The agent worked with the keys, found the one that worked, turned it, and the manacle on her ankle popped open.
“It should be the same key on her waist,” said the sergeant.
Two seconds later the agent had it unlocked. “I know her last name, what’s her first name?” the agent asked the sergeant.
“Katia. Katia Solaz.”
“Katia, listen to me. We have to take you off the bus now. Is she okay to move?” asked the agent.
Katia could see his lips move, but she couldn’t hear a word, or any sound for that matter, just a constant ringing in her ears.
One of the paramedics glanced over. “There’s a shallow flesh wound, right thigh. I bandaged it. It doesn’t look serious. She’s got some concussive injury from the overpressure of the blast. May have blown her eardrums, I’m not sure. They’ll have to check her at emergency. Make sure they don’t give her any depressants in the meantime. But she should be okay to move, if you can get her outside and on a gurney.”
“Katia, listen, you have to come with us now. Please.” The agent took her hands and tried to pry her arms open.
Katia started to struggle. She tried to fight him off. She wasn’t going to let go, no matter what they did. Who were they? If they were here to help, why had they waited so long? Why didn’t they come sooner? She buried her head next to Daniela’s and clung to her for life, praying that her friend would wake up, that she would stir, open her eyes and offer the reassurance she had given Katia since the moment they’d met-that everything would be okay.
The agent gave up trying to pry her hands from the dead woman. Katia stopped struggling. She looked at them with an expression of fierce determination. Then, with her fingertips, she brushed a few of the bloody and matted hairs from Daniela’s face and hugged her, rocking back and forth on the floor between the seats as if in a trance. The last thing Katia remembered was the image of Daniela as she pushed her down and threw herself on top of her an instant before the brilliant white flash engulfed them both. She remembered the French braid of Daniela’s shimmering black hair suspended straight out in the flare of superheated air, and then nothing.
She watched as the men talked to one aother, but she heard nothing. Two of them nodded. And then the one who had been kneeling down, seeming to talk to her, instead knelt down and leaned in. He worked with a set of keys until he found the one that worked to unlock Daniela’s ankle shackle. He removed the manacle from her leg and the chain from her waist. Before Katia realized what was happening he’d lifted Daniela into his arms and suddenly she was gone, being carried down the aisle of the bus, toward the door.
Katia struggled to get to her feet, but her leg hurt. It seemed that it would no longer support her. One of the other men leaned down, put his arm under her shoulder and whisked her up into his arms. They followed Daniela down the aisle and off the bus. It seemed so long, a lifetime since the two of them had climbed on the bus at the jail and talked about the honor farm, Katia’s family, and her mother being in Colombia. She knew that Daniela had not told her the truth about who she was or what she wanted. But to Katia it no longer mattered. They had been through so much together that nothing, not even death, could now break the bond she felt.
THIRTY-THREE
By the time Harry and I arrive at the University Medical Center on Hillcrest, Katia had already been admitted. The sheriff’s department has a contract with the university for inpatient care of inmates, and this morning the lobby is crawling with law enforcement. There are city police, sheriff’s deputies, and federal agents, some of them still wearing tactical gear.
The moment I mention Katia’s name at the reception desk, Harry and I are approached by a man in his mid-thirties.
“Excuse me. Who are you?”
He is wearing baggy black tactical pants and is stripped down to his T-shirt up top.
“Who’s asking?” says Harry.
“Agent John Swarz.” He flashes FBI credentials at us.
“Paul Madriani, my partner, Harry Hinds. We’re Ms. Solaz’s lawyers.”
“Do you have any identification?”
Harry and I show him our driver’s licenses and state bar cards. I hand him a business card.
“I don’t think she’s going to be seeing anybody right now.”
“We’d like to know where she is,” says Harry.
“Do you know what her condition is?” I ask.
“She’s not critical, if that’s what you mean. She took a flesh wound in the leg. You can get the details from the doctor. According to the EMT, she suffered some shock, possible concussion, and a chance of some hearing damage from the explosive device.”
“Then you saw her?” I say.
“I carried her off the bus. Give me a second,” he says.
The agent steps away from us, pulls a cell phone from his pocket, and walks farther away as he presses buttons to dial the number. He stands twenty feet away, glancing at Harry and me as he talks on the phone and looks at my business card. Then he looks at me and motions for me to come over.
“Somebody wants to talk to you,” he says, and he hands me his cell phone.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Madriani, this is Jim Rhytag. Agent Swarz informs me that you’d like to be able to see your client.”
“That’s correct.”
“That will be up to the doctor, of course. But I want you to know that she will be well protected from here on out. We’ve made arrangements to have her moved to a private room upstairs in the hospital, outside the jail ward. She will be in the custody of the sheriff’s department but there will be two federal marshals assigned at all times while she’s there, providing backup, more if we think it’s necessary. We have reason to believe that the assault on the bus this morning may have been directed at Ms. Solaz.”
“Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” I say.
“I’ve told you all that I can. Just one more thing, we’ve kept her name off the admissions records at the hospital and my agents covered her with a blanket when they took her off the bus. Law enforcement has agreed not to give her name to the press as a survivor. Whoever tried to kill her may not know she’s alive. We’d like to keep it that way, at least for the time being. We’ve already advised the judge and court personnel. You need to know so you can avoid any questions from the press. It’s for your client’s own safety.”
“I understand. For how long?”
“We’re not sure. We’ll let you know. The rest you’ll have to get from her doctor. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.” The line went dead.
I hand the phone back to the agent. “Thanks.”
Harry and I have cooled our heels, pacing the lobby and sitting on hard wooden benches, for nearly two hours before one of the nurses comes out and tells us that the doctor will see us now. She leads us down a broad corridor and through a pair of wide electrically controlled double doors with the word EMERGENCY blazed across them in red paint.
She tells us to take a seat inside a small room. Before we can sit down, a young intern breezes into the room with a clipboard under his arm.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Johansson. I understand you’re here to see Ms. Solaz.”
We introduce ourselves.
“The good news is, she’s going to be okay. The bad news is, she’s undergone a tremendous amount of trauma. There are no broken bones, no internal injuries, the bullet wound in the leg is in soft tissue, some minor muscle damage. It should heal completely. It may take a few weeks. Her hearing loss, we believe, is temporary.”