James Grippando - Born to Run

“Come on, Swyteck, you’re my ticket out of this-”

Demetri stopped himself, then checked the tape. Jack could feel the wiggle room in Demetri’s contraption.

“Damn you! You bit clean through it!”

Andie said, “I don’t like what I’m seeing, Demetri.”

“Too bad,” he said as he reached for the roll of tape.

“I really don’t like what I’m seeing,” she said.

“I really don’t care.”

Jack glanced at the television. Demetri was assessing the damage that Jack’s teeth had done to his gun rig, and he seemed to be trying to figure out how to repair it with the small amount of remaining tape.

“I see this as a big problem,” said Andie.

“For you it is,” said Demetri.

“Yes, I see everything clearly now. I see we are going to have to do something quick. Very quick. I can see that.”

As Demetri struggled with the tape, Jack suddenly realized that Andie was speaking to him, not Demetri.

“I can see it all,” said Andie.

She’s definitely talking to me , thought Jack.

He checked the television monitor again. With only one free hand, Demetri was having trouble getting the tape started. Jack still felt plenty of give in the lower half of the rig around his head.

“Now!” Andie shouted.

The next few seconds should have been a complete blur, yet they unfolded for Jack like a slow-motion replay. The television screen went black. Jack dropped to his knees. His head jerked out from under Demetri’s contraption of white tape.

And the crack of gunfire in the studio reverberated like a cannon in a cave.

At first Jack thought Demetri’s pistol had discharged, and the hot spray of blood across his back and neck made him wonder if he’d been hit. Then Demetri collapsed on top of him, knocking Jack forward, and the two men landed side by side on the floor. The gaping wound in the top of Demetri’s head told Jack that the blood, bits of bone, and gray matter on their clothes, on the floor, and all around them was not his own.

The Greek was gone.

The doors to the newsroom flew open, Demetri’s makeshift barricade of stacked office furnishings toppled over, and FBI SWAT rushed in.

“Fan out, fan out!” the leader shouted, and the team scattered.

Two men dressed in full tactical gear went to Demetri. Three more went to Jack and the other hostages. The rest of the team swept through the newsroom to check for booby traps or other dangers.

“Are you hurt?” one of the SWAT agents said.

Jack sat up slowly, not really sure.

Andie rushed onto the set with a team of paramedics, and they started toward him.

“Help the cameraman,” said Jack.

The paramedics went to Pedro. Andie came straight to Jack and knelt beside him on the floor, her tone beyond urgent.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“I think so.”

She held him tight, ignoring the blood on his clothes, and kissed him. “You scared me to death when you ducked down before the shot.”

“I thought that was what you were trying to tell me to do.”

“No, I was coordinating the kill of the broadcast with the shot from the sniper. We had to make sure it wasn’t on the air.”

The television on the news set suddenly resumed playing, but Jack was not on the screen. Action News had shifted to the presidential motorcade.

“Where’s my father?”

“He’s on his way here with the president.”

“I need to call him.”

“Sure,” she said, handing him her cell. “But we need you to keep it short.”

“Why?”

Her gaze drifted toward the presidential motorcade on the television screen. “You’ll see.”

Harry took the call in the back of the limousine. It was hard to keep his emotions in check, but he, too, knew that the phone conversation had to be brief.

Harry and President Keyes had watched the final moments of the standoff unfold on television. Harry’s pulse was still pounding. At one point, he’d honestly believed he was on the verge of cardiac arrest. He couldn’t bear to watch, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the television screen. He’d literally yelped when the broadcast went black, and he could hardly breathe again until the call from the CIRG leader confirmed that the mission had succeeded and that Jack was unharmed. Even so, his voice shook throughout the conversation with Jack.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” said Harry.

“Really, Dad. Other than a jab in the wrist from a nail file, I’m fine.”

“I can’t wait to see you. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Harry ended the call and tucked the phone into his pocket.

Seated across from him, President Keyes was wrapping up a phone call of his own. He hung up and peered out the window, so preoccupied that he didn’t even ask Harry about his son.

“Jack sounds just fine,” said Harry.

“What? Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. That was quite a final performance by Demetri. I’m sure you have plenty on your mind.”

Keyes was suddenly defensive. “None of it’s true. You realize that, don’t you?”

Harry said nothing.

“I mean, I’ve never even been to Cyprus. I was born in Pennsylvania. It says so right on my birth certificate.”

Harry said, “I wouldn’t put one ounce of blame on your adoptive parents for doing that.”

“Blame them for doing what?”

“It’s perfectly understandable that they would have falsified a birth certificate to keep you or someone else from finding out that your biological father was the man who raped your birth mother.”

“I’m not the son of a rapist.”

“But maybe your adoptive parents thought you were. Just as Demetri did all these years.”

The president fell silent, staring blankly out the window at the painted traffic lines on the interstate.

“My father must be turning in his grave,” he said.

Harry felt a little sorry for him, having just had his moment with his own son. But he stayed focused.

“You weren’t born in this country, were you?”

The president didn’t answer right away. Finally, he shook his head.

“I was two months old when I came here. A nice young couple who couldn’t get pregnant adopted me. I’ve never known another country or another culture. I never even traveled outside the United States until I was in college.” He gave Harry a sobering look and said, “But I can’t be president.”

“A dumb rule, I suppose,” said Harry.

“But it’s in our Constitution. Article II, clause five.”

“I’m just amazed that your adoption was able to be kept secret all these years.”

“It was never an issue. Not even when I announced my candidacy for president did people have any reason to question my birthplace.”

“Funny,” said Harry. “In this world of information overload, we think we know everything about our leaders. But still we don’t know them.”

“You’re talking as if this is an obvious thing. It’s not. Do your homework. Before the laws changed in 1961, you could even do an adoption by proxy from places like Cyprus. International adoptions in this country were a mess.”

“Was yours one of the messy ones?”

“It was 1960, Harry. Imagine a woman knows her life would be better without the man she’s married to, but she doesn’t have the courage to leave him. She tells her husband that the father of their child was the man who raped her, but she wants to keep the baby anyway. What do you think she expects a thug like Demetri to do?”

“Leave, I’m sure.”

“But maybe he surprises her. Maybe he loves her so much in his own twisted and controlling way that he thinks he can fix things-if he can just get rid of the kid. So he convinces Cypriot officials to look the other way as the child is smuggled out of the country, no paper trail. The baby is sold on the black market to an unmarried woman in Philadelphia who, for a fee, falsifies the birth records and pretends that the baby is hers. A nice couple then makes a perfectly legal adoption, knowing nothing about the smuggling or supposed rape that took place halfway around the world.”