Gone Before Goodbye

Chapter Four

When Maggie’s alarm goes off the next morning, she sits up fast — too fast, her head reeling in protest. A jackhammer batters her skull from the inside. Her heart thumps deep in her chest. She flashes back to the night before, at Vipers, sitting on that cracked-leather stool, the floor sticky from spilled beer, Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” on the jukebox, the bar loud and growing hazier, old friends embracing her, regaling her with familiar stories of Marc as a precocious child, stories she’s heard a dozen times before and had always relished. But not tonight. She tried so hard to listen, to engage, to give her full attention to every single person who approached because they deserved that at the very least, but even as she tried to hold on, Maggie could feel herself slipping away into her own personal darkness. She drank her whiskey neat — Porkchop was currently endorsing Laphroaig 10 Year Old Islay — the weathered faces surrounding her, getting too close, blurring, becoming one indistinguishable mash. Then other faces emerged in their stead, dozens, maybe more, faces with pleading eyes, staring up at her with the blend of hope and despair that only a doctor witnesses. Marah, Joseph, Ahmed, Seema... And then, in the end, the last face, always the last face, was Kabir’s. She tried to comfort them, tried to stop the bleeding, tried to understand what they were saying to her. But they were speaking a foreign language, their pained words drowned out by mortar fire and the roar of helicopter rotors and the screams.

Give me another chance, Maggie thinks. I’ll fix them.

And sometimes, in her dreams, she gets that chance. The big do-over. They are alive. All of them. She can save them if she moves fast enough. She feels a sudden joy, a rush of hope, an odd clarity and focus and even peacefulness, and then something outside the dream — the alarm going off, Sharon calling out to her, Cole slamming the front door, whatever — pulls her away. There’s this brief, horrible moment where Maggie is still in the dream, rising out of that cusp between sleep and consciousness, when the faces begin to fade away, dissolve, and Maggie realizes with cruel certainty that this is not reality, that this is a dream, that she will soon wake up to a world where the dead will always be dead.

Enough, she tells herself.

Maggie throws her feet off the bed and onto the floor. She takes a few deep breaths, lets her pulse slow down. She tries to remember the last time she drank too much, and an outdoor bar in Juba on a hot South Sudan evening comes to mind. Trace kept buying rounds of Araqi, a delicious date-based liquor, and Maggie and Marc kept imbibing. There had been lots of laughs as there always are after too much horror. Trace had a girl with him — Maggie couldn’t remember her name because Trace always had a nameless girl with him and then the girl would be gone and there’d be another. Trace doesn’t like attachments. Or more likely, he can’t do them. On the surface, Trace gives off that sort of healable fragility, that vulnerability that draws in every woman who thinks they can fix him, but whatever is broken inside of him stayed broken.

Where is Trace Packer right now?

No clue.

Maggie blinks. It takes her a few moments to get her bearings.

She’s at the Aman hotel.

She stumbles out of bed, flicks on the light, enters a ginormous bathroom. On her right is a too-inviting pink-crème bathtub the approximate size of a Cadillac Escalade. On her left is a black-stone shower room — room, not stall — with an array of showerheads. Maggie chooses the shower, in part because she fears that if she sinks into that bathtub with its potpourri of bath crystals and bath teas and bath salts and bath oils and bath pillows, she may never be able to extract herself.

She strips out of the oversize T-shirt she slept in last night. The T-shirt is from the Vipers gift shop. Porkchop had given it to her. Across the chest, it reads:

Hard to escape the dad jokes with Porkchop.

Maggie turns on the showerheads, all of them, full blast. She steps into the middle and lets the sprays blast away at her skin from every direction. The water pressure is excellent, almost piercing her skin. She doesn’t want to move. She thinks back to her time overseas, how she’d yearn for a hot shower, how she realized that one of life’s greatest and most unappreciated luxuries was a hot shower. If you think about it, no human on planet Earth had even experienced a hot shower until, what, a hundred years ago maybe? She once googled it — because that’s how her brain works — and hot showers were not common until the 1970s.

“Enjoy the smaller moments,” her father had often told her. “That’s where life is lived.”

