by Meg Gardiner
His heart leaped into overdrive. He spun. He was in the center of the river, coming around a broad bend at great speed, into the dusk, islands far away, riverbanks just a hint at either edge of his vision.
He rose on a swell, like a body surfer, and saw ahead. His mouth opened.
Riding like a fly on one hundred fifty million gallons of water, sweeping into a trough, he turned and started swimming upriver. Mouth open, eyes open, lungs busting. Feet heavy in his shoes, arms weak, he swam desperately, hearing the roar behind him. He saw the shore, low and green and immensely distant. He saw the red sunset shimmering on the slate surface of the water. He saw the mist rise overhead. Mosi-O-Tunya, they called it, the smoke that thunders, Victoria Falls. He felt himself pulled backward as the mighty Zambezi turned into a high dive, a mile-wide thrill ride, a blue dragon taking to the air and leaping off the cliff into the gorge. He tried to grab the water itself, to hold himself up, to stay here and not plunge toward the rocks three hundred fifty feet below. But though he screamed out to the river gods, nobody could stop him as he swept toward the edge.
3
Jo Beckett held her arms away from her sides and spread her feet. People eddied around her, staring briefly before they hurried on. Ten feet ahead, a cop stood with arms crossed. His radio scritched. Behind her she heard the snap of latex.
“Don’t worry, these gloves are clean,” the woman said. “Wider stance.”
Jo complied. The woman pressed her spidery fingers up the inside of Jo’s thighs.
The cop shifted his weight. “Come on, it’s an emergency.”
Hands ran around Jo’s ribs, down her back, and across her rump.
She forced herself not to flinch. “Just don’t tuck a dollar bill down the waistband of my jeans.”
The woman’s hands paused, and she glared.
Jo offered a contrite look. “Never mind—I’m a lousy dancer. I’d fall off the pole. Can I—”
“A terrorist isn’t getting past me just because somebody claims to be in a hurry.”
“She’s not a terrorist,” the cop said. “She’s a doctor with the mobile crisis team.”
Damn right, Jo wanted to tell the screener—maybe using one of the curses her grandfather had picked up in the Cairo backstreets of his childhood. But that, she decided, was a rotten idea.
Airports, she thought, sucked like a bilge pump.
San Francisco International was packed and noisy. The crowd bumped through the security line like cattle being prodded toward the chute at a stockyard. The checkpoint’s plastic bins banged against each other, sounding like a discordant drum line. A posse of screeners waved people forward, saying, Hurry up, move along. Show your boarding pass. Now show it again. Now show it to that screener. Jo knew redundant checks prevented slip-ups. But if this checkpoint had been a person, it would have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Defending against a previous threat, not anticipating the next one.
Such as the possible situation at gate 94.
Outside, a March storm pounded the Bay Area. Rain clouds rolled overhead, a nasty jumble of gray and black. A cold wind scoured the runways.
The screener lowered her hands. “You’re clear.” Her tone implied, For now, girly.
Jo hurriedly reclaimed her earrings, and belt, and Doc Martens, and her necklace with the Coptic cross, and her satchel, and her dignity. She suspected that airports were either a psych experiment in mass humiliation or a conspiracy to drive the traveling public insane. Possibly both. Shoes off, lab rats. Aggravating, isn’t it? Here, have some Xanax.
The airport cop, Darren Paterson, wore an apologetic look. He was baby-faced African-American, wearing a uniform that fit him like Glad Wrap.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
She tied her Doc Martens. “No problem. My service said you’re looking for a psych eval on a passenger who came in on a flight from London. You think he needs to be fifty-one fiftied?”
“That’s what you need to tell us.”
Section 5150: involuntary commitment. As a psychiatrist, Jo had the authority to send people to a custodial psychiatric facility for seventy-two hours.
She only got calls like this if the police thought someone was dangerous to himself or others. But usually the cops themselves took people into custody under section 5150 and transported them to an E.R. for psychiatric evaluation. Maybe the airline had requested medical personnel. Maybe Paterson wanted experienced backup—he looked so young that she suspected he was a rookie. Maybe something truly bizarre was going on. In any case, when her service buzzed her she’d been two minutes from the terminal, and the authorities had decided against waiting for the rest of the crisis team to arrive.
