At all costs

by John Gilstrap

  What is it? Travis tried to ask. What’s wrong? But his voice wouldn’t work. The pain in his chest was worse than ever, and his heart raced at three times its normal rate. This time when he coughed, he could imagine someone ripping a piece of super-sticky tape off the lining of his lungs.

  “Oh, my God! My baby! Jake!”

  There was blood in his mouth now. And on his hands, too. Where did that come from? He needed to take a breath, but when he tried, he coughed again, and then he bled some more. He’d never seen his mother look so frightened. Or his dad.

  Travis felt like he should be afraid. In fact, he remembered being afraid just a moment before. That was today, wasn’t it? He wanted to talk, but suddenly, he didn’t know how. And even if he did, he couldn’t remember what it was that he wanted to say. He needed air. He forced himself to draw in a huge breath, and the pain came again, worse than ever, but, curiously, he didn’t care much about it anymore.

  His dad was in the backseat with him now, and from the look on his face, he was shouting something, but for the life of him, Travis couldn’t hear a word of it. He tried for a second or two to watch his father’s lips, to figure out what he was saying, but he became distracted by the way everything on the periphery of his vision had begun to sparkle.

  Once the colors drained from the world, it was time to go to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Irene was surprised to see George Sparks waiting for her as she stepped off the jetway and into the lobby of the airport. As supervisory agent in charge of the Little Rock field office, he should have had more important things to do than greet arriving passengers. Historically rail-thin, he looked like he’d put on a few pounds over the years, and what had once been a headful of flaming-red hair had receded to little more than a graying ring encircling a freckled pate.

  Irene shifted the load of her garment bag to her left shoulder and extended her hand as she approached. “Hello, George,” she said cheerily. “It’s been a long time.”

  Sparks shot her a knowing smirk. “Yeah, I know,” he said, reading her look for what it was. “But you haven’t changed a bit.”

  She laughed. “God help you, George,” she scoffed. “Haven’t you heard that liars go to hell?”

  He leaned forward and planted a friendly peck on her cheek. “This is Arkansas, my dear. The buckle of the Bible Belt. I’m already there.” Back in the days when they went through the academy together, George was a proselytizing atheist, believing in essentially nothing but the Bureau and a good martini.

  Irene introduced Paul, then let Sparks take her bag. “I heard you were out of the country,” she said.

  Sparks nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been in Iraq, working on my melanoma.” He rubbed the top of his head. “Picked up quite a collection of hats over the past three weeks.”

  “Okay,” Paul said, “I’ll bite. Why was the SAC for Little Rock over in Iraq?”

  George leaned forward a bit to see past Irene as they walked. “The world got real small,” he answered. “Seems that what’s left of the Republican Guard has been squirreling away chemical warheads. The U.N. inspectors stumbled onto one of their stashes and found serial numbers traceable to the Grant Plant.”

  “You’re kidding,” Irene said.

  “No joke. Stuff was old as shit-dates back to the sixties-but the weps experts tell me it’ll still work. Well, not anymore. They’ve got an incinerator out in the desert working overtime.”

  Paul made a face. “That’s kind of Twilight Zone ish, don’t you think?” he said. “All of a sudden, Newark, Arkansas, is the center of the universe.”

  George laughed. “Clearly, you’ve never seen Newark. Armpit of the universe maybe, but never the center. Come to think of it, it is sort of the Twilight Zone,” he said, enjoying his own joke.

  Irene changed the subject. “So to what do I owe the honor of such personal service?”

  “I thought you’d want to know as soon as you got off the plane,” George said, his tone becoming conspiratorial. “Your friends have already struck.”

  Irene stopped dead in the middle of the hall and nearly got run over by a frantic woman pushing a stroller. “You’re shitting me.”

  He smiled at the frustration in her face. “I shit you not. We got the call about a half hour ago from Arkansas State P.D. Seems the Donovan gang cut through the fence to raid the original bunker.”

  She cocked her head, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “Come again?”

