Point of Balance

by J. G. Jurado

  Shit. The phone.

  I had been so stupid that I hadn’t taken Hockstetter’s cell off him, and he’d lose no time in calling 911, if he wasn’t doing so already. Gasping for breath, I reached my car and sat behind the wheel.

  I took off the sweat suit top and changed into my shirt. I gave myself just enough time to do up a couple of buttons and started up the engine. When I got to the booth by the exit, I tried not to look at the attendant, but he was riveted by something in front of him, a newspaper or magazine, and there were headphones stuck over his ears. On my way in I had paid for the whole day up front, with unlimited access, so I simply put my ticket in the machine. The barrier rose right away.

  “Just a minute, sir. You can’t leave.”

  The attendant waved at me. I looked out, at the ramp and the sunny street. I could not stay there a second longer. I was about to ignore him and hit the gas, but he came out of the booth and tapped the window a couple of times with one of his knuckles. He had thick, strong fingers and the folds of his skin were flabby.

  “Could you unlock the doors, please?”

  I wondered whether he’d noticed I was wearing sweat suit bottoms and not suit pants. Whether he would remember my face, whether he would note down the Lexus’s license plate number.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, as I pressed the central locking button.

  The attendant opened the back door on my side. Astonished and terror stricken, I turned around, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. He closed it again right away.

  “There you go. Your jacket was caught up in the door, sir.”

  I thanked him and took off up the ramp and out to freedom.

  When I reached street level, I could hear the police sirens wailing.

  Somewhere in Columbia Heights

  Mr. White leaned back in his chair, exhilarated. He’d had very little trouble hacking into the server at the security company that monitored the cameras in the parking lot. Nonetheless, stopping it from reconnecting them had taken several minutes of frantic and exhausting typing. He had scarcely been able to pay attention to David, busy as he was preventing the monitors in the attendant’s booth from showing him what was really happening on level three.

  Although he was an expert hacker, White’s skill had its limits. The system had detected his break-in and had tried to bump him out, a loose end the Secret Service might uncover and which would doubtless spark their curiosity. Luckily his employer had provided him with not only the technology to monitor David’s cell phone but access to the most powerful software in the world. White clicked on an icon on the screen, which opened to reveal a window with two more icons. The first showed a bald eagle spreading its wings above a globe. In the other, a polygon sheathed a block of glass with refracted light passing through it.

  ENTER USERNAME AND PASSWORD TO LOG IN TO PRISM

  White entered the combination, then the system requested another authentication code. He unlocked a drawer, reached inside for a token with a liquid crystal display and then keyed in the number it showed, one which changed every few minutes.

  He pressed ENTER and the program started up.

  A couple of seconds later, a drop-down menu appeared on the screen. He selected REMOTE ACCESS and entered the name of the security company. Within a couple of minutes he had the security codes to breach its defenses and access its servers. The owner had noted them down in a text file, which he had sent himself and which was lying in an e-mail folder.

  “You should be more careful, buster. Or somebody might just do something like this.”

  A few more keystrokes and White had remotely deleted the system data. Not only from that afternoon in DC but from every place the company guarded up and down the country, in order to cover his tracks. It would look like a system failure and set them back millions of dollars.

  “We’ve saved your ass again, doc,” he said, switching his attention back to the monitor relaying images from the hidden camera in Dave’s car’s dashboard. The doctor’s eyes looked startled on the screen, and his jaw was clenched as he drove back to the hospital.

  He was not responding as predicted, which truly perturbed White. In the last few hours, his much-vaunted self-confidence had taken a severe knock. There were big bags under his eyes and his skin was ashen and dull.

  Thanks to PRISM, finding Hockstetter’s whereabouts and setting up a window for David to act in had been kid’s stuff, but until the last second there was uncertainty hanging over the outcome, given that unforeseen twist. If they caught his puppet, his plan was all washed up. White would miss out on a fat fee for doing away with the president—$25 million, no less. But he wouldn’t lose any sleep over that.

  If he didn’t kill the president, White would have failed for the first time in his life. And that was simply not possible.

  It had nearly happened once before, in Turkey, months ago. A chain of unintended consequences had led the subject, an attaché at the Russian embassy, to jump from the fifty-first floor of the İşbank Tower eight minutes ahead of schedule. White himself had had to remove the documents the client had requested, which had truly bothered him. He liked to keep a close eye on things, not take part.

  But there had never been so much at stake as in this present operation, and never had he lost so much control.

  Now that the brain surgeon had gotten away from the garage and no longer needed him, White could allow himself a quick breather. Although he had not let the garage attendant’s screens display what was happening, the cameras had been recording it. White had projected a ten-second loop of clean footage on the screens, while he stored the real sequence on his own hard drive.

  He now played it back on his own screen and studied David’s moves. There was no sound, but that was not necessary. The brain surgeon, with his mask on, had been transformed into something more. Bungling and amateurish, but determined and violent.

