“Not long. Nana might not have gone in first, though. It all depends. It's a simple procedure, Damon. Electrical energy is delivered to the AV node. The electricity is a little like the heat in a microwave. It disconnects the pathway between the atria and the ventricles and will stop the extra impulses causing Nana's irregular heartbeat. Got all that? Don't hold me to it, but that's fairly close to what's happening.”
“Is Nana wide awake while it's happening?” Jannie wanted to know.
“Probably. You know your Nana. They gave her a mild sedative and then local anesthesia.”
“Won't touch her,” Jannie said.
So we talked and waited, and fretted and worried, and it took longer than I thought it should take. I tried not to let my mind wander to bad places. I wanted to stay in touch with the moment.
I conjured up good memories of Nana, and they were a little like prayers. I thought about how much she meant to me, and also to the kids. None of us would be where we were without Nana's unconditional love, her confidence in us, and even her needling irritating as it could be sometimes.
“When is she coming out?” Jannie looked at me. Her beautiful brown eyes were full of uncertainty and fear. It struck me that Nana had really been a mother to all of us. Nana Mama was more mama than nana.
“Is she all right?” Damon asked. “Something's wrong, isn't it? Don't you think this is taking too long?”
Unfortunately, I did. “She's just fine,” I said to the children.
More time passed. Slowly. Finally, I looked up and saw Dr. Coles coming into the waiting room. I took a quick breath and tried not to let the kids see how anxious and nervous I really was.
Then Kayla Coles smiled. What a beautiful, glorious smile that was, the very best I've seen in a long while.
“She's all right?”I asked.
“Aces,”she said. “Your nana is a tough lady. She's asking for you already.”
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter One Hundred and Three
We visited with Nana in the recovery room for an hour, then we were asked to leave. She needed to rest up.
I dropped the kids off at school around eleven that morning. Then I went home to do a little more scud work in my office.
I was looking into something for Ron Burns, a strange but intriguing case involving convicted sex-offenders. In return he'd gotten me some US Army records that I wanted to check out. Some of it had come off AC IRS and RISS, but most had come straight from the Pentagon. One of the subjects was the Three Blind Mice.
Who was the real killer? Who gave orders to Thomas Starkey? Who sanctioned the murders?
I kept thinking about Nana, and how tough she was, and how much I would have missed her if something had gone wrong that morning. The terrible, guilt-ridden fantasy kept running through my head that I was going to get a call from Kayla Coles and she would say, I'm sorry, Nana passed away. We don't know what went wrong. I'm so sorry.
The call didn't come, and I threw myself into the work. Nana would be home tomorrow. I needed to stop worrying about her and put my mind to better use.
The Army records were interesting, but also about as depressing as an IRS audit. Obviously there had been rogue activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Army, at least officially, seemed to turn away and not look too closely at what had happened. There weren't civilian review boards, of course, like the police departments had to investigate misconduct. The press had no way to judge what was going on either. They rarely interviewed victims' families in the small villages. Plus, few of the American reporters spoke much Vietnamese. The good and the bad of it was that the Army had sometimes fought fire with fire. Maybe it was the only way to effectively fight a guerrilla war. But I still didn't know what had happened over there to inspire the murders stateside during the past few years.
I spent several grueling hours looking through more records of Colonel Thomas Starkey, Captain Brownley Harris and Sergeant Warren Griffin. I saw that their Army careers were exemplary, at least in written form. I went back as far as Vietnam and the pattern continued. Starkey was a highly decorated officer; Harris and Griffin were good soldiers. There was nothing in the records about assassinations in Vietnam committed by the trio. Not a single word.
I wanted to know when they had met and where they had served together. I kept leafing through records,
hoping, but not finding the connect point. I knew they'd fought together in Vietnam and Cambodia. I went through every page a second time.
But there was nothing in any of the records to indicate they'd worked together in Southeast Asia. Not a goddamn word.
I sat back and stared out onto Fifth Street, letting my eyes glaze over. There was only one conclusion I could come up with, and I didn't like it.
The Army records had been doctored.
But why? And by whom?
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
