Chapter Twenty-two

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1502 hrs CST

Maegyn, Harm, Lia and Meg started in shock as the frantic pace of resuscitation proceeded; the medical staff undergoing heroic measures to save Animal's life. There was nothing that they could do but hope and pray for miracle.

"I'm not getting a heartbeat!" One of the nurses called out.

The doctor yelled out "Give him one milligram Vasopressin!" One of the nurse hastily complied. "175!" Placing the paddles on Animal's chest, the doctor yelled. "CLEAR!" Animal's body jumped with the shock of 175 volts running through his body.

"No response…" the doctor called out. "Give me 200…CLEAR! C'mon, you…Goddamnit!" Animal's body jumped again with the voltage applied.

"Nothing, Doctor."

"750… CLEAR! C'mon, don't give up…" The doctor applied another shock to Animal's body.

"I have a faint heartbeat."

"Another dose of Vasopressin…get his heartbeat up. Intubate him and get him on the ventilator. I'm going to get him in the OR, his blood pressure is low…We gotta go back in and look for a internal bleeder." The doctor looked at his watch. "Three minutes thirty seven seconds. We may be looking at some brain damage."

"Heartbeat stabilizing, Doctor… but we need to operate fast."

Maegyn and Harm looked up to see the bed being rolled down the hallway towards the Operating Room again. Maegyn got up, but Harm pulled on her arm. "Don't, they're trying to save him." Maegyn collapsed in her chair hanging on to Harm for dear life.

Lia looked solemn as she saw the swinging doors swing back and forth after the stretcher bed went through. Looking over at Meg who didn't look the least bit emotionally together.

Harm got up and strode through the opposite doors heading outside, picking up his phone. Dialling a number as he reached the exit.

"Gibbs." The voice of the agent he dialled answered.

"Did you find the sonofabitch?"

"Negative. He's disappeared." was Gibbs' infuriating response. "I got evidence and fingerprints, but nothing definitive yet. How's the captain doing?" Harm stared at the phone. Gibbs' tone was matter of fact.

"He flat-lined, but they managed to bring him back. They're operating again to make sure they didn't miss an internal bleed. They may be needing to transfuse him with blood because he's lost a lot." Harm replied, his voice barely civil with held-in anger. "I wanna find the sonofabitch who did this." He growled.

"We don't have a lead yet, we're running the prints through AFIS. Any fingerprints that come up a match, we're going to investigate." Gibbs replied.

"Well, you'd better find a match before the trail goes cold." Harm snarled as he looked at the phone trying to convey his sense of disgust through the opaque transmission capabilities of the cellular that he was holding in his hand. He didn't say what he felt, that NCIS had better start looking before he did. Because if he found out who did this to his friend and former squadron-mate, that the guy responsible would be meeting a very painful end. "I'd suggest you get on it." He said as he hung up on Gibbs.

DSD Office, Naval Station Three Rivers, Oakville, WI 1525 hrs CST

Gibbs muttered a pungent oath as he looked at the phone, the dial-tone of the phone beeping at him, mockingly. Rabb was a loose cannon, according to what he saw on Rabb's profile. He was loyal to a fault and that caused him to go over and above for his friends. Anybody harmed one of Rabb's friends and Harm would put the person responsible into the ground. Gibbs cursed again. How the hell did he get saddled with a bunch of freaking cowboys in uniform? He shook his head and made another pass of the area trying to see if there were any other clues he'd missed.

"Agent Gibbs." Gibbs looked up to see Agent Hollands looking at him. "I think I've uncovered something." He held up a thumb-drive with medical glove covered hands. "I found this in one of the computers. Had the computer and the desk dusted for fingerprints. I have before and after photos for trial evidence provided we find our shooter." Placing the drive into an evidence collection bag, Hollands noted the time and date found. As well, he noted the location.

Gibbs commented morosely, "it was a chest shot. He flatlined for three minutes." Hollands nodded soberly as he recognized what losing oxygen for that amount of time could potentially do to a man's brain. Gibbs turned to his expanded team. "I want you guys to pick this place over. I want enough evidence that if we find the shooter; he's getting locked up and the key gets thrown away." He then turned away and stalked off, his shoulders stiff with tension. He had to worry about finding the shooter, collecting the critical evidence to nail the sonofabitch and now he had to worry about one of the damned JAGs utilizing this shooting as a potential vendetta against the shooter. This day couldn't get any better; Gibbs thought sarcastically to himself.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1655 hrs CST

Maegyn paced the floor like a leopard hunting prey; her muscles taut with frustration. Bud sat slumped in a chair as he looked up at the ceiling. Lia looked pensively at the hospital room which Animal had been stretchered out of, her expression unreadable as to the other emotions. Meg looked as though her heart had been ripped into little tiny pieces.

