by Jack Flynn
He’d dragged her down the street, and when she saw the policemen running toward them, she’d thought she might be saved. He’d pulled her into the construction site, though, and held the knife to her throat. She prayed that the police would find them, but they didn’t. And then, when he threw her against the fence, she knew that he was going to kill her.
As he raised the knife, all she could focus on was the possibility that he was going to split open her belly and her tiny child would spill out onto the ground. That terrifying notion touched something primal within her, and as his hand was raised, she shot her delicate hand out and connected with his windpipe. She wasn’t large, and there wasn’t much power behind the blow, but it was well placed, and she could see the momentary panic on his face as he struggled to breathe. He would recover soon, she knew, so she barreled past him and ran to the gap in the fence.
She could hear him right behind her, still choking, but determined as the air forced its way through his windpipe. She was just through the fence when she felt his hand on her back, and she knew the knife would come next. At least, she thought, it wouldn’t be in her belly.
* * * * *
Buddy was dazed for a moment, and all he could do was call out her name. Under any other circumstances, others on the street would have stopped to help him, but there were so many dead and wounded, and so many others calling out for people who’d been lost, the world seemed to pass him by.
He didn’t know where to go, so he stumbled in the direction he’d last seen Diamond and Soh. He was headed away from the courthouse and all the death and destruction there. That seemed to make sense in his temporarily addled brain. There seemed no reason why Soh would go back toward the courthouse. He looked down and saw, to his surprise, that he was still carrying his gun.
He was on the corner of Bond and Fan Pier Boulevard when he saw her dart out from one of the nearby construction sites. ‘Diamond!’ he shouted as he ran to her.
He was nearly there when he saw Soh reaching out for her. Buddy raised his gun, but his eyesight and his hand were still unsteady from hitting the pavement, and he was afraid of hitting Diamond. Instead he lowered his shoulder and drove himself into Soh’s chest with all the power he could.
Soh was just bringing his knife down in a looping arc to stab Diamond, and as he was carried back into the fence, his arm’s momentum continued and the knife sunk into Buddy’s back. The two of them careened off the fence and Buddy fell to the ground. He was still dazed, and he could feel the blood running down his back. The focus in his vision was coming back to him, but slowly. He looked up at Soh as the smaller man came toward him, knife raised again. Buddy raised his gun and fired. He still couldn’t aim very well, but at least Diamond was no longer in the line of fire.
The shot hit Soh in the shoulder, and knocked him back. The knife went skittering along the street. Rage flashed in his eyes, and for a moment Buddy thought he was going to retrieve the knife and come back to finish him of. In a flash, though, the rage seemed to ebb. He looked around and seemed to realize where he was. He put his hand up to his shoulder and felt the blood. Then he turned and ran toward Northern Avenue. Buddy watched as he disappeared into the crowd fleeing the chaos.
‘Buddy!’ Diamond was at his side now. ‘Let me see, roll over!’ He did as he was told. ‘It’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look too deep,’ she said. ‘We need to get you to a hospital.’
He was looking around, still shocked by the madness. ‘I’m not the only one,’ he said.
‘What happened?’ She was looking around too, now, taking in the carnage.
‘I don’t know,’ Buddy replied. ‘Your father said it was an escape attempt, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Looks like no one was. Jesus Christ.’
‘Can you walk?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I can walk. Are you OK? Did he hurt you? Did he hurt the baby?’
She put a hand to her abdomen. She had no way to know for sure, but everything felt OK. She shook her head. ‘I think we’re both fine.’
Seventy-Three
Kit knew she was going to die. That didn’t concern her. The only thing she could focus on was Vincente Carpio’s words.
You will not be the last.
She’d failed. She’d spent years fighting to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. She’d devoted herself to keeping predators like Vincente Carpio off the street, but it was pointless. She’d caught the man who’d killed Ollie and now he was going to escape. She looked down at the blood pouring out of her and felt more lost than ever before. There would always be evil in the world, and there was nothing she had been able to do about it.
She couldn’t accept that. She wouldn’t accept that. She fought back against the agony ripping through her body and forced air into her lungs. As Vincente Carpio turned to leap onto the other boat, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and burning through the last of her life’s energy as she pushed her legs forward and the two of them toppled into the harbor.
She heard him scream as they hit the water, and she felt a wave of pleasure at his shock and surprise. The water enveloped them, and the cold burned through her. Carpio fought to free himself, but she clung to him as they sank. Her lungs were no longer working, and the feeling in her extremities started to fade. Her eyes were closed, and she kept all of her focus on holding tight to Carpio as he thrashed and hit and kicked out at her. She could no longer feel anything, and she wasn’t sure whether he was still in her grasp. She was aware that she was sinking, deeper and deeper into the harbor. It was done. She no longer needed to fight. The blood from her wounds mixed with the water. She no longer cared – she’d done what she could, and now it was time to rest.
* * * * *
She woke on the shore of Nantasket beach. The water was summer-warm, and the sun was shining down on her face as she pulled herself off the sand. A light, warm breeze blew off the sea, and she breathed the scent of the water deep into her lungs.
