Third Degree

by Greg Iles

  “I’m surprised he’s not out there with Ellis.”

  “I haven’t seen him. Just a whole bunch of deputies and cops.”

  “City cops outside the city limits?”

  “They’re part of the local SWAT team. You’ve caused quite a commotion out here, my friend.”

  “I guess it would. Look, Major, can you tell me anything about Vida Roberts? We heard she was hurt in a fire at our office.”

  Danny wrote, Concerned about future/at least for others. Used “we.” People scrambled to read what he’d written. “She’s in the ICU, that’s all I know. I can check on her if you like.”

  “Please.”

  “One more thing,” Danny said. “Your daughter.”

  “Beth?”

  “Right. How would you feel about sending her out here to me? Just while you and Laurel get this thing worked out?”

  “Beth’s fine, Danny. She’s in no danger. I hope nobody out there thinks I’d hurt my own child.”

  “No, no. Not under normal circumstances, that is. But Grant was pretty rattled when he came out of there earlier.”

  “Grant didn’t understand what I was trying to tell him. He doesn’t like having to grow up. He’d love to stay a kid forever. But no one can do that, can they, Danny?”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  Danny grimaced, then plunged ahead. “Well, I do and I don’t, Warren.”

  “What’s that?” Shields asked, his voice cracking with what sounded like fatigue.

  “I said I don’t really understand what you’re doing. I’ve only known you a couple of years, but one thing I do know is that you’re a man of honor.”

  Shields didn’t reply for a while. Then he said, “Thank you, Major. That means a lot coming from you.”

  “I’m glad. But, Warren, the things you’ve done today . . . scaring your kids, putting their lives at risk, holding your wife prisoner . . . those are not honorable things.”

  Danny felt someone yank his shoulder. He turned and saw Biegler shaking his head and mouthing, Stop! Danny put out a hand and shoved him backward. Biegler looked ready to attack him, but Sheriff Ellis wrapped a bearlike forearm around the government agent’s chest and held him back.

  Danny kept waiting for Shields to reply, but the doctor said nothing.

  “I can see how you might feel justified,” Danny went on. “In an angry state of mind, I mean. But you can’t justify those things, Warren. Not in my eyes. Some of the fathers we coached against might do this kind of thing, but not you. You’re too good for this. And you know that things as important as your marriage need to be considered in a calm state of mind. You’ve got to put a cold eye on them, as my old commanding officer used to say. Then you can see what’s really there. What’s really happened.”

  There was a long, staticky silence. Just as Danny thought the connection might have been lost, he heard Warren say, “I’m feeling pretty alone in here, Major. Like I’ve lost my bearings. You know?”

  Danny felt the first glimmer of hope. “That’s why I’m here, buddy. I’m going to help bring you back down to earth.”

  Warren laughed strangely. “I’m not sure there’s any way back from where I am now. I’m not even sure how I got here. It’s like there’s another directional vector besides north, south, east, and west. And I’m stuck on it. Does that sound crazy?”

  “Not to a man who’s been there himself. Sometimes life gets out of whack like that. I almost flew into the Arabian Sea one time, because my head was all turned around from personal stuff.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Believe it.” Danny hadn’t smoked a cigarette in twenty years, but he wanted one now. “How long has it been since you slept, Doc?”

  “A while now.”

  “How many hours?”

  “Ahh . . . close to forty.”

  Danny scrawled 40hr deficit in the logbook. No wonder the guy was on the ragged edge. “Forty hours without sleep. Would you go out to the airport and fly in the state you’re in now?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because I sure wouldn’t fly with you. So, here’s my question. If you wouldn’t fly in this state, why would you make decisions that could cost you everything you have?”

