by Jon Land
The cab reeled over the ice ruts like a roller-coaster car, until it stopped in traffic across from a group of merry carolers and Santa Claus ringing his bell. Santa shoved a copper cup toward passersby who tried to avoid making a donation.
Santa saw the snarl in traffic and moved into the street to take advantage of it. Blaine wondered if he got a percentage of the take for his trouble. He leaned back and squeezed his eyes closed, the cold air streaming through the window, keeping him alert. Horns honked, blared.
A bell disturbed him and forced his eyes open.
“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”
Santa was coming toward the driver’s side of the cab, aiming for the open window. Blaine slid over to roll it up, but the fake-bearded man got there too fast.
“Merry Christmas! Something for the poor and needy, sir?”
Blaine shrugged. Paying the man would be the quickest way to get rid of him. He reached into his pocket, groping for some change.
Santa thrust his copper cup farther into the car. There was something peculiar about the angle at which he held it …
Blaine’s hand emerged with a pair of quarters.
… and something even more peculiar about the way he held his eyes.
It was the eyes that moved McCracken to action more than anything. Just as Santa started his cup forward, Blaine lurched to the side and watched its liquid contents spray by him, splattering the upholstery. Hot steam began to rise as the vinyl and cloth beneath it melted.
Acid! McCracken realized, the Browning already in his hand.
Santa had his gun out, too, but Blaine sent two shots into him high and hard before he could fire it, staining his lapels the scarlet color of his suit. Santa pitched backward, slammed into another traffic-wedged car, and then slumped to the cement.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” screamed the cabbie, and his hand groped desperately for the door handle.
A number of bystanders chuckled because it looked like Santa had finally gone for one dollar too much. A few even applauded.
There was no mistaking the actions of the carolers, though.
In unison, as if rehearsed, they pulled weapons from inside their overcoats. The first out was a sawed-off shotgun and its wielder fired both barrels as Blaine hugged the taxi’s floor. The pellets turned the car’s frame into a pincushion and the cabbie’s head into splinters of bone. The shock of death forced his foot down, and the cab shot off to the right, colliding with one car, another, then pushing a third with it onto the sidewalk before coming to a stop.
Blaine was tossed violently one way and then the other. His hand grasped for the door handle and yanked it hard. The door sprung open and the movement threw his body onto the sidewalk. The cab itself provided cover.
The carolers fanned out in military fashion, oblivious to the screams and panic of those around them. A series of sprays from the machine pistol of one tore into the cab’s engine block and rocketed flames outward.
McCracken rolled away, exposing himself long enough for a pair of carolers to empty clips at him, chewing cement and spitting glass everywhere. He rolled again and found cover behind a truck.
He crawled under it and locked his Browning on two carolers gliding across the street with heavy rifles in hand before them. Only seven shots remained in the Browning, and his spare clip was still in the overcoat he had left at Madame Rosa’s. He had to make each shot count.
He squeezed off a pair at the two approaching carolers, taking both in the head and dropping them there. Before their bodies had even struck pavement, a hail of fire coughed up fresh tar before him, coming from two directions at once. The impact stunned him briefly, and he was only vaguely conscious of figures darting across the street to better their positions.
Christ, how many carolers had there been? Six? Eight? Ten maybe? … A fucking army!
Blaine could tell they were trying to encircle him. They would keep him pinned where he was with heavy fire while they readied a simultaneous offensive he could not possibly survive. He could hear the distant wail of sirens now, but traffic and icy roads considered, the police could not possibly arrive in time to be of any help to him. He would have to beat the carolers on his own.
How, though?
Blaine pushed himself backward and felt his foot dip into an opened manhole at the rear of the truck. He had a vision of plunging downward to his death and saving the carolers the bother. Wait! Plunge, yes, but not to his death!
McCracken dragged his frame backward so that his legs passed into the manhole, beneath which lay the labyrinth of tunneled storm drains the DPW was currently servicing. A perfect escape route.
But he needed more.
With his legs dangling down the manhole, Blaine waited for the next hail of fire from the approaching carolers before firing two of the Browning’s shells into the truck’s fuel tank. Gas began to spill immediately, some spraying him.
He could feel the carolers’ footsteps almost on top of the truck now. Sirens wailed closer but not close enough. Then he saw feet, lots of them, everywhere around the truck. That was his cue. He pushed the rest of his body into the manhole and plunged into the bowels of New York City.
Upon landing, Blaine yanked a wad of cash from one pant pocket and his lighter from another, flicking it to life. The dried bills caught on contact and he hurled the flaming packet through the manhole opening into the spill of gasoline.
The explosion came almost instantly. McCracken felt the intense heat of the blast surge into him as he ducked and covered his head. He feared for a moment that the flames might follow the heat and consume him. They descended as if shot from a flamethrower, then gave way to coarse black smoke. There were more explosions, smaller secondary ones, mixed with agonized screams from above.
The screams didn’t last long, though. All of the carolers had been too close to the truck to avoid the blast. Most of them were probably in pieces by now.
