Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

  “How did he die?”

  “I shot the bastard.”

  The judge glared at Brooke.

  Brooke opened the three top buttons of her blouse and pulled down the shoulder. “Not before he winged me. I was late because I was recuperating.”

  The judge made an expression as if he saw ants crawling on his dinner. He stared at the stitches and Brooke’s still bright orange stained skin from the Betadine solution they’d used to disinfect the area. “You got shot?”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Nussbaum said.

  “You can’t object in an approach!” the judge said still staring at Brooke’s wounds.

  “We have not been given proper discovery on this evidence much less its provenance. Plus, this sidebar testimony is prejudicial to my client’s claims.” Nussbaum was stressing her words, trying to break the judge’s lock on the off-the-shoulder Brooke.

  He turned with his hand up. “Hold your horses, counselor.” He returned to Brooke. “You were wounded in a shootout last night and you are here now?”

  “Your Honor, nine more of these sweethearts are out there right this minute. We have reason to believe they are planning a devastating attack on this city or this country; every second we waste is to their advantage. Also, by the way, these ten men were deemed by the US State Department to be in violation of their visas and that violation of immigration law is cited in plain language in the bulletins that accompanied the distributed pictures . . . That notation on the wanted posters negates any spurious claims as to profiling.”

  Nussbaum was shocked. “How come she gets to summate her whole case? You are bordering on reversible error, Your Honor.”

  Even Fienberg, her opposing attorney, winced at the landmine the woman lawyer just stepped on.

  “Be very, very careful, Ms. Nussbaum.” He continued his cold stare at her for a few seconds longer than was comfortable—just to make the point—then turned back to Brooke who was rubbing her shoulder. “Do you need a minute?”

  “No, we may not have a minute, Judge.”

  “Okay, counselors step away . . . Go on, go back to your tables.”

  Fienberg was actually shaking; Nussbaum was blowing wind in indignation as she walked back.

  Then the judge leaned toward Brooke, put his hand over the ever-present microphone, and said in a quiet voice that Nussbaum strained hard to hear but couldn’t make out, “Director Burrell, I lost many dear friends in 9/11. Hurry up and get these sons-a-bitches. Nussbaum is a great lawyer. The plaintiffs may win this case—they have the law on their side: the government cannot profile. You have maybe two days, tops.”

  “He took his hand off the mic and said in a loud, punitive voice, “Ms. Burrell is excused from this trial today. Any necessary testimony can be taken at a mutually agreeable time for both parties.”

  He banged the gavel.

  “Okay, Ms. Nussbaum, you may proceed with your opening statement. And I promise you nothing withstanding herein, or the events of the last ten minutes, will prejudice your case . . . nor will it support it.”

  .G.

  Brooke descended the majestic steps of the federal courthouse at Foley Square, unaware of the man watching her from the street. He was glad he was early because she wasn’t supposed to be coming out for another forty-five minutes.

  .G.

  All the way down the stairs her thoughts were replaying the way the judge excused her from this nuisance of a case. When she got to the bottom of the steps, she considered calling for a department car to come and get her. Her original driver had expected her to be in court for at least an hour, so he was gone. She looked up at the crystal blue sky and decided she’d call in, and if nothing were too urgent she’d walk a little bit and clear her mind. It was a hot day, but she could hardly remove her jacket to get cool and have her weapon exposed while walking down the street.

  She suddenly realized she was starving. There was a nut vendor on the corner who was roasting peanuts and cashews in a sugary coating that made the street smell like the inside of a candy factory. Her regimen was at least an hour of workout three days a week, and intensive exercise on weekends. She knew it took thirty blocks of walking at a full clip to work off one Oreo. Yet, that smell! “Just give me a half bag.”

  “Lady, I no sell half. Only full.”

  “I’ll pay for full, just fill it half way.”

  The vendor shrugged. “Okay, Lady. You da boss.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she handed over four singles from her bag. Noticing the sudden shift in the vendor’s eyes, she swung around like a top. Her jacket flared and as it did she pulled the gun from her waist clip and held it to the face of the large man who was now inches from her.

  “Hiccock,” was all the stranger said.

  Brooke took a beat to process. She was still just as coiled and ready to strike, but that name bought him an extra second of life. “What about him?”

  “He named his kid after me.”

  Brooke’s stance imperceptibly loosened. “Then you’re Ross.”

  “No, that’s the kid’s middle name and that was my partner. I’m Richard.”

  She holstered her weapon. “That’s the right name.”

  “Thanks for not ruining my day.”

  “Well, Richard, you shouldn’t get between a woman and her sweet tooth. “Nut?” She tilted the bag to him. The vendor, still shaking, slowly got up from the crouch he was in with his hands over his head.

  “No, thanks.”

  She popped one in her mouth. “Mmm, warm.” She poked around the bag and found another confection-coated nut. “I am going to risk a national security protocol breach and assume that you are Bridgestone.”

  “At your service . . .”

  “So, Richard . . .”

  “Please, Bridge. Richard was my dad.”

