Missing In Action
Part Two
By Aeris Jade
aerisjade@worldnet.att.net

Rating: R
Beta Reader: Scotty Welles
Spoilers: Season 7 be ware

Disclaimer: Okay, kay, they all belong to TPTB, except the bad guys and the husband.



Kim hung the phone up. Assuming that she left before eleven, then she should have been there by now, even with flight delays. This whole thing just felt wrong. She shook it off. Kerry was probably just taking care of whatever business she had before checking into the hotel.

She left the lounge, glancing over at the desk to make sure that Randi was busy. The dark-haired clerk was frowning up at the television above the desk. The others crowded around, listening to the loud reporter.

Kim could see the pictures of the reporter standing in front of snow-covered mountains, a cartoon picture of a plane in the corner. "... the private plane went down into the British Columbia Rockies two hours ago. It has been reported that there were three passengers on the plane, but we have yet to find out if there are any survivors."

"Randi, did Kerry say what flight she took?" Carter's voice was barely restrained against the nervous emotion.

"She said it was an 8:00 flight." Randi swallowed. "A private charter."

Kim could see the tension rip through the desk area. "We don't have any proof that she was on it."

"There's one way to find out." Randi grabbed the phone, dialing rapidly. Kim inched closer curious as to what she was doing. "Hello? Yes, this is Randi Fronczak with the Cook County ER. Our Chief of Emergency Services chartered a flight for British Columbia this morning.... Kerry Weaver... Are you sure? She said she was... No, thank you."

Randi slammed the phone down. "Bastard."

Kim sighed, unsure whether to be relieved or not. Just because he said Kerry Weaver wasn't on the flight didn't necessarily mean that she wasn't on the flight. Kerry depended on masks every minute of every day.



Kim frowned at the phone and slammed it back down. Kerry still hadn't checked in and according to the land field the only flight they were expecting from Chicago had crashed in the middle of the wilderness.

"Excuse me..."

Kim and Randi both turned to the handsome man, taking in his flawless black suit. Next to him was an older man with pepper hair in an identical suit. Both men flashed FBI badges at them without any sign of emotion.

"I'm Agent David Wilson and this is my partner Agent Chris Lee. We're looking for Dr. Robert Romano."

"He's with a patient..."

Agent Lee scowled at Randi with blazing eyes. "Where?"

"Trauma two but..."

The two agents were already moving toward the trauma room. Randi frowned slightly at Lydia. "Double agent or smuggling?"

"I've got ten on murder."

"Oh."



Robert grumbled under his breath. "How dare she leave me with this... That bitch..."

"Are you okay?"

Robert glared at Elizabeth. "If you call my chief of emergency disappearing without any notice, leaving me to handle her job being okay, then I'm just dandy."

"Robert, you know Kerry would never take off unless it was important."

Robert's mood darkened more; that was the thing he did know, so what the hell could have been so important?

Agent Lee burst into the trauma room, looking over the short, bald guy who had just stopped glaring at the curly redhead to glare at him.

"Hey, you can't be in here."

Agent Lee flashed his badge at him, silently daring him to be the bastard he knew the man was. "I'm Agent Lee with the FBI..."

"Look, I don't care if you're Queen Lizzie, I want you out of here."

Agent Lee noted the hard look the redhead threw at Romano. Probably named Lizzie. Behind him he felt his younger partner bristling in his own neutral way. "Sir, we're here about Dr. Kerry Weaver."

Silence. Well at least the little insect knew when to shut up. The bald man tore his eyes away from his patient and stared at them. "What about her?"

"I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this... "



Kim entered the lounge and took a seat. She didn't belong there and she knew it, but Kerry was her friend. They may not have known each other long, but they knew each other enough to care about each other. If Robert saw her, he didn't acknowledge her.

The two FBI agents nodded to each other and the older man, Lee, stepped forward. "I'm sure you've all heard about the plane crash in Canada. About an hour ago it was confirmed that there were no survivors."

"Was Kerry on the plane?"

Agent Lee stared at Kim a long moment before nodding. "Yes, ma'am. She was."

Carter stood up angrily and glared at the agent. "No, she wasn't. We called and asked. There was no record of Kerry getting on that plane."

"You're correct, Kerry Weaver didn't get on that plane, but Morgan Campbell did."

"I don't understand." Carter was clutching at straws. Kim could see that. The young man had been a close friend of Kerry's, and recently Kerry had been reaching out to him again.

"She used her middle and married name to charter the flight."

"Why would she do that? She hasn't spoken to him in almost six years." This felt wrong to her. How could the FBI confirm something like this so fast? Why did the plane crash to begin with?

"From what we found out she was on her way to Fort Nelson to meet her husband, a well-known IRA terrorist."

Kim snapped her head around to gauge Carter's reaction. Searching for some hint as to what he thought about all this. The young man clenched his right hand, then sat back down, going strangely quiet.

"You expect us to believe that she was involved with a terrorist?" Peter asked.

