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Chapter 10
Jack surveyed their new room. The pastel colors, from the soft green of the homey looking furniture to the peach walls, made the room look welcoming, peaceful. The beds, under the understated designer spreads, were fully functional hospital beds. He used the remotes to shift the beds up and down at the head, then in the middle, and finally, at the feet. A different orderly pushed Dvora in through the open door as he played with the beds. He made the beds wave before he dropped the controls on the nightstand.
“I understand we’re renting a room,” Dvora said as the orderly left.
“That’s almost right. I’m renting a room. It has two beds. You can use one of them if you’d like. You don’t snore, do you?” He asked.
“How can you make fucking jokes?”
Later he thought it was not an unreasonable question. “I can joke because if I don’t, I will break down. I have to stay sane until I catch the motherfuckers that tried to kill Meghan. Then I will snap their necks like fucking twigs. After that I don’t care. Is that better than joking?”
Dvora cowered in the wheelchair, trying to get away from him. He didn’t realize how much he’d raised his voice until one of the nurses opened the door and told him to shut the hell up or leave.
He turned and walked away from her, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just that…”
“…it hurts so bad.” She said exactly what he was going to say, right when he was going to say it. He turned and walked slowly toward her. She held out her hand and asked, “Truce?”
He took her hand, “Truce. How’s she doing?”
“The same. I feel as if I should be with her, but it hurts so much just to look at her and I don’t think she knows.” Dvora got out of her wheelchair with a wince and gently lowered herself into one of the visitor’s chairs, a good Queen Anne copy. He avoided talk by taking an interest in one of the smaller pictures on the wall. He was right. A Joseph Bellacera print. He owned four originals bought so long ago that he wasn’t wealthy, and didn’t need to be, when he paid cash for them. The other prints didn’t clash too badly with furniture, fixtures and paint. All the empty patient beds in the City had finally gotten the attention of hospital marketing types. He was doing everything he could think of to avoid thinking and feeling about his sister.
“How did you get them to rent us a room?” she asked.
“I name-dropped two board members I know pretty well. Then I wondered aloud how they’d feel when they heard the administrator wasn’t willing to take risk-free money. I didn’t even have to go into the ‘personal favor to a friend of most of the board’ part of the sales presentation. I’d be happy to have you share the rent. While you were in with Meghan, I checked the front desk. There are about sixty messages. Would you like to work with me on a first draft for a press release, or do you want to do it on your own?”
They roughed out the statement and forwarded it to DealMaker’s PR department. Their PR department was Olga Boginskaya, former disinformation specialist for the KGB. Handling personal communications wasn’t remotely part of her job description, but Olga loved Meghan like the little sister she never had and one of their many messages had been Olga’s offer to help.
Then, Jack returned Bob White’s call.
“How is she?” Bob asked.
Jack told him. It didn’t get any easier with telling.
“Jack, I am so sorry we let you down. There should not have been any way for someone to hack that system without us knowing.”
“Bobby, you know that any technology made by man can be beaten by other men. If you hadn’t insisted on the panic buttons, they would have both been dead now for sure.”
Bob said, “I will pray for Meghan on my knees tonight and every night until she is home safe and well.”
When he could find his voice, Jack thanked Bob and said, “Bobby, I think Meghan’s spirits would be considerably improved by company. I’d like you to send some boys and girls over.”
Bob asked, “Do you want this to be a surprise or do you want everyone to know about the party?”
“I’d like it to be a surprise,” he said.
The high-pitched whine on the line stopped. “The line shows clean now, Jack. Are you too close to this for your gift to be working right?”
Jack checked the quiet place inside where his gift lived. The feeling said Meghan was in danger from without as well as within.
Jack said, “The feeling is strong and I believe it is true.”
“Do we have knowledge certain of these surprise guests?” Bob asked.
“No. The cops went political and put Captain Yan on the case. He’ll be pissed, but he’s supposed to be the best. I’ll tell him you’re acting as my agent.”
“No, Jack. The police do not like private security anywhere near capital crimes. Because of who you, Dvora, and Meghan are, this case is very political. Yan hates politics. You listen to the Captain, ask good questions, and remember things. Now, to get help within an hour, I have to sign off. I’ll send three with the usual identifiers within minutes. Jack, you said Captain Yan is supposed to be the best. There is no doubt in my mind. He is the best by far. My prayers are with you and yours.”
Jack and Robert E. Lee White went back nineteen years. They met the first time at a military hospital in Germany, both there for some repair work. Jack’s problem was simple. His A-team was dressed native, so no flak vests. Jack took shrapnel in his back trying to burrow into the ground during a mortar attack. Little pieces of metal worked their way toward his spine. The doctors had pulled out what they could. Jack had been given a lifetime sentence of pain. There was also a chance that one of the little pieces of sharp metal would work its way into his spine and paralyze him. No one was ready to tell him what the odds were of that happening. The worst part of his time in the hospital had been assimilating that fact into his being.
