The Terminals (23 page)

Beside Volt, Handso emerged. He didn't bend, but looked down from his full height. His face was more heavily bandaged than the last time I'd seen him; I couldn't believe he had been willing to come out again. Rancor had left deeper wounds. His lip curled in a snarl, and I wondered if it had always been there, hidden by the fat moustache, or if this was new.

“Sorry about your face,” I said.

He brought his hand to it, and the hand was bandaged as well.

“See, we didn't need you,” he said.

I was too sick to register my confusion.

“You should be at home,” Volt ordered Handso. The initial camaraderie they had shared was absent, and Volt shifted uncomfortably around the officer.

“I'm not part of the FBI, Volt, and need I remind you that I brought you here?”

“Funny how I got your flash of inspiration two hours after I received a call from the colonel,” Volt said.

“Is this him?” A man joined the others but remained outside my field of vision. “She alive?” I couldn't see myself, but could only imagine how I looked. “Why isn't this woman in an ambulance?”

Just then I heard the helicopter beat down to land nearby. Volt's gaze jerked toward it.

“Thank you,” the other man said. His back was to me, but he pumped Handso's hand like a jackhammer. “My daughter is in there.”

“Governor Jian,” Handso greeted.

Jian kept glancing up to the top of the tower from where the packages descended. The last one had landed without a cheer. The Iowa governor's suit was no longer crisp, and worry had carved hollows beneath eyes now burning with fear. I was confused as to why he fussed over Handso.

Another bundle dropped.

“Alive!” A cheer.

“Ming!” Jian turned toward the paramedic and dropped to his knees. Without looking back, without taking his eyes off the thin girl propped forward by the paramedic, he spoke: “If you ever need anything, Lieutenant Handso. Just say the word. Anything.”

“Well, Agent Volt here keeps talking about his retirement …” Handso said, but Jian had leapt forward to gather his daughter into his arms.

Handso's face twisted and he looked at me. “I think I'll save that
I owe you
for a rainy day.”

Then I was sliding across the rough concrete and being carried bodily to lie again on the helicopter floor. Other children were being offloaded, all limp and listless. I took their place, still confused.

“She's my passenger,” I heard Sabo scream, but it was from the radio and not the pilot seat.

“She goes with you and she won't make it. And she'll die on the drive to the hospital—we have the antidote. It's not your choice.” The screeching voice resounded again.

I began to sense that I was being kidnapped.

Chapter 37

I came to in the
helicopter, but it wasn't Sabo's. Smaller. I shivered, lying not on a gurney but the fuselage. The cold metal pressed against my legs. Dimly, I wondered why my pants were off, but I had no time to ask, as a microphone was thrust beneath my nose, and I blinked under the glare of a news camera lamp.

When I tried to bring my hand up to swat the microphone away, I found an IV plugged into my forearm.

Leica Takers loomed over me, holding both camera and microphone. I looked up at the IV bag.

“Don't worry, it's not drugs. Vitamins,” Leica said. “Your buddy told me you overdosed on Coumadin. Vitamin K is the antidote.”

Attila
, I groaned—I'd told him to give Takers the tip and she had come through. “Antidote? How'd he—” Then I remembered Deeth on the way out, asking Attila for a word. I shuddered uncontrollably and suspected I was going into shock. “I gave you the story, why are you torturing me?”

“I left my crew behind to take care of one story.” Leica hunched down, bringing the camera with her. “Five of the kids were dead. Everyone else is critical.”

“Six,” I said, the light swimming. “Six made it.”

“Huh?” She shrugged the camera. “Didn't take you for an optimist, but, yeah, six might make it.”

“You said
one
story?” I was confused as to why she wasn't back at the story sure to generate national headlines.

“Anyone can cover that shit,” she said. “I want to know why you OD'd.” Her voice dropped, just barely audible over the chop of rotors. “I want to know how you knew where the kids were.”

“Handso knew.” But even my dulled wit had figured out that Leica had tipped him off, and then Handso, the governor.

“Right.” She laughed. “But I know how he knew. How did
you
figure it out?”

My head thundered with a headache, and I could barely shift it from side to side, let alone lift it. I didn't think I had the strength to lie to a professional reporter. Under her piercing eyes and feeling the white heat of the camera's light, I had the good sense to feign passing out.

Leica swore and the light, which made my eyelids shine red, went dark.