  Brutal, even.

  White congratulated himself and smiled. He would have given anything to have seen things for himself, in place of that blurred, tiny video.

  He sent the file to a remote server, with carefully programmed instructions on what to do with it the day after. His concerns had withered away as if by magic. The little hiccup in his plan had merely confirmed that the subject was ideal for the mission and had furnished him with valuable research material, which would help him to perfect his behavioral model for the doctor’s rare personality.

  It was also the definitive tool for destroying David Evans.

  The phone interrupted his musings. He’d been expecting this call. His employer monitored his every access to PRISM and must have seen something was up.

  “No sweat,” White said when he answered.

  “I saw what happened. You were on the verge of fucking the whole thing up,” a steely voice retorted.

  “Have I ever let you down, sir?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “This time it’s different,” the other man finally replied.

  “Isn’t the free world’s salvation at stake? The home of the brave in peril?”

  “What’s at stake is this country’s power. I won’t let that asshole in a tie endanger what it’s taken so many years to set up.”

  “Consider him dead.”

  “He’d better be. Else I’d say the same for you.”

  White snorted in disdain. “If you can find me, that is.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Your firewalls, your security measures, your expendable middlemen. All that ain’t worth a flying fuck, son. We know where you are. We know how many bottles you drink of that shit you’ve got in the fridge. We even know you’re scratching your cheek right now.”

  White drew his hand away from his face and looked around.

  “That’s right,” the voice on the other end said. “Not so much fun now that the boot’s on the other foot, e
h, son? Now you just concentrate on getting that stumbling block out of my way.”

  “Yes, sir, General, sir,” White replied with a strained smile.

  26

  I didn’t begin to simmer down until I was holed up in my office again. My pulse had slowed from jackhammer to frantic drum rate. I flopped into my chair and finished buttoning up the shirt that I had hastily put on in the car. I suddenly thought it would be best to ditch that suit—too many people had seen it that day. I had a spare one in my locker, in a different color, so I went down to get changed and on the way I stealthily picked up a few biohazard waste bags. I put on my scrubs and white coat, and into the bags I stuffed the sweat pants and top, my suit and shirt. I put the wallet I’d stolen off Hockstetter into another one and didn’t even open it to see what was inside. I threw it all into one of our red containers, sealed it and wrote on the label in thick, block letters:

  DANGER

  HIV RISK

  I told a porter to take it all away. No one in their right mind would open those bags, and in a couple of hours they would be reduced to ashes.

  As I watched them go away, the adrenaline began to wear off and relief kicked in, making me buckle at the knees, so I had to lean against the wall. Somebody had taken his hand out of the ventriloquist’s dummy I had turned into.

  I also realized I was aching all over. I shut myself up in the first empty consulting room I found and raided the supply trolley. My elbows and knees were covered in cuts and grazes from wrestling with Hockstetter on the concrete floor. I lathered them good and proper in chlorhexidine and could feel a sharp pain on the left side of my chest as I leaned over. I breathed deeply a couple of times, which turned the dull ache into a bewildering, stabbing pain that filled my whole thoracic cavity.

  Just great. Goddamned asshole has broken one of my ribs.

  Fine action hero I’d turned out to be. Tooled up and I couldn’t even overpower a fat fifty-year-old without getting a broken rib in the process. I must have made the injury worse by bending over to disinfect my grazes.

  I couldn’t go to Radiology and ask them to do me a couple of X-rays to see whether I ran the risk of a punctured lung, so I had to prod with my fingers to check it out. The bone seemed to be in the right place, so it must only have been cracked. It wasn’t much to worry about and wouldn’t kill me, but it hurt like hell. I would have to stuff myself with painkillers and struggle on as best I could.

  I went back to my consulting room. Several patients who would need surgery in the medium term were waiting outside.

  I treated them mechanically, getting their names mixed up a couple of times, something that had never happened to me before. I pay careful attention to my patients; their lives and their selves matter to me. But by that stage I had one eye on the door, in case the police burst in to arrest me for assault and battery. The other I had on the phone, expecting Meyer to call any second to tell me events surrounding the president’s operation had taken a surprising turn. But nobody came to the door, nor did anybody call.

  I did what I could with the patients. I scheduled the most urgent cases for the following week, although unbeknownst to me I’d be in jail by then.

  Seconds after the last patient was out the door, while I was doubled up in pain and wondering what the damage to my liver would be if I took a couple more painkillers, my cell phone rang.

  “What the hell is it now, White?”

  “Dr. Evans?”

  I froze on the spot. It was the First Lady’s voice. Only then did I notice the display showed the caller ID was blocked, rather than merely blank, as it was when White called.

  “Forgive me, ma’am,” I answered. “I thought you were somebody else. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Honestly, Dr. Evans, I just wanted to apologize.”

  “To apologize?” I repeatedly dumbly.