  This time the silence stretched for more than a minute. Then Shields said, “I’ve already lost everything, Danny. And now my wife’s gone, too. That’s all I was clinging to . . . doing right by her and the kids. I feel like I’ve been in a raging river, clinging to a branch on the bank. But now that branch has been yanked away. There’s nothing to hold on to anymore, and nothing at the end of the river but black water. A bottomless hole. Ah, forget it. You don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  Danny started to say he did, but then he remembered Biegler’s warning. “Hold on, Doc, I’m having trouble hearing you. Let me call you right back.”

  He smothered the headset mike in his fist and motioned for Trace to break the connection, which, to Danny’s relief, he did almost instantly.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Biegler asked.

  Danny turned to Sheriff Ellis. “I need to talk to him about the health issue.”

  “His cancer?”

  “He’s already there himself. You heard him.”

  “That’s an unacceptable risk,” said Biegler. “You might send him into an emotional tailspin.”

  Danny felt the same exasperation he’d felt when serving under incompetent officers. “You think the guy doesn’t know he has a brain tumor?”

  “I’m saying what’s the point of reminding him? If he’s not focused on it, let’s not go there.”

  “He’s there now. Look, I know this guy. He’s a physician and a realist. He’d rather hear the truth than a load of bullshit. That’s why he asked for me in the first place.”

  Biegler looked at the sheriff.

  “I’m with Major McDavitt on this one,” Ellis said. “Dr. Shields is upset because he can’t get a straight answer from his wife. Let’s don’t make things worse by lying to him ourselves. Let’s talk straight to the man.”

  Danny nodded thankfully and picked up the headset.

  “You guys had better be right,” Biegler said.

  Danny closed the mike in his fist again. “Biegler, you remind me of every REMF I ever met in a combat zone. You want a guaranteed result with zero risk, and your ass covered if the shit hits the fan. But that’s not how it works in the real world. So please shut the fuck up and let me work here.”

  Biegler reddened and started to reply, but Trace Breen preempted him with “What’s a REMF?”

  “Rear echelon motherfucker,” answered his brother.

  Trace grinned. “Damn straight.”

  Ellis glared at his comm officer, then motioned for him to call Dr. Shields back.

  • • •

  Laurel lay motionless on the great room sofa, listening to Christy scratch at the pet door Warren had installed during the winter. Now that it was spring, the young corgi spent her days running the creek bed, only returning in the evenings for food. Surprised to find her little door latched, the hungry dog scratched relentlessly at it, wondering why she was being shut out of her family abode.

  Warren seemed not to hear Christy. He had put Danny on the speakerphone so that he could keep working at his computer (which probably meant monitoring the Merlin’s Magic program in its digital war against her Hotmail account). It was surreal listening to Danny’s voice floating out of the study. She felt that if she could only saw the duct tape from her legs and wrists, she could run right out the back door and into Danny’s arms. But of course she couldn’t. First she’d have to pick up Beth—who still lay supine in Benadryl-induced sleep—and then trust Warren not to shoot as she fled, something she wasn’t nearly so confident about as she’d once been. The pessimism he had revealed to Danny had stunned her. Yes, the situation was bad, but Warren was talking like a man resigned to death, not to jai
l or legal fines.

  The phone rang again, and Warren pressed the speaker button. “Danny? Can you hear me now?”

  “Five by five, Doc.”

  “Five by five,” Warren repeated, with longing in his voice. “I wish we were flying over the river right now.”

  “Let’s go, buddy. I’ve got the chopper waiting outside. You always said you wanted to try it.”

  Warren laughed softly. “They’d never let us go now.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got some pull with the sheriff.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Danny. I saw them spray-paint my cameras.”

  Laurel’s stomach tightened. Had they spray-painted the cameras in preparation for an attack?

  “I won’t lie to you,” Danny said. “You know that. I think it’s time we get down to cases. What do you say?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The thing is, these boys out here have got a manual for situations like this. That’s what they go by, and they don’t make exceptions. They’re trying to be professional, that’s all. You can understand that.”

  “Sure.”

  “So we don’t have time for small talk. I want you to know something, Warren. I know you had a tough blow about a year ago. Tougher than this thing with your wife.”

