Malice kac-19

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  I didn't know that, thank you, Lucy had said, and hung up. The depth of Cian's isolation ate at her. I should have been a better friend, she thought.

  The memorial service had been a miserable affair: a cold, blustery day beneath gray skies that spit hard bits of snow that stung like sand. The only mourners present were the minister for hire, herself, her mother-who had insisted on paying so that Cian could be buried next to his parents instead of a potter's field-and Ariadne Stupenagel, who'd asked if it was okay to write the obituary.

  A few days later, the reporter had followed up with a touching narrative about the life and death of Cian Magee that had woven the life of a lonely man into the question marks surrounding his murder. Stupenagel had pushed hard to get the story about why Lucy was at the Celtic bookstore when it was firebombed. But Lucy and her father had agreed with Jaxon that it was not the time for the reporter to write a story about the Sons of Man.

  If they still exist, and if they are behind these events, Jaxon had said, then we have to find out who they are and what they intend to do. We have to solve the rest of the poem's riddle, and we won't be able to do that if they think we're onto them.

  You'd think that any group that has managed to keep its presence a secret for two hundred years, which I'm having a hard time buying, her father had said, would surely duck back down the rabbit hole before you could say Alice at the first hint of publicity.

  Right, Jaxon had agreed. If they do exist, we need them to feel like their secret is still safe. I'm not sure how much I buy into all of this, either, but I go back to the thought I had with Cian and that is the possibility of an Isle of Man nationalist connection to the Irish Republican Army. Are you sure you don't remember the names these families adopted from the book?

  No, Lucy had said, shaking her head. I didn't get to see that part of the book. Cian mentioned them but he was trying to save some of the story for…for you…and building the dramatic tension for me like any good Irish storyteller… And then there was no time.

  Lucy had not told Jaxon everything Cian had described in the book. She didn't know why she was reluctant to do so, but she just couldn't get past the fact that he arrived at Cian's apartment only after it was too late to save him.

  Back in New Mexico, she'd begun connecting dots like her father, though she wasn't aware of his notepad, and hers kept leading to a conclusion that he still refused to see and that was that Jaxon was a prime suspect. Why would he be so anxious for me to keep quiet about the Sons of Man? she thought. Then she'd gone to Colorado to see her mother and had been accidentally handed the answer to the riddle. The St. Patrick's Day Parade, when the Sons of Ireland marched!

  Returning to New York, she felt like the coyote in a story Jojola had told her: he kept returning to the trap, knowing it was dangerous, but he just couldn't stay away "until one day, he got too close." It was a parable along the lines of curiosity killing the cat, but Lucy wondered if she or the coyote really had a choice in the matter or if it was their fate.

  Two days after her return, Lucy got a call on her cell phone. She looked at the caller ID and didn't bother to answer; she knew there would be no one on the other end if she did. Instead, she waited until 7:00 p.m. and then "went for a walk" with Ned.

  Leaving her twin brothers in her parents' loft on Crosby and Grand, they strolled to Canal Street, then headed east into the heart of Chinatown. Pretending to be window-shopping like tourists, they suddenly nipped into Chen's Shanghai Emporium on Baxter and walked quickly to the back of the store. The family who owned and ran the store ignored them, even when they passed the sign that read Employees Only and went into a back storage area.

  Maneuvering past boxes of silk gowns and rubber-soled slippers embroidered with dragons and flowers, along with crates of "authentic" Mandarin swords and brass Buddhas, they found themselves face-to-face with an enormous Asian man. He was dressed in a bright yellow and red, flower-printed Aloha shirt and baggy jeans; the outfit didn't match his expression, which was essentially no expression at all and never changed as he opened the door to the office he was guarding and indicated they should go in.

  Inside, John Jojola and Tran were playing a game of chess. Jojola had just taken Tran's queen and placed his king in checkmate, which set the volatile Vietnamese gangster into a fit of rage. "You cheat, you American pig," he said, and added a few more slurs in Vietnamese.

  "You're the contents of a water buffalo's bladder," Lucy translated.

