Read Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood for Free Online Page A

from the Indian guy. Nikki’s about to be moved from the operating room to ICU, and while he doesn’t believe there’s any way she can survive the night, she will not be anything close to conscious for at least another half hour. Here’s the good part. He asked the attending to concentrate on her larynx and windpipe, just to see if there was any way she might be able to speak at all. He’s making no promises and wants me to remind you that even if they somehow succeed, she has very little possibility of being lucid.”
    “I understand. I appreciate it anyway.”
    “So, figure about forty minutes from now he wants you to come to the intensive care unit and meet the attending surgeon. Then you can be with her.”
    “For how long?”
    “He said that if you’re prepared for whatever might happen, you can stay with her to the end.”
    Boone felt as if someone had reached into his chest and pulled the cord on the light of his life. How could anything ever be the same? His thoughts were a mess, starting to include foreseeing the funeral, both families coming, everyone trying to help, to advise, and looking at him with pity. His mother would insist on doing things for him; his father would have some sort of plan. Boone wanted none of it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go on at all.
    When it finally came time for them to make their way to ICU, Boone started at a rapid pace. On the one hand, he hoped against hope that he would see Nikki before she died. On the other, he was afraid of what he would see. Eventually the stress caught up to him, and his limbs felt like lead. It was hard to put one foot in front of the other, but he was not going to stumble, and he was certainly not going to be helped along by anyone.
    Pastor Sosa stayed half a step behind Boone, while Jack Keller hurried on ahead. When they reached ICU, Dr. Sarangan introduced everyone to the attending surgeon, Dr. Catherine O’Connor. She was short and dark with black hair and held her folded surgical cap in one hand.
    “Officer Drake, I am so sorry for the loss of your son,” she said. “I know Dr. Sarangan has told you everything, so I trust you’ll understand if I ask whether Father Sosa would like to administer the last rites to your wife.”
    “It’s Pastor Sosa, and we’re not—”
    “I would be honored to pray for her, Boone,” Sosa said. “It’s your call.”
    “Why don’t you do that now,” she said, “and I’ll join you in a few moments with more information. Oh, you’ll both have to wear masks.”
    The sight of his mummified wife stopped Boone short. A sheet had been tented over most of her body to the neck, her bandaged arms suspended by thin wires from a contraption over the bed. Her arms were thickly wrapped in gauze, as were her hands, which looked like grotesque oven mitts. The white around her head and face was the size of a basketball. Two tubes ran into a tiny hole through the gauze to where her nose and mouth would have been.
    “Oh, Nikki,” Boone whispered.
    Sosa put one hand on the bed rail and the other lightly on Boone’s forearm. Boone found himself deeply moved that the pastor’s tears were streaming as he prayed with obvious difficulty. “Father, we confess we don’t understand you right now, and all we can do is thank you for Nikki and what a precious wife and mother she has been. We love her and we know that you do too. I pray, if it is your will that she leave this earth, that you would welcome her to yourself without further pain or agony. And I pray your merciful, miraculous comfort for Boone. Please, Lord. Please.”
    The pastor squeezed Boone’s arm and said, “I’ll be right outside.”
    It struck Boone that, besides Sosa’s admonition that Boone not blame himself, the pastor had not tried to advise or counsel or even comfort him other than by prayer, touch, and tears. Anything else would have been futile anyway, but he did appreciate that the man was there and trying. When he turned at the sound of