by Alex Kava
“I don’t see her,” Kesnick yelled.
“Give her a tug.”
“Nothing.”
They waited.
Maggie’s heart pounded against her rib cage, the rhythm the same as the thump-thump of the rotors. Sweat rolled down her back and yet she felt chilled. She watched Wilson’s profile. Jaw clamped tight. His visor prevented her from seeing his eyes, but his hands were steady, fists clenched on the control. Beside him, Ellis was an exact contrast—head bobbing and twisting around, trying to see below.
“This is the Coast Guard,” Ellis yelled into the radio. “Restless Sole, can you hear me?”
“Five minutes,” Wilson said. “Where the hell is she?”
“Restless Sole, can you hear me?” Ellis shouted but only got static in response.
That’s when it hit Maggie. Restless Sole. Wasn’t that the name of Joe Black’s boat?
“No one’s answering,” Ellis said.
“Kesnick?”
“I don’t see her.”
“We have got to get the hell out of here. Pull her up, Kesnick. PULL HER UP NOW.”
Kesnick obeyed. The cable whined and spun. Maggie waited to see Liz come over the doorway. Instead, she saw Kesnick grab the cable and spin around to his pilots. He didn’t say a word as he held up the cable. It had been cut.
CHAPTER 65
Liz couldn’t do a thing as the cable whipped away from her and flew out of the cabin. Her lifeline was gone.
But she wouldn’t have left now anyway. Not without her dad.
She asked if she could bandage his hand. He held it up and against his chest, the front of his jumpsuit already drenched in blood.
“I’m okay, darling,” Walter insisted.
She recognized the woman from the beach. She had never seen the man who casually introduced himself as Joe Black, never letting the revolver slip from her temple.
“We’ll just all stay put for a while and the helicopter will go away.” Joe didn’t sound fazed.
“They won’t leave their rescue swimmer,” Walter said.
Liz couldn’t tell her dad that wasn’t the way it always worked. It had happened once after Katrina. The helicopter had been dangerously low on fuel and packed with injured survivors. Liz had told them to go ahead while she waited on an apartment rooftop with a dozen others, angry and impatient for their turn. It was nightfall before her aircrew was able to return.
“I’ll end up with three healthy specimens,” Joe continued to rant. “I don’t have enough ice but I suppose I could tether a couple of you to the back of the boat. Put life jackets on.”
“Specimens.” The woman spit it out like she was disgusted and certainly not afraid. “You’re gonna nickel-and-dime my body parts? Is that what you have in mind, young man?” She was holding her ankle but it didn’t stop her. “I’ll have you know that my husband was murdered for millions of dollars. Millions.”
Joe Black ignored the woman. He stood, braced inside the stairwell, blocking their way but also able to keep an eye on all of them. He’d tethered himself to the railing and was able to ride out the boat’s pitching back and forth. When Liz almost fell, the revolver swung down with her.
The boat rocked more violently, climbing and falling with the cresting waves. The noise was deafening. There was a crash somewhere up above them. Something had come down hard on the deck. Their eyes lifted to the ceiling. That’s when they heard the helicopter rotors moving away. Within seconds the sound grew faint. They were leaving.
Liz’s eyes met her dad’s across the cabin. She knew her crew couldn’t stay. A cutter would take forever to find them in these conditions. It probably wasn’t even safe to try. This wouldn’t be like her Katrina rooftop experience. This time her aircrew wouldn’t return.
Joe Black was grinning.
“So who wants to go first?” he asked.
If Liz rushed him, he’d shoot her before she could get the gun away from him. What had she told Maggie O’Dell? It wasn’t about being brave; it was about surviving. Fighting against crushing waves or dangling from a cable didn’t scare her. Even when survivors challenged her, she’d count on her training, redirect her adrenaline. Maybe she could talk this guy off his ledge.
Joe Black pointed the gun at Liz as though he could hear her thoughts.
