far, JD’s retreat seemed to be working. His mother, Janet, was getting the help she needed, and here in this remote spot, three thousand miles from D.C., no one seemed to recognize him. Though confident that he bore no resemblance to the clean-cut military man he’d once been, he had his moments of doubt. Like now, when a pretty girl batted her eyes at him. He no longer trusted a stranger’s smile. Maybe there used to be a time whena girl smiled because she liked him, but that seemed like another person’s life. Now every friendly greeting, every kind gesture or invitation was suspect. People no longer cared who he was, only that he’d stopped a suicide bomber in the presence of the President.
The media and security cameras at the hospital had recorded the entire incident. The drama lasted only minutes, but when it was over, so was life as he knew it. TV stations around the world ran and reran the footage, and it could still be seen in streaming video on the Internet. The press had instantly dubbed him “America’s Hero,” and to his mortification, it stuck.
“It’s you I should be thanking,” he said to Darla, picking up the ice chest. “Good to know there’s a place like this in the area.”
She nodded. “We can’t save them all, but we do our best.” She handed him a printed flyer. “We can always use volunteers, ages eight to eighty. Keep us in mind.”
Carrying the now-empty cooler, he went out to his truck. Sam’s truck. Everything had been borrowed from Sam—his truck, his vacation cabin, his privacy. JD glanced again at the volunteer form and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he headed for the car wash. Best to clean out the woman’s cooler before giving it back.
As he was pulling out of the parking lot, he heard the quick yip of a siren and looked down the road. An ambulance rig glided past at a purposeful speed, heading for the county hospital. The cars that had pulled out of its way slipped back into the stream of traffic again, ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives. Anonymity was such a simple thing, taken for granted until it was taken away.
JD felt a thrum of familiarity as the vehicle passed.That was what he was supposed to be doing. Helping. Not hiding out like a fugitive, rescuing raccoons.
Of course, once his face was splashed on the front page of newspapers and magazines across the globe, he wasn’t much good on emergency calls. Sometimes he’d attract more rubberneckers and media than a five-car pileup, just for being on the scene.
There had been no time to adjust to having all his privacy stripped away. He’d awakened from a medically induced coma to discover that a) he was going to survive his injuries and b) everything had changed. Right after the incident, his image had been inflated to ten times larger than life on a lighted billboard in Times Square. While that was happening, JD had been mercifully unconscious. “Fighting for his life” was the way many media reports put it, though of course he had done no fighting at all. He’d just lain there like a heap of roadkill while the docs did their thing.
If he’d known what was going on, he probably would have stayed asleep for decades like Rip Van Winkle, hoping the world would have forgotten him when he woke up.
No such luck. Jordan Donovan Harris: The Nation Sits Vigil awakened to Jordan Donovan Harris: The Nation’s New Hero. It was insane, a feeding frenzy. The press always referred to him by all three names, the way they did mass murderers—John Wayne Gacy, Coral Eugene Watts, John Wilkes Booth—or JD’s own personal assassin, Terence Lee Muldoon.
No one had seen the attack coming. No one could have, which was why Muldoon had almost succeeded. A member of both the Blue Light Commando and Black Ops, he’d been decorated for bravery in battle during the first strike of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He had theperfect record of a career soldier. “He was a quiet, unassuming man who kept to
The media and security cameras at the hospital had recorded the entire incident. The drama lasted only minutes, but when it was over, so was life as he knew it. TV stations around the world ran and reran the footage, and it could still be seen in streaming video on the Internet. The press had instantly dubbed him “America’s Hero,” and to his mortification, it stuck.
“It’s you I should be thanking,” he said to Darla, picking up the ice chest. “Good to know there’s a place like this in the area.”
She nodded. “We can’t save them all, but we do our best.” She handed him a printed flyer. “We can always use volunteers, ages eight to eighty. Keep us in mind.”
Carrying the now-empty cooler, he went out to his truck. Sam’s truck. Everything had been borrowed from Sam—his truck, his vacation cabin, his privacy. JD glanced again at the volunteer form and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he headed for the car wash. Best to clean out the woman’s cooler before giving it back.
As he was pulling out of the parking lot, he heard the quick yip of a siren and looked down the road. An ambulance rig glided past at a purposeful speed, heading for the county hospital. The cars that had pulled out of its way slipped back into the stream of traffic again, ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives. Anonymity was such a simple thing, taken for granted until it was taken away.
JD felt a thrum of familiarity as the vehicle passed.That was what he was supposed to be doing. Helping. Not hiding out like a fugitive, rescuing raccoons.
Of course, once his face was splashed on the front page of newspapers and magazines across the globe, he wasn’t much good on emergency calls. Sometimes he’d attract more rubberneckers and media than a five-car pileup, just for being on the scene.
There had been no time to adjust to having all his privacy stripped away. He’d awakened from a medically induced coma to discover that a) he was going to survive his injuries and b) everything had changed. Right after the incident, his image had been inflated to ten times larger than life on a lighted billboard in Times Square. While that was happening, JD had been mercifully unconscious. “Fighting for his life” was the way many media reports put it, though of course he had done no fighting at all. He’d just lain there like a heap of roadkill while the docs did their thing.
If he’d known what was going on, he probably would have stayed asleep for decades like Rip Van Winkle, hoping the world would have forgotten him when he woke up.
No such luck. Jordan Donovan Harris: The Nation Sits Vigil awakened to Jordan Donovan Harris: The Nation’s New Hero. It was insane, a feeding frenzy. The press always referred to him by all three names, the way they did mass murderers—John Wayne Gacy, Coral Eugene Watts, John Wilkes Booth—or JD’s own personal assassin, Terence Lee Muldoon.
No one had seen the attack coming. No one could have, which was why Muldoon had almost succeeded. A member of both the Blue Light Commando and Black Ops, he’d been decorated for bravery in battle during the first strike of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He had theperfect record of a career soldier. “He was a quiet, unassuming man who kept to
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