Counterplay

36

Two sets of ears had been listening from the storm sewer beneath the street at Fiftieth and Fifth when Giancarlo explained to the FBI agent the message his sister had sent from inside the cathedral.

What else did she say?

It didn’t make a lot of sense. She just kept signing the same thing. “Lucy hostage. Annoy Satan. Baker. Field.” That’s it, but I bet it’s a clue on where she was being taken.

From his vantage point on the ladder, David Grale could see the feet of those speaking but not much else. But he could hear fine. He motioned with his hand to his accomplice below him on the ladder and they both climbed down.

Grale was troubled, indecisive. An hour earlier, he and the man with him had been preparing to check out a rumor of unusual activity by foreign strangers on the north end of the island near Columbia University’s Baker Field when the news arrived that terrorists were holding the Pope and two thousand others hostage in St. Patrick’s.

It was Dirty Warren who’d brought the tidings. Kane… fucker…is leading them with that woman…shit, bitch, he’d stuttered after making his way to Grale’s lair among the Mole People beneath Grand Central Station. Karp and Lucy…aaahhh piss…are in there…. Marlene, Tran, and someone else-tall, patch over his eye-is too, son of a whore. But they’re in disguise so they must have known…holy crap, holy crap…something was up.

Grale and his partner had immediately grabbed their weapons and the long, loose cloaks they favored to keep out the moisture of life underground and departed for the cathedral. Grale cursed himself as they moved through the labyrinth of sewer tunnels for allowing himself to be lulled to sleep by the news that Kane had died in Aspen. He’d never really believed it…or, more accurately, he’d never felt that Kane was gone. Not in his soul, which told him that the man’s evil presence was still alive and well…and had returned to New York City.

Grale arrived at the cathedral-actually almost directly below where law enforcement officials had established their headquarters-as twilight fell over the city. He chafed at the idea, but he was going to have to wait until dark to try to slip with the other man past the police and enter the cathedral through a secret door and passage that he’d used a year before to surprise the child killer priest Hans Lichner.

He’d felt some relief when Lucy Karp was brought out of the cathedral and apparently unharmed though unconscious. But his instincts told him something was wrong. Something about what the agent who brought her out said, or maybe it was just a gut feeling again. But his concerns about Lucy and her rescuer he put aside when Giancarlo raced up with his information.

“I think Giancarlo’s right,” Grale said. “I think Lucy’s still a hostage…and now maybe Clay Fulton, too, if he’s not dead.”

“Which means there’s something wrong with that guy who brought her out…and he’s a federal agent,” said his partner. “But the rest is still a riddle to me. Annoy Satan? Baker? Field?…And do we try to find Lucy and Fulton before something bad happens to them, or do we stick with the plan?”

John Jojola was suddenly filled with regret. His sister-not in blood, but in soul-Marlene Ciampi was in the cathedral, which was rigged to blow up and in the control of al Qaeda. If it blew up, he would have missed his chance to explain to her the subterfuge he’d planned after the terrorist attack in Taos.

He thought back to the night when he’d been listening on the other side of the courtyard wall to Tran and Marlene talking. His had been the first coyote howl to join the sounds of the ceremony his people were performing-not for his sham funeral, but to cleanse the land of evil spirits.

When Marlene expressed her grief for him, he’d almost had a change of heart and let her in on the plan. But like Tran had told her, Kane had eyes and ears all over Taos County, as well as spies in the various police agencies. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but he needed her grief and reactions to his “death” to be real, so that anyone watching would “know” that he was indeed dead.

He’d come up with the plan after the last of the would-be assassins had died with the fear on his face still from Lucy’s curse. Even then, it wasn’t so much to fool Marlene so she could fool Kane, but so that Jojola could fly beneath Kane’s radar. The psychopath wanted him dead, so he’d be dead and thus no longer a threat. They’d considered having Ned “die” too, but somebody had to have killed the last of the terrorists, and he was the likely choice. Besides, Ned had been reluctant to abandon his post as Lucy’s bodyguard.

So Jojola had been spirited out of Taos in the luxury of Tran’s private jet, after which the two friends had gone to the gangster’s home on Long Island. However, he’d remained there only as long as it took to contact David Grale, who was the man who would have the best intelligence on the whereabouts and plans of Andrew Kane and his al Qaeda assassins.

The liaison with Grale had been Dirty Warren who, cursing and asking him if he knew any movie trivia, met him in Central Park one night and then led him underground through to Grale’s hide-out, where he had once been a captive. For more than a month, Jojola had mostly lived underground with his host, a roller-coaster affair at times due to Grale’s wild mood swings. The former social worker at times brooded in darkness, unwilling to move.

