Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

Oliver Stone sat in the waiting room of the hospital, the other members of the Camel Club and Mary Chapman surrounding him. No one spoke. They all just stared off, contemplating the possible loss of another friend.

Annabelle’s eyes were a dull red, her face puffy and a tissue clutched in her hand. Caleb and Reuben, his arm and leg bandaged, sat huddled together, heads bowed. Harry Finn leaned against the wall next to the door. He hadn’t known Alex Ford as well as the others, but he had known him well enough to be deeply distressed by what had happened to the man.

Alex was in intensive care after emergency surgery. The doctors said the head trauma had been severe, his skull fractured by the chunk of crypt blasted off by the explosion. The hemorrhaging had nearly killed him. As it was, he was now in a coma and not one of the doctors could tell them if he would ever come out of it.

Stone went to each of his friends, speaking in a low voice, offering words of comfort. When he got to Annabelle she rose and went outside. Stone started to follow her.

Chapman snagged him by the arm. “Maybe she needs some time alone.”

“Right now that’s the last thing she needs,” he answered as he pulled the door open and left the waiting room.

He caught up to Annabelle as she reached a window and looked out at the setting sun.

“I really can’t believe this, Oliver,” she said in a trembling voice. “Wake me up and tell me this is not real.”

“But he’s still with us. He’s tough. We just have to keep believing that he will come out of this.”

She sat down in a chair. Stone stood next to her. When she started to cry, he handed her a wad of tissues he’d grabbed before following her.

When the sobs subsided, she looked up at him. “The doctors didn’t seem very optimistic.”

“Doctors never do. Their job is to dampen hopes, not heighten expectations. Then if the patient comes out of it, they look more competent than they actually are. But they don’t know Alex like we do.”

“He’s a hero. As brave as anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Yes,” agreed Stone.

“So you emailed him? Told him about the bomb?”

Stone nodded and with each motion of his head his guilt deepened. I emailed him. I made him confront the problem. I’m the reason he’s lying in that coma.

He sat down next to her. “I... I wasn’t very forthcoming with Alex during this whole thing.” He thought back to when he and Chapman were leaving Friedman’s office that night. Alex had approached, obviously wanted to talk.

And I basically blew him off. And now he’s lying in a coma.

While putting on a brave front to Annabelle, Stone had had a private chat with the doctors. They were not hopeful of recovery.

“Is there brain damage?” Stone had asked.

“Too early to tell,” replied one of them. “We’re just trying to keep him alive.”

“Oliver?”

He turned to see Annabelle staring at him. “What were you thinking just now?”

“That I failed my friend. That he deserved better than me.”

“If you hadn’t gotten that message to him, the bomb would have gone off in the crowd. So many people would have died.”

“The logical part of me realizes that.” He touched his chest. “But not this part.” He paused. “Milton. And now Alex. It has to stop, Annabelle. It has to.”

“We all knew what we were getting into.”

“No, I don’t think anyone really knew. But it doesn’t matter.”

“I want to find who did this, Oliver. I want them to pay for what they did.”

“They will, Annabelle. That I swear to you.”

She glanced sharply at him. “You’re going after them?”

“It’ll either be me or them who walks away. I owe Alex that. I at least owe him that.”

Stone looked off down the hallway. He seemed to sense it before it even happened.

Annabelle noted this. “What is it?”

“They’re coming.”

“Who’s coming?”

He helped her to her feet and hugged her. “I promise you that I will find who did this. I promise you.”

“You can’t do it alone, Oliver.”

“This time I have to.”

When he stepped back from her there were tears in his eyes. They slid down his narrow cheeks. Annabelle looked stunned by this. She had never seen Oliver Stone cry before.

“Oliver?”

He kissed her on the forehead, turned and walked away just as the men in suits rounded the corner and headed toward him.

Two minutes later Stone and Chapman were in a government sedan heading downtown. From the car they were escorted to a small conference room at the FBI’s WFO. Stone was not surprised to see the FBI director there or Agent Ashburn. Or even Agent Garchik and the director of ATF. But he was surprised to see Riley Weaver walk in and sit down next to the FBI chief.

“I’ve already given my report to Agent Ashburn,” Stone said.

“I’m aware that you and Agent Ford are friends,” began the director, who had clearly picked up on Stone’s uncooperative tone.

“One of my best friends, actually,” replied Stone.

Ashburn interjected, “We just need to understand this better, Agent Stone.”

“I’m no longer an agent.” He glanced at Riley Weaver. “My commission was taken away.”

The FBI director cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that can be addressed later. Right now we need to focus on where we stand.”

Stone made no move to speak. He simply stared at Weaver until the man looked so uncomfortable that he eyed the door as though he wanted to flee.

Finally Chapman said, “I’ll give it a go. If I miss something I’m sure Agent Stone will fill it in.”

Over the next twenty minutes she told them everything that had happened, from Stone’s realization of the source of the bomb to their visit to Escalante’s home to Stone’s frantic messages to Alex Ford.

“Nifty piece of investigation and deduction, Stone,” said the FBI director as Ashburn nodded in agreement. The director added, “If you hadn’t acted as you did, the nation would be mourning its president. You saved his life.”

“You have Alex Ford to thank for that, not me.”

“We all realize that,” said Weaver curtly.

Stone eyed him. “Good. I’m glad we’re all on the same page there.”

When the explanation turned to the nanobots being used to change the molecular makeup of the bomb’s trace signature, both the ATF director and Agent Garchik looked like they might be sick. “If that’s true it changes everything,” Garchik said. “Everything.” He looked at his director, who was glumly nodding in agreement.

Weaver looked at the FBI director. “And we’re sure this is the case?”

“Carmen Escalante passed by two bomb detection canines and a bomb scanner at the ceremony today,” said Ashburn. “Neither animal nor machine reacted.”

“And we checked the video feed on Padilla entering the park. Same thing. Walked within a foot of the dog and nothing,” added the ATF director. “Whatever they did with this nano stuff, it worked. Altered the scent and chem footprint.”

The FBI director cleared his throat again. “That will have to be dealt with, certainly. But right now we need to find out who is behind this.”

Chapman said, “You’ve interviewed Carmen Escalante?”

“Interrogated her, more like it,” replied Ashburn. “Unless she’s a great actress she was a total dupe. She knew nothing of the bomb in her braces.”

“Perfect place for it, actually,” said the director. “Going through the magnetometer they of course caused it to go off, but they’re metal. And we didn’t have her put them through the X-ray because, well, it would have looked pretty callous.”