Fiction Friday: Not for Profit, The End

[Part Five here.]

Jonathan turned to me and put out his free hand. “Miss Evans, I really am sorry for all this. I never…”

“Don’t tell me,” I snapped. I felt the adrenalin surge and realized, gratefully, that this was going to be easier than I thought. I pointed to Hector. “Tell him. Oh, right. You can’t. He’s dead.”

Turning my back on Jonathan, I walked over and knelt beside Hector’s body. I reached down and closed his eyes.

Jonathan addressed the remaining orderly. “How much do you want to let her go?”

As he spoke, I slipped the scalpel into my palm. It nicked my wrist, just slightly, and I knew I’d have to do this before the blood became noticeable. “You know what he wants.” I said. I stood up, gesturing with my free hand and keeping the scalpel pressed tight to my body, out of the orderly’s line of sight. “You know what they all want. It’s just money.” I was standing in front of Jonathan now. “Why do I have to die over money?”

I leaned forward, raising my hand, and Jonathan, who had never lost at darts, grabbed the scalpel and threw.

There was an awful gurgling moan and then a thud as the orderly hit the floor. Out of instinct, I started to turn, but Jonathan’s voice stopped me. “Natalie. Don’t. Look at me. Just look at me.”

“Keys,” I managed.

He shook his head. “The other one had them. There’s a pen in my jacket pocket.”

I grabbed his jacket and fumbled for the pen. He took it, dug his fingernail into a tiny groove at the base, and drew out a thin strip of metal. “Do something about your wrist,” he said as he worked the lock on the handcuffs.

I found a bandage, noticing in passing that Jonathan had hit the orderly in the throat with the scalpel. Funny how a split-second image can give you nightmares for life. Then Jonathan was up and grabbing my hand. He scooped up the orderly’s gun, and we were gone.

*******

Jonathan knew the closest side door. Nobody tried to stop us. I guess the few doctors and patients we passed had long since learned not to ask questions. Jonathan also knew where Hector’s Beetle was parked. When I saw the car, I did register a faint protest. “Won’t they be looking for this one?”

He nodded, his hands busy under the dashboard. “Yeah, but they may not have searched it yet. Check under your seat.”

As I did so, the engine sputtered to life. Under the seat, I found a cell phone, which I placed in Jonathan’s waiting hand. He dialed without taking his eyes from the road, but he smiled a little. “Sorry — I’m about to sound like a movie.” And he did. First an identification code, then an all-clear code. Then coordinates. Then an instruction to cancel any access or passwords associated with another identification code. And finally the news that he was bringing a civilian with him.

He hung up. Rolling down his window, he tossed the cell phone onto the road in front of the car and made sure he ran over it. A few minutes later, he pulled off onto a side road. He stopped the car in a clump of trees and pointed up a nearby ridge. “Can you climb?”

I slipped off my high heels. “Can you?”

He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t bandaged. “Let’s find out.”

We scrambled to the top of the ridge. Beyond was a field, but it was also below, and I felt my bleeding feet start to give way. But there was a hand under my elbow. I stayed upright. “So… It’s all downhill from here?”

Jonathan kissed me. It was quick and rough, almost fierce, and everyone should be kissed like that at least once in their life. We stumbled and slid down together. At the bottom, he pulled me into the shadow of a tree and checked his watch. “Ten minutes.”

I sank to the ground and closed my eyes. “Natalie,” he snapped. “Talk to me.”

I didn’t care for his tone and opened my eyes so I could tell him so to his face. But then I saw the expression on his face, and in the same moment realized my palms were clammy. I decided he had a point.

I longed to ask about Hector, but I couldn’t. I knew neither of us was ready for that. Which left only one thing to ask. “Did you break up with me because you didn’t trust me?”

“No. I was…” He paused. “I was about to say I was protecting you. But that’s not really it. Truth is, I was protecting myself. I thought this would be easier if I had nothing to lose.”

“Do you still think that?”

“More than ever.”

I looked away. I had expected him to say he was protecting me, had been putting the finishing touches to my righteous indignation. But what he had said was unanswerable. I knew he would carry Hector with him for the rest of his life. Along with the knowledge of what had nearly happened to me. What right did I have to demand that he live with that fear?

