Don't Blink (3 page)

What are you doing now?

Don’t leave me, buddy
.

ALAN DOVE BENEATH the steering wheel, the lug wrench held like a baton in one hand, his running shoe in the other.

I tried to see what he was doing. Of course, what I should’ve been doing was paying attention to what he asked me to do — hold the wheel steady.

Oh, shit! Look out! Look out!

The Jeep suddenly swerved, the two left tires leaping a foot off the ground and nearly flipping us over. I could hear Alan’s head slam against the driver’s-side door as I struggled to straighten the wheel.
Ouch!

“Sorry, Alan!” I shouted. “You okay?”

“Yeah, but throw me some light down here. I dropped the damn wrench.”

“Sorry, man.”

“No, you’re doing fine. Just hold that steering wheel steady!”

I flipped the flashlight back on for him. The wrench had fallen behind the brake pedal. With his right foot still on the gas, Alan scooped up the tool and shoved it into his shoe. I still had no idea what he was doing.

Then it hit me.

Alan was weighing down the gas pedal, wasn’t he?

Sure enough, as I traded glances between him and the road, I saw Alan replace his foot with his weighted-down shoe. Using the laces like stitches, he looped them around the pedal, quickly tying them tight as he could under the circumstances.

Just as fast he came back up and yanked the belt from his pants, securing the steering wheel to a steel rod beneath his seat.

We were officially on cruise control.

Now what?

Only I didn’t really need to ask that question and get an answer. I just didn’t want to believe what was happening.

“Are you ready?” Alan asked. “You better be. We’re out of here!”

“You’re kidding me!”

“No, I’m dead serious. You see that boulder up ahead on the right? There’s an embankment right after it,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“I was a Boy Scout, Nick. Always prepared. All we have to do is tuck and roll and they’ll never see us! Trust me.”

I aimed the flashlight at the speedometer. We were pushing the needle at eighty miles an hour.
What’s that, doc? Tuck and roll?

But there was no time to discuss or argue; that boulder
and the embankment were a few seconds away. With another bullet whizzing by us, I took a deep breath and told Alan all he needed to hear.

“Fuckin’ A, let’s do it!”

I grabbed my knapsack and turned to grab the roll bar.
Ping!
went another bullet. And another:
Ping!
And then dozens of
pop
s and
ping
s.

Gnashing my teeth to build my nerve, I could taste the swirling dirt deep in my mouth. In my four years at North-western as a journalism major, not once did I take a class called Tuck and Roll. Wish I had. Would have been much more useful than some of the things I learned about grammar and ethics.

Geronimo!

I jumped into the darkness, then slammed into the soil. Only it didn’t feel like soil. It felt like concrete, the pain shooting through my body like an exploding bomb.

I wanted to scream.
Don’t scream, Nick! They’ll hear you!

So much for my tucking skills. As for the rolling, I immediately had that down pat — as in, down and down and down the embankment. When I finally stopped, dizzy to the point of vomiting, I turned and looked up.

Continuing in hot pursuit of our Jeep was another Jeep of trigger-happy Janjaweed, surely thinking that they were closer than ever to killing a couple of troublemaking Americans. They’d catch on soon enough — maybe another mile or two — but by then Alan and I would be like two needles in a haystack in the dead of night. They’d never find us. At least I hoped that was the case.

“You okay?” came Alan’s voice. He was maybe ten feet away from me.

“Yeah,” I said. “You?” “Never better, man.”

I saw a familiar glow coming from Alan’s hand. It was an iridium satellite phone. I had the same one somewhere on me.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“Domino’s Pizza,” he joked. “You like pepperoni?”

I laughed. Never did a laugh feel so good.

“No, I’m calling for backup,” he said. “It’s time you and I got the hell out of Dodge. A dead surgeon and reporter won’t do much for world peace and all that good stuff we care so much about, huh, Nick?”

BRUISED, BATTERED, BANGED UP — but most important,
alive
— Alan and I were airlifted at daybreak by a UN World Food Programme plane to Khartoum. The good doctor decided he’d stay a few more days there in the Sudanese capital to help out at another hospital. What a guy — and I sincerely mean that.

