Warlord

EIGHT

HEATHER, YOU ALL RIGHT, BABY GIRL?" she heard her husband say.

Tom was down the hall in his den watching the Saturday afternoon edition of Live at Five Metro Miami news. Heather was amazed her husband had even heard her cry of surprise over the surround-sound TV he had going. Some big news event had happened earlier, she wasn't sure what, but he'd been riveted to the big Samsung TV wall monitor since right after lunch.

News-glued, she called the chronic twenty-four-hour bad-news-cycle phenomenon gripping the country. Many Americans suffered from it: Nancy Grace saying, "It's been twenty-two months since little Tracey Childers went missing from a trailer park here in Ocala, Florida. Do local police have new information? We'll be back in a minute."

That sound bite said it all.

And it wasn't healthy, Heather told anyone at the office who'd listen. A steady diet of bad news was bad for your soul. And probably your heart.

"Honey, you okay?" her hubby called out.

"No, not really all that okay, Tom," she shouted from the kitchen, and heard the TV muted a moment later.

"What? What is it, sweetie?" he called from the door of his sanctuary. "Don't tell me it's-you know. The Big One. Time to hit the ground running? Honey?"

"My water just broke so I'd say, yep, time to go, all right."

She heard his heavy linebacker footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the kitchen.

"Omigod, honey, we gotta get a move on! Where's our prepacked emergency bag? I know I put it somewhere. Bedroom closet? Yes! Wait, I'll run upstairs to the bedroom and-"

She'd known it would be exactly like this. No matter how many dry runs they'd made, even putting a clock on the exact time it took from their front door at 2509 Bayshore Boulevard in Coconut Grove to the Emergency entrance at Jackson Memorial, eighteen minutes. On one of the dry runs, Tom had videotaped the whole thing as if it were the real deal. Who's gonna know? he asked her.

And no matter how many times they'd discussed in endless detail exactly what would happen when it was time to go to the hospital, she'd known Tom would forget that they'd placed the packed suitcase in the front hall closet so they could grab it as they went out the door.

Tom and Heather Hendrickson were having their first baby. So she wasn't surprised her husband was a mess approaching a meltdown. She felt amazingly calm, considering. Tom, who was a CPA, a senior vice president with a big Miami accounting firm, was used to having everything under control. Numbers you could control. Nature was something else altogether. Different kettle of fish. What was the old line? If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Yeah, well, God was having a hissy fit, probably in hysterics right now. She was two weeks early. They'd just finished assembling the crib late last night. Hadn't even painted the nursery yet. Her baby shower was tonight! She whipped out her cell, speed-dialed her sister in Homestead, told her to call everybody and cancel.

"Not up there, honey," her husband said, his voice tinged with panic as he came rushing headlong down the stairs. "Damn it to hell, I was sure we put it-"

"Tom. Listen. It's the red Samsonite in the front hall closet. I'm going upstairs now to change. Why don't you get the bag, take it out to the car, back out of the driveway, and wait with the motor running at the end of the walk. Good idea?"

"Brilliant! You go change. I'll get the bag, I'll be out there in the car, engine running. Hurry up, okay?" He looked at his watch. "We're already six and a half minutes behind schedule."

"TOM, PLEASE SLOW DOWN. IT'S not going to help if we get stopped for speeding."

He was doing eighty, heading north on I-95, weaving in and out of the light weekend traffic. Tom had his head craned over the top of the steering wheel, looking for an exit sign that said South Dixie Highway.

He said, "Yeah. You're right. That would be a disaster."

"Cops deliver babies in cars all the time, honey. It wouldn't be a disaster."

"Have the baby in the car? Are you out of your mind? Good Lord, Heather, let's get real here."

"Sweetie, I'm not even that dilated, so would you please try to calm down. Just concentrate on your driving."

"Okay. You're right. Okay, here we go. South Dixie to LeJeune Road. We're almost there."

"So what was so fascinating on the news?"

"You don't know?"

"How could I? I was in the kitchen making casseroles for my lonely bachelor boy all afternoon. You know, for the freezer. So what happened? Wait. I know. The Dolphins are going to play a team they actually have a chance of beating tomorrow. Right?"

"Honey, no, this is serious stuff. You know that maximum security prison out in the Everglades? They call it the 'Glades.' Anyway, seven prisoners escaped this morning. Killed two guards, wounded three more getting out. There's a statewide manhunt going on right now."

"Which way were they headed?"

"No one knows. They disappeared into the sugarcane fields. They've got dogs out, helicopters, the whole deal, and not a trace. The chief of the Belle Glade PD thinks there was an accomplice waiting in a car on one of the dirt roads the cane trucks use to get from the sugar factories to the train depot. It's like a giant maze out there. No wonder they couldn't catch 'em."

"They'll catch them, Tom. Don't worry."

"How do you know?"

"They always catch them. I can't remember a single time where prisoners escaped somewhere and they didn't eventually get caught."

"Right. The ones you hear about. The ones that get away the media don't talk about. Oh, no. These were bad actors, too. At least two of the guys were previously held at Gitmo, before some genius in Washington decided to let them go. Goddamn terrorists on the loose. That's all we need. I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad we're not flying anywhere for a while."

"Why?"

"Why? Because that damn shoe bomber was one of the escapees. That Brit who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris with a bomb in his shoe. Remember him?"

"Richard Reid was not held at the Glades, Tom. He's currently in a Supermax Detention Facility in Colorado. I'm a federal prosecutor, remember? I know these things."