“Glad you were in the vicinity,” Paterson said.
“You lucked out. I was dropping my brother off for a flight to Los Angeles.” She walked with Paterson along the concourse. “What happened?”
“Ian Kanan arrived on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow. Became confused and combative when the plane landed. He’s barricaded himself aboard.”
The terminal echoed with the roar of jet engines. Rain slashed against the plate-glass windows.
“ ‘Confused and combative,’ but you didn’t arrest him. What exactly did Kanan do?” Jo said.
“When they touched down he jumped out of his seat and tried to open the emergency exit.”
“With the plane still rolling?”
“Two male passengers tackled him. Flight attendants say Kanan threw them off like they were made of papier-mâché. Apparently he fought like a maniac.”
“In what way?”
He glanced at her. “As in crazy.”
She smiled briefly. “Most people see bizarre behavior and think, Nuts, or not nuts? Psychiatrists think, How nuts, and what kind?”
They reached the gate. Down the Jetway, a clot of airline personnel huddled inside the open door of the airliner. They looked at Jo with a mixture of relief and bemusement, as if thinking, A shrink? Talk him off the plane—yeah, that’ll do it.
The captain stood in the cockpit doorway. “Get him off my aircraft.”
Officer Paterson pointed down the aisle. “He’s in economy.”
Jo said, “No wonder he went berserk.”
The flight attendants turned to her. Jo put up a hand. “Kidding.”
She looked down the empty length of the jet. More airline staff and another police officer hovered near the galley.
You never knew what you were going to get in these situations. Catatonia. Religious mania. A bad drug trip. Drunkenness or a violent psychotic episode. A guy trying to detonate his shoes.
She had no time to take a complete history on Ian Kanan. But the two passengers who subdued him had remained aboard the plane. Ron Gingrich was a tough-looking fifty-five with a gray ponytail and Grateful Dead shirt. Jared Ely was in his twenties, wearing a black T-shirt, green Crocs, and a surfeit of nervous energy.
“Tell me what happened,” Jo said.
Gingrich smoothed his goatee. “We landed hard. Crosswind; it felt like we were coming in sideways. Hit with a whump, and people were like, Whoa. The plane was rattling real loud. Couple overhead compartments fell open. Then this guy”—he pointed toward the back of the plane—“comes tearing up the aisle. He jumps over the woman sitting in the exit row and starts ripping open the emergency door.”
Ely nodded. “It looked like he knew exactly what he was doing.”
“What do you mean?” Jo said.
Ely’s gaze was sharp and thoughtful. “He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop to read the instructions on the door. He got straight to business, like he’d done it before.”
Jo nodded. “Then what?”
“We grabbed him.”
“Spur of the moment,” Gingrich said. “We just moved. I tell you, the guy fought like a demon. But two against one, we overpowered him.”
“Did he say anything?” Jo said.
Gingrich nodded. “Oh, yeah. Crystal clear.”
Ely sai
d, “He kept telling us we were crazy.”
Jo turned to the flight attendants. “How was Kanan during the flight?”
“A zombie,” said a young blonde. “He didn’t read, didn’t watch the movies, didn’t even watch the air map. Didn’t eat. He sat there.”
“Did he drink?” Jo said.
“No.”
“You sure?”
The young woman’s name tag read STEF NIVESEN. Her face turned wry. “We flew in from the U.K. Everybody drank. Except him.”
“Did you see him take any medication?”
“No.”
“Where’s his carry-on?”
The flight attendants had taken Kanan’s backpack to the first-class galley. Jo poked through it, seeing a laptop, finding no drugs or alcohol. She did find Kanan’s passport and itinerary. She scanned them and handed both to Paterson.
“He didn’t come from London. He came from South Africa and changed planes at Heathrow.”
“Does that matter?” Paterson said.
“Maybe.” Jo looked down the length of the plane. “Come on.”
Paterson led her down the aisle. The crowd near the galley stepped aside. The second cop, Chad Weigel, was standing outside the door of the lav.
