"They'd probably see you, though."
"I'll worry about that. We don't want them to know you were ever in the underground. You come out and crawl in the back and I'll have a blanket you can hide under."
"I'll have a lot of my stuff."
"That's OK. If they see me and stop me, I'll bluff my way out of it, but I'm going to try to do it in a way where they won't even know I'm there."
A beep told Buck he had another call. It was Rayford. "Zeke, let me call you back. It could be a while, so be packed." He pushed the button. "Buck here."
"Buck, you're not going to believe who I just prayed with."
"Hattie?"
"No, you'd never guess."
David awoke in the palace hospital during the wee hours to someone caressing his hand.
"Don't speak," she whispered. It was Nurse Pale-moon. "You're a celebrity."
"lam?"
"Shh. It's all over the palace that you blew chunks on Carpathia."
David was on an IV again. He felt better. "Did you change my dressing?" "Yes, now be quiet." "I thought you were off duty."
"So did I, but I was yanked in here because I was the one who had stitched you up, and you know no doctor was going to be dragged out of bed." "Hannah, I've got to get out of here." "No, you should have been with us a few days anyway, and now you've got the chance."
"I can't and neither can you." He quickly whispered what he had learned at the meeting. "We've got to be out of here before thirty days from today or be prepared for the consequences."
"I'm prepared, David. Aren't you?" "You know what I mean. I've got to find my fiancee and my pilots, and if you know of any other believers-" "Fiancee? You're attached?" "The Phoenix cargo chief, Annie Christopher." "I don't know what to tell you, David. If she were here, she'd be in the system by now."
"Would you check again for me? And see if you can get Mac McCullum and Abdullah Smith to visit me."
"That's quite an alias, Albie," Plank said. "You want me to report that a Deputy Commander Elbaz came in here with the proper credentials and that I followed the letter of the law?"
"I'm so visible on the GC database, no one will even question it," Albie said. "They'll probably wonder why they haven't met me yet."
"And soon enough," Rayford said, "I'll be enlisted and we'll make sure Albie reports to me. I just worry about compromising our inside guy, the one who sets this stuff up for us."
"How will they trace it to him or even to the palace?" Albie said.
"I don't know. Maybe he's precluded that, but we'll have to let him know what's happening."
Plank led them out the door and down the hall, past the receptionist and into the cell area. "I heard a noise back there a minute ago," Mrs. Garner called out from the desk.
"Trouble?"
"Somethin' banging, that's all."
Plank led the men to Hattie's door and knocked but heard no response. "Ma'am," he called out, "GC personnel are here to transport you back to Buffer." He winked at Rayford and Albie. "May I come in, ma'am?"
Plank fished for his key ring, unlocked the door, and pushed it open about an inch until it met resistance. Albie and Rayford stepped forward to help, but Plank said, "I got this."
He backed up his chair, then threw it forward, bashing into the door and pushing past the bed that had been wedged against it. "Oh, no!" he said, and Rayford stepped over him, driving his shoulder into the door to force his way in.
The room was dark, but when he flipped the light switch, sparks startled him from the ceiling where the fixture had been. Light from the hall showed the fixture now on the floor, knotted at the end of a sheet. The other end was tight around Hattie's neck, and she lay there twitching.
"Tried to hang herself from a flimsy light," Plank said, as Albie leaped past him and slid up to Hattie on his knees. He and Rayford dug and tore at the sheet until it came loose. Rayford gently turned her on her back, and she flopped like a dead woman. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw that hers were open, pupils dilated.
"She was moving!" Albie whispered, grabbing her belt and lifting her hips off the floor. Rayford plugged her nose, forced her mouth open, and clamped his mouth over hers. Her tiny frame rose and fell as he breathed into her, and Albie applied pressure to help her breathe out.
"Shut the door," Albie told Plank.
"You don't need the light?"
"Shut it!" he whispered desperately. "We're going to save this girl, but nobody but us is going to know it."
Plank steered his chair to push the bed out of the way, then shut the door.
"She's got a pulse," Albie said. "You OK, Ray? Want me to take over?"
Rayford shook his head and continued until Hattie began to cough. Finally she gulped in huge breaths and blew them out. Rayford sat heavily on the floor, his back against the wall. Hattie cried and swore. "I can't even kill myself," she hissed. "Why didn't you let me die? I can't go back to Buffer!"
She collapsed in tears and lay rocking on the floor on her knees and elbows.
"She doesn't recognize anybody," Albie said.
Hattie looked up, squinting. Rayford leaned over and turned on a small lamp. "No, I don't," she said, peering at Albie and glancing at Rayford. "I know Commander Pinkerton here, but who are you losers?"
Albie pointed to Rayford. "He saved your life. I'm just his loser friend."
Hattie sat in the middle of the floor, her knees pulled up, hands clasped around them. And she swore again.
"You're not going to Buffer, Hattie," Rayford said finally, and it was clear she recognized his voice.
"What?" she said, wonder in her voice.
"Yeah, it's me," Rayford said. "There are no secrets in this room."
"You came?" she squealed, scrambling to him and trying to embrace him.
He held her away. She looked at Plank. "But…"
"We're all in this together," Rayford said wearily.
"I almost killed myself," Hattie said.
"Actually," Albie said, "you did."
"What?"
"You're dead."
"What are you talking about?"
"You want out of here? You want the GC off your back? You go out of here dead."
"What are you saying?"
"You called your old friend to rescue you. He refused. You were despondent. When you gave up hope and were convinced you were going to Buffer, you lost all hope, wrote a note, and hung yourself. We came to get you, discovered you too late, and what could we do? Report the suicide and dispose of the body."
"I did write a note," she said. "See?" She pointed to a slip of paper that had fallen off the bed.
Rayford picked it up and read it under the lamp. "Thanks for nothing, old FRIENDS!!!" she had written. "I vowed never to go back to Buffer, and I meant it. You can't win them all." "Sign it," Rayford said.
Hattie massaged her neck and tried to clear her throat. She found her pen and signed the note.
"How long can you hold your breath?" Albie asked. "Not long enough to kill myself, apparently." "We're going to wheel you out of here under a sheet, and you're going to have to look dead when we load you on the plane too. Can you pull that off?"
"I'll do whatever I have to." She looked at Plank. "You're in on this too?"
"The less you know, the better," he said. He glanced at Albie, then Rayford. "She never needs to know, far as I'm concerned." They nodded.
Plank told them to leave the sheet the way it was, with the light fixture still embedded in one end. "Use the other sheet from the bed to cover her, and do it now."
Rayford ripped the sheet from the bed, and Hattie lay on the bare mattress. He floated the sheet atop her and let it settle. Plank opened the door. "Mrs. Garner!" he called, "we've had a tragedy here!"