Bud hadn't known Captain Nakamura very long. But he did find that despite CAPT Nakamura's gruff demeanor, that the Navy captain was a dedicated officer and protective of his subordinates whether or not they were temporarily under his command. That protectiveness was what had landed Captain Nakamura in an operating room fighting for his life. And Bud knew more than anyone else that Harm thought of the Captain as a mentor. He could tell that Harm was affected by this situation. He'd lost his father; the man who was supposed to raise him to adulthood, he lost Diane Schonke, a woman to which he'd given his heart and had taken a piece of it with him when she was brutally murdered and now, his mentor was shot. If Captain Nakamura didn't survive, Harm would lose a piece of his humanity and go into full lethal mode going after who was responsible.

Lia didn't know what to think. In the past she had despised the captain for his by-the-book demeanor. He had always appeared to her as if he had a broomstick lodged up his ass; his only strength being how formidable he could make his scowl. She'd thought of him as a martinet; more show than substance. However his actions of today made her see just how strong and take charge, he was; he truly was a leader. If he hadn't taken charge, it could have been one of them. Only a bullet had laid him low. Seeing him unaware of his surroundings, unconscious, direly wounded; he appeared to be a shell of the strong man he was. She whispered a silent supplication to a higher power to help him.

Meg's eyes brimmed over as she looked over at the doors through which Animal's stretcher went through. Her thoughts tumbled; confused in their randomness. The thought of Animal not making it made her want to curl up in a ball in fear and cry. Her anger at the shooter made her see red. And seeing the redhead that Animal was dating made her want to walk over and rip the woman's hair out by the roots even though Meg had no claim to the Navy captain. So she sat there and tried to make sense of her emotions, trying to sort between the six year old terrified girl, the raging demon and the green-eyed monster within.

"Are you all right?"

Meg started looking up to see Harm standing there. Lost in her thoughts she hadn't seen Harm return from his errand. Shaking her head, her eyes started to well up again as Harm enfolded her in a comforting hug.

"Walk with me." He looked over at Lia who nodded her tacit assent seeing the distress in Meg's eyes. Meg nodded and got up out of her chair as they exited the emergency waiting room and walked down the hallway towards the cardiac wing. When they'd gotten far enough away from the emergency ward, he inquired simply, "You've fallen for him, haven't you?" Meg's answer was a nod and a hiccuping sob as she buried her face in his chest. His arms went around her shoulders again as he hugged her, his comforting arms a safe refuge against the uncertainty.

"I don't know why..." Meg said brokenly, her voice muffled. "He's honorable; he didn't touch me last night, even though we slept in the same bed..."

Harm resisted teasing her; it wasn't the right time for that. He just remained silent, trying to be a bulwark of strength that she could lean on as Meg cried out her frustration.

"I know he's with Commander O'Bannon but..." She inhaled shakily; her emotions tumbling. "Do you understand what it's like; looking at what your heart sees as your soul-mate staring back at you?" She sniffled. "I'm regretting to this day,I didn't take the opportunity to tell him back then." Harm looked at her with a look of amazement that she had kept this tightly guarded secret for so long. He actually felt staggered by the force of the emotion from Meg; the silent implication that if she ever got another chance that she wouldn't waste the opportunity. "But that's if he even makes it..." She sniffled staring out at the trees outside the window. She then turned to Harm stating "He'll take a piece of my heart with him if...he doesn't ...make it..." Clutching him she buried her face in his shirt, her sobs shaking her entire body.

Harm could do nothing but hold her in his arms wondering if after all they had been through that he had lost out on having Meg Austin. He let out a heavy sigh. If Animal didn't make it, Meg would go on. She wouldn't let it kill her but she would forever be a broken woman. The shaking sobs had subsided but Meg didn't let go of her friend and rock.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1715 hrs CST

Dr. Winston came out to the waiting room. He looked solemnly at each person in his or her eyes. "Evidently the bullet nicked an vein." He said formally,"This caused a slow bleed that was not detected until his blood pressure dropped so low that his heart wasn't able to function and he flatlined causing a cardiac arrest. We have no idea how long his brain was without oxygen but with the code blue we were unable to retrieve his heartbeat for three minutes and thirty seven seconds. So with the slow bleed it could have been longer than that. You need to be aware that a brain cannot go for much longer than four minutes without some sign of brain damage. Even if he does recover, there will be a long road to recovery unless we have an absolute miracle." They all looked deflated.

