"She's still in a lot of pain, but her healing thus far has been pretty incredible." It was nearly lunchtime on Thursday and Jason had missed breakfast. He felt dead on his feet after his exhausting night. He had sat in the waiting room of a Damascus hospital with a representative of the American State Department for hours, waiting for Michelle to be admitted and to hear about her condition. Now a British physician was finally ending their wait. "I expect we can probably release her in about three days."
"Three days!" Jason said. "That's great. I thought you were gonna say three weeks."
"Michelle sustained a lot of internal bleeding but has no broken bones and no infections since she had no open wounds. She's a pretty tough lady to take a beating like that and come out so well."
The man from the State Department continued staring at his tablet computer. He had spent the previous half hour telling Jason what would happen to the men who had kept Michelle at their house. They would probably be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. "Doc," he said, "she was under treatment by this Doctor Tlass that was involved with her kidnapping. He took care of her almost a day and a night. Do you think he actually helped her?"
"It's possible actually. He may have provided therapy to help her body rest and heal, which she wouldn't have had if she'd stayed out in the elements another night."
"Yeah, well there's no tellin' what those two had planned for her once she was well. Looked like they were set up to keep her there long-term. We found handcuffs."
Jason thought about Peter and wondered what the last two days had all meant. He planned to call Dave as soon as it was morning in New York.
