“I’m less thrilled about being taken for a ride while being tied down to a hospital bed but it beats being stabbed,” he said. Her smile dimmed but impishly returned when he didn’t scold her further.
“Ben we need to begin our next session soon. Gretchen needs to go home,” Dr. Granger said.
“No! I can help!” Gretchen began.
“Gretchen! Come here,” Ben said sternly. She rushed over to his side and took his hand in hers. She looked in his eyes and he saw her anxiety was right there under the surface. “The best way you can help me is to go to my house and follow Tina’s instructions. She’s the head of my household. You will respect her wishes if you want to stay with me. Is that understood?” He waited for her to nod, her eyes wide and locked on his. “I will come home soon and we will be together then. Until then I want you to be good! Understood?” She nodded again. “You also need to apologize to Tina and Lucy.” Another nod.
“Hannah, could you arrange to get Gretchen to my home?” Ben asked.
“Sure. Come on Gretchen. I’ll take you home myself,” she said.
“Thank you Hannah!” Ben said and she nodded to him as she guided the woman out the door. Gretchen made a final glance back in case he changed his mind.
Two large burly men arrived and Ben looked at Dr. Granger with a pained expression. “You know I’m not going to try to make a run for it. Could we leave the restraints off between the sessions? I get having them on during the sessions as controlling my movements while I’m under makes sense but I’m here to stay until you say I can go.”
Dr. Granger looked at him. “I suppose you could have asked Gretchen to undo your bindings.”
Ben nodded to her.
“OK, but they do go on during our sessions,” she said and he nodded. She waved off the orderlies who paused to smile at Solange then left.
The nurse undid Ben’s restraints and handed him a fresh hospital gown as he made his way to the shower. She changed the sheets on his bed while he showered and when he came back out and got back onto the bed, she helped the doctor put the restraints back in place. She winked at Ben when Dr. Granger had her back turned and made her way out of the room, enjoying the image of his blushing face.
She had a story the girls back at the station were going to love!
It wasn’t until Friday that Dr. Granger felt Ben had made sufficient progress to be allowed to go home. He was by no means cured but she was now able to take him through the memories without a violent reaction. She’d ‘defused the time bomb’ as she’d promised. Ben still had a difficult time with the pain the memories of Margaret Cosburn brought him but his mind no longer ‘shut down’ to protect him. He knew he had many more sessions with the doctor before he’d be considered ‘cured’.
Due to his hospitalization there hadn’t been a Halloween party and Ben was sorry for that. He wished they’d gone ahead and had one but apparently that was ‘a very silly idea’ according to Tina and Lucy.
He’d missed Lucy’s appointment with Tina’s obstetrician where it was confirmed she was carrying Ben’s child. Many happy tears had been shed when she returned from her appointment and told the others. Ben felt sad at having missed that moment. Lucy just hugged him and said there will be plenty of other amazing moments to share.
He’d also missed the appointment with the fertility clinic but Tina told him she’d rescheduled it for the following week. Gretchen grinned excitedly when he smiled at her about that.
Ben spent his first day at home just catching up on a deluge of messages he’d received from Don Blake, Bryan Crane, Bill Freeny, Walter Greyson, and Jerry Taggart.
He dealt with Jerry first who just wanted to tell him the trusts had been set up and he was waiting on Ben to give him the go ahead to send out the notification letters to the trust recipients. Ben thanked him and let him know he was working on completing the business deal and would get back to him shortly.
Next he called Walter who spent the first ten minutes thanking him for introducing him to Daphne. They were getting along very well. When they finally got back to business Walter told him about the mountain of paperwork the government required to be filled out and submitted for doing business with them. He would have to drop by to get signatures from Ben. He let Walter know he was home now and he could drop by any time for him to sign the papers. Maybe closer to the end of the day so a certain woman would be finished working at the daycare. Walter chuckled at that.
The man also said that First Lieutenant Kendricks was expecting a call from him and gave him the number. Ben thanked him and hung up. He decided to call Australia first.
Don Blake answered on the first ring. “Ben! Geezus man, where did you go?”
“Sorry Don. I had a little medical emergency and I had to go off the grid for a week. All is good now though,” he explained.
“Oh! Sorry to hear that but bloody glad you’re back. My team has been going nuts inventing new ways to use your filter but we need your green light! Our marketing people are in a frenzy too!” the man exclaimed.
Ben laughed. “That’s great! Listen I have to call First Lieutenant Kendrick from the US Army to get some clarity on some threats Colonel Hargrave made regarding my patent application-”
“WHAT?” Don squeaked.
