“You have an ex-brother-in-law on the train who was a paratrooper?” Joey Palumbo said.
“Oui. From my first wife, but we still like each other.” He turned as the horn of the train announced its entrance into the grand station at Paris.
Joey watched as a few dozen people departed the train. Percy, whatever his name was, was indeed in the fifth car from the engine. Dupré approached him and in a very gallant way extended his arm as if to say follow me, although Joey thought he probably said something like, “s’il vous plaît.” And judging from the non-confrontational look on Smyth’s face, he had probably called him Percival to boot.
As he approached, Joey could see the recognition on Percy’s face as he matched Joey’s to the White House.
“Hey, Percy, good to see ya! Let’s have a chat, shall we?” Joey said in a grand gesture as he opened the door of his state department car. The only response Percival gave to the slight of excessive familiarity was a tired facial expression. The car had reached the end of the parking lot when two Paris police cars came to a stop in front of the Intelligence Agency’s car. Joey was out in a flash. “What is the meaning of this?”
The tall, thin sergeant of the Surté simply said, “You must hand over your prisoner to us.”
“First off, he is not a prisoner and second, Director Dupré is my liaison and he is right over there.”
“Sergeant, what is this about?” Dupré yelled as he trotted up to the cop car.
“I have a warrant of protection from the court, signed by all three magistrates with their seal affixed below.”
Dupré pulled out his reading glasses and scanned the document. “Mr. Palumbo, my friend, I am sorry, but a judicial order is sacrosanct. I must ask you to let Monsieur Smyth go with these officers, please.”
“Where will they take him?” Yardley stepped forward.
“That is for the judge to decide, but for now we must comply.”
Joey thought about handcuffing himself to the limey bastard and throwing his own key in the nearby sewer. That way, wherever Percy went Joey went, but he figured they’d just produce a hacksaw and it would all be for show. “Yardley, I want the ambassador notified and a formal complaint filed before we get to your office.”
“Yes, sir,” Yardley said as he dialed the number.
The cops reminded Percy to watch his head. As he was loaded into the backseat, he looked at Joey and said, “Better luck next time, old bean.”
“You know, you are really starting to bug me, Percy!”
With that the two cop cars sped into Paris traffic. Joey turned to Dupré, “Okay, now explain this bullshit to me.”
“Unlike America, the courts here are the judicial system. They have unequaled power and it is absolute. I am sorry, my friend.”
“Not as sorry as the president of the United States is going to be when he hears about this.”
∞§∞
Joey was right. The president didn’t like it when his handpicked team, headed by Bill, didn’t get what it wanted. He made sure the secretary of state understood how steamed he was. That prompted the phone call Bill made to Joey on the secure scramble link. “I just got off the phone with the secretary of state. He says he’ll have the French ambassador in front of him within the hour. But he also said this can go on a while because it is a Metropolitan Paris matter, not national.”
“But what about Dupré? He’s a fed, or whatever the frogs call their national cops.” Joey mouthed the word ‘sorry’ to the French-born attaché in the US Embassy standing in front of him.
“If he couldn’t stop the judge’s orders on the streets, I don’t think he’ll have much luck up the chain, but I’ll check. Oh by the way, Brooke is in town, Paris, I mean. She is going to call you.”
“Okay, maybe between the two of us we can find this English twerp.”
“Hey Joey, that’s it.”
“What is?”
“If he’s English, we can get Downing street involved. That should get attention.”
“The more, the merrier. Meanwhile, Klaven seems to come up clean and a real officer and gentleman. He did some wild shit back in the Cold War. This guy tapped the Russian phone line to their missile bases. He used a decommissioned sub like the one they have in New York.”
“Sub in New York?”
“Yeah, I was on it ten years ago. The USS Growler — it’s right next to the Intrepid. Anyway her sister ship in the Pegasus missile system, the USS Halibut, was fitted with a DSRV and they clipped a bug onto an undersea cable.”
“Joey, wait! What did you say?”
“DSRV, Deep Submersible Recovery Vehicle?”
“No, the name of the sister sub was what, again?”
“Halibut.”
“Son-of-a-bitch. ‘Try the Halibut,’ he said to me at Mimmo’s that night, and I said to myself, ‘What a dumb ass, they don’t even have that on the menu.’”
“Fish stories aside, as far as I can tell, he is the real deal and you should have a talk with him. I’ll have the details encrypted and sent to you from the Embassy.”
“I’ll set up a meet for tomorrow. How’s Paris?”
“Like one of those movies they’d make you watch in Film Appreciation 101.”
“Oh, and Joey, I do tell you to be careful from time to time, don’t I?”
“Did you watch a chick flick or something last night?”
∞§∞
Bill’s car picked him up promptly at 6:45 a.m., as it did every morning, for the thirty-minute drive to the White House. Allowing five minutes to stop at the Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue for his and his driver’s morning jolt always got him to his desk by 7:30. The driver pulled up to the loading zone and left Bill in the car, secure that the White House tag in the windshield would stop any D.C. cop from harassing him. Bill was leafing through the morning rundown when he was startled by an intruder who climbed into the back seat with him.