She saw Dillon. He was walking to her with that smile he had that melted her heart the first time she’d seen him. It was filled with warmth and love and desire.
She ran to him, and threw her arms around his body, hugging him so tightly she thought she might hurt him. He hugged her back, almost as tightly, as she sobbed joyously into his chest. After a moment, she tilted her head up and her lips found his. It was at once familiar and new. She felt nearly complete and she melted into him and let herself believe it was real.
She couldn’t remember the kiss ending, but her head was now on his shoulder, and she was looking down the beach. She could see a small figure in the distance, playing in the shallow water, splashing with a joy that only a six-year-old can exude on a summer day at the beach – as though every grain of sand was placed there specifically for his enjoyment.
She gasped and pulled away from Dillon, looking at him for reassurance, afraid that it was an illusion. He nodded at her. ‘He’s been waiting for you,’ he said.
Her first steps toward him were cautious. She kept waiting for her feet to falter or slip. She felt certain that he would run away or disappear somehow. He didn’t, though. He continued splashing in the warm water, his laughter washing over her the way it had so long ago. With each step she became more hopeful, and more confident, until she was running at a full sprint.
He saw her as she neared, and he opened his arms to her, a look of pure love in his eyes and in his smile. ‘Mommy!’ he called out to her.
She swept him up, still running, and he threw his arms around her neck and kissed her cheek. He was clinging so tightly to her neck that she found it hard to breathe, but she didn’t care. He was there. He was really there, and he wasn’t fading into a pile of dust. She knew that she was with him again, at last.
She knew in her heart that, this time, it wasn’t a dream.
Seventy-Four
Cormack saw Kit go into the water with Vincente Carpio. The MEP boat he’d driven into Javier Carpio’s craft was taking on
water, but it didn’t seem as though it would sink immediately. He and Cicero Andolini were shooting at Javier Carpio and the men on the second boat. It was an even fight until Steele and Vincente went into the water. Javier Carpio lost his focus as he rushed to the side of the boat to try to retrieve his brother, and a fresh volley of gunfire from the shore hit him in the head and took out two of his last men.
Cormack dove over the side of the boat, swimming down furiously to save Kit. He could see nothing underwater, and he only had a rough idea of where they had gone in. He came up twice for a breath, and then dove down one last time.
He could barely feel his fingers anymore, but just as he was about to come up for air again, he thought he felt something like fabric brush up against his hand. He churned his arms, and felt a wrist. Grabbing hold of it, he kicked to the surface, fighting the need to take a breath until his head broke the surface. He was right next to the pier, and a dozen law enforcement officers were leaning over him, reaching down. He looked at his hand, still grasping the arm, and saw the orange jumpsuit.
He let out an angry scream. ‘God dammit!’ Cicero Andolini was on the pier, too, and Cormack, out of breath and frozen, looked at him. ‘She’s still down there!’ he shouted. He was trying to force air into his lungs, but hypothermia was setting in, and his muscles weren’t functioning properly anymore.
‘She is,’ Cicero agreed. ‘She’s gone, Cormack. And you will be too if you don’t get out of the water.’
Cormack knew he was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to climb onto the pier. Two BPD officers reached down and hauled him up. There were emergency crews on the scene, still trying to cope with the dead and injured from the attack on the courthouse, and one of them put a blanket over Cormack’s shoulders.
At the edge of the pier, two paramedics were frantically trying to bring Vincente Carpio back to life. They were breathing into his mouth and pumping his chest, but there didn’t seem to be any chance that they would be successful. Then, just as it looked like they were going to give up, Carpio’s body convulsed, and he spat up what seemed like a gallon of water.
Cicero shook his head. ‘God has an ironic notion of justice,’ he said.
Cormack was tempted to grab a gun and shoot Carpio, but he held his temper. Besides, he still couldn’t feel his fingers, and he wasn’t sure he could hold a gun. ‘Let’s go,’ Cormack responded. ‘There’s nothing left for us to do here.’
They started walking up the ramp, off the pier. ‘You can’t leave,’ one of the cops nearby said.
‘You gonna arrest us?’ Cormack asked.
‘We need to interview you,’ the cop said. The confidence in his voice was wavering.
‘OK,’ Cormack said. ‘Call my lawyer and make an appointment. In the meantime, I have a harbor to run.’
* * * * *
Kit’s body washed up on shore three days later. She was found by a fisherman, lying face-down on the rocks at the end of Hull, only two miles from where she and Dillon and Ollie had spent their summers frolicking in the surf on Nantasket beach.
The funeral was a somber, quiet affair. She had no family and few friends. The FBI sent an official contingent, but none of the senior brass attended. Some of the local agents and cops who had worked with her over the years made appearances, but there was no talk of her wit or her warmth or her heart. All of that had been taken from her before any of those there knew her. They knew a different Kit Steele than the one that existed before her husband and son were murdered.
Cormack didn’t go to the funeral. His presence there would have drawn stares and raised questions that were not in anyone’s interest to have asked. Besides, he preferred to remember Kit as she was the last time they were together.
