Final Victim

Chapter 32

In the dream, he was at the bottom of a sand dune, struggling to climb to the top… but the harder he tried, the more sand came down on him. It carried him back to the bottom of the pit, where again he would claw his way up toward the top… only to have it happen again. It was a struggle he knew he must win. If he could climb to the top, he would wake; if not, he would be doomed. Over and over he would almost get to the lip of the sand dune… barely seeing the light before slipping back down again.

Finally, at about nine on Saturday night, he made it. Victorious, he opened his eyes and looked at the white acoustic tiles of the hospital ceiling. He had been unconscious for thirty-five hours. A nurse who had been taking his blood pressure ran to get a doctor. Lockwood tried to move. Something was wrong. His coordination was off. He couldn't control his muscles. Then a doctor came into his line of sight.

"Welcome back," he said.

Lockwood tried to nod. He didn't think he could speak. He tried to clear his throat.

"You've had a severe loss of oxygen and you were unconscious for about a day and a half," the doctor said, "and that is going to affect you for a while. Do you remember your name?"

Lockwood lay in the bed. His name… his name… He knew his name. He struggled for it. It was there, just out of reach, just on the edge of his memory. His name was… it was…?

"It's okay. It's gonna come," the doctor said. "Time for a Paul Revere. Hold tight, I'm gonna run tell a few people you're back."

Lockwood watched as the doctor moved out of his sight.

"Paul Revere," he said softly. His voice was strange in his ears. The name was familiar but he didn't think he was Paul Revere.

As time passed, things came further back into focus. He was still unable to move freely. His arms and legs didn't seem to obey his mental commands. His thoughts were jumbled and confused. When he finally came up with his name, he told a nurse that he was Lockwood, John W., Sergeant, 3769007656-his name, Marine rank, and serial number. They took him carefully from the bed and gave him an MRI scan. They explained to him what had happened in the Justice Department file room, but he had trouble remembering any of it. His short-term memory was a mess. He remembered parts of what had happened in Florida. He remembered chasing a huge, bald man and firing two shots from an old.45 at a fleeing air-boat. It was like a five-second movie loop in his head. He could replay it but not see around either side of it.

"In a while we're going to take you down for some physical therapy," the doctor said. "What has happened is that when you were unconscious, your brain was deprived of oxygen and parts of it died. Unfortunately, brain matter doesn't regenerate. Your vital signs are fine but you're going to have trouble with some things for a while, until other parts of your brain can take over those functions. We might as well get started and find out how much stuff got shorted out. You get what I'm telling you?"

"Yes. Do I sure," he said, realizing that it didn't sound quite right. "Sure do I," he corrected himself. Still wrong. Fuck it, he thought.

"Trust us, John, we'll get your engine up and running again."

They helped him out of bed. He had almost no control of his body. He wobbled horribly the first time he tried to walk. He fell after one step. They were there to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Bitch of a…" he said angrily as they helped him back up.

He looked at the door, which seemed to be miles away. There was something wrong with his depth perception. It was as if he were looking down the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Everything seemed remote, as if he were watching it through a strange lens and was not a part of it. "Can't see right," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"The part of your brain that controls your sight and speech was affected. Another few minutes and you'd have been a vegetable. Fortunately, John, this is a partial paralysis. It should all come back, but you've gotta keep working. I won't BS you, it could take months, even years."

They helped him walk down the corridor of the hospital, one attendant holding each arm. He could see where he wanted to go, even though his depth perception was altered, but as he tried to get there he would veer and stumble. Often his legs buckled under him without warning.

They got him down to therapy in a wheelchair. A very strong, thirty-five-year-old, muscular blond woman, with a friendly smile and a face like a torn softball, helped him up out of the wheelchair. She almost lifted his 190-pound frame singlehandedly. She joked with him as she pushed and punished him for an hour without much result.

He was back in bed when Bob Tilly from Laurence Heath's office came in to see him. "You don't have to talk, John," he said.

"S'okay," he slurred. "Heath, sorry Larry." He paused. "Larry Heath I'm sorry about," he said, getting closer.

"Not your fault."

Lockwood was struggling to recover something. It had to do with the large bald man in the air-boat. "Leonard Land," he finally said. "Leonard Land did something," Lockwood said. "This did he with…" His mind reeled, looking for the answer.

Tilly couldn't make out what Lockwood was saying, so he went on. "It was some kind of computer fuck-up, John. The whole building went goofy. The system that runs things just went psycho… sent an earthquake message to the elevators, which locked them and set of the halon extinguishers."

Lockwood was struggling with it. He was very, very close. He had to tell them something… warn them. "I know it what is. I happening is…" He stopped. "Fuck!" he shouted in a burst of anger. "I know what happened," he finally said. "Reprogrammed computer… from Florida."

"Who?"

"Land Leonard."

Bob Tilly looked at him for a long beat. "The serial killer you were working on in Miami reprogrammed the computer? Made all this shit happen?" he said.

"Yes. Leonard Heath killed Larry Land," he said, and then he lay back, exhausted. "Fuck… You know what I mean, Bob."

Bob Tilly looked down at Lockwood. He was sure that his old friend was still delirious. How on earth could some guy in Tampa, Florida, lock the elevators in a Washington building, close down the ventilation, then set of the halon fire extinguishers? It had to be a computer malfunction. Lockwood just wasn't making any sense at all.