Okay, all right, no more hair-pulling.
Here's part two!
Hunted Part Two
Rated: R
Nadine Easton enjoyed putting her vast amounts of wealth on display, throwing lavish soirees on her yacht. She was not alone. The exclusive, private marina was abuzz with activity that evening, crowded with well-lit floating palaces and modern royalty bedecked in their best, most expensive finery. Laughter, sophisticated conversation, clinking champagne flutes, and loud music carried through the air, blocking out everything else that lay beyond their world of privilege, cocooning them in the safety of luxury, unconcerned. It was no surprise that, given the volume of parties that evening, no one heard the brutal violence several feet away, the blast of a gun unable to compete with several human voices deeply engaged in discussion, shouting and laughing above their music. They were so engrossed, so thoroughly preoccupied with having a good time that perhaps it would have been difficult for any of them to notice a body floating in the water, drifting towards them. A member of Nadine’s party noticed, happening to look at the placid ocean water at the right time.
“There’s a man in the water!” An older, poised, and distinguished woman shouted, attracting the attention of several others on Nadine’s yacht, who gathered around her to see what she was referring to, staring down at the figure in the water. The bright lights from the yacht were enough to create a sparkling reflection on the water and reveal the shape of a man, the force of the current pushing him towards the shore.
“What’s going on, here?” Nadine asked, pushing her way through those who had gathered at the railing. Elegant, statuesque, and beautiful, she looked like a goddess, wearing a shimmering gold gown that exposed her toned back, her blonde hair swept up in a immaculate French twist.
“Look,” the woman who had first spotted the man said, pointing at the shape in the water.
“Oh, God,” Nadine said, watching as the body moved closer and closer towards the shoreline. “Excuse me!” She shouted, pushing through her throng of admirers and guests again, running down the stairs of her yacht towards the shore with an amount of athleticism she didn’t think possible in her gold stiletto heels.
The man had at last washed ashore. When Nadine reached him, he was lying face down. Carefully, she turned him over. She saw how badly cut up and bruised he was and saw the gunshot wound, blood leaking from it.
“Oh God,” she muttered again. Looking up, she noticed that a small part of her entourage had gathered around her, staring stupidly at the body, awaiting her instructions like obedient dogs. “Help me bring him on board,” she said.
“Nadine, be serious!” A man in the group snapped, the only one who seemed to have the temerity to oppose her.
She glared hotly at him, her hard green eyes glinting in the glowing, heavenly lights of the yachts. “There isn’t going to be a debate, Fred,” she said. “This man is badly hurt and needs medical attention!”
“He looks dead to me,” Fred said. “Anyway, shouldn’t this be a matter for the police? Let them deal with a homicide. He’s probably just some common thug, anyway.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t simply wash my hands of this as you want me to and return to my party as if nothing has happened. I couldn’t bear to have that on my conscience. Could you?”
“But…”
“Call the ambulance,” she said, nearly hissing at him. “I’ll try to help him as much as I can until they arrive.”
“Nadine, be reasonable—
“Just call them!” She snapped, her eyes ablaze with anger. She turned to the others. “Now, someone, please help me bring him on board!”
“Darling, why are you so insistent—
“Fred, shut up for once in your God-forsaken life and just do what I say, understand?”
Sighing, Fred closed his mouth tightly into a narrow, firm line that still expressed his disapproval and reluctantly boarded the yacht to use her private phone to call an ambulance, grudgingly taking each step, clenching and unclenching his fists. Nadine watched him, waiting until he went where she instructed, confirming that he would do what she asked. When she was certain he had gone to call the ambulance, she turned back to the others pleadingly.
“Someone…help me carry him,” she said. “Be careful.”
Nodding, several of her guests helped her lift MacGyver’s beaten, wounded, and waterlogged body on board.
“Let’s take him to my suite,” she said.