“Fucking hell,” she said. “What's the ETA on New York?” I listened as she spoke with the pilot, unable to hear his answers. “Tell them we're bringing her in, they'll let us land if they know who we've got … I want a chance to look around the place.”

I tried to determine if I cared and couldn't decide. I'd done something good today. Six kids. Half good. Although letting Hillar reincarnate had to count against me somehow. I wondered at that thought, almost opening my eyes in surprise. With the end of the mission, notwithstanding its dubious success, I had to admit that something was going on in the upper floor of the Veteran's Hospital. That Attila had reached Charlie and that Charlie had somehow probed inside Hillar's head was difficult to dispute. Whether the reality lay within the laws of physics wasn't something I might ever be able to determine. But the reality was,
the reality was
—Attila talked to the dead, the dead talked back, and the dead even talked to one another. Which brought me to deeper questions that hurt my head to think about. Could I agree that some form of afterlife existed? Did I really believe that Hillar would reincarnate?

“What'd you say?”

My eyelids blazed red again. I must have been thinking aloud.

“What's this about reincarnating?” Leica's voice wasn't full of disbelief or confusion, rather interest. “What's the name of your military unit, Colonel?”

Her fingertips pried my eyelids apart, and she swore again.

“Gives new meaning to bloodshot,” she muttered, and my wrist lifted as she checked my pulse and a heavy blanket draped over me. “You better hustle her there before we lose our reason to land. I don't think they grant priority to the dead. Give me a minute without radio chatter, all right? I want to do the preamble for this news piece. No sudden movements or the camera will fall.”

A scuffle, the unrolling of duct tape, and more swearing suggested Leica wasn't used to working without her crew. I felt the light back on me again and heard Leica draw a deep breath.

“This is Leica Takers reporting for TTV. I'm in transit with a great American mystery. Following her daring rescue, Colonel Christine Kurzow is dying of internal injuries.” She paused, then with an aside continued, “Voice over with the shot of the water tower from the helicopter.” She left another pause to help the editors. “Two hours ago, the colonel entered the top of this water tower and killed the accomplice of the serial killer known as Hillar the Killer … Shot of Hillar please … Six of the eleven children are alive and at time of reporting listed as critically injured, including the daughter of Iowa State Governor Jian Kim … I want footage from the crew here, a statement from the governor … But questions remain. How did this secret military unit discover the location of the children? What is the story behind one of the Army's most decorated female officers? And why did she show up before the FBI and local police forces arrived on the scene … give me shots of badges … whatever you've got … And why, why are quite possibly the last words of a self-professed atheist about reincarnation? This is Leica Takers reporting.”

I didn't remember us landing, but the low whump of the helicopter blades signaled we were on the ground. The doors opened and hands slipped beneath my armpits as Leica Takers filmed.

“Hey, no cameras,” someone shouted, but Leica ignored the voice and kept filming. Something crashed to the concrete, followed by Leica cursing. From somewhere came the scent of coffee.

“Attila,” I said, the name lost in the cacophony of orders.

Onto a gurney, through a heavy mist, and into the elevator I was transported. Buckles to my body armor unsnapped. The helicopter whined back into action, but I saw the distinct white of Leica's camera light dancing across the concrete walls of the stairwell. Even in my haze, I admired her perseverance. The harsh light didn't enter the elevator car, retreating instead down the steps as the doors shut.

“Blood type
O negative
,” someone answered a question I hadn't heard.

“Laceration, right thigh. Superficial injuries to right side of head.”

“Stat trauma blood work, prothrombin levels, and toxicology,” someone ordered. And I was poked with a needle.

I coughed up dark ruby blood and the talking around me grew louder and more rapid. Darkness settled in on me. It crowded out the ceiling lights that shot past as the gurney wheels squeaked and wobbled along the corridor. And then it suffocated me.

All
was
darkness. No white light, or tunnel, none of anything from the thousands of so-called documented near-death experiences. It was enough to make an atheist righteous. I did not float above myself. I was nothing. Except of course, my awareness of being nothing, which I decided as I clawed my way out of nothing, meant I wasn't going to die. And for the first time in nearly two months, I wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of living. Six kids survived. Six kids who would otherwise be dead. And I remained swaddled in the dark, happy for a time while the world beyond fought to save me.

“Unstable … can't.” From outside of nothing drifted an argument.

“Now.” Terse, familiar voice.

“What kind of mission can this patient possibly—” Someone whined, and I knew by the subservient tone she had already lost the dispute.

