Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

Small had heard the helicopter land, but assumed it was something to do with the police who were hurt. It never occurred to him that one of his patients would have a relative rich enough to arrive in a private helicopter. Informed that this was the case by a frantic nurse, he hurried downstairs.

Small was a pink-faced, heavy, balding man of around sixty. Marlene sized him in a trice as a genial loafer, competent at routine, but not one to take pains, and definitely not good enough for her boy. Small told them how the surgery had gone. He had removed double-aught pellets from Giancarlo's legs and back. The good news was that no vital organs had been struck. The bad news was that he had a pellet lodged in his brain.

"When will you remove it?"

"Well, we don't think that's advisable now," said Small, addressing his answer to Karp. "With these cerebral wounds, we think it's advisable to wait and let nature take her course." A little chuckle here. "You know, despite all our advances, and at my age I've seen an awful lot of them, Mother Nature's still the best healer."

"What tripe," said Marlene. "I want him moved out of here. I intend to fly him to New York."

"He can't be moved," said Small with some satisfaction. "You can't move someone out of ICU. He wouldn't make it to Charleston, much less New York."

They went back and forth about this for a round or two until Karp put his vote down for not moving, after which she demanded to see the CAT scans of her son's brain and looked at them, as did Lucy, who had a lot of experience looking at CAT scans. She pulled her daughter aside.

"What do you think?"

"I don't know, Mom. I'm not a doc, but it looks awful. It's in his occipital lobe and it's all swollen."

"I don't mean the pictures. I just wanted to know he'd at least taken them. I don't buy this crap about not going in and fixing it. I want a second opinion. You know brain surgeons, don't you?"

"I know people who do. I'll call Morrie."

She did. Morrie Shadkin, called at his home, was horrified to hear what had happened and yet more horrified (though he did not mention this) to learn that the precious brain of Lucy Karp was wandering around in range of people shooting bullets.

"Lenny Polanski," he said. "He's the best brain-trauma surgeon in the world, if you believe him. I got him through physio our second year at P and S, absent which he would not be a surgeon at all, but humping refrigerators in his old man's warehouse. He owes me big-time. You say the kid can't be moved?"

"No. We'll fly your guy and his team down here. We have a helicopter."

Shadkin said he would get back to her, and after fervent urgings that she watch out for herself, he hung up.

Then they all trooped into the ICU to look at Giancarlo. At the sight of her son lying still and dead-white in the mesh of tubes and blinking machinery, Marlene lost it, giving way to operatic grief, and frightening the personnel. After this, Karp was back in charge. He made the necessary arrangements with the hospital (Small had heard of Polanski and was awed), getting the helicopter to a parking place, and its pilot housed in a motel, and transporting his family back to Four Oaks. Marlene and the two children, who seemed to have regressed nearly to infancy, were put to bed, the former with half a bottle of Scotch and pills, the latter with meaningless, calming words.

Karp himself did not sleep for a long time. His mind, like a small animal expelled from its accustomed burrow by a flood, sought familiar shelter and found it in legal strategy. Assume the Cade boys were lost indefinitely. Could he still construct a case against Floyd? If yes, could he then involve Weames, if Floyd kept mum? But would Floyd keep mum if such a case could be constructed? As he pondered, bits of data floated into his mind. A chance remark by Harkness, some incidents from the recent past. Toward dawn, as he slipped into exhausted sleep, something like a plan had formed in his mind.

In the morning he awakened from a dream in which the events of the past two days had been a dream. The return to the horror of the reality hit him with the force of a shot to the gut, bringing nausea. Marlene was already gone. He ate a glum breakfast with Lucy and Zak and took them to the hospital, where the staff reported that the boy was stable but comatose. Marlene, to his surprise, was not there. He sat for a while watching his two sons. Zak was staring at his brother with an intensity that Karp found difficult to watch. Something was wrong with Lucy, too, a dullness of spirit that was quite unlike her. To be expected? He didn't know. Of all the people in the family, he had expected his daughter to be the most capable of dealing with tragedy. Wrong again, it seemed.

He freely admitted to himself that he could not. Shameful, but undeniable: he could deal with life or death, but not this shadowland.

"I'm going out for a while," he said to them. "I'll check in."

"Sure, Dad. We'll see you later. Have you heard from Mom at all?"

"No, and that's one thing I want to check on."

Outside, breathing full breaths again, he couldn't help noticing that Marlene's helicopter was gone from its place in the parking lot.

Marlene stood on the lip of an enormous grassy tableland that had once been the south peak of Hogue Mountain, watching her helicopter drop in for a landing. It was a Gazelle SA 341J, an ex-British navy aircraft from the seventies, and still the fastest helicopter in the world. Two and a half hours more or less from Bridgeport to this shithole. Billionaires would have to find another unit to get them to the Hamptons.

It landed and Tran Do Vinh got out, crouching as everyone always did under the spinning rotors. He greeted her with the traditional cheek kisses and expressed again, as he had on the phone earlier that day, his profound regrets about what had befallen her son. He spoke to her in French. "You know, I have never before been in a helicopter, though I have seen many and shot down a good few. That hill on which your adversaries are emplaced seems a formidable position. The pilot flew quite low and we received fire, though fortunately took no hits. How can I assist you?"

He was thoughtful when she told him what she wanted done. "Marie-Helene, I personally am at your complete disposal," he said, "but an operation of the type you describe, an almost, one might say, military operation, will require many men, expensive weapons, logistical supplies…"

"I'll advance whatever you need."

"Yes, of course, but the men… these are no longer soldiers fighting for a cause. And the young ones I am afraid are mere gangsters. They will not wish to endure casualties without some tangible-"

"There is gold," she said. "A good deal of it, I'm informed. Ben Cade has been a criminal for decades, as was his father before him. They put their profits into gold because they believe that soon all paper money will become worthless."

"Oh, gold!" He laughed. "Oh, well, that's a different story entirely. With gold all things are possible. We Asians love gold. We also fear the ephemeral nature of paper, with rather more reason than M. Cade, I think. Given gold, I should have little trouble organizing the necessary people and equipment. What I do not have and need are maps, detailed maps, including maps of all local mining operations, at least one to ten thousand in scale."

"I can get you those. Are you familiar with computers?"

"Alas, not I myself, but I have people. They operate a pornography site, 'Asian Teens XXX.' You will send the maps to me in this way?"

She nodded.

"And I assume this operation will require a certain settlement with these fearsome Cades, besides relieving them of their gold. Escorting them to the authorities, perhaps?"

"No. I want them killed."

He was not quite sure he had heard her, for a strong breeze was whipping the grasses.