by J. B. Turner
“Goddamn,” he snarled.
Harsh hospital lights. Blurred faces staring down at him.
He felt himself drift away. Deeper and deeper into a far away land. Elisabeth’s face was looking down on him. He felt her stroke his hair. “It’s OK, Jon. Everything’s gonna be all right.”
When he came to, a young female doctor was smiling down at him, as she bandaged his shoulder wound. “Welcome back,” she said. “You got lucky. The bullet narrowly missed the brachial artery. That’s the main artery that supplies blood to the arm and hand. That was a real close call, believe me.”
Reznick didn’t feel lucky. He took a few moments to get his bearings. “I thought it was only a graze.” His throat was dry and he barely got the words out.
“We’ve given you strong antibiotics and that will hopefully keep infection at bay. No serious tissue damage; how, I don’t know. However, you’ll need to rest up for a few days.”
The doctor left the room and Reznick was on his own. He tried to move his shoulder and winced at the searing pain. He tried to sit up straight, but his head felt light. Damn.
Reznick looked around his room. It was all hospital fresh and white. The smell of disinfectant in the air.
His eyes felt heavy and he drifted off to sleep. He dreamed of Lauren. As a baby. As a toddler, walking on the beach, as he held her hand. And he dreamed of her as a young woman, talking about college. Talking about her mother late into the night. He dreamed of his wife on that day. It was the same dream. Before the towers fell. Then he was back home alone. The smell of the salt air and all before him the cool blue waters in the cove.
When Reznick came round again, he had been asleep for fourteen hours straight. He was aware that someone was in the room. He struggled to open his eyes. In his peripheral vision he saw Stamper and four unsmiling Feds. One was holding up a navy single-breasted suit and black Oxford shoes. Reznick turned and looked across at them. “What’s all this?”
Stamper was chewing gum. “You’re coming with us.”
“Not until you tell me how my daughter is.”
Stamper smiled. “She’s opened her eyes.”
Reznick closed his eyes as relief flooded through his body. He realised how close he’d come to losing her.
“You wanna get ready, Reznick?”
“Are we going on a date, Roy?”
Stamper shook his head and grinned. “You’re crazy, do you know that?”
Reznick eased himself out of his bed and winced. His shoulder was heavily bandaged. His hands were cut from the shards of glass, but the wounds had all been cleaned up. He put on his shirt, taking an age to button it up. He got on his suit, and tried to tie his shoe laces, but couldn’t manage it. Stamper kneeled down to help.
Reznick looked in the mirror. It didn’t look like him. He looked like a stockbroker. He was wearing an expensive navy single-breasted suit, white shirt, pale blue tie, black Oxford shoes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt the need to wear a suit.
He was signed out and escorted to the elevator. Inside, Reznick turned to Stamper. “How did you know my size?”
Stamper chewed his gum and tried to stifle a smile. “We measured you up when you were unconscious, tough guy.”
Reznick shook his head and smiled. “So, are you going to let me know what this is all about? Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
It was dark when they left the hospital’s staff entrance to go to a waiting car in the basement garage. He was strapped into the back seat and they drove off. The DC traffic was a crawl, despite it being evening. He stared out at the passing people driving past, going about their business, unaware of what really happened down in the Metro. His thoughts were scrambled. He thought of Lauren way down in Pensacola, safe and alive, and for that, he was truly thankful. But he also thought of Maddox and wondered what his role was in the whole operation.
A short while later, Reznick caught a glimpse of the Hoover building – FBI HQ.
“What’s going on, Roy?” Reznick asked.
Stamper shook his head as they drove towards a basement garage and IDs scanned in an electronic reader. He was marched into the building and taken up to the seventh floor. They got off the elevator and he was escorted along a corridor to the executive conference room. The FBI’s most senior executives, including Meyerstein – clapped him in.
Reznick felt light headed as he was introduced to the Director and was toasted with single malt, thanking him for his efforts. A letter was read out from the President. Reznick felt embarrassed at being the center of attention.
He shrugged off his natural inclination to avoid such gatherings and knocked back the amber liquid, feeling a warm glow inside. The morphine combined with the whisky also took the edge off the pain. After several minutes of excruciating small talk with some FBI executives, and a rambling speech from the Assistant Director about “the American way”, Meyerstein asked Reznick round to her office.
“Take the weight off,” she said, sitting on the edge of her desk, hands folded demurely.
Reznick slumped down and took a few moments to take in her office. The shiny mahogany desk was uncluttered, a gold-leaf-framed black and white photo of Meyerstein with her kids, playing in a park. On the wall to his left, a huge plasma screen, showing a real-time feed from Lower Manhattan. Opposite that was a wall covered in awards and a few pictures of Meyerstein with the Director and the President.
She shifted on the desk and looked at him, face impassive. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve felt better.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, you scrub up well.”
“Jon Reznick, style icon, what do you think? Front cover of GQ, right?”
Meyerstein smiled and edged off her desk, before sitting down in a black leather seat behind her mahogany desk. “What I’m going to say does not go beyond these four walls, am I clear?”
