The Final Kill

by Meg O'Brien

“This is not about personalities,” Kris said sharply. “It’s about not having an outsider at our meetings.”

  “Chief Schaeffer is hardly an outsider,” Lessing reminded her, “any more than you are. And so far he’s been cooperating fully.”

  “Fully? You may think so, but—”

  “I cooperated because you told me that Abby and the Prayer House were in danger,” Ben said, interrupting again. “There wasn’t even time to find out who you were after.”

  It was the fear that Abby might be hurt that had made him screw up, dammit. What a fool he was, confirming their suspicions about Abby’s work with Paseo when he’d made a promise a year ago never to tell a soul. And now, because he’d thought it was his duty to do so—and that the suspect might be a danger to Abby and the Prayer House—he’d blabbed to the damned FBI.

  Abby would never forgive him.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said, standing. “You’re welcome to stay here until you’re done, but I’ve got work to do.”

  “Chief—” Lessing raised a delaying hand.

  “No. From everything you’ve said so far, this is nothing but a plain and simple homicide. If that’s the case, I sure don’t need you to help solve it. In fact, it looks to me like you’re wasting taxpayers’ money with all this hoopla, but hey, don’t let me stop you.”

  He stormed out, slamming the door. Papers on the table scattered from the breeze it created.

  Lessing looked at Kris Kelley. “We’ve got to tell him,” he said heavily. “Everything.”

  “Oh, hell,” she sighed. “I’ll go get him.”

  7

  Ben didn’t have to wonder long if his bluff had worked. He had barely leaned back in his chair, boots on his desk, when Kris Kelley sailed into his office.

  “Look,” she said tightly, as if saying the words might choke her, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. We need you back in there.”

  “You look,” he said, swinging his feet off the desk and planting them firmly on the ground. “This is my town. If anything bad happens to it or the people in it—”

  “I know, I know,” she said irritably. “I’m trying to apologize, Chief!”

  “And I appreciate that. But if you and the gang in there want any further cooperation from me, you’ll have to damn well tell me what’s really going on. You can’t expect me to sit there and listen to bunk about it being only a homicide when there’s a gaggle of government agents sitting around my conference table.”

  Kris half smiled. “A gaggle?”

  He didn’t smile back.

  “Okay,” she said, shrugging. “You’ve got it. We’ll tell you everything. But you’ll have to swear not to repeat anything you hear in that room. Not to anyone you work with, your friends, Abby Northrup…no one.”

  Ben almost told her to forget it. For a few minutes in there his pride had been hurt, and he’d wanted to force them to take him into their confidence. Now that he’d won the point, though, he’d probably be better off to walk away and wash his hands of the FBI. Tell them to get the hell out of here, and let the chips fall where they may.

  The only thing that kept him from doing that was the thought that being on the inside might be the only way he could protect Abby.

  Hoisting his six-foot-two frame out of the chair, he rested his hands on his hips. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

  Ben took the same chair he’d had before, next to Lessing, who gave him a nod as if Ben had merely excused himself a few minutes to use the restroom. Kris Kelley’s expression was noncommittal as she took her own seat.

  Lessing looked at a man halfway down the table. “Agent Bollam?”

  “Sir.” The agent walked over to the light switch, flicking off the overheads. Pulling a cart that held a slide projector from a corner, he positioned it behind and to the right of Agent Lessing. Pointing it toward the far wall so that everyone could see, he said, “I’d like to begin with some background.”

  He brought up a photograph of two people who looked to be in their twenties or early thirties. The woman had long, curly, strawberry-blond hair that looked windblown and covered half her face. It didn’t hide her smile, though, nor her beautiful large hazel eyes. The man had black hair, and his arms were around the woman from behind, holding her tightly and smiling, his cheek against hers.

  “These are Alicia Gerard’s parents,” Bollam said, “Pat and Bridget Devlin.” Behind them was a sign that read Dublin Automotive Services, and in one of the open bays was a dark blue car that Ben, a classic-car nut, recognized as an Irish-built MG Midget, circa 1960s.