"Look, we've been monitoring Dr. Weaver's activities for sometime. She used her house to hide IRA soldiers under the disguise of taking in boarders. She's been in constant contact with Boyd Campbell for the last five years."

"And she was going to meet her husband because...?"

"He has been planning to attack the UN in Washington and was going to use Dr. Weaver. After all, what could possibly be suspicious about a crippled doctor? Now, if you'll excuse us..."

Robert waited until they left before breaking the shocked silence. "Dr. Kovac, I want you to take over Kerry's job until I appoint a permanent replacement."

Kim frowned. She didn't buy any of this. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she just didn't see Kerry being involved with the IRA. She couldn't even bring herself to hear how she got that man away from the MP's.

Maybe it was time to use some of her vacation time.



Robert grabbed the younger agent's arm and yanked him around. He didn't like to be jerked around, and he sure as hell didn't like to be lied to, especially about one of his children. "I want the truth. Now."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Robert glared at the two men. "I mean, I know Kerry and she would never..."

"Oh, really? Just like she'd never break hospital rules?" Wilson scoffed at him and walked away without looking back. Lee grinned and followed his partner out to their car.

Robert ground his teeth. He didn't care what they said. Kerry might break a few rules here and there, but she would never be involved with something that might cost lives. He was going to get to the bottom of this if it was the last thing he did.



"I'm going to kill that sorry son of a..." Kerry winced against the multitude of pains she felt.

It was bad enough that she'd been shot. It was really bad that her crutch had been left in the plane. It was even worse that she'd ended up in a free fall, struggling to get that damned parachute on, and that when she'd pulled the release it had wrenched her already battered body severely. But the one thing that really bothered her was the fact that she'd seen the outline of another figure against the darkening sky as he'd parachuted to safety. Which meant that on top of having to walk across miles and miles of wilderness for help in winter, she was also being hunted.

It was the pilot, probably, as the two shooters in the cabin with her couldn't have grabbed parachutes in time. They were doomed as soon as she depressurized the plane - aww, poor babies, she thought sarcastically - but the pilot would probably have his own parachute in the cockpit with him. And he'd undoubtedly be one of Them.

"Figures," she growled to herself. "Robert probably had this all planned to get back at me for last month's expense report."

She added that to the list of her current woes, and did a quick tally of her injuries. Her face and chest were going to be one solid mass of bruises from slamming against the front of the cabin earlier, and that landing a few minutes ago had been no picnic either. Skydiving in a controlled jump with two good legs is one thing. An improvised escape from a thousand feet or so with one-and-a-half is another matter entirely.

But the big question still remained: why wasn't she dead? She'd been shot square in the spine...

Kerry reached around to her back. The movement set off a dozen protests from different areas of her body, but she could feel no blood or gunshot wounds. In fact, the only thing she did feel back there was...

Oh. Oh, of course. God bless you, Amelia...

Kerry pulled the knife sheath from the pocket in the back of the old jacket. The sheath was marred and distorted by something imbedded in it, but it was now clear what had happened. By some absolute miracle, the bullet had struck her right in the center of the big knife's flat blade, distributing its impact along the blade's entire surface, instead of a single point that would have punched through her body completely.

The bullet was still in the sheath, completely flattened. Prying it carefully out, she saw that it was some kind of soft-nosed plastic bullet, rather than lead or steel. That made sense, she thought. She'd read somewhere that federal agencies had developed something similar for their agents who had to carry guns on airplanes. The bullet wouldn't penetrate a plane's hull, thus endangering passengers and crew, but would still have been lethal to a human body.

Those guys who tried to kill her had been professionals, or at least got their armament from professionals. So the co-pilot's first shot to the head, at point-blank range, while she "slept", would have killed her, but not them. She'd nearly been caught by surprise, since she hadn't been expecting them to do something so dumb as fire guns in a pressurized aircraft, but now she saw that they'd been more on the ball than she thought. Dangerous to underestimate Boyd or anyone who worked for him.

Of course, that went for her, too. Those guys probably expected to take a quick flight, pop the crippled chick, and it's Miller Time. They never thought a short, slim woman with a limp could turn their lives into a Wesley Snipes movie.

Kerry replaced the knife in the hidden pocket of the worn leather coat, grateful again to the woman who gave them to her, along with so much more. The feel of Amelia's coat around her made Kerry imagine that, in her darkest hour, her mentor and friend was there to hold her and give her strength.

She pulled it tighter and leaned against a large boulder. Her shooter had gone down north east from her, far enough away to give her a head start, but with her limp it wasn't much of one.

Now, there were only a few minutes of daylight left. If she was going to survive she needed to find someplace to spend the night. Kerry started down the long trail as the forest lit up for miles as an expanding fire exploded high into the sky.



Aeris Jade Orion
AIM: Aeris Jade
ICQ: 51496263
AT&T/Pow-Wow: Jade
Pow-Wow Community: Orion

Web Site: http://www.geocities.com/aeris3996

" This act hasn't been seen in 20 years, and if i'm any judge of talent it will never be seen again."
- Theres no business, like show business