Blindside (Michael Bennett 12)

Tonight it was different. I had absolutely no energy and I couldn’t focus. I wondered if the cumulative effect of the shootings had finally caught up to me.

I had lingered at the hospital until I found out Jennifer Chang had made it through surgery and was in recovery. A young surgeon named Susan Jones had come out to talk to me, even though she knew I wasn’t family and wasn’t the detective on the case involving Jennifer.

She was in her scrubs with more than a few blood smears and other stains. Her hair poking out from under a surgical cap was limp with sweat, and wide perspiration stains had seeped from under her arms. No one could ever tell me that surgeons weren’t athletes on some level. To stand and concentrate for so many hours without a break takes real determination and stamina.

Dr. Jones motioned me to sit down on a couch. I think it was more about her getting off her feet than delivering bad news to me. She said, “I’m very impressed you waited here for her. I heard you tried to shield her from the gunfire. That’s brave, even for a cop.”

“Is Jennifer going to recover?”

“She lost a lot of blood. The bullet entered about four inches from her spine but worked its way through her torso. Her stomach was perforated and her left lung collapsed. She’ll be in the ICU for days, maybe weeks.”

I sagged in my seat.

The doctor touched my arm and said, “You’ve done all you can. There won’t be an update for some time. Please go home and get some rest. I don’t even know you and I have to say, you look terrible. Please forgive me.”

She gave me a weak smile and then was gone.

I’m not even sure how I made it back to the apartment. I was on automatic pilot.

Now I stood in the doorway and still couldn’t shake all of my fears about Natalie Lunden. Whoever she was involved with meant business. I believed she was in Estonia. In fact, I knew it. But I had no idea if she was there by consent or if she’d been forced to go.

This was troubling on a number of levels. Having my oldest daughter, Juliana, greet me at the door only emphasized my fears. How would I feel if Juliana disappeared like Natalie? I’d be calling in all the favors I could. I was starting to understand the mayor a little better.

I made my rounds in the apartment, greeting each kid individually. I could tell that Mary Catherine was still worried about me. Sometimes I wondered if she and Harry Grissom secretly traded phone calls about my mental state and general health.

Eventually I found myself next to the computer with Eddie. After I caught up on his daily life, school, and basketball, I got to the point. “Eddie, I’m having a little trouble comprehending some kids who are drawn to working with a certain hacker in Estonia. I know the money is pretty good, but is there something else?”

Eddie’s face positively lit up. “Dad, you have no idea. It’s the closest a kid like me will come to having a superpower. Just because I understand computers and most people really don’t. Once I found out I understood what hackers were talking about, it was easy. I follow a couple of forums online and read some blogs by hackers. It doesn’t surprise me the hacker is based in Estonia.”

“Why’s that?”

“Estonia is considered the most wired republic in Europe. The government views access to the internet as a human right. They spent a fortune on infrastructure to attract high-tech companies.”

“Most kids your age don’t even know where Estonia is. I’m very impressed.”

“We studied it in history class. How, after World War II, the Soviet Union essentially took control of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. That makes their rise as a computer power all the more impressive.”

I sat for a moment, thinking about Holy Name. I knew it was a good school. I’ve sent all my kids there. But I didn’t remember learning anything like that when I was in school. Of course, my interest in history didn’t come on until I was in college.

Then Eddie explained to me the draw of young people to crack security systems at different companies or government facilities. It was the cyberpunk’s version of climbing Mount Everest. Basically, they did it because it was there.

I settled back in my chair and said, “Eddie, would you mind showing me some of the forums and blogs that you read?”

/> By the smile on my son’s face you would’ve thought I’d given him a Jet Ski. He loved this kind of stuff.

CHAPTER 49

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, we all gathered around the speakerphone on the breakfast nook counter. I’d bought the phone at Best Buy specifically for these nights. Sure, it was a little crowded with twelve people trying to get close enough to both hear the speaker and be heard when they spoke.

This was our weekly call from Brian. It was the one night no one ever argued about what we were going to do. No one wanted to miss even a moment of talking to their brother.

Mary Catherine and my grandfather, Seamus, always sat in two straight-backed chairs closest to the phone.

At one minute after eight, the phone rang and Seamus hit the button within a second. He looked like a gambler in Las Vegas asking for another card.

We settled down to a near silence. After Brian said hello and told us how everything was going, everyone got to say hello and one other thing. It took about ten minutes to work through the whole family.

I was touched to see how excited the kids were to talk to their brother. It meant I’d done something right raising them. Ten kids in a family was difficult enough. If some of them didn’t get along, it could be brutal. I found it was easy enough to keep everyone happy if they were busy. Sports, clubs, family playdates—it all added up. And right now I appreciated that arithmetic.