"So what does this mean?" Maegyn asked as she fastened an iron gaze at Dr. Winston and Dr Winston wished that he could give her better news.

"It means that if he wakes up at all, he could possibly not remember you or may wake up with a completely different personality... However all of this is just speculation. At this point, we're not sure if he'll wake up at all. He's being transferred to the CICU (Coronary Intensive Care Unit) where we will be monitoring his vitals around the clock."

Maegyn squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Did this mean that Animal would never wake up or if he did that his life would be forever changed and not in a good way. Fate was a fickle bitch, Maegyn thought. All the years she had put into her career as a good man stood by and watched; his own life getting turned upside down due to Navy regulations because of his bravery; his receiving the blue button had yanked him out of what he loved: flying fast jets. And now this injury would take it all away from him. Would he ever be able to set foot inside an aircraft again; to take the controls and let the power of flight give him wings and his freedom again? Animal had lost a lot and Maegyn regretted that she had waited this long to tell him how she felt. Because this had the potential to take everything away. Fate needed to get her ass curb-stomped, Maegyn felt. A silent tear tracked down her cheek as she wondered if the man who held her in his arms; who had made tender love to her; would be the man she saw when he opened his eyes...if...he opened his eyes ever again.

DSD Office, Naval Station Three Rivers, Oakville, WI 1755 hrs CST

"No response from AFIS yet?" Agent Hollands asked Gibbs who barely acknowledged the other agent with a glance.

"You got the coffee?" Gibbs gruffly asked, as he turned back to the increasingly full box of evidence collected at the scene.

"Like you wanted, Gibbs, straight black as the devil's own heart." Gibbs nodded, taking the proffered coffee from Hollands. Gibbs appreciated the rather bitter taste of the coffee untainted by sugar or milk. Straight up plain coffee; strong enough to make a dead man sit up. He was going to need that extra energy because it didn't look as though this investigation would be wrapping up anytime soon.

"Haven't got anything from AFIS." Gibbs muttered as he took a sip of the coffee appreciatively then pursed his lips as he seemed to contemplate his phone."correction...hadn't gotten anything from AFIS till now. We've gotten a hit on the fingerprints. Looks like our culprit managed to break himself out of the prison in a laundry truck disguised under fifteen pounds of laundry."

"How the hell did he do that?"

"You know the barrels that take the laundry from the prison with the heavy duty staining; the ones they can't get rid of the staining by just tossing them into the heavy-duty wash?" Gibbs commented. "Turns out our UNSUB just hid himself under a pile of laundry and went out with the load of that week's unmentionables."

"So who is our UNSUB?"

"Male, Caucasian, has a penchant for disguises and likes to murder people for fun." Gibbs stated dryly.

"For fun, huh?" Hollands replied just as dryly. He looked worriedly at Gibbs. "This guy's a maniac..."

"...and he has a penchant for going after Rabb." Gibbs said. "He doesn't want to engage with Rabb directly unless he has the upper hand."

"...by going after a man's unprotected back." Hollands said with disgust. "In the Wild West they used to lynch a yellow belly who went at a man behind his back with murderin' intent." He spat his words out. "This UNSUB is nothin' but a damned coward."

"Rooms clean..." Agent El-Amin called out to Gibbs. "Got most of what we could salvage. But he encrypted the rest with a lockout virus."

"Shit!" Hollands growled. "That could take months to decipher."

"...and if DSD can do this, then if they can get access to the Defense computer network, they can lock us out of there as well. Arrest all DSD agents you can find and inform the SECNAV that we have a rogue department." Gibbs ordered.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1815 hrs CST

Animal's room was dark, confining, almost suffocating in its claustrophobic tightness. But with all the life support equipment tucked around him, it seemed that there were monitors for every vital checking up on his physical well-being. Maegyn held Animal's limp hand, bringing it to her cheek. His chest rose and fell with the machine pumping life-giving oxygen to his body. Wake up...please. Maegyn pleaded, tears rising to her eyes. Animal had a tube down his throat, his nose and mouth covered by a mask. He's so still... The hiss of the oxygen regulator provided a rhythmic interruption to the otherwise dead silence.

