Legally Dead (32 page)

Dance, though twenty years older than Venturi, was fit and surprisingly strong. He'd almost succeeded in wrenching the weapon away when Venturi pulled a smaller .32-caliber handgun from his boot and shot him in the chest.

Vasily's groping fingers clutched something eagerly as Venturi wheeled to face him, his finger tightening on the trigger. He blinked. It looked at first as though the Russian had found the gun in the dark and was pressing the barrel to his own chin in a suicidal gesture. But it was no gun; it was the whiskey bottle.

The Russian closed his eyes to block out the gun pointed at his head and sucked the dregs from the bottle.

Venturi found the pistol, left the man huddled on the floor licking the empty bottle's rim, snatched up the rifle, and, with fear in his heart, went to find Danny.

He left the observation deck the way he'd come, only faster, and hit the ground running toward the last place he'd seen Danny.

The air smelled like blood and gunpowder.

From the deck he'd seen six or seven Russians regrouping on the central path, awaiting new orders.

He ignored them and tried again to raise Danny on the radio. Nothing. Then he stumbled over something. A corpse, eyes open, skin still warm, still clutching a rifle. A stranger.

He spun around to draw down on a small movement in a thicket several feet away, then heard a ragged gasp.

“Danny?” He dropped to the ground, pulled away the palm fronds Danny had used as cover, and found him in a sitting position, his back against the trunk of a banana tree, his rifle across his knees, his head fallen forward. His knife glinted beside him; the automatic was still in his hand. Empty casings were scattered on the jungle floor. He'd been trying to reload.

Venturi felt for a heartbeat, then searched frantically for the source of all the blood.

“Stop groping me, you perv,” Danny mumbled. “I'm hit.”

“I know,” Venturi said, relieved to hear his voice. “Where?”

“My right thigh, nicked the femoral artery. Took one in the left shoulder, another in my side. Can't feel my legs.”

Danny had tied a tourniquet built into the new combat uniforms above the wound in his right leg. Blood still bubbled from a gaping hole in his side.

“Crap,” he said, as Venturi cut away his clothes. “Hell of a place to die, bro. This ain't no blaze of glory. Shit. This ain't nothing, not even a damn war.” He gasped in pain. “Tell Luz I love her. Tell my kids I was a Marine.”

“Tell 'em yourself.” Venturi applied pressure to the bleeding wound in Danny's side with his hand, ripped open a QuikClot pack with his teeth, and pressed it over the wound. Danny cried out in pain as he tore open a second pack, loosened the tourniquet, and applied it to stop the bleeding.

“'Member the night you decked me at your place because of Micheline?”

“Yeah, Danny.”

“I never got hit harder. You nearly knocked me out, man.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Micheline.” Danny swallowed, in severe pain. “Don't tell her,” he gasped. “I don't want her to know. She's been through enough.”

Mike paused to stare into the starry sky above the tree canopy. “Relax, Danny. It isn't there. It's not there.”

“What?”

“I just saw your goddamn Blackboard in the Sky. Your name ain't on it. I see a lot of Russian names. Jim Dance's name. But not yours.”

“Get the hell outta here, Mike, while you still can.”

“You're right. It's time to go.” He hoisted Danny over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Danny groaned. “Leave me here!”

“Don't talk like a loser. You only win when you believe you will, and all that shit,” Venturi said. Staggering beneath the weight, slipping down the hillside, eyes searching the darkness, he moved as quickly as he could toward the lodge.

A gunman loomed just off the path, shouted a warning, and raised his rifle. Venturi held his fire. If he started shooting, everybody would. He shouted back, “Vasily ordered cease-fire,” and kept moving.

Danny stopped moaning and lost consciousness. But as Venturi stumbled toward the lodge, his hand found Danny's wrist, found his pulse. Though weak and thready, it did not stop.

Then he heard shouts and looked back. He saw what he feared most. Someone, it had to be Vasily, was out on the observation deck swinging the lantern, yelling commands.