  “Okay, Bridge, why did you risk a full lead facial just now, and what are you doing here? Weren’t you in the ghost business?” Brooke had remembered that Bridge and his partner were known only as the ghosts of the desert during the Hammer of God affair, but she also knew it was a double entendre, because they were very good at turning people into ghosts . . . before their time.

  “Bill asked me to watch over you.”

  That stopped Brooke in her tracks.

  Bridge continued, “He heard about Nigel and your brush with the hereafter, and since I was doing a little R&R over in Sandy Hook, he asked that I look in on you.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Brooke said, resting her hand on her hip.

  “This isn’t being received as he intended, is it?”

  “You got that right, bucko.”

  “Bucko?”

  “Bridge-o.”

  “Better . . .”

  “He’s doing that big daddy protective thing again, isn’t he? Look, Bridge, I appreciate you blowing your down time on nursemaid duty but I don’t need a big strong guy to protect me.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “Besides, that’s what I do. We qualified on the same courses at Ranger school . . .” Then a thought entered her mind. “Is this because I got married? That’s it isn’t it? He thinks I lost my edge, got all soft, dreaming of my man and baking cookies . . .”

  “Cookies are nice . . .”

  “Well, I got some news for him . . . What?”

  “Cookies are nice things to make . . .”

  “Yes, okay, yes they are.” She then laughed. “You’re good! You got me right off my high horse there.” She looked at her watch. Realizing she hadn’t eaten since yesterday, she put the nuts in her bag as she checked her phone and saw the same ten messages from this morning.

  “Mrs. Morton, I’d . . .”

  “Brooke, Bridge.”

  “Brooke, I’d feel the same way if he did this to me.”

  “Hungry?”

&
nbsp; “Not if candied nuts are on the menu.”

  .G.

  “So he looks at me and says, ‘And I thought I liked you,’” Bridge said, laughing.

  “Well, you did just shoot his father,” Brooke said, finishing her salad and taking a sip of her iced tea.

  “It was a just little hole right through his arm before it went into the guy with the suicide plunger’s heart,” Bridge said with his thumb and forefinger spaced a quarter inch apart over his own wrist.

  “You know, we had Thanksgiving at Bill’s house and his father still ribs him about how Bill’s friend shot ’em. So now I’ve met the legend,” Brooke said feigning awe.

  “How’s Hank Hiccock these days?”

  “As of last turkey day, still fishing, still driving Bill’s mom crazy.”

  “That’s good. So how are you and the sub driver doing?”

  “Pretty good. When we see each other.”

  “Deployments can be tough . . .”

  “Yes, but don’t get me wrong. He’s in a multi-billion-dollar machine, with enough room to go for a morning run around the boat, five hundred feet below the surface. It’s not like he’s forward deployed in some god-forsaken land where anyone at any minute can be the enemy. I mean, I worry, but he’s pretty much in charge of his own fate.”

  “He going to kiss dirt anytime soon?”

  “We’ve talked about it. But I would never hold him to an intention. We are both driven by our need to serve, I guess. I certainly can’t judge him when I am sitting here in New York, being shot at and eating sweet nuts.”

  “How’s the shoulder?”

  “The son of a bitch winged me . . . but I think I can wrangle hazardous duty pay out of it.”

  He laughed. “If only we could, we’d be millionaires by now.” The moment hung, then Bridge said, “Four.”

  “Twice,” Brooke said pointing to her side then her shoulder.

  “I win.”

  “You can have it. Being shot two times is twice too often.”

  “Double amen,” Bridge said, looking around the sidewalk café they were sitting at on Spring Street. “The food here was pretty good.”

  Just then the waiter, as if on cue, came round to inquire about dessert. “And also, which is not on menu, is to be a nice crème brûlée. And is also a very nice tiramisu.”

  Bridge picked up on the waiter’s accent. “Net, nichego ne nado, tolko check.”

  “Siyu minutu,” the waiter said, nodding as he collected the dessert menus.

  “Russian, spoken like a true Moskvich. I’m impressed,” Brooke said using the local term of endearment for a citizen of Moscow.

  “My turn. Good ear,” Bridge said.

  “White Russian, the tsar’s Russian, is a delicate nuance. My compliments,” Brooke said as she took a sip of her chamomile.

  “Spacibo.”

  Brooke looked across the street at the people going in and out of the SoHo shops. She needed to get back to her office. She took another sip of her iced tea, placed it down and looked at Bridge. “How much longer do you have left on your leave, Sergeant Major?”

  Chapter 23

  In The Crosshairs

  “Excuse me, Director Burrell?”

  “No, Charlene Logan. Director Burrell is on her way,” Charlene said, turning around with a smile.

  “Sorry, from the back . . .”

  “Yes, that happens a lot.”

  “I’m Briggs from the Office of Emergency Management.”

  “Yes. Right there in the main conference room.”

  .G.

  When Brooke got back to her office, there were thirty people waiting in the conference room. Last night’s murder of Nigel and the attempt on her life had bumped this phase up to joint terrorism task force. In the room were members of the JTTF, the Office of Emergency Management, the Port Authority Police, NYPD and FDNY, and US Coast Guard. Also present were representatives of the governors of New York and New Jersey.

