Born to Run (36 page)

Jack measured his words, careful not to make Demetri look or feel stupid on television. That, too, could have been deadly.

"I'm a criminal defense lawyer," said Jack. "People have told me terrible stories--things they did or things that were done to them. Each of you told me in our own words what happened that night in Cyprus. Demetri, you told it like someone who believed it. Sofia, you told it like someone who wanted others to believe it."

"That's a crock," said Demetri. "How did you know?"

"It was a process," said Jack. "But the moment it came clear to me was when Sofia came to my office. Do you remember that, Sofia?"

"I remember being there. But I'm not sure what moment you're talking about."

Jack said, "Somebody was tracking you down to kill you because you knew something about the president--something so powerful that it could end his presidency. You wouldn't tell me how you got that information. At first I thought you were protecting yourself. Then I thought you were protecting Demetri. Then I realized I was completely off base."

Demetri said, "What are you saying?"

Jack ignored him, speaking to Sofia. "You were concerned about someone else entirely," said Jack, "weren't you?"

"Who?" said Demetri. "Who else knows? Sofia, did you tell someone else?"

Jack softened his tone a bit, but he stayed with Sofia, ignoring Demetri.

"What was it that finally convinced you so many years later, Sofia? Was it DNA? Was it the birthmark on his forehead? Or was it the same thing I saw when I met you face-to-face--the way he has your eyes, your mouth, your entire persona, really."

Demetri was suddenly silent, stunned, it seemed, that Jack knew.

Sofia said, "Does it really matter?"

"No," said Jack. "All that really matters is what you did after you figured out the truth. Demetri used it to make a buck. But you went completely the other way. You handled it only the way a mother would handle it. A birth mother who discovered that the child she had brought into the world was--"

"The son of rapists," said Demetri.

Sofia was sobbing on the line. "I'm so sorry, Demetri."

"It's not your fault. You were raped."

Sofia said, "You tell him, Jack."

"I don't have to," said Jack. "She already told you, Demetri. There was no rape."

"Then why did you say there was?"

"Don't you see?" said Sofia, a hint of anger in her cracking voice. "They threw you off a building for stealing fifty dollars a week. Do you think I wanted to raise a son to grow up in that world? I told you that I was raped so that my baby could have a chance. So you would want to give him up for adoption. I was so depressed, pregnant with you in the hospital. Who knows if I would have made the same decision if I had to do it all over again? But that's what I did. I'm sorry. And I'm not sorry. Look what he grew up to become."

Demetri stepped away, muttering in disbelief. "I blackmailed my own son."

Jack could see him slipping. He needed to reel Demetri in.

"You had no idea he was your child," said Jack.

"I sold his secret. I made him a puppet to Big Joe Dinitalia. I told the fucking mob that he was born in Cyprus. Do you know what that means? Swyteck, you're a lawyer. Do you know?"

Jack didn't answer.

"Tell them!" he shouted, gesturing to the camera. "Tell the idiots at home what it means if the president of the United States was born in Cyprus."

"He can't be president," said Jack. "He's not a natural-born citizen."

"My son" said Demetri, his face ashen. "I took this away from my own son. This cant be happening."

"Demetri, it's over," said Jack.

"That cannot be my child."

"He is," said Sofia, "I'm sorry."

"No, no\" he said, screaming at the top of his voice. He threw a desk chair across the set, then another. The second one flew all the way to the weather set and knocked down the green screen.

"You bitch! How could you do that to me, trick me into giving away my own flesh and blood?"

He went to the news desk, grabbed the handwritten will, and tore it into pieces.

"This changes everything! You hear me? Everthing!"

He walked around to the front of the news desk. Shannon cowered, thinking he was looking to take it out on a woman-- any woman. But he pulled Jack to his feet.

Jack made fists to conceal the nail file, but Demetri noticed the blood.

"What you got in your hand?" he said.

Jack didn't answer.

"Open em," said Demetri.

Jack obeyed, and the nail file dropped to the floor.

Jack braced himself for the kind of beating Pedro had gotten earlier, but Demetri restrained himself.

"You're lucky I need you," he said coldly. "Or I'd kill you right now."

Demetri rummaged through the first-aid kit on the news desk and grabbed a roll of white medical tape. Then he pushed Jack forward to face the camera and came up behind him. He put the pistol to his head, pressed the sticky end of the tape to his gun hand, and started unrolling.

"Don't try this at home, folks," he said.

The tape went around Jack's head, and covered his mouth, and then it wrapped back around Demetri's gun hand. He continued the same motion over again, securing his wrist to the gun, and the gun to Jack's head.

"Do you see what I'm doing here, Henning?"

"This is a big mistake," said Andie.

Jack clenched the tape in his mouth like a bit, tasting the adhesive. Demetri kept unrolling it, this time going up around Jack's forehead, then wrapping it back around his gun hand. He continued the same motion over and over again, alternating between the mouth and forehead, securing his wrist to the gun, and the gun to Jack's head. When he'd finished, the gun was fixed in position and aimed at the back of Jack's head.

"Perfect," said Demetri, as he tossed what remained of the roll onto the desk. "We're like Siamese twins now."

Jack started gnawing at the tape in his mouth, grinding his teeth back and forth.

"Henning, listen to me good," said Demetri, his voice rising. "I'm walking out that door right now, and I'm leaving this building. Maybe some trigger-happy SWAT guy thinks he can get a shot at me, but take a good look at what I've rigged up here. If a sniper drops me, this pistol is going off, and Swyteck loses the top of his head. You see that?"