“Natalie.”

This time there was nothing sharp about his tone. I looked around. He was holding out that gold signet ring.

“Marry me?”

I nodded. I tried to say Yes. But I couldn’t form the word, and before I could put out my hand for the ring I collapsed, fell to pieces on his shoulder. He gasped. I realized it was the wrong shoulder, started to pull away, but he shifted position, pulled me back toward him, and let me cry.

*******

That was two years ago. The scar on my wrist turned out to be bad enough to need explanation. On the flight home, Jonathan concocted a story about the night we’d been making our second batch of margaritas and I had just picked up the knife to cut the limes when he turned around and bumped into me. At first, I had objected that I was perfectly capable of being that clumsy all by myself, but he was adamant that it be his fault, and I let him have it. After the trouble that story took, we were both grateful that his scar was easier to hide.

It’s tough being married to an historian. He’ll be gone for weeks or months at a time, chasing down some obscure reference in a library halfway around the world, or following the trail his subject took so he can make the book authentic. My sister thinks he’s a little crazy, in a harmless sort of way, and that I’m a little crazy to put up with him. I just tell her that he has his work, and I have mine.

The hospital is still in business, under new management.

They did not get the grant.

Fiction Friday: Not for Profit, Part Five

[Part Four here.]

I took the knife. I walked over to Jonathan. Hector caught my eye: “Just think about the bullet. Don’t think about him.”

Jonathan grimaced at Hector. “Thanks.” But as he said it, his fingers quickly brushed my palm.

I did it. Don’t ask me how — I don’t know. I felt the muscle tense at the first touch of the knife and longed for the luxury of being sick. Instead, I started to feel around for the bullet. The entire time, Jonathan refused to make a sound, whether for Reyes’ benefit or mine I didn’t know. And I think that because of that, I was aware of him in a way I had never been aware of another human being. There was nothing but us and the silence.

And then, finally, there was the bullet. The sheer triumph of finding that one foreign bit of metal in living flesh made the next part easier. I dug the point of the knife, hard, under the bullet — I felt Jonathan’s entire body convulse, but still no sound — and flicked it up and out. It landed on the tile floor. Immediately, Reyes was at my elbow to take the knife. I wondered what the hurry was, because I sure didn’t have any plans for it, but then I noticed that Jonathan was lowering his right arm. I hadn’t even seen him raise it. Even at the time, I knew that the odds of his being able to do anything with the knife before getting shot were smaller than suicidally slim, but I supposed he had to try. It was not until much later that I remembered Hector’s remark. He’s the only one who can do what you want. Ever since, I have suspected that the odds of Jonathan accomplishing what he wanted were not slim at all.

I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be allowed access to any of the medical supplies surrounding us, so I took off that hapless linen jacket (coffee stains don’t come out, anyway). I tore off the sleeves, made one into a pad and used the other to bind it over the wound. As I tied the knot, my hands began to shake again. I supposed that meant they must have stopped at some point.

Reyes glanced at his watch. “Do you expect to prolong this indefinitely?”

“No,” conceded Jonathan, and the tremor in his voice told me what the last few minutes had cost him. “But I think I can manage half an hour.”

Another glance at the watch. “I can explain it to him.”

Hector laughed. “You’ve been working side by side with a CIA agent for the last ten months. This morning you let my partner walk in and drain the account. If you get the money back, maybe you can explain. Without it, not a prayer.” He nodded toward Jonathan. “So he’s right. Half an hour is all we need. Or I guess I should say, it’s all you’ve got.”

Reyes ignored Hector. “Say that is true,” he told Jonathan. “Have you considered that in half an hour, you will no longer be dealing with me, and that while I might offer you your lives, he never will?”

“Yes.”

“And have you made your peace with that?”

“Yes.”

I knew he had to say it. I’m not sure why I was so surprised that he meant it. And I still don’t know how I feel about it. Oh, I know — and knew then — that he was right. Ethics class in college (the first class where we sat together): You can’t judge the morality of an action by its result, or: the ends don’t justify the means. True, logical, and damn hard to live by. Especially when it’s someone else’s life on the line. Jonathan used to play devil’s advocate in that class, pushing the rest of us: Would we really live according to principle? Really? What about this? Or this? And now here we were. What about this? Jonathan had chosen principle. I loved him for it, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that at the same time, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.