  Laurel raised her head from the couch.

  “What are you talking about?” Warren asked warily.

  “I’m talking about your cancer.”

  Laurel’s face grew hot, and her heart beat hard against her sternum. Cancer? What was Danny talking about?

  “I understand why you kept that secret,” Danny continued. “God knows a man’s health is his own business. But I think maybe this particular illness is affecting your judgment a little.”

  Warren’s reply was almost a whisper, but Laurel could just make out his words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on. You asked me not to bullshit you. Do me the same courtesy, okay?”

  There was a long silence, and then Warren said, “Who found out about it?”

  Laurel heaved herself up into a sitting position. Warren’s face was concealed behind his monitor, but she stayed erect, hoping to get a glimpse of his eyes. The last fragments of disbelief were falling away. The evil sleeping in the shadows of her failing marriage had suddenly slithered into the light. She felt as if she’d been walking past a decaying house every day, averting her gaze though she knew something dark and hungry lay within.

  “Does it matter who found out?” Danny asked.

  “Listen, I may be sick, but my judgment is fine. The thing’s in my brain stem, not my cerebral cortex. Not yet, anyway.”

  Brain stem? Laurel thought. Cerebral cortex? He has a brain tumor? In a dizzying rush of memories, she saw the womanish fat around Warren’s usually trim hips, the strange hump at the back of his neck . . . Steroids—

  “You’re the medical expert,” Danny said. “But look at what you’re doing here. These aren’t the actions of the Warren Shields I coached soccer with. Or the steady, thoughtful physician I taught to fly.”

  “Are you sure? Every man can be pushed too far, you know? Every man has a breaking point. Eventually you have to push back.”

  “Are you talking about Laurel again?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t think she’s your main problem, Warren. I think this other thing is magnifying that into more than it is.”

  Laurel’s memory had revved into overdrive. All the bike races Warren had traveled to and returned from without trophies, his failure to call home and check in, unusual shortness with the children, surprising moments of maudlin sentimentality—

  “I’ll tell you about this ‘other thing,’ as you call it,” Warren said. “I think about it a lot, Danny. I think about all my patients who’ve died. Older people, most of them. But not all. Looking back, I try to remember if the young ones were marked somehow. Whether they might have done something to bring their fates down on themselves. But they didn’t, Danny. One day God or Fate just said, ‘I will not let you be happy. I will not give you children. I will not let you breathe another day. I will take away your ability to move.’ “

  “Warren—”

  “No, listen. This is important. I’ve tried to believe, all my life. To have faith that there was justice in life, some larger plan or meaning. But I can’t do it anymore. I’ve watched some of the best people I ever met get crippled or taken before they reached thirty, forty, whatever. Babies, too. I’ve watched babies die of leukemia. I’ve watched infants die from infections, bleeding from their eyes and ears. Terrible birth defects . . . I look for a reason, a pattern, anything that might justify all that. But nothing does. Nothing does. Until I got sick myself, I played the same game of denial that all doctors do. But, Danny, my cancer ripped the scales from my eyes. I go to these funerals and listen to smug preachers telling grieving people that God has a plan. Well, that’s a lie. All my life I’ve followed the rules. I’ve toed the line, given to the less fortunate, followed the Commandments . . . and it hasn’t mattered one bit. And don’t tell me about Job, okay? If you tell me God is testing me by killing me . . . that’s like saying we had to destroy a village in order to save it. It’s a cruel joke that we play on ourselves. And don’t tell me it’s all made right in the afterlife, because you know what? The agony of one infant dying senselessly mocks all the golden trumpets of heaven. I don’t want to sit at the right hand of a God who can torture children, or even one who sits by and allows them to be tortured. Free will, my ass. I made no choice to die at thirty-seven. This one’s on God’s account, Major. We look for meaning where there is none, because we’re too afraid to accept randomness. Well, I’ve accepted it. Embraced it, even. And once you do that, the world just doesn’t look the same anymore.”

