Nemesis
Father Joseph and everyone else were wondering the same thing, but he knew the cathedral better than they did. He imagined the terrorist bomb tearing through the sanctuary and the Baptistry, and all the chapels that would be destroyed. At least there would be no loss of life in God’s house today.
Father Joseph slipped across the street and inside a doorway. He looked beyond the Altar of Saint Elizabeth to the Lady Chapel, and he knew he wasn’t going to let this happen. He couldn’t. He ignored the two cops who were yelling at him from the street to move back out of the cathedral, and he ran toward the closet. He grabbed the backpack and ran, flinging open one of the side front doors onto Fifth Avenue. As he ran out, a cop yelled at him but didn’t try to stop him. He started running beside him.
Oddly, only the senator’s big black hearse remained at the curb; everything and everyone else were well away. Thank you, God. There was a blur of sounds around him, thousands of horns blaring from distant drivers who had no clue what was happening, people shouting, police yelling at him, screaming at him to drop the damned backpack and run, but he didn’t. He hurled the backpack as far as he could onto Fifth Avenue.
The bomb exploded in midair just beyond the hearse, the concussion from the blast so powerful it hurled Father Joseph and the policeman next to him back toward the bronze cathedral doors. Even as he struck his head, Father Joseph saw one of the hearse doors fly through the air and land against the sidewalk, not a dozen feet away. The force of the explosion was so tremendous that shards of metal—were they nails? Bolts?—were spewed high into the air and were still falling on the street and on the police cruisers, some of them landing in the crowds behind them. There were shouts of surprise, of pain, people scrambling to move farther away. He looked down at himself and over at the policeman next to him to see how badly he was injured. The police officer was propped up on his elbows beside him, shaking his head, staring at the mayhem around them, and then their eyes met. “Are you all right, Father?”
Father Joseph nodded even though he knew shards of metal had torn through his cassock and into his body, but it didn’t matter. They’d both survived. “And you?”
“Yes. You’ve a brave man, Father.”
“So are you.” They smiled at each other. Father Joseph saw the cop was an older man, maybe close to fifty, his face scored with years of life. He took one of the officer’s hands in his. Together they watched.
Foley heard ambulances, sirens blaring, saw scores of paramedics making their way through the crowds, saw several of them on their knees beside Father Joseph and the cop who’d come running out of the cathedral with him. He saw a young altar boy in his white cape run to Father Joseph and fall to his knees beside him. He saw the priest speak to the boy, take his hands, squeeze them, saw the boy’s lips moving in frantic prayer. The agent beside Foley told him it was the young altar boy Romeo Rodriguez who’d alerted them to the bomb. He saw the paramedics didn’t try to send the boy away.
The cathedral hadn’t suffered much damage at all, from what Foley saw, just some chips of concrete gouged from the huge front pillars. It was less important than the lives saved, but a huge relief nonetheless. The hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the restoration of one of New York’s greatest icons hadn’t been wasted. Father Joseph Reilly had saved St. Pat’s and the little boy had saved eight hundred people, himself included. Foley would be sure the President thanked both of them personally. He called the President to update him as he was hustled to a limousine on Sixth Avenue.
Time passed, only slowly now that the danger was over, and Foley thought, wasn’t that odd?
• • •
KELLY GIUSTI PUSHED her way through the crowd. Only forty-three minutes had passed since the terrorist attack at JFK and now the bomb at St. Pat’s. She knew from the information that had come through her earbud so far, there had been injuries, but nothing fatal. Giusti wondered if there was such a thing as a miracle. Then she felt a wash of rage so great she couldn’t catch her breath. So many people could have been killed, the incredible interior of the cathedral damaged, and dozens more killed at JFK. Giusti wasn’t Catholic, but that didn’t matter. She raised her eyes heavenward and thanked God for Father Joseph Reilly and Romeo Rodriguez and the FBI agent at JFK. She had Nasim Arak Conklin under wraps. She was going to wring him out. He had to know about both attacks; they were two halves of the whole. He had to know who had planned them.
RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Wednesday, earlier in the day
Outside the third-floor office of Virginia congressman Burt Hildegard, George “Sparky” Carroll, a handsome young man dressed in his best suit, white shirt, and red tie, was wearing a face-splitting smile so wide his molars were on display. He was so pleased, he looked ready to dance, not that anyone would notice. The endless long hall before him seemed to go on forever, and was jammed with staffers, lobbyists, secretaries, visitors, and committee members pouring in and out of doors to add to the traffic, everyone on a mission. Mission. He liked the sound of that. Mr. George Carroll to Houston, I’ve completed my mission, ready for liftoff.
Sparky jostled against two big men who looked like bodyguards, hastily begged their pardon, and allowed himself a single small skip. But he could whistle, and as he wove his way through scores of people back down that endless institutional hallway toward an exit somewhere and a grumpy security guard, he did whistle, nice and loud, an old tune he knew, “I’ve Got the World on a String.”
No one paid him any mind. Everyone was hurrying somewhere, jostling one another, carried along by the sound of low conversations.
Thanks to Sparky’s intense study of his granny’s prized copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, he’d pumped himself up, made his presentation, and, glory be, Congressman Hildegard had signed on the dotted line. A contract for two years to cater all the congressman’s home district functions, a minimum of three dozen. He could hear his granddad’s old cash register cha-ching in his head.
Best of all, was he ever going to get laid tonight. He knew Tammy was probably carrying around her cell, waiting for his call. He’d buy her flowers, maybe lift a bottle of champagne from the storage room. Tammy had always believed in him, long before they’d gotten married four months before, a month before he’d inherited his father’s catering company, Eat Well and Prosper. He loved the name because his dad had raised him on Star Trek. His dad’s lasagna, now his lasagna, had made Eat Well and Prosper famous. Congressman Hildegard had even mentioned how much he’d loved Milt’s lasagna and his signature garlic toast, now Sparky’s lasagna and his signature garlic toast.
He was still whistling when he reached for his cell phone to call Tammy. He punched in her number, heard the beginning of the first ring, then her excited voice, “Sparky! What happened? Did the congressman sign our contract? Sparky, talk to me, tell me everything.”
He was grinning wildly into the cell as her words tumbled over one another, but before he could speak, a man ran right into him, shoving people out of the way, and pressed him back against the wall. Sparky felt a hit of cold as something sharp sank into his chest. It was more odd than painful, the feeling of his flesh splitting open, and then agony ripped through him, unspeakable, and he knew, he knew, he was dying. Sparky dropped his cell phone and began to slide down the wall. Vaguely he heard Tammy yelling his name. She sounded scared and he hated that. He heard people screaming around him. Then he didn’t hear anything at all.
GEORGETOWN
Late Wednesday afternoon
Savich heard about the terrorist incident at JFK a minute after it happened. He was in the Porsche, driving from Langley back to Georgetown after a meeting with some brass who wanted the FBI to pull their butts out of a bind. He liked to be owed favors, particularly by the CIA, and had complied.
He had only a minute to think about calling Sherlock, knowing she could have been in that securi
ty line at JFK, when his cell sang out Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart.”
“She’s all right,” Ollie Hamish said immediately, his voice hyper-excited, “she’s okay, asked me to call you because she had to shut her cell down. Go home and watch the news. You won’t believe this, Savich,” and Ollie rang off before Savich could ask him what he wouldn’t believe.
Savich felt fear for her swallow him. No, Ollie said she was okay. What had happened? He speed-dialed Sherlock, got voice mail.
He heard about the explosion at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as he pulled into his driveway. It was like the newspeople didn’t know which one to talk about first, both were so horrific. They had few specifics except that no one, miraculously, had been seriously injured, either at JFK or at St. Patrick’s.
When Savich ran through his front door, he heard the TV and slowed. He didn’t want Sean to see him scared out of his mind. But Sean wasn’t around, only Gabriella, and she was glued to the TV.
