by Jonas Saul
“Which is?” Aaron asked.
“Traumatic Brain Injury.”
“How bad?”
“Not entirely sure yet. What confuses me was how she arrived.”
Parkman frowned. “How are you confused?”
“When the emergency response personnel arrive on scene with a TBI, they’re supposed to try to get her eyes open, check for movement and verbal response.”
“But she was unconscious.”
“I understand, but that’s what we do. When she arrives here, she’s already supposed to be sedated with a tube running into her lungs to make sure she has enough oxygen so we can run a CT scan. Luckily for Sarah, she was breathing on her own, her blood pressure was relatively good and oxygen levels were high enough to perform the CT. Most of the time with a gunshot to the head, that wouldn’t happen.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I was able to resuscitate her here. She was able to talk for a moment.”
“Did she say anything important?” Joffrey asked.
“She kept saying a girl’s name.”
“Her own?” Aaron asked.
Maybe Tam Rood’s name, Parkman thought. Or Violeta. Sarah’s gonna wake up pissed.
“No, she kept saying Vivian. Over and over. Something about Vivian being in her head. Vivian helped her to be dead.”
“Dead?” Aaron asked, his voice an octave higher than Parkman had ever heard it.
“She’s not dead now. We got the bullet out and it’s at forensics. Now I’m just trying to deal with the swelling on her brain. The problem with swelling is that the brain has nowhere to swell with the skull keeping it enclosed. She’s dealing with increased intracranial pressure and it isn’t looking good.”
“When will she be out of the woods?” Parkman asked.
“Hard to tell at the moment. I wish I could have better news. I’m sorry.”
Aaron choked, like he was going to cry, but held himself back.
“What else can you tell us?” Joffrey asked.
“If and when Sarah regains consciousness, a variety of neurologically based symptoms may occur, such as irritability and aggression.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Parkman cut in. “Sarah is aggressive by nature.”
The doctor frowned, then continued. “If everything works out and we get the swelling down, as time passes, the brain will approach physiological stability again, although neurons in the brain don’t mend themselves. New nerves won’t grow in ways that lead to a full recovery. But I can’t even promise Sarah will come out of this. I just want you guys to be ready if the news isn’t exactly what you expect it to be.”
“So what are you saying?” Aaron asked. “Can you give us odds? Is it fifty-fifty or better?”
“It’s more like eighty-twenty.”
“That’s not bad,” Parkman said.
“Twenty percent chance she lives, eighty percent we lose her.” He cleared his throat. “Certain areas of the brain are damaged. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. Only time will tell how damaged Sarah Roberts will be, if she pulls through, and it’s not looking good at the moment.” The doctor got up and headed for the door. “I have to get back.” He stopped before leaving the room. “I’m sorry the news isn’t better, but I think you need to prepare for the inevitable. Call any relatives she has in the area and get them here before it’s too late. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to save her.”
The doctor shut the door softly as he left.
Chapter 8
As the five Greek police cars came to a halt in front of Oliver’s rented villa, Kostas let Oliver out to unlock the gate. The residual massage oil on his back had cooled in the car, but out in the sun, his back was moist and pasted against his shirt.
What was the worst they could do to him? He had overstayed four weeks on an American passport. The worst would be to give him over to the American Embassy in Athens. Or they might take him to Athens themselves and see that he gets on an international plane, thereby leaving their country. There could be a fine of some sort. He would pay it and then head to London, England. Hide somewhere in Scotland. Violeta would spend the rest of her years hunting him down, because an experience like this only strengthened his position by teaching him about routine and exposure.
He pushed the gates open wide enough for the vehicles to enter the property. Once Kostas and his men had parked and exited their vehicles, they followed Oliver to his villa behind the main house.
“This is a nice little place you have here,” Kostas said. “I didn’t know this was back here.”
“Where did you learn such good English?” Oliver asked.
“I went to school in Athens, then traveled to New York for three years. When I returned to Greece, I became a policeman.”
“So you’ve been to the States?” Oliver opened the door to the villa and moved inside. Kostas followed him in. “What did you think of it?” he asked as he moved down the hall to the bedroom and walked around the bed to the nightstand.
“At first, New York was overwhelming. It was so big.”
The nightstand was empty. Oliver stopped and stared at the empty drawer.
“Then I got used to the bustle and hustle as you Americans call it.”
He tried the second drawer, but it was empty too.
“During the second year, I got mugged. Then I asked myself what was I doing in the States. So I decided to fly home to Athens and begin my career.”