In the worst moments, he pronounced that the “end of times” was near and that he welcomed the “coming of evil men” to the city so that the final battle could begin. Other times, he was a shadowy whirlwind of action, hunting “the Others,” a different breed of Under-Worlders, as the Mole People referred to their home-evil men and women, devoid of humanity-as he gathered information about Kane.

Grale and Jojola both were committed to watching over the Karp-Ciampi clan-partly because of a mutual affection for the family, but also the knowledge that Kane would be drawn to them. Several times, Jojola had nearly been caught by Marlene, who seemed to have an uncanny sense for when he was near.

Now, with the possibility that she wouldn’t survive the night, Jojola wished that he’d let Marlene know that he was alive. Suddenly, there was the sound of distant gunfire echoing down through the sewers from the cathedral above. Jojola started to climb the ladder back to the manhole cover to see if he could help, but Grale grabbed his arm.

In the dim light from above and the flashlights they carried, Jojola could just make out the other man’s gaunt face and the small spot of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. Grale had been coughing a lot of late, and Jojola suspected tuberculosis. But at the moment, his eyes were bright with some inner fire as he tugged and said, “Come on, John. Whatever is happening up there, we’re not going to be of much use now. Their fates are in the hands of God. But Lucy needs our help, and I think that if we find her, we’ll find Kane.”

Jojola looked down for a moment, then nodded. “Where do we go?”

“North, John,” Grale said turning to run. “We catch a ride north.”

As they moved swiftly, splashing through foul water of the sewers with only their flashlights for illumination, Grale explained that he thought he knew what Lucy was trying to say with her sign language. “It’s as we suspected,” he said.

His spies had reported an unusually large number of rough-looking men passing in and out of an old apartment building on the north end of the island near Baker Field. The strangers weren’t the usual age for students; plus they all seemed unusually fit and didn’t interact with anyone else in the multicultural neighborhood.

Grale had sent more of his people to hang out in the park-digging in Dumpsters, begging on street corners, and sleeping in stair-wells-to keep their eyes and ears open. Even Jojola had visited the neighborhood, acting the part of a drunk derelict, but there’d been no sign of Kane. However, a Caucasian male, with chestnut hair, a scar beneath his right eye and a crooked nose was occasionally seen entering and leaving the apartment building where the others congregated.

“The building is across the street from Columbia University’s track and football stadium,” Grale explained as they emerged from a sewer into a construction zone that brought them to the tunnel between the Times Square station and the blue line subway station, the rail that ran north to the very end of Manhattan. “The stadium is called Baker Field.”

“I get it,” Jojola said. “But what about ‘annoy Satan.’ Was Lucy trying to say that Kane is Satan?”

Grale barked out a laugh. “Not a bad guess, but Lucy knows that Kane is just one of the minions,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what she’s saying. It took me a minute-and I had to think about the area around Baker Field-and that’s when it hit me. As you already know, there’s a big park on the far end of the island close to the stadium, as well as the Columbia University boathouse, where they store their crewing boats. The park has a lot of trails and softball diamonds, as well as a large, tree-covered hill that sort of juts out into the water-the northernmost point of Manhattan from which the Henry Hudson Bridge crosses the Harlem River to the Riverdale section of the Bronx. That’s where the Harlem River meets the Hudson River-a turbulent stretch of water called Spuyten Duyvil.”

As the two moved quickly through the tunnel toward the subway station, other pedestrians gave them a wide berth. Unshaven, lank haired, and pale from a lack of sunlight, with their long, dark cloaks billowing, they looked pretty rough. Probably smell bad, too, Jojola thought.

Just before reaching the station, Grale stopped for a moment to say something to an old black man playing the saxophone behind a beat-up hat in which a few dollars had been tossed. Jojola looked behind as they took off running again and saw that the old man was talking into a cell phone.

“Spuyten Duyvil? I still don’t get it,” Jojola said as they reached the stairs leading down to the subway platform.

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Grale said. “It’s tied to an early piece of New York folklore, but I think it’s what Lucy meant by ‘annoy Satan.’ Another word for ‘annoy’ could be ‘spite,’ and, of course, Satan is the devil.”

“And?”

“Spuyten Duyvil is sort of a bastardized Dutch from the original European colonizers on that part of the river,” Grale said. “Some people think it translates to ‘Devil’s Whirlpool,’ which is certainly apt for the water conditions. But the more accepted definition is ‘in spite of the devil’-it comes from a story I’ll tell you about sometime. I think Lucy was trying to sign ‘spite the devil,’ and I think she was trying to say she’s going to be taken someplace near Baker Field and Spuyten Duyvil.”

Jojola heard the rumble of an approaching subway. At the sound, Grale began taking the stairs three at a time, urging Jojola to keep up. “Come on,” he shouted, “or we’ll miss our rendezvous with the devil’s pal, Kane.”