"Yeah, well, they mentioned him anyway. Terrorists recruiting other terrorists in prison. Jails as terror training camps. Great, huh? Country going to hell in a handbasket. Next thing you know they'll be calling in a Predator air strike on the Miami jailhouse to take out al Qaeda warlords. Here's LeJeune, honey. Two minutes. Hold on."

"I'm already holding on. You hold on."

OBSTETRICS IS ON THE SEVENTH floor of Jackson Memorial. Heather was amazed when Tom, who had barely survived three months of Lamaze classes with her, announced upon arrival at the hospital that he would not be going into the delivery room after all. He had made such a big deal about the moment, about being there to help with her breathing, to videotape the climax of the film he already had in the can, as he said, that she was mildly surprised.

But Tom was Tom and sweet, sweet Tom was terrified of the sight of blood and so she gave him a pass. Given his current state of agitation, she was probably better off without him were she brutally frank with herself. He was in no condition to offer comfort or reassurance, much less be a breathing coach to anyone right now.

So he was probably better off out there pacing back and forth or thumbing through old GQs and Sports Illustrateds with all the other expectant dads in the ob-gyn waiting room. One could only imagine the karma in that room right now. Wide-eyed panic masked by cheerful male camaraderie. Boy or girl? Who cares, buddy, long as he's got ten fingers and ten toes!

The other good news was she was two weeks early, which might mean a short labor, at least that's what her mom back in Cincinnati had told her anyway, and that was certainly what she was hoping when the contractions started coming hard and fast and suddenly they were wheeling her crazily down the long antiseptically green-tiled corridor toward the delivery room. And then, boom, blasting right through two big swinging doors like a drunken cowpoke.

The gurney seemed to be careening from side to side but maybe that was only the IV Valium drip kicking in or something, because, aside from the really, really bad cramps she was feeling, it was okay, so far, this childbirth thing. But it was incredibly bright in here, like stepping out from behind the curtain onto a blinding stage with every spotlight in the house in your eyes, but that was part of the deal, right?

Really hurting now, and wondering if she'd made a mistake turning down that spinal, that epidural, or whatever, but determined to gut it out just like she'd always done ever since she'd been a little girl. One tough cookie, that's what they'd said about Heather Hintzpeter, and, goddamn it, they were right. Take your spinal and shove it, pal…

She was suddenly surrounded by masked faces. The anesthesiologist was right beside her head, whispering things to her, things that were meant to amuse and relax her, but she had no earthly idea what he was talking about. At the other end of her was her doctor, a young guy just starting out but she had really liked him and trusted him right from the start so everything was going to be okay…

"Push!"

"Okay, good…push on three…and one and two and three-PUSH!"

Heather took another breath-God, it hurt-and got ready to give it another push and then-well, then-

THE WHOLE ROOM SHOOK and there was this loud, horrible noise, like an explosion just outside the delivery room. She saw the doctor's eyes dart up over his mask, looking at his team, silently urging them to be calm at this critical moment…

"What the hell was that?" one of the nurses asked, clearly afraid.

"Gas main," another one said. "Or a boiler in the basement. Relax."

A fried electrical noise inside the walls somewhere, zzzzz-tttt…zzzzz-ttttt.

The lights suddenly went out. There was a deep intake of breath around the table and everyone held it until the lights flickered a few times and finally came on again.

"Generator?" someone asked. "The main power is out?"

"Wait, didn't that explosion sound like it came from above?" another nurse asked. And there did seem to be dust falling through new cracks in the ceiling…she could see it, feel it on her cheeks.

"Push!" Dr. Sabatini said and by God almighty she pushed like she'd never pushed before for what had to be the thirtieth time…

The nurse at her right foot screamed.

The baby? Something horribly wrong with her baby?

No. Someone had just come into the delivery room.

She tried to raise her head to see, but the male anesthesiologist put a hand on her forehead and pushed it down. But she'd already seen him-she'd seen a man all in black. Face hidden by some mask with only eyeholes.

He had a large black gun, held at his waist, and he screamed something unintelligible and then opened fire, a horrible staccato sound, and the people surrounding her delivery table were simply shredded, holes spouting blood in every direction, falling away from the table or sprawled across her body.

Then, silence.

She used her elbows, forced her torso upward, straining, wanting to see, see who would do this, who would come into such a sacred place of childbirth and slaughter, who would…she looked into the black eyes in the black holes of the ski mask and instantly understood that all of it, everything she cherished, all she knew, was lost.

He saw her now, seemed to react to this single head raised from the table, eyes fixed upon him, and he lifted his weapon, aiming to kill her, she knew that, but she didn't flinch, or defy what fate had decreed; she waited to die. He sighted the gun at her face and now this nightmare would end, and all the while her baby was struggling to be born and so still she pushed, pushed with everything she had, screaming in agony, barely seeing the killer drop his weapon, reach for a cord that dangled from some vaguely recognizable contraption strapped around his waist.

The black figure yanked the cord downward, and the room and all the dead surrounding her, lying across her legs, sprawled upon her belly, inert on the floor, all simply disappeared in one blinding white moment when all was erased and she was hurled backward into a solid wall of pain and then unwanted darkness, even as the bomb's enormous concussion expelled her child into the new world.

IN ADDITION TO COUNTLESS VICTIMS AND THE BODIES OF THE SEVEN RECENTLY ESCAPED TERRORISTS, ALL MEMBERS OF A RADICAL ISLAMIC GANG CALLING THEMSELVES THE "SWORD OF ALLAH," POLICE AND RESCUE DOGS ALSO FOUND A LONE FEMALE SURVIVOR AMID THE TWISTED RUBBLE OF WHAT HAD BEEN JACKSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL-AND, THEN, ONLY BECAUSE OF HER NEWBORN BABY'S CRIES.

– MIAMI HERALD