I think Reyes also saw that Jonathan meant it. He took a gun from one of the orderlies. Then he gave Hector a shove. Hector stumbled forward, and a little sideways, but he never took his eyes off Jonathan. Jonathan started to speak, but Hector just smiled, and this time the smile said only one thing.

Have you made your peace with that?

Yes.

Reyes cocked the gun. “Five seconds.”

Five seconds of silence. Jonathan’s knuckles were white. Hector’s lips moved, and one hand came up to touch the rosary around his neck. Reyes closed his eyes. I wished I could.

And then the gunshot. Followed by a crash. Hector had fallen into a tray of surgical instruments set on a table nearby. A scalpel sliced a nasty gash in his forearm. I don’t know why that bothered me, since he was dead before he hit the floor. I wanted to grip Jonathan’s hand, but I wouldn’t have touched David Blair at that moment, so instead I backed away.

Reyes handed the gun back to the orderly. “Well, Mr. Blair?”

“I knew you were serious. Now you know I was, too.”

“And the lady?”

Jonathan didn’t answer. Reyes saw that as an opening and pressed on. “Dr. Perez knew what he was doing. Do you still insist that Miss Evans is innocent?”

“I do.”

“Make the transfer and I’ll believe you. I’ll let her go. If you like, I’ll even let her call you from the airport.”

Jonathan kept silent. Reyes looked at me: “Nothing to say?”

I kept silent. I wasn’t capable of forming words right then, but even if I had been, what could I say? Ask Jonathan not to be Jonathan? Not possible. Tell him I understood completely and would have made the same choice? Not true. So I just shook my head and focused all my attention on trying not to cry. One might as well face the inevitable with grace. At least feigned grace.

It was none of us that broke the silence. It was Reyes’ cell phone. He answered it, then immediately turned his back on us to conduct the conversation in muffled and very fast Spanish. Each of the orderlies was trying to listen in but still watch us, and while their attention was divided, Jonathan caught my eye. I expected regret, even apology, but got something much more practical: a quick glance, the most fractional nod of the head toward Hector’s body. It took me a moment, but all at once I realized that earlier, he and I had been looking at exactly the same thing. It’s just that he had seen it for what it was.

Reyes finished his conversation and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. Jonathan smiled: “He’s early, isn’t he? He usually is.”

Reyes headed for the door, gesturing for one of the orderlies to accompany him. It was the larger of the two, I noticed, pleased with myself for deducing that Reyes was more worried about his guest than about us. With his hand on the door, Reyes addressed us both. “I will be back, and I will expect an answer.”

For the first time, Jonathan seemed to have trouble meeting his eyes. Reyes nodded, as if he had expected nothing else, and left the room.

Showtime.

The Man Behind the Shield

[Spoilers follow about Captain America: The Winter Soldier.]

First, a tangential note: It’s pretty neat that a film about the dangers of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an offensive and a defensive weapon centers around a character whose trademark is...a shield (that is both an offensive and a defensive weapon). And that, at the climax, his shield winds up at the bottom of the Potomac.

The Winter Soldier is about several things, most obviously the tension between liberty and security. It is also about trust. The trust we place in institutions, and the trust we place in people.

We often trust institutions because of people. Steve Rogers tells the elderly Peggy Carter that he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. largely because she helped to found it. And we in the audience have come to trust S.H.I.E.L.D. because it is led by Nick Fury (who is, let us face it, awesome) and because it employs Phil “first name Agent” Coulson.

But no person is wholly trustworthy. It’s not just that it can be hard to spot the bad guys, though Fury’s wonderful speech about why it took him so long to see through Alexander Pierce (“This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said that peace is not an achievement, but a responsibility. This is why I have trust issues!”) makes that point eloquently. Even the people who are honestly trying to be good guys can be wrong: Project Insight was Fury’s inspiration.

And yet, the solution is NOT never to trust. When Steve tells Pierce that Fury’s last words were a warning to trust no one, Pierce wonders aloud whether that advice also applies to Fury himself. But Steve chooses to trust Fury. Just as Fury himself has chosen to trust Steve.

