Authors: Andrew Gross
15 Seconds (28 page)
Boaco, Nicaragua. Five months later
Â
. . .
“M
ira!”
I said to the beaming thirteen-year-old girl in the hospital bed. Look at you!
Pilar had smiled a lot before the operation, but now, in her hospital gown, her bandages just removed, that smile was a mile wide.
Maybe for the first time in her life.
She had lived her entire life with a grossly distorted mouth and jaw. Now she looked like any happy teenager, or would soon. I had to do one more procedure to smooth out the cleft around her upper lip. One day, it was possible no one would even know.
“Tú eres hermosa, Pilar!”
I said proudly. You're beautiful! “One day you will be the prettiest girl at the dance.”
She blushed shyly as her mother came up to me and put her arms around my waist and gave me a tearful hug.
“Gracias, gracias, Doctor,”
she said, laying her head against my chest. Then she began to speak rapidly in Spanish, most of which went over my head, other than the words
regalo de Dios,
which meant “gift from God” and á
ngel del cielo.
Angel from heaven.
“It's an honor,” I said, my hands to my heart. Then,
“Ella es mi hija,”
pointing to Hallie.
This is my daughter.
Excited, Hallie went up to Pilar. “Look how beautiful you look!” She had been helping the girl learn English for the past weeks.
The young girl beamed with a light in her eyes. “
Gracias
. I mean, thank you . . .”
Hallie pulled out her camera. “Do you mind?
Una fotografÃa
 . . .Â
?
”
“
SÃ!
Yes.” Pilar nodded brightly. I stepped away so that her mother could come next to her.
“No, Dad,” Hallie said, with one of those “duh” kind of smiles, “she wants it with
you
!”
Pilar nodded. The mother nodded as well.
“Con mucho gusto!”
I said, and sat down next to her. I took her hand and leaned in close.
Hallie pressed the shutter.
She showed the digital shot to Pilar, who grew excited. “I'll send it to you,” Hallie said.
“Thank you so much, misses,” Pilar said haltingly again.
“Hallie,”
my daughter insisted. Then, glancing at her watch: “Dad, look at the time!”
“We have to go,” I said apologetically to a chorus of even more
graciases
. “Everything
es perfecto.
I'll be back to see you tomorrow!”
We hurried out of the hospital, Hallie strapping her bag around her shoulder, and jumped into the old Land Rover I was driving here, which was on the street in front. I started it up. Out of the central square with its old church and government center. Over cobblestone streets, which quickly turned to gravel as we pulled out of town.
Stone buildings gave way to metal-roofed storefronts and huts. Fruit vendors on the sides of the road hawking their bounties. Kids kicking a soccer ball on bumpy fields. And those beautiful green hills that surrounded the village.
“That smile was worth a million dollars,” my daughter said.
“That's the way I kind of feel about yours,” I said back.
After it all was over, Hallie took the rest of that semester off from school. She'd go back in the fall, but not to UVA. At least not now. She'd transferred down to Lynn University, which was close to us. I perfectly understood. It had taken a couple of months of coddling and feeling close, a couple of months of not wanting to be alone. Or even ride.
But after the headlines went away and the investigations were completed, after months of counseling and a lot of time with Liz and me, we saw signs of our old Hallie returning. The one with the quick laugh and easy smile. The one who trusted people. Now she was even starting to ride again. She'd even found a beautiful chestnut Appaloosa here in Nicaragua.
“Oh, don't get all emotional on me again . . .” Hallie smiled with a roll of her eyes.
I was doing that a lot these days, getting emotional. I still hadn't gone back to operating at home. I couldn't. Not yet. Not that kind of work. I knew I would soon. Maybe after the summer. I just didn't care about it right now.
Not with Hallie and what I was doing down here.
“You better move it, Daddy-o, you don't want to be late.”
“Late” was a relative term down in Central America, but I agreed. “No. Not today.”
I pulled ahead of a cart and oxen that were hogging the road, pushing the Land Rover into fourth gear. We drove another mile or two until there was nothing around us but green mountains.
Until we hit a plain, lettered sign:
AEROPUERTO.
Basically just a dirt landing strip. With a hut and a wind sock and fuel pump, which was usually empty. The kind of aircraft that came in here, four-seaters from the capital or forty-year-old cargo planes carrying medicine and food, didn't need much more.
We turned in and pulled up right next to the runway. We waved to Manolo, the chubby airport master, whose job it was basically to sit around all day directing traffic that never came and see if anyone needed fuel.
“Ah, Doctor. Henrique,” Manolo exclaimed. “
Cómo estás?
Your plane, it will arrive here very soon.”