  "I've been called worse," Jojola chuckled, "including by him. Now, pay up, you old scoundrel, before I call immigration and have you thrown out of the country."

  Still grumbling and giving Lucy the evil eye, Tran yanked a fat wallet out of his pants pocket, plucked a dollar bill from its interior, and flung it at Jojola. "May your descendants look like apes and marry poorly because of your unnatural greed," he cursed.

  Lucy hugged both of the men and nodded toward the door. "Shouldn't that guy be like all dressed in black, with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and aviator sunglasses?"

  "How cliche," Tran scoffed. "Why would I want a bodyguard who looks like a bodyguard? Nobody gives a guy in an Aloha shirt a second thought."

  "They do when he's six three and weighs as much as my horse," Ned noted.

  With the small talk out of the way, Lucy and Ned sat down and she told them about how she'd jumped to her conclusion about the St. Patrick's Day Parade from Reedy's comment.

  "You think they might try to plant a bomb along the parade route?" Jojola asked.

  "That's what I worried about first," Lucy answered. "Terrorists do seem to like these big statements these days, with lots of blood and innocent people dying. But I think this is a different sort of terrorism. More subtle. The note says, 'a son of Man will march among the sons of Ireland and silence the critic.' Sounds more like one bad guy assigned to assassinate somebody."

  "Who?" Jojola asked.

  "I don't know," Lucy said. "Maybe the archbishop when he's blessing the marchers. He's certainly been making statements about the war in Iraq that has some right-wingers less than happy with him."

  "Are the Sons of Man right-wingers?" Ned asked.

  "I don't know, honey," Lucy answered. "I didn't get to hear everything that's in the book. But if you consider how they were marrying into wealthy families and spreading their tentacles into banking, law, finance, the military…and seemed to have a thing for power, then perhaps yes, they are righties. But then again, there are lots of crazy lefties with big bucks who seek change through the barrel of a gun."

  "What about the mayor?" Tran said. "He's usually at these things."

  "And so is every politician running for office from fifty miles around," Lucy said. "Plus the usual assortment of presidential hopefuls and members of Congress trying to remind the public of what they look like. Pretty good pickings."

  "So you want to tell me now why you aren't letting Jaxon in on this?" Jojola asked. "It was his recording, and you might just need a bit more backup than an old but virile Indian, a cowboy, and a decrepit, pajama-wearing Vietcong gangster."

  "Hey, watch who you're calling decrepit," Tran growled. "But I, too, am wondering about Jaxon. He's not bad for a fed, though I never thought I'd ever say that about any FBI."

  "I know this sounds insane," Lucy replied. "But I don't trust him anymore."

  Getting up to pace around the room, she outlined her suspicions surrounding the bombing of the bookstore. "But it goes back further than that, and it's a pretty long list. It was his guy, Grover, who betrayed everybody and helped Kane escape. Jaxon also knew where Archbishop Fey was being kept in the Witness Protection Program. He was there at Aspen. You know, maybe he's that Jamys Kellagh guy who Stupenagel says was in a photograph with Kane, and that's why they blew up the cafe. And before all of that, wasn't it just so convenient that he shows up in New York to take over the antiterrorist desk in the nick of time to ride to the rescue and help stop the terrorists from blowing up Times Square?"

&nb
sp; "That's a bad thing?" Jojola asked.

  "No, not on its face. But you and David Grale were onto the plot before my dad arrived with Jaxon and his crew in tow. None of the terrorists, by the way, survived that shootout, just like none survived the fight at St. Patrick's Cathedral or when Kane got cornered at the Columbia University boat dock. Maybe Jaxon makes sure they don't so they can't talk."

  "Seems like a stretch," Jojola said.

  "And why would he have brought that recording to you for translation?" Tran asked. "If he belonged to this Sons of Man, wouldn't he have already known what was on it?"

  "I thought a lot about that, too," Lucy admitted. "Then it came to me. What if I've been thinking about this all backward? What if it was the Sons of Man who intercepted the message from someone they were watching, and wanted to know what it said? If Jaxon worked for them, he'd know that I might be able to translate it without tipping off anybody in the FBI. Then when Cian did tell us what it said, the bad guys realized that we both had now heard the name, Sons of Man, and after Cian got the book, something about their history."

