Andrea Kane - The Line Between Here and Now

“Me, either.” His Army Reserves friend grinned. “Do we ever?” He shielded his face against the elements. “We’ll talk later. Oh, apparently, you’re famous.”

“What?” Paul gave a puzzled shrug.

“Famous,” Gus repeated. “I saw you on a YouTube video at the NEC. Couldn’t catch the audio because I was headed out. But some hot brunette was holding up your picture. You must’ve done something heroic you don’t know about-the video has over a million hits.”

The wind chose that moment to pick up, nearly blowing down both men.

“Let me check in,” Gus shouted. “We’ll catch up later.”

Paul stood there for a long moment after his friend had headed off. Oblivious to the pelting rain and the sludge that was oozing up his legs like quicksand, he stared off into space, plagued by a growing sense of unease. This whole trip had felt wrong from the start. Now it was beginning to feel like one ugly, well-planned manipulation. Being sent out to this godforsaken place with a line of bullshit justifying the training he was instructed to provide. Being at a Forward Operating Base in a high-threat situation. Being allowed no internet access, given the three soldiers who’d recently been killed nearby, and whose families had to be notified. Being in an area that just happened to have little to no cell phone reception-effectively cutting off all communication with the outside world.

There were way too many coincidences.

And now this odd piece of news.

Whatever charade he was being forced to live was over.

As a military veteran who knew how the system worked, Paul had no trouble calling in a few favors. When the bad weather temporarily subsided, a military buddy of his picked him and his bags up in a crummy Humvee and drove him to the helipad located on the FOB. The sergeant responsible for the flights was stationed in a tent right on-site. He was expecting Paul and arranged to put him on the first flight out. Someone would be pissed off at being bumped.

Paul didn’t give a damn.

It was a fifty-mile trip. A little over an hour later, Paul was back in Baghdad.

He waited awhile, the sergeant having made arrangements for a trusted buddy stationed at the New Embassy Compound to pick him up. A beat-up SUV eventually arrived, driven by Private Kenny Robinson. Fifteen minutes after that, Paul was back at the Embassy.

He didn’t waste time. He went into Kenny’s office cubicle and used his computer to log on to YouTube. He searched for the name Paul Everett, and the video popped up.

He watched it three times before the impact of what he was viewing fully sank in. He went from shocked to numb to livid in rapid succession.

Culminating in an urgency he’d never before possessed.

Everything that happened next was a frenzied blur.

He grabbed his BlackBerry and tried to call out. The storms in the area refused to make that possible. Well, they weren’t going to stop him from getting home.

He used Private Robinson’s computer one more time-to send an internal email. He knew that the message would furiously keep trying to leave the local email server, waiting until the storms let up. But eventually it would find its mark.

His boss would cringe. Not at his profanity. Nor at his threats. But rather at the thought of who had been CC’d: the head of the Review Committee.

The email was clear and straight to the point:

I’m done being jerked around. I now know everything. I’ve seen the video and I’m flying back to the U.S. When I land, I’m going straight to Sloane Kettering to see Amanda and try to save my son. If anything happens to him, I hold you and every other fucking bureaucrat responsible. STAY OUT OF MY WAY!

Paul knew he was racing the clock, not only to get to his son, but to thwart any efforts to prevent him from getting home. He turned to Kenny, asked for his help in getting to Baghdad International Airport. From there, he’d talk himself onto the next military flight to Kuwait. He’d get from the airbase to the airport. There’d be waiting time-a lot of it. But he’d wait for days if he had to. He was heading home.

To Justin.

The emergency meeting took place in a small, nondescript conference room.

The group-and the subject matter-were classified: the head of the entire office, the team leader and the Assistant U.S. Attorney were all there.

“He left the Forward Operating Base,” the team leader reported. “No one at the New Embassy Compound has seen him.”

The Assistant U.S. Attorney scowled. “Which means you have no idea where he is.”

“We’ve got key personnel searching the whole embassy. We’ll find him.”

As they spoke, the phone in the conference room rang. The team leader picked it up. “Yes?”

A long moment of silence, and then the team leader hung up.

“He left the embassy. He’s already on a flight to Kuwait.”

“Shit.” The AUSA slammed his fist on the table. “We can’t let this happen. We’ve got to stop him.”

The phone rang again.

“Yes?” was the impatient response. Then a pause. “Thank you.” A few quick clicks on the team leader’s laptop. “He emailed us.”

Everyone listened as the email was read aloud.

“He’s not coming to D.C.,” the AUSA realized aloud. “He’s going straight to JFK.”

“Then we’ll have him detained there.” The office head paused. “In the meantime, we’ve got to wrap up this investigation. One day. That’s all we’ve got.”

“If we have that,” the AUSA replied. “What happens when he tries to contact Amanda Gleason by phone? You know he will. And there’ll be no weather to screw up his cell service.”

“We’ll take care of that.”

At that heightened moment, the office head’s BlackBerry rang. He glanced at the caller ID and blanched. “It’s her. ” He gestured urgently toward the door, ordering everyone to leave.

Minutes later, urgent instructions arrived at the desk of the head network security analyst on duty. He thrust aside his current assignment and turned quickly to the task at hand. With a few mouse clicks, he disabled the targeted cell phone, transforming it into nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

Patricia Carey couldn’t shut an eye all night long.

She was in her office, pacing restlessly about at 5:00 a.m. The current situation forced a flood of raw emotion to surface. How darkly ironic life was. As the Executive Assistant Director, she was the highest-ranking woman in the entire agency. All her life, she’d exceeded everyone’s expectations. In school. In training. In her rapid rise to a position of power. At forty-six years old, she was still successful at everything she did.

Except for the one thing that would truly have been her legacy.

Despite consultations with the most noted experts in the world, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars she’d paid them, she’d failed.

She blamed herself entirely. She’d waited too long. The rise of her career had pushed this onto the back burner. She’d climbed the proverbial ladder, all the while thinking that later would be fine. But when later came, Mother Nature had other plans. And her body refused to cooperate.

Tears. Trials. Injections. In vitro. Nothing had worked.

By the time she’d accepted the inevitable, even adoption was not in the cards. Her age, her now-greater set of professional responsibilities, and, most of all, her depleted emotional reserves-all those factors combined to rule out the prospect of adoption.

A baby was precious. But, for her, it was never to be.

So, yes, her circumstances had colored her thinking. But still she’d debated the current dilemma long and hard, forcing herself to be objective, to view things from all angles. She had the final say. And her primary responsibility was to the agency.