Many blocks away, the people in St. Patrick’s Cathedral jumped when there was a small explosion at the main door, followed by an invasion of rifle-bearing SWAT team officers. The new arrivals very nearly shot Tran, who quickly dropped his rifle and raised his hands, but K. C. Chalk had identified him as one of the good guys just in the nick of time.

The SWAT teams were surprised to discover that “the situation” was well in hand. The FBI’s Chalk, as well as civilians, apparently including a small Asian priest, the district attorney of New York, a thin young man who spoke with a Western drawl, a nun, and an altar boy with an ax had taken on a well-armed team of terrorists and won the day. One of the terrorists had even been jumped and beaten senseless by spectators as he tried to draw a bead on the avenging nun.

Everywhere they looked, the officers were confronted by a grisly scene. Along with people killed by bullets, a woman’s head lay at the bottom of the steps leading up to the altar.

One team quickly made their way to the Pope, who was kneeling on the floor, holding the head of a wounded priest with a badly scarred face.

“Leave me, Father,” the dying priest begged. “I’m not worth your trouble. I have sinned against you and God for the sake of my love for a woman and a child. God turned His face from me for my sins.”

“For the sake of love, I forgive you,” the Pope said smiling and stroking a loose lock of hair from the man’s face. “Now, for the sake of your soul, confess your sins and ask for God’s forgiveness. But I want you to know that He has not turned his face from you. Indeed, He has a place for you and the woman and child.”

Those watching turned away as the man confessed to the Pope. They knew it was over when they heard the pontiff call for holy water to perform last rites for the man.

They were all distracted by the appearance of a SWAT team that had entered from the rear of the cathedral leading a bloody-faced female prisoner and followed by two priests. Marlene recognized the woman as Nadya Malovo and that bringing up the rear were Father Mike Dugan and “Father” Yvgeny Karchovski.

“You wouldn’t have had anything to do with the reason St. Patrick’s is still standing,” Marlene asked Yvgeny as she was joined by her husband and Ned.

The tall Russian held out his hand, which contained a key. “Let’s say it was a close call,” he replied.

Yvgeny had been with Dugan, who he’d discovered in a broom closet into which both had ducked when the hostage crisis began. Leaving the older priest behind, Yvgeny had discovered the room where three terrorists were monitoring the bank of security cameras and hovering over an electronic panel he recognized was the computerized detonator. On the desk next to the panel was a small box with a key, which he believed would be turned to arm the bombs set in the cathedral.

Yvgeny had returned to Dugan, and they’d been trying to formulate a way to take out the team when they heard Nadya Malovo shouting at the men. It was apparently a pep talk.

Are you prepared to strike a blow for Islam? the Russian double agent had asked.

Allah akbar, the men yelled in reply. We will die for Allah!

As Malovo left the room, she’d rolled her eyes. But then caught sight of a priest at the end of the hall. He ducked to the left as she pulled her gun; she couldn’t chance that someone would survive who might endanger her own escape plans.

Malovo raced to the end of the hall and was about to turn left when she heard a voice behind her. Good evening, Major Malovo, or is it Colonel now? She whirled, ready to shoot, but the man intercepted her gun hand with a grip like iron, then with a simple backward twist, broke her wrist, which sent the gun clattering to the floor.

Malovo looked up into the face of Yvgeny Karchovski. She recognized him just as a fist the size of a small ham struck her in the face, knocking her back and to the floor.

Yvgeny began to follow but was driven back by a shot from one of the men who’d emerged from the room down the hall. It gave Malovo a chance to scramble for her gun. She grabbed it with one hand and began to stand up, intending to finish off the man who could identify her to the authorities for who she really was, but found herself looking into the face of the first priest and, for the second time in a matter of seconds, at a fist on its way to her face. This time, she was knocked unconscious.

Dugan kicked the terrorist’s gun across the hall to Yvgeny who picked it up just in time to shoot the man advancing down the hallway. Leaving Dugan to watch over Malovo, Yvgeny had raced back down the hall to the room just in time to hear a woman’s voice on the radio shouting to detonate the bombs. His first bullet went through the temple of a man reaching for the key to arm the bombs; the remaining bullets stopped the second man from reaching it as well. He retrieved the key to keep it safe, just as the SWAT team came in through the back.

“I think it’s time for this ‘priest’ to fade into the woodwork,” Yvgeny said to Marlene. He winked at Butch and said, “Good luck, cousin,” and left just as Jaxon arrived.

“Are you all right?” Karp asked his wife.

“No,” she said. “My daughter’s with Andrew Kane.”

Karp turned to Jaxon. “Do you have a helicopter outside?”

“Yes. What’s up?”

“Is there room for the three of us and you?”

“I think so. Want to tell me what you have in mind?”

Karp started running down the aisle, ignoring the pain in his arthritic knee. “I’ll explain on the way,” he said. “But I’ve got a bridge to cross.”