People sitting around me in the waiting room collapsed into the arms of their family and friends and wept.
Connor Grant had told me, “I created this—this magnificent event.”
Someone called my name.
I jumped to my feet and saw the doctor, a dark-haired surgeon in blue scrubs, mask hanging loosely around her neck. I searched her face for reason to hope for good news, but all I saw was sadness.
She introduced herself as Dr. Janet Dalrymple. I walked with her into the hallway, and she told me that Joe had an acute subdural hematoma that was rapidly expanding, that it was putting pressure on his brain.
“I put in a shunt to drain the fluid buildup,” she told me. “He’s on medication to keep the swelling down. What we’ll do now is watch him closely, keep checking the pressure.”
I had to ask. “What are his chances, Doctor?”
“I don’t operate on chances, Lindsay. Every patient with a head injury responds differently. I don’t want to give you false hope. His injuries are serious. Still, he could be past the worst in hours. We’re taking him now to intensive care.”
I returned to the waiting room thinking about the bombshell that had broken up our marriage.
Six months ago I’d learned that my husband had been lying to me for—I had no idea how long. When I confronted him, he admitted that he’d been keeping things from me and he said that he couldn’t tell me what he was doing. That it was all strictly classified. He said that he had to put country first.
“I couldn’t tell you what I was doing, Lindsay. It was all strictly classified. I had to put country first.”
Although I maybe still loved him, the words “country first” changed so many things that I had believed in without question. While I had thought my husband was a work-from-home dad, he had actually been working for the CIA. There was a woman involved. I wasn’t sure what they had meant to each other, but it wasn’t casual. I was married to a spy. And that meant that I hadn’t really known Joseph Molinari—ever. And that I could never truly trust him.
Despite how angry I had been with Joe, right now I would do anything if he would survive his injury with his mind intact. I made deals with God and I waited for news.
CHAPTER 6
NEWS DID ARRIVE, but it was not the news I was hoping for.
The TV in the soothing ICU waiting room cut away from a rerun of The Big Bang Theory to a bright-red BREAKING NEWS card that spiraled and filled the screen. Then Channel 5’s Susan Margulies Steinhardt appeared on set, looking as though she’d just bolted from her bed, put on her lipstick while driving to the studio, and gone directly on-air.
“We’ve got breaking news,” she said.
She read from a sheet of paper in front of her.
“GAR has taken responsibility for the bomb that blew up Sci-Tron, resulting in twenty-five deaths and forty-five injuries, by recent count.”
I had been slumped and dozing, but I shot upright and gripped the arms of the chair.
The anchorwoman went on. “KPIX 5 cannot verify the authenticity of this video message that was posted on the internet moments ago.”
A silhouette of a man appeared on-screen. His face was in deep shadow and there seemed to be a circle behind his head, almost like a halo. His voice was unaccented, digitally altered, could have been completely fabricated by a synthesizer.
The man with the distorted voice said, “GAR is proud of our devoted soldier SF65 in the Great Antiestablishment Reset. He has shown true courage in bringing down Sci-Tron, a frivolous endeavor fed by corrupt corporate and university sponsors.
“GAR works in secret and explodes in public. And we will continue our work until all people around the world have achieved authority over themselves.”
The video went to black, and Ms. Steinhardt reappeared on-screen.
She said, “This is all we have at the moment, but we will continue to update our viewers as new information comes in. And now we are suspending our scheduled programming and taking you to our studios in New York for commentary on the news as it unfolds.”
Six people in the ICU waiting room were watching this jaw-dropping news along with me.
“I knew it,” said one. “Had to be GAR.”
“Evil bastards,” said another.
On the TV the scene cut away from the small local station to a slick set in New York. Images of the blast were displayed on large screens behind an angular table seating news correspondents and terrorism analysts familiar to everyone with access to a TV.