“I’m listening.”
“This didn’t happen. None of it.”
“I understand.”
“The incident is going to be described as an undercover surveillance operation and a gunman killing a couple of Feds. Then he was cornered and shot. There shall never be any reference to bio-materials or any foreign governments or their operatives by you to anyone, ever. This never happened. Are we clear?”
“Whatever you say.”
Meyerstein looked at him with her cool blue eyes and smiled. “We are in your debt, Jon. But I think we rode our luck, don’t you?”
“Sometimes you make your own luck.”
“I can’t remember when I had so many hard calls to make. But I guess, sometimes, the rule book is just a guide, right?”
“The first rule is that there are no rules.”
Meyerstein smiled. He liked her smile. “You might be interested to know that preliminary tests show that the two baubles recovered from Caan here in Washington contained the same virus as the batch used in New York City. Our scientists say that the contents of two vials were found in the baubles. The aerosol containers in New York were estimated to have contained the contents from one vial. But thankfully, unlike New York, there was no release here in Washington. There are no traces. And we’ve now accounted for all the bio-material stolen from the lab in Maryland.”
“What about the guys behind it?”
“What about them?”
“I assume you know who was responsible?”
Meyerstein steepled her fingers on her desk. “I can’t say anymore.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Let’s just say we’re dealing with this in our own inimitable way.” She shrugged. “Is the inquisition over?”
“What do you know about the two people who visited the small hotel in Washington where I took Luntz? Are you at liberty to say who they were?”
“French contractors who were born in Algeria. We believed they killed our Special Agent at the St Regis, and then were ordered to the small hotel to kill you and Luntz. But they’ve
disappeared off the planet. We’re using diplomatic channels to try and find out where they are.”
Reznick felt his eyes getting heavier. He looked at Meyerstein and she looked washed out. “When was the last time you slept?”
“That bad, huh?”
Reznick gave a rueful smile.
“I can’t remember the last time I slept.”
Reznick smiled. “What about Luntz?”
“What about him?”
“How is he?”
“He’s doing well, thank you. I’m told an antidote and vaccine is being rushed into advanced trials in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Pass on my regards.”
“I’ll say you were asking after him. But I think he’ll need counselling for the next ten years after what happened to him.”
Reznick laughed.
Meyerstein shifted in her seat. “Do you mind me asking something?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you trust me down in Key West? I mean, I could’ve doublecrossed you, couldn’t I? It would’ve been easy for me not to keep my side of the bargain.”
“Gut instinct. You have a face I can trust.”
Meyerstein blushed. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve enjoyed working with you, Meyerstein.”
“My name’s Martha. Do you think you’ll remember that being so doped up and all?”
“Sure. Martha. I like that.”
Meyerstein ran a hand through her hair before she stifled a yawn. “It’s been an experience, that’s for sure.”
Reznick felt a burning twinge in his shoulder and winced at the pain.
“You OK?”
“It’s nothing. Tell me, what about the guy down in Miami pulling the strings?”
Meyerstein shrugged. “What guy?”
“Brewling.”
“Ah, him. We believe he has been professionally disappeared.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he is being protected by some of those behind this plot. But we’ll find him. I personally think he was being played as well.”
Reznick said nothing.
“But we have had some progress. We have already intercepted and decrypted a conversation he had with the President of a Swiss bank where he holds five separate accounts, via an NSA operation. We believe it was made on-board from a private jet flying over the Mediterranean.”
“You mind if I hear it?”
Meyerstein arched her eyebrows. “And why may I ask would you want to know the sound of his voice? I can’t allow any spill out from this, do you understand?”
Reznick nodded. “Just curious.”
She picked up a remote control and pressed a couple of buttons. The speakers on the huge TV came to life. Then the voice of Brewling. “Are all my assets liquid or will I have to wait to transfer them to the Caymans? I need this situation to be resolved right away.”
The glass of whisky and the morphine had dulled Reznick’s brain. His exhausted mind was trying to process the voice. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar.
The voice spoke again. It was cold. Chilling. Mechanistic in its delivery.
The voice was familiar. Eerily familiar. Slowly it dawned on him.
“You OK?” Meyerstein said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Reznick forced a smile, eyes heavy. It was a ghost. The voice was of the man he knew only as Maddox. He had been played from the moment the call was made to his cell phone at his home in Maine. He felt waves of anger run over his body.
“You OK?”
“That voice, are you sure that’s Brewling?”
“One hundred per cent.”
“Well, I’m not an expert in voice analysis, but that sounds a helluva lot like my handler. But I knew him as Maddox.”
Meyerstein leaned back in her seat, face impassive. “Maddox. Thanks for that. I’ll pass that on. But we’ll find him, don’t worry.”
Reznick smiled and got up from his seat and reached over to shake Meyerstein’s hand. She stood up and smiled as he gripped her soft hand tight.
“Nice working with you,” she said. Her hand felt warm. “Look, we can move you to a safe house, until this is resolved.”
“Don’t worry about me. My only concern is Lauren and she is safe.”
