“It’s not?! That sounds pretty bad, so far!” I commented.
Whiteman shook his head. “No sir. The really life threatening issues are the internal injuries. That’s what my team was actually working on. The broken bones we have stabilized, and they can wait until he is stronger. Mister Buckman had several very serious internal injuries. We had to remove about a quarter of his liver, and sew the rest together. That’s not that serious, since the liver will grow back almost completely. He had some damage to his hepatic artery, which we fixed, and when I left, another team was doing a resection of his small intestine, which was torn. We also sewed up some tears to his right kidney, but even if that fails, he can survive on his other kidney. These are all survivable injuries, at least on an individual basis, but because of all the other trauma, it becomes much more serious. Still, with good care, he should survive. It’s going to be lengthy, however. We can’t begin to work on the skeletal damage until his vital signs stabilize and his liver and kidney function improve.”
Will interrupted. “Excuse me, but I am going to have to give the press something. What do we call this? Serious condition? Critical condition? What?”
The two doctors looked at each other, and then Whiteman said, “Critical condition.”
Tubb added, “I would add ‘but stable.’ Everything I am hearing is that his condition is not deteriorating.”
Whiteman thought for a second, and then nodded. “I could concur with that. These things are much more complicated than that, but for the press we could say critical but stable. With any luck, we should be able to upgrade him to serious condition in another day or two.”
“Critical but stable. Got it.”
“When will he be awake?” I asked.
“Probably not for another 24 hours or so. He’s unconscious now, and we have him on painkillers. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.”
Megan had just been listening so far, but she had a question. “Will he be able to move? I mean, not right away, but will he be able to walk and move around again?”
Paralysis? Oh sweet Jesus! I had never thought of that until now! Whiteman looked blank for a moment, and answered, “I just don’t know. He’s unconscious, so we can’t run the usual tests. I can tell you, however, that I have seen the X-rays, and we took a whole bunch of them, and there doesn’t seem to be any trauma to his spine or skull. I have no reason to think there would be any issues, but we just won’t know until he wakes up.”
“Can we see him?” she asked.
“No, not yet. He’ll be in a critical recovery section. Maybe tomorrow. He’s unconscious, so he won’t know if you’re there or not,” said Whiteman.
“He’ll know,” she said.
The doctor glanced at me. “Visitors are normally restricted to family members.”
“Miss Morgan has our permission to see him,” I replied. I squeezed her hand.
“Thank you.” She gave me a weak smile and nod.
“I need to get back and see how Mister Buckman is doing,” he said, standing.
I stood as well. “Thank you, Doctor. When Marilyn wakes up, we will let her know.” I let him go, and then turned back to the others. To my lead Secret Service agent, I said, “I’ll be staying the night. I don’t much care if it’s the Ritz-Carlton or the Holiday Inn, but we will need to set something up. I will probably go back to Washington tomorrow, but we’ll need something more permanent for Marilyn. I am sure she will stay here until Charlie can travel.”
“Me, too!” piped up Megan.
I nodded at that. “Maybe get a nice suite somewhere. The girls are coming in this evening. Figure on them for a day or two, also.”
“Yes, sir. We are already working on this,” he told me.
“Good.” I looked at Frank and Will. “I’ll either be with Marilyn or here, but I’ll go back to Washington tomorrow evening. I really want to be around when Charlie wakes up.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Frank. “I’ll sort it out with the hospital, but we might as well keep this conference room until you go back to D.C.”
“We’re going to need to make a statement, sir. We need to get you cleaned up. The reporters are already six deep outside,” added Will.
“Okay. Start writing. I need to clean up and change clothes in any case. Megan, too, for that matter.”
Frank looked at Megan. “Welcome aboard, Miss Morgan. You should probably call your parents and let them know what’s about to come their way. By the time the statement is finished, there will be reporters on their doorstep.”
“Holy sh…” she cut off her statement in mid-sentence, and gave an embarrassed look. The rest of us just smiled. “Okay”, she finished.
At about that time some of the race track people started arriving. It was Charlie’s team, and Megan took the lead with them, rushing over and giving them the news. They seemed like my son’s friends, not just business people, and seemed truly concerned, which spoke well for them. They wouldn’t be able to speak to Charlie until he was out of intensive care, but Megan promised to keep them in the loop, and they all left slowly and unhappily.
I managed to take a quick shower and shave, and then dressed in a suit. Meanwhile Will batted out a quick piece where I said that Charlie was still alive, but in critical but stable condition, we thanked everyone for their prayers, and thanked the ambulance and medevac and hospital staff. Yadda, yadda, yadda! No questions and answers. I heard a variety of questions shouted out, but I ignored them. At least a couple were about Megan, so I knew that cat was out of the bag. By the time we were done and I got back to the conference room, the twins and Bucky had arrived, and Marilyn was awake, and Doctor Tubb was telling them all the latest news.
I told Marilyn we were arranging a suite until Charlie was ready to be moved. At that point the Secret Service chimed in, and said we had a large suite at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Pittsburgh. They weren’t thrilled about having me stay in a hotel they hadn’t made arrangements for weeks ago, but that worked both ways. This was so sudden that any bad guys wouldn’t have expected it either. Even the lead agent agreed that the accident was undoubtedly just that, an accident, and not a bizarre plot to strand me in Pittsburgh. The odds of it being anything more sinister were nonexistent, and were the stuff for a Tom Clancy novel, and not real life.
After a final check on Charlie’s condition (still unconscious, surgery was finished and he was in recovery, we couldn’t see him) we went over to the Hyatt. Megan got her own room in the suite, and she and the girls caught up with each other when they arrived. We ordered up some room service, since nobody wanted to chance the press corps in the dining room. Marilyn was still upset and Doctor Tubb knocked her out for the night. Bucky and I stayed up and talked marriage and business for a bit, and then he looked in on his wife. After that, I went to bed.
Monday morning, I woke at my usual time, and Marilyn woke up also. “Feeling better?” I asked.
She nodded. “I think so.”
“I am going to have to go back to Washington today, but we are keeping the suite as long as necessary. I assume you plan to stay.”
She nodded. “Of course!”
“Okay, but are you going to be alright? We can’t keep knocking you out. It’s not healthy. You have to be tough, for Charlie’s sake if not your own,” I told her.