Saints & Suspects

by Jordan McCollum

“Suppose it’s also a good thing you went in when you did — apparently the Canavans hadn’t even got the bomb out of the boot yet.”

  That didn’t feel right. “The bomb was still in the trunk? “

  “It was. Xavier called with the analysis a few minutes ago, and it wasn’t even real C-4.” Molly paused, concern creasing between her eyebrows. “Navy Pier,” she said again, as if something had just clicked into place.

  “What is it?”

  “Grace had a photo at Navy Pier on her coffee table — I think with her son.”

  “The guy that emailed?”

  “They have two sons. Grace said they were both in Ireland, but would they put a picture of a stranger on their table?” She pulled out her cell and paged through the photos she’d snapped in their apartment. “I suppose Donal or Pearse could’ve come over for Christmas.”

  “Pearse?”

  “After Pádraig Pearse.” Molly finally found the photo and showed her phone to Zach. The Canavans stood in front of Navy Pier with Paddy. Pearse? Pádraig Pearse.

  His heart plummeted and, finally, he remembered. Paddy at the warehouse. The bomb, not in the car. On a float.

  Molly eyed Zachary warily. “You all right?”

  “Get your gun.”

  She squinted, but opened her jacket and moved her sweater to show the badge and holster on her belt.

  Good. “We need to get to the parade. And call the bomb squad.”

  Molly led the way out, all business. That was distractingly sexy, but with a million lives on the line, he could focus.

  Chicago PD had to have known about this. Zach dialed Dice. They made it to the elevator by the time Dice answered. “What’s up?”

  “Did you know Paddy was a Canavan?”

  Dice took a very long time to think. “We thought he might be.”

  Molly pushed the button for the garage, and Zach scoffed into his phone. “You knew? Why didn’t you —”

  “It was in the endnotes.”

  “Are you kidding? What endnotes?”

  “Weren’t they attached?”

  A software error put a million people in danger, and Dice was asking questions. “He’s targeting the parade today. I’m headed there now.”

  Dice promised to meet them before Zach ended the call. He turned to Molly. “Chicago PD had me track an Irish guy stealing explosives from work. I gave him the fake C-4 they found — and the whole time, they knew he might be a Canavan.”

  “What?”

  “They thought I knew, because they buried it in the report.” Zach swallowed a groan. “The bomb I saw wasn’t in a trunk. It was already on a float.”

  “You didn’t say anythin’ about that last night.”

  He pointed to his head, which throbbed in response. “Traumatic brain injury?”

  “Right.” The elevator slowed for the garage. They hurried to her green VW. “I’ll ring Kent. He lives in the Loop.” Depending on how close to Grant Park he lived — and how hard it was to find parking near the parade now — he should have a jump start on them.

  “Which float was it on?” she asked as soon as she got off the phone with Kent.

  Zach took a moment to think. “I don’t know — all I can remember is the trigger under the float.”

  “Will we check every one?”

  “Should’ve checked them all last night.”

  “They must’ve thought we were clear once they found the bomb in the car.” She sighed.

  Zach pressed his fingers to his temple to relieve the pressure beginning to build. “My fault; should’ve remembered —”

  “Hey,” Molly cut him off gently. “Beatin’ yourself up won’t change anythin’. You’ve brain trauma, remember?”

  “How do I keep forgetting that?” Zach pursed his lips. “Molly, I need you to be point.”

  She looked at him, a smile playing at one corner of her mouth. “You want me to be in charge?”

  “I need you.”

  “Any time.” She placed her hand on his knee. “Ring the bomb squad, will you?”

  Zach did as he was told without a second thought.

  The closer they got to the parade, the heavier traffic became. Molly was practically strangling her steering wheel by the time she found a parking spot in a 15-minute loading zone. They’d be faster on foot than trying to plow through the people.

  “Never thought I’d want one of those ridiculous little police lights,” Molly muttered, slamming her door shut.

  “Too bad we don’t have my car.” Zachary climbed out, too. “But now I know what to get you for your birthday.”