“BuenÃsimo,”
I said, scanning the sky.
In a couple of minutes, we heard the drone of an aircraft somewhere high above us and Manolo pointed to a glint in the sky.
“There
Â
. . . !”
It circled around the valley and came in from the west. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Or a sound.
Other than the sound of my heart.
“Excited?”
Hallie asked.
“Yeah.” I looked at her and couldn't pretend otherwise. “I am.”
The plane came down, landing along the bumpy strip, and pulled up to a stop directly in front of our car.
Someone opened the door, and the steps were attached to it.
First, a local came out carrying a heavy burlap sack. Probably grain or flour.
Then I saw Carrie.
She was in a white, V-neck tee and khaki shorts, her hair underneath a straw cap, which she had to hold on to in the propeller draft.
And Raef.
The second I saw her I knew my time alone was probably at an end. Though she probably didn't know that yet. Or maybe she did. Our eyes met, lingering a second in anticipation, and it was the second best smile I'd seen that day!
“Welcome to Boaco, señora!” Manolo announced. “Place of the Enchanter.”
“He says that to everyone,” I said. I went up to her. “Kind of an official duty. But he's right. Amazing things do happen here,
Detective
Â
. . .”
“Not quite yet,” Carrie said. “Another six weeks. But close . . .”
“Down here, things happen in their own time. So close works for me!”
I gave her a kissâwhich kind of lingered. I couldn't help myself. I knew Hallie and Manolo were probably giggling. I held her close, so she could feel the excitement in my heart, and I felt hers too.
“And, Raef, I'm Henry,” I said, kneeling down and putting out my hand. “I know all about you. And we have a bunch of cool things lined up. And this is Hallie. I think you remember my daughter?” I said to Carrie.
Thank-yous had been said a hundred times on news shows and in person, and Hallie went up and hugged her and Carrie smiled. “Yes, I think I do.”
Looking at Hallie and Raef, with the suns of their two new lives dawning inside them, I suddenly had a feeling that I might never leave this place. That I had found what mattered.
That it didn't matter if I ever went back or not.
And I found myself squeezing both their hands. And I looked at Carrie and saw what both of us had done to bring our children here.
On my daughter's life,
I remembered saying.
I swear . . . You'll know what I mean . . .
All the rest . . .
“You all right?”
My daughter looked at me, a little funny. She turned to Carrie and sighed. “He kinda gets weird like this, lately . . .”
“Yeah, I am,” I said, putting my arm around her. Around Carrie too. “I'm perfect.”
The rest was all just clutter.
This all actually happenedâbeing pulled out of my car, cuffed, told I was under arrest and going to jail, and thrown into the back of a police car while other police vehicles arrived on the sceneâincredibly, while on book tour in Houston. (Whoever said writing was a noncontact sport!) Even the threatening, 9/11-type questions that were hurled at Henry were directed at me.
Fortunately, my situation had a far more benign ending than the one in this bookâboth for me
and
for the “arresting” officer, who I think is walking around in good health these days. I am told that the officer was suitably reprimanded for his actions, and for that, my thanks go out to Chief Thomas Lambert of the Houston METRO Police and his investigating team, who, upon receiving my detailed letter describing the event, launched a full investigation, culminating in a formal apology that cited his officers for improper conduct. I applaud him for going way beyond what I would have expected, which was to simply back up his officers, and, for it, I am certain incidents like this will be far less frequent in the future.
In addition, I praise the local police forces of Broward and Palm Beach Counties in Florida, who in the past year have cracked down on the “pill mill” businesses there, making tragic stories like this one much more difficult to take place.
So in the process of putting poor Henry Steadman through these travails, I am indebted to several people who helped make the outcome far more excitingâand I know, more believable: To friends Liz Berry and Dottie Frank, and Facebook friend Amy Ogden for local color and background around Jacksonville and South Carolina; to Andrew Peterson for gun prep 101, never my strong suit; to Dr. Greg Zorman for his top-notch medical counsel,
par usual
; to pal Roy Grossman and my wife, Lynn, who always reads my stuff before there's even an ending or a pub date; not sure they ever know how the final product turns out!
To my terrific editor, Henry Ferris, and my agent, Simon Lipskar, who together came up with a wonderful save on this! And to the entire team at William Morrow and HarperCollinsâalways appreciate all of you, however behind the scenes.
And lastly, with deepest gratitude to Drs. Nelson Bonheim, Harvey Seidenstein, and John Setaro, for keeping this ol' heart of mine, which has a lot more stories to bring forth, beating and vibrant and well!