Maegyn wasn't willing to give up on him. But the sand through the hourglass of time flowed endlessly as minute upon minute; hour upon hour ticked past; time irrecoverable. She stared at the green squiggle that kept going left to right on the heartbeat monitor, the peaks, the valleys identical in their height and depth, a reassuring sign that his heartbeat was strong and regular, just that his mind was elsewhere; un-reachable. She had seen the sun travel across the sky and reach the horizon, the warming colors of the sunset reaching it's oranges and rose-colored hues through the window. A clearing throat interrupted her.

Looking up, she saw Harm standing by the door. "I wondered if you want to go get something to eat" he asked, unwilling to disturb her vigil except by necessity.

"Who will watch him?" She asked indicating with a toss of her head back towards the occupied hospital bed.

"I will..." Meg stated calmly, trying to keep her jealousy in check. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

Maegyn looked at her suspiciously, gauging her sincerity; but ultimately acquiesced. Maegyn did however think there was something strange about Meg's propensity to hang around Animal's bedside and her apparent grief that manifested itself. She resolved to ask Harm about Meg and what seemed to be her over-reaction over Animal's injury. Maegyn found Meg to be an unknown quantity and that raised her suspicions.

"What's with LCDR Austin?" Maegyn asked.

"What do you mean, Irish?"

"Don't play games with me, Hammer. Why does she seem to be so emotionally distraught?!" Harm looked over at her as they headed to the hospital cafeteria. Maegyn aimed a fire-filled glare at him. "Is there something going on between the two of them? While I was gone?!" Harm started to feel a bit like a skeet on a skeet-shooting range, if skeet had feelings. "Should I be worried about how faithful Animal is to me?"

"No!" Harm said forcefully with enough vehemence to make Maegyn jump. "Animal would never betray your trust as long as he comes out the other side with his memory intact. Maegyn. He loves you. Don't start doubting his faithfulness or you'll start doubting everything your relationship ever stood for."

"So why is she acting like she's the bereft one?"

Harm looked at Maegyn square on. "Maegyn. Meg thinks highly of Animal. She and I did the Medal of Honor investigation for Animal six years ago." He looked at Maegyn to see her reaction.

"She hero-worships him?" Maegyn asked.

"Not so much hero-worship but feels a connection there." Harm said as he gauged Maegyn's reaction to the news.

"Connection?" Maegyn's tone was one of disbelief. "You believe in emotional connections and that kind of malarkey; that everyone is interconnected with an emotional bond? The only connections between one person and another of equal age is that of friendship or if two people choose to get intimate; that of a lover. You can't have multiple bonds of intimate intensity or things get complicated."

Things are complicated. Harm thought to himself as he looked over at Maegyn. More so than you realize. Irish, my friend. Humans are incredibly complex beings and the number of emotional interconnections that one can make are endless. But Harm just chose to say. "Sometimes relationships grow and mature and other times they wither due to neglect but bonds are still there. Sometimes you just need to devote some attention to a relationship to grow it again."

"You know sometimes you're as enigmatic as a Buddha statue? Harm?" Maegyn growled.

"If Animal comes out of this; he's got a long, hard road to recovery..." Harm inclined his head towards Maegyn hating himself for what he was going to say. "With your career in mind; can you honestly devote your time to him to insure that he recovers one hundred percent?"

"...what are you saying, Harm?"

"Will you walk that long, hard road with him; holding him up if he stumbles, making sure that he finds his way?" Harm held her gaze with his intensity. He owed it to Animal; his mentor. "He's going to need someone that will not only love him for who he was but for who he is, no matter who comes out of that coma." He broke his gaze for a brief moment to stare at the sun going down. "Someone...who puts his well being ahead of her career."

Maegyn was silent for a long moment weighing her response.

"I guess I have my answer." Harm stated flatly as he got up out of his seat and walked back the way he had come...alone.

"Wait! Harm!"

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1900 hrs CST

The shadows in the darkening room were starting to lengthen. But Meg opted to sit in the darkened room mulling on her thoughts as she watched the still form of the man she admitted to herself that she had a passion for. The incessant hiss of the oxygen regulator and pump on the wall was the only noise that told Meg that Animal was alive. She didn't know if that was grief-inducing or whether it was relief that Animal was still alive. A knock on the door caused her to look up. "Ma'am. Did you need anything?" Bud's face was drawn and tired looking. He didn't know the captain very well but what the sight of the captain motionless in his hospital bed hooked up to life support was doing to Lieutenant Commander Rabb worried Bud endlessly.