"I see."

Jack kept gnawing at the tape.

"Good. Here's the deal. Have a car waiting in the parking lot with a full tank of gas. If it's not there when I walk out, Swyteck dies. And remember this: I don't care about anyone or anything no more. Not the money, not the hostages, not even you, Sofia. Especially not you.

"Come on, Swyteck, you're my ticket out of this--"

Demetri stopped himself, then checked the tape. Jack could feel the wiggle room in Demetri's contraption.

"Damn you! You bit clean through it!"

Andie said, "I dont like what I'm seeing, Demetri."

"Too bad," he said as he reached for the roll of tape.

"I really don't like what I'm seeing," she said.

"I really don't care."

Jack glanced at the television. Demetri was assessing the damage that Jack's teeth had done to his gun rig, and he seemed to be trying to figure out how to repair it with the small amount of remaining tape.

"I see this as a big problem," said Andie.

"For you it is," said Demetri.

"Yes, I see everything clearly now. I see we are going to have to do something quick. Very quick. I can see that."

As Demetri struggled with the tape, Jack suddenly realized that Andie was speaking to him, not Demetri.

"I can see it all," said Andie.

She's definitely talking to mey thought Jack.

He checked the television monitor again. With only one free hand, Demetri was having trouble getting the tape started. Jack still felt plenty of give in the lower half of the rig around his head.

"Now!" Andie shouted.

The next few seconds should have been a complete blur, yet they unfolded for Jack like a slow-motion replay. The television screen went black. Jack dropped to his knees. His head jerked out from under Demetri's contraption of white tape.

And the crack of gunfire in the studio reverberated like a cannon in a cave.

Chapter
59

At first Jack thought Demetri's pistol had discharged, and the hot spray of blood across his back and neck made him wonder if he'd been hit. Then Demetri collapsed on top of him, knocking Jack forward, and the two men landed side by side on the floor. The gaping wound in the top of Demetri's head told Jack that the blood, bits of bone, and gray matter on their clothes, on the floor, and all around them was not his own.

The Greek was gone.

The doors to the newsroom flew open, Demetri's makeshift barricade of stacked office furnishings toppled over, and FBI SWAT rushed in.

"Fan out, fan out!" the leader shouted, and the team scattered.

Two men dressed in full tactical gear went to Demetri. Three more went to Jack and the other hostages. The rest of the team swept through the newsroom to check for booby traps or other dangers.

"Are you hurt?" one of the SWAT agents said.

Jack sat up slowly, not really sure.

Andie rushed onto the set with a team of paramedics, and they started toward him.

"Help the cameraman," said Jack.

The paramedics went to Pedro. Andie came straight to Jack and knelt beside him on the floor, her tone beyond urgent.

"Are you all right?" she said.

"I think so."

She held him tight, ignoring the blood on his clothes, and kissed him. "You scared me to death when you ducked down before the shot."

"I thought that was what you were trying to tell me to do."

"No, I was coordinating the kill of the broadcast with the shot from the sniper. We had to make sure it wasn't on the air."

The television on the news set suddenly resumed playing, but Jack was not on the screen. Action News had shifted to the presidential motorcade.

"Where's my father?"

"He's on his way here with the president."

"I need to call him."

"Sure," she said, handing him her cell. "But we need you to keep it short."

"Why?"

Her gaze drifted toward the presidential motorcade on the television screen. "You'll see."

Harry took the call in the back of the limousine. It was hard to keep his emotions in check, but he, too, knew that the phone conversation had to be brief.

Harry and President Keyes had watched the final moments of the standoff unfold on television. Harry's pulse was still pounding. At one point, he'd honestly believed he was on the verge of cardiac arrest. He couldn't bear to watch, but he couldn't tear himself away from the television screen. He'd literally yelped when the broadcast went black, and he could hardly breathe again until the call from the CIRG leader confirmed that the mission had succeeded and that Jack was unharmed. Even so, his voice shook throughout the conversation with Jack.

"You're sure you're okay?" said Harry.

"Really, Dad. Other than a jab in the wrist from a nail file, I'm fine."

"I can't wait to see you. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Harry ended the call and tucked the phone into his pocket.

Seated across from him, President Keyes was wrapping up a phone call of his own. He hung up and peered out the window, so preoccupied that he didn't even ask Harry about his son.

"Jack sounds just fine," said Harry.

"What? Oh, God, I'm sorry."

"It's all right. That was quite a final performance by Demetri. I'm sure you have plenty on your mind."

Keyes was suddenly defensive. "None of it's true. You realize that, don't you?"

Harry said nothing.

"I mean, I've never even been to Cyprus. I was born in Pennsylvania. It says so right on my birth certificate."

Harry said, "I wouldn't put one ounce of blame on your adoptive parents for doing that."

"Blame them for doing what?"

"It's perfectly understandable that they would have falsified a birth certificate to keep you or someone else from finding out that your biological father was the man who raped your birth mother."

"I'm not the son of a rapist."

"But maybe your adoptive parents thought you were. Just as Demetri did all these years."

The president fell silent, staring blankly out the window at the painted traffic lines on the interstate.

"My father must be turning in his grave," he said.

Harry felt a little sorry for him, having just had his moment with his own son. But he stayed focused.

"You weren't born in this country, were you?"

The president didn't answer right away. Finally, he shook his head.