“Let’s not panic until I’ve spoken with the man. The last message I had from him through my lawyer was that Hargrave’s threats should be ignored but I want to hear this from Kendricks directly. I will call you back momentarily. Alright?”
“Oh! Sure. I’ll be here. On pins and needles!” Don complained.
“Hang in there,” Ben said with a smile and hung up.
He called the number for Kendricks and went through a number of operators before he finally heard the man’s voice.
“Kendricks.”
“Hi, it’s Ben Shepherd.”
“Mr. Shepherd! Glad you called!” the man said happily.
“Please call me Ben.”
“Great, then you can call me David. I wanted to ask if you were ready to try logging into our tech board? Are you calling about that?” he asked.
“Not yet. I just wanted to get confirmation that Colonel Hargrave hasn’t jeopardized or hampered my patent application.”
“Oh! No, not at all. I had it expedited in fact. The Colonel has… retired. I’ve been promoted to Captain and have been assigned his duties at OASA(ALT)”
“Wow! Congratulations!” Ben exclaimed.
“Thanks!”
“Thank you for expediting that patent application!” Ben said.
“Like I said, we’re interested in the filter and definitely interested in doing business with you! You have some people here very excited about what you might bring to the table. We did some research, found your account on the engineering boards. You’ve done a lot of excellent work!”
“Thanks! I just like solving puzzles,” Ben admitted.
“Well we have some doozies!” David laughed. “Can I send you the connection details? You mentioned you have military grade VPN and security?”
“Yes, sure. Send it along.”
“When you attempt to connect the system will audit the link and if it passes you will get in. A courier will deliver the info package early next week,” Kendricks explained.
“Sounds good! I’m going to let Don Blake know he can contact you to get the ball rolling. He’ll have all the specs for the filter and I’m going to be calling our manufacturer to have him build the samples.”
“Who’s your manufacturer?” Kendricks asked.
“Sturn Manufacturing in Austin, Texas,” Ben replied.
“Ah! Domestic skills! That makes life easier for us. I was a little concerned when I heard your sales and marketing was through Australia.” David said.
“They have a good bunch of people over there at Blake Uranium and as they were the ones who brought me the puzzle to solve it just seemed fair to let them have a piece of the business. For manufacturing though, I prefer to keep that business domestic,” Ben explained.
“Excellent! Well, I look forward to hearing from Don or one of his team and seeing a physical demonstration of the filter.” Kendricks said.
“Thanks again!” Ben said and hung up. He dialed Don immediately and again he answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi Don, it’s Ben. We are a go. Contact Captain David Kendricks of OASA(ALT) and give him your sales pitch.”
“FANTASTIC! Oh that’s just the best news Ben!” Don cheered.
Ben smiled at his enthusiasm. “I’m going to courier the specs to Bryan and Bill Freeny who’s the head of our manufacturer so he can prep for production. Please let Bryan know it’s on its way. If Bryan and his team want to get started on those alternate uses that’s a go as well.”
“Thank you Ben! This news made my year!” Don exclaimed happily.
“Looking forward to doing business with you,” Ben said. They said their goodbyes and Ben called Bill.
“Ben! I was wondering what happened to you!” the man said.
“Yeah, I had a little medical issue but it’s good now. I’m about to courier the manufacturing specs of the filter to you and Blake Enterprises in Australia. They will get in touch with you with some alternate designs they came up with.”
“Are we in business?” Bill asked.
“Yes. Definite interest from the US Army. I had a good call with a Captain Kendricks this morning. You might get a visit as he wants to see a physical example of the filter,” Ben explained.
“That’s wonderful! Our team is almost desperate to see this new device! If they come up with some ideas for it-”
“Have them contact the sales and marketing team at Blake Enterprises. The engineers at Blake are doing the same. You may want to have both teams get together for a little meeting of minds. Just to make sure everyone is clear, Bryan Crane is lead on this as his team got first dibs.”
Bill chuckled. “I hear you. We will play nice with the other engineers! And thanks again Ben!”
His calls all complete Ben relaxed back in his chair and looked across to see Gretchen and Tina watching him with big smiles on their faces. “What?”
“It is exciting to watch you do business!” Tina said and Gretchen nodded gleefully.
“That- that was just some phone calls to connect the people who really do business,” Ben scoffed.
“People who would not be doing this new business without you,” Tina reminded him and he shrugged.