Oliver walked across the bed and tried the other nightstand, panic settling in on his bones. It was empty.
His passport was gone. Someone had stolen it.
The last time he checked, it was there. No way he moved it and forgot. That wasn’t like him. It was there, but now it was gone.
“You’re not interested in my story, are you?” Kostas asked.
“No, yes, it’s just …”
“It’s just, what?”
“The passport isn’t in my drawer. Someone must’ve taken it.”
“Are you saying you don’t have a passport because someone has stolen it?”
“Looks that way,” Oliver said, the agitation coming through in his voice.
“You are aware that I am not the one who has stolen your passport, correct?”
“I never said you were.”
“Though you talk to me with anger. You sound mad at me. Am I to understand you have no identification?”
“I have my American ID.” He pulled out his wallet.
“That is not necessary.” Kostas raised his hand to stop Oliver. “I only need to see your passport. Please, could you get it for me.”
“I don’t have it.” Then he walked over to the sliding access door to the outside and tried to move it, but it was locked. “Someone must’ve broken in when I went to the farmer’s market this morning.”
He moved to the kitchen and tried that window. Then the one in the living room, too. Both were secure. “I don’t get it. Where could it be?”
Kostas stepped out of the open villa door and waved at his men. A moment later, three of them entered the villa.
“One more time,” Kostas said. “Are you refusing to provide the Greek authorities with your passport?”
“I’m not refusing anything,” Oliver retorted. “I don’t have it.”
“Then you cannot produce it. Gentleman, arrest this man for being in Greece illegally.”
The man in the middle produced a white twist tie for Oliver’s wrists as the three approached him.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Oliver said as he backed up. “I’m an American citizen. Let me call my embassy. We can work this out.”
Kostas had already exited the villa and the three men weren’t listening.
They grabbed his arms a lot rougher than before, turned him around and wrapped the wrist ties on too tight.
“Hey, that’s cutting off my circulation.”
The older of the three cops said something in Greek to him. The other two chuckled and then s
hoved him toward the door.
Outside, they pushed him again. He got his feet in front of him just in time.
“What the—?” he shouted back at them. “You don’t have to be so rough. I’m going with you. I’m complying.”
Kostas stood by his car, arms crossed, watching as Oliver headed his way, the three officers bringing up the rear. Oliver detected the slightest of nods from Kostas, and then a second later he was shoved again. This time two hands landed on each shoulder blade, thrusting him forward so fast that his head snapped back and he lifted off the ground for a brief moment. Without the ability to brace his fall with his hands tied behind his back, he landed chest and shoulder first, his face rubbing along the stones as he skidded a few inches.
Breath caught in his lungs. Pain screamed from his face and knees, and his shoulder felt like it had popped out. Dazed and confused, he didn’t have time to gather his thoughts before they were picking him up again. Just as he got to his feet, they let him go.
He dropped in a heap, twisting his right knee so bad, he was sure something tore. Oliver moaned, rolled onto his side to get off his tied hands behind his back, and tried to curl into a ball.
In the grand scheme of things, this was nothing worse than a high school fight. Scrapes and bruises would be all that was left days from now. But for Oliver, who hadn’t had to deal with anything worse than a paper cut, minus the mild heart attack, this wasn’t so much about the pain to his body, but the pain to his ego, the humiliation.
He opened his eyes and looked up into Kostas’s smiling face.
“You poor man. You tripped when my officers were only trying to lend a hand.” He leaned down. “Come on, get up. We’ll take you downtown, as they say in America, and set things right.”
Kostas grabbed his left arm and hauled Oliver to his feet.
His ear tickled as Kostas leaned in close and whispered something.
“What was that?” Oliver asked.
“Thank Violeta for this,” Kostas repeated. “She wanted me to tell you at the beginning.”
It was so low, Oliver was sure no one else heard what Kostas said.
“No, Kostas, I can double what she’s paying you.”
Kostas let go of his arm, walked around to stand in front of him, and shook his head.
“Attempting to bribe an officer of the law.” He rubbed one index finger along the length of the other. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Kostas’s right hand balled into a fist. Oliver hobbled on his feet, his bladder suddenly needed to vacate.
One second he blinked, the next, Kostas’s fist connected with his left cheek.
He dropped to his knees, screaming as new pain seared in his already aching right knee. He fell sideways to the ground, bits of dirt entering his mouth.
Kostas kneeled down in front of him. “You should never try to buy an officer of the law in Greece. That is very disrespectful.” He shook his head. “For that, you will have many accidents.”