She said, never looking away from the screen, “All the news stations are going back and forth with video from both JFK and Saint Pat’s. Nearly everyone there took a video with their phone, plus all the security tapes of both attacks. There’s even footage shot from Rockefeller Center looking down on Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, all the people hurrying out, the priest throwing the bomb, all the mayhem after the bomb exploded.” Gabriella looked up, saw he was pale as death. “No, no, Sherlock’s okay, Dillon. Don’t worry. Sean’s playing football with Marty at her house. I didn’t want him to get scared watching this.” She gave him a manic grin. “Wait till you see her—Sherlock’s a hero. They’re showing her picture. You won’t believe what she did.” She flipped the channel and the two of them watched a priest throwing a backpack, saw it explode in midair, saw the priest and a cop hurled back with the power of the blast, and then the station switched over to JFK and he saw a picture of his wife.
He was shaking as he listened, couldn’t help it, until his cell phone blasted Billy Ray Cyrus again. It was Sherlock. “Dillon, I’m okay, I promise. I was with the FBI agent when she got a call about a bomb at Saint Pat’s and she took off. The airport will reopen, when, I’m not sure, but I’ll call you when I’m ready to get on a plane home. I’ve got to go, Dillon. My cell will be on voice mail. Text me if you need to reach me.” And she punched off.
He closed his eyes against the enormity of what could have happened. She’s all right. He turned back to the TV when the anchor began talking about her again. He saw her in real time being escorted out of a conference room, walking, talking, unhurt. Dozens of media microphones surrounded her as she walked out of the terminal; they yelled out questions, asking how she felt, what had happened in there, what she’d said to the terrorist, what he’d said to her, although they had to know already, calling her a heroine, but she only shook her head and kept walking. Then she paused, faced all of them, and said, “Everyone did their jobs today and thankfully no one was seriously hurt. That’s all I’m free to say now. There’s an ongoing investigation, and an FBI spokesperson will answer all your questions when they can.”
The media stayed with her, nearly on top of her, shoving their mikes in her face. Three men in dark suits, obviously FBI agents, finally pushed them away and escorted Sherlock to a waiting Crown Vic, past all the media, the cameras, and the gawking passengers who were huddled outside the terminal. Through it all, she stayed expressionless, except when a reporter yelled out if she believed the bomb at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was connected to the grenade attack here at JFK. Her face went pale. Her expressive eyes went from stark to emotionless as she closed it down and said nothing, kept moving. As he watched the whole incident at the airport on a cell-phone video a passenger had posted, he felt a gamut of emotions, staring with rage at what he saw happening, to roiling fear when Sherlock engaged the terrorist, and he actually heard what she said to him, then relief so profound he shook with it. And pride, he could have burst with pride. It was over and she’d survived.
He watched the Crown Vic pull away. Where were they taking her?
Every TV station was going back and forth from JFK to St. Pat’s, newspeople on scene, so excited to be at ground zero, they were nearly stuttering. They had huge news stories to tell right on top of each other. Naturally, they tied the two incidents together—it was a time-honored terrorist strategy, wasn’t it? To get the first responders out of the way of the prime target, St. Patrick’s Cathedral? If it hadn’t been for the bravery of Father Joseph Reilly, a former Gulf War vet turned priest—and on and on it went. He saw Romeo Rodriguez, the altar boy who’d found the bomb in barely enough time, a thin, white-faced little boy, maybe three, four years older than Sean, and cameras showed him close up beside the priest, his small hands clasping the priest’s.
Homeland Security put every airport in the nation on high alert. But how would they protect the large historic cathedrals? There were so many to choose from, if a terrorist was bent on destroying prime symbols of Western culture and civilization. Savich took calls from Director Comey; his own boss, ADA Jimmy Maitland; and every member of the CAU; Sherlock’s parents in San Francisco; a few FBI agents in New York, Nicholas Drummond among them; and the chief of security operations at JFK, Guy Alport. Savich had watched him being shotgunned with questions until he’d looked ready to bolt or shoot them all. Alport called to tell him Sherlock was scary good, that Savich was a lucky man to have that woman. He said he wanted to meet her husband, the guy she called a Big Dog. He laughed, then sobered immediately. “That priest at Saint Pat’s, I’d sure like to hire him, but God beat me to it.”