  “Not one of those magnetic ones.” She picked up her pace, weaving through foot traffic.

  “No way. No less than LED dash strobes for you, deluxe model: thirty whole bucks.”

  “Wish that would help us now.” She pushed past another family, startling a babe in arms. The father barked at her, but she didn’t look back, running as fast as she could through the crowd.

  Molly and Zachary found Kent arguing with a policeman guarding the gate to the parade staging area, waving his creds in the officer’s face. “You’ve got to let me by!”

  “Think I’m dumb? The FBI’s going to send one guy down here?”

  “It’s true,” Molly called as they ran up behind him. She and Zachary flashed their badges as well. The policeman turned to his radio, as if to cover his sheepish blush.

  They didn’t have time to wait while he checked. Molly read his nameplate. “Officer Welsh, we need your help.” She waited until his eyes locked on hers, then angled her chin down, aiming for a mix of I’m-leveling-with-you-officer-to-officer and I’m-batting-my-eyelashes-so-you’ll-help-me. “Can you direct the bomb squad right through to us when they get here?”

  “Bomb —? Absolutely, ma’am.”

  “We’re countin’ on you, love.”

  Welsh saluted and waved the three of them through.

  “He’s your love?” Zachary muttered.

  “Flattery gets you everywhere, Zachary.” They huddled up behind the gate, where the floats and the trucks towing them were already lined up. Why were so many people milling about?

  “What do we know about the bomb?” Kent asked.

  Zachary’s gaze fell as he searched his memory. Heavens, they were relying on the memory of a man just released from the hospital for a brain injury.

  “Cell phone trigger,” he said. “And maybe off-road diesel.”

  “Off-road diesel?” No, no, no. “That’s what you’d use for fuel oil in an ANFO bomb. All they’d need is fertilizer.”

  She turned to Zachary the same time he turned to her. “The florist,” they said in unison.

  The crowd seemed to grow thicker by the minute. ANFO meant the toll would increase tenfold if they couldn’t find it. Even if they tried to clear the area, thousands would die.

  Molly looked to Kent. “You’ve got to find the triggerman.”

  “He’ll have a phone,” Zachary said.

  People thronged the parade barriers. Lining a shooting gallery, practically. This time, the Canavans didn’t need any decoy phone calls to herd victims to the bomb.

  And they had to find one man holding a mobile phone.

  They had to come at this from all angles. Molly moved closer to Zachary. “We’ll find the bomb, in case we can’t find him.”

  Kent rubbed his short hair, helpless and hopeless. “It’ll take a bomb squad forty-five minutes to get here — the parade starts before that.”

  “Twenty minutes — we’ve already rung them.”

  “My boss is on his way to help, too.” Zachary placed his hand on the small of her back. “With reinforcements.”

  Kent frowned at the crowd waiting along the parade course. “What’s our guy look like?”

  “Really Irish,” Molly said.

  “What, red hair, green eyes?”

  Zachary snorted at the stereotype. “Young Pierce Brosnan who’s lost a boxing match.”

  “Who?”

&n
bsp; Molly and Zachary talked over one another to list the actor’s most famous credits. “James Bond in Die Another Day — ”

  “The World is Not Enough.”

  “Tomorrow Never Dies.”

  “GoldenEye,” they finished together.

  Kent held up a hand to cut them off. “I get it. James Bond with a cell phone.” He jogged off for the parade route.

  “You forgot Tailor of Panama,” Molly said.

  “Not bad for a guy with a concussion,” Zachary muttered. They turned back to the line of floats. Molly counted the floats stretching back through the huge field. Five, ten, twenty . . . So many people. “Seventy floats or more.”

  Zachary breathed out a groan. “It’s a cheap flip phone, stuck just under the edge of the float. Frilly green paper.”

  Without another word they started for the first float, Zachary taking the west side of the street and Molly the east. She tried to act as though nothing was amiss as she ducked down to peer along the first float’s platform. Where should she be searching? Wouldn’t people notice and worry?

