by Meg O'Brien
“I’m sorry,” Abby said again, looking at the slight form on the bed. He couldn’t have long to live, she thought, not in that condition. Besides the respirator, there were tubes everywhere.
And she couldn’t even begin to think what to do now. If she told the authorities where to find the Devlins, they’d come down on them immediately. But to what point? And who in the intelligence agencies had screwed up so badly? Why on earth had they thought Pat Devlin was making that bomb? Were they going on one person’s report? Rumor? They had said “credible” intel. Where had it come from? Was it all a mistake, or was there more to it?
No matter what, this was terrible. If Pat Devlin wasn’t making a doomsday bomb, was someone else? And if so, how could he ever be caught in time? They’d already wasted far too long on the wrong man.
She turned to Alicia. “Can we talk?”
Alicia nodded. She went over to her father’s bedside and stood there a minute, looking down and touching his hand. His eyes remained closed, and when Alicia turned back, she was crying silently.
Her mother hugged her, and Alicia said, “I’ll be back to relieve you.”
“It was nice to meet you, Abby,” Bridget said. “I hope…I mean, you have to do what you feel is right, of course. But until this whole thing is over, I hope you understand that we can’t possibly let you leave here.”
31
Dell escorted Abby into Alicia’s bedroom. He was courteous but firm, and Abby was too shocked to resist.
“I’d like your cell phone, please,” he said, holding out a hand. She grudgingly turned it over.
So, it had turned out that she couldn’t trust her old friend after all. She was to be held prisoner here until…“until this whole thing is over.” What whole thing? Did she mean the attack? Or something else?
As Dell left, Alicia entered the room. Abby turned on her angrily. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“I had to, Abby. You don’t understand.”
“You’re damned right I don’t understand! You’re obviously using me. For starters, why don’t you ask me why I’m here?”
“All right, then! Why are you here?”
“Among other reasons, for Jancy,” Abby said.
“Jancy? What about her? She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Nice of you to ask. And sure, she’s fine. Since you left her with me, she’s run away twice and been kidnapped once. But not to worry, Allie. Jancy’s just fine.”
“Oh, my God. I thought…I was sure she’d be all right with you.”
“I guess you haven’t noticed that Jancy has a mind of her own?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. She’s at the Prayer House now, she’s fine, and we don’t have time for this. Allie, you’ve got to call the CIA or the FBI and tell them your father is here. They need to know where that bomb is, and they need to stop him from turning it over to The Candlelights.”
“Abby, my father is on his deathbed! Surely they can’t believe he’d be involved in anything like that, in his condition!”
“Still, he must know something about it. He may be ill, Allie, but if he can still talk—”
Alicia covered her eyes and began to cry. “I can’t, I just can’t. Abby, you don’t understand!”
“Then tell me,” Abby said. “Start at the beginning, with the murder at the Highlands, and tell me everything. But, for God’s sake, get on with it, Allie! We’ve only got hours left now.”
Or minutes, possibly, before various government agents came streaming in. And she still hadn’t heard from Kris, so she must not have Danny yet. The timing would be delicate: convince Allie to turn her father in, but get her to wait until Kris called with the go-ahead—assuming she managed to get her cell phone back. And manage all of this before the feds showed up.
That didn’t allow much time for idle chatter.
Alicia sat on the bed, her shoulders slumping. “That reporter at the Highlands, Duff? He knew about my parents’ background with the IRA, and he heard that Gerry had been asked to run for the presidency in the next election. He figured he could get some money out of us to keep quiet about my parents’ illegal status and whereabouts. I gave him some, but of course he wanted more, and I knew it would never end.”
She lay down, pulled the comforter up to her chin and hugged it as a child would. “So it made sense that the police might think I killed him to shut him up. Even as shaken as I was, standing there looking at all that blood, with Jancy scared and sobbing her eyes out next to me, I could see that. I panicked, Abby. Instead of calling the police, I came to you. I felt sure you’d take in Jancy, if nothing else.”
“While you jetted off to Galveston to warn your parents that their story might come out during the investigation of Duff’s murder?”
“I…yes. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Well, I understand your reasoning, even if I don’t agree with it. But why didn’t you just tell me what was going on? I’d have taken in Jancy regardless, and you could have trusted me not to tell any of this to the police—at least till we could sort it all out.”
“But I didn’t know that, Abby. How could I? We haven’t talked in ages, and I’d heard you and the police in Carmel were pretty thick.”
“Oh? How did you hear a thing like that?”
“You remember those news reports about the attack on you two years ago? After your friend Marti was killed? They mentioned what happened to you, too, and how you had helped the police to find your friend’s killer.”
It was true, Abby thought, that the story had hit all the wire services. Tabloids had picked up on the more salacious news, like the fact that Ben and Abby were living together. Living together might not be salacious these days, but the crude details they made up were.
“So, you left Jancy with me and took a roundabout route to Galveston to throw the cops and the horde of government agents off,” Abby said. “Alicia, didn’t you think I’d come after you? In fact, didn’t it even strike you that The Candlelights might try to kill me if I came after you? Anything, to keep me from finding your mother and father?”