“A cutter’s on its way,” she lied. “The helicopter probably had it in sight. That’s why they left.”
She saw him consider it. Something crashed above again, and his eyes shot up but only briefly. Another wave slammed the boat. There was a high-pitched screech of something skidding across the deck.
“The boat’s being ripped apart,” the old woman yelled.
“Shut the hell up,” Black screamed at her, repositioning himself in the stairway and taking aim.
“NO.” She heard her dad yell, followed by the blast of a gunshot.
Liz closed her eyes against the pain, but there was no pain. When her eyes flew open she saw Joe Black fall forward, grabbing at his leg with one hand, the gun still in his other.
There was a shout from the top of the stairs. “FBI. Drop it. Now.”
He hesitated.
Another shot chewed up the carpet next to him.
He threw the gun aside.
Liz stood paralyzed as Maggie climbed down the steps, her gun still pointed at Black.
“Liz, grab his weapon.”
She obeyed.
“Is he the only one?” Her eyes darted around the cabin and quickly returned to Black. When she glanced up for an answer, all Liz could manage was a nod.
“Everybody okay?” Maggie finally asked.
Liz heard the helicopter returning. All eyes lifted to the ceiling, again.
“How did you—”
But Maggie interrupted her. “We have to do this quickly.” Then to Liz she said, “Wilson’s in a pissy mood.”
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
CHAPTER 66
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
Liz woke up as the last stream of sunset lit the room. She had slept hard. Her mouth was dry, her eyelids still heavy. It took a few seconds to remember where she was. Second floor. Her dad’s house. Her old room had been made into a guest bedroom but there were still remnants of her childhood—a porcelain doll on the dresser, the embroidered pillow shams—and reminders of her mother.
She could hear chain saws down below despite the hum of the window air conditioner. Her dad had set up the unit especially for her, dropping a bright-orange electrical cord out her window, stringing it down the side of the house and along the backyard to the garage where he had it plugged into one of his generators. A definite luxury, since the window air conditioner took almost as many watts as one of his refrigerators.
“You deserve to sleep,” he had told her when she came home for the first time around noon. It was already in her bedroom window. She hadn’t asked how he’d managed to put it there with only one hand, his left one wrapped in a soft cast that made it look like he was wearing an oven mitt.
In the last two days Liz had napped for only a few hours at a time, rotating in barracks set up for them at NAS. The hurricane had lost some of its steam, winds dropping to 135 miles per hour as it made landfall. Its path had slipped to the east, sparing Pensacola the brunt of the storm. By the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a cat 4 meant “devastating damage” but not “catastrophic damage” like a cat 5.
Liz and her aircrew had rescued dozens of people from their flooded homes. Some still refused to leave, insisting they needed to stay and protect what belongings remained from looters. One man argued with Liz, refusing to leave his roof unless she allowed him to take four suitcases he had stuffed with valuables. By the end of the first day, Wilson no longer complained about sharing cabin space with an assortment of cats and dogs that accompanied their injured owners. And after having a madman almost shoot her, everything else seemed tame. But she’d bagged too many hours and now she was grounded.
Liz got up, pulled on a pair of shorts and
a T-shirt. She glanced out the window, looking down over the street. Electrical wires still dangled from branches. Debris piles lined one side of the cul-de-sac where neighbors continued to drag and toss pieces of huge live oak trees, several of them uprooted. And in the middle of the street was the Coney Island Canteen. Lawn chairs were gathered around the mobile unit while her dad and Trish cooked dinner for their neighbors. He’d mentioned to Liz earlier that they were grilling steaks, burgers, hot dogs—even lamb chops—salvaging what they could from everyone’s freezers. County officials were estimating the power being out for at least a week.
Liz could see him wiping the sweat from his forehead as he stood over the grill. She still couldn’t shake that image of him holding his bloodied hand, the front of his jumpsuit soaked with blood. His face so pale. He’d spent the hurricane in the hospital, calling Trish to pick him up as soon as the main roads were cleared. From what Liz understood, Trish hadn’t left his side.