  "How would they know Cian had the book?" Jojola asked.

  "I called Jaxon and told him that Cian had something important to tell us about the Sons of Man," Lucy replied. "He could have put two and two together. Or he may have listened outside the window-Cian thought he heard someone out there-then made a quick decision to destroy the message and the messengers in the fire."

  "I don't mean to scare you, but why haven't they tried to kill you since?" Tran pointed out.

  "The book is gone and so is the only person who actually read it," Lucy answered. "I'm just a nutty twenty-one-year-old girl who comes up with this story about a secret society she can't prove exists but has something to do with a coded message in a nearly dead language. I'm sure I'll be taken seriously. And as far as Jaxon knows, I'm in New Mexico, so maybe I don't pose a threat."

  Lucy hung her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "It breaks my heart, but I can't afford to trust Espey. I hope I'm wrong about him, but a lot of people have died because someone in a position of trust betrayed them and us. And all the signs point to him. I guess this puts you in a tough spot, but I didn't know where else to turn. If you don't want to get involved without him, I understand, but I have to see this through for Cian."

  Ned whistled softly and shook his head. "I just can't believe that Mr. Jaxon is a traitor. Even the thought makes me sick to my stomach."

  "Me, too, Ned," Jojola agreed. "And I'm not sure I buy it even now. But I have to admit, Lucy's done a pretty good job of showing that he had the opportunity and the inside knowledge to do these things."

  "If it's true, this will kill my dad," Lucy said. "They've known each other since joining the DAO back around the Civil War, I think. Ever since he got back to town, Jaxon has been part of his inner circle of the guys at work. He tells them everything and trusts their opinions more than anyone else's in the world except my mom's."

  "Which would put him in the perfect position," Tran said. "I'm sorry to say, but there are many reasons why a man would betray his friends and his country. Sometimes it's money or power, but not always. Sometimes the traitor sees himself as the 'good guy' who has realized that he has been on the wrong side. These are certainly strange times and it is difficult to know who is the enemy and who is the friend. If this is true, perhaps like misguided men before him, Jaxon believes that what he is doing is for the 'greater good,' which is usually a euphemism for betrayal and dictatorship."

  "So we approach this problem without Jaxon," Jojola said. "What about that other dude, Jon Ellis, with Homeland Security?"

  Lucy thought about it. "I don't know. I don't like him personally. But I guess we have to trust somebody who has the muscle to help."

  "And your mother?" Tran asked. "She's pretty handy in a scrape."

  Lucy didn't answer right away. Her mother had followed her out of the restaurant, having jumped to the same conclusion about the St. Patrick's Day Parade threat. She wanted to fly back to Manhattan with Lucy and Ned, but her daughter had talked her out of it.

  "I'll have plenty of support in New York," she'd lied, knowing Marlene would assume she meant Jaxon. "Dad is going to need you in Idaho, especially if his case has something to do with the disappearance of Maria Santacristina. And you have a lot to do before the Baker Street guys show up."

  In actuality, Lucy did not want her mom present because she knew that Marlene wouldn't buy her theory about Jaxon and might insist that he be called. So she was relieved when her mom gave in as long as Lucy promised to let others handle "the rough stuff." Marlene had then made Ned swear "on pain of castration" that he'd make sure Lucy followed through.

  Lucy felt guilty about not being totally honest with her mother, but she had agreed to contact Ellis, and if there was any rough stuff, she would be happy to get out of the way.

  "Mom's in Idaho with Dad," she replied to Tran. "He needs her help right now with the trial only a couple of weeks away."

  After meeting with Jojola and Tran, Lucy looked for the business card Ellis had given to her months ago after debriefing her about having been Kane's hostage when he tried to escape. She found it in the bottom of her purse, where she'd tossed it, and gave him a call. He seemed happy but surprised to hear from her.