Alicia’s eyes widened. “My God, Abby, if that’s what happened, I’m so sorry! But I truly never thought you’d get involved in any of this.”
“By any of this, you mean the fact that your father was building them a bomb?”
“Oh, Abby, I really am sorry. It never entered my mind that you’d find out what this was all about, or that you’d come looking for me. I just knew you were devoted to helping kids, and I thought it was the most I could hope for, that you’d take care of Jancy.”
“So, you get to Galveston,” Abby said, “and find your father with possibly hours to live. And you say he’s been in and out of the hospital for the past five weeks. If that’s the case, he can’t have been working on that bomb after all.”
Alicia looked away.
“He hasn’t, has he?” Abby said. “Well, they could still formally charge him with being in the country illegally, and he and your mother would probably be deported. But as I see it, that’s the worst that could happen—at least, to them. The murder charges against you are another matter. But the sooner they know your father has been too ill to work with The Candlelights, the sooner they can start hunting for whoever is.”
“No,” Alicia said, shaking her head and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands.
“No?”
“They’d still come here to question him, Abby. And you’ve seen him. He goes in and out of that state, and he might get confused and say something he shouldn’t.”
“You mean he might name somebody in The Candlelights or the IRA? What do you care? The police could provide all of you with protection.”
Alicia didn’t answer.
Abby grabbed one of her shoulders and half shook her. “For God’s sake, we’re talking about stopping a terrorist organization from killing millions of people. Hours from now, Allie! If you think 9/11 was bad, thi
s—” She let her go, then wiped her hands on her pants, as if to remove dirt from them. “You don’t want to be responsible for this.”
Alicia started to cry. “I know. I just can’t—”
“Stop it! I’m sick of hearing that! What the hell are you holding back?”
Alicia looked at her with all the misery of the world written in her eyes. “It’s not my dad,” she said softly. “It’s my mom.”
Abby felt confused. “Your mother? Bridget? What about her?”
“She’s the one, Abby. The one who…” Alicia broke off and swallowed as if the words had stuck in her throat.
Abby’s heart sank. “You don’t mean…oh, God, Allie. You can’t mean she’s the one making the bomb!”
“They threatened her, Abby. They said if she didn’t, they’d kill me and Jancy. She tried to tell them she didn’t know anything about chemicals, but they already knew somehow….”
“Knew what?”
Allie shook her head and looked away.
“C’mon, Allie! Knew what?”
Alicia’s chin went up. “All right, dammit! But you’ve got to understand that it wasn’t her fault. Times were different, forty, fifty years ago in Ireland when she was young. She had to choose sides.”
“You’re saying she chose the IRA? She and your father? I already know that, Allie. And I do understand. But what about now? What about today?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you. But you’ve got to promise to listen without interrupting me till I’m done.”
“I’m not promising a damn thing,” Abby said angrily. “But you’d better start talking before I shake it out of you.”
Alicia took a deep breath. “The Candlelights, Abby, are a group consisting mostly of women. Their roots go back a couple of centuries, when middle- and upper-class women were responsible for taking care of the poor. Charity was an actual job for women then, and it was how they became part of the political process. But eventually, their work became less abut charity and more about extreme political measures.”
Abby couldn’t hold back her scorn. “So you’re saying she’s still in the IRA? And she thinks that creating a bomb to wipe out half of the United States, and maybe the world, will improve the situation in Ireland?”
“No! God, no! She hasn’t been involved in any of that since they came to this country when I was little. My mom and dad are good people, Abby. They’ve made it their life’s work to do penance for their past wrongs by helping people in need.”
“Until now, you mean.”
“No, until a few months ago. Abby, I swear I didn’t know anything about this until I got here this time. I was just coming to see my dad, the way I’ve been doing every month since he got sick. But this time, I guess because he’s so near the end, my mom decided to tell me what’s been going on.”
“Nice of her to foist that off on you.”
“No, I made her tell me, Abby. That’s what I meant by you not understanding. My mom’s near the breaking point. I could see she was holding something in, and it was making her sick. So I forced it out of her.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“The daughter of an old friend of hers, she said, someone she grew up with, showed up here a few months ago. She’s in The Candlelights in Ireland, and she somehow learned that my mom and dad were living here. This woman came here and threatened my father. She was sent here with a message—work for The Candlelights. Do what they want, or they’d kill me and Jancy.”
Alicia began to shake. She threw off the comforter and stood and paced, as if trying to work off her fear. “Abby, The Candlelights have devolved into a terrorist bunch of women and men. They bear almost no resemblance to the earlier Candlelights. These are no longer middle-and upper-class philanthropists. They have very little money, and they’re willing to do anything to get it.”
“In this case,” Abby said, “by proving themselves worthy of being funded by al-Qaeda.”