Trish had refused to talk about Scott. All Liz knew was that he had spent the hurricane locked inside the funeral home’s walk-in refrigerator. Liz had heard that Joe Black had left several corpses with Scott, and now he and the funeral home were under investigation.
As soon as Liz left her bedroom, the warm air hit her. She was damp with sweat by the time she joined her dad in the street.
“You didn’t sleep very long, darling.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Well, sit yourself down. You came to the right place.”
The aroma of grilled meat and the spices her dad used overpowered the gasoline fumes from generators and chain saws. The sun was almost down. It would be pitch-dark in a couple of hours. Several neighbors were bringing out lanterns and setting them up for their evening meal in the street. The one advantage after a hurricane was that there were no mosquitoes, no bugs of any kind. But also no birds.
“Liz, you’re just in time,” Trish said. “Why don’t you set up some plates and cups.”
“She needs to rest,” her dad said, surprising both of his daughters. Usually he let Trish boss Liz around. It was easier than getting in the middle. “Ask Wendy to help.”
Trish stared at him for a minute before finally taking his advice.
“Have you heard anything from your FBI friend?” her dad asked.
“Just for a few minutes this morning when I was still at NAS. Otherwise, cell-phone towers are down.”
“She’s one brave girl.” He pulled an ice-cold bottle of beer from the cooler at his feet and handed it to Liz. “And so are you.”
CHAPTER 67
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
Maggie stopped her rental car at the security booth. She handed over her badge and waited while the guard picked up the phone. She lifted her arm to adjust the rearview mirror and a pain shot through her elbow. Actually her entire body hurt. Who knew jumping from a helicopter could be so physically strenuous?
The guard passed back her badge.
“First building to your right. The others are waiting.”
Maggie had gotten up early to catch footage of the storm damage. Charlie Wurth had told her earlier that Pensacola was lucky. At the last minute the storm had suddenly weakened and veered to the right. It made landfall as a category 4, but that was better than they expected. Watching the news reports, Maggie certainly didn’t think Pensacola was lucky. The storm had still ripped apart roofs, blown out windows, and flooded homes. Electricity was out for more than a hundred thousand customers and not expected to be up and running for at least a week.
She had talked to Liz Bailey earlier, too, relieved to hear that Walter and Charlotte were okay. She was especially glad to hear that Walter would retain full use of his left hand, but it would take months of rehab. And despite sounding totally exhausted, Liz seemed to be handling the aftermath of the storm.
A military cargo plane flew low over Maggie’s car, preparing to land. As she parked in front of the building she could feel the vibration. She eased out of the car and was grateful there was only a set of five steps. Ridiculous. She thought she was in good shape. She didn’t like being reminded of dangling from that cable. Without effort she could conjure up the terror. She could hear the wind swirling around her and feel the rain pelting her face.
She needed some sleep, that’s all. Last night she had dreamed of severed hands coming up out of the water and clinging to her. Okay, she needed dreamless sleep. Maybe another of Platt’s massages. That brought a smile.
Inside the door, she had to show her badge again. A small woman in uniform led her down a hallway and into a conference room. Benjamin Platt was in uniform. She didn’t recognize the other two men.
Platt did the introductions.
“Agent Maggie O’Dell, this is Captain Carl Ganz and Dr. Samuel McCleary.”
Dr. McCleary decided to open defensively. “Joseph Norris has been a respected part of this program for almost ten years.”
Maggie could see Platt bristle.
“Then you understand, Dr. McCleary,” she began, “that means you may have contaminated tissue and bone from as long ago as ten years.”
“All of our tissue is tested.”
“But only for certain diseases,” Platt said.
“No one could have predicted what happened at NAS in Pensacola,” McCleary insisted, shaking his head. “That was one mistake. One out of thousands. And we’ve traced the grafts and bone paste Captain Ganz used. We think it all came from one donor.” He pointed to a document already set among a pile on the table. “One donor who may have been dead longer than twelve hours.”
