15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  “Hey.” She smiled back at me. “Doing better I see.”

  “Nothing I can’t patch up later when I’m back at the clinic.” I grinned.

  Carrie smiled too. “How’s she doing?” she asked, looking at Hallie.

  “She’s doing swell. She’s been through a lot, but she’ll be fine. In the end. You ought to know.” I knew she probably couldn’t wait to get back to her own son.

  She nodded. “Guess I do.” She sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’ve talked to the sheriff’s office. They’re sending a team up here to chat with you.”

  “Chat, huh?”

  “I don’t know if I’m exactly the person to speak for them, but I’m pretty sure you’re in the clear.”

  “Whew. Just when I was getting used to dodging bullets.”

  “They’re sending Rowley,” Carrie said. “Since you guys seemed to get along so well . . .”

  She gave me a held-back smile, but there was something beautiful in her teasing blue eyes.

  “Everyone’s been telling me ‘well done,’ ” I said. “But the truth is, you’re the one who deserves all that. Not me . . .”

  She pressed her lips together, shrugging it off.

  I took her hand. “So thank you. Without you . . . there’s just simply no way I’d be on Good Morning America Tuesday morning . . .” Carrie giggled. I looked over at Hallie. “I look at her and I wish I could think of a way.”

  “I’ve, uh, actually been giving some thought to getting my eyes done.” She held back a smile again. “Maybe just around the edges. Here . . .”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t advise it. I don’t want you to change one single thing. Carrie . . .”

  “Uh-huh?”

  I brushed my hand against her cheek. I don’t know what was in my mind, but I stared into her beautiful blue eyes and probably never felt more gratitude or closeness to anyone in my life.

  My voice caught with emotion.

  “I just wanted to say . . . that I wouldn’t be here . . . Hallie wouldn’t be here . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence. “Just thanks.”

  “I know,” she replied, and put her hand on mine.

  We lingered there a moment. Until we both became a little self-conscious.

  “I have something for you . . .” I said, and tried to move, but pain lanced through me. “It’s over there. In my pocket.” I pointed to my pants, folded over a chair.

  “I’ll get it.” She went over and reached inside. “Forty dollars!” She widened her eyes in mock appreciation. “You’re sweet!”

  “Keep digging. I think there’s another ten in there.”

  She laughed, and eventually came out with what I was hoping she would find.

  Her husband’s driver’s license.

  “It got me into the prison to see Amanda. So I guess, without it, who knows how this thing might have turned out.”

  She held it in both hands, nodding a bit wistfully. “I told you he was the most resourceful guy I knew.”

  “You did. And I think he’d be proud of his wife.”

  Carrie smiled, a little blush coming into her face, and then she opened her purse. She reached for her wallet to put the license back, back from where she had taken it that first time in the car. But then she seemed to hesitate. Instead, she tucked it into the side pocket of her purse. As if she was putting it safely away for keeps.

  Not just away, but behind her.

  Then she caught me staring at her and gave me a rosy smile.

  “I think I’ll keep it where I can never lose it again.” She tapped her chest. “In here.”

  “A good spot,” I said, and then we didn’t say anything for a long time.

  Epilogue

  Boaco, Nicaragua. Five months later . . .

  “Mira!” 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 ángel 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 fotografía . . . ?”

  “Sí! 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.”

  “Buenísimo,” 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 . . . !”

  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 . . .”

  “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 kiss—which 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.

  Acknowledgments

  This all actually happened—being 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 scene—incredibly, 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 book—both 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 exciting—and 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 HarperCollins—always 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!

  Excerpt from No Way Back

  one

  “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 (official 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 one—if any exist, and I’ve heard enough to deeply doubt that—wouldn’t engage my interest at the moment. It’s deep night, we’ve been cruising seven miles above the Pacific 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-Uzis—very 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 fine. 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 sufficient 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 fire up in the evil hermit state of the DPRK. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, likely the world’s final 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: five) 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.