Blaine rose to his feet, finding that his head just cleared the ceiling of the storm drain. His plunge through the manhole had brought the pain to his back again, but he moved quickly in spite of it. The drain, lit by sporadically placed lamps, was growing dank and putrid by the time he was a hundred yards in.
Finding a spot to climb out proved harder than he had hoped. The many manhole covers he passed were impossible to push off from below. He had to keep walking until he found another DPW crew performing similar service.
It took a good half mile before he came upon one.
“Mayor’s office,” he said, straight-faced, to the men gawking disbelievingly at him as he climbed a ladder back to the street. “Just wanted to make sure you boys weren’t tanking on the job.”
Blaine was no longer concerned about being spotted by potential assailants. He was predominantly conscious instead of his grubby, damp clothes and the attention they might attract. He would have to make arrangements to wash and change somehow, but first he would have to call Stimson. He had plenty to tell him.
He reached an available public phone at the corner of Fifty-sixth and Madison and pulled the Gap director’s private number from his memory. The call went through unhindered by operator assistance or anything as mundane as regular charges. The access code punched prior to the number overruled the need for that.
“Yes?” The phone was answered by a male voice, but not Stimson’s.
“I need Stimson.”
“He is unavailable.”
“Get him.”
“He is—”
“Get him, you ass! Now!”
“I’ll send out a page,” the voice said after a brief pause.
Blaine wished he could have reached through the phone to tear the damn bureaucrat’s throat out. It was another minute before Stimson came on the line.
“This is Stimson.”
“We’ve got problems.”
“Blaine, is that you? What’s happened?”
“Long story. You’ll be hearing about much of it before too long, I suspect.”
“Violent ones. There are lots of people dead up here, Andy, and I was lucky not to be among them.”
Stimson paused. “Were you blown?”
“My investigation of Madame Rosa’s didn’t include the fringe benefits.”
“Blaine, please!”
“No, Andy, I wasn’t blown. They were waiting for somebody, that much I can tell you, and they must have had a pretty good idea it was me.”
“I need details, Blaine, details!”
“Madame Rosa’s dead. Her whole place is deserted. Somebody pulled a lot of strings and they waited until I got there to pull them. Outside I was made by Santa Claus and a bunch of elves who carried sawed-offs instead of Christmas presents. And you might be getting a bill from the city for one truck.”
“When I told you to crack all the balls you wanted, you took me at my word, didn’t you?”
“Only because I didn’t want mine cracked, Andy. This thing must be even bigger than we thought. And if you ask me, the Santa Claus I blew away has connections in places other than the North Pole.” Blaine paused. “What about the microfiche? Anything?”
“Nothing concrete, but we’re making progress.”
“If your computers can handle a little more work, I need a few checks made.”
“I’ve got pen in hand.”
“First, I need everything you can get me on someone or something called Sebastian.”
“That’s it, just Sebastian?”
“He or it was involved somehow with Madame Rosa, if that helps any.”
“It might. What else?”
“An Oriental named Chen, probably of Chinese extraction. Very small but very deadly. Alas, now very dead.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised. …”
“He’s probably a hired gun. Freelance. I’d like to know who he’s been working for lately.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody placed him with Madame Rosa, somebody with a lot of time, patience, and reasons. The Easton thing was set up for quite a while. Either Madame Rosa’s was infiltrated through and through, or Easton’s killers were invisible.”
“Do you need to be brought in?” Stimson asked grimly.
“The way I look right now, Andy, I’d have to travel in the baggage compartment. No, I’ll get cleaned up and hole up here for a few hours while you dig up that information for me. When should I call?”
“It’s almost two now. Say anytime after four.”
“Perfect.” Blaine was about to say goodbye when one final thought occurred to him. “Oh, and, Andy, that Santa Claus who’s seen his last chimney?”
“Yes?”
“He was black.”
Part Two
The Narcissus
Wednesday Afternoon to Saturday Afternoon
Chapter 7
“THE SPACE SHUTTLE ADVENTURER?”
Sandy Lister couldn’t believe what a nervous T.J. had just told her. She had spent the balance of the morning reviewing the information he had gathered and passed on the previous day concerning Krayman Industries. Little of his research would stand up in court, but it was accurate with one point irrefutable: Krayman Industries had channeled vast energies and resources into gaining control of different segments of the media and all spheres of telecommunication in general. The corporation was the controlling force behind twenty-seven local television stations nationwide, skirting FCC ownership regulations by forming new companies to control subgroups of stations in different regions. Holding all of them together and serving as an umbrella unit for Krayman’s vast holdings in the media, electronics, transportation, and computers was Communications Technology International. Tens of billions of dollars were involved. COM-U-TECH had become the ultimate consortium in the telecommunications field. But why? Men like Krayman did not move randomly. So what was he after?
“It’s something called an orbital flight plan,” T.J. continued, fidgeting nervously in the chair before Sandy’s desk.
“That’s all your air force friend was able to tell you?”
“We ain’t friends anymore, boss.”
“Lunch wasn’t pleasant?”
