He was too hot. Much too hot. He was wearing pajamas: that was it. Fumbling for the buttons with his right hand, he realized he was fatigued. It felt as if his arm was weak, a long way away. He managed to get a couple of buttons undone, just as the door opened.
"As you can see he's, oh my-"
"Mike? Can he hear me?"
"I'm too hot." It came out funny.
"I'm real sorry, Mr. Smith, but he's running a fever. We've got him on IV penicillin for the infection, and morphine-"
"Penicillin? Isn't that old-fashioned; I mean, aren't most bacteria resistant to it these days?"
"That's not what the path lab report says about this one, thank Jesus; you're right, most infections are resistant, but he's had the good fortune to pick up an old-fashioned one. So, like I was saying, he's on morphine, his leg's an almighty mess, and they used a whole lot of Valium on him last night so he wouldn't pull out his tubes."
"Mike?"
The voice was familiar, conjuring up images of a whirring hand exerciser, a tense expression. "Boss?"
"Mike? Did you try to say something?"
"Ah, h- heck. Is it the Valium? Or the morphine?"
"He ought to be better in a couple of hours, Mr. Smith."
"Okay. You hang in there, Mike. I'll be right back."
The door closed on discussion, and the sound of footsteps walking away. Mike closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts.
An indefinite time later, Mike was awakened by the rattle of the door opening.
"Huh- hi, boss." The cotton wool wrapping seemed to have gone away: he was still tired and a little fuzzy, but thinking didn't feel like wading through warm mini any more. He struggled, trying to sit up. "Huh. Water."
There was a jug of water sitting on the bedside trolley, and a couple of disposable cups. Eric sat down on the side of the bed and filled a cup, then passed it to him carefully. "Can you manage that? Good."
" 'S better."
"It's Sunday afternoon. You were dumped on our doorstep on Friday evening, two and a half days past your due date. Do you feel like talking, or do you need a bit more time?"
"More water. I'll talk. Is... is official debrief?"
"Yes, Mike. Fill me in and I promise to leave you alone to recover." Eric smiled tightly. "If you need anything, I'll see what I can sort out. Guess you're not going to be in the office for a while." He passed the refilled cup over and Mike drained it, then struggled to sit up.
"Here, let me-gotcha." The motorized bed whined. Colonel Smith placed a small voice recorder on the bed side table, the tape spool visibly rotating inside it. That comfortable?"
"Y- yeah. You want to know what happened? Every thing was on track until I got into the palace grounds. Then everything went to hell..."
For the next hour Mike described the events of the past week in minute detail, racking his brains for anything remotely relevant. Eric stopped him periodically to flip tape cassettes, then began to supply questions as Mike ran down. Mike held nothing back, his own ambiguous responses to Miriam notwithstanding. Finally, Eric switched the recorder off. "Off the record. Why did you tell her we'd play hardball? Did you think we were going to burn her? How did you think it's going to sound if we have to go to bat with an oversight committee to keep your ass out of jail?"
Mike reached towards the water again. He swallowed, his throat sore. "You should know: if you want to run HUMINT assets, you can't treat them like machines. They have to trust you-they
Smith nodded. "Go on."