“None of your business.” A wheeze followed by a cough and the hiss of oxygen.

“Except to ensure I first do no harm, sir.” The woman surprised me, and my eyes fluttered open.

The general pointed a turgid finger into the face of a dark-skinned doctor; although the general wheeled his oxygen tank behind him, its presence failed to diminish his malice. “You've got two hours, then she's leaving.”

Deeth was beside me. “Guess I was wrong about you,” he said.

I couldn't answer; I didn't have the strength to try.

“I didn't think you were terminal.” He shrugged. “Thought you'd come around.” He sniffed and shook his head. “Convinced me otherwise, might as well put you to good use before you finish yourself off.”

I didn't understand what he was saying, but I felt ashamed of myself, a familiar feeling.

“Before you, I would have said your depression wasn't really a terminal disease. It's treatable.” He shook his heavy head. “But you're not depressed. You proved me wrong.” His lips thinned as he pursed them together. The female doctor stomped out of the room. When she was gone, Deeth continued. “In euthanasia debates, no one ever considers the role of the doctor. That someone has to pull the plug or make the injection.”

I swallowed and wet my lips with my tongue.

“If you hate it so much, why do you do it?” I managed to ask in a series of halting croaks.

He leaned in close and fixed me with a dark eye. “To ensure it's done right.”

My shame spread to my cheeks. “Where's Attila?”

Deeth looked at me strangely before leaning back and answering.

“Out.”

Attila was about as deep in Spanish Harlem as he liked to risk, especially with what he suspected was stashed in his pocket. On the way he'd had to resist the urge to pawn the contents of the envelope and visit some of the more reputable bookies in the area. Attila loved his mamma, his cards, and his horses, but all three had him in hock deeper than he knew how to escape. Most of the money he earned from the Terminals paid for his mother's care, and the five grand Christine had paid him so far had covered interest alone on his debts with the Russians. But Attila knew that if he failed to deliver the package, he'd be breaking a fragile trust he wished to keep, especially after he'd made the calls she'd requested. Besides, enough treasure was secreted in Christine's room to repay his debts many times over. It was very tempting.

He stood opposite a squat apartment block, encircled by a low, black fence. Despite the fence, graffiti artists had tagged the walls with enough vigor and density that the whole of it became a mural and the effect was not displeasing to look at.

Between the passing delivery trucks, Attila watched a boy and his father play cards through a first-floor window. The clarity was remarkable, in that the pollution created a film on street-level windows so quickly that it had obviously recently been washed. The reason was tucked into one corner of the glass pane: a
For Rent
sign.

Attila's hands stuffed into his vest and felt Christine's envelope. He didn't know what was inside for certain, and didn't really care—likely a pearl pendant or some diamond rings. He had little natural curiosity. Perhaps solving life's greatest mystery raised the bar on everything else. What bothered him of late was Christine's unearthing of the Terminals' underbelly.

In his one and only conversation with his grandmother, she'd said:
Never leave one of God's gifts unused
.
But never use your gift against God for that is the greatest insult, to use the gift one has given you against them.
It kept him from going commercial. It kept him in the Terminals.

Attila had always walked a fine line, and Christine had made the line even finer, turning the unit on its head. He drew a deep breath, remembering her on top of him, still confused by her invitation, but encouraged by it. But was it too late?

He threaded through the traffic and climbed the apartment building's short flight of cracked concrete steps. When he was at the top, a woman burst through the doors in curlers, letting the doors swing closed behind her as she hurried off. Attila caught the door before the lock could snap back into place and ducked into a small atrium. A placard pointed in the direction of the unit he needed, and he strode down a plain hallway. The metal door's paint flaked around jagged scrapes. Attila rapped on it with his knuckles.

“Getting late,” someone said inside as they approached.

After a moment, the door opened, spilling a wedge of light across the corridor. From beneath a latched security chain two sets of dark eyes regarded him, one at armpit height, the other even with him.

“Mr. Alphonso?” Attila asked.

The man nodded but didn't move to release the chain. The smell of alcohol saturated the air. A cat with brown and yellow markings wove figure eights through the legs of the boy, delivering a throaty purr.

“My friend was your wife's commanding officer.”

The door shut; the chain danced over the frame, and then the door drew back wide to reveal boxes and bare walls.

Attila held out the envelope, a large brown manila that he'd folded upon itself to fit in his vest.

The man took it and cocked his head at the boy.

“It's okay,” Attila said. “Nothing he can't see. I don't think.”