She thought about lying in that hospital for two more weeks like they wanted? But there was no way she could wait two weeks to get on this. She was able to get through the first week after her discovery and she tried to listen to the doctors, but by the second week, it was too much to take. She’d decided to stop acting like a girl, so she womaned up and took the pain, leaving the hospital early, much to the dismay of the staff. In an adoring move, Rodrigo had heard she was leaving her new facility early and traded his day off so he could take her to the airport.
He really was so sweet. He got her to the security checkpoint without any drama. She swore he had a small tear when she left? She was so wrong about his nature and felt a twang of guilt for not allowing him to be anything more than a great coital experience. Her last thought before she dozed off was, it’s funny how that works sometimes, people are not always who they seem and sometimes their true nature gets discovered.
When she awoke later, she had forgotten this sentiment, but had she not, it would have soon become the biggest coincidental thought of her life.
* * *
Scott finished his blog and then he spell checked it, afterward sending it to his editor Tina Polaski. Scott loved Tina because she was easy going and had a sense of humor. She was in her sixties, but still had that hippy girl earthy charm that some were able to pull off to a very late age. He’d seen pictures of her in the Sixties and she had been a major babe. She probably liked him because he came to meetings in shorts and hiking sandals, or one time even wooden clogs.
He wore a goatee too long, and whatever shirt he could find, usually wrinkled. He fondly remembered the kid he cut off accidently on his bike the other day referring to him as a “hipster douche.” So being a hipster douche had also endeared him to a lady who could be nasty if you were on her bad side, but career advancing if she liked you. And she happened to like Scott.
Contrarily, one would just have to ask Dale Couler of the Financial Report for his opinion on how life was on the other side of the fence. Dale was an acquaintance of Scott’s from NYU and his “know it all” personality had a completely different view of Tina’s ability and scent of her vaginal area than Scott had.
He looked around his apartment and shame befell him. It was bad enough that he hadn’t done anything more that go to IKEA and put together some prefab arrangement of furniture, but he’d also put on ten pounds of ice cream and chocolate weight since the last time they had seen each other. He used to be eclectic, picking up pieces with a story. Now, most of those things were still in his moving boxes from two years ago.
He’d actually given up on women for the time being—and along with that mindset was it was okay for him to let it all go. He figured that if one didn’t stand a chance at five foot nine, sporting his particular brand of cool, then one might as well go out in a blaze of glory.
Actually, by using this technique he’d inadvertently learned a new way to talk to girls, as it seemed some liked a man looking like the cat just dragged him in. But he just wasn’t into it, and he secretly knew why. Who could ever match up to her? No one that I had met so far, and Seattle is a pretty big city to find women.
Scott shut his computer off. His palms were sweating, and his heart was racing out of control. Lauren was the only girl who could make him feel that way, and he would swear off ice cream forever to just spend one more night with her. Somehow in college, he was under the delusion that another woman of her caliber would come along. After all, he got her.
What he found out was he got her by not trying. She was out of his league and he knew it, so he never tried to hit on her. He’d learned to get to know her for who she was—and fall in love with her from a distance for the person she really was.
Of course, there was the other stuff too—the playboy looks, and the most amazing freckles that mankind had ever laid eyes on. Oh man, the freckles.
She was a perfect ten, and he was a possible five; right now he was ranking more in the three-range. He called the maid service he used and put in an emergency request and got lucky—they would be out today for an extra $25.00. He headed out the door to get his hair done and his disgusting car washed and cleaned. Among his other bad habits as of late, he’d been eating fast food and leaving the containers in his car.
He was headed to his barbershop when he stopped at a red light and had a second to think. He thought that it was still odd that she was coming and he hoped that this “visit” had nothing to do with any kind of angle for a story. He could take betrayal from anyone else but her.
His apartment was on N. 59th and Linden N. and he needed to go up N. 59th and turn right on Aurora Ave N. to get to Downtown. The first intersection was Phinney Ave N. It was the corner of the Children’s Zoo and Playground and he could see a scene happening in the area where the jungle gym equipment was.
Some kid probably fell off or something, he assumed. He could see a crowd and he normally would have let his curiosity get the better of him and gone in for the answer, or story—he was a reporter after all. It looked serious, and based on the crowd that had gathered, something awful must had happened. He pressed on. He needed to get things done today, so the story in the park would have to be for someone else.
He turned right onto Aurora Ave N. (U.S. Highway 99), and as he was heading over the Aurora Street Bridge he nearly crashed into the middle stanchion, as off to his right he could see an Airliner smoking from both engines and heading for the Sound. He crossed over the bridge stunned and turned right on Queen Anne Dr., went back under the freeway and started heading north again on Aurora. He zipped up Aurora and cut over toward the Sound to about where he estimated the plane would have gone down.
The problem with Aurora was there were no exits or ways to make a left turn for quite a distance. So he was quite sure that he had gone past the actual crash site when he finally found a left turn.