So she does — at least for right now. After some time passes, when she realizes that she must regretfully turn off the sprays and step out of her black-stoned cocoon, there are plush Frette robes and thick towels. The hotel phone rings, a gentle gong, letting guests know that there is an incoming call but not wanting to disturb their serenity. Maggie answers. The voice on the other end of the line probably does voice-overs for hypnosis apps. The voice asks what food or beverage she “craves” for breakfast, promising an arrival in five minutes.

“Coffee,” she says. “Black. Strong.”

“The Florentine omelet is a specialty.”

Maggie passes. Just the coffee.

Her mobile phone jangles in the stillness. It’s Porkchop. She answers on speakerphone.

“Good morning,” she says in a quiet voice.

“Why are you whispering?” he asks.

“Something about this room is making me stay quiet.”

“You quiet? Must be a miracle room.”

“Are you being a wiseass?”

“Just a little.” Then he adds, “You okay?”

“I’m good.”

He waits.

She sighs. “It was just a lot, you know.”

“I do.”

“I wasn’t really prepared for that.”

“That’s on me.”

“No, it’s not,” she says.

“Everyone was happy to see you.”

“I know I sort of zoned out.”

“You did, yeah.”

“I hope I wasn’t rude.”

“You’re family — no such thing as rude,” Porkchop says. “How are you feeling now?”

“Pretty hungover.”

“Same.”

“Wait, you?”

“I’m not as young as I used to be, Mags.”

Pinky had been the designated biker. He drove her back last night. She feels weird about having too much to drink, but again, her issue had been pills, not booze, and boy, that sounds like a pathetic loophole. So did the idea that she had “issues” with pills and not an “addiction.” She had stopped taking them cold after the... What does she call it? Incident? Accident? Catastrophe? Could she have done that — stopped the pills cold — if it had been a real addiction? She doubts it, but does it matter? The damage was done.

She isn’t sure what to say next, but Porkchop takes over, asking in a quasi-mocking tone whether she’s on her way to her “big, secret meeting.”

“I need to get dressed,” she says.

“Call me when you’re done.”

“You don’t have a mobile phone,” she reminds him.

“I’ll be by the payphone. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what this meeting is about?”

“Bye, Porkchop.”

She hangs up and throws on black jeans, boots, a denim shirt, and a blazer. It’s a massive mind melt that never seems to have a clear answer: Never be too provocative but never be too stuffy... Oh, but have a sense of style and always know what’s trending so you don’t appear, gasp, out of date — always trying to find the right balance between feminine and practical.

Utterly exhausting.

Maggie props up her phone on the bathroom vanity as she starts her makeup. She hits the icon and waits. When Marc’s face appears, Maggie says, “I saw your dad yesterday.”

“How is he?”

She chooses a little avoidance because she doesn’t want to go there right now. “Vipers is doing great. You ought to see what he’s done with it.”

“Did you both get drunk?”

“No.” Then: “Yes, of course.”

Marc smiles. “I’m glad you two have each other.”

Which is an odd thing to say.

“How long until your meeting with Evan Barlow?” he asks.

Maggie checks the clock on her phone. “Shoot, I’m running late. Talk later.”

She takes one last look in the mirror, shrugs, pockets the phone, and heads into the corridor. She reaches the fourteenth-floor atrium. The elevator doors are already open and waiting for her. The Mercedes-Maybach is parked at the quieter entrance on 57th Street. The chauffeur wears a black suit, black tie, and completes the look with a peaked newsboy cap. He holds the back door open.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Maggie.”

“I’m Alou.”

She sticks out her hand and meets his eye. “Nice to meet you, Alou.”

He hesitantly shakes it. “Yes, ma’am.”

The windows are fully tinted, so no one can see in. She slides onto the plush leather in the back. The seat’s heater is already on full blast. There is a woman in the front passenger seat. She turns and gives Maggie the full-wattage smile.

“Hi, Maggie, I’m Dawn! I’m your Barlow concierge!”

Dawn speaks in exclamation marks, which are not welcome this early in the morning ever, never mind after a night at Vipers with Porkchop. Maggie looks back at Alou before he closes her door. He shrugs as if to say, “Yeah, this is how it is.”