They did as she asked, the rest of her party seemingly oblivious to the wet, bleeding man they were carrying past them, too inebriated to care. Once they reached Nadine’s suite with its opulent appointments, they set MacGyver on the floor as if more concerned about the damage his blood could do to her designer furniture than for his well-being. Nadine resented this, wishing instead that they would place him on one of the sofas or on her bed, but she waved them away once they were done, dismissing them as she would a servant, thanking them silently with that same wave of her slender, jeweled, feminine hand. Her gold dress was now smeared with MacGyver’s blood, and her perfect French twist was in disarray, strands of her usually silken, fine blonde hair sticking out in many directions like straw. Instead of a goddess, she now looked like a long suffering patron saint, a martyr for some holy cause, a tired, beleaguered expression on her face, her mascara smeared.
“Thank you, I’ll take it from here,” she said to them, looking back at the man now in her room. In the full light, she could see he was handsome despite his battered face and pallor from loss of blood, tendrils of his wet hair clinging to his face. She stroked his cut, bloodied, and bruised face gently, brushing the hair back. “Go tend to my other guests and see if they need anything. Try to keep them calm about the situation.”
Half of her party was already calm, drugged with enough alcohol not to care about anything, but those in the room with her nodded and left, once again granting her wishes as they always did. Fred, the only man who dared defied her, barged into the room, rudely pushing against those who were leaving like a man swimming against a powerful current.
“It’s done,” he said. “The ambulance is on its way.”
“Thank you, Fred,” Nadine said, removing MacGyver’s soaked shirt. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
He looked at MacGyver’s body in disgust. “For God’s sake, Nadine, why did you have to bring him in here? I still don’t understand,” he said.
“I know you don’t. That’s the fundamental difference between you and me,” Nadine said. She continued to remove MacGyver’s shirt, examining his bullet wound. “We need to stop the bleeding. Grab me some towels from my bathroom, would you?”
“What? You mean those cream-colored…?”
“Those are the only towels I have, now aren’t they?”
“But…but you can’t be serious! Those are high quality! He’ll stain them permanently!”
Nadine flashed him another angry glare. “If I cared about my towels so much, I wouldn’t be doing this, now would I?” She sighed in exasperation. “Listen, I don’t give a good damn about towels when a man is dying and needs help! Now, this is an emergency. Just bring me the towels, Fred. That’s all I ask.”
Fred threw his hands in the air in surrender, completely flabbergasted, his face flushed in frustration. “Fine,” he said, turning on his heels towards the bathroom. He returned shortly, handing them to her, watching as she applied pressure to the bullet wound with them, grimacing in pain as if he had been the one who had been shot, feeling squeamish at the sight and quantity of blood that was flowing from the open wound.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” Nadine said to no one in particular, focused entirely on MacGyver. “God, why didn’t I think about that first? He could be drowning, but he’s bleeding…” she rubbed her forehead. “I honestly don’t know how those nurses handle things like this.”
She bent over MacGyver, pressing her mouth against his.
“Nadine!”
“Relax! I’m performing CPR.”
She breathed into him and pressed on his chest. Soon, MacGyver gurgled and coughed, frothy bubbles of water foaming from his mouth, some blood mixed with it.
“There,” she said soothingly, stroking his forehead. “That’s right. Breathe. Breathe for me…good…” she took another towel and wiped his mouth, watching as he continued to cough up more, waiting until she was satisfied that he was breathing again to return to pressing the towels on his wound to cut off the flow of blood coming from it.
“I…I don’t think I can watch any more of this,” Fred said. “It’s making me ill. I’ll wait outside and let you know when the ambulance arrives.”
“Fine with me,” Nadine said. “I don’t need you, anyway.” She rolled her eyes in annoyance as Fred, the major irritant in her life, left the room and rejoined the guests outside on deck.
MacGyver moaned and squirmed as she continued to apply pressure to his wound, barely clinging to consciousness but aware enough of the pain. Nadine found herself feeling tremendous sympathy for him.
“Shh, it’s all right,” she whispered, once again stroking his face, now scrunched up in pain. “You’re going to be all right. Help is coming soon.”