  Sparks nodded. “Yep, you heard me. They broke back into the magazine they blew up in the first place.” He started laughing. “Apparently, one of the local cops startled them, but they got the best of him. State boys found him tied to a tree in his underwear.” The story struck Sparks as funny.

  Yuck it up, Irene thought bitterly. You’ve still got a career.

  “His underwear?” Paul said incredulously.

  Sparks gathered himself once he realized that he was laughing alone. “Yeah. Best I can tell from the trooper who called in the details, the Donovans were in there to prove that they’d done nothing wrong. Don’t ask, because I don’t get it, either. Anyway, they had their kid with them, and he must have gotten himself exposed somehow. They stripped him naked, and he refused to go anywhere without any clothes on. So they took the cop’s.”

  “His weapon, too?” Paul wanted to know.

  George shrugged. “Trooper didn’t say. What difference would that make? They’re loaded for bear as it is, aren’t they?”

  They started walking again, in silence now, as Irene tried to make pieces fit. “They broke in? To prove that they’re innocent.” She shook her head and looked to Paul for some help. “I don’t get it.”

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t, either. Can’t be much left in there. Certainly not enough to risk a kid’s life…”

  “That’s it!” Irene said it with all the delight of a gold prospector. “That’s how we get them!”

  Sparks and Paul exchanged confused glances.

  “The hospitals!” she exclaimed. “If their kid is injured, they’re gonna have to take him to a hospital, right? All we have to do…”

  “… is get an alert out to every hospital in the state to be on the lookout for a sick boy?” Somehow, when George said it, the idea sounded less enthralling.

  Paul liked it. “Of course!” he agreed. “Except I’d include the surrounding states, too. Just in case they bolted.”

  They exchanged glances again, in silent agreement.

  “Okay, then,” Irene pronounced. “That’s our plan.” She took her garment bag back from Sparks. “You two go get that rolling, okay? I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  “Who to?”

  “Frankel,” she said, turning away. “I’m tired of telling him that we’ve gotten left behind. He needs to know that we have a plan now.” As she hurried off to find a telephone, she congratulated herself on her first big break in the case. Faith will out, after all. She knew if she waited around long enough, the Donovans would do something stupid.

  Now, let’s just hope that the kid got hurt. The thought triggered a chill, and a distant pang of remorse that she could even think such a thing.

  “Come on, Nick, step on it!” The tone of Jake’s voice had soared past desperation, to touch the outer boundaries of panic.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Nick shouted back. “Wrapping the car around a tree won’t help anyone.” And neither will getting stopped for speeding, he didn’t say. Nevertheless, each rattling breath from the suffering boy in the backseat brought just a little more pressure onto the gas pedal.

  “How far?” Carolyn asked.

  “Last sign said twenty miles to Little Rock. I have no idea where the hospital is from there.”

  “He won’t last that long!”

  Even though his eyes opened from time to time, Travis had long ago lost consciousness. His skin had paled to the point of translucence, and as his breathing became progressively more labored, pink foam gathered at the
corners of his mouth and at his nostrils. Jake had climbed in between Travis and the seat back, from which position he kept the boy leaning forward just enough to let the blood and drool drain without choking him. With little else to do, Carolyn used an ancient McDonald’s napkin from her purse to wipe Travis’s upper lip and chin. Every now and then, she’d lean over and kiss his hair.

  “Oh, my baby,” she said over and over again. “You’ll be just fine

  …”

  As the speedometer nudged one hundred miles per hour, Nick tuned everything out but the business of driving. He struggled not to hear the pitiful rattling of the boy’s lungs or the crying and cooing of his parents. His job was to keep the wide-bodied boat of a car on the road and between the lines. Traffic was sparse along this ribbon of highway, and as he bore down on the occasional car in his path, he’d flash his headlights repeatedly, hoping they’d get the hint and move out of his way. Few did, but none of them made any stupid driving moves, either. He could only imagine what they had to say as he blew past them at half again their own speed.

