"As you wish, Captain." Egan smiled again, gestured him out of the briefing room. "The coffee shop isn't far."
The short walk didn't give them time to talk, but Odeon had understood one key item: Joanie had gotten treatment quickly enough that none of her injuries now threatened her life. Some were serious, yes—maybe damn serious, especially the spinal injury—but she would live!
Mike Odeon didn't understand why he felt so strongly about Joan Cortin and her welfare; all he knew was that he did. He'd recruited her, sure, but he'd recruited others; he'd slept with her, but he'd slept with others; he'd led the team that rescued her, but he'd done that before, too. Maybe it was because the other incidents had all involved different people, maybe it was because none had reacted as positively to him on first meeting … he didn't try to analyze it. He was in Special Operations; analysis was for Intelligence. He simply accepted facts as he found them.
Odeon let Egan choose pastries while he drew coffee and paid the cashier. Once they found an empty table and settled themselves, he said, "Okay, Doctor. Tell me."
"To begin with, most of her injuries are what I understand you Enforcement people call minor. Fractured skull, three broken ribs, assorted cuts, burns, and bruises." Egan frowned. "However, her spinal injury is serious even by your standards, and … Captain, did she plan to have children?"
'Did,' not 'does,' Odeon thought grimly. "Yes, Doctor." Until he'd met Joanie, Odeon hadn't minded that the red crossed daggers of the SO patch on his sleeve meant he was sterile; his parents had both had plague-derivatives that made it inevitable, and it was a fate he shared with almost a third of the Kingdom Systems' population. That patch also meant he was one of those trusted to protect his Kingdom and the Systems from their most dangerous enemies. No one able to have children was allowed into SO since the average life expectancy was less than a year … "As soon as she found a suitable—and fertile—man. What was it, the rape?"
"Multiple rapes, and not all with … natural equipment." Egan looked at the grim, scar-faced man across from her, uncomfortably aware that he was both upset and a trained killer. That she knew he was a devout man as well was little help; Church and state both 'overlooked' acts from Enforcement people that they would condemn in anyone else. It seemed reasonable to assume Odeon and Cortin had been lovers, that if he'd been fertile he would have been the father of her children. "Captain, it pains me to have to tell you this, but she was so badly injured by them that the doctors in Middletown were forced to do an emergency hysterectomy, simply to save her life."
"Does she know?" Odeon kept his voice level, but with effort.
"Not yet. She should be stronger before she is given any more shocks."
Odeon nodded; that made good sense. "What about her spine?"