“Hi, Dawn.”

“Many of our patients demand total confidentiality!”

“I’m not a patient, Dawn.”

She blinks and the full-wattage smile flickers but stays strong. “Oh, I know. We just thought you might want to experience the service. Plus, well, I was asked to assure your ride is comfortable and discreet.”

“I appreciate that. Where are we going?”

“To see Doctor Barlow, of course.”

She turns to face forward. The car starts up. Maggie stays quiet for a moment. When they start heading north on Madison Avenue, she leans forward and says, “Isn’t Barlow Cosmetics south of here?”

“That’s the public office,” Dawn says. “We think of it as our storefront. Most of the elite surgeries are done in, shall we say, a more private location.”

“And that’s where we’re going?”

“That’s where we are going, yes.”

“Can you tell me where specifically?”

“I never remember the address. It won’t be long. Would you like a Minus 181 mineral water?”

Ten minutes later, the Mercedes heads into a garage under a Dolce & Gabbana. There are cars lined up to be parked, but Alou circles around them and veers down a ramp. They drive two floors down and pull up to an elevator with its door open.

“Here we are!” Dawn exclaims in a singsong voice.

Maggie tries to open the door, but it won’t give. “I think my door is locked.”

Dawn turns to her from the front seat. “First, do you mind leaving your phone here?”

“Pardon?”

“We don’t allow phones on the premises. Company policy. For the privacy of you and all our patient—” Dawn stops, corrects herself. “I mean, visitors. Don’t worry. Your phone will be safe with Alou.”

“And if I don’t want to give up my phone?”

Dawn’s reply is a disappointed-schoolteacher frown. “I’m afraid we can’t make exceptions to this policy.”

Maggie debates making a stink or calling Dawn’s bluff, saying something like, “Okay, fine, take me back to the hotel,” but really, what’s the point? She powers down her phone and places it on the seat next to her. Alou opens the back door. Dawn escorts Maggie into the elevator. She presses the button for the eighteenth floor. Maggie stands and watches the light dance upward. Dawn does the same. Maggie has questions, but she sees no point in asking them right now.

The doors open, and it almost feels as though Maggie were back in the Aman. The medical offices — assuming that’s what these are — feel more like an upscale spa. Soothing sounds are playing. No one is wearing white — that would be too loud and disconcerting — and so the staff mills around in light-sage surgical garb. Dawn opens a door and invites her to enter. After Maggie does, Dawn gently closes the door behind her.

The room has wall-to-ceiling windows with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. Funny. Maggie loves nature — she has experienced every sort of mountain, desert, ocean, valley, canyon, night, day, sunrise, sunset, whatever view imaginable — but something about the skyline in a great city works best for her. She never tires of them. Maybe it’s because city views change. They are man-made, not divine, so she can relate to them more on some base level. Or maybe, more likely, it’s because you are not alone with this view: It isn’t just rock or brick or stone or vegetation — there are people out there, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of them, and they all have hopes and dreams and a spiritual vibrancy and connection that nothing in nature can duplicate.

Man, Maggie thinks, I’m in a mood.

“Maggie.”

Dr. Barlow enters from the side door, wearing the light-sage scrubs and a surgical cap, though she doesn’t think he just got out of surgery or is headed into it. He greets her with a hug and a buss on the cheek. “Sorry for the whole cloak-n-dagger bit, but I thought you might like to see how we handle our more discerning patients.”

“It’s quite an operation,” Maggie says.

“It feels like overkill, I know, but—” Barlow shrugs, waves his arm to have her take a seat on an off-white leather couch. “Some patients will do anything to make sure no one knows they are undergoing a procedure. A few years ago, we had a big-name celebrity who didn’t want the tabloids to find out she was getting a rhytidectomy. You know how it is. So to disguise herself, she came to our midtown office in a — I can’t believe I’m even saying this — in a burqa.”

Maggie frowns. “Wrong in so many ways.”

“Exactly. So now we offer greater privacy in this location. We have recovery suites, guest apartments — you get the point. Again, not all our patients want this. In fact, I would say fewer than ten percent purchase the security package. But it’s a service we have to offer.”