  “That photo was taken about forty years ago,” Bollam said. “Pat and Bridget Devlin would be in their sixties now.”

  He changed the slide to one that depicted the scene of an accident. There were police cars, ambulances and a crowd gathered along a highway with a steep cliff on one side. At the bottom of a ravine was wreckage.

  “Some of you might recall hearing about a school bus being blown off the road in Ireland in the seventies. Twenty-eight out of the twenty-nine children aboard were killed.”

  A few of the agents nodded.

  “Pat Devlin was—is,” he corrected himself, “a brilliant man, a scientist with ties to the IRA. His specialty, in those days, was building explosive devices. After the school bus attack, fragments of the bomb were found, as were certain ‘fingerprints,’ as they say—details in its construction that led straight to Pat Devlin.”

  “My God,” Ben said. “H. P. Gerard’s father-in-law? He blew up that bus?”

  “Long before Alicia ever met H. P., of course. She would have been around five at the time. And while Pat Devlin did build the bomb the IRA used, he may not have known precisely what it was about to be used for. Reportedly, he was so sickened by the deaths of those children, he tried to get out of the IRA. As the country’s top expert in explosives, however, Devlin was too useful to them. They threatened his family if he tried to leave.”

  “But he did leave,” one of the agents pointed out.

  Lessing nodded. “He somehow got false papers for his family and fled Ireland overnight with Bridget and Alicia, leaving their home just as it was—food on the table, mail in the box, cat in the yard.”

  “Incredible,” Ben said. “How do you know all this?”

  “I can’t reveal our sources,” Lessing answered. “Sorry. But let me get to the point. We have solid information—not just chatter—that a splinter group of the IRA calling themselves The Candlelights are using Pat Devlin again. This time, he’s in America, and he’s building the most devastating explosive device this country has ever seen. The Candlelights plan to use it on the fourteenth of this month—exactly one week from today.”

  He paused, and his mouth twisted slightly. “Unfortunately, we’ve had no luck finding The Candlelights, and we don’t know where they plan to attack. Our mission, therefore, is to find Pat Devlin. That bomb must never be completed.”

  Good God, Ben thought, be careful what you ask for. All I wanted was a little more action, and now…

  Lessing’s cell phone rang, and he left the table for a few minutes to take the call. When he returned, Bollam began again.

  “As I was saying, Pat, Bridget and Alicia Devlin left Ireland rather abruptly when Alicia was five, using false papers to enter the United States. That would be thirty-five years ago. We know they lived under different assumed names in Philadelphia for a while, then Miami and Los Angeles. We also know the Irish police spent three years looking for them without success, before moving on to what they called ‘more important’ matters. Meantime, this splinter group of the IRA, The Candlelights, was also looking for the Devlins. Every time anyone thought they’d caught up with them, however, they’d find an empty apartment or house. The Devlins apparently knew, somehow, when they were about to be caught.”

  Ben spoke up. “So you think someone was helping them out.”

  “We have to assume that was the case,” Bollam said.

  One of the agent
s at the table asked, “Do we know where this group, The Candlelights, came from? What’s their agenda?”

  “As I understand it,” Bollam said, “in the early days of the Troubles, as they call it, women in Ireland used to leave a candle burning in a window every night, to welcome the men home after their ‘activities.’ We don’t know why, but the name seems to have been picked up by this new splinter group. As to their agenda, it’s the same as all terrorist groups—to throw people into fear and create chaos.”

  He flipped the slides to show two plain, inexpensive-looking cottages and an apartment house. “The Devlins’ cottages were in Philadelphia and Miami. The apartment house is on Crenshaw in L.A. This is all we have on them. Over the years, the Irish police and the IRA apparently gave up hunting for them. There’s been little interest, until recently, in finding Pat Devlin.”

  He stopped to take a sip from his glass of water, then pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his chin and tie where the water had dribbled.

