STEALING EDEN Part Nine

The next few hours were mass chaos within the Gazette building. The ambulance crews were allowed in to take Sarah to the hospital, but Sophie and Laura refused to allow Marriner to be moved and refused to allow the police in until UNIT personnel had arrived first. As they had been placed on standby, this only took half an hour at most, but in those minutes of waiting, most of the personnel in the news room feared for their safety. Sarah had been unconscious when she was transported from the scene, and did not see Detective Inspector Hibbert waiting in the corridor outside. When UNIT arrived, Brigadier Charles Crichton assumed command of the building and allowed the second ambulance crew to depart with Marriner. Hibbert and his officers were allowed in briefly to photograph the scene and to supervise the removal of the late Laura McDowell from the restroom. The dead body in the meeting room was confiscated by UNIT personnel and Hibbert's forensic team was permitted only to shoot pictures of it after Sophie had disabled the holographic projector. The staff of the Junior Gazette were interviewed by UNIT personnel and the faxed copies of Kevin and Kate's notes were confiscated. At Billy Homer's apartment, soldiers confiscated his computer. In Cedar Rapids, Kevin and Kate were placed under protective custody by some military police officers from Fort Mitchell. Lynda returned a copy of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Maddening Crowd to Sophie and Laura without a protest, and after receiving it, the two of them were allowed to leave the room by Crichton.. Frazz typed out a story he'd written detailing the tragic invasion of the Junior Gazette offices by a delusional old man who had strangled to death one of the Marriner Group's accountants and shot former Junior Gazette reporter Sarah Jackson and critically wounded her. Crichton ordered it released as the official version of events. Hibbert was left to mold whatever pieces he could to fit the puzzle. The piece that was Marriner was conveniently missing from the puzzle, and Hibbert was ordered to never reveal the presence of one of UNIT's top agents, nor why the body that was wheeled out on a stretcher looked nothing like the man who had walked in an hour before. The Brigadier himself delivered the reading of the Official Secrets Act to the assembled members of the news team, Hibbert's investigators, and the members of the senior paper who had arrived on the scene before Sophie and Laura could seal the room. No one would ever be allowed to tell of the events that transpired on this day under penalty of imprisonment for life, and with the soldiers present to back up Crichton's words, no one raised a voice in protest. Once again, Inspector Hibbert was left in the dark.

Sarah Jackson's surgery was successful, and one bullet was removed from her chest, where it had ricocheted off a rib bone and grazed her lung. She regained consciousness that evening. Paul Marriner arrived at the hospital in a coma that appeared to have no visible cause or explanation. A military doctor on the UNIT staff said the coma was self-induced and that he should be kept under observation and nothing else. Guards kept vigil over the patients that night, with Sophie and Laura handling the chores for their boss and Sarah's grief-stricken parents watching over her under the watchful eyes of a UNIT sergeant. Lynda and Spike spent the night in the hospital waiting room, keeping their own vigil along with Tiddler and Matt Kerr. Mr. Sullivan joined them later that night, and Julie Craig came to take morning watch when Kerr and Sullivan left. By noon on the next day, Paul had awakened briefly and asked if Sarah had survived. When told she had, he smiled and went back to sleep for another four hours. That night, he declared himself well, and ordered the hospital to discharge him. He watched over Sarah and her parents that night in the garb of a UNIT soldier, unnoticed by anyone other than the medical staff, who were under orders not to say anything.

Early the next morning, Sarah's parents went home for a brief time. Sophie appeared in the lobby and summoned Lynda to come with her. The last act was about to be played out..

On To The Finale