Trust, insofar as it can be achieved in an imperfect world, must be based on two judgments: a judgment of ends, and a judgment of means. An institution, however noble the ends of its leaders, can only ever be a means. While Steve knows that there is a real difference between Fury and Pierce as regards their ends, he also sees that their means are the same, and he judges that those means are fundamentally flawed. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t just need to be reformed: it has to go.

Trusting people is more complex. We can judge their trustworthiness based on both the ends they choose and the means they choose to achieve them. And when evaluating a public figure, that may be all we can do: “Captain’s orders,” says the frightened technician who refuses to launch the carriers.

But in the case of those around us, it should always be our goal to see each person as a person. And that brings us to The Winter Soldier’s central relationship. Steve Rogers is as straightforward as they come. Natasha Romanoff is anything but. In most movies, the stage would be set for “opposites attract,” but Natasha’s arrow necklace reminds us why that will not happen. Which makes it all the more interesting that Natasha really cares about Steve. Her matchmaking attempts are not a result of habit: it is hard to imagine the Black Widow taking an interest in the personal lives of those around her. And yet she sees that Steve is lonely, and she does not want him to be alone.

We can trust a person to the extent that they see us as an end, not as a means. Natasha is used to creating personas that people will find useful - nearly always, of course, so that she can use them. “Who do you want me to be?” she asks Steve. “A friend,” he replies. As useful as the Black Widow is, Steve does not value Natasha because she is useful. He values her, period. And in caring about his loneliness, and in fearing rejection when she asks for his trust, she shows that she values him, with or without Captain America’s shield.

Fiction Friday: Not for Profit, Part Four

[Part Three here.]

Jonathan was sitting in a metal chair in the center of the room. His left wrist was handcuffed to the chair arm. His right hand was free, but his right sleeve was covered in blood from what looked awfully like a bullet wound just below the shoulder. His ruined suit jacket had been tossed onto a gurney nearby.

There was a large orderly already in the room, carrying a large pistol. After Dr. Reyes followed me inside,  the orderly moved to block the door. I know that must have happened, because he was there later, but I didn’t notice at the time.

I took a step toward Jonathan. “David?!”

I will never forget the look he gave me: his realization that, with everything I was feeling, I had remembered. “What is this?” I asked.

He looked at Reyes and answered, “A mistake.”

“Really.” Reyes didn’t sound very interested. He was already taking my laptop out of its case.

“A big one,” I added. “What do you think you’re…”

Reyes ignored me. He was only interested in Jonathan. “She delayed her visit for a week and arrived the day after you did. She spoke to you not five minutes after you met with me. She has spent the last six hours going through our financial records. And yet you expect me to believe that her presence here is coincidence?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” said Jonathan, continuing to bleed. He looked at me: “Sorry.”

Reyes had opened my laptop. It gave its familiar start-up chime. I wanted to laugh, and then to cry: my computer still thought this was a normal day.

“Password,” said Reyes. I gave it to him. I didn’t dare look at Jonathan. I had used his birthday, for a reason that I was suddenly very much afraid he would misunderstand. When I set it up, I had told myself that it was the one number no one would expect me to use, but since I was having a hard time believing that right now, I didn’t think Jonathan would believe it, either.

But there were more pressing concerns, and I brought them up in a voice that was too loud because it was shaking. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t want to, and I promise I won’t say anything.” (That last bit was no longer true, but the lie came easily.) “But the Foundation knows I’m here, and…”

“Point,” agreed Jonathan, and if he wanted to take over I was happy to let him. “She can’t just disappear.”

“She won’t.” Reyes moved closer to me, but still addressed Jonathan. “On her way back to the airport, she will be tragically ambushed by the thieves who are such a sad fact of life in this country, and it will end badly. The only question is whether she will have been raped first.”

I felt my face go hot. I couldn’t control that, but I could and did look Reyes in the eye. And I rejoiced when he looked away. He took out his cell phone to send a brief text message, then returned to my computer.

“You won’t find anything there,” Jonathan told him.

“Maybe not. But I have a laptop and an internet connection. You could do everything I need right here.”

