Driven Read online

  Gavin slowly led the way to an upper row, allowed Grampa to enter a row off to the left, then followed.

  He followed the old man to the end of the row, where they sat. There really were no bad seats and these gave a good overall view. The sun had finally broken through the clouds and the solid, blue security wall next to them afforded some shade; the rest of the spectators would be fishing for their sunglasses. The wall also gave them privacy from the parking lot and disguised the fact that they were about thirty feet above the ground from where they had viewed the dolphins before the show.

  When most of the seats were filled, a petite blonde woman wearing the staff uniform of dark-blue shorts and a light-blue shirt introduced herself to the crowd as Bonnie. Wearing a wireless headset microphone, she spoke briefly of the New York Aquarium’s history. As she spoke, Gavin could see the dark figures of the dolphins and sea lions entering into the main pool. One of the dolphins shot out of the water and did a flip, to the immediate applause of the crowd.

  “Oh! That’s Darla,” Bonnie said matter-of-factly. “As you can tell, she’s very shy.”

  Gavin glanced at Grampa. When Gavin was a boy he had always been acutely aware of Grampa’s watchful gaze—the clinical eye that determined whether or not Gavin was having fun. Now it was Gavin’s turn. He was the one interested in Grampa’s enjoyment. Fortunately, Grampa was obviously enjoying himself. He was watching the spirited dolphin with a boyishly wide smile and bright eyes, just as Gavin hoped he would. Just as Gavin had done some twenty-odd years earlier.

  Suddenly Gavin’s attention was caught by a voice yelling in the distance and the sound of a car skidding across pavement, followed by the loud roar of an engine with little or no muffler.

  Bonnie’s eyes shifted in the direction of the obnoxious roar, but she continued her well-rehearsed repertoire without hesitation. Her smile remained as she kicked a beach ball into the water for the dolphins.

  But the engine noise was getting louder. Closer. Bonnie’s voice over the loudspeakers could no longer be clearly heard. Out-matched by the competition, she stopped and stared disdainfully in the direction of the disturbance. People turned their heads toward the parking lot, but couldn’t see beyond the aquatheater walls. They could only wait for someone else to take care of the problem.

  Gavin expected to hear the engine stop and wheels lock up— perhaps some skidding—but no. There was no braking, just pure engine. Closer. Was something wrong with the car’s throttle? Was it stuck? Was something wrong with the driver?

  Suddenly there came a crash. The entire crowd startled in their seats. At first Gavin thought the vehicle had hit a parked car, but something sounded wrong—the engine was still roaring and there was an added clinking, scraping, grinding.

  The fence? Apparently the vehicle had gone through the chain-link and was dragging it along. Gavin pictured sparks igniting off the pavement. He then heard and felt what he thought to be the fence’s service gates ricocheting off the outer walls.

  Still no braking. Full power ahead.

  The impact felt like an explosion and jolted the entire seating area. Screams and gasps erupted from the spectators as the entire structure moved like one of the amusement park’s rides. Before Gavin knew what was happening, the large safety wall next to them broke apart and fell away as if unhinged, revealing the parking lot below. In the next instant, the upper seating section they were in gave way, fell off on an angle, then caught itself briefly before slowly continuing its downward trajectory.

  Gavin instinctively grabbed the seat to his left to keep from sliding. The collision must have somehow dislodged the main support posts for the arena seating. The entire upper section was moving in short, quick drops as it found temporary but inadequate support. The whole world was on a descending bumper jack.

  Terrorism? The New York Aquarium?

  “Gavin!” Grampa yelled as he began to fall away, his old fingers scrabbling and digging at his seat, but unable to anchor.

  Gavin, one arm clasped around the back of the blue plastic seat next to him, grabbed a handful of Grampa’s white shirt collar, his heart racing.

  “I’ve got you,” he cried. “I’ve got you.”

  The seats in the row in front of them bent inexorably downward. If only Grampa could find support.

  “Bring your feet up, Grampa. Pull your feet up,” he yelled.