“I understand. Before I forget, you wanna know the latest news on Lauren, as of fifteen minutes ago?”
“How is she?”
“She’s now fully conscious and has made a remarkable recovery over the last twenty-four hours. Jon, they’ve done all the diagnostic tests, and they’re satisfied your daughter is not damaged in any way.”
Reznick looked at Meyerstein who smiled back at him. “I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He let out a long sigh. “Look, I gotta go.”
“Where are you going at this hour?”
Reznick smiled. “I’m going to see my daughter.”
FORTY-TWO
The Feds offered to fly him down in the morning, but Reznick needed to be alone. He was provided with a black BMW X5 and he started the brutal one thousand mile journey through the night. It would be the best part of fifteen hours.
It would give him time to think. He wanted the open road.
Reznick stared out at the oncoming lights as he sped down the freeway and his thoughts ran free. His shadowy world had been visited upon his beloved daughter. His decision not to carry out the assassination had brought those consequences to his door. But although he’d have to live with that, it was his daughter who would ultimately pay the price.
Would she be visited by nightmares? Flashbacks? Perhaps she would.
The more he thought of it the more he seethed.
He thought of Maddox – the pseudonym for Brewling – and he was engulfed with hatred. He wanted to wipe him out. It was Brewling all along.
The car ate up the miles. On and on, deeper and deeper towards Pensacola. He drove I-66 west and crossed into Virginia, before heading down I-81 South through Tennessee. The wee small hours passed slowly, Alabama talk radio hosts banging on throughout the night about Obama and the Tea Party.
By the time the sun edged over the horizon as he drove through the Deep South, his shoulder was burning like hell. He stopped for a breakfast of pancakes, maple syrup and a couple of painkillers, washed down by two black coffees.
He felt better as he drove through southern Alabama. The sky turned blood red, the fields a reddish brown.
With daylight, the dark thoughts seemed to dissipate. The road was bringing him closer to his daughter.
Reznick thought of his daughter’s future. College. Falling in love. Having a family. A career. The usual obsessions of Middle America. When he edged across the Florida state line, the flawless morning sky was cornflower blue.
Reznick pulled up at the security gates of the Naval Hospital in Pensacola just before 10am. He flashed a special pass the FBI had given him. The soldier checked his list and ushered him through.
He signed in at reception, before he was escorted to the ICU. A doctor was waiting for him just outside her room. He stepped forward and shook his hand. “Dr Todd Frith, I’m a neurologist here at the hospital. Can I have a few minutes before you see your daughter?”
Reznick’s heart sank fearing the worst. He nodded and followed the doctor into a side room alone.
“Please, take a seat, Mr Reznick,” Dr Frith said, pulling up a couple of seats.
Reznick sat down, hunched forward, clasping his hands.
He let out a long sigh. “Your daughter has emerged unscathed from this coma. I’ve carried out a series of tests and a full neurological examination. MRI, CAT scans, everything, to test her functionality. She is perfect. I carried out more tests just over an hour ago, and she is well on the road to recovery. But she is now under sedation, as we feel she needs some proper sleep and rest. So, five minutes with her, if that’s OK.”
Reznick smiled as relief flooded through his body. “Thank you.”
His abiding good memories of Elisabeth were on the beach, smiling, not a care in the world.
The doctor asked, “Mr Reznick, are you OK? You look quite pale.”
“I’m fine. I’d like to see my daughter, if that’s OK.”
“Of course.”
The doctor got up and shook Reznick’s hand as his pager bleeped. “Excuse me, I’ve gotta go. Nice talking to you.”
Reznick stood outside Lauren’s room for a few moments. He had doubted this day would ever come. He gathered his thoughts, composed himself before he gently pushed open the doors to her room. His daughter was no longer hooked up to the machines. No beeping.
He stood and looked across at his daughter. Her golden hair was tousled on the starched white pillow cloth. His thoughts were scrambled. Part guilt, part elation, part exhaustion. He sat down at her bedside and leaned over and stroked her silky hair. She was in a peaceful sleep, breathing calmly.
He touched her face and she stirred and slowly opened her eyes. A flicker of recognition and then a huge smile as she reached out to take his hand.
Reznick squeezed it tight. He thought his heart was being ripped out at the roots. He wiped the tears from her face and kissed her softly on the cheek. “You’re safe now, honey.”
She looked up at him for what seemed like an eternity before she smiled. “I always knew you’d come and get me, Daddy.”
Then Reznick pulled her close and hugged her tight, neither one wanting to let go.
EPILOGUE
Six months later, Reznick was sitting alone on his deck – the house to himself – nursing his second bottle of beer on a balmy early summer evening in midcoast Maine. The last remnants of the sun had turned the ocean a burnt orange, the tops of the old oaks on fire. He felt at peace for the first time in months.
His daughter, Lauren, had moved to a new school in upstate New York. She emailed every day with boundless optimism, talking about walks with her friends in the rolling hills, upcoming school visits to Central Park, art galleries, museums and a whole bunch of wholesome stuff.