Bob’s problem was more severe. Bob had taken a round in the knee in the same firefight that killed the last of his brothers in a ranger patrol. Bob had crawled through enemy territory alone, with his injury. He’d lain mostly submerged in a muddy ditch for two days and nights making no sound. The ditch was a sauna in the day and crusted with ice at night. Then Bob crawled more miles over more days and nights to a place where he could get dusted off without capture. By the time they pulled him out, and in spite of his most excellent self-administered medical care, Bob’s leg smelled too ripe. They tried to take it off in a field hospital.
Bob had been third in the eight hundred meters in Division 2 in college. In order to get dusted off, he’d ambushed a colonel and taken his satellite phone. He had the Republican Guard colonel’s little PSM pistol when the chopper picked him up. Despite the fever, his hand was steady enough to keep the pistol pointed at the doc’s head as he worked on Bob’s leg without anesthetic. Eventually the area commander came in and promised they wouldn’t take his leg. Only then did he let them give him morphine.
Jack and Bob met again years later at UC Davis Medical Center. Bob was in for a seventh operation on his leg. Jack was in for another fishing expedition for shrapnel in his back. They were both a touch morose, and decided a trip to Vegas would help. Occasionally, Jack had to carry Bob. They came back three days later after a fine time. They’d gotten inside each other’s heads in those three days. Bob had made his mark in corporate security. Jack had made a few good decisions on stocks and some other things, so he needed Bob’s help more every year. Rangers had to be smart, unbelievably tough, brave, and patient. Bob was more Ranger than any man Jack knew, Distinguished Service Cross, purple hearts, useless leg and all.
Jack thought more about Bob, the best man he knew, and then he walked to the SICU to check on Meghan. Dvora sat in the chair on the right in the near corner, staring into space, feet tucked under, hugging herself with folded arms. She twirled hair around her right index finger to pull it to her mouth. The wisps of loose hair above her long neck, the way her back looked, trying to be so straight and strong, no matter what, tugged at his heart.
Jack floated away and marched back in noisy approach.
Dvora smiled a little at him as he walked in. He sat next to her, reaching out a hand. She took it, shyly like a first date in junior high, and then gripped his hand fiercely as they sat watching Meghan. She looked as if the fight to live was eating her alive from the inside out.
Jack used to sit for many hours watching Meghan when she was a baby. He’d walk into her room at night after Mom and Pop passed out, to keep watch as she slept. Meghan had looked so innocent and peaceful lying there. She had maintained that innocence as an adult.
One day a few years ago, Meghan and Jack met by accident at the airport. They were going in opposite directions on the same airline, leaving at about the same time. They waited in a bar, chatting. National news was on one of the TVs. Another serial killer led. This one killed baby girls, and then took them apart or, according to one so-called expert, took them apart and, in doing so, killed them.
Jack watched Meghan watching the story. Her expression wasn’t disgust or hatred. He couldn’t read her at all-at least at first. Then he knew. Meghan felt confusion. He could nearly hear Meghan saying to herself, I must be seeing this wrong. This can’t happen in my world.
Meg gave her head a shake and turned to him, excited as a child as she described the paper she was to give in Montreal. He remembered that look of innocent denial. If Meghan lived, that innocent part of her might be dead.
He thought about the men who’d almost killed his sister and what they might be doing right now. One might be enjoying a good meal or worrying about the strange new sound his car was making. Another could wonder if he had remembered to pay his utility bill. Perhaps one was thinking about how sexy the weather woman was on channel 9. They would be thinking about anything and everything except what they should be thinking about. They should be thinking about being dead.
Meghan’s left foot twitched and an alarm went off. More nurses came running. Jack and Dvora tried to stay, but they kicked them out. They waited in the hall as Dr. Kramer ran in. Twenty minutes later the doctor came out of the room.
“Good news and bad news,” she said. “The good news is twitching left foot. The twitch is another signal her nervous system is trying to rewire itself. The bad news is pneumonia, I think. She is at risk to all sorts of secondary infections because of her injuries.” The doctor’s beeper went off and she jogged away yelling she would keep them informed.
Jack and Dvora waited while pneumonia took hold and watched as Meghan tried to fight it. They waited as Meghan went into shock from an allergy to the antibiotic nobody knew she had an allergy to. Too many times Jack saw the forced smiles on nurses’ and doctors’ faces. The staff did not quite make eye contact as they stared at a point on Jack’s forehead. Even without the visual clues their feelings were palpable. They expected Meghan to die.
