Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

He staggered back. He glanced at his shoulder in a state of shock. He put his hand inside his jacket, and when he drew it away, it was covered in blood. He looked at her, disbelieving. Then he pointed his gun at Mercado.

“No!”

Kate squeezed the trigger one more time. This time Raab spun and grabbed his right arm, his gun clattering across the floor. He looked confused. For a second, Kate didn’t know what he was about to do.

Then he took a stubborn step toward his gun on the floor. Kate pulled back the hammer one more time. “Please, don’t make me do this…”

Her hands were trembling. Tears burned her eyes. She took a step and leveled the gun at the center of Raab’s chest.

“What are you going to do?” Raab stared down at the blood on his palm as if unable to believe what she had done. “Kill your own father, Kate?”

Kate steadied her hands. She slowly shook her head. “You’re not my father, you son of a bitch.”

Raab stopped, bent over the gun, breathing heavily. His wounded arm dangled at his side. Then he reached down.

Kate’s fingers quivered on the trigger. “No!”

Raab leaned a little further, his fingers wrapping around the gun. He slowly brought it back up.

“Please, Daddy…” Kate cried.

“You always were the fighter in the family, weren’t you, pumpkin?” He steadied the gun until it pointed toward her. “I’m sorry, baby, but I just can’t let him live.”

A shot rang out from behind. Raab pitched forward, a spatter of blood erupting from his chest. Then another-more blood spraying, his gun clattering across the floor. Raab spun, his fingers still wrapped around an imaginary weapon, pointing it at the air, legs buckling, fixing on the shooter.

He fell.

Greg stood in the doorway, white as a ghost, his arms extended. He turned to Kate and shook his head. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt you, baby. I told you, you could always count on me.”

The police arrived at the lab within minutes. The EMS teams were close behind. It looked like a war zone, with flashing lights and sirens as patrol cars and emergency teams screeched to a stop outside. There were three dead bodies in the exterior hallway. Blood was all over the place. Kate sat with Greg, his arm around her, while the medical teams looked after Mercado. She told the police that she’d speak only to Agent Cavetti of the WITSEC Program. He was on his way.

Raab was dead. Mercado was still alive, but barely. As they waited, Kate kept stroking his face, urging him to hang on. And somehow he did. He kept muttering in a sort of semiconscious state that there was still something she had to know. Kate just squeezed his hand. “Please, don’t die…”

Cavetti arrived at the scene a few minutes later. As soon as Kate saw him, she broke away and hugged him.

“My father…” She sobbed on his shoulder. “My father came…with that man outside. He killed those agents… I had to-”

“I know, Kate.” Cavetti nodded, patting her on the back. He made no move to pull her away. “I know…”

“It was all about revenge,” Kate said. “Our whole life was just a lie-about revenge. He destroyed our whole family, to get back at Oscar Mercado for having betrayed them. Fraternidad. His own brother…” Kate’s eyes flooded with fresh tears. “ My father …Mercado is my father, Cavetti.” She pulled away and looked over at Raab. “My whole life, he always said it was about family. That was the only thing that wasn’t a lie.”

The EMS crew treating Mercado lifted him up onto a gurney. Cavetti cast them a nod to take him away.

“Where are you taking him?” Kate asked, panicked. She wanted to come along.

Cavetti took her by the shoulders. He shook his head, ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, Kate, but that’s something you can’t know.”

They started to wheel him toward the entrance. Kate suddenly saw that it was happening all over again. “No!”

She rushed up alongside the gurney and clung to his hand. This was her father they were taking away.

“I did the right thing,” he uttered, turning to look at her.

“Yes.” Kate nodded, squeezing his hand. “You did.”

He smiled.

They carried him through the corridor leading to the reception area and down the stairs to the sidewalk. Kate kept up, alongside. A crowd had formed on the street. Several EMS vans, lights flashing, were blocking off traffic.

“He loves you,” Mercado said. His hand reached out and firmly took hold of her arm. “He was only there to protect you all this time. You have to know that, Kate. He was only there from me…”

“I know.” Kate nodded. She glanced back around. Greg was standing in the entrance. Later there’d be a time to sort out where they stood. But not now.

“There’s something in my pocket,” the dying man said. “Take it.”

Kate reached inside his jacket and came out with something in her hand.

A locket.

“It holds secrets, Kate…” He wrapped her fingers tightly around it. “Beautiful ones.” He smiled. “Just like your sun.”

“I know.” She reached out for his hand and she held it as long as she could while they lifted him into the van. The EMS crew climbed inside. Sirens were wailing. They were taking him away, Kate knew. Not just to the hospital but back inside the program. Back into darkness. She was never going to see him again.

“Good-bye…” She smiled, holding his gaze until the doors were shut. “Daddy…”

The two lead vans had already been loaded. The lights began to rotate, and they took off with a police escort down the street. The two vehicles made a left at the corner. She was sure they were heading to Jacobi Medical Center, just blocks away.

But at the intersection the one carrying Mercado continued straight onto Morris Avenue, through the light.

Cavetti came up and put a hand on her shoulder.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Kate asked, Mercado’s van disappearing into the sea of flashing lights.

“To whom , Kate?” He smiled, knowingly. “To whom?”

She followed the trail as long as she could. Then finally she looked down and opened her fingers. In her hand was the locket Mercado had given her. It was an old, polished silver frame, with a filigreed clasp.

“It holds secrets, Kate,” he had told her. “Just like your sun.”

Kate pushed it open.

She was staring at a photo of a beautiful woman with braided light hair and sunny green eyes that almost took her breath away. For the first time, Kate realized, she was looking at her mother.

She smiled. She held back tears. There was a name engraved under the picture.

Pilar.

It took several days for Kate to feel she could see him again. Days for her to get back on track with her medication and regain her strength.

And she had several meetings with the police and the FBI to go over what had happened at the lab. Everything that had happened, this time. She replayed those last moments over a hundred times. Could she have pulled that trigger? Could he? It made her sad, in a final kind of way. At least it had all come to an end. Raab’s debt had been paid. He had raised her. There was a part of her that still felt tears for him. Whatever he’d done.

He was right. You can’t just erase twenty years.

Kate and Greg decided on a cup of coffee at the Ritz, a café around the corner from their loft. “This time no secrets,” Greg promised, and Kate agreed. She wasn’t sure how she felt. She wasn’t sure if what Mercado had told her made any difference. All Greg said was, “I just want the chance to show you how I feel.”