  “Ah, geez, Joe,” a pink-faced agent with bright red hair said. “You were looking so professional up there till now.”

  There was mild laughter from the other agents, and a smile from Bollam. “Just don’t forget I’m your senior,” he said.

  “In age, maybe,” the first agent came back with.

  “We don’t have much time,” Lessing reminded them.

  Everyone quieted down and Bollam continued. “As I was saying, no agency with an interest was ever able to find Pat and Bridget Devlin. There’s no record of them having become naturalized citizens, so if they’re still in this country, they’re here illegally. Unfortunately, it seems they’ve changed their names and identity papers every time they’ve moved, so they’re living as much underground as if they were in a witness protection program.”

  “Is that a possibility?” Ben asked.

  “Not that we know of—and presumably, we would. To hide out the way they have, there must have been someone helping them. Especially recently, given the new technologies we have for finding terrorists—” he paused and looked around the table “—it must be someone with experience at hiding people, someone who can provide false identities and money.”

  There was a small silence, then Ben said testily, “You’d better not be suggesting that Abby Northrup is involved in some way. If so, that’s crazy—”

  “I hadn’t really thought of that until just now,” Lessing broke in, raising a steel-gray brow. “But thank you for your input, Chief Schaeffer. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Ben began to retort but decided against it.

  “Bolly?” Lessing said.

  Agent Bollam put the photo of a man on the screen. “We now come to last night’s murder. This is the victim, John Duff. We know he was working on an article about splinter groups of the IRA and their connection to other terrorist organizations. Further, we know that while writing this article he stumbled on the whereabouts of Pat Devlin. We also know that Duff, an alcoholic, had been on a downward slide. We believe he dumped the original article and turned his attention to Alicia Gerard, the Devlins’ daughter. He must have seen the wife of H. P. Gerard as being a golden goose that could ease the pain of his financial woes.”

  “Blackmail?” Ben said.

  Bollam nodded. “A large deposit to his bank account was made yesterday, just hours before he was murdered. We traced the deposit back to Alicia Gerard, and we have to assume that Duff was demanding money from her to keep silent about her parents’ whereabouts. It could even be that he threatened Alicia herself with exposure. She was born in Ireland and her papers of entry were as fraudulent as those of her parents. Of course, in ordinary times, marrying an American citizen would have made her legal. But since 9/11…well, there are no guarantees that her marriage to H. P. Gerard would be taken into consideration. She could well be declared illegal and deported, if her status came to the attention of certain authorities.”

  “Are we talking about the Patriot Act here?” Ben asked.

  “Initially. But there are other laws that have sprung up, as well, since 9/11—laws that might cause someone innocent to be deported simply because they appear to be guilty, an enemy of the state, so to speak.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you admit that,” Ben said. “I thought there were more controls over that sort of thing now.”

  “Yes, well, that and other fairy tales…” Lessing said. “We also have to assume, and we’re ninety percent sure of this, that Alicia Gerard knows where her parents are, and has been helping to cover their tracks for years.”

  Ben studied the face on the screen. This man, Duff, looked familiar. In his sixties or so, he had thinning gray hair and a somber, ascetic look. Thinking back, Ben was sure that when he’d had a subscription to the Washington Post, he’d read articles in it by John Duff. He thought he recalled that Duff had won a Pulitzer years ago for a series of articles. Searching his memory, though, all he came up with was something about illegal immigrants educating their kids here in the U.S.

  He shook his head. “I can’t see Alicia Gerard—a woman who makes speeches around the country about the need for better health care for everyone, a woman most of the country knows and loves for her kindness and charity work—I just can’t see her cold-bloodedly slitting someone’s throat.”

  “Did you ever have to do something desperate to protect someone you loved?” Lessing argued. “A mother or father? Any family member?”

  “No,” Ben had to admit. “My parents own a grocery store in Gilroy. Thankfully, they’ve lived pretty quiet lives.”