He raised his hand to knock but Jo said, “Hang on.”
She turned to the flight attendants. “Did you unlock the door yourselves and try to get him out?”
“Twice,” said a British flight attendant whose name tag read CHARLOTTE THORNE. “The first time, he braced himself against the door so we couldn’t push it inward. He also told us to get the hell back. The second time, he didn’t say anything. It seemed he was slumped against the door.”
“Unconscious?” Jo said, thinking, Drugs, drunk, sick?
The flight attendant shrugged. “He didn’t respond.”
Officer Paterson said, “What do you think?”
“Let’s find out.” Jo knocked on the door. “Mr. Kanan?”
She heard water running in the sink. She and Paterson exchanged a look.
The door opened. The man inside turned to step out, saw her, and stopped dead.
Ian Kanan was in his midthirties, five-ten, white. From the back, wearing a coat, he would have seemed unexceptional. Face-to-face with him, Jo saw the way his denim shirt ran tight across his shoulders. She saw the self-awareness that ran head to toe. She saw scratches, deep ones, on his left wrist. He was lean and whippy. His hair was short and rusty brown, the color of iron ore. His eyes were the palest blue she had ever seen. Almost colorless, and bright, like a seam of ancient ice. Jo felt as though she were staring into a crevasse.
“Excuse me,” he said and stepped out the door.
He saw the people gathered in the aisle, all staring at him. His eyes went to Officer Paterson and to the gun holstered on Paterson’s belt.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Mr. Kanan, are you all right?” Jo said.
He glanced out the windows. The gray sky churned and rain blew across the view. His eyes clicked to the aisle. The empty jet. The term escape plan ran through Jo’s mind.
His eyes clicked back to her. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
A fully formed sentence, pronounced clearly, in response to her question. That was promising. His gaze was acute, but Jo sensed something else behind it—tightly controlled confusion. Paterson’s hand hovered near his weapon.
“I’m Dr. Beckett. Can you tell me why you don’t want to get off the plane?”
“I’ll get off the plane. Why wouldn’t I?” he said.
Everybody stared at him.
“Is there a problem?” he said. His eyes said something else entirely. His eyes said, Big problem.
“I’d like to talk to you. Shall we do that in the terminal?” Jo said.
“Talk? Why?” Kanan said.
In her peripheral vision, Jo saw Officer Weigel shake his head. He said, “Because you blockaded yourself in the bathroom for an hour and—”
Jo put up a hand. Kanan’s face was dead still. His pupils looked normal size, equal and reactive. She couldn’t smell alcohol on him. He wasn’t weaving, shaking, or slurring his words. And yet she sensed that something was very wrong. Again he glanced around the jet. He seemed unsettled by the fact that it was empty.
“You’re the last off,” she said. “The crew needs to shut down the plane. Let’s talk in the terminal.”
He looked her up and down, a slow glance. “Sure.”
The police officers bracketed him up the aisle, Weigel ahead, Paterson behind. Following a few yards back, Jo saw how Kanan’s hands hung loose at his sides. It seemed casual, but the way he held himself reminded her of a gunslinger. When they passed the emergency exit row, he saw the partially opened door. He frowned at it, his head clocking around as he walked.
“Why’s the exit open?” he said.
Jo could have sworn the temperature dropped ten degrees. Kanan kept walking. Ahead stood the two men who had tackled him. Kanan picked up his pace. Abruptly he reached into his back pocket.
Officer Paterson said, “Hey.”
Kanan ignored him, and then it was too late. By the time he pulled out a cell phone, Paterson was on him.
Paterson was fast. Kanan was faster. He spun, grabbed Paterson’s hand, smashed his elbow, and drove the cop to his knees.
Paterson cried out. The British flight attendant said, “Bloody hell.” Up the aisle, Officer Weigel turned around.
For a fraction of a second Kanan’s face was ferocious. He stared down at Paterson. Then confusion seemed to sweep over him again.
“What . . . ?”
Kanan gazed at Paterson with horror. Behind him, Officer Weigel unsnapped a holster and charged.
