Eddie was the first to see Semenov draw his weapon and he acted instinctively; yanking his marine guard bodily to the right he shouldered Holliday out of the line of fire. He was too late; the assassin had already fired. Falling, Holliday saw rather than felt an enormous white-hot blur of pain in the corner of his right eye, and then there was nothing but the perfect certain blackness of death.
EPILOGUE
The eyewitness statements provided by the two marine escorts agreed that the assassin was definitely aiming for center mass when he fired. If it hadn’t been for Eddie’s quick thinking there was no doubt that had the homemade dumdum round connected it would have blown Holliday’s heart out through his spinal cord. As it was the shot struck Holliday in the empty socket of his right eye, exiting the skull two inches above his ear.
It was decided that the surgeons at the trauma center at Ramstein AFB could do a better job, and he arrived there two hours later. The surgeons put him into an induced coma for three days until his brain swelling subsided, and then he was awakened, not much the worse for wear but suffering from the mother of all concussions and the grandmother of all headaches.
Holliday woke from his first good night’s sleep since arriving at Ramstein and opened his eyes. Eddie, sitting in the big visitor’s chair by the window, looked up.
“You are awake, compadre. You still have the headache?”
“It’s starting to fade.”
Eddie brought the rolling table and pushed it so it was across Holliday’s lap. Holliday used the control on the bed and raised it into a sitting position, and Eddie brought him his breakfast tray. He sat down at the edge of the bed.
Holliday looked at his friend; something was clearly bothering him. “What’s the matter?”
Eddie sighed. “I spoke with my mother in Habana last night. My brother Domingo, who works for the Ministry of the Interior, has vanished, disappeared. She is very worried. . how do you say it in English. . frantic?”
Holliday could see from his expression that Eddie wasn’t too far from being frantic himself. He thought about Eddie and what they had been through, both in Africa and in Russia. Holliday had never had a brother and rarely a close friend, but he had one now, and the kind of friendship he and Eddie had together had obligations and responsibilities.
“Okay,” said Holliday quietly. “As soon as they let me out of here let’s go find him.”