  Grampa’s extra weight put a tremendous strain on Gavin’s left arm and kept him from getting a better hold. The seat he was holding on to ripped out of the floor as Grampa tried unsuccessfully to step onto the seat in front of him. Gavin needed to pull him up a little further, maybe just inches. Cutting pain from the seat top digging into his forearm was making him dizzy, but no matter what, he wasn’t going to let go of Grampa. If he did, the old man would certainly fall either into or just outside the holding tank three stories below.

  Others in the upper section were screaming and holding tightly to their own seats or whatever else they could find. Gavin couldn’t even look at them; his entire focus was on Grampa. His heart sank further as he heard metal grating and bending. With a loud snap, their section fell again and clanged to a jarring halt, jerking people free from their grasps and leaving the structure at an even steeper angle. Bodies emptied out of seats into the holding tank like cereal falling from a box into a bowl.

  Gavin couldn’t tighten his grip. Grampa’s face was redder than he had ever seen it. The old man was gagging, choking on his own shirt collar, trying in vain to reach Gavin’s arm. Gavin, who had been trained to deal with emergency situations with a cool head, felt panic seize his pounding heart as he realized that in trying to keep Grampa from falling, he was actually strangling him. The old man weighed about 170, but maybe, if Gavin pulled him closer, he could grab him under his armpit. At least then Grampa could breathe and maybe step onto the front seat.

  Gavin pulled with all his strength. It seemed to be working. Grampa was getting closer. Or… was his shirt stretching? Gavin cursed, held his breath, and pulled, fingers digging. “That’s it! We got it!” he yelled.

  The collar Gavin was holding ripped. “Grampa!” Gavin screamed as crumpled linen came away in his hand. For an instant everything seemed to stand still as the old man reached frantically for something, anything to hold on to. Then he disappeared over the edge.

  “Grampa! No!”A wave of numbing fear went through Gavin. He refused to think the unthinkable. He had to get down there. He had to find Grampa. He must have fallen into the holding tanks below. Frantic, Gavin began to pull himself up the chairs, one after another, trying to get to the aisle, where there appeared to be some stability. Hand over hand he fought with the smooth and slippery plastic seats. His breathing came fast and shallow and by the time he reached the walkway he was soaked with sweat. He raced down the sharply tilted aisle toward the pool, taking three steps at a time, grabbing seat backs for balance. The further down he went the straighter the stairs became, until they were level.

  As Gavin leaped the final six steps down to the main level, he was amazed by the scene below him in the pool. The water was gone. Dolphins were lying helpless on the concrete, flailing and writhing desperately, screaming in high-pitched frenzy. What had happened to the water? The car must somehow have penetrated the holding tanks. But how could a car—even a big car—do that? The tank was reinforced with a thick concrete wall.

  Gavin couldn’t think about the dolphins. He couldn’t think about terrorists. He couldn’t think about the other people who ran screaming in every direction. He could think only of Grampa—of getting down into the tanks and finding him. He ran out through the aquatheater entrance and around to the holding area, cutting and darting through the obstacle course of confused people. A six-inch wave of water rolled over the pavement, engulfing the feet of and tripping baffled sightseers as they tried in vain to avoid it. Undaunted, Gavin continued to sprint through the water until he turned the last corner and came to where he and Grampa had watched the smiling dolphin such a
short time ago.

  There Gavin stopped. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The viewing glass was gone. In its place was a black-and-chrome pickup truck with waist-high mud tires. The front of the vehicle, all the way to the windshield, had crashed through the viewing glass and its surrounding concrete. The driver’s door was halfway open and the airbag was still semi-inflated, but there was no driver. Beer cans were strewn about the interior and the ground outside the door. Gavin’s fears of terrorists were slightly mollified—the scene looked more like a drunk driver accident than terrorism.