“THAT MISTAH KIM, HE'S A TIGER, I SHIT YOU NOT,” SAYS THE FAT
Buddha, smile wider than it needs to be, his eyes glittery obsidian slits. We're slouched in supple Italian leather chairs, face-to-face across a hand-oiled maple burl table. This Buddha, a serious heavy, knows very well his dark gaze unnerves most people, but he is not trying for that effect now with me. He's loose, he's relaxed, beer in hand, being about as sociable as he's able. He answers to Sonny. At least with those few he permits to reach a certain level of familiarity.
“I believe it, Sonny,” I say.
“Good. So, you know that old Chinese proverb thing, the one talks about riding the tiger?” Sonny (ofï¬cial name Park Sung-hi) asks.
“More or less, yeah.” Now I'm about to receive some scuffed plastic pearl of oriental wisdom. And I have to be polite about it. Though even a genuine oneâif any exist, and I've heard enough to deeply doubt thatâwouldn't engage my interest at the moment. It's deep night, we've been cruising seven miles above the Paciï¬c for too many hours, there's an aggressive headache deployed in the back of my neck and moving up fast. The others on board have long since drifted into sleep, lulled by boredom and the steady dull hum of the plane's engines. But Sonny, on maybe his sixth bottle of Red Rock, apparently believes I'm in need of education.
“Everybody understand,” he says, “you got to be some kinda goddamn fool, you jump on tiger's back. Everybody know this very, very well. Never mind. Lotta people, they trying it anyway. Total craziness, eh?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “Completely.”
“Not Sonny. No way. Never. Me, I'm completely happy as tiger's assistant only.” He's shucked his suitcoat, but not the custom shoulder rig carrying twin mini-Uzisâvery old tech but absolutely reliable, absolutely devastating at close quarters. “You happy, Mistah Prentice?”
“Couldn't be more,” I say. Prentice, Terence, is the name on the Canadian passport bearing my photo, the one I'm carrying in my breast pocket. Sonny knows it isn't genuine, knows the name's a ghost name. He may or may not be aware of other passports in other names, other nationalities. They're secured behind the lining of my attaché.
“That's ï¬ne. That's very good, Mistah Prentice. Damn straight. Mistah Kim, he love happy assistants. Makes him feel good. Makes him feel happy.” The Buddha smile widens fractionally, broad cheeks narrowing those hard black slits from which Sonny looks out at the world.
“Does it? I've been wondering a little sometimes,” I say, hoping my tone suggests this information is enlightening, a revelation of something I never saw or sensed during these weeks in the almost constant company of Sonny, and sufï¬cient face time with Kim himself.
“For sure, for sure. So you knowing it's smart to help him stay that way, you bet.”
Sonny drains his Red Rock. I watch him put the bottle on the table, shift his shoulder rig slightly so he can sink deeper into the cradling down cushions of his chair.
This Buddha's conscious I'm ex-military as positively as I am he served in the Republic of Korea Army. He understands I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the same skill set he acquired. Since we're both post-Vietnam generation, his experience had to be black ops. Scary midnight strikes through the DMZ. Nasty actions nobody admits happened afterward. Slitting throats, trading ï¬re up in the evil hermit state of the DPRK. Democratic People's Republic of Korea, likely the world's ï¬nal Stalinist theme park.
He knows I've played the same hard game, anywhere from the Mog, rocking skinnies in the Casbah, to Bosnia to Taliban-stan or Mindanao. Almost any point on the compass, in fact, since my primary employer has global interests beyond comprehension.
And we did have to give each other a short, sharp demonstration (body count: ï¬ve) quite recently, though it wasn't our choice, we didn't feel like talking much at the time, and haven't said a word about it since.
But just because certain things are never said does not mean they aren't heard, loud and clear. Too loud for me, in my current condition. I only want to shut it all down, go deep into the pain that's wracking my head, kill it, and sleep.
That smile. “You and me, we stay happy, we get along ï¬ne,” he says.
Oh, outstanding, Sonny. Until I look the wrong way or say the wrong thing out where we're headed, and you feel it's your duty to cap me to keep your Mistah Kim bright and content. But right now my Buddha pal lets himself settle even deeper into his chair, sighs once or twice. As the Master said, in serenity lies virtue. He's asleep in less than a minute.
I am lacking in virtue, apparently. Sleep eludes me, even after I dominate the throb in my temples, even though I'm so tired my eyes are scratchy. I have the most unsettling sensation of being a stranger inside my own head, seeing and feeling extraordinary things that are happening to someone I do not know. Or I'm watching a movie starring an actor who looks remarkably like Luther Ewing, from the very last row in an utterly deserted mall cineplex with a very small screen.