“You’re welcome to come with me,” he offered, half joking. “I need a muse.”

I smiled. “Nah, I think I’ve had enough wilderness adventure for a while. I think I have more than enough good material to write my article, Alan.”

“Don’t make me out as a hero,” he warned. “I’m not.”

“I just write what I see, Alan. If that sounds heroic to some people, so be it.”

With that, I thanked him for the twentieth time for saving my life.
“Salaam alaikum,”
I added.

He shook my hand. “And peace upon you,” he replied.

Too bad that wouldn’t be the case, though. Nosiree.

By that afternoon, I was on a four-hour flight over the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to the United Arab Emirates and the city of Dubai, home of the world’s first cloned camel. The place is surreal, if you’ve never been. If you have, you know what I’m talking about. A few years back, I spent a week there visiting all its “tourist attractions” for a piece I called “Disneyland on Drugs.” Needless to say, the Dubai tourism board wasn’t too keen on the title, but what did they expect? Their take on Space Mountain is an actual
indoor
ski mountain, Ski Dubai. Then there’s the man-made archipel-ago of three hundred islands created in the shape of a world map stretching thirty-five miles wide. It’s a small world after all, indeed.

But I was only passing through this time. In fact, after a quick nap at the adjacent Dubai International Hotel — by far the cleanest place you’ll ever stay that charges by the hour — I was back on a plane en route to Paris to interview one of the European directors of the Humanitarian Relief Corps, my final bit of research for the article I was writing.

At least, I
thought
I was on my way to Paris.

While I was literally on line to board the flight, I felt the vibration of my iridium phone. My editor, Courtney, was calling from New York.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Alive,” I answered. It was definitely the word of the day. I quickly told her the story of my Mad Max escape from the Janjaweed militia. She almost couldn’t believe it. Hell, I still couldn’t either.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “You sound a little nonplussed — for you.”

“All things considered, yes, I’m fine. I even learned something very important — I’m mortal. I’m really, really mortal.”

“So where are you off to now?”

“Paris,” I said.

“Paris?”

“Oui.”

“Je crois que non,”
said Courtney.

Now, I only had one year of French back at St. Patrick’s High School in Newburgh, New York, but I was pretty sure she’d just said, “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” I asked.

It was a good question — timely, too, because I was only two people away from handing over my boarding pass and heading to Paris, which is probably my favorite city in the world. Except for the people, of course. Not all of them — just the snots.

“You need to come home,” said Courtney.

“Why? What’s up?”

“Something good, Nick. Something
really
good. You’re going to love this one.”

That was enough to get me to take a half step out of line. Courtney Sheppard had a few notable vices, but hyperbole wasn’t one of them.

“Okay,” I said. “So blow me away.”

And sure enough, that’s exactly what Courtney did. She almost knocked me right out of my shoes.

LET ME TIP my hand here — I know it’s semiridiculous, but I am a huge baseball fan, have been since I was a little kid back in the Hudson Valley, throwing apples at tree trunks for practice.

To continue with the narrative, though. I cupped the phone tight against my ear trying to hear every word as best I could. The airport was absolutely swarming, with most of the noise coming from the next gate over, where there were a hundred men gathered, all with neatly trimmed black beards and crisp white flowing robes, otherwise known as dishdashas.

Then there was me.

A shock of sandy-brown hair on top of my six-foot-one frame dressed in a faded pair of jeans and an even more faded polo shirt. I couldn’t stand out more if I were Gene Simmons wearing full Kiss makeup and reading the Koran out loud.

Courtney drew a deep breath. “You remember Dwayne Robinson?” she asked. Of course I did and she knew it.

“You mean, the same Dwayne Robinson who cost the Yankees —
my
Yankees — the World Series? That crazy bastard? That total enigma?”

“Ten years ago and you still hold a nasty grudge? You are
nuts
about baseball, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. It could be a hundred years and I’d still never forget … or forgive.” I bristled.

What can I say
?
I’ve been a die-hard fan of the Bronx Bombers ever since my father drove us down from Newburgh and took me to my first game when I was five. We sat in the upper deck, about three miles from the field, but I didn’t care. Ever since then I’ve just about bled Yankee pinstripes. And yes, I know it’s nuts.