It looked like he was going to miss all his manicuring appointments today. What the hell, he thought, if she ever loved him at all, it certainly wasn’t because of his appearance, of that he was sure. He weeded his way up toward the crash via side streets, his mind was spinning, of course, because what he thought he saw was hard to fathom.
The reporter that had been alive in him before he’d lost his passion for adventure was stirring. He hadn’t been close to any real action since college—and it had been Lauren who had dragged him into all of that. He lived vicariously through her after college, for sure, and now he was getting ready to host Ms. Indiana Jones. He turned right onto Richmond Beach Drive, and found a left-turn onto what looked like a levy road with the refinery on one side and a construction site on the other.
Unbelievably there was no fence or gate preventing him from going through, just a warning sign. Ignoring that, he drove right up the elevated road through the middle and out to a long dock that also was unbelievably accessible. Once he got out and made it to the front side of the dock, he could see the horror up close and personal using his equipment. One thing he never shed was the need to have his photography gear with him at all times.
Scott Bailey, Reporter, had a unique photographic vantage point during the last ten minutes of the real life and death struggle going on. He caught all the drama as the two halves of the ferry slipped under, and the last people pulled out alive were saved. Scott mulled, did the plane do that to the ferry? How did the plane manage to land after causing that?
* * *
Matt pulled into the hospital and found several cars blocking the parking for Emergency. He looked to his right and found a spot in the one-hour parking. He jammed the car into reverse and deftly backed in. He was out and running, but before he got out, he put his pistol in the center console of the car and made sure it was loaded. He would have taken it with him, but he wasn’t sure if they had metal detectors here or not.
Inside was a little more crowded than one would have expected for a mid-sized community hospital. Matt was attributing this to the patients coming from the disaster zone. Inside the E.R
. was a TV, and that’s when he caught his first glimpse of the horror.
He stepped back outside to wait until he saw their ambulance arrive. As they were being unloaded he identified himself and went in with them. They brought them in together, mother and son, unconscious.
The doctor who was looking them over was of Indian decent, about five eight, short dark wavy hair, and no facial hair. He had the soft features of a man in this early thirties, he also had very little accent.
He began examining Jan and looked up when Matt entered after washing outside. He stopped his examination and asked if he were her husband?
Matt answered, “Yes. What happened to them?”
The man, whose nametag said Dr. Arshad Singh, approached Matt with an inquiring mind. He was looking deeply into Matt’s eyes and he asked, “What do you do for a living, Mr. Holsinger?”
Matt stumbled for a second, as he always wanted to answer to his real name and profession. He replied, “I’m in sales.”
Still not satisfied, he asked, “What do you sell?”
Matt did not like these inquiries at all; it was just the thing he was on high alert for. “I sell electronics, why?”
“Because I believe that they have been exposed to a chemical agent or some other neurotoxin. I’m not the E.R. doctor, Matt. They called us off our rounds in the hospital. I’m a resident, but in my country, I was a neurosurgeon.”
Matt didn’t just come off the farm, and it was no hidden secret that even if you were a neurosurgeon in India, it translated to nothing in America without the credentials, but that didn’t mean the man was not a neurosurgeon. “You’re saying they were poisoned at the park?”
The doctor responded, “I have no idea where they were poisoned, if that’s what this is.”
Matt realized that he had just made himself a suspect and he needed to get this doctor to realize that he was not a suspect, he had no time for police interactions.
He made serious eye contact, “Please listen, Dr. Singh, I implore you, I know what the implications of what you just said mean, and you and I know that the cops will do their investigation into this.” He reaffirmed his eye contact and said, “From man to man, please don’t believe for a second that I had anything to do with this. It’s not like there is anywhere I can hide in the modern world. This is my family, we have no issues and I am not in any way culpable.” He looked at Jan and the boy—he’d been avoiding doing that—and started to cry.
Dr. Arshad Singh could read people like a book. He used everything from their breath to the eye contact they made in order to ferret out untruths. He knew that was easier if the person was under duress as people could not help but expose their true nature under duress without realizing they had a tell, just like in poker, his favorite game. He could see this man was not lying. “Okay, Mr. Holsinger, ignoring all the protocols and police procedures that will happen regardless around us, I believe you, and I am sorry this happened. I will make some calls and see how long it will be before we can get them back to Seattle. Once there, we can get them into a neurology department, as our community hospital does not have one.”
Matt thought about that and the atmosphere of Seattle hospitals right now and said, “No, you said you were a neurosurgeon and you’re a resident here. If what we’re dealing with is a neurotoxin, won’t most of your work be lab work anyway? I want them admitted under your care. With the madness going on in Seattle and most of the State, I want them with you until we can figure this out.”
“That’s a flattering suggestion, Mr. Holsinger, but we are not equipped to handle such cases and we would have to defer them to Northwest in the best of circumstances. It is hospital policy,“ he explained to Matt, as he could see for himself, their vitals were very strong, so transferring them would be no issue. Dr. Singh continued, “I have to make some calls and then we will have a plan. Please be patient as nothing is going to happen fast today.”
