First Strike (30 page)

Dewey steered calmly onto an empty road that led away from the hospital as, with his right hand, he dialed a six-digit number. It was a number that could be dialed from anywhere in the world. After a few seconds of silence, he heard a high-pitched beeping noise. Dewey punched in a code. A man's voice came on the line.

“Commencing voice recog. Go.”

“Andreas, Dewey.”

“File?”

“NOC 2294-6.”

“Zone?”

“Scorpio,” said Dewey as he maneuvered between the burned-out skeletons of vehicles littering the roadway.

“Go.”

“Tracker lock my location.”

There was a momentary pause followed by a beep.

“You're locked. What's the situation?”

“I need an immediate bridge to IDF Sector Alpha in this order: Kohl Meir, Menachem Dayan, Fritz Lavine, Benjamin Cooperman. This is Code Black. Repeat,
Code Black.
And stay on the line.”

“Yes, sir. Hold on.”

He listened to a series of clicks as his call was put through. A half ring was followed by a familiar voice.

“Who is this?” asked Meir.

“It's Dewey. I'm in—”

“Trouble,” interrupted Meir. “Satellites picked up the scene in Damascus. What happened?”

“I don't have time right now, Kohl. I need an extraction.”

“Where are you?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

CENCOM Control interrupted. “We have you,” said the operator. “Commander Meir, I'm live wiring the tracker feed.”

“Okay,” said Meir. “I have you on screen. You're in Aleppo. Jesus, how the hell did you end up there?”

“Kohl—”

“Okay, okay. It looks like you're headed west. Take your next right. That will take you north. It's Highway Sixty-two. It'll be the first big road you see.”

“Isn't Damascus south?” asked Dewey.

“Yes, but if anyone's looking for you it will be toward the south. We're going to come over the water and penetrate up there somewhere where we don't have to worry quite so much about being shot down.”

“How far on Sixty-two?”

“Drive for an hour, then get off somewhere that looks remote. It will be dark in a few hours. Find a place to sit tight. A barn or something. We'll need room to land.”

 

41

WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

The Traumahawk flew north, rushing above a calm landscape of buildings, monuments, cars, and people.

At some point en route to the hospital, the heart monitor attached to Calibrisi went monotone.

“
Flatline!
” Lovvorn barked above the din.

Lovvorn studied the monitor. He held up five fingers. It meant that Calibrisi's heart had revived for five minutes before stopping.

“
Hit him!
” ordered O'Brien.

Lovvorn repeated the defibrillator as the chopper descended toward the rooftop of the hospital. He stared anxiously at the portable monitor, watching the straight line that ran across the screen, indicating that Calibrisi was dead.

The chopper bounced violently down on the helipad at Walter Reed. Four men, all dressed in military uniforms, grabbed the stretcher and sprinted for the open door atop the hospital's roof, held open by a fifth man.

Inside, the four men dropped the stretcher on top of a gurney and charged amid a cacophony of shouts and activity, as the Level One Trauma unit prepared to attempt the impossible. They sprinted down the corridor as doctors, nurses, and a variety of others watched. The CIA director was whisked down the hallway toward the operating room for what everyone knew would be one last chance at saving the life of a man considered by many to be the second most important man in Washington, behind only the president.

The operating room was a cavernous, brightly lit high-tech theater of lights, machinery, flat screens, and devices. In the center, alone, stood a simple, shiny stainless steel operating table. Above it was a high-tech chandelier of powerful lights. At least a dozen doctors and nurses moved about the room, getting ready.

Calibrisi was lifted onto the table, then was swarmed by doctors and nurses, who hooked him up to a variety of life monitors, IVs, and blood bags, attaching them to his appendages, away from his chest.

The door of the operating room swung open, and in stepped Dr. Marc Gillinov, all six foot six of him. He moved to the side of the operating table. Without hesitating, he pulled the blue sheet back from Calibrisi's body, throwing it to the ground, revealing his slightly obese chest, covered in dark hair.

A pair of bullet scars sat like pieces of chewed gum just above Calibrisi's navel. A scar from a knife wound at the neck looked like a small pink ribbon.