  The plan had been to get Travis to the nearest hospital, which everyone assumed to be in Little Rock. Now, a half hour into their high-speed flight, Nick had begun to question the plan’s wisdom. Judging from sound alone, the kid was heading south fast. Without a more concrete set of directions, he feared that they’d simply run out of time.

  Under different circumstances, he might not even have noticed the yellow diamond-shaped metal sign as it loomed up out of the distance. He’d seen them on roadsides everywhere, bolted securely to four-by-fours and driven deeply into the dirt, but they’d never had any special significance for him. But then, he’d never had such an immediate use for the service advertised: Rescue Squad.

  He hit the brakes hard, struggling to control the speeding Cadillac as he slid into the turn. The deceleration launched everyone in the backseat onto the floor and ignited a chorus of angry, startled protests.

  “What’s wrong!” Jake shouted.

  Nick gritted his teeth and closed one eye as the car slid to a halt on the front ramp of the Rescue Squad building. “Your boy needs medical attention more than he needs a car ride,” he said.

  “Where the hell are we?” Jake demanded, but Nick didn’t answer. Instead, he jumped out of the car and jogged up to the front door for help.

  Travis had fallen in a heap on the floor, and Carolyn struggled to help him sit up, but he had landed facedown, and the way his legs were twisted, it was a hopeless effort. “Oh, my God, Travis,” she cried. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Oh, my baby, my baby.”

  Jake planted his feet on the cushions of the backseat and tried to lift the boy, but with little success. Somewhere along the line, his son had gained some weight, and without a shirt to grab hold of, there just wasn’t enough room in the cramped quarters of the seat to get the leverage he needed. In some dark corner of his mind, Jake suspected Travis was dead; totally limp, totally unresponsive. Yet he refused to let the thought come fully to the surface. His son was breathing, dammit. And as long as he was breathing, there was hope.

  Jake was dimly aware of the sound of running feet, and then the driver’s-side rear door flew open. He jerked his head to see two people-a man and a woman-standing there in matching white-and-green uniforms. He was a mountain; six-four, with a blond Santa Claus beard and matching gut. She stood maybe five-two if she stretched, and bore the concerned face of a schoolteacher.

  The man spoke first. “Hi,” he said jovially, even as he leaned in to take a look. “We’re paramedics. I’m Bob Faylon, and this is my wife, Barbara. What seems to be the problem here?”

  “It’s our son!” Carolyn blurted. “He’s only thirteen and I think he’s dying. He inhaled some chemical residue and-”

  Jake touched her shoulder gently and she cut her words off, but the damage was already done. He saw the recognition in Bob’s eyes and realized that the big man had all the advantage on him. Recognition quickly transformed to fear, and that was the emotion Jake worried about most.

  Jake answered the question before it was asked. “Yes, we are,” he said softly. “And you’re in no danger. We just need you to help our son.”

  Bob eyed the gun on Jake’s hip and nodded toward it. “Then why don’t you get rid of that?”

  Jake looked down at his weapon and then back again. “Because you’ve got a half foot on me and about a hundred pounds,” he said, making an effort to be completely honest. “But if you don’t do anything aggressive, neither will I.”

  Bob backed out of the car and turned to his wife. “Barbara, go inside and call Communications. Tell them we’ve got the Donovans here. We need P.D., ASAP.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that!” Jake called past Bob to his tiny wife. She froze, clearly not knowing what to do next. She looked to Bob for guidance, but his eyes never left Jake. This was a man who had been in his share of fights and clearly had confidence in his ability to win them.

  “Are you going to stop her… Jake, isn’t it?”

  Travis barked out a horrid cough, distracting everyone for just the briefest of moments.

  “Do something!” Carolyn cried.

  Jake looked from his son to Carolyn and back to Bob. “No,” he said at length. “I won’t try and stop anything. I just want you to help my son.”

  Bob’s eyes softened at the sound of the cough, and he nodded abruptly, his decision made. “Give me a hand here, Barbara,” he instructed. He edged Jake out of the way as he climbed further inside the car. “We need to get him out onto the ground.”