Harm had a deep emotional connection to the mentors and loved ones in his life. Seeing his mentor incapacitated was an emotional upheaval for Harm. Seeing Harm in emotional upheaval over his mentor was causing the sensitive Bud Roberts to have an emotional cataclysm in his heart.

Meg said,"just get me an Turkey sandwich and a cup of coffee. I don't think I can eat much." She got the words around a tight lump in her throat. The tears in Meg's eyes made Bud lose his composure which was already on a teetering ledge.

"Please, sir. You know what this is doing to Commander Rabb, sir." Bud said addressing the comatose captain. "...and to Commanders Austin and O'Bannon." He wiped his eyes. "goddamnit, sir. You have to wake up! Wake up...sir...please." Meg got out of her chair; in two steps, wrapped her arms around the shaking Bud Roberts who knelt down beside Animal's still form and whispered. "Please...sir. Fight for them..." He wiped his eyes then looked at Meg "Ma'am, you have to eat something substantial. I can't see you like this... you're going to grieve yourself into ill-health."

Lia came to the door. "Meg, I'll watch him for you." She said gently. "You need to go eat something. Keep your strength up. We don't know how long this vigil is going to be for. And you won't be doing any good to yourself if you crash because you didn't eat properly." Meg nodded in response and let Bud lead her out the door.

Lia went over to sit in a chair. The occasional beeps of the life-support machine were an audible interruption into the otherwise oppressive silence. She looked over at the still form of Captain Nakamura and reached out to hold his hand. Wrapping her fingers around his hand she gently squeezed then released the pressure. "I don't know how long you're planning on lazing about here." She said playfully. "But you remember that you used to chew out anyone who slacked off. Why should they listen to you,sir, if they see you like this." She teased and sighed. "I don't know if you can hear me, sir. But you got to fight this thing." She worked the chair closer to his bed with one hand, trying to avoid the life-support equipment that kept Captain Nakamura alive. "Meg's gone to get something to eat but she'll be back soon. She worries about you, you know. Everybody does. Harm's worried, your girlfriend is worried. So is Bud."

"...and what about you?" Lia looked up startled to see Harm standing in the doorway. "It's OK to say that you're concerned for him too." Harm said softly. "It's OK to feel worried about him too."

But I don't even like him. Lia's mind protested. He's not someone I care about.

"He's a friend who's hurt. It's OK to worry. At least you're not thinking that he's the devil incarnate..." Harm quipped. Lia gave him a nasty look in response to that.

"I never thought of him as devil incarnate, Harm. I just thought that he was a pompous ass, full of himself and that his medals were more for show than substance. But I know differently now. He went to back up Gibbs without making a complaint. He went ahead and put his own life in danger without using his eagles to delegate the task to one of us. He could have told one of us to go into danger's way, but he didn't. So..." Lia stated, looking down at him. "I feel like I misjudged him." She looked over at Harm. "His bravery was what put him in that hospital bed." She looked out at the sunset as the first half of Sol dipped below the horizon.

"He and I flew together in the Gulf War." Harm looked at Lia gravely. "We flew fifty sorties over Kuwait and Iraq: Operations Desert Storm and Southern Watch. We were both there when it kicked off. Zero dark thirty launches, flying in flak so thick you could walk on it. He taught me how to fight in the Tomcat. He's a four-time MiG Killer. Everything I knew about flying the F-14 came from him."

"Then who was the Hawk?"

"Lieutenant Gary "Hawk" Hochhausen was my flight school instructor before I got my wings. He taught me my baby steps. The T-2C Buckeye; my first mount at Pensacola." Harm had a far-off look in his eye. "I may have learned to fly from the Hawk but my aerial combat finishing school was with Animal..." He said, "Keeter, Sturgis and Luke may have been my friends but Animal; he's like an older brother to me; protecting me, pushing me to do better; to go harder every time we went up to fly; all the while believing in me that I could do it. We knew that every mission we went on could be our last." Harm looked down at his comatose friend. "The shit hit the fan during my nugget cruise with Desert Storm." He nodded over to the hospital bed. "Animal kept me from getting my ass shot down over Iraq. I got my first and only MiG kill with his instruction. I remember it clearly. It was a Flogger." Harm paused a long moment, rubbing his eyes. "He kept the Iraqi's leading ace off my six or I wouldn't have been around to take up law. He's not a blowhard. In a later sortie he went head to head with the Su-27 that the leading Iraqi ace was flying. They got into it at Angels 35. By the time the fight was over; Animal's F-14 was smoking in the left engine; there were holes through his vertical stabilizers large enough to put a watermelonthrough and the leading Iraqi ace was just a smoking hole. I still don't know how he made it back to the Seahawk, but he did. I owe him my life dozens of times over."