He should have shot that son of a bitch when he had the chance.

He ran all out as the gunfire began.

A round buzzed past his head like an angry wasp and slammed into a nearby tree trunk.

He hit the porch sprinting, stumbled and fell, then dragged Danny through the door and behind the front desk for cover.

They charged the lodge, shooting as they came. He hit the floor as bullets splintered the woodwork overhead. He fired back. One fell. The others scattered.

Danny mumbled something unintelligible in the noise and the panic. He said it again. “Mike, I have a number.”

He's delirious
, Venturi thought. “Take it easy, Danny.”

“Call, give 'em the number, tell 'em what's happening. They'll get us out.”

“Who?” Venturi shoved the barrel of his rifle through a torn window screen and returned fire.

“Here.” Danny reached painfully toward him, trying to hand him a blood-soaked cell phone. “It's programmed. Just call. Give 'em my ID number.” He muttered a six-digit number interspersed with letters.

“Damn!” Something wet splashed across the screen. Gasoline. The smell was overwhelming. It reminded Venturi of the day they burned human bones and a car in the Everglades. He could see the flames.

He managed to get Danny to his feet but his legs were useless. Venturi dragged him toward the back door. “They're about to burn us out, buddy. Time to get outta Dodge. Let's hit the road.”

He thought five or six shooters were left. At least half would be waiting out back.

As he dragged Danny out the back door, he heard the
whoosh,
saw the fireball behind them, and felt the heat.

Two gunmen dashed full tilt around the side of the building. He shot them both.

“Gimme my gun, bro. Gimme a gun.” Danny was spitting up blood but still talking.

Venturi slapped the gun from his boot into Danny's hand and closed his fingers around it, as he half-carried him toward the car. “Can you hold onto it? Can you fire?”

His answer was a shot fired past his ear and a scream from the man it hit. “One shot, one kill. That's Marine training, bro.”

He got Danny into the car, slid into the driver's seat, fired a barrage from the rifle, then floored it. The car kicked up dust along the dirt road as Danny fired two more shots out the window.

Danny looked puzzled. Blood and mucus dripped from his mouth and nose. “Is this what we used to call fun, bro?”

“It is, if we live through it.”

As they careened toward Panama City more than forty minutes away, Venturi knew in his heart that Danny wouldn't make it. He wasn't even sure where the damn hospital was, or if it was any good.

“Call, give 'em the number,” Danny mumbled before passing out again. The gun dropped from his hand and thudded onto the floorboard.

Venturi glanced down to see where it had fallen and saw a gleaming, dark, fast-growing puddle. Danny was bleeding again.

Flames filled the sky behind them and darkness lay ahead. He made the call.

The man who answered had a Southern accent and sounded bored.

“I was told to give you this ID number.” Venturi repeated it slowly, hoping to hell he had it right.

“Where is he?” The voice suddenly became interested.

“With me. He's badly injured, unconscious, shot several times. I applied QuickClot patches, but he's bleeding again. I'm on the Gamboa Road headed for Panama City. It's forty minutes out. He won't make it. I need help. Is there anything you can do? Is there a doctor, a clinic, a closer place to take him?”

“And who are you?”

He identified himself. “We served in the U.S. Marine Corps together, Force Recon.”

“Where are you exactly?”

He said they had just left the lodge.

“Can you return to that location?”

“No, hostiles are in control. The place is on fire. They shot him.”

“Who are they?”

“Russians.”

“Did you say Russians?”

“That's affirmative.”

The pause was so long he thought he'd lost the connection. A second voice came on the line. “Turn off at a dry riverbed approximately five miles ahead on your right. Somebody will pick you up there soonest. Where is he hit?”

Venturi told him. “He's lost a lot of blood, can't use his legs.”

“Damn. Do what you can to keep him going till we get there.”

“How will I know you?”

“You can't miss us.”

He reached the turnoff, stopped, took Danny out of the car, and did what he could to make him comfortable. Still unconscious, he was bleeding from the thigh again. Venturi applied direct pressure, then used the tourniquet.