  The driver of the mangled truck had apparently been saved by the airbag. The passenger had not been as lucky. One of the supporting posts for the bleachers had been ripped from its moorings atop the holding tank and was now lodged through the windshield and… through the passenger. The man, without the benefit of an airbag or, apparently, the sense to use the seat belt, had obviously hit the windshield just as the steel post smashed through the glass and into the middle of his upper back.

  As a cop Gavin had witnessed some gruesome scenes, but this one froze him where he stood. But only for an instant, as he took everything in. Then he was running again, past a dozen or so people on the ground—some still, most of them moaning. He heard sirens in the distance and hoped they were for here; at the moment his trained impulse to rush over and begin emergency measures was completely supplanted by powerful devotion to the man he dearly loved.

  “Grampa! Grampa!” he called, his eyes darting around in panic. Where was he? He jumped up and grabbed the top of the pickup’s tailgate, stepped onto the rear trailer hitch with his right foot, and hurdled himself into the extra-high truck bed. Then, using the cab roof as a springboard, he dove for the cracked top rim of the holding tank like a basketball player going for the slam dunk. His fingers dug into jagged concrete as he pushed his feet against the tank’s wall and pulled himself up.

  He was stunned by what he saw. The fallen bleachers shadowed the tank, but the gloomy light was enough for him to see inside. Twenty feet below, a twelve-foot Beluga whale was laying in less than six inches of blood-reddened water, rocking back and forth in its death throes. Just to its right, close to the wall, were several people, some piled on top of others. One had struggled to his hands and knees in a daze, blood dripping down his forehead to feed the pink-tinged water. Others lay face down in the water, motionless.

  Gavin peered past the arching whale. There! He could see black suspenders on a soiled white shirt. It had to be Grampa. His precious grandfather was face up and dangerously close to the confused whale’s powerful tail.

  Gavin straightened his arms, lifting himself slightly higher. “Grampa,” he yelled, his voice echoing in the deep tank. He had to get down there. Pivoting on his waist to the inside of the wall, he pushed off. He hit the bottom hard, collapsing to the concrete on impact, sending a splash of cold, salty water into the side of the whale. He felt a sharp pain in his right knee as something gave, but ignored it, quickly rising. Cursing the pain that came with movement, he hobbled through the water and past the length of the whale. When he got to Grampa he immediately positioned himself between the old man and the thick tail of the dying animal.

  Grampa looked bad, his face bloodied from a head gash, his shirt ripped open to reveal lacerations that had probably occurred from hitting the top of the wall as he fell. Gavin cried freely at the sight. The old man was still—too still. His breathing was undetectable. Gavin quickly felt for a pulse. Nothing. Wait… There it was— slow and faltering, but still a pulse. Grampa was alive. But for how long?

  The reflection of flashing lights appeared on the water’s red surface as the sirens crescendoed and ceased.

  “Help! In the tank! We need help in the tank!”

  3

  Karl Dengler had decided almost three years ago to take on a new name: Krogan. No official papers had ever been filled out or signed, but as far as he was concerned his name was Krogan. The name had come to him one night in an exceptionally vivid dream where he saw himself as a warrior dressed in ancient armor with a pewter helmet in the shape of a dragon’s head. In the dream, his gray eyes were fierce and strangely hungry, more like the eyes of a wild animal than a man’s. He rode a horse and carried a spiked mace. In the dream he took what he wanted whenever he wanted and from whomever he wanted. Wineskins and women were abundant. The languages spoken in the dream were foreign to Karl-now-Krogan, but he understood the actions and indeed had an insatiable appetite for them.

  The day after the first dream, another dream had filled his mind. Only then it wasn’t so much a dream as a trance that caught him by surprise in broad daylight while working. Again he saw himself as a warrior, riding his horse through a fog in a foreign land of another time. Other warriors rode with him, but he was superior to them. They called him Krogan, and each time they attacked, they raised their weapons and wineskins and shouted, “Shadahd!”

  In the following weeks these visions continued daily. Krogan looked forward to them. Each was different; in each he was dressed differently, speaking fluently in languages he had never heard and could not understand. But in all the languages his name had remained the same, as did the celebratory shout: “Shadahd!”

