The Senator: A Blake Jordan Thriller (23 page)

As I held onto my dad, I noticed movement down the road. The FBI had arrived. I figured that either Jami called Morgan on her way over or they just tracked her to the Palos Park home. Several vehicles drove up to the driveway and agents stepped out and began to move in our direction.

“You did it, Blake,” my dad said, still holding me tightly. “You saved Jim.” For a moment, I felt relieved. This was finally over. My dad wouldn’t let go of me and I started to laugh at the bear hug he was giving.

I moved my head so I could see past him. Jami had stopped to tell the agents that Keller was inside the house. She turned around and began walking toward us again as even more vehicles started to arrive and parked down the street. The FBI was setting up a perimeter to secure the area. Red and blue lights flashed and reflected on the woods that surrounded us and on the faces of the agents arriving at the scene.

That’s when I noticed it.

I looked down and saw Maribel staring right at me. A cold chill ran through my body.
Is she still alive?

Before I could react, a faint smile came across her face and she lifted her hand that was clenching the gun.

“No!” I yelled as I realized what was happening. I saw my Glock laying on the ground next to me. I tried to move my father out of the way, but he was holding onto me so tightly that I wasn’t able to react fast enough. In that moment, time seemed to slow down. I had never felt so helpless in my life.

I felt my father’s body jump from the impact of the bullet.

Immediately, Jami unloaded into Maribel and I watched her body become lifeless and let go of the gun.

My dad’s grip on me loosened. I held onto him and laid him on the ground as gently as I could.

“I need a medic! I need help!” I shouted and agents headed our way.

“Blake, it’s okay.”

“No, I’m not going to lose you, too…”

“Get help for Jim. Keep him safe, protect him. Will you do that for me, son?”

“Medic!” I yelled again, keeping my hands on my dad’s shoulders as I saw his eyes start to tear up. An agent ran over to me as others approached the house, guns drawn, not knowing what to expect inside.

“The house is clear,” Jami said and a moment later, they were bringing the senator out. He was on his feet and had his arms draped around two agents who were helping him walk. The agent kneeling next to me looked my dad over and radioed to dispatch that they had two men ready for immediate transport.

“Make that three – he’s been stabbed and needs to get to a hospital,” Jami said with a hand on my back.

“Ben? My God…” the senator said when he got close to us. My dad looked up to his friend and smiled.

“Hell of a boy I have here…”

As the ambulance raced down the road, I heard the warble of the siren and the voice of the medic start to become distorted. Then I heard a high-pitched ringing in my ears. My body was giving up on me. The sharp pain from where I was stabbed began hurt again. It was excruciating. I looked over to my dad as my vision started to fade away. I fought to stay conscious as long as I could, but I was too weak. I blacked out.

When I woke up, I found myself in a hospital bed. I lifted my right hand and read Palos Community Hospital on the armband. I had forgotten that there was a hospital just minutes from Maribel’s house.

The room was dark and the only light was coming from the hallway that was buzzing with nurses and doctors walking past my room. I looked over to my left and saw Jami. She was curled up in a chair next to me, sound asleep. I grabbed the remote latched onto the bed and turned on the TV to get up to speed.

A banner slowly scrolled across one of the news stations.
Senator Keller in stable condition
, it read. Live video from a news chopper was being broadcast and a spotlight lit up Maribel’s front yard where I had been just a short time earlier. The media was getting their bloody show.

Pictures of Marco and Maribel were shown on the TV screen and I turned the volume down to try to keep Jami from waking up. The corner of the screen displayed the time: 9:32 PM. I thought back to the last few minutes that I could recall. I remembered getting into the ambulance with my father and the senator. I remembered feeling like I was going to black out, then I woke up here.

My father!
I thought, snapping out of it as the fog started to lift. I needed to know if he was okay.

I lifted my left wrist and saw an IV attached to me. I followed the line up to two bags. One of them was a pain medication, the other was for rehydration. I pulled the tape off of my arm and yanked out the line.

Jami stirred and I stayed still for a few seconds before pulling the bedsheet off and sitting up. The bed squeaked as I got to my feet and Jami woke up.

“Blake, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to find my dad.”

“Ben’s in surgery,” Jami said as she stood up to stop me from leaving the hospital room. A nurse walked in, followed by an FBI agent that I guessed had been standing just outside of the doorway.

“Agent Jordan, you need to lay back down on the bed, we need to treat that wound so it can heal.”

“
Mr.
Jordan,” I said, correcting the nurse, and Jami gave me a look. “How is my dad?”

“He’s been in surgery for almost two hours now. I’ll send the doctor in as soon as I can.” She reattached the IV, taping it back to my arm. “Stay here and rest. I’ll check back in a little while.”

The agent walked back outside and Jami walked over to the window. She said that she could see reporters and news vans in the parking lot and thought it would only get worse throughout the night.

“Is Keller here? Is that why the media is here?”

“Not anymore,” Jami explained. “He was for a short time before the Secret Service had him transferred.”

“So they’re involved now…”

“Yes, they’ve got him. The FBI will be handling the rest of the investigation.” Jami closed the blinds and got closer to me, pulling a chair near the bed and sitting down.

“Did you find Derek?” I asked.

“They found him a little while ago, he’s fine,” she said. “I’m glad you’re okay, Blake. You had me worried.” A moment later, the doctor walked in carrying a clipboard and had a seat next to Jami to talk with me.

The doctor let me know that my father was out of surgery. He said that they did the best they could and he had a good shot at making it through. I thanked him, shook his hand, and let him know that as soon as I was released, I’d be at his side, so he’d be seeing a lot of me in the next few days.