Did he make a mistake, he wondered, admitting they'd been at the lodge? The scene back there would be hard to explain. But keeping Danny alive took priority.

He saw headlights. A car sped by up on the road. His first instinct was to flag it down. But what if it was the Russians?

He didn't like the way Danny was breathing.

“It's okay,” he told him over and over. “I gave them the number. I made the call.”

He hoped Danny heard. He didn't seem to. What if no one came? He fought the urge to give up waiting and race toward Panama City. How could he let Danny just slip away? He had to do something. He couldn't wait. He opened the car door to move him into the backseat, then heard something in the distance. Was it his imagination? No. An aircraft. A chopper? Could it be what they were waiting for?

It hovered overhead. He blinked as it trained a blinding spotlight on the car, circled, and landed nearby. The powerful blades pounded the air into a miniature hurricane.

Two medics scrambled out and ran toward them, keeping low.

“Lt. Venturi?” one shouted.

“Yes, sir. He's over here.”

They took over, cut away the rest of his clothes, and checked his wounds. He saw the looks they exchanged.

“You can save him,” he said, as they inserted an IV with 500ml of Hextend. “He's strong. Had to be to make it this far.”

“We'll take it from here,” the taller one said as they lifted Danny onto a gurney.

“I'm coming with him.”

He was given a curt nod.

“Where are we headed?” he asked as they ascended into a dark sky. “Panama City?”

“Hell, no,” the pilot said.

“What the hell is this thing?” Venturi asked as the chopper shifted and sprouted wings.

“An Osprey,” the pilot said. “But we'll deny it.”

Venturi didn't know who else to call as they prepared to land in Miami, where medics train to fight panic and chaos on the battlefield. She answered on the first ring.

“It's me,” he said. “Sorry to wake you. Sorry about everything. I need you, Keri.”

“What's wrong?”

“I've got bad news.”

Danny's heart stopped twice on the flight to Miami. The medics brought him back and kept him clinging to life until they landed at the hospital's helipad. The medics waiting on the roof ignored the Osprey, focusing only on the patient who was rushed to surgery.

Venturi felt numb, sick, and dreaded being debriefed. How could he attempt to justify what now had to be an international incident?

He had washed up and donned a set of scrubs during the flight and now waited, head in hands, outside the operating room. Doctors told him nothing, but he heard the call for more blood, closed his eyes, and prayed.

Keri appeared. Calm, cool, and compassionate, as always. “He's with the best,” she assured him.

“He looked gray,” he told her. The image still shocked him. “His lips were blue. He's like my brother, Keri. He
is
my brother. He's all I've got.”

“No, he isn't,” she said matter-of-factly. She sat beside him, her arm around him. “You have Victoria and, like it or not, you have me. What happened? How was he shot? Who shot him?”

“Russians. We were in a firefight. In Panama.”

“Panama?” Her brow crinkled.

Hospital types appeared with clipboards, admittance forms, and questions. The aircraft had long since gone, but a crew member, a man Venturi had assumed was the copilot, intervened.

He told hospital officials that Danny was shot by heavily armed seagoing pirates who tried to hijack his sports-fishing boat in international waters off Bimini.

Local authorities had no jurisdiction. Federal agents were handling the case, he said, and showed his identification. He instructed that information be released only to Danny's immediate family.

Keri held Venturi's hand, listened, and said nothing.

A hospital employee asked for Danny's next of kin.

“She hasn't been notified yet,” Keri said. “His wife is my patient, the mother of three small children, and more than eight months into a difficult pregnancy. I wanted to assess the situation before telling her in person.”

When they left, Venturi buried his face in her neck.

For days he monitored the news for information out of Panama. The lodge had burned to the ground, stories said, apparently torched by vandals. No injuries were reported.

Who cleaned up the mess, disposed of the dead and injured? He didn't ask.