  "I need to talk to you," she said. "I think someone is planning an assassination during the St. Patrick's Day Parade."

  Ellis was silent for a moment, then spoke in a low voice. "Don't say anything more. Can you meet me?"

  "Yes. Where?"

  "You name it."

  "Okay, Grand Central Station under the constellations, nine o'clock tonight," she said.

  "Pretty public, but I'll be there," he said.

  Lucy had arrived early so she could get a seat on the mezzanine above the main terminal floor and watch for anyone "casing the joint." She laughed at herself for going into spy mode with the silly reference to meeting under the constellations. Anybody with half a brain and who knew Grand Central would immediately recognize it as the ceiling of the dome, where lights had been built in to represent a starry, constellation-filled sky.

  She saw Ellis arrive and waited for him to turn in her direction before giving a little wave. He didn't acknowledge the wave, but as he looked around he nonchalantly made his way to her table. She got right to her theory about an assassination occurring during the parade but had decided against telling him how she arrived at her conclusion. She didn't feel like being questioned about the Sons of Man or the book, which would have felt like having to defend Cian.

  "That doesn't give me a lot to go on," Ellis said. "But tell you what, there's going to be quite a few dignitaries at this year's parade-sort of a show of support for New York after the fiasco at St. Pat's-and I already have a Homeland Security detail assigned to the viewing platform at Eighty-sixth Street. I'll let them know there's a new potential threat."

  "What about the archbishop?" Lucy asked. "The tradition is for the archbishop to bless the marchers from the steps of St. Patrick's."

  "Well, this can't go any further," Ellis said. "But because of the grim nature of what occurred at St. Patrick's this past fall, the archbishop decided that it was too soon to be celebrating on the grounds. So he's decided to join the others on the viewing platform. We'll keep an extra guy on him. In fact, I'll be on the platform myself."

  Lucy picked up her purse to go, but Ellis stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Can I ask why you didn't pass this information to Jaxon?" His eyes locked onto hers.

  "He's no longer with the good guys, is he? I mean, he quit the FBI, so what good is he?" she replied, and left before she started to cry.

  The morning of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Lucy rose at five, leaving Ned asleep in bed. She crept out to the living room, where Gilgamesh lifted his massive head and wagged the stump of his tail. "Ssssshhhh, good doggie," she said as she located the clothes she'd secreted behind the couch. She slipped into a pair of long underwear and then several layers o
f other clothes. Grabbing her parka from the coatrack by the front door, she slipped out.

  So far so good, she thought as the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened.

  Jojola and Tran stood there with amused looks on their faces. The Vietnamese gangster looked at his watch. "Goddamn, she's ten minutes late," he complained, and handed another dollar to Jojola.

  "Ten minutes too late for you to win the pool, you mean," Jojola said, laughing. Just then the elevator bell chimed. Someone above was requesting the elevator. "But save the dollar for our boy, I think he hit it right on the nail."

  "He probably found a way to keep her in bed so that he could win," Tran groused, pulling Lucy out of the elevator so that it could go retrieve the winner of the pool. "I shouldn't have to pay for cheating."

  A minute later, the elevator doors opened again and Ned stepped out.

  "You slept in your clothes?" she asked.

  "Nah, you know better than that," he answered. "But tossed them on pretty quick so I could catch a sneak."

  "A sneak?"

  "Yeah, a sneak."

  "I couldn't sleep and was just going out for a walk."

  "A sneak and a lousy liar," Tran added, handing Ned the dollar bill.

  The four headed out the door with Lucy still trying to proclaim her innocence. "Ned was pretty damn sure you weren't going to sit at home waiting for the feds to stop the people who killed your friend," Jojola explained.

  Lucy put up her hands in surrender. "Okay, you got me," she said. "But I was just going to have a look around and see if I could spot anything before they got to the viewing stand…if that's where this is supposed to go down. I appreciate that Ellis at least listened, but I think he only half believed me. And besides, he doesn't know what he's looking for."

  "And you do?" Jojola said. "So what's your plan?"

  "According to the poem, the bad guys are marchers," she replied. "So that narrows it down some."