“On second thought, maybe this is a bad idea,” said Courtney. “Go to Paris, Nick.”

“What do you mean by that? What are you getting at? Why are you pushing me off to Paris now?”

She milked it for a few seconds. “He wants to do an interview with you.”

I had this bizarre feeling that that’s what she was going to say, but I was still surprised to hear it. Very surprised. Dwayne Robinson had been the J. D. Salinger of the baseball world ever since he got banned from the game in spectacular fashion. His last statement to the working press was “I’ll never talk to any of you again.” For the past decade, he’d been true to his word.

Lucky for me, things change. This was huge. This would be the story of my career so far. It was also a dream come true.

“Courtney, you miracle worker, how’d you get him to agree to an interview?” I asked.

“I wish I could take some of the credit,” she said. “Instead I just answered the phone. I got a call from Robinson’s agent yesterday.”

“The guy still has an agent? That’s amazing in itself.”

“I know, go figure. Maybe they’re hoping he’ll be rein-stated. Maybe that’s it, what he wants to talk to you about.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I said. “He’s well into his thirties by now. Hasn’t pitched in years.”

“Still, that would explain his wanting to do the interview, right? He comes clean, sets the story straight … It would be his first step toward a comeback,” she said. “Maybe not on the mound, but at least in the public eye, his legacy.”

“Yeah, so far it’s worked wonders for Pete Rose,” I joked. “Still, if that’s the case, wouldn’t he do a television interview?”

The words were barely out of my mouth when I had the answer. Dwayne Robinson, the “Great Black Hope from Harlem” and onetime ace southpaw of the Yankees pitching staff, suffered from, among many things, acute social anxiety disorder. Although he could take the mound and pitch brilliantly before fifty-five thousand screaming fans, he could barely carry on a conversation one-on-one. Especially in front of a camera.

“I forgot one thing,” I said. “The guy was like a walking advertisement for Paxil.”

“Bingo,” said Courtney. “In fact, Robinson’s agent told me that he’s afraid his client might change his mind. That’s why he’s already set up a lunch for you two, Nick. You and Dwayne, Dwayne and you. Cozy, huh?”

“When?” I asked, beginning to get more than a little excited about this.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Lombardo’s, twelve thirty.”

“Courtney,
I’m in Dubai
.”

“Hopefully not for long, Nick. You have an important lunch tomorrow. In New York.”

As if on cue the gate attendant approached me. He looked just like Niles Crane from the show
Frasier
. Weird. “Excuse me, sir, will you be joining us to Paris?” he asked with a slight smirk. “The gate is closing right now.”

I looked around. Everyone was on the plane already. Everyone but me, that is.

“Nick, are you there?” asked Courtney. “I need to know if you can do this. Tell me you’re in.”

Now it was my turn to milk it for a few seconds.

“Nick? Nick? Are you there? Nick? Damn you — stop playing silly games.”

“Oh, I’m in,” I said finally. “I’m in.”

Way over my head, as I’d find out
.

“I never had a doubt,” said Courtney. “You bleed Yankee pinstripes, isn’t that right, Nick?”

TWO FLIGHTS, eight time zones, and twenty exceedingly long hours later, I was finally wheels down at JFK at a little before eleven the next morning. Walking off the plane I felt like a zombie. I probably looked and smelled like one, too.

There was only one message waiting for me as I ditched the satellite phone for my iPhone. It was Courtney, of course.

“Lombardo’s. Twelve thirty,” she reminded me. “And don’t be late! This is the big one, Nick. You’ll probably get a book deal out of it. And a film. So don’t blow it, guy.”

Thanks, boss
…

There are a couple of things I think you need to know about Courtney Sheppard at this point. First, at the relatively young age of thirty-four, she’s the editor in chief of
Citizen
magazine — the same magazine that in only two short years of existence has defied the odds and done what so many other upstarts will never do.
Turn a profit
.

On the heels of editor stints at both
Vanity Fair
and
The Atlantic
, Courtney made a formula for success at
Citizen
by taking those two magazines’ seemingly divergent sensibilities and combining them into one. Smart move. But then again, she’s a smart woman.