by Joshua Corin
Dr. Shariq had indeed made himself available—by videoconference—shortly after the governor’s speech. He was an affable fellow, mid-sixties, with cirrus clouds of white hair just above his ears. He lived in Georgetown but promised to travel to Dearborn or Atlanta to assist whenever necessary. He also had relayed a short statement of his own via social media.
“Just as the Prophet, holy be He, migrated to Medina to protect the faithful from persecution, so must we, in this time of conflict, follow in His ever-loving example.”
Okay, then.
“We are having Dr. Shariq on tonight, as is Fox, as is CNN, as is Univision.”
“Oh,” said Judy. “He speaks Spanish?”
“You got to give me something, Judy. We could be the best of friends.”
“That’s why I called, Elise. I am prepared to hand you on a silver platter some huge news about the governor’s proposal that will have your competitors bent over in jealousy.”
“I don’t think I know that expression.”
“You will once I give you this silver platter of news.”
“All right, Judy. What’s the news?”
“You first, Elise. You were about to tell me about your source at that law firm. I believe it was Bennett, Schwartz, and LeBatton?”
Judy paced her office floor. She hated gambits like this. She had always been risk-averse…and look at what happened to the one giant risk she had taken in her life. She itched at the permanent indentation on her finger where once that damn silver ring had rested. Did an indentation count as a scar? Surely it had to count as a scar.
Elise finally responded, “I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”
“What would you like to know? I was born in Marietta, Georgia, the only daughter of—”
“How huge is this news? And who else can I call to confirm it?”
“Poncho Diller can confirm it. He’s—”
“Oh, I know who Poncho is. Everybody knows who Poncho is. And if you’re telling me that he’ll provide a confirmation, I’ll take it. Him I trust.”
“Great.” Judy rolled her eyes. “But like I said, first I need everything you’ve got on the law firm.”
“Wow. There really must be something up with them, huh?”
“You tell me, Elise.”
“All right. Here’s what we’ve got. Our source—and no, I am not going to reveal their identity—provided us with a copy of the governor’s client agreement. Signed and dated.”
Dated prior to today’s attacks, no doubt.
“Does this client agreement specify what services the governor might be requiring of them, Elise?”
“It doesn’t, but it does list how much those services are going to cost as a retainer, and let me tell you, Judy, I don’t think I could afford this retainer on a year’s salary and I drive a Tesla. It must be nice to have grown up a trust fund baby like your dear governor.”
“The voters don’t elect a bank account. They elect a man.” Judy noticed how quickly and easily the retorts came, and why shouldn’t they? She had spouted them so many times. “And the voters in Georgia elected the governor with a plurality of sixty-four percent.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound like huge news on a silver platter.”
“I assume you have a digital copy of the client agreement?”
“Yes…”
“Can you email it to me?”
“I can. And I will. Once I get the confirmation from Poncho Diller that what you’re about to tell me is the real deal. Hey, your last name is Diller, too, isn’t it? Is he like your cousin or something?”
Judy shut her eyes. Took a breath.
Time to leap.
“You know how protective you are of your source, Elise? Well, I am going to need you to stand in front of a bullet for what I’m about to tell you. Are we clear?”
“We are crystal clear.”
“All right.” Judy stopped pacing. “The governor’s speech was written before this morning’s attacks.”
“Yeah, I assumed he didn’t come up with it off the top of his head. Initiatives like that take vetting and—”
“You’re not understanding me, Elise. I’m saying the entire speech was written before this morning’s attacks. Everything.”
“I’m not sure I follow…”
Was Elise dense? No. Clueless? No. Pretending to be clueless to force Judy to say the actual words? Yes. That had to be it.
Leap away.
“I have electronic proof that the governor wrote about today’s acts of terror at least eight hours before they happened.”
“What kind of electronic proof…?”
Judy told her.
“Can you take a screenshot?”
“Absolutely. And I’ll send it to you, Elise, in exchange for that client agreement. Now, do you need my ex-husband Poncho’s phone number so he can corroborate my story or do you have it already? I’m guessing you have it already.”
Chapter 35
Nobody was answering their phone. Not Hayley’s father. Not Hayley’s mother. Xana even dialed Hayley herself. Straight to voicemail. Xana zoomed up I-75 and entered the traffic snarl on Piedmont Road without once applying her brakes. As a result, she nearly caromed into an idling baby-blue Hyundai. Instead she jerked her silver Rambler Rebel onto the sidewalk, passed the Hyundai and its startled driver, and wove quite illegally up Piedmont until she was within sight of the hospital.
Since all the restaurants and shops already had overstuffed parking lots, Xana pulled over to the side of the road, turned off her car, and left it there. It probably would be towed. So fucking what. She galloped toward the police barricade, all the while trying Hayley’s father one more time. Nothing.
