The Devil's bed

chapter
twenty-four

Bo dreamed of walking through falling white. Snow, maybe. Or ashes. Behind him, his footprints disappeared as quickly as he left them. Ahead of him, the white became a gauzy curtain muting everything beyond it to vague dark shapes. He sensed that something bad was out there beyond what he could see, something to be afraid of although he couldn’t name it. If this is snow, he dreamed himself thinking, then it’s probably a wolf. If this is ashes…

He woke before he dreamed the ending to that thought, woke to a touch on his arm, in a room full of white sunlight, in a bed with snow white sheets. Nurse Maria Rivera, in an impeccably white uniform, was taking his pulse. Bo lay on his stomach.

“I thought you worked nights,” he said. He felt groggy, and his own voice sounded distant to him.

“I asked for days for a while.” She noted his heart rate on his chart.

Bo watched her, and he remembered the afternoon they spoke in her home. “It wasn’t your fault. Randy O’Meara, I mean. The man you knew as Max Ableman killed him.”

“I know. Put this under your tongue.” She stuck a digital thermometer in his mouth. When the thermometer beeped, she checked it and marked his chart.

“Do I have to be on my stomach?” Bo said.

“Not if you’re careful.” She helped him roll onto his side and propped him with a pillow placed so that it didn’t touch the bandaged wound in his back. He’d been lucky, they told him. The blade had missed anything vital, and the wound had been easily closed. Gauze wrapped his forearm where the damage done to the artery and tendons had been repaired in surgery. “Someone is here to see you,” she said.

Bo looked at the door. Stu Coyote stood in the threshold, a big, white-toothed grin on his broad Indian face. “Okay if I come in?”

“Sure. Thanks,” Bo said to Nurse Rivera as she left.

Coyote stood at Bo’s bedside. “For a national hero, you don’t look so tough.”

“National hero?”

“That’s what the media’s saying. But don’t let it go to your head. They said the same thing about Custer for a while. How’re you feeling?”

“I don’t. They shot me full of painkiller.”

Coyote drew a chair up and sat down. “You’re looking pretty healthy for a man who almost bled to death.”

“The First Lady’s all right?”

“Yeah. You know she saved your life?” He smiled at Bo’s look of surprise. “She put pressure on that wound and stopped the bleeding. Wouldn’t let go until the paramedics got there.”

“No kidding?”

“Damn straight.”

“How about Annie? Is she okay?”

“Annie, Earl, and Nicole Greene are fine. Moses was so quiet, they didn’t even wake up until they heard the shots in the orchard.”

“What about the other agents.”

Coyote’s eyes slid away. “Jake, Dusty Owens, Jon Rude.” He shook his head. “Also Lucy Aguilera from Manning’s team. She was on duty in the house.”

“How about Manning?”

“He took a round in the chest, but he’ll pull through.”

“And Moses?”

Coyote’s face turned hard. “He got away, Bo. Your shots didn’t kill him because he was wearing body armor. We found a mashed slug from your Sig in the grass. When he went over the edge, he fell almost fifty feet. Went through branches that slowed him down, and he landed in some bushes that must’ve broken his fall. In the dark, our guys had a tough time climbing down. By the time they did, Moses was gone. He left a trail of blood leading down to the river, so it looks like he was hurt pretty bad. We found an inflatable kayak hidden in some brush. We figure he probably meant to use it in his escape, but he was disoriented or didn’t have the strength to get to it and decided to try to swim. It’s a big river with a fast current. His chances of making it were pretty slim.”

“But they haven’t found a body?”

“Not yet.”

Bo closed his eyes. “I blew it, Stu.”

“You didn’t blow anything.”

“Four agents dead, and Moses slipped away.”

Coyote put a hand gently on Bo’s shoulder. “Give yourself a break. If it hadn’t been for you, the First Lady’s name would have been added to the list.”

“How’d he breach the perimeter at Wildwood?”

“Dug a tunnel. You know how lax security is out there when we’re not around. He’d been watching everything all along. Remember the van bought in Luther Gallagher’s name? We found it parked on the highway outside Wildwood, disguised as a media van. It was full of surveillance equipment. He’d been monitoring Wildwood since the First Lady’s arrival.”

Bo closed his eyes and shook his head. “The electronic sweep we never did.”

“We also found plastic explosives in the van, along with detonators and timers. We’re speculating right now that he intended to kill the First Lady and her father together when she visited the hospital. We figure he knew that any medical emergency at Wildwood would come to this hospital, so he arranged to have a job that would give him perfect access to Jorgenson’s room. By the way, the guy who had the laundry job before Moses died from a fall down the stairs in his apartment. High level of alcohol in his blood. It was deemed an accidental death at the time. Washington County sheriff’s taking a closer look at that now.”

From the door, another voice spoke, “They’re taking a closer look at a lot of things thanks to you, Bo.” Diana Ishimaru came into the room. Her eyes were at the center of big, dark circles, but she’d pasted a small smile on her lips. “How do you feel?”

“Alive. I guess that’s something.”