There are a few facts I've grasped. Mister Kim, he
is
some kind of business tiger. That's why I'm armed and airborne in his corporate jet. Not a Gulfstream, or any other normal private plane. His very own 747, like none other ï¬ying. Kim bought it from some failing airline, maybe Swissair or Pan Am, and had it transformed into something that resembles a yacht custom-ï¬tted for a man whose name repeatedly appears on the
Forbes
annual billionaire list. What had been the ï¬rst-class section and the hump above it are Kim's private lounge and bedroom. I haven't been in there, but it's no challenge to extrapolate what it must be like from the main compartment, where Sonny's low snoring is beginning to sound like the ï¬rst warning growls of some jungle beast.
Pure luxe in every detail. If the sycamore-and-brushed-steel sideboards, the maple burl tables, the twelve matching Saporiti chairs weren't discreetly bolted to some light, synthetic, but completely convincing imitation of sixteenth-century marble ï¬ooringâwhich, in turn, is a display for antique Tabriz and Isfahan carpetsâyou'd be certain you were in the VIP lounge of a ï¬ve-star European hotel. The bulkheads, front and rear, are paneled in pale sycamore. The paintings hanging thereâ contemporary work by artists I can't identifyâare almost certainly museum-grade.
Aft of the lounge there's a galley that looks like a kitchen straight out of
Architectural Digest
. And beyond that, at least a half-dozen private cabins, each with a bed and full amenities.
A slim Japanese girl, with a face that would be exquisitely beautiful if it weren't lifeless as a porcelain doll's, materializes at my side. In a whisper that sounds like a love song she asks if I require anything. I don't. She bows, makes Sonny's beer bottle disappear, and fades back to the galley, the rustle of her kimono scarcely audible. She leaves only the faint scent of some ï¬ower I can't name.
The scale of this wealth is much too great for me to absorb. Kim is some big tiger. Beyond imagination, even though I've been briefed by my employer. I've also been educated and made over so I'll pass as a tiger's assistant, had a smooth and stylish veneer laid over this exâSpecial Forces slob with offensive habits. I applied myself to the process. Most any observer, checking out my clothes and manners and demeanor, would take me for an experienced member of a major corporate entourage. That is what Kim demands of his assistants. Most especially those like Sonny and me, whose job descriptions have nothing at all to do with business.
Security cannot look like security. That is Kim's nonnegotiable requirement. He's a tiger, after all. It is a matter of face for him. But I wonder if he knows he may presently be taken for the ride of his life on the back of a much larger, meaner, tiger.
And suddenly I'm hearing approximate lyrics from one antique Talking Heads song looping over and overâsomething about how you may say to yourself: This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife, this is not my large automobile. And you may ask yourself: How did I get to this place? . . .
It's not a question, really. I can call up every encounter, every move in the four-month trip that put me here. I can hear Westley, pitch perfect, stating the contract. Feel how his eyes, more than his words, seal the deal. Remember every detail of the prep that follows. It's all hi-rez in my memory bank. No confusion, nothing vague or shadowy about any of it.
Except why I did it.
I'd done it before. I'd sworn never again, after the ï¬rst time. I'd even refused a second offer a few years back. But my past somehow keeps bleeding into my present.
When this ï¬rst started happening, I believed I'd ï¬gured all the whys and wherefores, most ricky-tick. Simple cause and effect, I'd concluded: a lifetime of training, informal and formal, followed by some fairly ferocious real-world action, and what was basically only downloaded software mutates to something permanently embedded in your frontal lobes, something that ignores or overrides conscious commands when it wants to. Add a head wound, the plate in my skull, the meds I'll have to drop four times a day every day for the rest of my lifeâunless I dig unpredictable, sudden seizures that put me thrashing wildly on the ï¬oor, eyes rolled back and foam bubbling from my mouth.
No wonder there's some leakage.
So. You're leaking? Pressure bandage works, usually. Everybody knows this very, very well, as Sonny would say. But my friend Annie, who's a psychologist as well as the woman who knows me better than any other, started wondering out loud after she saw one or two of those bandages get so saturated I had to toss them and slap on new ones. She says I'm going to hemorrhage one day. Past and present, all one deep-red arterial surge ï¬ooding my brain, leaving me unable to distinguish between what I've done and what I'm doing, what was then and what's now, who I was and who I am.
“Don't go. Please don't go. You need some serious intervention. You need it this minute, Luther. Or the real you may not make it back,” Annie'd said to me just before I left. I didn't listen. Maybe I should have.
Too late. Change the bandage again. Press hard. Stop the time leak, for the duration of this job anyway. But ï¬rst just let it bleed a while. I can do that. I can rewalk my own twisted trail, ï¬nd the the sense of it.