In all, not including the perpetrators, thirty-two people were killed in the attack on the Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse – ten of whom were law enforcement officers. Another two hundred people were badly injured. The funerals stretched out for two weeks, and the BOSTON STRONG signs once again were ubiquitous, not only in Massachusetts, but around the country.
Federal District Court proceedings were moved to the old federal courthouse at Post Office Square for the four months that it would take to fix the damage done by Javier Carpio and his men, but Vincente Carpio was arraigned in F. Clayton Baylor’s courtroom in the courthouse by the water, even as it was undergoing repairs. It would be the only hearing held in the building before the grand reopening. Baylor assured Carpio that he would be given all the protections of the United States judicial system as he was charged with thirty-two counts of capital murder. The United States Attorney’s office refused to discuss a plea bargain, and no one really doubted that he would ultimately be strapped to a table and injected with a lethal combination of sodium thiopentalis, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
That winter would go down in the books as the coldest in Boston’s history – a record that would stand for more than a hundred years. Those who lived through it would talk of it in the mythic tones that only true New Englanders could carry. Eventually the city returned to normal, and all that remained were the smattering of new monuments to those who gave their lives on one fateful day in February when the cold snap finally broke and for one brief moment the city seemed to explode.
Seventy-Five
Friday 15 February
Cormack agreed to the terms of the meeting. At some level it was crazy, he knew – anything could happen when you were on the enemy’s turf. And yet he had to have closure. He wouldn’t live his life wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.
He went alone to the Colombian restaurant in East Boston, unarmed and unprotected. He walked in the front door, and didn’t wait to be escorted to the back. He’d been to the restaurant before, and he saw no reason to wait.
There were three armed men in the back room, all looking twitchy, with automatic weapons slung across their shoulders. Cormack couldn’t blame them. After the turmoil of the past few days, everyone in the city seemed twitchy.
There was a table set up in the middle of the room with chairs placed at opposite sides. Cormack sat in one, leaning back in the seat as though he was the only one in the place with nothing to worry about. He had to sit there for a few minutes by himself. That was fine with him. Even without any men or weapons, Cormack felt confident that he had the upper hand.
T’phong Soh entered the room in a whirl, the door at the far end of the room swinging on its hinges as he strode toward Cormack with what appeared to be impatience and anger. The events of the past few days had unnerved him most of all. One arm was in a sling. ‘You have put limits on my business in the past,’ he said, his tone accusatory.
‘I have,’ Cormack conceded. ‘We all have to have limits.’
Soh shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I decide what business I will do. No one else. That is the way it must be going forward. Is that understood?’
Cormack looked at the men with the automatic weapons. ‘I understand that that’s the way you feel,’ he said. ‘But that’s not the way it is ever going to be.’
Soh slammed his fist down on the table. His face had turned bright red. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘It will be that way, or you will die!’
‘You asked me here under a flag of truce,’ Cormack said. ‘I accepted your invitation. And now you threaten me?’
‘You will die! And I will kill your daughter as well!’
Cormack could feel the anger burn within him, but he fought back against it. Now was not the time for him to lose control. He leaned back even further in his chair. ‘Have you checked with your superiors about this?’ he asked.
‘I have no superiors!’ Soh shouted, and for a moment, Cormack thought the small man was going to lunge across the table at him.
The door behind Cormack opened, and five men walked in. All of them were heavily tattooed, and four of them were heavily armed. The other one was a man of enormous girth. He was not quite six feet tall, but he was well over four hundred pounds, and hi
s presence seemed to crowd out everything in the room.
The impact of the enormous man’s presence was clear on the faces and in the demeanor of Soh and the men behind him. Soh’s face went white, and the men behind him eased back, lowering their guns.
The man moved slowly, and without a word. He reached over and pulled a chair that was leaning against the wall over to the table. As he sat down, everyone in the room held their breath, wondering whether the chair would take his weight. It groaned and sagged, but managed not to collapse.
He folded his arms on the table and took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was so low and soft that Cormack had to strain to hear him.
‘It surprises me to hear that you have no superiors,’ he said with a tone of disappointment.
‘Pineda, I didn’t mean—’
The huge man waved at Soh to cut him off. ‘It is too late for that, my friend,’ he said. ‘Juan Suarez is dead. Most of your people are dead.’ Soh’s face went whiter still and he started to try to talk, but Pineda held a hand up to silence him. ‘I recruited Suarez in El Salvador, and brought him to this country. You were doing good business out here, but there were rumors that you were no longer loyal. There were rumors that you were no longer paying your tributes in full. There was a rumor that you were building an army for yourself. I sent Suarez out here to look into that. I thought he would likely kill you in a matter of weeks, and that would have been fine with me.’
Pineda shifted in his weight, and the chair gave a loud shriek.
‘He didn’t, though. Instead, he fell under your spell, and pledged his allegiance to you.’ Pineda drummed his fat fingers on the table, and it was like each tap was the pounding of a great bass drum. ‘Do you think you can cast the same spell on me?’ He looked sideways at Soh, the way a giant lizard might look at its prey.