  Soon he could barely remember anything from before the time of the first dream. His own past had become distant and obscure. Maybe it was the drugs and alcohol. Maybe it was because he spent little time thinking about anything other than the present moment. Whatever the reason, he didn’t care. Memories were for the past. Live for today or die. Do what you want—period. Besides, the visions were satisfying. With them came the smell of blood, the fulfillment of violence. Maybe he was going insane. So what.

  One night, after much drinking alone in his home, another vision came to Krogan. This time he was dressed in modern clothing—a T-shirt and jeans such as he currently wore. He saw himself leave his home and pick up a man whom he had never met, yet seemed to know. The man spoke the word—shadahd—that confirmed their relationship. They celebrated in the same raucous way as in previous visions. Krogan had no horse or spiked mace, though, so he took the keys to his new friend’s car and drove it until he found a suitable victim to surprise—a night watchman in a guard booth.

  At this point the vision must have ended, because Krogan didn’t remember anything more. But the next morning he awakened in his bed bloody and sore. His clothes were dirty and torn. He immediately thought of the vision; had it been real? He soon found his answer in the morning paper—a watchman had been killed in a crash, along with the vehicle’s passenger, who was the car’s owner. The driver was missing.

  Upon reading the news, an uncontrollable roar of laughter rose out of Krogan’s belly and filled his house. He had actually done this thing. He felt invincible. Powerful. He felt like a god and looked forward to his next vision.

  He had his new name tattooed between his shoulder blades as though his skin was a living football jersey. His telephone and electric bill might be addressed to Karl Dengler, the same name that appeared on his New York driver’s license, boat registration, and house deed. But as far as he was concerned, his real name was Krogan.

  4

  Gavin sat, head in hands, in the waiting room of the intensive-care unit at the Coney Island Hospital, awaiting the news on Grampa. The circus atmosphere the Brooklyn medical center usually entertained was all the more intensified from the crash. Gavin’s right knee was bandaged and propped up on a magazine table. The X rays had come back negative but the doctor had told him he’d probably strained a tendon and should have an MRI done to determine treatment.

  “Detective Pierce.”

  Gavin quickly looked up from counting the multishaded green speckles in the white vinyl floor. Doctor Cohn, who had been working with the crash victims, was back. The doctor had been updating the packed room of family members all night. Over the last fourteen hours Gavin’s gut had been wrenched in every direction as loved ones were delivered the good, the bad, and the still to be determined.

>   Gavin tried to see if the doctor was wearing his “I’m terribly sorry” face. “How is he?” he said, struggling up from his seat.

  “Easy now,” Doctor Cohn said warmly, putting a hand on Gavin’s shoulder and taking a seat next to him. “Your grandfather’s in critical but stable condition, although at his age that status could turn on a dime. X rays have shown a broken ankle and three broken ribs. He also has compression fractures of several of his lower vertebrae. Substantial inflammation, but as far as we can tell at this stage, there’s no paralysis.”

  As hard as it was for Gavin to hear the list of Grampa’s injuries, he was grateful not to be reading an autopsy report.

  The doctor continued. “There was blood in his urine, probably the result of an injured kidney, judging by the deep bruise on his back. And he has a concussion, the severity of which we won’t know without more test results. I don’t think I have to tell you that he’s lucky to be alive. After he hit the top wall he probably fell into a few feet of water before it all drained out. I don’t think he could have survived that kind of fall otherwise. As you know, some didn’t. Meanwhile he remains unconscious.”

  Gavin was momentarily distracted by a middle-aged man in a conservative tweed jacket. He was holding a notebook and apparently interviewing a woman on the other side of the room. He’d stopped while the doctor addressed Gavin. Gavin made him for a cop.

  “If your grandfather was twenty-five I might be able to tell you we’re almost out of the woods, but at his age…” The doctor finished his sentence with a shake of his head.