She was getting a bit impatient. “Doctor Barlow—”

“Evan, please.”

“Evan, why am I here?”

“You’d find this place intriguing, Maggie,” he continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. He’s staying on a script, she figures, so she’ll just have to hang on for the ride. “As you know, we at Barlow Cosmetics are constantly pushing the boundaries. Refining and updating our procedures. We make them less invasive. Fewer scars. Shorter recovery time. You’ve always been a risk-taker, Maggie. It’s what drew you to the military. It’s what drew you to provide care in some of the most dangerous countries on the planet. You were never one to color in the lines. Perhaps that led to your...”

He falters here. Maggie helps him.

“Downfall?” she tries. “Destruction? Ruin?”

Barlow shakes his head. “Seems too harsh.”

“But apropos,” she says.

“I have a question for you.”

She waits.

“When the medical board crucified you, why didn’t you fight the charges?”

“Because,” Maggie says with no hesitation, “I’m guilty.”

Barlow isn’t sure what to say to that. “So you plan on never doing surgery again.”

He says it like that, a statement not a question, and the idea is so unfathomable. Never, ever again do the only thing she ever wanted to do? It breaks her heart anew.

“Looks like,” she says, slapping on the brave face. “I might still be able to do research for you, but I think having my name connected to Barlow—”

“I don’t want you to do research.”

“What then?”

He stares at the window. She joins him. “I work with a select few clients who will pay a premium for complete discretion. A very high premium.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear.”

“One particular client...” He stops, rubs his chin, considers his words. “I’m going to bring someone in in a moment. He demands complete confidentiality. There can be no record of this meeting. There had originally been a request to have you sign an NDA, but without a recording of this meeting, you’d have nothing to back up any claims.”

“What kind of claims?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Not like what? What exactly is this?”

“Look, I’ve said too much. You’re safe. I promise. I only have your best interest at heart. I think you know that. So let me bring him in. Listen to his offer with an open mind. If I didn’t believe this was something you should do, I would never have brought you up here.”

Barlow moves back to the side door and opens it. A large man fills the doorway. He almost seems to duck to get inside. When he’s fully inside the room, the man struggles to button the blazer on his suit.

“Maggie McCabe,” Barlow says, “this is Ivan Brovski.”

Brovski is bald and broad. He has no neck, his bullet-shaped head comes straight up from his shoulders. His suit looks expensive and tailored and yet it doesn’t fit, because this guy wasn’t built to wear a suit. Brovski manages a no-teeth smile and stretches out his hand for her to shake. She obliges. His hand swallows hers whole.

“Nice to meet you, Doctor McCabe,” Ivan Brovski says.

There is a hint of a Russian accent, but it is fainter than she would have imagined. He’s studied English for a long time. Judging by his accent, probably in London.

Barlow says, “I’ll be in the next room if I’m needed.” He can’t get through the door and close it behind him fast enough.

Maggie is standing. Brovski is standing.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Brovski?”

“I am a liaison for a very wealthy man,” Brovski says. “My client is in need of certain medical procedures.”

“What kind of medical procedures?” Maggie asks.

“You, Doctor McCabe, are a renowned reconstructive surgeon,” he begins, “a recognized expert in several surgical subfields, including cosmetic and facial reconstruction. You graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania before attending Johns Hopkins medical school. You’ve done residencies and fellowships at some of the country’s most elite hospitals, and even under the tutelage of our mutual friend Doctor Evan Barlow at NewYork-Presbyterian. Both of your parents were physicians. Your father, Clark McCabe, spent his career as a military doctor, mostly serving gravely war-wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. You followed your father into the military, where you served two full tours in heavy combat, earning you the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, and a Silver Star. You’ve also been awarded, along with your surgical partner Doctor Trace Packer, the Jackson Foundation award and, perhaps most impressively, a Purple Heart when you both took shrapnel from an IED in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan. After you served, you, Doctor Packer, and your husband, Doctor Marc Adams, created a rather noble charitable entity—”

Maggie holds her hands up. “Yeah, okay, I get it. You googled me, I’m flattered. Why am I here?”