“You wanted to see me?”
“In my office, Klaven! God, do you always sneak up on people like…”
“Hands up, out of the car now!” Bill’s driver said, holding a Glock pointed at Klaven through the rear window.
“Bill, call off your dog.”
“Do you promise to stop scaring the crap out of me?”
“Oh, grow up and tell him to stand down before he shoots a patriot.”
“It’s okay, Warren. I know this man — he’s just a little unconventional. In fact, Warren, if you wouldn’t mind, get him a Venti… er, black?”
“With two sugars.”
“With two sugars, if you would!”
Warren holstered his weapon and announced to the shocked citizens that it was all a misunderstanding and to go about their business.
“Mr. Hiccock, I can’t be seen as part of this. I still monitor and try to keep the powers-that-be honest.”
“You do what now?”
“Look, from what I gather, you ain’t a political pussy. My sources tell me you are someone who acts, and you’ve seen your share.”
“I am a bureaucrat and a science geek.”
“Cut the crap, son. There’s a quarter trillion dollars-worth of warship deep in the Pacific Trench that begs to differ.”
“That’s extremely classified, sir, and you are in violation of the Secrets Act just bringing it up.”
“Are you going to stop treating me like I am some outsider? What you and Mitchell did was historic, heroic and demonstrated the utmost measure of devotion. That’s why I selected you.”
“You selected? Okay, I don’t know what or how much you know about the USS Princeton but…”
“Don’t forget that business up in New York and the first nuclear attack on U.S. soil. The way I hear it, you’re not there, and New York is a glowing graveyard for seventy-eight years. Instead we got a concrete containment dome encasing a botched H-bomb.”
“Can we get back to, ‘you selected me?’”
“Throw in the HCN complex 33 bio attack thwarted, and that escap
ade in the lead mine out West; oh, and saving the entire San Joaquin Valley, and I’d say I know what I am talking about and who I am talking to.”
“You know, when you put it that way, I should ask for a raise. Who the fuck are you?”
“One of many who took an oath to defend this nation. Being out of the service doesn’t reduce that honor and obligation.”
“I don’t know whether to let you out of this car or turn you in.”
“Relax, if you haven’t gotten the message yet, I am a big fan. Besides, you got the Bridgestone seal of approval.”
That name hit Hiccock like a ton of bricks. Master Sergeant Richard Bridgestone was a one-of–a-kind army of one. Bill had enlisted his special skills and secured unprecedented presidential authority for him to cut and tear his way across America and the globe searching for a suitcase nuke. Bridge had also saved the life of Bill’s wife as well as the lives of his mom and dad. In fact, Bill had named his son, Richard Ross Hiccock, after Richard Bridgestone and his partner, Ross, who had been killed in the Hammer of God affair. “Now I get it. Well, if you are a friend of Bridge, you are beyond reproach — and you are my friend. What can I do for you?”
“It’s what I can do for you. That mission you want the Navy to undertake? I designed it in 1965.”
“Yeah, the USS Halibut and the DSRV. Very impressive! But not as out-of-the-park as raising the entire Soviet Akula class sub that went down — and right under the Commies’ noses!”
“Now I am the one who is humbled, Mr. Hiccock.”
“Please call me Bill.”
“My friends call me Clay. So how did you find out about that Akula?”
“Let’s just say, I know some people as well.”
Just then Warren came back, balancing a cardboard tray with the coffees. Bill rolled down the window and handed Clay his and took his own. “Warren, wanna give us five minutes?” He then rolled up the window.
“Anyway, recovering the evidence you want, adjusted for today’s dollars, will be a one hundred million dollar operation, tops!”
“So you were right when you said they were soaking me to fund something else, what else?”
“Political campaigns.”
“Whoa.”
∞§∞
Joey and Brooke had set up shop in a small conference room at the US Embassy in Paris. In most spots on Earth, the US Embassy is the ultra-class way to go. However, having to eat, sleep, and work in the building, with Paris right outside the gate, was like a prison sentence, but they muddled through. Brooke worked out in the compound’s gym for ninety minutes every other day. Her training had always stressed peak physical conditioning, and surviving her ordeal in the Indian Ocean was a testament to that commitment. Even the guys from the Embassy’s diplomatic security detail weren’t as dedicated in their routines.
When it came time to leave the compound, Brooke opted for shopping the Champs Elysées, while Joey wanted to go to the great Cathedral at Notre Dame. “Aren’t you part French?” Joey prodded Brooke.
“Yes, on my father’s side. Mom is Irish.”
“So were you brought up Catholic?”
“Yes, but I haven’t been to church in years.”
“Wanna join me?”
“I really had my heart set on seeing the shops and all the fashions I can’t afford to buy.”
“Well, good hunting.”
“Have fun…genuflecting.”
