Deadline (19 page)

Where had all those years gone? They
had flown by so quickly and he had missed so much of it because of
his career and his personal ambition. He felt that he had missed so
much of Megan’s life and growing up.

Now that they had been reunited, he
was afraid that she would be taken from him once again. This time
permanently. His eyes felt moist as he gazed down at his
daughter.

He felt a soft touch on his arm.
Standing next to him was a petite nurse dressed in green scrubs.
Her nametag read Sherry Andrews.

“
She is struggling with
her breathing and she is very weak, but her blood pressure is
good,” said the nurse. She had long flowing blonde hair and bright
hazel eyes that exhibited serenity and compassion. “She is holding
her own. We can only hope for the best.”

“
Megan always has been a
fighter,” said Braden. “But this time she is in the fight of her
life.”

“
Is she your
daughter?”

“
Yes,” replied Braden.
‘But it has been so long since I’ve seen her and now this happens.
Will she pull through?”

“
It’s out of our hands
now. We’ve done all we can medically. The rest is in God’s
hands.”

The nurse took Young over to a nearby
desk and introduced him to a young man garbed in a white coat, with
a stethoscope around his neck.

“
Hi, Mr. Young, I’m Dr.
Stephen Bristol, the ICU Resident. “I’ve been taking care of your
daughter. Megan is stable but in critical condition. She is
fortunate that a nearby boater was able to rescue her. But I’m
afraid she was in the water for some time and she ingested a
considerable amount of lake water. The young man who rescued her
provided CPR which kept her alive until the paramedics were able to
get to her.”

“
I’m most appreciative and
would like to get his name to personally thank him,” said
Braden.

“
We can certainly get you
his name from the lake rescue team,” said Bristol. “Now the next
few hours are going to be critical. We won’t know until she comes
out of the coma whether there is any significant brain damage. It
depends on how long she was deprived of oxygen.”

“
How long until she comes
out of the coma, doctor?”

“
It is hard to tell, Mr.
Young. It could be a few hours or days. The body needs to
regenerate. I’m afraid all we can do now is wait. I’ll be nearby in
the unit if you need me.” The doctor shook Young’s hand and moved
off to another area of the ICU.

Young pulled up a chair and sat beside
the bed. He reached out and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He
clasped Megan’s hand in his. He’d read somewhere that it helps to
talk to patients in a coma. He didn’t really know whether it would
do any good, but it couldn‘t hurt.

Braden began to recite one of Megan’s
favorite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty. He’d read it to her so many
times when she was a youngster that he still knew it by
heart.

Megan was his sleeping beauty. But no
prince was going to come along to awaken her with a
kiss.

All we can do is wait, he
decided.

Chapter 56

On the streets of Etobicoke
7:50 PM

TIME IS running out.

That thought ran through Detective
Sergeant Peter Moon’s head as he and CID officer Brian Savage drove
through a metro Toronto suburb in Etobicoke.

Savage was driving while Moon
scratched another name off the list. It was Enzo Lombardi, a
cleaner who was safely at home with his wife and three kids. He was
hardly a candidate to be the Wolfman.

They had been to seven employees’
homes. No signs of Katie Cannon or the Wolfman.

“
This is like looking for
a needle in a haystack,” said Moon.

Nibbling on the end of the Fisher
ballpoint pen, he checked the list of employee names. “Who is next
up? Let’s see, it’s a security guard, named Ian McDonald. He lives
in Mississauga, on Cawthra Road.”

“
Christ, that’s right
across the city, it’ll take us at least a half-hour to get there,
snapped Savage. “This list is proving to be a grand tour of the
Greater Toronto Area.”

“
Quit your bitching,
Brian. It’s our only lead on the Wolfman. We have to check it out.
The sooner we get through this list, the better. A woman’s life is
at stake here. Head for the 401, it’ll be quicker this time of
night.”

Moon punched the address into the
vehicle’s Tom Tom GPS navigator seeking the fastest way to Ian
McDonald’s house on Cawthra Road.

“
Right boss, let’s hope
this is the right guy. We can finally cage the Wolfman and all go
home.”

“
I only hope we’re in time
to save Katie Cannon.”

Moon was not certain time was on their
side.

Chapter 57

Peshawar, Pakistan 6
AM

THE TEEMING city of Peshawar was
starting to come alive.

Trevor Trevanian sat quietly in the
back of the black Russian Zil, driven by an ISI agent. He could see
the sun slowly start to rise on the eastern horizon over the white
minarets of the many mosques in the city. The call to early Morning
Prayer wailed across the sleeping city, slowly awakening the
populace.

Peshawar is the provincial capital of
the Northwest Frontier and the Tribal Areas. Peshawar literally
means City on the Frontier. It is the commercial, economic,
political and cultural capital of the Pashtuns in
Pakistan.

This city of more than 1.2 million
people is 99 percent Muslim, with numerous white marble mosques
dotting the landscape. Trevanian saw the vehicle pass by the
Mohabbat Khan Mosque and the Qasim Alik Khan Mosque.

Trevanian later noticed other
landmarks in Peshawar, such as the Bara Bridge, the campus of the
University of Peshawar and the Governor’s House as they drove by.
Traffic was light at this time of the morning and they made good
time.

Within minutes, the vehicle was in the
centre of the city and pulled up in front of a large, grey
building. The walls were stained with graffiti in a foreign
language. Trevanian presumed it was Pashto.

“
Sir, your destination,”
said the ISI driver-agent. “The Associated Press office is located
on the second floor.”

“
Thanks,” said
Trevanian.

He felt no particular animosity to
this ISI agent. He was just thankful to be free of their clutches.
He picked up his Mac Powerbook and digital recorder that had been
returned to him by Major Patel. He was sure the ISI had been
checking out the data. He only hoped they hadn’t erased key
passages.