Matt was left alone with his thoughts, his paralyzed family lying comatose next to him and his parents missing. His head was swirling. Who did this? Why did they do this? Why not just kill me?
He thought back to Mexico and his target. If he could have just ended the man, then none of this would have happened to his family. If only he could have just become someone he was not, for the people who were using him. Then he would have been free.
What kind of skewed thinking was that anyway? He knew better. Once he pulled that trigger, then he no longer would have ever been free again. He buried his face in his hands for a while, then slid his chair between the two exam tables and stretched out to touch them both at the same time.
After almost an hour Dr. Singh came back in. “Tom, I’m sorry to tell you that the situation in Seattle is much worse than even the news has said. There is no way we will be transferring Jan and Jon there in the foreseeable future. I’m trying to arrange a medical-flight to San Francisco for them as we have the injured from the Southwest flight coming here. For now, we can go and have them admitted into a room, as you had wanted, but it will be a temporary situation. How far do you live from here?”
Matt answered, “Lummi Island, it’s about 45 minutes home,” less he thought as he had taken his boat over in the morning.”
“Then you should go home, pack, and be prepared to be gone for a while. Let’s get them moved into a room so you will know they’re safe until you get back.”
Matt thought about that. His mom and dad had not called him back yet and it had been another source of anxiety all day. He needed to pack a few things, but mostly he needed to find out what the heck was going on with them now as well. He replied, “Okay, I’ll go and be back in two hours. I need to get a hold of my parents anyway. Let’s hurry up and have them moved, please.”
Dr. Singh left, and Matt got up and caught the mirror. Since he was a teenager he had worn a stainless chain with a cross on it. Mostly it stayed inside his shirt, but in the tussle of the day it had come out and he saw it, and the elephant in the room bellowed a thunderous chord as there was a real possibility that God was smiting him.
He could have chosen to break off right now and write a book, hell, he could have written several: one on deep cover and long-term espionage tactics; one on how to survive combat and overcome fear; and one on God and how he communicates to us.
He had spent two years in the presence of a man who maintained he had been instructed by God to bring change to the world. He’d not only had the instruction but the means to carry it out. Of course, Matt stopped him and ever since then, all the signs appeared that he was supposed to take Pablo’s place as the Harbinger of Change.
For well over a year now he had been waiting to see what new sign was going to appear to get him to jumpstart this change, but there had been no directional signs on the road.
Then it actually happened. Robert turned out to be an agent of God, able to bring that kind of power. Yet he ran away. He was always running away these days. Did he have a more serious case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than he thought? He sure was afraid to face Chase and more afraid of where Robert wanted to go.
All of a sudden he couldn’t face his problems anymore. He pondered that. Some super spy he would have made, the pressure of this situation was enough to make him fold right now.
He had two people to call in this situation, and one of them was his dad—who wasn’t answering his phone. He pulled out his phone and dialed Ray Callahan. Ray had believed in him from the start and had put him back together after it was over. Well, as much as could be done with him. The phone rang and like everybody else this day, Ray’s phone went to voice mail. Just great.
He was about to nervously dial his dad again when Dr. Singh came back in with a team of orderlies and two rolling beds. The move took twenty minutes and Matt signed all the paperwork. His insurance was being paid for by the CIA for life, which of course, was a Godsend right now.
Dr. Singh did not attend the move, but a nurse practitioner oversaw the whole thing with a watchful eye. Matt kis
sed and blessed Jan and Jon, and then left the building on a near run.
He exited the main entrance but as he was heading to his car adjacent to the E.R., he saw personnel helping people off a charter bus coming from the flight. Dr. Singh had said they were on the way. Then Matt saw something that made his blood go cold. He could swear that he just saw a familiar face in the crowd.
He saw a man pushing an older woman in a wheelchair and they had just entered the Emergency door. The compulsion was too much and he broke for the E.R. at a full run. When he got there and went in, the woman in the chair was there but not the man who had been pushing her. He looked around and sure enough, it was Doug talking to the admitting nurse. It can’t be. His knees went weak and he almost fell over. This was all too much! What could this mean?
More people were being brought in, most in stable condition, some complaining of severe back pain. Doug left the attendant and came over and talked to the woman. Matt saw a door that led to the main hospital and went over to Doug and asked if he could talk to him out there for a second. Doug looked startled and asked, “What’s this about?”
Matt just placed his arm on Doug’s and said, “Please.”
He said, “Okay,” but with a look like he was about ready to call for security. By the time they got into the lobby of the hospital Doug was asking, “Do I know you?”
Matt didn’t have time for games, so he pulled his hunting cap off and said, “Doug, it’s me. Matt.”
His eyes got as big as quarters, and he quietly exclaimed, “No fucking way.”
“Way, Doug, and seeing you here creates a big problem, one I hadn’t thought of before and should have.” Matt quickly tried to catch his friend up.
Doug sat with a look less stunned than he should have had, “I knew you were alive, I just wondered when you were going to pop back in my life.”
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 17