Once again Fred burst through the door, startling her. She whirled around angrily in his direction.
“Damn it Fred, don’t scare me like that!” She said. “I thought you were waiting outside, anyway, that this was making you queasy,” she said in a mocking tone.
“The ambulance is here, Your Majesty,” he said, deploying his best snarky tone. “I thought you might like to know.”
***
The horrific nightmare replayed itself in MacGyver’s mind—being shot, tossed into the water, sinking into oblivion… Gasping, his eyes snapping open widely, his hands went up to his stomach, feeling for blood, a bullet wound. Instead, he felt a thick bandage, the burning, excruciating pain of the bullet lodged inside him absent, replaced with a numb, woozy sensation, the room spinning wildly. Groaning, he closed his eyes to try to stop the nausea he now felt. When the dizziness subsided, he opened his eyes again, a blurry shape standing over him, speaking in what seemed to be gibberish at first, the words slowly forming and making sense as they continued, echoing in his ears.
“MacGyver…can you hear me? MacGyver? MacGyver…” The fuzzy, clouded edges of his hazy, drug-induced vision improved gradually, as did the edges around the blurry image, becoming more sharply defined, a familiar stocky man materializing fully before him.
“Pete,” he said weakly, attempting a faint smile.
Pete gingerly took his hand, mindful of his cut and bruised hands, trying to avoid inflicting any unnecessary pain or discomfort, even though he knew his friend was too dazed and pumped up with painkillers to feel anything.
“That’s right, it’s me,” he said, smiling. “I’m here for you.”
“Was…shot…”
“I know. I guess James Mondragon and his underground crime syndicate of drug kingpins discovered your true identity after all. Your cover was blown.”
“And then some…”
“Don’t worry, Mac. He may have shot you, and your wound was serious, but fortunately the bullet missed your digestive system and your stomach, you know, vital things, things you need. Your surgery to remove the bullet was successful and without any complications.”
“Good news…”
Pete sighed, looking at MacGyver sadly. “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have sent you to infiltrate their group. I mean, my God, you could have been killed!”
MacGyver looked up at Pete with glazed eyes. “Hey…you didn’t…know that was gonna happen,” he said. “It…had to be done…”
“Yeah, well I’m afraid Mondragon and his syndicate have vanished now, something they’re very good at doing,” Pete said angrily and in disgust. “After all the work we did, after everything we accomplished…do you know how long it took for us to locate him, how difficult it was, how late and hard we toiled just so we could get you in there to operate undercover? Now he’s gone. After shooting you, finding him will be next to impossible, since he certainly has enough common sense to hide from law enforcement for awhile and cover his tracks, as if he doesn’t exist.” He looked around the hospital room. “Just in case, we have installed the best security people we have to monitor this room,” he said. “If Mondragon learns you’re alive…Mac, your life is still in danger.”
MacGyver nodded, blinking sleepily, the medication making him tired, trying to pull him back into unconsciousness. “How…how did I get here?” He asked, his voice so faint that Pete had to strain to hear him.
Despite the enormous stress he felt, Pete managed a slight smile. “Well, it’s an interesting story as a matter of fact,” he said. “A high profile socialite found your body drifting in the ocean near her yacht during one of her parties. The press is of course titillated by her fascinating story, but she won’t answer their questions. Apparently she’s a very private person, surrounding herself only with close associates and shutting out any one else that’s not approved for her social circle, which automatically excludes the media, of course. After spending hours interviewing with the police she seems to have disappeared as well, probably to one of her many secluded, gated, high-security properties. Understandably, having to witness something like this undoubtedly upset her and she probably would rather prefer to be alone to comfort her frazzled nerves.”
“Did she…see anything else?”
“Not according to the police report I was given,” Pete said. “She just found you. She didn’t see anything else or hear anything else.”
MacGyver’s eyes wandered around the room, his mind drifting in a fog under the influence of his heavy doses of medication. Pete noticed his distracted, disoriented state and realized he should probably leave to allow his friend time to rest and recover. Then his eyes settled on the vase of colorful flowers he had placed on the chair beside MacGyver’s bed.