  With Bob at Travis’s shoulders and Barbara at his feet, they made it look easy, lifting the boy right out of the vehicle.

  “Be careful,” Carolyn admonished, worried that the sag in Travis’s back might injure him. The enormous pants slipped a little as they moved him, and Carolyn told them to stop while she pulled them back up to cover his backside. Travis would have wanted it that way.

  Jake and Carolyn huddled together in the chilly night air as they watched the paramedics work on their son. They said nothing. They just hugged each other and stared.

  Bob was definitely the one in charge, and his face showed grave concern as he ordered Barbara to go inside and bring the ambulance out onto the front ramp. She wasn’t three steps into her journey before he called to her again. “Call Communications,” he instructed. “Have them cut numbers on this incident and tell ’em we need the state police chopper out here. We’re gonna lose this kid if we don’t fly him out.”

  Barbara disappeared at a fast jog.

  Bob turned back to Carolyn. “What kind of chemicals?” he asked.

  Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know. Old burned-up military stuff. You must have heard the story.”

  Bob nodded gravely as he produced a stethoscope out of his back pocket, and he pressed the diaphragm onto Travis’s bare chest. He listened in one spot for a moment, then moved the instrument to another. And another. After about fifteen seconds, he pulled the bows out of his ears, then draped the stethoscope over the back of his neck. “You’ve got one sick little boy here, ma’am,” he said. “His lungs are full of liquid, and judging from the bleeding, he’s got some tissue damage down there as well.”

  Carolyn shook all over. “Is he… Will he…” She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.

  Bob looked away. “I hope so, ma’am,” he said gravely. “We’re gonna do everything we can.” He seemed relieved when the overhead door to the ambulance bay rumbled upward, and the engine turned over. “There’s some stuff I can do for him here, but we’re gonna medevac him out to St. Luke’s in Little Rock, where they can do a more permanent patching job.”

  The ambulance pulled up even with the Cadillac, and suddenly, the darkness erupted in brilliant white light, fueled by the halogen floods on the side of the vehicle. The brightness only emphasized the pallor of Travis’s skin, whiter still in contrast to the redness of his blood.

  As Jake and Carolyn watched in
silence, Nick moved up quietly behind them. “Excuse me, guys,” he said as gently and as lightly as he could, “but we need to get moving. A whole world of cops is gonna be here soon, and I don’t want anything to do with them.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Carolyn said firmly. Her tone left no room for negotiation.

  Jake’s breath caught in his throat. This was it, he realized. This was the end of it all. After fourteen years on the run, it all came to a crashing halt out in front of a building they’d never seen, in a town they’d never heard of. No shooting or shouting; they’d just allow themselves to be taken. Curiously, the very notion that had seemed so horrifying just hours before seemed inconsequential next to the loss of his son.

  “I’m staying, too,” he said.

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

  Jake turned on Nick like a snapping dog. “He’s my son, Nick! What would you have me do, leave him?”

  Nick took a step back, startled by the attack. He didn’t have an answer for that question, but he sure as hell hadn’t come all the way to Podunk, Arkansas, just to be taken away in a police chopper. He’d done this as a favor, not as a sacrifice. He had his own family to worry about.

  “You go with him, Jake.” It was Carolyn. She’d found her voice again, and it was strong, unequivocal.

  “Carolyn, I can’t…” Jake felt himself losing control.

  “You have to. There’s no other way.” She grasped his face in both hands and dropped her voice nearly to a whisper. “If you stay, we’ll never see each other again. You know that. Giving up accomplishes nothing.”

  He looked suddenly like a little boy himself. His features knotted and he shook his head. “But what about you? What about Trav?”

  To see her husband start to cry melted Carolyn’s heart. “I’ll be with him,” she whispered, “for as long as they’ll let me.”

  “But you’ll go to jail…”

  “… and you’ll get me out.” She smiled, even as her lower lip trembled. “You’re the only one, Jake. You and Nick-” She stopped herself and shot a glance over to Nick.