“Actually, it was more like twenty-one hours,” Platt said.
“We don’t know that for certain.”
“He was dead long enough for his bowels to burst and Clostridium sordellii to start spreading to his tissue.”
“You have no proof of that,” McCleary said.
“What about the donors Joe Black obtained without certification?” Maggie asked.
“Joseph Norris,” McCleary corrected her, “followed procedure as far as I am able to judge.”
“There’s a funeral home in Pensacola,” Maggie told him, “that has two bodies. The Escambia County sheriff says both are homeless men who disappeared just days before the hurricane. The funeral director insists Joe Black brought them there and cut one of them up to be sold and used for educational conferences.”
This time McCleary was speechless.
“Joe Black was making a nice living on the side,” she continued. “Diener by day, body broker during the weekends and on his days off. He admits to using soldiers’ amputated parts when he came up short on an order. He already confessed that he used a few of your donors’ bodies. The surgical conferences paid big bucks and he couldn’t keep up with the demand.”
“You’ll need to check our entire supply,” Ganz said to McCleary. “Norris also admits to making substitutions, replacing healthy tissue with damaged tissue.”
Dr. McCleary nodded, an exaggerated bobbing of his head that told Maggie he would allow the possibility but didn’t agree.
“Come,” he said, and he led them out of the room and down a long hallway. “You want to do this, fine. I’ll show you what you’re in for.”
He slid a key card and waited for the security pad to blink green. He waved the three of them into a huge room that reminded Maggie of a police evidence room, only the shelves were replaced with drawers, one on top of another. Refrigerated and freezer drawers. Rows and rows.
“Would you like to start with the feet?” McCleary said, pointing at one end. “Or perhaps the eyes?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I’ve spent most of my life in tornado country, so I have a healthy respect for the forces of nature. In 2004 I bought what I believed would be a writing retreat just outside of Pensacola, Florida. Six months later, Hurricane Ivan roared ashore.
It’s difficult to describe the damage, and even more difficult to explain how deep the damage cuts beyond that done to physical property. T
here’s a transformation that takes place within the community. You spend long, hot days without running water and electricity. Gasoline and groceries are limited to what you’ve stocked before the storm. The clean-up is physically and emotionally draining, but you find yourself grateful to be working alongside neighbors—in my case, people I had only recently met. They taught me what true strength and perseverance looks like.
Nine months after Ivan, Hurricane Dennis made a direct hit. And the Pensacola community simply rolled up their collective sleeves and started cleaning up all over again.
To the community of Pensacola: please know that it was out of respect and admiration that I decided to use your piece of paradise as the backdrop of Damaged.
As in all my novels, I have blended fact with fiction. For the record, here are some of the facts and some of the fiction.
The premise of infecting an entire tissue bank is based solely on my speculation. There have been, however, fatalities caused by infected donor tissue. One such case occurred in 2001 when it was determined that a twenty-three-year-old man who died after routine knee surgery was killed by a rare bacterium—Clostridium sordellii—and that he had contracted the infection from cadaver cartilage that was used to repair his knee.
Unlike those of organ donor banks, the standards for tissue, bone, and other donated body parts are more loosely regulated. Even though the FDA established the HTTF (Human Tissue Task Force) in 2006, they continue, by their own admission, to lack the resources to inspect and regulate this vast and growing industry.
The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act does prohibit the buying and selling of dead bodies, but the law allows for companies to recover their costs for expenses such as labor, transportation, processing, and storage. Demand is high, supply low, which sometimes opens the way to fraudulent brokers, as in the case of a New York funeral home where PVC pipe was swapped out for bones.
Yet, because of this industry, amazing technological advances have resulted. BIOMedics is fictitious, but similar companies have been creating and manufacturing innovative products like bone screws and bone paste, which have helped save the limbs of many soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
