Because Scot had expected to be returning on Air Force One, he hadn’t worried about how he would get home from the airport. As usual, on his departure one of the junior agents had picked him up at his apartment and driven him to Washington National, and he half expected to see another agent waiting to pick him up now. But there was nobody at the gate or outside the baggage claim. Both his beeper and his cell phone were on, but neither was vibrating to tell him he had a ride waiting. He knew this was because there was no ride.
Convinced Lawlor was somehow behind it all, Scot shouldered his bags and walked to the cab stand. After twenty minutes in line, his turn came and he hopped into a cab and headed for his apartment in Alexandria. Scrolling through his digital phone list, he found the number for Big Tony’s and hit the send button.
The cabdriver waited while Scot went inside to pick up his pizza and a six-pack of Kirin beer. Tony’s had Alexandria’s best selection of imported beers and takeout pizza. The delicious smell of deep-dish pie rising through the box was a welcome change from the less-than-appetizing smell that had been rising off his cabdriver. When they reached his apartment building, Scot paid the driver and asked for a receipt. He made a mental note to put the ride on his Secret Service expenses. While he was at it, he’d throw in the bill for the beer and pizza too. What did he have to lose? Besides, even a condemned man gets a last meal.
Struggling with the bags, the pizza, and the six-pack of beer, Harvath managed to unlock the entrance door and push it the rest of the way open with his hip. The building manager had been collecting his mail for him, but it was too late to knock on her door now, so he climbed the old wooden stairs to his apartment. The bills can wait until tomorrow.
Reaching the third floor, Harvath turned to his apartment door on the left of the landing and looked closely at the upper-right-hand corner of the doorframe. Satisfied his apartment hadn’t been entered during his absence, he balanced the pizza and beer on one knee, removed the hair from the doorframe, unlocked the door, and entered his home.
Harvath had cleared his voice mail in the cab, but now he picked up the phone and listened for the stutter dial tone just in case-nothing. A strange sense of calm descended upon him as he placed his bags in the bedroom and fell down onto the couch with the remote. He opened a bottle of the Japanese beer and grabbed a slice of pizza. Every channel, just like the airport CNN TV sets, was running the Jody Burnis story. Although careful to repeatedly state that no one had confirmed the kidnapping of the president, they pushed the fact that it hadn’t been denied either. When they stated that word of the kidnapping had been from a source within the Secret Service, Scot realized he had lost his appetite and threw his half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box.
Placing the remainder of the six-pack on the floor next to him, Scot stretched out on the couch and turned to the Outdoor Life Network, which thankfully wasn’t reporting anything about the president. Instead, OLN was rerunning a ski competition from Innsbruck, and he drank beer and watched it, letting his mind go blank. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was kicking off his shoes and letting them fall onto the rug in front of the couch.
At precisely seven A.M. Scot awoke to the building manager knocking on his door. She had heard him come in last night and wanted to give him his mail. Harvath figured as long as he was up, he would put on a pot of coffee and take a shower. He skipped shaving and, after getting dressed, ate the last two Eggo waffles he had in the freezer. He was out of syrup, so he covered them with butter and honey.
Being part of the president’s first team definitely had its advantages. Not only did they get a clothing allowance, because the Secret Service had to look good on TV, but they had better access to some highly sought after specialists in the D.C. area. One of those people was Dr. Sarah Helsabeck, who agreed to see Scot right away.
Harvath spent the better part of the morning being poked, prodded, quizzed, tested, and scanned. Dr. Helsabeck remarked on the incredible bruising up and down his back, saying it was amazing that the force that caused the trauma hadn’t broken any bones or done any internal damage. Actually, what she really said was, “I would ask you if you got the license numbers of the trucks that hit you, but if you just tell me what color they were, a fleet this size shouldn’t be too hard to track down.” As she continued her examination and reviewed his test results, Dr. Helsabeck commented, “Doesn’t look like anything snapped, crackled, or popped, and there don’t seem to be any signs of leaking.”
“So, it’s all pretty good then, right?” asked Scot.
“I’m most concerned about the knocks you took to your head. The brain is a very complicated mechanism. Your films don’t show any bleeding, but I’m still concerned.”
“Why?”
“Well, for starters, there’s your psychometrics. When you joined the Secret Service, they ran a battery of tests to establish a baseline for your performance. They charted things like your memory, concentration, and reaction time. All of which, compared to the tests we ran today, I can see are impaired.”
“But, Dr. Trawick said-”
“No offense to Dr. Trawick, but his was an extremely subjective diagnosis. Without the baseline that I have, he was taking shots in the dark.”
“C’mon, Dr. Helsabeck. I’ve hit my head before and I’ve been fine.”
“This time, we don’t know for sure. You’ve suffered a significant loss of short-term memory-”
“Doc, I appreciate your seeing me so quickly and running all these tests, but can you just give me the bottom line?”
“The bottom line is this: When you fell, you probably hit your head on something extremely hard, like a rock, and suffered a concussion. While you haven’t forgotten who you are, there seems to be some low-grade amnesia, which is what we were talking about in terms of short-term memory loss.”
“How short?”
“It’s normally things that are new. You might have trouble recalling things that happened in the last month.”
“Will I get it back?”
“Probably. There may be people you’ve met recently whom you’ve forgotten, or bills and bank deposits you can’t recall…that kind of stuff.”
“Are there any other potential problems?”
“You might experience difficulty with concentration, and like I said, your reaction time is down.”
“What about physical side effects?”
“You may find yourself sleeping a lot more, or your sleep may be interrupted.”
“Great.”
“You might also continue to experience the headaches you complained to me about, as well as some nausea.”
“Any other good news?”
“It’s not uncommon for patients who have suffered trauma such as yours to become irritable.”
“Irritable how?”
“Things beyond your control will frustrate you more than they would in normal conditions. Basically, your fuse might be a lot shorter.”
Scot wondered if that was why he had decked Agent Zuschnitt, or if he would have done it regardless of his fall. After a moment of reflection, he decided he would have done it regardless. Zuschnitt had been asking for it.
“Is that it?” asked Scot.
“Pretty much. Just keep in mind that all of these symptoms I’ve mentioned can become more profound with physical exertion. Basically, your brain has been scrambled and you need to give it, and your body, time to repair.”
Scrambled. You had to love a doctor who put things in laymen’s terms. Not only did she know how to break it down, she was also a comedian. As he was leaving, Dr. Helsabeck gave him the name of a good chiropractor she knew. “You’re going to need him,” she said. Scot thanked her and headed out into the drizzly afternoon.
Successfully hailing a cab in D.C. in the rain is almost impossible. As a matter of fact, attempting it ought to be classified as an extreme sport. Scot was tempted to hold up his credentials and draw his gun on the next taxi he saw, but one finally stopped and he gave the driver the cross streets of a family grocery and deli near his apartment.
