Born to Run

Jack could see himself and Demetri on the television screen. Demetri looked ready to hit someone, and if Sofia bailed out on Jack now, it could be deadly.

“Sofia?” said Jack. “He’s wrong, isn’t he?”

The line was silent, and Jack worried that his gamble was about to backfire. Finally, Sofia answered.

“He was misled,” she said.

Demetri was speechless for a moment, as a wave of anger slowly washed over him.

“How do you know what happened?” he said, jabbing the other gun into Jack’s spine.

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 can’t 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-”