Rather than barge toward the barricade itself, Xana loped around it. Piedmont Hospital was a massive complex of buildings. Surely somewhere in this perimeter she could find a point of entry. She traipsed along grass and sidewalk. Where blue sawhorses weren’t, brick building was. The powers that be were taking this quarantine very seriously.
Xana couldn’t hardly have cared less.
She thought about trying Konquist, using his connections, but the poor schmuck was probably over his head right about now in shock and grief about his nephew. The thought of having someone you love, someone you knew from when he was an infant, grow up to become associated with a bunch of thugs. Shock and grief and probably more than a little guilt.
There was certain value in cutting the ties that bind. Xana’s wayward brother was still out there in the world somewhere, maybe. They hadn’t been in contact in decades. And yet somehow Xana had allowed Hayley to become close. How? Had it been the girl’s ever-curious mind? Had it been Hayley’s fandom enthusiasm? The undeniable truth was that Hayley’s presence filled a void, and now that void was about to be reopened.
And Xana had a habit of filling her voids with top-shelf booze.
Was that why she hadn’t flinched in the forest with a gun to her head? Had her resolve been fueled not by bravery but fear? Had—
Her phone rang.
Hayley’s dad.
“Hello?” asked Xana, near immediately. “Hello?”
“Agent Marx! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you!”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ve had a bit of a day…but then again, I’m sure, so have you…”
Once again, just as she had in the woods, Xana shut her eyes and prepared for the bullet.
“Agent Marx, as you know, Hayley’s heart had been getting weaker and weaker for days now. When Dr. Chastain informed us this morning that he didn’t think she would be able to make it through another day…Hayley’s mother read her a chapter from her favorite book.”
Which was Harriet the Spy. Yes. The details clung to Xana like leeches.
“We asked Dr. Chastain if there was anythin
g he could do. Anything at all. We begged. No, he said. Nothing short of a complete heart transplant.”
Why wasn’t he just saying the words? Was this moment-by-moment recap a form of torture for Xana having not been there when his daughter died?
“A little over four hours ago,” he continued, “the doctor came in. No, not only the doctor. A team of doctors. Dr. Chastain introduced them. I didn’t get all of their names. Their names didn’t matter. What mattered was what they said next. I assume you heard about the terrorist attack this morning?”
It took a second for Xana to realize that he was actually asking her the question, actually waiting for her reply.
“Yes,” she said. “I heard about it.”
“There was…it’s sad to think about, but one of the first responders, a police officer, died trying to rescue all those people. He died…but his heart was a match. Do you understand what I’m saying, Agent Marx?”
Say it anyway. Please.
“They repeated to us, over and over, that Hayley might not survive the surgery. Apparently the higher-ups went back and forth discussing whether or not to even approve Hayley for the surgery because of her condition, but everything here today has been so chaotic. But they wanted us to be aware of the risks. I’ve been staring at the clock so intently for so long that I feel like it’s become…I don’t know…an extension of my own soul.”
“So Hayley is in surgery?”
“No, Agent Marx. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The surgery ended nine minutes ago. You’re the first person I’ve notified. That’s how Hayley would have wanted it.”
And? And? Say the words, damn it!
“The surgeon said the transplant was a complete success.”
Hayley was alive?
“They couldn’t excise any of the cancer, of course, but they are optimistic about the integration of the heart into her body. They are closing her up—”
Except Xana didn’t hear the rest of what he said because at that moment a ten-pound toilet cover shattered on the pavement several yards away.
All eyes—those of Xana, other pedestrians, the assembled officers of the law, the vicinity’s dogs and cats and birds—flitted from the smashed porcelain to a broken window on the second floor and the tan-skinned man in a hospital johnny yelling something, repeating something, repeating what?
“My name is Officer Malik Ali! Two men on the second floor disguised as CDC workers are about to release a toxin!”
Again and again and again.
And then a man on the second floor, disguised as a CDC worker, yanked Officer Malik Ali away from the window and out of sight. But by then Xana had taken advantage of the distraction. She slipped past the police barricade and ducked through the nearest door into the hospital.
Hayley was alive.
Although Xana had visited Piedmont countless times, the hospital complex was vast and she suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar atrium. She knew she didn’t have time to locate the nearest map—it was sheer luck she had gone unnoticed this far—so Xana simply raced in the direction of the nearest stairwell. At the very least she knew she was on the first floor and Hayley was on the fourth.
And none-of-her-business was on the second.
Because Xana was done with all that. Done, done, done. And this time she meant it. She was out. Hayley was alive. No more excitement, which meant no more temptation, which meant no more excitement, which meant no more temptation.
Except right now someone was racing down the stairs toward her.
Someone in a yellow hazmat suit.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” muttered Xana.
Certainly this dope could be a legitimate scientist, here to help, and he was in such a hurry because he was so desperate to help. Certainly.
But Xana clotheslined the poor sap nonetheless, sending him off his feet. Better to be safe, and all that jazz. A scientist with the CDC would appreciate that.