Lia looked at him, "Between your father and your 'older brother' here you had some incredible mentors..."

"You can count the Hawk in there too. I hated having to put him down...take him out of the cockpit but he broke the code of honor." Harm looked solemn. "I didn't want to do it but he cheated on his eye exam and that cost the life of a woman and her child. There was no other way..." He looked at her, sadness in his eyes. "He had to pay the price for what he did but I'll never forget what he taught an student aviator all those years ago."

Lia looked curiously at Harm, "...and what was that?"

"Never go halfway. Always give it one hundred percent. Because the enemy won't go easy on you." He paused. "Gary Hochhausen taught me that and Animal drilled it into me till it became gospel at RAG."

"So that's why Cqptain Nakamura had a picture of you and him standing on the wing of an F-14 Tomcat on his shelf at NAVINSGEN HQ." Lia commented. "You flew together."

Harm nodded. "The naval aviator community is a brotherhood; whether men or women. We are tightly knit together. We have to believe in each other. Every man and woman who wears those Navy wings of gold are our brothers and we trust in each other to watch our six and keep it clear of the enemy." He stated with fervor.

Lia patted the chair beside her and motioned to Harm to come sit down. He did; wrapping his arm around Lia's shoulder, embracing her as she held his hand with her left and Animal's with her right.

The nurse came in to check Animal's vitals and wrote down the time on a chart. "You are aware that visiting hours are over at ten PM?" She asked. Harm looked at his watch. Only two more hours till they had to leave. He didn't want to have to leave especially with a maniac on the loose who had gunned down Animal and could possibly come back to finish him off.

"Does the hospital shut down or can we stay in the waiting room?" Harm asked.

The nurse looked at him as if he was nuts. "You can stay in the waiting room but the seating is uncomfortable and you'd be better off at your own place or a hotel."

"Ma'am I think I'd rather stay close at hand." Harm replied.

"Suit yourself..." The nurse stated as she headed out of the room. "Just remember ten o'clock. Be out of his room."

"One hundred negative points for bedside manner." Lia said sarcastically once 'Nurse Ratched' had left the room. Harm barely managed to hold in a burst of laughter.

"At least the waiting room is close by Animal's room." Harm said as they sat quietly together watching the oxygen regulator rise and fall accompanied by the rise and fall of Animal's chest. There were no words to say as the last light of the sun faded and left the sky a deep navy blue as the dark moved in to take over the sky.

"Am I disturbing anything?" Harm looked up to see Meg back from the cafeteria. Her face looked drawn and tired. "I saw Commander O'Bannon leave to find herself a hotel." She said quietly. "She didn't say anything to me." Harm shrugged his shoulders as if to say he didn't know why she didn't stick around. "Bud got a taxi and headed back to the hotel. I told him I'm staying here."

"Visiting hours end at twenty two hundred." Harm commented and lowered his voice. "Nurse Ratched came in and told us so." Meg affixed Harm with a look of disbelief. "So after 2200 we go sit in the waiting room. I'm not leaving with the maniac who shot Animal not in custody." Meg didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Harm meant he wasn't about to leave Animal defenseless.

"We found out who the shooter is." Meg, Lia and Harm looked up startled to see Gibbs and Hollands standing by the door. "It's Clark Palmer."

Harm stiffened. "If that's the case then Captain Nakamura is still in danger from the shooter. Palmer doesn't like leaving the job unfinished. And since he's my friend, Palmer will want to take him out." Indicating the captain lying in the hospital bed with a nod in his direction, Harm continued. "And right now Captain Nakamura is an easy target for Palmer."

Gibbs and Hollands both nodded; their fingers curling reflexively. Their sidearms were on their person. As were Lieutenant Commander Rabb's and the JAGs carrying theirs. The hospital staff may not have liked it, but they were not leaving nor were they surrendering their firearms.

