“Dr. Hauser?” Gabriel didn’t recognize the voice. Had one of the reporters somehow gotten his secret hospital number? Who gave it away?
“Who’s this?”
“My name is Irv Rothstein.”
The name meant nothing to Gabriel. “You’ll have to tell me who you are.”
“I’m a deputy mayor. I work with Mayor Fortune.”
“Are you calling from Mount Sinai?”
“What?”
“Are you calling from the hospital? This number is only for the hospital.”
“No, I’m calling from Gracie Mansion.”
“What is it?”
“The mayor wants you to join him at a press conference tomorrow morning.”
“A what?”
“He wants to introduce you to the public. To the world, in fact.”
Oliver always slept at the foot of the bed and ordinarily stayed still through the telephone calls that came to Gabriel in the middle of the night. Like Cam, who still breathed sweetly and regularly beside him, the dog was familiar with these calls. But he had been skittish and needy since the morning walk and the two hours he had spent, whimpering and terrified, tied to the iron railing before Cam had retrieved him. Now Gabriel saw in the dark Oliver’s upraised head and the sweet, trusting eyes staring at him.
“I’m not interested in a press conference.”
“You’re not?”
“I can’t see a reason why I should do that.”
“Dr. Hauser, there are so many reasons. The city, the country, in fact, needs to see how a brave American responds to a jihadist attack. The mayor wants to congratulate you. So does the president. What you did yesterday was heroic.”
“I don’t think so. It was an instinct. I’m an emergency room doctor, and there was an emergency.”
“Doctor, this is important. There is no good news anywhere. Like it or not, you’re the only good news around. You should share it.”
“Doesn’t the mayor have better things to do? I know I do.”
Irv Rothstein wasn’t used to people refusing to cooperate with him and Roland Fortune. “Can I have the Mayor speak to you?”
Cam, his face as handsome as ever, was awake now. The conversation had gone on much longer than the usual three a.m. calls. He mouthed the words, “What’s up?’
Gabriel touched Cam’s hand, as if reassuring him, and then said, “Look, Mr. Rothstein, this is not the kind of thing I do. If he wants to call me after seven, I’ll talk to him, but my answer is going to be the same for him as it is for you. I’m not interested.”
“Mayor Fortune is a very sincere, persuasive man. He thinks you’re a hero, as does everyone else, Dr. Hauser, and you can lift people’s spirits.”
“I doubt it, Mr. Rothstein.”
Roland Fortune and Gabriel Hauser didn’t speak that morning. At six thirty a hard knock sounded on the door to the apartment. Instantly alert and protective, Oliver stood up at the foot of the bed, barking as he vaulted to the floor and ran to the door. Gabriel woke, his heart racing at the sudden onslaught of sound that jolted him from a deep sleep. Gabriel went to the door. The knocking continued, sharp and insistent. While trying to settle Oliver, Gabriel said, “Who is it?”
“Police, police.”
“What do you want?”
“Just open the door, sir.”
Gabriel hesitated. His dislike of police, of authority, was implanted in him the precise moment he was thrown out of the Army. And then he heard Cam’s voice. “Let them in.”
Gabriel opened the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. Cam tossed Gabriel’s bathrobe to him. “Here, baby, put this on.” Gabriel left it on the floor at his feet.
The lead detective pushed open the door, holding out his badge. He was a sandy-haired man in his late forties, the picture-book image of the Irish cop. Two other men in suits followed him. Plastic identification tags hung from their necks. They were younger, both of them bulked up from exercise, looking like toy action figures.
The leader recognized Gabriel. “Dr. Hauser?”
Gabriel was always icily cool under pressure. Still standing almost nonchalantly in the doorway, still wearing only the white towel around his waist, Gabriel said, “What can I do for you?”
“Dr. Hauser, I’m from the intelligence unit of the police department’s counterterrorist division. My name is McDonough. These men work with me.”
Gabriel felt a surge of anger and resentment. Four years earlier, when he was in Kabul, a mild-mannered lieutenant colonel politely asked him, “Major Hauser, could I get a second of your time?” He then told Gabriel he was with Army Intelligence, and within ten seconds he said that the Army had uncovered e-mails from Gabriel to Tom Lathem, who had been an intern with him at Mount Sinai and, for a week, his lover. The chubby, bland colonel, who had the demeanor of a bookkeeper, told Gabriel that his duties at the Kabul regional hospital had been suspended immediately and that he was to leave Afghanistan the next day for Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where he would be discharged from the Army within seventy-two hours. “You should’ve been more careful, Major Hauser. This is the United States Army. The same rules are for everybody. We never ask, and you shouldn’t have told.”
Although McDonough had none of the unctuous style of the Army colonel, Gabriel’s annoyed angry reaction was obvious in the tone of his voice. “It’s early in the morning, Detective. I don’t have a lot of time. And, as you can see, we weren’t expecting you.”
“Do you need time to dress?”
“I’m dressed.”
“We need your help.”
“Everybody seems to.”
Cam, who had brought Oliver’s loud protective barking under control, hadn’t often heard Gabriel speak with even a hint of anger. Cam knew how outraged and pained Gabriel had been, and still was, by the way he’d been bundled up and hustled out of the Army by a rigid, vicious policy: Don’t ask, don’t tell.
McDonough said, “Look, sir, we’ve been looking again and again at the CCTV footage from yesterday. We’ve been able to enlarge views that had not been as clear before we were able to bring some new technology in. I don’t know if you’ve seen that footage of you wading into what looked like hell.” He paused. “You did some great things out there, Doctor.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
McDonough’s reaction was increasingly combative. “Sure, understood, so let’s cut to the chase. The first man you treated, do you remember him?”
“Of course I do.”
“He was an Arabic kind of guy, right?”
“What does that mean, an ‘Arabic kind of guy’?”
“From the Middle East? You spent a lot of time there, I’m told.”
“I don’t know the ethnic background of the people I treat. He was a man. He had black hair and a black beard. For all I know he could have been Swedish, Tahitian, even Irish, like you. What I do remember is that he was almost unconscious and badly wounded and needed help.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Say anything? Are you serious? The man had severe lacerations on his arm. A shard of something had penetrated his back not far from his kidney. He’d already lost significant amounts of blood.”
“Did he say anything?” McDonough asked again.
“Sure, he said, ‘Help me, please.’ You’d say the same if you had a shredded arm and lost that much blood. I hear that from a lot of people in my line of work. Including from wounded Irish cops who come into the ER. Some even cry for their mothers. Especially the middle-aged detectives with names like McDonough.”
“Did he say anything?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
“Did you take anything from him?”
“You mean other than the wallet with the thousand dollars in it?”
“You know, Doctor, I’m beginning to get a little sick of your lip.”
“You know, Detective, I’m already sick of you.”