“My employer needs discreet cosmetic surgery done.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Brovski rubs the top of his head. “We need you to perform surgery on two people. Cosmetic procedures, as I said. My employer will tell you the specifics when you meet.”

Maggie looks left, then right. “Is he here?”

Brovski does the no-teeth grin again. “No.”

“So what’s the plan here, Ivan?”

“We fly you to a private location.”

“Where?”

“Someplace” — he takes his time — “out of the country.”

“I’m going to need more than that.”

“There is a place called Rublevka. It’s—”

“—a suburb outside of Moscow,” she finishes for him.

He arches an eyebrow. “You’ve been?”

“No, but I’ve heard of it.”

Rublevka is the epicenter of the Russian oligarchs, perhaps the wealthiest residential area in the world. Lenin and Stalin had dachas there. Khrushchev and Gorbachev had summer residences.

Brovski nods. “When you were in college, you took a course called Modern Russian History with Professor Taubman. I nearly forgot.”

“Do you know when I got my first hickey?”

“What?”

“I bet your researchers missed that. Seventh grade. A game of spin the bottle with Mitch Glassman. You can stop with the ‘I know all’ intimidation tactics, Ivan. I’m a military brat who grew up military trained, so I know the program. Get on with it.”

“Fair enough,” Brovski says, amused. “But I think you see what we are after. We are looking for an expert surgeon who is willing to travel to Russia and perform highly confidential cosmetic procedures. We think that expert surgeon should be you.”

“What’s your client’s name?”

“I can’t reveal that at this time.”

“Is it a name I’d know?”

“I don’t know what you know,” Brovski says, “but I can tell you that my client values his privacy.”

Maggie takes that in for a moment. “You must be aware that my medical license has been revoked.”

“Yes, of course,” Brovski says. “It’s why you’re perfect.”

“Foreign doctors typically need to meet MIMC licensing to operate in Russia—”

“Done.”

“What?”

“It’s done,” he says. “MIMC has already issued your permit. What else?”

“I’d need two surgically trained nurses and one anesthesiologist.”

“Done.”

“I’d need extensive operating equipment and a sterile environment.”

“Done.”

“A fully equipped operating room.”

“Done.”

“I need to be indemnified in writing if anything goes wrong.”

“Done. Done. It’s all done.” He waves his arms impatiently. “Do you think we thought about doing this an hour ago? Let me also make it clear that we know you’re in heavy debt. So is your sister.”

Maggie is no longer surprised at what he knows. He works for a top-level Russian oligarch. There is little doubt that whoever is behind this has made sure to check all the angles before making this request.

“So?”

“So the moment you agree to do this,” Brovski continues, “that debt will be gone. Yours. And your sister’s. The malpractice suit filed against you? It will be settled.”

“How?”

Ivan Brovski just shrugs.

Maggie swallows. No more crushing debt. No more trials and depositions. How much is that worth?

A lot.

“Why can’t your client just go to a discreet clinic like this one?” Maggie asks.

“He doesn’t like to leave the house.”

“But he’ll have to leave it to go in for surgery.”

Brovski shakes his head. “We’ve built an operating theater in his home. It’s state-of-the-art.”

That term again.

Maggie takes her time, tries to play it cool.

“What do you say, Doctor McCabe?”

“I’ll need to stay for two weeks post-op.”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’s a fair amount of time for me to be away.”

“Ah,” Brovski says with the hint of a smile, “very good.”

She says nothing.

“Let me guess, Doctor McCabe: You’re not sure our paying off the debts is adequate compensation.”

Maggie shrugs. “What you’re asking me to do is pretty risky.”

“It’s not, not in the least, but fair enough.” Brovski checks his watch and feigns boredom. “We are in a bit of a rush, so let me cut to it. If you come with me to the airport right now, on top of getting you and your sister out of debt and settling your malpractice case, how about we pay you...” He pauses and looks up purely for effect. Then he just drops the bomb.

“...ten million dollars?”

If Maggie ever had a poker face, it’s gone now. He almost laughs.

“Five million put into your account at Merrill Lynch right now. The other five million when you’re done.”

Maggie is not sure she can speak. Ivan Brovski grins.

“So we have a deal?”