“Could,” agreed Jonathan. “Won’t.”

“And your partner?”

“I’ve told you she’s not…”

The door opened, and a second orderly came in, pushing Hector in front of him.

Hector took in the situation at a glance and clearly decided first things first. He took a step toward Jonathan, but Reyes shook his head. The orderly dragged Hector back. “If you want the doctor,” said Reyes, “you’ll have to pay in advance.”

Jonathan shrugged as well as he could. “I’ll save the money.”

I honestly don’t know whether I was surprised. About Hector, I mean. When I look back, it seems more than obvious. It seems inevitable. Standing there, watching him, I remembered that less than half an hour ago (if you care to measure in minutes) I had desperately wanted him to be what he seemed, had felt personally betrayed when he had appeared to be less. And all the time he had been more.

I think that time he must have read my thoughts. He gave me a smile that was equal parts laughter and apology. “I lied. It matters.” Then he looked back at Jonathan. “Bullet still in there?”

“Yeah. Any point in asking who you are?”

“No, but thanks.” Hector turned to Reyes, addressing him as if this were any other consultation. “He’s the only one who can do what you want. If you want him alive to do it, that bullet needs to come out and the bleeding has to be controlled.”

“Stop being a doctor,” snapped Jonathan.

“No,” answered Hector, and waited for Reyes.

Reyes said something to one of the orderlies, something that neither Jonathan nor Hector seemed to like. The man reached into his pocket and produced a nasty-looking clasp knife. There was nothing surgical or precise about it, which was clearly the point. I experienced a brief moment of nausea, anticipating what I was about to see.

Then I saw that the knife was being offered to me.

I backed away. “I can’t.” It came out as a whisper.

Reyes took the knife and came to stand in front of me. “If Mr. Blair would like Dr. Perez to take over, he knows what to do. If you prefer to wait and watch him bleed to death, that is your choice. But those are the only choices here.”

Fiction Friday: Not for Profit, Part Three

[Part Two here.]

Hector was waiting in the lobby for me, bright and early the next morning. Too bright and early, considering I had dozed off around 3:30, and I can’t stand morning people at the best of times, but Hector’s greeting was more infectious than annoying. Besides, I reminded myself that for the next ten hours I could avoid thinking about Jonathan. I was here to interview staff, meet patients, and read balance sheets, and it was high time I got down to it. This was a world I understood.

I had one question answered very quickly. When Hector introduced me to Dr. Reyes, I recognized the man who had opened the door for me yesterday at the museum. He recognized me, too, and made another bow.

For the rest of the morning, Hector let Dr. Reyes do most of the talking, though he accompanied us throughout our tour of the hospital, occasionally filling in a detail or prompting Dr. Reyes on a patient’s name. The grant proposal had been full of Dr. Reyes. I soon decided that, while the photo had been accurate enough, my other impressions had not been. The man on the page was a solid but undistinguished doctor who talked a lot without saying much. But that’s why we do site visits. The measure of a man is not in what he says.

The hospital, as I now knew, had been built from the ground up just six years before, all of it done with private donations. I warmed to Dr. Reyes as he pointed out every feature, from the gleaming, sterile operating room to the well-stocked recovery ward. While reading, I had thought they were moving too fast with their expansion plans. Now that I was there, everything indicated success, stability, and confident leadership. These were the people to meet the need.

And the need was there. The hospital was full. We had lunch — Dr. Reyes, Hector, and I — with one of the nurses, a young woman who had chosen her profession after Dr. Reyes treated her infant daughter for typhoid fever. She told me about 20-hour shifts, about mattresses spread on the floor during a malaria outbreak, and about the need to expand vaccination programs. Hector, almost a shadow throughout the morning, actually joined the conversation then. I gathered that one of his main responsibilities was to coordinate the deliveries of vaccines and drugs donated by a dozen NGOs. He dwelt at some length on the need for proper storage conditions for the vaccines, a major component of the planned expansion. By the end of lunch, I saw clearly both the need and the plan, and I only had one question left: Could they add?

I’m a CPA. I don’t care about grammar or spelling (unless you’re a university). But if your balance sheet doesn’t balance, I’m not going to give you money: you don’t know what to do with it.

