Falling(31)

Why was he in so much pain and where was he? And wherever he was, how did he get there? He had so many questions but none of them seemed to matter. Wasn’t it enough to just lie still? Dissolving into a cloud of pain until the questions disappeared—yes—that seemed like what he should do.

Theo.

He heard a person say that word and wondered at the sound. Theo. What did that mean? He heard the person repeat it, closer this time. It reminded him of something. He felt like he should know the answer to this question.

He opened his eyes but quickly closed them. The light that flooded in felt like it would split him from the inside out.

Lying there, he examined what was in the darkness of his closed eyes, the hologram-like outline of what he saw in that brief moment when he’d let the outside world in. People running toward him. A fire truck with its hose extended. A swing, dangling from a burning tree.

The noise was a siren. The fire truck was here for the house. The explosion. The politician. The family. Aunt Jo. It all rushed in at once.

His pain disappeared like it was never even there.

“Don’t move,” one of the SWAT agents said to him. Theo rolled to his side anyway. Pushing himself up would be impossible, though. He couldn’t move his arm.

“You’re beat up, man. Let the medics look at you. Jesus,” the agent muttered at the sight of his left arm, which hung at an awkward angle, unquestionably dislocated.

“I’m fine. What happened? The agents, are they—”

“Liu had them hold after you went in,” the agent said. “They’re okay.”

“And the guy. Did he get out?”

The agent’s slow head shake told him everything he needed to know.

Theo buried his head in the hand of his good arm. He’d never lost anyone. Not a suspect, an innocent bystander, a fellow agent—no one. The politician alone was devastating enough. What if Liu hadn’t ordered the other agents to stand down? What if they had advanced to back him up, and then this had happened? It was the first time the job had taken a tragic turn, and it easily could have been worse.

Theo sat stricken. In training they warned agents about this sort of reaction, teaching them instead how to detach, compartmentalize, not be emotionally connected to the mission. As if there was a switch to simply turn off the human part of a person.

“We got here as fast as we could,” the other agent said. “And you did more than any of us to get to him and the family. This isn’t on you. Okay? Theo? Theo.”

Theo looked up and nodded. Not in agreement, but just so they could move on. “Help me up.”



* * *



Sitting on the end of the ambulance, Theo heard the paramedic drone on but he wasn’t listening. He watched the firefighters try to put out the blaze ravaging the Hoffmans’ house, the home where they ate family dinners and watched movies. Where the baby took her naps.

“This is going to hurt really badly. Are you sure you don’t want drugs?”

Theo nodded.

Trick-or-treaters would get candy from their front door. At Christmas no doubt Bill would put up lights.

“Here we go, on the count of three. One, two—” Theo’s jaw clenched with the pain, but he didn’t make a sound as the medic relocated his arm back into his shoulder socket. He opened his eyes and watched the house burn.

It wasn’t a house. It was a tomb. They were dead. Carrie. Scott. Elise. An innocent man who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. All dead.

He was supposed to save them. He failed.

Liu approached the ambulance and Theo swore he saw concern flash across her face, gone as quickly as it came.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said, looking him up and down. She turned to the medic and asked, “He’ll be fine?”

The medic nodded. “Probably has a concussion and he’ll want X-rays on the arm. Other than that, superficial injuries.”

“Great. Could you give us a minute?” she asked the medic. He nodded and scurried away.

“You were right,” Liu said, her voice cold and flat. “But you put all of us—and the mission—at risk.”

Theo kept eye contact, but didn’t respond.

“Go home.”

Theo shot to his feet. “No. I know I didn’t—”

“Not a chance,” Liu spat at him, taking a step forward so he had to sit back down. “You were on thin ice to begin with. You’re way too close to this to keep going. You’re emotionally compromised and that makes you reckless. It makes you dangerous. Go to the hospital and then go home. You’re done.”

Theo didn’t know if she meant the case or his career. Either way, he didn’t say a thing.

An agent approached and Liu shot the man an annoyed look. He held up his phone. Liu leaned forward.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, seizing the phone from his hand for a closer look. “How much damage?”

“It’s viral. All the news stations have it,” the agent replied.

“Does it mention the family?”

Apparently, there was a lot of discussion on social media regarding FAA regulations, and a lot of speculation as to the real reason the masks were out. But there was no mention of Washington, DC, the Hoffman family, or a poison gas attack on the cabin.

Liu turned the phone toward Theo. He squinted in the bright light, his concussed head still fuzzy. It was a picture of that pseudo-celebrity Rick Ryan wearing an airplane oxygen mask.