Sixteen

T revalian felt a burning in his right knee and then heard the shot. Too late. His right leg collapsed and he tumbled forward in an ungainly and painful somersault. His head dulled. He rolled, pulled himself up toward standing. He went down again. Blood everywhere. His leg on fire. He heard screaming.

Then the sole of a boot stomped down on his blown knee, and the pain darkened his vision.

He found himself looking up into the barrel of a gun. The sheriff was out of breath and looking down on him.

Seventeen

A t 2 P.M. Jerry’s eyes opened.

Walt sat in a formed fiberglass chair facing his father’s hospital bed. Like his nephew before him, Jerry was hooked up to every kind of wire and tube.

“You’re in recovery,” Walt said, not sure his father heard him. “They operated on you. Got the bullet. Cleaned you up. Your lung’s collapsed and your right shoulder’s going to need some physical therapy, but all in all you should be pretty happy that those private security boys can’t shoot for shit.”

He thought he saw the twinge of a smile and he realized Jerry had heard him, had understood. Jerry tried to say something, but it came out as more of a dry wheeze. Walt slipped an ice chip between his father’s lips. He’d never seen Jerry sick, had never seen him incapacitated. It felt as if this had to be someone else.

His father croaked out, “The shooter?”

Walt nodded. “Liz Shaler is fine. I’m fine. No guests were killed.”

His father shut his eyes. A moment later he was asleep.

“Sheriff?”

Walt turned to see Special Agent in Charge Adam Dryer’s acne-scarred face. “Suspect is out of surgery and has been moved to his room.”

“Thanks.”

“Doc says no visitors for four to six hours. But we’ll get a crack at him later tonight. FYI.”

“I’ll be here,” Walt said. “I’m going to stick around.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

“Hell of a thing your father did.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Maybe saved us all.”

“Maybe so.”

An apology hung between them, but it didn’t come.

“Later,” Dryer said. The door hissed shut behind him as he left.

“What a prick,” his father said, one eye creeping open and finding his son.

Walt laughed, surprised at how good it felt.

Eighteen

T revalian opened his eyes to the sound of beeping.

He noted the IV tubing and the finger clip monitoring his vitals. The bedside curtain was pulled back, revealing a private room, its wall-mounted television dark. No phone. Blackout curtains pulled. He wore a hospital gown, white with little blue daisies. They had a catheter in him.

Alive, he thought. This was followed immediately by: escape. He knew how this would go down, because he’d done a few of these jobs himself. Eighty thousand patients died unnecessarily in U.S. hospitals each year. Not all of those deaths were the hospitals’ fault. His being in federal custody was now somebody’s worst nightmare. Phone calls were being made. Arrangements. He’d be dead by morning.

Escape, he thought for the second time, taking in all the medical equipment, his wrapped leg, the elevated bed, the room. The temporary absence of handcuffs suggested the nurses needed to move or monitor him during this early going; it wouldn’t last long. He was no doubt heavily guarded from the outside. With a bum leg and no weapons, he was his own biggest obstacle. A sitting duck. If he didn’t make a phone call within a few hours…

He looked around the room. So little to work with. Some tubes, a few machines. Too many pillows to count. He had several IV stands to work with, but they weren’t going to measure up against Tasers and semiautomatic weapons.

He strained to retrieve the purple plastic tub sealed in stretch film from the adjacent end table. There was a washbowl within the tub. A toothbrush and toothpaste. A comb. No razor.

He wasn’t going to win any footraces. For all he knew he couldn’t put weight on the knee. He was trapped. They’d caught him.

He couldn’t begin to accept that.

If he asked, they would never bring him a razor. He needed for them to bring him one without his asking. He spent twenty minutes lying there contemplating this dilemma before spotting the communications jacks in the wall marked EKG.

He reached for and pushed the button clipped to the stainless steel side rail, summoning a nurse. Three minutes later, his room door opened, and a matronly woman in blue scrubs appeared. Behind her, looking in briefly, was one of the sheriff’s men.

Trevalian told the woman, “My chest…I’m having this pain…” He tapped his sternum. “Right in here.”

“Okay,” she said kindly, though both concerned and afraid of him. “I’ll let the doctor know. We’ll take care of it.”

She knocked to leave the room. This was a twist he hadn’t expected: The door locked from the hallway side.

Nineteen

H is name is Milav Trevalian,” Agent Dryer said to Walt from the other side of the front booth of the Mobile Command Center, currently parked twenty yards from the emergency room. “We have very little on him at present. U.S. Attorney’s office is stalling us, basically because it’s a Sunday and everyone in Washington is out on a yacht or a golf course. My guess is nothing much happens until tomorrow morning.”

“But we question him later tonight,” Walt said. It was pushing eight o’clock.

“With the doctor’s permission, yes.”

“I’ve got him on capital murder charges-the singer, the woman we found in his bathtub. Boise is sending up forensics to process that scene.”

“That’s between you and the AUSA. I have no idea how they’ll want to charge him. Listen, I gave you a shout because the AG wants to see you. If you’re going to do that, it has to be right now. She’s at the house.”

“I can’t leave,” Walt said.

“Understood. I’ll pass it along.” Dryer pushed some papers aside. “How is he?”

“Going to be okay.”

“He saved your life.”

Walt lowered his head, the man’s words resonating. His uniform shirt was speckled with his father’s blood. At one time he’d thought he’d spend his life hating the man. How quickly that had passed. He needed time to decompress.

“Hell of a thing you did, too,” Dryer said.

“It came together. It was a group effort.”

“The hell it was, but it’s good of you to say so.”

Walt motioned to the back of the bus. “You mind? I’ve got some clean shirts back there.”

“Help yourself. It’s your vehicle, Sheriff.” He grabbed hold of Walt’s arm as Walt passed. “The dog…how the hell’s the dog?”

“We’re awaiting a bomb squad tech from Salt Lake.” He checked his watch. “Probably here by now. He’ll work with our vet.”

“A fucking dog…,” Dryer said, sounding exasperated. “Right through our checkpoint.” Knowing he had failed and that at some point this was coming back onto him, knowing Walt’s earlier warnings would come back to haunt him.

“Yeah,” Walt said. “How about that?”