Finally, Savich set his cell to vibrate, put the landline on automatic message, and fetched Sean from next door.
When he finally heard from Sherlock at eleven o’clock that night that she was on her way home—hallelujah—he left Gabriella to watch Sean and left for Reagan National Airport, surprised her flight was only three hours late. At last he saw her walk past the luggage carousels, a bulging black FBI briefcase in one hand, a small black handbag in the other. Even from a distance he could see she was exhausted, running on fumes, but when she saw him, her face lit up. A few people recognized her, but she didn’t acknowledge them, kept her eyes straight ahead, never looking away from his face.
When Savich finally got her into the Porsche, guarded by airport security in a no-parking zone, he revved the sweet engine and pulled away from the curb, relieved to see no reporters. He said nothing until he could exit the airport. He pulled her against him, held her tightly until she reared back in his arms. “I’m okay, you can see I’m okay. Do you know what, Dillon? They gave me a first-class seat on the flight home and three bottles of champagne. The flight attendants wrapped them in napkins so they wouldn’t break and I stuffed them in my briefcase. Do you know some people even asked for my autograph on the plane?”
He laughed, told her she should take a bath in all that champagne.
On the way home he told her about the calls from President Gilbert and Vice President Foley, and perhaps most important, the call from the CEO of Virgin America, offering Sherlock free lifetime first-class tickets to wherever she wanted to go. He wondered if the Pope would invite Romeo Rodriguez to the Vatican for a private reception, Father Joseph to accompany him, once he recovered from his injuries.
He saw she was still wound tight, knew it would be good to get her mind off New York, and so he told her about the bizarre murder at the Rayburn House Office Building earlier that day. The victim was a young man who’d been stabbed through the heart with an Athame—pronounce that a-tha-may, he’d been told—a ritual knife used in witches’ ceremonies, quickly identified by the medical examiner as it had been conveniently left stuck in the victim’s chest, complete with his killer’s fingerprints. As for the man who’d stabbed him, he’d been brought down immediately by several people in the hallway and held for the police. Savich’s boss, Jimmy Maitland, had called Savich because the murderer claime
d to have no memory of what had happened and because the ME said he’d never before seen an Athame used as a murder weapon.
“Mr. Maitland said I shouldn’t be surprised he called me. I interviewed the guy, name’s Walter Givens, an auto mechanic from Plackett, Virginia. He’s unmarried, but has a serious girlfriend, likes beer and hanging out with his friends. He was terrified, no faking that, and he has absolutely no memory of killing anyone. He said he finally came to when a half-dozen people slammed him down on the floor. The young man he killed was George Carroll, the owner of a catering company called Eat Well and Prosper in Plackett, Virginia. He said he’d known Sparky—that was George Carroll’s nickname—since they were kids and his family had moved to Plackett. He liked him, sure, he liked him, everybody did, and he was a real good cook, especially for a guy. When I showed him the Athame, he claimed he’d never seen it before in his life. It looked weird to him, with those ugly dragon heads on the handle. He didn’t want to touch it. I’ll show you a photo—it’s called a Dual Dragon Athame, seven-inch blade, carved dragon heads with red ruby eyes.”
“Did this Walter Givens really not remember? You’re sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m positive. Frankly, he isn’t smart enough to fool anyone. Dr. Hicks agreed. He believes someone was strong enough to hypnotize him into committing murder, something Dr. Hicks had a difficult time believing. He wanted to hypnotize Walter, but Walter refused, he was too scared to let someone else fool with his brain.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as scared as Walter Givens was.”
“Can’t say I blame Walter, not after what happened to him.”
“But we have to know how it all came about. Maybe we can talk Walter into the hypnotism tomorrow. Do you know Dr. Hicks patted my hand, told me to figure out how to convince him?”
“Both the victim and the murderer are from the same town? Plackett, Virginia?”