as he thought. But I knew immediately what had happened Ramos--of
course that's who it was--had come to take Sarah. It was his one sure
way to stop me from mentioning Children of Light in my film. She was a
hostage. My first instinct was to kill him.
"What else can you remember?" I was already dialing 911. Time to get an
ambulance. And after that, the cops.
After about ten rings I got somebody and, following an explanation that
was longer than it needed to be, a woman with a southern accent told me
the medics would be there in fifteen minutes. I took another look at
Lou and ordered them to hurry, then hung up. I was going to call the
police next, but first I needed to hear exactly what had happened
before he got quarantined in some emergency room.
His eyes were glazing over again, as shock and blood loss started to
catch up with him. Clearly he would pull through, but right now,
sitting there in a pool of blood, he could have been at death's door.
"Look . . . at that." He was pointing, his rationality beginning to
fail. For a second I didn't realize what he meant, but then I saw a fax
lying beside the phone. I picked it up. The time on it was 9:08 P.M.
and it was from somebody named John Williams. Then I remembered. Wasn't
that the FBI computer whiz he'd talked about the other day at the
hospital, after we'd deconstructed Sarah's waterlogged passport?
There was no message, just a sheet with a date--two years old--and a
list of names accompanied by numbers and a capital letter. Then I
noticed the letterhead of Aviateca, the Guatemalan national airline,
and it dawned on me I was looking at a flight manifest.