Dr. Reyes showed me to his office, asking me to consider it my own for the afternoon. I told Hector that he could just leave me to my spreadsheets, but he pointed out that most of their donor records weren’t on the computer, and that he knew his way around the files a lot better than I did. It’s hard to argue with logic. We spent the next few hours immersed in numbers — happily on my part, cheerfully on Hector’s. With unruffled good humor, he went back and forth with files, and even insisted on bringing me coffee. He had a story to accompany every receipt, and all in all, I have never done a more pleasant audit.

But late in the afternoon, Hector was called away to a patient. For the first time that day, I was left entirely alone with my thoughts. I had heard dozens of anecdotes. Now I sat back to look at the big picture.

It didn’t fit. They had grown too fast. They were too well stocked. I fully believed that the need was still greater, but the fact was that even what they had now had been done a little too easily. I told myself that I was jumping to conclusions, that my perception of Mexico had been warped by the evening news, that even in an impoverished small town, a large amount of money could be honestly come by. But I couldn’t help thinking that everyone, even (especially?) Hector, had been working very hard to keep me from drawing those conclusions. And I knew that Jonathan had not come here to write a book.

When Hector came back, I barely let him get into the office before asking, “Which cartel paid for this?”

I desperately wanted him to look surprised. One idealist would have made me feel less lonely. Or maybe less stupid. And I needed him, at least, to be what he had seemed. But he quickly pulled the door closed behind him and said, “Don’t let anyone else hear you say that.”

“Because it’s true?”

“Because it’s dangerous to say it.”

“But is is true?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

When I didn’t answer right away, he dragged a chair over next to mine. He looked like he wanted to take my hand, but he restrained himself. “Miss Evans. I’m glad it does matter to you. I wish I could afford to let it matter to me. Yes, some — all right, most of the money that comes in here is not from a good place, and when it leaves here most of it doesn’t go to a good place, but at least while it’s here it does some good. You focus on what’s in front of you, and you try not to think about the rest. It gets easier with time.”

That much was obvious. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he’d long since made his peace with what he didn’t want to see. I wondered how much time it had taken.

I think he saw me wondering, because he smiled. Equal parts sympathy and chagrin. “You’re not there yet. I get it. Do whatever you like about the grant. Just don’t ever mention this to anyone. I’m not joking when I say it’s dangerous.”

“Do you ever worry about yourself?”

He shrugged. “Remember, I’m safely ensconced on the wrong side.”

“That’s what I mean.” I fumbled for words. “What if… What if you were found out?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“No.” I would regret anything that happened to Hector, but Jonathan was Jonathan.

“Okay then. Go home and don’t say anything.”

In what follows, it’s important to remember that I fully intended to follow Hector’s advice. I had spoken in the first heat of anger, but I was every bit as scared as he wanted me to be. You can say that’s natural and understandable, and I’ll agree with you. Just don’t try to tell me it wasn’t wrong.

Hector gave me a few minutes to collect my thoughts. He used them to collect my notes and my laptop. I found myself being presented with a neatly packed bag. “Come on. You should have been out of here an hour ago. You don’t have to speak to me, but let me walk you back to the hotel.”

I nodded. He opened the door. I took a deep breath and told myself everything was fine.

On the way out, we ran into Dr. Reyes. “Hector. There you are. Mrs. Garcia stopped in and she’s asking for you.”

Hector rolled his eyes, but he said good-naturedly enough, “She does realize she’s not the only woman who’s ever been pregnant, right? I’ll go talk to her. Miss Evans…”

“I can find the hotel,” I assured him.

Hector nodded and left us. Dr. Reyes fell into step beside me. “Did you get everything you needed?”

“I think so,” I answered. And a lot more than I needed. “Everyone has been very helpful.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We are very grateful to you for coming, though I confess we were also surprised. But then, I think, the timing was convenient for you?” As he spoke, he held open a door for me.

I didn’t know the hospital well, and anyway, I had plenty on my mind, so I hadn’t paid attention to where we were going. As I walked through the door, I realized we were in the operating room. Before I could ask why, the why became very obvious.

And I knew, right there and then, what my answer would have been.