DSD Office, Naval Station Three Rivers, Oakville, WI 2055 hrs CST

Clark Palmer looked through binoculars at the DSD building. He could see the NCIS agents scurrying in and out of the building like little ants. And each seemed to be carrying something; either computer equipment or boxes of files. And each one of them was armed with their Sig-Sauer P228 9mm sidearms. He looked down at his trusty Glock 17 but he knew that the second he poked his head up there would be a fusillade of bullets fired on his position. He didn't have the sniper rifle to take them out from the location he was at almost half a mile from where the building was located. But being able to observe also meant he had clear line of sight if sniping ever became an option.

Palmer was also slightly annoyed. The NCIS had disrupted his carefully laid plan to extort billions to unlock the files he was going to encrypt in the national defense network computers. Files that he planned to make available to the Russians for a princely sum. Who knew that words on paper held such power and potential wealth?

But he could salvage this problem. He had copies of the LockerRoom virus in various thumb drives in secure places all over the country. He knew that if he stayed in this area that the possibility of arrest rose exponentially. It became idiotic to tempt the lions in this manner if he didn't need to. His egress was ultimately subject to how alert those lions were. There were numerous alleyways and egress points from the base that the military wasn't aware of. Several which he had created himself. He eased himself up from the rooftop surveillance point and headed for the building entrance from the roof. To most people he was just another government suit on base and no one hassled him. In this manner he was able to leave the base unassailed. And another fifty three minutes later he was on a plane headed out of Wisconsin.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 2150 hrs CST

"Ten minutes...till visiting hours over." The disagreeable voice of the lady nurse that Lia had monikered as Nurse Ratched assailed Harm's ears. "Better start movin' yourselves to the waiting room." Harm swore silently that the nurse had the bedside manner of Josef Mengele.

Lia shook her head in disbelief as the woman, she swore, goose-stepped her way out of the hospital room, her heels clicking a staccato cadence on the tiled floor. All Nurse Ratched needed was a set of knee high black leather boots, and an olive-grey high-neck uniform and Schirmmütze and she would be a perfect Nazi. The comical illustration in her mind's eye made her giggle in mirth.

"What's so funny?" Harm asked; his mouth quirking up in a slight grin.

"I was just thinking of her in a Nazi uniform goose stepping down the hospital corridor." She whispered so that no one except Harm could hear her and snickered. Harm nearly burst out in laughter.

They sat down in the waiting room as Dr. Winston sans white coat stopped in front of them. "Lieutenant Commander Rabb?" He waited till he had Harm's full attention. "Captain Nakamura's vitals seem to be holding steady. There may be some brain damage but we won't know how extensive until such time as we deem it safe to bring him out of his induced coma. After his cardiac arrest he has been unresponsive but the activity on the brainwave monitor is reassuring. It means that his brain is communicating. But the communication lines, his neural pathways, are temporarily blocked. I think we will keep him under at least a week and if there are no changes for the worse, we will start slowly bringing him out of the coma."

Harm nodded.

Dr. Winston asked "Now I don't want to consider that there may be an adverse situation but we do need to discuss the matter. Should he not respond to being pulled out of the coma, we need to determine if it may be necessary to think about notifying next of kin for advanced directives as to the steps we would take in terms of his care. Do we know who his next of kin are?

Harm took a deep breath then spoke "His mother and father are not alive any more." He looked over at Meg and Lia. "He has left instructions that in case of full incapacitation where there is no...uh...hope of his being anything but in a persistent vegetative state; that he wants no heroic measures taken to keep him alive." Meg's sharp intake of breath startled Harm. She hadn't known about that. But Animal had known that the man he considered his 'younger brother' would remember that. "He told me that and he asked me to put that into writing with his signature and mine. He wouldn't want a life where he had no way to experience life fully. He said it would be like living in a coffin waiting to die." Harm whispered just loudly enough for Dr. Winston, Lia and Meg to hear. "...but if it were solely up to me, I'd say do anything to keep him alive." Dr. Winston nodded.

"I understand, Commander Rabb. Sometime the hardest decision is not to decide whether one lives or dies but the decision inside yourself to let that person go." He stated as Harm nodded. "But let's hope that we don't have to come to that decision." Dr. Winston nodded to Harm as he turned to go.

When he had left, Meg turned to Harm, crumpled into his arms. "But…I don't want to let him go…" she said, her face crumpling, tears coming down her cheeks. "I can't let him go…"