As the Zil sped off, leaving him at
the curb. Trevanian looked down the nearly deserted street and saw
a nearby hotel. The sign said Pearl Continental Hotel.

What he wouldn’t give for a room right
now. A hot shower and a few hours sleep on a real bed in crisp,
clean white sheets. He had been on the go now for almost 19 hours
without any serious sleep. He felt exhausted, with every bone in
his body aching. But a hotel room would have to wait.

He was on deadline. Trevanian needed
to file this story within the next two or three hours if he was
going to make tomorrow’s edition of the Daily Express.

The Osama bin Laden interview would
reverberate in corridors of power around the world. First, it was
proof the terrorist mastermind was still alive. Second, it showed
bin Laden and his al-Qaida buddies are still a potential threat to
the West.

Trevanian entered the building and
made his was up a stairway to the second floor. He entered a suite
of offices with Associated Press stamped on the glass.

The office was almost deserted with
only a couple of newsmen on duty. One man sat at a computer monitor
writing. Another was checking the news Teletype for breaking
news.

Trevanian quickly identified himself
as a Canadian journalist and said he had an important story to
write and file. Ali Khan, the man seated at the computer, warmly
welcomed him. He ushered Trevanian to a nearby
workstation.

Khan asked: “Would you like some
coffee?”

“
That would be a
lifesaver,” replied Trevanian. “I’m going to need plenty of
caffeine in the next couple of hours.”

Khan brought over a mug of hot,
steaming Java and set it on Trevanian’s desk. “You need anything
else, just let us know.”

Trevanian started to work. He
organized his material. He plugged in his laptop. He listened to
some of the recorded interview.

Then he started hitting the laptop
keys furiously. He was glad to be a journalist again. The writing
juices started to flow.

Chapter 58

Toronto General Hospital
8:15 PM

BRADEN YOUNG had been at the hospital
for about an hour. He finished the Sleeping Beauty tale and then
continued on with another favorite fairy tale of Megan’s,
Rapunzel.

Throughout the storytelling, Megan
continued to just lie there at peace, breathing gently with the aid
of machines. The continuous sounds of the ventilator and the IV
pump provided background accompaniment.

“
Oh, Megan. What have you
done? Why? You have your whole life ahead of you,” said Braden as
if Megan could hear him. “You have so much to live for. That dirt
bag is not worth taking your own life”

He felt so powerless. With one phone
call he could get the most powerful man on Earth to solve a problem
faced by one of his reporters halfway around the world. But here
was his own daughter, her life in the balance. He was helpless. And
he could do nothing except hope and pray.

Braden Young was not a religious man,
but he silently called upon whatever higher power there may be to
spare his daughter’s life and bring her back to him. He promised he
would change if only she could live.

Braden suddenly felt a terrible
thirst. He went over to nearby water cooler. He filled one of the
small paper cups and began to sip the cool water.

Suddenly there was a choking sound
behind him. He turned toward the bed and was amazed at what he saw.
Megan was moving. Her eyes were open and she was choking on the
tubes sticking out of her mouth.

“
Megan, honey! You’re
awake,” he said excitedly.

Braden ran to the nurse’s station
where Sherry Andrews was seated in front of a bank of beeping
monitors.

“
It’s Megan, she’s awake!”
he shouted. “Please, she needs help!”

Sherry Andrews immediately paged Dr.
Bristol. Then she ran to Megan’s bedside.

“
There, there, dear,” she
said soothingly to Megan stroking her arm. “Stay calm and breathe
normally. You have some tubes down your throat. The doctor will be
here shortly.”

Within minutes, Dr. Bristol joined
them at the bedside. He checked Megan’s pupils with a light and
they were reactive.

“
She’s out of the coma. We
need to get her off that ventilator.”

He removed the tubes, switched off the
ventilator but left the IV pump running.

“
Is she going to be okay,
doctor?” asked Braden.

Dr. Bristol turned to Braden. “I think
so, Mr. Young. She’s breathing on her own now but it may take a few
hours to see if there is any brain damage and any physical or
mental impairments. Right now she is out of danger. Things are
looking good because the coma was so short. She just needs to
rest.”

As Dr. Bristol left to see other
patients, Braden moved to the bed and gently hugged his
daughter.

“
Megan, sweetie. Welcome
back! You’ve given me such a scare, honey. Promise me you’ll never
do anything like that again.”

“
Oh, daddy” Megan rasped,
her throat feeling raw from the tubes that had been down there.
“I’m so glad to see you. I’m so sorry for being so
stupid.”

“
Now now, don’t worry
about that, baby. Your phone message scared the hell out of me. I
was afraid you were going to do something silly because of that
jerk. Believe me, sweetie, he isn’t worth it.”

Megan reached out to her father. She
wrapped her arms tightly around him. She hugged for dear life.
Braden responded and for several moments they just hugged. He had
his little girl back.

Braden realized she meant more to him
than anything else, including his precious newspaper career. He
thought of the years that had been lost. Forget that, the future
starts now.

“
Daddy, I did something
very stupid. I was on the island and all I could think about was
the pain of losing Dennis. I wanted to end it. I nearly did. As I
walked into the water, the cold shock brought me to my senses. I
wanted to live, but I was out of my depth and I can’t swim. I
couldn’t stay afloat. It was a horrible feeling as I started to
swallow water. I couldn’t breathe.

“
Thank God there was a
boater nearby who saved you, Megan. You were a very lucky
girl.”

“
I realize that Daddy. I
also realize Dennis isn’t worth dying for. He’ll never change. I
know that now and I want to get on with my life.”