  I had not imagined her calling me up, in any way, shape or form. I thought she would get Captain Hastings or the man in the bow tie to call the hospital director. I was not prepared for what came next.

  “The way in which we decided . . . in which the decision was made to change the neurosurgeon for the president’s operation was not very appropriate. I should have called before now.”

  “It would have been more polite, yes,” I said before I could stop myself.

  What am I getting at?

  “I’m sorry. I want you to understand it was not my doing,” she said defensively. “The cabinet met; a lot of people heard for the first time that my husband was ill. The meeting went on for hours and there was a lot of pressure over where to operate.”

  “I understand, ma’am. Everybody insists the president is more than just another patient. Unfortunately, I don’t. For me he’s just a person. If I treated him otherwise, I would expose him to unnecessary risks.”

  She stayed silent for a while. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line and I wondered where she was. Maybe in the Oval Office, with her husband nearby, looking at her expectantly. No, that was impossible. She’d be in her room, alone, trying to keep her emotions under control.

  “That is very commendable, doctor. It is rare to find people with such unshakable convictions today. As a wife, I thank you for it.”

  “But the decision was not yours. I understand that, too. I’m sure Dr. Hockstetter will do a great job tomorrow.”

  “Dr. Evans, actually . . . something’s come up.”

  “What is it? Is the president okay?”

  “The president’s fine. Sadly, Dr. Hockstetter has broken one of his hands.”

  She said it casually, trying to sound calm and collected. Without going into details. And she wasn’t offering me the operation either.

  Then it occurred to me that maybe this was some kind of test. She was playing politics with me, although I didn’t really know to what end. Did she suspect that Hockstetter’s mugging had been a dirty trick? If so, why was she calling me? Or was her reticence just sheer pride?

  Be that as it may, my fate and Julia’s depended to a large extent on what I said next. Should I clam up and wait for her to make the request I so wanted to hear, in order to avoid suspicion? Or should I massage her ego and show that I was at her beck and call?

  I had only a few seconds to make up my mind. I decided to act the innocent over Hockstetter’s injury.

  “Why are you telling me all this, ma’am?”

  She cleared her throat.

  “I suppose you can guess.”

  “I can guess, but you have yet to ask me.”

  “Actually, Dr. Evans, I was hoping first to persuade you to take back your original condition, so you can operate at Bethesda.”

  “Ma’am . . . In the cabinet they can ponder the scenarios and political fallout all they like. But the one with the scalpel a hairbreadth from the area controlling your husband’s speech will be me. So the answer is no.”

  “Dr. Evans—”

  “Tell me something, ma’am,” I interrupted. “Tell me how much the columns in the Post, the polls and the ratings, will matter to you on Saturday morning, when your husband can see his daughters and say their names without getting them wrong.”

  The silence that descended seemed everlasting. I could feel anxiety gripping my shoulders, making them as heavy as lead. I had gone for broke, and stuck to my guns in order to clear myself of suspicion, but had left everything in the hands of a gut decision made by her. I had to dig my fingernails into my hand so as not to shout out, “I’ll do it wherever, just give me the operation, I must be the one who does it.” Because to do that would have revealed me to be the opposite of what she wanted—somebody who was not dying to operate, who didn’t desperately need it. She had made that very clear to me when we first met.

  Talk. Say something, damn it.

  “You win, doctor. You can have it your way.”

  My body tingl
ed all over with relief, from head to toe. I tried to make my voice sound as cool as possible when I answered.

  “This is no competition, ma’am. Your husband alone has to come out on top here.” The words spilled out as crisp and clear as a mountain spring. But I felt like a fraud.

  “I’ll get Hastings to make the arrangements. And, Dr. Evans . . . Thank you. Anybody else in your situation would have made a big deal of the whole business. May I say it’s an honor to know somebody as levelheaded and professional as you.”

  I muttered an unintelligible reply, but she hung up before I had finished. I dropped into my chair, weary and disgusted with myself. I just wanted to go home as soon as possible and sleep for a full day. But that day’s emotional roller-coaster ride was far from over.

  27

  I had to go see Meyer in his office to tell him, of course. The meeting was brief and embarrassing. While I was on my way up he’d been given the news and he was happy as a clam again, although he didn’t thank me this time, either, for getting the Patient back. He dismissed me with a wave and mouthed the words “Don’t screw up again” before he got bogged down in another call with Hastings about the details. I had no more desire to stay in his office than to have splinters shoved under my fingernails, but even so I found his peevishness and, above all, his parting words insulting.

  I went back to Neurosurgery, much the worse for wear and in a foul mood. Meyer had ordered me to stay on a couple of hours for a briefing on security protocols for the day ahead, and I had no option but to go along. I had hoped to hide away in my office, lie down behind my desk and get some sleep while I could, but inevitably that was also to be denied me. When I walked past the nurses’ station, one of them beckoned me.