A week later, they discharged me. I spent my mornings trying to sort out my life. DDC and the FBI ordered me to come in and participate in several debriefs. I had to explain and document every action that I took while trying to recover the senator.

They officially relieved me of my duties and gave me an hour to clean out my desk after the last debrief.

I found a picture of Maria while packing my stuff and I sat in my chair and stared at it for a long time. I thought I had put all of her pictures away. After she died, they were a constant reminder of what I had lost. I had forgotten about this one and remembered stuffing it in a drawer when I had returned to work.

I sat in that chair for a long time. Years of training and service to my country and this is how I was being treated. I thought about my mother and how I had missed her funeral when stationed overseas. I lost her, lost Maria, and now I was losing my job while not knowing if I would lose my dad, too.

Chris Reed stopped by and the conversation helped me get my thoughts straight. He told me that they had let him go, too, as soon as they found a permanent special agent in charge. Turning a blind eye to what I was doing didn’t go over too well with Shapiro and ended up being his downfall. Shapiro decided to bring in new leadership to DDC, starting at the top of the house. We shook hands and I thanked him for his support. I promised that if I landed somewhere, I’d give him a call and he said that he’d do the same.

On my way out, I ran into Morgan Lennox. I learned that Landry and Shapiro worked it out so that Morgan could keep his job if he agreed to spend the next several weeks at the FBI’s Chicago field office reviewing their security. “Better to dance with the devil you know than the one you don’t know,” I said and Morgan laughed. He said that Landry wanted him to work for him, but Shapiro wouldn’t let that happen.

I spent every night at my dad’s bedside. Jami visited often. She had been allowed to keep her job along with Morgan. Shapiro didn’t seem to have a problem with her. It was me he was after. I was his scapegoat.

She brought us dinner and we ate together, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. She asked if I was okay with her keeping her job at DDC and I assured her that it was fine. She felt guilty, which I understood, but I told her that I was the one that broke protocol. She didn’t know that in the debriefs and my written statements, I had explained that every decision was mine and as the special agent in charge, I had ordered Jami to help me get Jim Keller back, completely absolving her of any wrongdoing.

The truth was that Jami helped on her own accord. Because she believed in me and in what I was doing. And because maybe there was something more developing between us. I felt it. I thought she felt it, too.

We spent the next few days together at my father’s side. Every night at seven o’clock, Jami would walk in with dinner and we’d catch up and spend time with him. My dad asked who she was when he started to become more lucid. I introduced him to Jami and my dad joked that I should be taking her out on a date and eating in a restaurant, not having dinner while stuck in a hospital room with an old man like himself.

Friends of his also stopped by to check on him and offer their support. I’d introduce late-night visitors to Jami and my dad’s friends would tell her that they were so glad to see me moving on. I didn’t correct them. Neither did Jami. The doctors started visiting more often, too. They started to worry about his circulation, even though he seemed to be making a full recovery. He brushed the doctors off. We all did.

A week later, Jami and I got our date. I put on my sports jacket as soon as I parked my truck and straightened my tie using the reflection in the window just as Jami parked in the spot next to me. She wore a beautiful black dress with matching black shoes. I jogged over to help her out of the car.

We navigated many puddles in the parking lot from an early morning shower. “I can’t believe how far back we had to park,” Jami said as we finally got to the entrance to the church. Two Secret Service agents stood by the door and I saw another around back walking the perimeter of the building. I knew Keller was here.

I hadn’t seen the inside of a church since I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma. I didn’t remember ever seeing this many people inside of one, either. Once inside, Jami and I weaved our way through the many people standing in the back and down the aisles talking with others who were seated. Many shook my hand. Others nodded in my direction. I saw another Secret Service agent inside, leaning against the wall.

We made our way to the front where Senator Keller and his wife Margaret were saving two seats for us. Jami insisted on letting me in first. I introduced her to the senator and his wife who were happy to see us.

“How are you holding up?” the senator asked as he shook my hand.

“I’m doing okay.”

“You’ve got to stop lying to me,” he said as he pointed at me and smiled.

“I’ve lost everything. I’ve failed in so many ways,” I said, feeling overwhelmed and defeated.

“Blake, stop – you saved my life, didn’t you?”

I felt myself start to choke up. My dad was all I had left. If only I had been more careful, I might have been able to save his life, too. I could have taken the gun from Maribel.
I should have done more
, I thought.

“Blake,” the senator said and I became present again. “Take a look around. Look at all of the lives that your father impacted. Have you ever seen a church filled with so many people? There aren’t even enough seats for all of them,” he said and we shared a laugh as I turned and looked around the room, listening to the people talking with each other, saying how they knew my dad and sharing stories about his life with each other.

“Ben was a good man. You’re a good man, too, Blake,” Keller said. “I want you to remember something. Don’t strive for success…”

“Strive for significance,” I said, interrupting the senator and finishing his sentence.

“That’s right,” he said as I realized that my father had spoken those same words to me so many times before and I had never really given them much thought.

I could feel his presence from the many people who had shown up to honor him. I looked at the American flag draped across my father’s casket and noticed three members of the honor guard seated to my right, two of them prepared to fold the flag after the service and present it to me while the third would play taps.

As the pastor walked in, he asked those of us who were seated to stand so he could offer a prayer.

We all stood, closed our eyes, and bowed our heads. I felt Keller put his arm around me and rested it on my shoulder. Jami stood to my left and grabbed my hand. Our fingers interlocked and she squeezed it tightly.

“Everything will be okay, Blake. You’ll see,” the senator said as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

I never heard the words the pastor spoke. I was lost in thought, thinking about my father’s words.

I was ready for a new start. A new challenge. I was ready to live a life where I would strive for significance.