Framed by two explosions.
The first blew him forwards savagely into the future. The second blew him back into the past. Shielding Heron from the detonation of the grenade that Sergei shakily threw in one final thrust of elderly wasted muscle. Instinct and training. Split second. Grabbed him crashed into thepartition which folded immediately taking them down and low in enough time to dodge most of the blast. Crashing into enough space to live. Possibilities opening. Possibilities closed to Sergei hit by bullets just after the explosion hit him peripherally. Which he may have survived even given his age. The crazy old fucker. But a bodyguard dived low and shot at the same time. Training. Instinct. Heron sustained bruises, a couple of broken ribs. A sudden reminder of mortality. Random madness on his home ground. Brigg limped away with Heron's heartfelt gratitude, some scars, some short term memory loss which may have been caused by a sudden connection to that airport blast years before and short-circuited his synapses in a violent psychic attack. Lying in the hospital bed in his jolted mind he fell in and out of a landscape where his recently dead wife frequently appeared to him. Standing in front of his mother. Mary in the shadows. Michele in the distance. Alice somewhere felt but not imaged. A long gone possibility. The dead he had encountered professionally were present somewhere but beyond his consciousness, felt like an obscure pressure of the circumstances of being and career choices. He had never been haunted by them before: awareness of the consequences of power had never troubled him, the traumas of violence all being personal even as they had been the causes of his entry into that world, a swirl of possibility and causation bound by metaphysics or blind chance.
He woke to see Heron sat beside the bed.
‘Been there long?’
‘Long enough, my friend. We were getting a little worried about you. The external injuries came from bits of shrapnel, some of it caught your leg and chest, hence the bandages. Flesh wounds, superficial. But you hit your head when you took us through that partition. Which saved my life, by the way.’
‘What I'm paid to do.’
‘Above and beyond, Brigg, you’re much more than a bodyguard, always were. But training will come through. But how are you feeling?’
‘Don't know. Fuzzy, suppose it's the drugs. How long have I been out?’
‘Thirty six hours. Approximately.’
‘Sergei? It was Sergei, I didn't dream that bit, did I?’
‘Sergei.' Heron said, sadly, shaking his head. 'Didn't see
that coming down the pike.’
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