∞§∞
As the cab pulled up to the huge edifice of the Cathedral, Joey’s thoughts returned to the first time he had walked into the Immaculate Conception Church. To the nine-year-old Joey, it was the biggest church in the world. Now here in the great Cathedral, those feelings returned. He was spellbound by the Church at a young age. It was something about the ritual, the reverence and the comfort he saw in the faces of the people attending Mass, that made him want to get more involved. As soon as he could, he became an altar boy. It made his mother deliriously happy; his dad wasn’t quite so enchanted. For five years, Joey had helped with the celebration of Mass, then weddings and funerals. At first, the funerals were hard to take, but as he saw how the families needed to cry, grieve, and celebrate the lives of those they had lost, he began to appreciate the role he and faith played in helping people get through life. He would later in life define it as ‘divine serenity.’
When one of the brothers of the Church asked Joey if he thought of becoming a priest, even at fifteen he knew it wasn’t a good fit for him. He liked the result but wasn’t into the process. He liked the helping part, but the study, the theology, was boring to him. What loomed as his largest objection, however, was the uncertainty as to where he might be sent. It could be to St. Pat’s on Fifth Avenue or to a small tent in Zimbabwe; you just didn’t know.
A broad grin appeared across his face at the thought that if the Sisters of Immaculate Conception school in the Bronx could see him now, entering Notre Dame, “Our Lady of Paris,” they would drop to their knees because it would surely be a sign of the end of days.
He dabbed his finger in the font of holy water and crossed himself. Even though he had never been in here before, he felt at home. At that moment it hit him — that’s why the ritual, the icons, the Stations of the Cross, the altars, and every other element were the same here as in any Bronx church. Although more splendid and more ornate, still they were familiar. It meant that anywhere in the world a practicing Catholic went, he or she could always find home, or at least something that felt safe and familiar. When Latin was more prevalent, Joe imagined that it must have been easy to be able to communicate at some level with a parish priest in Latin, even if he was Chinese and you were in China and couldn’t speak a word of Mandarin to him or anyone else.
His footsteps echoed off the marble and stone that had made the reading of the scriptures reverberate in the time before microphones. He found a pew about halfway to the altar and bent down on one knee, crossed himself, and sat. Looking up and all around the nave, he took a deep breath. He remembered preparing the incense for mass — the combination of myrrh and other ingredients creating the distinctive smell that meant you were in God’s house. He put his hands together and said a few prayers, along the way praying for his son, his wife, his parents, his sister, and then for his country, and asked for guidance in the work he and Bill did.
He crossed himself and decided to move closer to the altar to get a better look. A young priest was setting up for a service. He nodded to Joey, who responded with a nod and the word, “Father,” to the man, who was probably five years younger than he.
“American?” the priest asked.
“Yes.”
“Me too. I’m from Philadelphia.”
“New York.”
“Frank Mercada.”
“Joey Palumbo. Nice to meet you.”
“First time here?”
“Yes, first time.”
Father Mercada looked up to the eight-hundred-year-old architecture. “Magnificent isn’t it.”
“Gloria in excelsis Deo.”
“Theologian?”
“Nah, I was an altar boy as a kid.”
“Me too. I just kind of stayed with it. Now…” He looked up again to the ceiling of the apse.
“So how did you go from Philly to here?” Joey said.
“You never know where they are going to send you.”
Joey smiled.
“So you used to prep for mass?”
“Five years.”
“Want to see the rest of the church?”
“I don’t want to take you away from what you are doing,” Joey said, in a way that kind of meant “sure” which surprised even him.
“I’ve got two hours; besides, I was a little bored anyway.”
They spent the next half hour walking through the cathedral and then under it, as Mercada showed him the catacombs and ruins of the ancient Roman baths on which the cathedral was built. At one point they crossed into an area that had an old door with huge wrought iron hasps and hing
es from the Middle Ages. It was definitely locked.
Of course Joey asked, “Those two big wrought iron rings on the door look like a ring of thorns. Is that where they keep the crown?”
“The Crown of Thorns? No, that’s upstairs; I’ll show you later.”
“Then what’s in there?”
“I don’t know. I have never been in there.”
That earned Father Mercada a quizzical look from Joey.
He responded by way of explanation, “When I first got here there was a deacon, who has since left, and he referred to it once as the Knight’s Chamber.”
“As in night and day or the Sir Galahad variety?”
“Definitely the k-night.”
“See, that is exactly why I couldn’t do this; become a priest. I made the right choice, all right,” Joey said stretching his palm, face up and gesturing toward the ancient portal.
“What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t sleep a wink or eat until I got on the other side of that door. It would be killing me. You, you my friend, have the acceptance and great forbearance that I lacked.”
“And I, my friend, also don’t have the key; thus the forbearance comes easy. So what did you do instead?”
“I became a cop and then an FBI agent, and now I work at the White House.”
“Well, I’d also say you definitely made the right choice.”
∞§∞
“Dean Robert McNally on two,” Cheryl announced as Bill was finishing up an opinion paper on ‘Privatization of Aerospace Initiatives.’
“Thank you for returning my call, Dean McNally. I was surprised to learn that you have no record of a Percival Cutney or Smyth as having attended Notre Dame.”
“Mr. Hiccock, I even e-mailed the picture you sent to retired and relocated teachers and professors and almost no one seems to remember him.”
“Forgive me, Dean, but as a scientific discipline, ‘almost’ is statistically not 100 percent.”
The God Particle Page 10