This guy did not seem to appreciate it one bit. He snarled at her through his plastic visor and then reached up to her with his plastic gloves.
“Hey, jackass, I just found out my best friend isn’t dead,” Xana told him, and then brought her foot down hard on his face, mashing his nose into juice. “So forgive me if I cut to the chase.”
A second kick rendered the twerp unconscious.
And his gun, which he must have been reaching for, clattered down a few steps.
Xana sighed, picked it up, and continued to ascend the stairwell.
She intentionally passed the second-floor door, made her way halfway up to the next landing, and then, cursing herself, she doubled back and gently opened the second-floor door for a quick assessment. One impostor had chosen this stairwell to make his retreat, so the chances were above nil that the other impostor was nearby.
And in fact he was. On his knees, even. Surrounded by a swarm of Atlanta’s finest, all of whom had, upon being notified of Malik Ali’s situation, hustled down two stories from where they had been paying their respects to Ray Queen’s wife and father and had, with their arrival, not only prevented Malik Ali’s execution but also whatever fucked-up ambitions that vial of yellow liquid had been intended to put into motion.
Not that Xana cared much about any of that, even after she learned the wherewithal later on. No. Hayley was alive. The only lamp in her dark world remained aglow, and Xana ran toward the light.
Chapter 36
When the governor, having been informed by the FBI of the thwarted plot at the hospital, finally hung up the phone, his first thought was to get in his car, drive to the hospital, and pose for a few photos with that hero Muslim cop. And while there maybe sneak in a few “impromptu” photo ops with the survivors of this morning’s tragedy.
Oh, how that frigid bitch in his communications office would love it, not that she had to know the real reason he’d repeatedly brushed off her earlier suggestion.
How might that conversation have gone?
“Yeah, Judy, I can’t go to the hospital because some associates of mine are about to release a deadly virus in the ER to further instill fear and paranoia in the community. Plus, I really want to see all those Arabs covered with boils.”
Good luck spinning that, ice queen.
So while the governor’s first thought was to travel a few miles and perform a short play of political theater, his second thought was more fitting for a soliloquy. He pondered the nature of pollution.
“Come here, boys,” he called to his dogs, and together the three of them trundled across the mansion’s expansive, tiered yard. His dogs, a pair of ornery Irish setters named Bo and Luke, kept pace with him while he walked past the old tennis courts and the Olympic-sized swimming pool in which he and his wife swam almost every morning before breakfast. The missus was inside at the moment, answering all the birthday cards she had received from all those state senators and representatives and mayors and councilmen, not to mention the governor’s own staff. No auto-pens for her, which meant her right hand would be too cramped tonight to do much of anything once it came time for bed. This was what the scholars must have been referring to when they went on about the sacrifices made by public servants.
The governor knelt down by Bo and Luke while they did their business over by a pine tree.
“Have at it, boys,” he said. “The groundskeeper will take care of it all in the morning.”
But back to pollution.
He believed in global warming. In doing so, he was in defiance of his party’s platform, but what was a platform but a list of suggestions concocted by focus groups? No. He believed in global warming and he believed that mankind was its cause.
He could not drive on the highway with the windows down. The toxic fumes farted out by all those cars made him nauseous. And come springtime, the pollen painted all those cars a sickly yellow and made the simple act of breat
hing such an arduous chore that the governor had resorted to shooting saline water up one nostril and down the other as part of his March–June morning routine. A man should not have to do that. And now June, with its freakish, thick-tongued humidity, as if the Okefenokee Swamp had swallowed up the entire state.
It hadn’t been this bad when he was growing up.
And this was only one form of pollution. There was sound pollution, transforming parks into mental asylums; and light pollution, hiding the stars from view; and then there was the worst pollution of all, the one so sly and sinister that one dared not speak of it…
Social pollution.
Because it was as undeniable as the three-digit temperatures and the booming noise and the unseen stars, modern society had become caked with dirt. And it wasn’t entirely the immigrants’ fault. They came from dirty desert nations. But if the government was going to take on the responsibility of raising emissions standards and banning chlorofluorocarbons and passing noise ordinances, then surely it was the responsibility of the government to also clean away the dirty people.
“We need to think about what world we’re going to leave our children,” he told Bo and Luke, who were wrestling on the grass. His own children, all three of them, were off in the world, living their adult lives, but as their father he recognized it as his duty that they always have a place here that they could call home.
And these dirty people would not pollute his home.
“They told me you were back here,” said Poncho, and the governor smiled even before he looked up and saw his old pal stroll toward him from the house. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by.”
“It’s always a pleasure,” the governor replied, and he meant it sincerely, and maybe that was why he liked Poncho so much. He could be sincere around him. It was an underrated delight.
The two men sat down on a stone bench by one of the fountains.
“How are you holding up?” Poncho asked. “I know this is not the day you planned.”
“Fifty percent of the job is improvisation. But you know that. Are you still getting an earful from the ex?”