Nelson DeMille: The Lion

The sun was coming through the window, and hanging from the window cord was a stuffed lion.

I was pretty sure this wasn't a dream, and the room definitely looked familiar.

Someone was squeezing my hand, and I turned my head to see Kate standing beside my bed. She was wearing the white blouse and blue skirt I'd brought her, and it took me a few seconds to process that.

She smiled and asked me, "How are you, handsome?"

I didn't know how I was, but I replied, "Not bad." I added, "You should see the other guy." He's dead.

She forced a smile and said, "You're going to be fine."

"Good." But I can't go to Minnesota.

She had tears in her eyes, and she bent over and kissed my cheek-right where Khalil had bitten into my nerve. Ouch!

I put my hand there and felt a bandage, then another bandage where the asshole took a bite out of my chin. Then, not quite being able to separate what happened from a bad dream, I did the guy thing and felt for the jewels. One, two, exclamation mark. One more time-one, two- "Are you okay? What hurts there?"

"Nothing." I found the bed control and raised myself into a sitting position.

I had tubes and wires attached to me, and I checked out the monitors, which looked okay. I was starting to experience that euphoria you get when the Grim Reaper just missed you, and I leaned forward and said, "I want to get out of here."

Kate informed me, "The doctor said three or four days-but I told him a week."

Not funny.

She further informed me, "You lost some blood, but they gave you a refill." She added, "I told the neurologist you were mentally impaired before the blood loss, so he shouldn't expect much when he evaluates you."

What did I do to deserve this sarcasm?

Kate held a cup of ice water to my lips and I took a sip. I noticed now that her bed was still in the room, and I asked her, "You staying?"

"No, you're staying. I'm leaving."

"Yeah?" I lay back on the bed, and even with the painkillers, I could feel where I'd taken the two knife cuts. In fact, my whole body ached. This sucked.

I stared up at the ceiling for a while, then I said, "Khalil's dead."

"I know."

"Vince Paresi is dead. Khalil killed him."

A silence, then, "I know."

She was crying again, and to be honest, I felt a little lump in my throat. I had no idea how Khalil had killed Vince, but I hoped it was quick.

She pulled up a chair, took my hand, and we sat there for a while.

Finally, she said to me, "Tom is at the… crime scene. He's coming to visit later."

"I'm not receiving visitors named Tom."

"John… he wants to see you, and… congratulate you."

"No photos."

She didn't reply to that, but said to me, "When you're ready to talk about it… I want to know what happened."

I was ready to talk about it now, but I knew I'd be telling the same story at least twenty times to half the Justice Department-not to mention Tom Walsh-so I said, "When I get home." I added, "You can help me with my incident report."

She smiled and said, "Don't puff yourself up."

I smiled.

I was actually hungry, and I asked her, "What's for breakfast?"

"Jail-O."

"What happened to the hard labor boiled eggs?"

She squeezed my hand tight, stood and gave me a teary kiss on my forehead-right where I head-butted the asshole. Ouch!

She looked at me and said, "I want you home with me."

"Me too." I asked, "Where are my clothes?"

She replied, "Probably in an evidence bag."

"Where's my gun?"

"Tom said they have it, and they recovered my gun, too."

"Good." I was going to ask her where Uncle Ernie's knife was, but the last time I saw it, it was sticking out of Asad Khalil's chin-so by now it was downstairs in the morgue where the medical examiner was tugging at it, trying to decide if he should pull it out before or after he cut open Khalil's skull.

Kate and I chatted a bit, and we agreed that I needed a few weeks at home so I could recuperate quietly. I expressed my deep disappointment that we couldn't see her parents or mine in the foreseeable future, and she knew I was full of crap, but she couldn't say that to a man in my delicate condition. I also informed her, "The E.R. doctor said no skydiving for five years."

Breakfast came at about 7:30, and apparently I was on a liquid diet that didn't resemble my usual liquid diet.

Kate chowed down on pancakes and sausages. She asked me, "Would you like more confine mint tea?"

This wasn't as funny as I'd thought when she was lying here.

Anyway, I sat in bed thinking about Vince Paresi and even Boris, who I liked on some level. Boris and I had agreed that he was capable of handling Asad Khalil, but obviously we'd been wrong about that-and we both should have known we were wrong. And on that subject, what the hell was I thinking when I thought I wanted Asad Khalil all for myself? Well, it worked out… barely.

I asked Kate, "Have you heard anything about Boris?"

She shook her head and said, "Why do you ask?"

"I think Khalil killed him."

She didn't respond, but she was probably thinking what I was thinking-I should have reported my contact with Boris to Tom Walsh. Not only would Boris probably still be alive, but if the surveillance team had grabbed Khalil in Brighton Beach, I could have saved myself some excitement at the WTC site-not to mention a few days in the hospital.

Also, Vince Paresi would still be alive.

Well, in this business, you call it like you see it, and as I said, you live-or die-with the consequences.

I wasn't going to beat myself up with this any more than I was going to beat myself up for not thinking about Gabe Haytham in time to save him and his family. The bad guy here was Asad Khalil, and people like him, and those who helped him, and everyone who celebrated death and not life.

Bottom line here-I killed Asad Khalil, so he wasn't going to trial or to prison, and he wouldn't be haunting our dreams anymore. But there are more of them.

I asked Kate, "Did you hear anything about the Port Authority cops? The ones who were in the PA trailer?"

She replied, "Tom mentioned that there were two of them-a male and female-but they haven't been found." She added, "I don't want to talk about this now."

I nodded, but this was still on my mind. My mind, however, was in happy pill land, and I needed to focus on something that was bothering me about this.

It was certainly possible that someone like Asad Khalil could get the drop on two cops who weren't expecting trouble. But what did he do with the bodies?

It would make sense that Khalil had help at this critical moment-maybe one or two other guys to kill the cops and to get rid of the bodies… and hang Vince from the crane.

But when I saw Khalil, he was alone. So if he had accomplices, where were they? Disposing of the bodies? Or did Khalil, true to his M.O., kill them, too?

And all of this brought me back to what had been on my mind all week. Did Khalil have something else planned? Based on just what I saw in the apartment on 72nd Street, Khalil obviously had accomplices and resources here, so he probably had a favor to repay. And what was it? And was it still in the works?

Kate interrupted my thoughts to ask me what I was thinking about.

"Khalil's big finale."

She stayed quiet awhile, then said, "If… if there was supposed to be a finale… maybe whatever was going to happen is not going to happen now that he's dead."

I'd thought about that, and it was possible. But if something big was going to happen-like a car bomb or an anthrax attack from a crop duster-and if somebody like Al Qaeda was behind it, did they need Asad Khalil to pull it off?

Kate said, "I think we talked ourselves into this possibility."

"Do you really think so?" I said to her, "Boris thought it was possible."