Falling by T.J. Newman
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NOISE IN THEO’S HEADwas a high-pitched trumpeting sound, rolling up and down the scale. A full-body ache intensified as the sound grew louder. A horn blared. Behind his eyes was a throbbing so intense that the feeling became a color.
Confused by a wet, earthy smell, he realized he was facedown on the ground. Cool blades of grass tickled his lips when he opened his mouth. Breathing was almost impossible. He let his mouth gape open and hoped that would be enough.
Why was he in so much pain and where was he? And wherever he was, how did he get there? He had so many questions but none of them seemed to matter. Wasn’t it enough to just lie still? Dissolving into a cloud of pain until the questions disappeared—yes—that seemed like what he should do.
Theo.
He heard a person say that word and wondered at the sound. Theo. What did that mean? He heard the person repeat it, closer this time. It reminded him of something. He felt like he should know the answer to this question.
He opened his eyes but quickly closed them. The light that flooded in felt like it would split him from the inside out.
Lying there, he examined what was in the darkness of his closed eyes, the hologram-like outline of what he saw in that brief moment when he’d let the outside world in. People running toward him. A fire truck with its hose extended. A swing, dangling from a burning tree.
The noise was a siren. The fire truck was here for the house. The explosion. The politician. The family. Aunt Jo. It all rushed in at once.
His pain disappeared like it was never even there.
“Don’t move,” one of the SWAT agents said to him. Theo rolled to his side anyway. Pushing himself up would be impossible, though. He couldn’t move his arm.
“You’re beat up, man. Let the medics look at you. Jesus,” the agent muttered at the sight of his left arm, which hung at an awkward angle, unquestionably dislocated.
“I’m fine. What happened? The agents, are they—”
“Liu had them hold after you went in,” the agent said. “They’re okay.”
“And the guy. Did he get out?”
The agent’s slow head shake told him everything he needed to know.
Theo buried his head in the hand of his good arm. He’d never lost anyone. Not a suspect, an innocent bystander, a fellow agent—no one. The politician alone was devastating enough. What if Liu hadn’t ordered the other agents to stand down? What if they had advanced to back him up, and then this had happened? It was the first time the job had taken a tragic turn, and it easily could have been worse.
Theo sat stricken. In training they warned agents about this sort of reaction, teaching them instead how to detach, compartmentalize, not be emotionally connected to the mission. As if there was a switch to simply turn off the human part of a person.
“We got here as fast as we could,” the other agent said. “And you did more than any of us to get to him and the family. This isn’t on you. Okay? Theo? Theo.”
Theo looked up and nodded. Not in agreement, but just so they could move on. “Help me up.”
Sitting on the end of the ambulance, Theo heard the paramedic drone on but he wasn’t listening. He watched the firefighters try to put out the blaze ravaging the Hoffmans’ house, the home where they ate family dinners and watched movies. Where the baby took her naps.
“This is going to hurt really badly. Are you sure you don’t want drugs?”
Theo nodded.
Trick-or-treaters would get candy from their front door. At Christmas no doubt Bill would put up lights.
“Here we go, on the count of three. One, two—” Theo’s jaw clenched with the pain, but he didn’t make a sound as the medic relocated his arm back into his shoulder socket. He opened his eyes and watched the house burn.
It wasn’t a house. It was a tomb. They were dead. Carrie. Scott. Elise. An innocent man who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. All dead.
He was supposed to save them. He failed.
Liu approached the ambulance and Theo swore he saw concern flash across her face, gone as quickly as it came.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said, looking him up and down. She turned to the medic and asked, “He’ll be fine?”
The medic nodded. “Probably has a concussion and he’ll want X-rays on the arm. Other than that, superficial injuries.”
“Great. Could you give us a minute?” she asked the medic. He nodded and scurried away.
“You were right,” Liu said, her voice cold and flat. “But you put all of us—and the mission—at risk.”
Theo kept eye contact, but didn’t respond.
“Go home.”
Theo shot to his feet. “No. I know I didn’t—”
“Not a chance,” Liu spat at him, taking a step forward so he had to sit back down. “You were on thin ice to begin with. You’re way too close to this to keep going. You’re emotionally compromised and that makes you reckless. It makes you dangerous. Go to the hospital and then go home. You’re done.”
Theo didn’t know if she meant the case or his career. Either way, he didn’t say a thing.