  The ten photos were on the wall with a “DECEASED” swipe across Shamal’s.

  As she got to the front of the room the din quieted down. “Thank you all for coming. I was unavoidably detained in court. On the ride up, I finally looked at my phone. I had fourteen voicemails, most from the lawyer handling the government’s case. But then I found this one.” She touched the phone and turned up the speaker.

  It was Nigel. “When is a priest not a priest? Brooke, I found the priest, but he’s not a priest. He has been hanging ’round the street outside your flat for the half hour I’ve been watching him . . . Texted a photo to you and the boys back at ‘six.’ He’s just . . .” Then there were the sounds of a scuffle, then the sound of a van door sliding open. Then someone was heard at a distance, “The phone . . .” and the last thing heard was a large crunching noise . . . then silence.

  “What you just heard makes the events of last night conspiracy to commit murder. It also means the SOM37 is active and in New York. In addition, there may now be eleven of them.” Brooke went to the wall and tacked up a blank page with only the words “The Priest” on it. Then Brooke put a clear plastic evidence bag onto the table; in it was a smashed and shattered phone. “NYPD just found this a half block from my home. The picture never got through; our techs tell us the contents of the phone are irretrievable. I am going to give my description of number eleven, the Priest, to a sketch artist right after this. We will circulate the likeness when it’s done.” She paused and looked around the room at the suits and uniforms. “This cell had the wherewithal to improvise a daylight snatch-n-grab inside of thirty minutes’ notice. That tells me they are capable and thorough.” She pointed to the destroyed mobile phone. “We are dealing with a trained cell, people.”

  She nodded at her assistant Jeannine, who distributed case folders to all present.

  “We just updated these a few minutes ago; also first page. We have set up a JWICS page.”

  “A what?” the representative from the governor’s office asked.

  “That’s Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. Think of it like a very secure Google pages. We’ll put everything that comes in up on this page. Username is the same as the codename for this operation, Sweeper; the password is, and don’t write this down, memorize it . . .” She held up a piece of paper where she’d written in big red sharpie, PenaltyKicK. “One word, case sensitive, cap P and both capital Ks. She panned the paper around the room without saying it out loud, and then tore it up as she spoke. “All of the operational details and profiles and evidence have been uploaded and are in these folders. I know I don’t have to, but I’m going to remind all of you, this is a national security case of the highest order. Everything in this room, in these folders, or on the shared document online is need-to-know, top-secret, classified . . . Anybody didn’t get that? I’ll repeat it. Not even your spouses!

  “I’m here all day to meet with each of you and drill down into what your agencies can bring to the table.”

  As she was leaving, Jeannine handed Brooke a message. “He called a minute ago.”

  “Get him back on the phone.”

  .G.

  George was on the tarmac walking towards the twin-engine turbo prop puddle jumper to San Juan, where he’d connect with his plane back to New York, when his cell rang. He had to speak up over the noise of the runway. “Brooke, a cop out of Prague sent out a BOLO for a person of interest in the name of Paul Grundig. One of the LEO’s down on the island here did some face recognition. This guy comes and goes. His last three points of embarkation, Prague, Stockholm, and . . .”

  “Denver?” Brooke said over the phone.

  “Yep. I really got to get on Trip Advisor. These towns are coming up a lot lately. I’m jumping on a 2:30 out of SJU; be back in the office by six. I sent you a full set of Paul Grundig’s baby pictures. Oh and Brooke, the cop in Prague
, an Inspector Dvorak, he was investigating an accidental death that might have been a hit. He got an ATM shot of this Paul guy exiting a nightclub with the victim.” He cupped his hand over the phone as a plane took off over his head and spoke louder, “I said, it might have been a hit!”

  .G.

  Brooke hung up. “Jeannine, as soon as those pictures from George arrive I want to see them.”

  “Just did,” she said handing the prints over to Brooke.

  “Son of a bitch!” Brooke said as she was looking down at the Priest, albeit in a Hawaiian shirt in the Cayman airport.

  .G.

  Dequa was not pleased at the death of one of his team. “Although Shamal was muscle, his surveys of the secondary target up north were excellent; but he had completed that task. Losing him at this point in the mission is not a crippling blow. However, the fact that we are now exposed, is!”

  “He was selected because he was trained in ambush,” Paul said.

  “He was selected because you selected him to do something that was your task.”

  “He had the better skill set. I gave him every advantage and intelligence.”

  “He was also more connected to us than you were,” Dequa said.

  “Are you saying you would rather it had been me who was killed?”

  “You are less connected to us and also an American. You would have been a dead end. Killing the British agent was an error.”

  “Had the plan gone as we had intended, the authorities would have been led to believe this woman tortured and shot the man who managed to shoot and kill her before he died.”

  “I never thought that the police would believe that story, but that’s all in the past now, and that is not where we are at present.”

  He handed Paul a folder.

  “We are three days from our mission. You are now in charge of cell security. Keep the Americans away from us for three days.”

  Paul didn’t know how exactly he would accomplish this, but this whole conversation could’ve ended with his throat sliced, so this reprimand was actually a reprieve of sorts.