His sister Meghan hardly ever did what anyone expected. Around what should have been dinnertime of the next day, her fight paid off. She beat the shock caused by the allergy to the antibiotic. She finally held her own against the pneumonia. Dvora slumped, at last allowing herself sleep, in the chair in the hall next to his. He stood with great effort, turned and took first steps toward their room. He stopped, walked back and scooped Dvora up. She stirred, moaned and shook her head, then settled, face snuggled into his neck as if she were a sleepy child. He carried her back to their room.
He softly lay her down on the bed he’d picked for himself, the one nearer the door, turned the comforter back on hers, and gently placed her on it. It was cool in their room. He reached down to cover her, and stopped. This was the first time he’d ever watched her sleep. She looked almost ordinary while sleeping. Dvora was beautiful, but her beauty came from power, character, and grace, all disguised now by sleep. Her high-speed engine was on idle. It wasn’t that many years ago he’d cursed the day he’d introduced her to his sister.
When Jack closed his eyes and pictured the woman beside him walking up the back trail to Nevada Falls, it wasn’t her. The woman was Lee. He missed her so much. For a moment he had been sure he smelled Lee’s scent.
He walked into the bathroom, closed the door and turned on the shower. Other than keeping her safe, he couldn’t do much for Meghan’s physical health. The rest was up to her incredible will, luck, and the medical staff. He could do something about her financial health. Their parent’s bad luck, bad training, and bad habits kept them poor.
He and Meghan had grown up without most things others took for granted. Somehow they’d both overcome the scarcity mentality. Living wealthy was a whole lot healthier and a hell of a lot more fun than living beat-down and poor. He was damn sure ReWire was having serious problems. He didn’t know what made him sure. He trusted his instincts as well as his special talent. He had to hedge Meghan’s investment in the company. He thought about her boss.
O’Hare. He had thought about the man’s thinning hair when he’d committed the name to memory. The man tried to hide thinning, reddish-blond hair with hundred-dollar haircuts and too much product. O’Hare’s teeth were creamy yellow like many redheads, his complexion splotchy. He had been a good amateur boxer in his youth and was still a workout fanatic. Donald was only a couple inches shorter than he was, but a lot leaner, around one sixty or so, with that arrogance some little people have around someone who’s got decent mass.
He had interviewed O’Hare when ReWire recruited Meghan. His sister had still been in her master’s program. O’Hare was one of those fast-talking boys from New York, the fellows who think if they talk loud and long enough you’ll do what they want. He pumped Jack for information on one of DealMaker’s projects. They were a small piece of financing for a plant in Taiwan. Some of their product line was suitable for genetic engineering assembly lines. He didn’t trust O’Hare, told Meghan he didn’t, and recommended against the company because of it.
Then Jack met the man who was going to be her immediate boss, Dr. William “Wild Bill” Smith. He was a curmudgeon and long overdue a shot at a Nobel. He was an outspoken critic of the greenhouse gas thing so he never got the shot he deserved. Smith had the balls to tell O’Hare to take a hike and owned enough stock for it to carry weight. Jack still didn’t trust O’Hare.
He shivered and looked down at his soapy hands. They were blue. He rinsed the off the soap. Still blue. He had been standing under a cold shower for long minutes without knowing. His teeth chattered as shivers rocked his body. He slowly turned up the hot water. He knew he had numbed himself. He hadn’t realized how much-until now. He hadn’t realized how hard life was going to be.
He slid down the wall to the floor. Pounding jets of water beat his back like a whip. He rolled to his side as he hugged himself. He held his hand over his mouth to keep from waking Dvora. He reached to turn on more hot water when the door opened.
Dvora looked down, her eyes bloodshot, and her hair flat and greasy. She held the door to steady herself. She straightened, her motor coming back on as she asked, “You aren’t made of steel, are you?”
He tried to talk, to stand, to do something. With superhuman effort he sat up. She left and came back with a pile of fluffy, white towels. She turned off the water with an elbow, and gently patted him dry. With her lifting, he slowly stood. She tied a towel around his waist and draped another across his shoulders. She led him out of the bathroom with her left hand on his left elbow and her right hand on top of his right shoulder, helping him along to the chair by his bed.
He sat. His head rolled on his neck. She pressed the water out of his hair, towel-dried it with firm, gentle pats and combed it out. He didn’t remember shampooing his hair, but must have because it squeaked clean. He enjoyed the hair care, but flinched when she appeared with his razor, cup, and brush. Steam rising above the foam made a little mirage, confusing colors on the wall.
“After father had his second stroke, I shaved him every day,” she said as she gently tilted his head back and carefully placed a hot, moist towel on his face. He tried to relax and breathed in steam. She did a great job shaving him, better than he did when he hurried some days.
Dvora moved around to the back of the chair and stood holding him, rocking. Later, she woke him enough to help him to bed.