Jo put out her hands. “Wait—”
Weigel drew a Taser. “Doc, get back.”
He fired. The darts hit. Kanan jerked rigid.
Paterson broke free. Kanan stood motionless. And, so quick Jo barely sensed what was coming, Kanan’s hands drew upward and turned in, as if he were cringing. They drew into balls against his chest. His eyes blanked. His gaze rolled sideways, and then his head followed, slowly, turning to the left as though pulled in a circle by a weird magnet. Paterson stumbled to his feet and charged.
“Don’t!” Jo shouted.
She was too late. Paterson tackled Kanan, who went down like a tree.
Jo ran toward them. “Officer, stop. No.”
Paterson was wrestling Kanan. “Face down.”
Kanan didn’t respond. He continued rolling leftward, hands clenched to his chest, face pressed against the floor.
“Hands behind your back,” Paterson said breathlessly.
Jo grabbed Paterson by the shoulders. “Stop. He’s having a seizure.”
“He’s resisting.” Paterson grunted, straining to pull Kanan’s hands down.
“Officer, he’s seizing,” Jo said. “Get off. Move.”
Kanan wasn’t jerking or flailing or beating his head against the floor. He was simply gone, into a realm where bright lines flared at the corners of his vision and a panoply of color spun across the mind. He kept turning.
“Partial seizure,” Jo said. “Get off him. Now.”
4
Kanan lay in the aisle of the jet, turning as if on a rotisserie. Jo tried to pull Paterson away from him.
“Call the paramedics,” she said.
Officer Weigel loomed over them, Taser in his hand. “He got a hundred thousand volts. He’ll come out of it.”
“The Taser may have triggered the seizure, but something else is wrong with him. Officer Paterson, let go.”
Paterson relented. Jo knelt at Kanan’s side, fear pouring down her back like cold water. She wasn’t a trauma doc. She was a forensic psychiatrist. In her line of work the crisis cases never presented medical emergencies. Her crisis cases were already dead.
She shook it off, telling herself: Go through it step by step. First, ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. She checked that Kanan was brea
thing and had a pulse. Then she stripped off her sweater, rolled it up, and tucked it under his head. Heat was pouring off his skin.
“Paramedics and an ambulance. Call them,” she said.
“You’re not going to section him?” Paterson said.
“No. I’m getting him to an E.R.”
Paterson got on the radio. Jo checked Kanan’s face and head for fractures and lacerations. The only cuts she could see were the gouges on his forearm. She avoided touching them and began to wish she’d brought latex gloves. In the aisle she spied his cell phone. She picked it up. Looked at dialed calls—an area code 415 number, about forty-seven times.
Like an ebbing wave, the seizure subsided. Kanan stopped turning and lay limp on the floor. His eyes closed and opened again. Above Jo, Paterson’s radio leaked static.
She put a hand on Kanan’s shoulder. “Mr. Kanan? Ian?”
She heard the clink of handcuffs being removed from a utility belt.
“Don’t,” she said. “He has a head injury. Where are the paramedics?”
“On their way,” Paterson said. “He assaulted a police officer. He needs to be restrained.”
“You’re not going to arrest him.”
“That’s not your call. Sectioning him is. You going to do that?”
Kanan shifted. “What’s . . . am—river’s too . . .”
“Ian,” Jo said.
“All wrong it’s . . .” He looked at her as though seeing her through a distorted video link. “Slick it’s too . . . falls—misty it’s . . .” He blinked and grabbed Jo’s arm. “Get you.”
He began breathing rapidly. Jo took his pulse. One forty-eight.
“Is anybody here to meet you?” she said. He was wearing a wedding ring. “Is your wife picking you up?”
His gaze sparked, as though her voice had lit a fuse in his brain. His eyes rolled back to whites and his lips parted. Beneath Jo’s hand his body tensed.
He convulsed. This time the seizure was grand mal.
The ambulance rolled north through the rain on 101, its siren shooing traffic out of its way. Kanan lay strapped to a gurney, unresponsive. Jo sat by his shoulder. The paramedic kept her balance as the vehicle took a curve. She called Kanan’s name and flashed a penlight in his eyes.