“Yes,” John rasped.
“Miss, you can see him as soon as I have done some tests, I promise. Now, please sit down outside in the corridor.”
For the next twenty minutes John was asked question after question to gauge his memory. The doctor also tested his reflexes and checked his ability to swallow water and some liquidized food that the nurse brought in.
“It looks like you’re in good shape, John, but you won’t be going anywhere for a while. We need to keep checks on you. Try to get some rest now.”
The doctor walked out into the corridor, where David and Jennifer were waiting expectantly.
“It’s remarkable. He seems to have full cognitive function and reflexes. His memory is a little shaky. If it wasn’t for the fact that he has been lying in a bed for fifteen days, he could get up now and leave.” He paused, looking squarely at Jennifer before continuing. “But just in case there is any confusion, he can’t. His body is weak, and his digestive system has practically shut down. It will take days, if not weeks, for him to gain enough strength through eating normally and through physiotherapy to regain a normal lifestyle. He probably won’t be able to stay awake too long now and will drift in and out of sleep. Don’t be alarmed—he is out of the coma, and this will be regular sleep,” he said with a kind smile in response to the look of concern on Jennifer’s face.
A couple of seconds passed before it hit Jennifer that John was really back. What she had wanted more than anything, had actually happened.
John’s father took less time to take in the information and thanked the doctor as Jennifer rushed to John’s side for their first embrace since the attack.
“Oh my God, John. It’s really you, the whole you,” she gushed, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “How much do you remember?” she questioned.
“It’s like I’ve got a jigsaw but I haven’t yet got all the pieces to fit. I’m really, really tired, Jen….” His voice, nearly a whisper, trailed off.
“It will take some time––” She stopped talking when she noticed his eyes had closed. After waiting a moment, she realized he had fallen asleep. Jennifer sat marveling at John now, much in the same way she had done when she’d first seen him as a spirit.
Looking away, she noticed that her father and Tom Logan were talking to a man in a dark suit outside the room. She got up from John’s bedside to join them. The man in the suit introduced himself as Special Agent Chapman. He explained how he had left instructions with the doctor to call him as soon as anyone matching descriptions of Jennifer and David showed up wanting to see John. When asked about the note that John had informed Jennifer that he had left for Chapman on his desk at the precinct, the FBI agent was adamant that no message had been left there. As a result, he knew nothing of the existence of the rental or that Jennifer and David had been staying there.
It was hard to tell whether Chapman or John’s father was the more surprised to learn that the notorious assassin Shadow Dragon was locked in a safe room at the rental. Chapman was given the code to unlock the door and left immediately.
Thirty-One
Three days had passed, during which John had been transferred to a private room. Jennifer had spent nearly all of John’s ever-increasing waking hours there and supported him during his physiotherapy. They spent their time making small talk and connecting through simple, pleasurable, and humorous conversation. She reveled in his accounts of the softness of her lips after they kissed, his ability to breathe air again, and how even the taste of hospital food seemed exquisite to him. They got to know each other again, as boyfriend and girlfriend, on their own terms and not as dictated by crushing adversity, hardly believing how good it was to feel mortal electricity between them once again.
The ceiling-mounted television in John’s room was kept switched on and tuned in to a news channel. But it wasn’t until the fourth day after he’d woken from the coma that he saw a breaking news story regarding the arrest of El Gordito. Jennifer reached for the remote control to turn up the sound.
“News is breaking that Miguel Vargas, more commonly known as El Gordito, the notorious kingpin and head of the ’Mariposa’ drug distribution gang operating in New York, has been arrested along with 30 other individuals under an 11-count federal indictment for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute drugs. Our reporter, Clara Fisher, is on site outside a warehouse in Newstone, New Jersey, where El Gordito is alleged to have manufactured a new type of highly addictive narcotic.”
The image changed from the broadcast studio to the top half of a woman, smartly dressed in a crisp white blouse––a perfect match to the black and white news channel logo on the microphone she was holding. The security hut and barrier in front of a large industrial-looking building stood behind her, together with a huge sign bearing the name ‘Supreme Logistics Fulfillment Center.’
“That’s the place!” John enthused.
“Shh!” Jennifer said, prodding him to keep quiet.
“Beneath this ordinary-looking warehouse, the FBI discovered a high-tech drug manufacturing facility where strains of yeast, capable of yielding pure heroin and cocaine through a revolutionary new ‘brewing’ process, had been genetically engineered. To increase the effect of these two addictive and powerful narcotics, the cocaine and heroin were pressed together in pills, making the potent combination known to drug users as ‘speedballs,’ available in a convenient form for clubgoers as well as addicts. Given the purity of the ingredients, it is hardly surprising that the sales of pills known as ‘Spider’s Bite’ have overtaken all other illegal drugs.
Since news of the closure of the facility, understood to be the only place of manufacture, went public, prices of the pills