An old friend in NYPD intelligence reached out to ask if he had a beef with Vasily. The Russian was back at the same old stand in Brooklyn, peddling drugs, porn, and prostitution, though his crew seemed smaller. A number of hoodlums were out of the loop. Some had been reported missing by worried families.

Police intelligence heard that Vasily had been mentioning Venturi's name in anger. They wanted him to have a heads-up that the Russian mobster may have put a hit out on him. They wondered why.

Venturi thanked his contact and said he had no idea why the man would do such a thing. It had to be a mistake.

Danny walked out of the hospital, using a cane, ten days later. He refused to sit in a wheelchair despite strict hospital policy. By the time he left, the nurses, aides, and doctors were all in love with him, his wife, and his children.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that Venturi had been subpoenaed to appear in front of a Washington, D.C., grand jury to answer questions about WITSEC, the Salvi case, the armored-car robbery, the murdered witnesses, his activities in Florida, and trips made out of the country. They wanted to see his passport, his financial records, and his income tax returns. They also asked for the names of witnesses who could corroborate his testimony. Vicki was mentioned by name, among others.

He also needed to prepare a defense in the wrongful-death action filed by the parents of the two little girls murdered by Gino Salvi.

He discussed his complicated future in Danny's study one night after dinner.

“The FBI, the Justice Department, federal prosecutors, the IRS, and the Russian mob are on my case,” he concluded. He had already consulted a Miami lawyer and hired another to represent him in Washington.

“You know how our justice system works,” Danny said. “It may not be perfect, but it's the best in the world. You know what you have to do, bro. You have no choice.”

“I hate the idea, but you're right,” Michael said. “I have to respond to the subpoena and answer their questions. Vicki's coming with me. She's willing to testify.”

“So am I,” Danny offered. “Luz and the kids will have to come along. She's close to her due date. After all that's happened, I have to be there when the baby arrives.”

Venturi explained it all to Keri. She also volunteered.

“I won't let Luz travel without me in her condition. She's been under so much stress. I didn't see her through this pregnancy so a total stranger could deliver this baby. And I want to be there for you, Mikey.”

“You don't have to,” he said. “It's high profile, a big deal, a huge sacrifice.”

She was adamant. “Do you mind if Maheen comes along? I've been in contact with a reconstructive surgeon in Baltimore. I'd like him to see her while we're there.”

Venturi had no objection.

Keri notified the hospital that she'd be away for at least a week.

Danny chartered a plane to fly them from Miami to Dulles Airport.

No one was left to care for Scout and Venturi hated to board him, so he booked a pet-friendly hotel and the dog went with them.

They left Miami in what pilots call severe clear, a brittle cobalt blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Perfect flying weather.

They took off early, with Danny at the controls. Venturi had a 4 p.m. briefing set with his lawyers and was scheduled to testify at 11 a.m. the following day.

The event was highly anticipated in the press. Several columnists and TV pundits predicted that the future of the Witness Protection Program might hang on the revelations to come.

A
Miami News
reporter showed up at the airport to interview the departing witnesses. Resigned to what lay ahead, they were friendly; they smiled, waved, and boarded the plane.

The flight, skirting the East Coast, took slightly more than an hour.

A number of Venturi's former colleagues at the U.S. Marshals Service were also on the witness list.

Ruth Ann, the office manager, answered a phone call shortly after noon.

Coworkers heard her cry out and saw her rush into the chief's office, her expression stricken.

“What's wrong?” he demanded.

“Something terrible happened! Michael Venturi, his friend's family, a doctor, all of them…” She burst into tears.

It took several moments before she could catch her breath and speak. “Their flight exploded in midair,” she gasped, “off the Georgia coast east of Savannah. The passengers and pilot of a Delta jet and witnesses on the ground saw the fireball. The plane went down in pieces.”

The chief stared at her in disbelief. “Survivors?”

She clutched her arms, as though in pain, and shook her head.

“All the Coast Guard and rescue ships found was an oil slick, wreckage, and scattered luggage.

“They're gone. All of them.”