Multiple Protocols

259.

If there is one thing I have learned from thirty years of chasing bad guys who play by their own rules, it is that to be successful in their game one must posses the skill of managing multiple protocols - and that their golden rule is that there are no rules.

Davis calls.

"We have Bartowski." He says, out of breath as if the chase has just ended.

"Is there a connection to Cyrus?" I ask without time for a congratulatory cheer.

"He says no but I think yes," comes the response, "He his sitting in the back seat, cuffed and bleeding, we are en-route to a local Urgent Care clinic for treatment, he took a nine in the chest."  He increases his volume for the final sentence; "He might bleed-out before we get there."

"Pull over and stop the car," I say in a calm monotone, "and put the phone on speaker. Where is Saunders?"

"Sitting beside him working triage."

Davis finds the first opening in the sparse traffic bringing the SUV to a stop on the right shoulder of the highway. He tilts the wheel full up, turns forty-five degrees to face the prisoner and ceremoniously puts his phone into speaker mode. In our vehicle Drysdale announces that we are a block away from the address provided by the GPS coordinates obtained by Julie. Mustang informs me that we are very close to jamming the cellular signal from Cyrus' cell. The Queen is pleading her case with Cyrus in the attempt to sell her net worth - and immediate value - as being far superior to that of Mr. Big.

It is my move on the topmost layer of this deadly game of quantum chess.

"Hello Anton, I am hoping you remember me and that you are being treated with all due respect by your hosts," I begin, knowing that there is time for one motivational thread only and it has to be clean and successful. "I understand that you need urgent care for a GSW. So let's understand one another from the get-go: You aren't going anywhere until you tell us about Cyrus and his plan. You can bleed-out and die a martyr for whatever noble cause you choose, or talk to us and get immediate medical assistance, you know, stop the pain and live to see another day. Your call. But you only have one minute to decide. Clock starts now."

Davis makes a show of starting his chronometer as Saunders ceases her emergency triage efforts watching thick blood drain from Bartowsky's cheap sport coat like a squeezed container of catsup.

"He may not make it to sixty," Saunders adds in a messy commentary.

"Where is the second bomb Anton? Tell me and you get help."

Anton Bartowsky takes as deep a breath as he is able under the circumstances. On his labored exhale he blurts, "Orlando airport, Delta arrival terminal." And passes out.