

“Come in,” a female voice called.

I stepped into the room to find Thomas working on a respiratory effort testing device that was attended by a technician I’d seen several times before. I watched as he blew forcefully into the mouthpiece.

“Good,” the tech said with a smile. “That’s right at the top of the volume range we were shooting for.”

“Hi, Sweetheart and Baby,” Thomas said with a grin. “Will you go home with me?”

“You’re coming home?” I looked at him eagerly.

“Unless she lies about me again.” The tech giggled, and Thomas sobered. “They said if my respiratory volume was good enough, I could get out of here.”