  There was that time two years ago when he’d had to kill someone to save Abby, but he wasn’t about to talk to these people about that.

  Lessing turned back to Bollam and nodded. The agent cleared his throat. “Now we come to the real reason we’re searching for Alicia Gerard. Everything we’ve said up to now about Duff blackmailing her, and that she may have killed him to silence him, is true according to our information. It is also true, however, that we’ve been having Alicia Gerard followed for the past three months. Our interest in her did not begin with this murder.”

  “Oh?”

  “She was already being followed by the FBI,” Lessing said. “One of our agents was only minutes behind Alicia when John Duff was murdered at the Highlands Inn last night. We can’t know for certain that she didn’t murder Duff, but according to our agent’s report, it would seem she wasn’t in the room long enough for that.”

  “Just how long do you think it takes to slit a man’s throat?” Ben said. “A minute—half a minute? You can’t rule her out.”

  “True. The point is, and I can’t go into detail, our agent has reason to believe she didn’t do it.”

  “So you raised all this ruckus about Alicia Gerard being wanted for murder,” Ben said irritably, “when you pretty much knew she didn’t do it? Why, in the name of God—”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lessing said. “We need Alicia Gerard to lead us to her father. Without him, The Candlelights are incapable of waging this attack. Thus, we’re using the murder at the Highlands as a reason to get as many law enforcement agencies as possible looking for Ms. Gerard—without having to tell them the reason why.”

  “But you must have some idea of what their target is,” Ben said impatiently. “I can’t believe that’s all your informant could tell you.”

  “Believe whatever you wish,” Lessing said shortly. “Nevertheless, the target isn’t our main concern. Or, to put it another way, the entire country is their target. Unfortunately, we can’t protect the entire country. Bolly?”

  The agent put up a slide that listed various chemical agents. “It’s all about bioweapons now,” he said. “The latest research has resulted in chemicals that, unlike a conventional destructive bomb, can travel through the air. This is similar to the ‘dirty bombs’ that use conventional explosives to fling radioactive isotopes out into the air in a cloud of dust. Now, with the right kind of explosives, they can do that with bioweapons. Within hours,
millions of deadly particles could reach as far north as Maine and as far west as Los Angeles, killing every living being in their path.”

  “Not everyone,” Lessing said, “would be in their path, of course, depending on how the winds carry the particles. Also, the chemicals’ effects might only last as long as a half hour. People who were in their basements, for instance, or rooms without windows, while the particles were passing through, might have a slim chance of surviving. But can you imagine what it would be like to survive such a thing? Millions of funerals for weeks on end, tiny little caskets and beside them weeping mothers…” He shuddered. “Mothers who will undoubtedly wish they, too, were dead.”

  “My God,” Ben said. “This is the kind of device Pat Devlin is building? Is this man crazy, or just plain evil?”

  Lessing didn’t answer, but the strained expression on his pale face and that of the other agents told him they were not only in agreement, but afraid. Everyone here undoubtedly had a family—wives, children, mothers, fathers. Many of them probably lived in various parts of the country, and no one could count on being safe.

  The red-haired agent spoke up. “Aside from being evil, this whole thing is stupid. Don’t these people know they’re going to start a chain reaction that will only come back and bite them?”

  “I doubt they care,” Lessing said. “At least, not about their individual lives. Think of the al-Qaeda suicide bombers. These small splinter groups like The Candlelights are willing to do almost anything to prove themselves to al-Qaeda, because if they can succeed in that, al-Qaeda will back them with money. That’s why The Candlelights are targeting the U.S.—to get their hands on al-Qaeda’s funds. Not that they’re linked by any common philosophy, but their goals are the same—to create chaos and keep people in fear.” Lessing shook his head. “Goddamn idiots! Once these chemicals are released, they could be distributed over hundreds of miles by the force of the blast. From there, the jet stream could disperse them thousands of miles in any direction.”

  “Thousands of miles…” one agent said softly.