Kostas motioned for his men to pick Oliver up, but Oliver didn’t want to be moved. He moaned, twisted away from their grasp and writhed in the dirt, until finally, four men lifted him shoulder height and carried him like they were pallbearers at a funeral.
At Kostas’s car, one of the men opened the back door and stepped out of the way.
Before they tossed him inside, Oliver dreaded the impact, knowing they wouldn’t be gentle, but there was nothing he could do about it.
And he was right. Consciousness wavered for a moment after they had him in the back. The pain in his shoulder intensified. His knee had already begun to swell. Something wet trickled down his hands. It had to be blood from the twist ties cutting into his flesh.
The driver’s side door opened and Kostas got in, the car’s shocks dropped and adjusted to the new weight.
Kostas turned the car on and backed out of the driveway.
“How did you think you could get away with it?” Kostas asked.
Oliver didn’t want to speak.
“I talked to Violeta myself. She told me everything you did and then she made a generous donation to our police station in Nafplio and asked if we could find her husband. Oliver Payne, the man who raped his seventeen-year-old daughter and then fled to Greece to hide from the American authorities. I have mercy for horses with broken legs, so why not you, you disgusting animal.”
A cold sweat covered his body. He shivered in pain. He had heard stories of what other prisoners did to people who raped a woman, not to mention what they did to men who raped someone so young. Telling Kostas he was innocent would do no good. Violeta had set him up even though he had never touched his daughter in any way.
“Of course we find you at the local spa,” Kostas said. “Were you scouting out other girls to prey on with your sick fetishes?”
“I didn’t rape anybody,” Oliver said, knowing it would fall on deaf ears. His lower lip had started to swell.
How could one woman do so much damage?
She needed him alive to sign over his shares to the company. He had to hope they wouldn’t kill him. One day, he would be back on American soil and when he got there, he would seek retribution. He’d figure something out. Violeta would pay for this.
“I just hope they don’t kill you when we place you in the holding cell,” Kostas said.
Oliver was a planner, a doer. He wrote an agenda for each day and fulfilled it. He was never lost.
But today, for the first time in his life, he felt more lost and scared than ever before and he wondered if he would ever see a sunrise again.
Chapter 9
Joffrey stopped at the elevator. “I’ve got to go to my car for some paperwork. I don’t expect you to come to the station right now as I’m sure you want to hang out here and wait to hear more, so I’ll bring paper and a pen to get your statement while it’s still fresh in your mind.”
Parkman nodded. “Fine with me.”
“All right. Give me five minutes.”
The elevator door opened and Joffrey stepped on, offered a sympathetic smile for Aaron, and the doors shut.
“What are you going to do?” Parkman asked Aaron.
“Wait around here. I’ve got nowhere to go until Sarah wakes up.”
“What about the dojo?”
“My guys will open it for me in the morning.”
Parkman put a hand on his shoulder. “You know my relationship with Sarah. You know I would die for her. I didn’t do this. It was the culmination of a chain of events and it may lie on my shoulders, but—”
“I know, Parkman.” Aaron met his eyes. “If I thought you had shot her, or it was directly your fault, you would be on an operating table as well.”
“Fair enough. I get it. Now why don’t you go down and fetch us a couple of coffees from the cafeteria. I’ll wait here.”
Aaron left without another word.
“Oh, and, see if they have any toothpicks, okay?”
Parkman reclaimed his seat from earlier. He tried to piece it all together. Violeta didn’t want her husband killed. She wanted him paralyzed. As long as Oliver could still sign documents, still use at least one hand. Parkman had been asked to break Oliver’s back since he had him under surveillance in Greece. He was there. He could do it. Violeta stressed that Parkman was perfect for the job because he was already in position. Violeta had offered him a cool million simply to put a man in the hospital. Parkman had hospitalized many men in his time. Many men he had shot and killed. But he could never willingly attack another human being for a paycheck. Violeta warned him not to disobey her. That had been her mistake.
Parkman had learned from Sarah years ago how to handle people who thought they could strike fear in his heart. He would rather fight whoever or whatever Violeta tossed at him than hurt an innocent man.
But he had no idea the crazy woman would go after Sarah.
Violeta said she would use her own daughter to paralyze Oliver, but Parkman guessed Tam refused. And since the world of mercenaries and hit men wasn’t
a place familiar to Violeta, she had requested Parkman help find someone to replace him. Someone with fewer scruples. Someone who could actually finish the job.
Parkman refused again and ceased all contact. Then the attacks happened. Then the letter.
The letter that was inside his jacket pocket back at the crime scene. Unless it had been picked up already.