  Laurel felt herself coming unmoored from reality. She had never heard Warren speak more than three sentences about God outside of church. To hear him launch into a tirade on the absurdity of faith disoriented her. But it was what lay behind his words that had driven her into shock, an unalterable fact that would change her future almost as profoundly as Warren’s—terminal brain cancer.

  “I hear you, buddy,” Danny said at length. “I’ve heard that same opinion expressed vividly in war zones. But the thing is, even if you’re right, it doesn’t mean the choices you make don’t have consequences. In fact, if that’s how you see the world, you have to be even more careful about what you do. Because no divine power is going to balance the scales in the end. You know? You have to do it yourself. Or do what you can, anyway.”

  Laurel could see the edge of Warren’s face behind his monitor. He was nodding. “That’s exactly what I’m doing now, Danny. Balancing the scales.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “You think I’m going to leave my kids to be raised by her? Raising children is a sacred charge. I can’t trust her to do that any longer.”

  Fear and shame began eating through Laurel’s shock.

  “Well, what other option do you have?” Danny asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking about.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?”

  Another long silence. “I don’t think you’d understand. You still look at things the old way.”

  Laurel had never heard a voice so bereft of hope. Warren’s whole life for the past year had been an exhausting round-the-clock performance carried out for her and the children. An imitation of health.

  “I might surprise you there, buddy,” Danny said. “You want to talk about randomness? I’ve seen a lot of men on the south side of twenty die for no reason at all. Shot or mortared out of a clear blue sky, sometimes by their own side. I’ve heard them screaming in the back of my chopper with no hope of getting to a field hospital in time. And they don’t scream to God, Doc. They don’t scream to Daddy, either. They scream to Mama. Because they know Mama loved them more than anyone else ever could. More than even God, if there is one. Y
ou hear me, Warren? I don’t care how much you love Grant and Beth—when the shit hits the fan, it’s Mama they’ll cry for. And the shit has hit the fan, okay? Daddy’s going to die. And the last thing you want to do is leave those kids at the mercy of somebody besides their mother. I don’t care how angry you are, brother. I don’t care what she did to you. And they don’t either. I know you don’t like hearing this. This is tough love, buddy. This is the stuff that makes a battlefield seem like a safe place.”

  “I hear you,” Warren said quietly. “I do. But it just doesn’t register. I can’t explain it to you.”

  “Well, try. Nobody’s going anywhere just yet.”

  Laurel saw Warren sag back in his chair, but she still couldn’t see his eyes. She wondered if Danny was lying, if armed policemen were preparing to burst into the house. She tried to stay ready for it. Her first move would be toward Beth, though she doubted she could reach her with taped ankles.

  “I had a dog when I was a kid,” Warren said. “Did I ever tell you that?”

  “I don’t believe you did.”

  Laurel faintly remembered Warren telling her he’d owned a dog as a boy, but he hadn’t gone into detail. In fact, he’d only revealed this on the day he agreed to buy Christy for the kids. He’d never spoken of it before or since.

  “He was just a mutt,” Warren said. “I found him out in the woods. A neighborhood kid was pouring drain cleaner on him. I took him home and washed him off, named him Sam. We went everywhere together. He was my . . . my best friend, I was going to say. My dad didn’t like Sam, but he put up with him. Anyway, a couple of years later, we got a bad rain. The neighborhood drainage ditch ran right behind our house. An open ditch, you know? About five feet deep. In a bad rain, it became a torrent. Five feet of water rushing through there like a locomotive. Just past our house, it turned into a massive whirlpool, because all that water was being forced into a twelve-inch pipe that ran underground to the creek.

  “That particular day the wind blew a yellow ball Sam always chased into that water, and he went after it. He got the ball, but by that time the current had him. He couldn’t get back to the bank. I went to jump in after him, but my dad ran off the patio and grabbed me, held me back. I would have drowned, but I didn’t care. When you’re eight, you don’t worry about stuff like that.”