An agent approached and Liu shot the man an annoyed look. He held up his phone. Liu leaned forward.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, seizing the phone from his hand for a closer look. “How much damage?”
“It’s viral. All the news stations have it,” the agent replied.
“Does it mention the family?”
Apparently, there was a lot of discussion on social media regarding FAA regulations, and a lot of speculation as to the real reason the masks were out. But there was no mention of Washington, DC, the Hoffman family, or a poison gas attack on the cabin.
Liu turned the phone toward Theo. He squinted in the bright light, his concussed head still fuzzy. It was a picture of that pseudo-celebrity Rick Ryan wearing an airplane oxygen mask.
“The fuck is your aunt up to?” Liu said.
“Well, I’d ask her, but I’m off the case.”
Liu’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re going to play it like that, huh?”
Theo stared at her without blinking. Leveraging access to his aunt so he could stay in the game was a risky career quid pro quo. But Theo knew he was probably toast at the bureau anyway and at that moment he couldn’t have cared less. The only thing that mattered was helping Aunt Jo.
The two stared each other down. Slowly, Liu leaned over until her face was an inch from his. “If you step one foot out of line, if you disobey a single order,” she said, her voice a whisper, “your badge is mine at the end of this. I promise you, Theo. You will never work in law enforcement again.” Tilting her head slowly, she said, “Is that understood?”
He tipped his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
The director rubbed her eyes and began to pace. Several agents arrived and Theo held up a finger to keep them from coming closer. Liu ignored them anyway, turning toward the burning house with an exhale, resting her interlaced fingers across the top of her head.
“We need to find out if the captain knows his family is dead,” Liu said, finally. “That changes everything.”
Turning quickly, she addressed the agents directly.
“Is the media here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the agents said. “Nobody’s spoken to them yet.”
“Good. Official line is this: investigation’s ongoing, but the explosion is due to a gas leak.” The agents nodded. “Has Coastal Airways released a statement on the mask photo? Have they acknowledged any issue with the flight?”
“No.”
The FBI had informed the airline, the FAA, and Air Traffic Control of the situation—but requested they wait to close the airspace, ground planes, and shut down airports. A panicked public response to this kind of threat would be colossal, and if the FBI secured the Hoffman family, it could all be avoided. All the agencies—including officials on the ground in Washington—were ready to enact evacuation and defense protocols at a moment’s notice, but they agreed the most prudent option was to give the LA FBI time to find the family.
“And yet,” Liu said, “we didn’t secure the family. So now we have a dead family and a pilot under duress whose mental state we can only guess at. Plus a dead civilian who had nothing to do with this. Have we ID’d him and contacted his family?”
An agent strode off, saying he’d get on it. Liu sighed, and ran a hand down her face.
“Theo, get in touch with your aunt. I want to know what’s happening up there. I need to know if the pilot knows about his family. And I need to know what his intentions are at this point.”
Theo nodded, taking out his phone.
“I want Bravo, Charlie, and comms out of here,” she continued. “Our presence looks fishy and I want to avoid questions if we can. Assemble somewhere not far, we may need to move. But I want us out of camera shot.”
She paused, looking at the house.
“Now that the family’s dead, we don’t know what we’re looking at. It’s probably more of a case for the FAA, Homeland Security, ATC, and East Coast FBI. But we have a lot of pieces to pick up and we don’t know anything for sure.”
Liu took out her phone and Theo watched her out of the corner of his eye. There was a hesitation to the way she punched the buttons. He knew she was about to make the call back east. The call to let them know she had failed. The family was dead and the threat was not pacified. He knew that, after the call, massive evacuations would begin at the most important and symbolic institutions in the country. Those in power would be sheltered and innocent civilians would be forced to flee. Pandemonium and terror would run rampant in the nation’s capital, and she was the one who had to make the call.
Theo now understood why she seemed so angry in her office. However this situation went down, it went down on her.
The fire captain approached the group and Liu stopped punching buttons. She pocketed her phone and her shoulders seemed to relax a little.
The fireman took off his hat, wiping his brow with the back of his arm. Sweat dripped off his face onto his fire suit.
“The fire should be out within the hour.”
Liu thanked him. “When will it be safe for us to go in for recovery?”
He cocked his head. “Recovery?”
“The bodies. When can we recover the bodies for identification.”
His eyes narrowed, confused. “The man on the front porch was the only victim. There were no other human remains, ma’am. The house was empty.”