  She straightened and spotted Zachary on his mobile. He lowered his mobile to shout to her. “Can you send Kent’s number to Xavier?”

  Molly sent the contact information, and Zachary leaned down to level his gaze along the bottom of the next float. She did the same, until her mobile rang. Zachary. “Yes?”

  “Skip these flat ones. Not tall enough to fit it underneath.”

  “Grand. This next one’s out, so?”

  “Yep.” They stayed on the phone and hurried down the line.

  Ten minutes, eight floats cleared and ten skipped — nothing. Twenty minutes till the parade started, and more than fifty floats to check.

  “Miss Molly!” a little voice called. She whirled around to find Olivia, one of her Irish dancers, grinning up at her in her bejeweled solo dress. “Are you marching with us?”

  “Not today, lovey.” She glanced at the milling marchers behind Olivia. So many children.

  There had to be a better way to find this bomb. She waved to Olivia and turned back to her search and her mobile. “Zachary, are they targetin’ somethin’ specific?”

  “Maybe. Don’t know if I saw what float it was on.”

  Brian injuries were never convenient, but his was putting all these people in jeopardy. They passed another flat float and looked at one another across the street. Her grim thought passed to him in silence.

  They walked on, checking another two floats and skipping three more. Behind them, music blared to life — pipe bands.

  The crowd cheered, a thin, high-pitched whine from here. The parade was starting.

  Molly scanned the field, crowd, bigger floats for the parade finale, big sponsors: banks, the Irish American Heritage Center, department stores . . . and O’Connell Publishing.

  The company that published The Blood-Dimmed Tide.

  She lifted her mobile again. “Zachary, O’Connell Publishin’.”

  “Which float’s theirs?”

  “Double decker, gold shamrocks.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Gazebo, risers at the back?” They caught sight of one another through a gap in the floats again. Molly beckoned to him. “Over here.”

  They hung up and sprinted through the barely organized chaos to the last parade float. They split up on either side of the float, and both dropped to the ground to check underneath.

  Even with her mobile’s flashlight, the little she could see seemed the same as every other float she’d checked.

  Behind her, a marching band drumline counted off. She looked back: high schoolers. Children.

  They couldn’t clear this field in time, let alone the parade route. Molly’s chest ached. She was failing them.

  She climbed to her feet again, her eyes stinging. They couldn’t give up — they wouldn’t — but they were too little and too late.

  Molly dropped her shoulders and sighed. The float’s frilly crepe fluttered in her gust of breath.

  Frilly. Green. Paper. Molly dropped to the ground and ran her hand under the float to try again.

  And hit something plastic. She tried to get a peek under the float again, and this time she spotted the flip phone.

  “Zachary!”

  He jogged around the float. When he saw it, he gave a sharp gasp. Zachary ripped the thin streamers away and reached underneath. He yanked out two wires, still covered with electrical tape.

  “Scissors,” he said.

  “You can’t be thinkin’ of takin’ care of it ourselves?” She pulled out her Leatherman, but didn’t give it to him.

  “He explained the detonator to me. I can do it.”

  Molly scanned the float riders above her. Laughing. Oblivious. What if they failed with all these people around? “Did he tell you how to disarm it?”

  “Hey, what’re you doing?” someone called down from the risers.

  If they let on, they’d have a panic. So victims could have a choice of being trampled or blown up.

  Zachary reached for his creds, but Molly stopped him. “Perfectly all right; we’re authorized.”

  “‘Authorized’?” Zachary said under his breath, raising an eyebrow.

  “Sure now. We have authority, don’t we?”

  He fixed her with a look of that doesn’t cut it.

  “We can’t clear the area in time.” She lowered her voice. “How many people are we tryin’ to kill?”

  He gestured at the still-packed field. The only place the crowd had thinned was at the entrance to the parade route. “Where would you suggest we take it?”

  Still frowning, Molly checked the time. “Quarter past.”

  Where was that bomb squad?

  “I’ll try to make room,” she said. She handed Zachary her Leatherman and jogged over to a parade organizer. Much as she hated throwing her weight around by bullying people with a badge, today it was a requirement. “Special Agent Malone with the FBI. We need this float cleared. Quietly.”