“Lunch never happened. Coglan just dropped the disk off like it was burning his fingers and pointed me in the FBI’s direction.”
“Obviously, he had a good reason for wanting you to get rid of it.”
“Sure. How does high treason grab you?”
Sandy started to laugh but quickly stopped when she saw T.J.’s sullen expression. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Not unless Captain Coglan was, and he didn’t seem to be in a joking mood.” T.J. sighed. “After the Challenger explosion, it was the Defense Department that saved the shuttle program and now furnishes virtually all of its funding. In typical Defense Department fashion, everything’s very hush-hush, and even if it weren’t, possessing a computer program made up of the last flight of a shuttle lost in space wouldn’t be looked at too kindly by the authorities. To put it bluntly, they might crucify us. So if you’re ready to go to the FBI, I’ll drive.”
“What happened to the gung-ho journalistic bravado from yesterday?”
“Deep down, I’m a coward.”
“Is that why you haven’t bothered speculating on why a murdered Krayman Industries employee would have an orbital flight plan disk in his possession?”
“Look who’s making the connections now. …”
“It would be hard for even a celebrity interviewer to miss them. Kelno worked for Krayman, he had the disk, I’m about to start a story on the man himself when a dying Kelno slips it into my purse. Sounds like a progression to me.
“You gonna take this to Shay?”
Sandy hedged. “Not yet.”
“Because you want it to be your story?”
“Because I haven’t got enough to take to him yet. Right now we’ve got two leads: Kelno and the disk. Your job is to dig up everything you can on Kelno while I find out exactly what good an orbital flight plan would be to anyone other than NASA.”
“How?”
“Your friend Captain Coglan. If lunch didn’t work, I’ll try dinner.”
McCracken began stripping off his dirty clothes as soon as the door to his room in the St. Regis on Fifty-fifth Street was chained behind him. It felt good to be out of them and he called down immediately to the hotel valet service to have his sport jacket and slacks cleaned and pressed. Yes, they assured him, the job could be done within an hour. An extra fee would be required, though. So what else is new? Blaine thought.
He took a long hot shower, steaming the grime away, ordered up a turkey club from room service, and after finishing it dialed Andrew Stimson’s private number at exactly four o’clock.
“Stimson,” came the Gap director’s voice.
“It’s Blaine, Andy.”
Silence filled the other end.
“Andy?”
“Hell of a mess you made outside Madame Rosa’s,” Stimson said sharply.
“Thought I’d warned you.”
“You damn near blew up the whole street. It’s a can of worms, Blaine, and if the truth comes out about your involvement, it’s gonna get spilled all over my lap. Every agency in the book is up there trying to piece together what happened … and I mean literally. There isn’t much left standing.”
“What about innocent bystanders?” Blaine asked reluctantly.
“Some hospitalized, none critical. Relax, your record’s intact. The essential point now is that it won’t take the Company and Bureau boys long to put together that a pro was responsible up there and that might lead them to my doorstep. They won’t like what they find inside. Remember, this whole assignment exists only between you and me.”
“I know.”
Stimson sighed. “I won’t tell you to go easy because I know I gave you a job to do. I would suggest that under the circumstances you leave New York.”
“Not until I find out where Sebastian fits in. Any luck finding him or it on y
our software?”
“It’s a he and he’s somebody else’s property.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the FBI’s been on to Sebastian—alias Don Louis Rose, alias J. D. Sabatini, alias Dominque Derobo—for some time. He’s a trafficker.”
“Drugs?”
“Some,” Stimson said. “But he specializes in people.”
“Ah, an old-fashioned white slaver …”
“Except Sebastian’s as black as they come and he deals in meeting orders for men and women, boys and girls of all makes and models. Most of his business comes from high-fashion whorehouses like Madame Rosa’s, but he has quite a few private clients as well.”
“The twins,” Blaine muttered.
“What?”
“The twins. Madame Rosa told me Easton ordered them special. She must have put me on to Sebastian because she knew he was the only other person who knew the twins’ delivery date, and not from the stork either. Where can I find Sebastian, Andy?”
Stimson hesitated. “I think you better steer clear of him.”
“Uh-uh. There are too many loose ends he can tie up. He had to tell somebody about the twins and that somebody set up the hit on Easton.”
“Blaine, the FBI’s got Sebastian eyeballed twenty-four hours a day. You walk in and they’ll have you eyeballed as well.”
“I’ll be subtle.”
“Sure.”
“Look, Andy, whoever infiltrated Madame Rosa’s would have known everything except the date of delivery for Easton’s twins. Only Madame Rosa and Sebastian would have known that and since the madame maintained the ultimate in discretion, that leaves us with Sebastian. Where is he?”
Stimson didn’t hesitate this time. “FBI reports indicate he moved out of his Manhattan penthouse two days ago. Since then he’s been holed up in a freighter he owns. It’s docked in New York harbor.”
“Two days ago. … Interesting.”
“I thought you’d like that. And there’s more. Sebastian’s got an army guarding his ship, almost like he’s expecting a siege.”
“The question is by whom?”