“The First Lady and Annie Jorgenson are here now visiting Tom. They’d like to drop in, if that’s all right.”

Bo didn’t reply.

“You did a good job out there. I’m putting you in for a citation.”

“I don’t want a citation.”

Ishimaru moved closer, wedged herself between the bed and Coyote. She bent close to Bo, and her tired face loomed in his vision. “Listen to me, and listen good. We lost four of our people last night. Now that’s a tragedy. I spent the whole morning with their families, and let me tell you I’ve had enough sorrow to last me a lifetime. We need to salvage something good from all this. And you’re the ticket. You saved the life of the First Lady. The Secret Service did its job. You need to be a hero, do you understand? So lose the self-pity, Agent Thorsen. It’s an indulgence we can’t afford.”

There was a small commotion outside the door. Ishimaru straightened and glanced back. The First Lady and Annie Jorgenson stood patiently, waiting to be asked to enter. “May we come in?” Annie finally ventured.

“Sure,” Bo said.

Ishimaru gave him a stern look, then signaled to Stuart Coyote to accompany her outside. Annie went straight to the bed, bent, and kissed Bo’s cheek. “You’ve always told me you believe I saved your life, Bo. I think you’ve repaid the debt.”

“Whatever you say, Annie.”

The First Lady stood in a flood of sunlight, looking almost shyly at Bo. She wore a black silk blouse and a black skirt. In mourning already for those who’d died doing their duty, Bo thought, and he appreciated it. They eyed each other for a long moment. Bo wondered if maybe there was something he should say, but he didn’t know what. Finally she moved near him and sat down so that she could look into his face as he lay on the bed. She spoke quietly, so that no one but Bo and Annie could hear. “I thought I was going to die out there, Bo.”

“I thought we both were. They tell me you saved my life. Thanks.”

“You saved mine,” she pointed out.

“I heard what you said to Moses on the cliff. It took a lot of courage. You spit right in the devil’s eye.”

“He wasn’t the devil,” she said. “But I can’t help thinking of you as my guardian angel now.”

Bo noticed a small white scar above the corner of her lip, noticed how when she smiled it swung to the right like a meter that gauged her happiness. It was such a tiny thing, and yet he found it enormously beautiful. He was afraid his eyes might give his thoughts away, and he closed them for a moment.

“You’re tired, I’m sure,” Annie said. “We should be going.” She started toward the door.

The First Lady rose from her chair but hesitated before leaving. She leaned down carefully, and kissed Bo lightly above his left eye. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He slept some more. In the afternoon, the Washington County sheriff dropped by with Detective Timmons. They asked Bo a lot of questions and took a formal statement. As they were leaving, Sheriff Quinn-Gruber said, “I’ve put aside a couple of bottles of my best honey raspberry beer. We’ll crack ’em open soon as you’re out of here.”

“Thanks, Doug.” Bo managed a smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Shortly after that, the two FBI agents who were formally in charge of investigating the murder of the federal agents at Wildwood paid him a visit. They spent a long time talking, and afterward Bo was exhausted. A bit later Maria Rivera came back in. “I’m going off my shift now. Tom Jorgenson sends his best wishes. Perhaps tomorrow you can see him. Now, I think you should lie on your stomach again.”

She helped position him. He turned his head so that he could look out the window toward the east. The afternoon sky was a deep blue made almost inky by the tint on the window.

“It’s not easy, is it?” she said.

“What?”

“Letting go of the feeling you are somehow responsible. Agent Thorsen-”

“Call me Bo.”

“Bo, we cannot presume to know what is in God’s mind. We live and we die according to his will. Blame?” The nurse shook her head, dismissing it. “Life is a blessing and death a deliverance. Both are gifts, and neither is in our hands.” She patted his arm in a motherly way and stepped out of the room.

Bo lay awhile, thinking. He thought about the fact that in both interviews with law enforcement that day, he’d said nothing about the accusation David Moses had made twenty years before, an accusation Bo didn’t believe for an instant. He knew that if it came to light, good people could still suffer, even after all these years. But agents were dead, and didn’t death demand the truth? Wasn’t that part of his duty? He thought about his duty, wondering what exactly that was now. He thought about those who’d died at Wildwood and whether he could have saved them if he’d only put everything together a little faster. He tried to tell himself that had Chris Manning let him run the electronic sweep when he’d wanted to, maybe none of this would have happened. But Manning was lying in another room with a bullet hole in his chest. What good did blaming him do? It didn’t change anything. Let go of the blame, Nurse Rivera had advised him. Lose the self-pity, Diana Ishimaru had ordered. Bo wished he could. He wished that all the confusion in his mind would pass. He felt sad and angry and deeply responsible. He didn’t feel at all like a hero.

The sun went down. The sky grew dark. Bo buzzed the nurses’ station. When a woman in white appeared, he said, “I’m going to try to sleep some more. Could you wake me at tenP.M.?”

“Why?” the nurse asked.

Bo laid his head down on the pillow. “I’d like to see the moon.”