"FASTER! WE HAVE TO GET THERE! OH GOD, I CAN'T STOP THE BLEEDING….."

Call it a hunch. When Sergeant MacDonald got the phone call from the warden at Chino, he knew what it was about before the man told him. There was a fire that morning, inmates evacuated, transferred, confusion and in it all Tony Johnson, ex-LAPD officer, escaped. Captain Moore had asked to be notified when Johnson was released, but this was bad. Tony had been having cryptic messages sent to Pete Malloy for a few months, but Pete wasn't that concerned because Tony wasn't due to be released for a year and a half. Unless Tony had changed his mind, he was apparently going to be looking for revenge on Pete and his partner Jim Reed. It was typical criminal minded logic; his conviction was their fault for not backing up his story. Tony made it clear that he felt that Pete betrayed someone who had saved his life. Mac thanked the warden, hung up and instantly called Pete's apartment. No answer. He next tried Jim's house hoping to catch Jim and Pete before they took Jimmy fishing. He didn't get an answer at Reed's house either. Alarm bells went off in his head and Mac, against reason, ran to the black and white station wagon and drove to Reed's house.

Mac managed to resist the urge to turn on the reds, but he did push the speed as high as he dared go. It wasn't rational, but he knew he had to get there as quickly as possible. His fear shot up like a rocket when he pulled onto Jim's street and saw both Jim and Pete's cars in front of the house. Mac barely managed to not hit Pete's car when he pulled in behind it. Grabbing the mic, he started to put in a Code 1, Officer needs assistance, but stopped. He had no proof that anything was wrong and you can't set the division on high alert on a sinking feeling in your gut. Halfway up the driveway, Mac heard Jean scream.

He ran through the open garage into the back yard. Jean was on the patio clutching Jimmy to her chest and Jim was kneeling on the ground next to a sprawled out Pete. Jim yelled for Jean to call for an ambulance and, using two hands, began putting pressure on Pete's shoulder. As he got closer, Mac could see the blood on Pete's shirt, arm and thigh. MacDonald got down on one knee by his friend.

"Help me Mac. He's been shot." Jean ran over to the three men and handed Jim a towel he could use to try and stop the bleeding. Jim took his hand away and Mac saw blood spurting from a gunshot wound in Pete's shoulder. Blood shot up with a regular rhythm, echoing Pete's heartbeat. An arterial bleed; Mac had heard about them, but had never seen one. The one thing he knew about them was that the injured person would most likely die from blood loss without immediate treatment. Applying pressure wasn't good enough.

"How long till the ambulance gets here?" Jean was pale and shaking, obvious signs of shock, but she did respond to his question. Her answer of "ten minutes" seemed like an eternity to Mac. It was definitely too long for Pete to wait. "Jim. We need to take him in the black and white. Help me get him to the car."

"We can't Mac….gotta stop the bleeding." Jim kept up the pressure on the wound, to the point of swatting Mac's hand when he tried to get Jim to stop. "Put pressure on his leg. Help me Mac!"

In the distance, Mac heard a rapidly approaching siren; a black and white sent to answer the ambulance call. Reinforcements he would need to get Jim to let Pete be put into the station wagon.

"Hold on Pete…please Partner…don't you dare die on me….wake up…come on…" Jim was beyond rational thought as he pleaded with his unconscious friend, tears running down his cheeks. With the help of two officers from Foothill, Mac forced Jim away from Pete. The towel he had been using to try and staunch the blood was soaked; a symbol of the urgent need to get Pete to the hospital. Jim ran behind the three men, all the while, screaming for them to stop. As the two Foothill officers were loading Pete onto the back seat of the wagon, Mac grabbed Jim and forced him to sit in the back seat.

They were now speeding to Central Receiving with full lights and siren. Mac had put in the code 1, informing dispatch that he was transporting a wounded officer. He also requested dispatch to warn the hospital that he was bringing in an arterial bleeding case. MacDonald clung to proper procedures and routine; it was the only way he could function and the only way to help Pete.

"Please God, don't let him die….it's going to be okay Pete…come on…wake up…hold on…we're almost there." Jim sat in the back seat, cradling the head of his best friend. He held a towel on Pete's shoulder as he kept urging his unresponsive partner to live. "Dammit Pete…why'd you do it?"