  The woman with a headset and clipboard gaped at her, stunned. “Um, okay?”

  “Come with me.” Molly hurried back to the float with the organizer in tow. “All righ’, everyone,” Molly dialed up her Irish accent to shout at the float riders. They looked to her. “We’re just after inspectin’ this float, and I’m afraid we’ve a problem. We’re goin’ to have to ask you to be steppin’ off the float. If you’ll wait right over here —” She indicated an open area a good distance away, the opposite direction from the parade course. “ — we’ll let you know if we’ve fixed it. Otherwise, I’m afraid we won’t be able to run the float. Apologies.”

  Although apparently disappointed, most of the float’s riders began to shuffle off with only a low murmur of complaint.

  “Nice,” Zachary said.

  “Better than nice.” She crouched down next to him.

  “Better than I could’ve done.”

  Molly allowed a quick grin. “You’d better believe it.”

  Zachary returned her smile and turned back to the trigger. They’d both had basic training in disarming a bomb — very basic. “If it’s the same as Paddy showed me, there are no booby traps or backup circuits. I just have to disconnect the trigger.”

  Molly watched him. They’d cleared the area, but the crowd still seemed to press in around them. Potential victims.

  Zachary wiped his palms on his jeans and gripped the Leatherman, carefully pulling the wires between the blades.

  If the bare ends hit one another — she caught his wrist. “Those wires can’t touch.”

  “Good call.” He released one wire from the cutters and took a deep breath.

  Molly placed a hand on his back. If this was their last moment — “I love you.”

  “And I love you.” Zachary took another breath. His fingers tensed.

  “Special Agent Malone?”

  They both turned to face the person who’d called her — a man in a blue-and-black pocketed vest, complete with the FBI BOMB TEC
H tag. Finally.

  Molly drew in air like she’d been drowning. “Just in time.”

  Zachary stepped aside, and they both gestured at the trigger.

  The tech gave a low whistle. “Your girlfriend’s brave to be here with you.”

  Zachary pointed at her. “She’s Special Agent Malone. And she’s point today.”

  The bomb tech looked away, embarrassed, but nodded. He signaled to the bomb truck. With that entourage, the news crews would be here before long, but not before the squad could clear the area, and take care of the bomb in peace.

  The tech sent a remote-controlled robot under the float. After a minute, he held up a monitor to deliver the verdict. “Classic design. We got this.”

  Molly released her breath at the same time as Zachary. He wrapped an arm around her. “Ready?”’

  To be done with the Canavans? “More than ready.” She looked toward the parade route. “We haven’t heard from Kent or X. Pearse must still be out there.” He could even dial the trigger now.

  “When he sees the float isn’t coming, he’ll be gone.”

  The end of the sentence went unsaid: to make another bomb.

  For the second time that day, in unison they turned and broke into a run. A policeman at the start of the parade course tried to stop them. Zachary waited to shove his credentials in the cop’s face; Molly ran straight by.

  “I’m with her,” Zachary tossed over his shoulder as he caught up with Molly again.

  They ran the parade route alongside the floats, costumed marchers, pipe bands and Irish dance schools. “What is this,” Zachary joked breathlessly, “The Fugitive?”

  “With the villain from Patriot Games.” Molly slowed to scan the area, and Zachary did the same, pressing two fingers to his head.

  She realized how hard her own heart was pounding, between running and tension. That couldn’t be good for Zachary. “You all right?” Molly asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She wasn’t entirely reassured, but Zachary walked on. “He wants a safe front-row seat.”

  Right. They needed to find him. Molly scanned the streets. This road ran through the middle of a park. Unless Pearse hid in the trees, there were no good perches to observe the aftermath from a safe distance. He couldn’t have finagled his way onto the grandstand.

  “Has to be somewhere.” Molly closed her eyes. The viewing stand was by Buckingham Fountain but there was something else . . . She snapped her fingers. “The Art Institute.”