Gillinov studied the monitor for a few brief seconds. He put his stethoscope to the center of Calibrisi's chest.

“This is going to get a little messy,” said Gillinov calmly, his Australian accent thick.

Gillinov's eyes darted to one of the nurses.

“Kara, I want an ACLS protocol, stat.”

“Got it, Doctor.”

He nodded at one of the doctors. “Steve, I want the cameras turned off.”

Gillinov had a laid-back manner, insisting that everyone call him by his first name, even—and especially—during surgery. He stepped to one of the flat screens and scanned it.

“When did he suffer the event, Terry?” asked Gillinov.

O'Brien, who stood along the wall, looked at his watch. “Eighteen minutes ago.”

“How many times did you hit him?”

“Two rounds, seven hits.”

Gillinov took the defibrillator paddles from one of the nurses and placed them against Calibrisi's chest.

“Any drugs?”

“No.”

“Okay, that's good. Let's see if we can get one last pick at him. Charge to a hundred fifty joules.”

Gillinov waited for the tone, and when he got it, he pressed the handle buttons and sent a bolt of electric current into Calibrisi's body.

The monitor blipped, then went flatline again. Gillinov nodded to the nurse, putting his three fingers up, indicating he wanted a higher charge, this time to three hundred joules. She typed, readying the paddles for a second, more powerful charge. The defibrillator's high-pitched tone went steady again, and he repeated the fierce blast to Calibrisi's heart. Nothing. Gillinov tried once more, but it was no use. The monitor did not even tick up this time.

Gillinov handed the paddles to one of the nurses.

“Get the body tight to the table,” he said as he took two steps back, then ripped off his purple surgical gloves and tossed them to the ground. “As tight as you can.”

Two surgical assistants wrapped straps across Calibrisi's chest, torso, neck, and waist, anchoring him to the steel table.

“Get the blood moving,” said Gillinov. “Charlie, I want a large-bore IV line run in through the femoral. Get some antibiotics in the backflow along with anticoagulant. We're going to be giving him a little infection, I'm afraid, and we don't want pneumonia.”

“Got it,” he said, prepping the area near Calibrisi's groin as he prepared to puncture the femoral vein.

“Once I go in, we need to stem the flow of blood as quickly as possible,” said Gillinov. “We don't want to get his heart beating again only to bleed him out.”

Gillinov pulled off his mask and surgical cap. His blond hair fell out, dropping nearly to his shoulders. He had several days' worth of stubble. He appeared to be in his midtwenties, though in truth he was thirty-three. Technically, Gillinov was about to violate a stunning array of medical rules and protocols; he could've been fired and decertified for it. But they all knew the rules didn't matter anymore. Technically, the patient was already dead. What Gillinov was about to attempt required warmth in his hands and a sense of touch and feel that the gloves would prevent.

This would be the fifth time he had attempted what he was about to do. Thus far, it had worked twice.

As for the mask and cap, only Gillinov knew why he took those off too. Only Gillinov knew that by removing it all, he imagined himself back at his family's station in Australia, where he'd learned it all from his father—the art of heart massage, saving the life of the young foals born prematurely, too weak to live.

“Scalpel,” he said calmly, stepping forward to Calibrisi. “Ten blade. Get ready with the epinephrine, ten milligrams.”

A nurse handed Gillinov a long silver scalpel. He felt quickly with the fingertips on his left hand for a spot on Calibrisi's chest, then inserted the knife forcefully, cutting away Calibrisi's skin. He cut in a straight line down the center of Calibrisi's breastplate all the way to the sternal bone.

Blood coursed out in a dark crimson gusher.

“Sternal saw.”

Gillinov handed the scalpel back to the nurse and she handed him the saw, similar to an electric drill. He inserted the saw at the top of the sternum, forcing it through the bone and cutting all the way down toward Calibrisi's navel.

He placed the fingers of his right hand down into the wound, along the cut line, gripping the underside of the bone. He pulled up slightly, clearing the space in front of the heart.

“Here we go,” Gillinov said to the room, not looking up from Calibrisi's blood-soaked chest.