“Oh, I almost forgot about these,” he said, placing them on the windowsill next to another bouquet and absently arranging them.
MacGyver grinned. “Flowers? You didn’t have to, Pete,” he said.
“Well, I did, but these aren’t from me. That other set on your window is.”
“Who are those from, then?”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “There was no card on them, no note, except a piece of paper with your name written on it. The nurse at the nurse’s station told me she found them on her desk this morning. She had no idea who could have left them. Nobody saw anyone.”
“Could be…from that socialite?”
“I don’t know. Whoever did it wished to remain anonymous, and that would certainly fit with her wanting to maintain a low profile. Then again, it could be from another secret admirer of yours,” Pete said, smiling.
“C’mon, Pete…I don’t have…any of those…”
Despite his paleness, Pete could tell MacGyver was blushing in embarrassment. His friend was just simply far too modest. He’d seen how women looked at him, how they adored him. His secret wish for MacGyver was that he would learn to love.
“In any case, I did have our security team look at them before I brought them in here to make sure they didn’t contain poison or weapons or some kind of bomb,” he said, avoiding lecturing MacGyver on his love life when he was in such a fragile state. “Remember, you betrayed James Mondragon’s trust. He’s not going to forget it. You’re still a marked man, MacGyver.”
MacGyver closed his eyes. “I know that, Pete,” he said.
Pete returned to his side, gently taking his scuffed, scabbed hand again. He sighed deeply. “This isn’t going to be easy to tell you,” he said, “but I’ve already been looking into some safe houses for you when you get released.”
MacGyver’s eyes opened again, for the first time looking clear. “No Pete,” he said as emphatically as he could in his weakened condition.
“Look, it will only be temporary, I promise,” he said. “I know how much you hate them, but you’re in a very precarious situation right now. Left unprotected, I guarantee you that you’ll make it just that much easier for Mondragon or his men to wipe you out. I’m not asking you to enter the Witness Protection Program, make a new life, stop working for me, or to don a disguise.”
“But you want me to hide,” MacGyver said. “I don’t…like hiding…running…” his eyelids grew heavy again, narrowing his eyes to slits.
“I know, but you have no choice. Look at what’s already happened to you. Mondragon and his group are dangerous and will stop at nothing. You betrayed his trust and he’s not going to let you forget it. At least until we apprehend them, you’ll have to be sequestered at some undisclosed, secure, and remote location that will improve your odds of survival against these thugs.”
MacGyver closed his eyes again and groaned, not out of pain but out of the prospect of having to sit and wait until it was safe to go outside and play again, locked away like some prisoner.
“Pete, that could take forever,” he said. “You said so yourself. He and his men have vanished again. They could be out of the country by now, for all we know. How long can I just sit around and wait?”
“Mac, I promise you that we have the full resources of the Foundation at our disposal to find these men again. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you won’t have to be in hiding for long.”
MacGyver thought about how he and this mysterious socialite who had saved his life were about to become more alike, both living in seclusion, both living behind bars. It was just that her isolation appeared to be self-imposed. He had no alternative. As much as he enjoyed being alone, he did not enjoy inactivity, not being directly involved, waiting for some outcome that might never happen. Still, he couldn’t fight it any longer. The drugs flowing through his system exhausted him, and all he wanted to do was sleep.
“Fine,” he said, his eyes closing, his head sinking into his pillow. He was out minutes later, wrapped in a warm, hazy, drugged sleep.
***
“So he is still alive.”
“I don’t know how he could be, after all that.”
“Well, he is, damn it! Now we have to do something about it! That miserable traitor cannot be allowed to live! He’ll destroy us all! He’ll expose our entire operation and ruin us!”
“It is nearly impossible to kill MacGyver. Many have tried and failed. Perhaps it’s time for a different approach.”
“What do you suggest?”
“That you let me try something.”To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
