James Grippando - Need You Now

I was telling him about my graduation from college when the door opened.

“Hello, I’m from the pain-management team.”

The man didn’t introduce himself as a physician, but he acted like one. Even after introducing myself, I still didn’t get his name. He walked around to the other side of the bed and checked the monitors. If Dr. Kern was a model of bedside manner, he was more in line with my preconceived notion of prison-unit health care.

“Are you a doctor?” I asked.

“Henry Bozan, nurse anesthetist. How long has the patient been sleeping?”

“He was out when I got here. That was around nine.”

“I thought I heard you talking.”

It was an odd tone, almost accusatory. “I’ve been telling him stories as he sleeps,” I said.

“So he hasn’t told you anything?”

Another odd question. “No,” I said.

“You may want to get some rest yourself. He probably won’t come around until morning.”

“Hopefully sooner than that. Dr. Kern reduced the Demerol.”

He checked the drip hanging from the IV pole. “That’s not a good idea. This patient is in serious pain.”

“Dr. Kern said he’s already at the daily maximum.”

“I’m following the direct orders of the chief physician on the pain-management team.”

“I’d prefer that you talk to Dr. Kern about that.”

I heard voices in the hallway, someone approaching. The door opened. Dr. Kern entered with a distressed expression on her face and a corrections officer at her side.

“That’s him!” she said.

The ensuing moments were a complete blur. The corrections officer rushed past Dr. Kern and drew his weapon. I dived forward, shielding my father. The nurse anesthetist was suddenly like a gymnast on a pommel horse, pushing himself up on the bed rail with two strong arms, swinging his legs over the bed-over me and my father-and propelling himself feetfirst into the oncoming officer. Dr. Kern screamed as the gun flew from the officer’s hand, slammed into the wall, and fell to the floor. The nurse-turned-gymnast got there first and emptied two quick rounds into the officer’s chest, dropping him to the floor in a spray of blood. Then he slammed the door shut, grabbed Dr. Kern, and put the gun to her head.

“Don’t move!” he said, meaning me.

A larms sounded throughout the prison unit. Door after door slammed in the hallway as the unit went into the hospital equivalent of lockdown.

Andie Henning raced down the hall from Room 826.

Andie’s plan had started with Patrick’s father. “Call Patrick,” he’d told her, knowing the end was near, “and let him know that there’s something I need to tell him, man to man.” With his approval, Andie had taken it a step further, the key to her plan being that she would call Patrick on his BlackBerry-a phone compromised with spyware. It was a virtual lock that the eavesdropper would hear the news and take the necessary steps to stop Patrick’s father from making a deathbed confession to his son about Operation BAQ. The FBI’s plan had been hatched on the quick, but Andie’s instructions to the Department of Corrections had been specific. Watch for red flags: a new corrections officer, a new nurse, a new doctor, a new janitor-anyone trying to enter the unit who had never entered before.Someone had obviously screwed up.

Idiots!

It was like riot control in the hallway, a team of corrections officers rushing to Room 834 in response to the gunshots.

“He could have hostages!” Andie shouted, but she was too late.

The first officer smashed through the door, weapon drawn. Shots erupted. The lead officer went down and fell into the room, his feet motionless in the open doorway. Three other corrections officers crouched into positions of cover, their backs flat against the walls in the hallway.

“Officer down!” Andie shouted as she came up behind them, the alarm continuing to sound as she positioned herself near the intercom in the hallway.

T he guard went down hard to the floor, dropped by two quick shots that left him motionless. His pistol skidded across the tile toward the bed. I dived for it as the gunman took Dr. Kern and moved away from the window, toward the closet. I grabbed the pistol and took aim, but he was using the doctor as a human shield.

“I have hostages!” he shouted in a voice that was loud enough for the officers in the hallway to hear him.

A voice crackled over the speaker box on my father’s bed: “We hear you.”

I recognized the voice as Andie Henning’s.

The alarm went silent, and an eerie stillness came over the room. Two guards shot, my father barely alive. Andie’s voice continued over the intercom speaker:

“We want to get medical treatment for the injured officers.”

“They’re dead! And if you make another run at this room, they’re all dead!” Then he looked at me, his gun pressed to Dr. Kern’s head, and said, “Drop your gun!”

I held my aim, my finger on the trigger.

“Do it!” he said as he shoved the pistol even harder against the base of the doctor’s skull.

I didn’t move. Andie’s voice was on the speaker again.

“Patrick, do as he says. We don’t need your help.” She paused and then addressed the gunman directly. “Mongoose, there’s no escape. We know who you are.”

“Mongoose,” I said quietly, a reflex, as if there were at least partial closure in knowing what he called himself.

“It’s hopeless, Mongoose,” said Andie. “Joe Barber is being arrested as we speak. Drop your weapon and surrender now.”

Mongoose glared at me from across the room, his eyes like lasers. “Put the gun on the floor and slide it toward me,” he said in a calm, but threatening tone.

The doctor’s eyes widened with fear. I should have done as I was told, should have followed Andie’s direction. But there was no guarantee that my father would ever wake, and I had Mongoose’s attention-a chance to get some answers. I couldn’t let go.

Mongoose tightened his stare on me and said, “There’s no one here worth dying for, Patrick. Your father is a traitor to the U.S. government.”

“You’re reaching,” I said.

“Your father cut a deal with terrorists.”

“Right. And yo’ mama eats worms. Now, put down the gun, asshole!”

“You think this is a joke?” he said, pressing the pistol even harder against Dr. Kern’s head.

It had been a knee-jerk effort to show Mongoose that he wasn’t in control, that I wasn’t afraid to shoot him. But the doctor’s terrified expression made me regret my words. “Not a joke,” I said, backpedaling. “Let’s put away the weapons and talk.”

“Just shut up and listen! I heard the truth last night from Manu Robledo. If not for your old man, Manu Robledo never would have seen the quant’s analysis showing that Cushman was a Ponzi scheme.”

I held my aim. Mongoose kept talking.

“Your father wanted to get someone riled up enough to kill Gerry Collins, and he didn’t care who else Robledo took out along the way. Didn’t care if he took me out.”

The anger in his voice was palpable. He seemed to hold as much animosity toward my father as he did toward Robledo-and, by extension, toward me.

Mongoose continued his rant. “For three years I was convinced that the government had forced your father to confess as part of Operation BAQ. Nobody forced him. Your father took the rap so that Robledo could stay out of jail and find the money that Collins had stashed away. We’re talking billions of dollars from terrorist financers who would have killed Robledo unless he got it back. Your father confessed for a cut of that money-money that he would leave to you and your sister.”