“Precisely. I dread to think what they plan to do with all that money. But, Abby, the point is, my mother doesn’t belong to them and doesn’t want anything to do with them. That school bus bombing back when I was little was more than she and my father could take, and the way they’ve been living…I really meant it when I said it’s like they’ve been doing penance ever since.”
“Do The Candlelights know it’s your mother who’s actually working on the bomb?”
“It was their idea,” Alicia said. “My mother tried to get my father out of it at first, by telling them he was ill. She pleaded with them to find someone else. But The Candlelights knew that she had learned about chemicals from my father all those years ago. They said it didn’t matter how sick he was—she could do it, and he could show her anything she didn’t know.”
“So, it’s the bioweapons she’s been working on? Not the actual bomb?”
“Yes. The bomb is being stored somewhere else. She doesn’t know where, and she isn’t really working on the chemicals at all. She’s faking the work, doing just enough so they’ll believe she’s making progress. This woman—the one who came here before—she comes around every now and then to check on her. We don’t know when to expect her, so my mom has to have something new ready every time. Fortunately, this woman doesn’t know enough about chemicals to know whether they’re the real thing or not.”
“That’s pretty stupid,” Abby said. “Even drug dealers test a product before they buy it, to make sure it’s real.”
“My mom’s been afraid of that. She thinks there must be someone who will do that after the package is delivered.”
“The package?”
“That’s what the woman who comes here calls it.”
“Is this woman’s name Linda, by any chance?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Let’s just say I was mistaken for her.” Which could be useful at some point. I’ll just have to figure out how.
“The Candlelights must be getting anxious for this package,” Abby said. “Their target date is tomorrow, and today is half over. What is your mother telling her?”
“That my father’s gotten worse and he hasn’t been able to help her with it.”
“Meanwhile, they’re threatening to kill you and Jancy,” Abby said, “unless she has it ready to go by…when?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight. Is Linda the one picking it up?”
“That’s what she said.”
And the man on the phone was waiting for it to be delivered. By Linda. Furthermore, he was holding some “kid” at that house out on the marshlands until she arrived.
What kid? And why was he holding him? If Gerry Gerard had Danny, and Jancy was at the Prayer House—
Abby turned to ice. She grabbed Alicia’s arm. “I need to make a call, Allie. I need to make it right now.”
Alicia shook her head. “Dell told me not to let you talk to anyone outside this house.”
“And you listen to him? All the time?”
“He’s keeping us safe.”
“Safe from who?”
Alicia shrugged. “The authorities…I don’t know. The police, the INS, whoever might want to arrest my mom and dad.”
“Allie, wake up! There will be government agents all over this place any minute now. Your dad is too sick to run, and your mom probably won’t leave his side. So it’s over. The best thing you can do for them—and you—is to turn them in yourself.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” Alicia cried. “I can’t turn my own parents in! There has to be another way.”
“There is,” Abby said. “But you have to be willing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could do it for you. I could tell them where your mother and father are. When they hear the true story, especially about your father’s condition and your mother’s unwillingness to work on the bomb—in fact, the way she’s faked her work on the bomb—I don’t think they’ll be too hard on them.”
“No! Abby, they’d take us away from one another. They�
�d split us up and put him in some government hospital. He wouldn’t have either of us, and we’ve got to be with him when he…” She began to cry. “He’s only got a few more days, Abby—if that. A few more days.”
A few more days might give Alicia more time with her father, but who would The Candlelights harm when they realized they’d been duped? The child they held hostage? Jancy?
“They gave up so much for me,” Alicia said. “They went into hiding to keep me safe, you know, not them.” She dried her eyes and blew her nose on the tissue Abby handed her. Folding her arms, she rocked back and forth, as if the motion itself could ease her pain. Abby remembered her mother doing that in hard times, and she’d been told “rocking” was the Irish way of dealing with grief. She sat quietly as Alicia went on, hoping that once she got out the pain she might see more clearly what she needed to do.
“After they came to this country,” Alicia said, “they couldn’t find work at first, and the little money they’d brought with them didn’t last long. My mother said I cried myself to sleep every night for a week from hunger, and it broke her heart. She had to make ‘pancakes’ for me out of flour and water when they ran out of food, just to fill my stomach. She did everything to protect me.”
Alicia took a deep breath. “Abby, I know that what these people are doing now is wrong. God, wrong? It’s monstrous! There aren’t really any words strong enough to describe it. But my mother has been determined to protect me and Jancy by doing whatever they ask, at least right up to the very last minute. I’ve pleaded with her for the past three days to go to the police or the FBI. I’ve tried to convince her that Jancy is in a safe place, and not to worry about me. I’ve even threatened to go to the police myself. She just keeps saying ‘no.’ Over and over, sometimes, like a mantra. ‘No…no…no…’ Abby, she has the most desperate look in her eyes. How can I do that to her at the very time my father—her husband—is dying?”
“Your mother is overwhelmed by your father’s illness, Allie. She isn’t thinking straight.”
Alicia turned a pale, tearstained face to Abby. “I don’t know, Ab. I just don’t know what to do.”