Gillinov took two quick, deep breaths. He felt the underside of Calibrisi's sternum with his fingertips. He inserted all four fingers in the cut line. With every ounce of strength the big man had, he tore the edges of Calibrisi's sternum to the sides. The fierce yanking motion was accompanied by a loud, deep grunt. A thunderous cacophony followed: the crack and stretching of Calibrisi's bones as Gillinov pulled them away from the chest cavity, revealing Calibrisi's bright purple heart, which lay still.

“Scaffold,” said Gillinov.

Another surgeon placed a small retractor beneath the cut sternal edges, keeping the bones spread apart and elevated so that Gillinov could go to work.

“Get the blood circulating,” said Gillinov. “Anesthesia, load him with amiodarone and milrinone.”

Gillinov's face was now spattered with blood, though he didn't seem to mind. His arms were also drenched. He stared at the chest cavity, then he gently placed his hands around Calibrisi's heart, cupping it as if it were a bird. Steadying himself, he began contracting motions with his hands, replicating the pressure of the heart.

For several moments, it was as if everyone in the room was frozen in time, watching Gillinov as he worked. Except for the sound of monitors, there was utter silence. There was no movement in the OR other than Gillinov's hands gently squeezing Calibrisi's heart. To a person, they were mesmerized by the sight, temporarily forgetting their roles, their professions, everything.

“Okay, Jenny,” Gillinov whispered, continuing to pump the heart, speaking to one of the nurses, who now held a small, thin syringe filled with epinephrine. “We have one last shot here. I want you to put it right there”—he nodded—“between my left index finger and my thumb. Can you do that for me, Jenny?”

She leaned in with the small needle. Her hands shook.

“Calm down,” said Gillinov. “Nice and easy now.”

Carefully, Jenny moved in closer and inserted the tip of the needle into Calibrisi's heart as Gillinov continued to gently pump it with his hands. Blood shot from the heart as the needle took, spurting across Gillinov's neck and shirt, which were already drenched in red.

Gillinov felt an odd sensation, a faint, rubbery tremor, then the steady uneven movement between his fingers as the heart began to pump on its own, as life regained itself, as the heart fought to return …

As Calibrisi came back to life …

He felt it first in his fingers, then in the palms of his hands. Gillinov wanted to say something, but he did not. He could not.

A moment later, the heart monitor's dull monotone was interrupted. A faint blip. One heartbeat. Then the monitor began to show a weak but steady pattern. The green EKG line bounced up and began a jagged rhythm.

“Where's orthopedics?” Gillinov whispered, his eyes focused on the beating heart in his hands.

“Right behind you, Doctor,” said another surgeon. “How long?”

Gillinov glanced around the OR for the first time, registering the looks in the eyes of his colleagues. He had a blank, stony expression on his handsome, rugged, blood-spattered face. He saw Jenny wipe tears from her eyes.

“Ten minutes,” he said, continuing his steady pressure on Calibrisi's heart. “Then we'll put him back together.”

 

42

CARMAN HALL

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Sirhan entered one of the two elevators. He took a hammer from his bag and put the claw beneath the edge of the steel plate on the control panel and pushed, loosening the small screws that held it to the wall. He went around the edge, pulling the panel away from the wall, then yanked it off, letting it fall to the floor. He stuck a small piece of C-4 in the spaghetti-like cluster of wires that controlled the elevator, then inserted a detonator.

Sirhan repeated it on the other elevator, down the hall. When he was done, he moved away from the elevators and hit the detonators. A low boom shook the air, rattling the ground ever so slightly. He waited a minute, then stepped back to the elevators. The interiors were scorched black. A few small flames were visible through the smoke as the plastic casing on the wires burned. The flames would be gone soon, so too the smoke. But neither of the elevators would ever work again.

He walked quickly to the west stairs and headed for the roof.

*   *   *

Because the first floor was occupied by the lobby and cafeteria, the second floor was the lowest residential floor in the building. Mohammed was in front as the gunmen charged up the stairs, and he signaled to the others that he was going to the second floor.