by Pat Mullan
THE CIRCLE OF SODOM
By Pat Mullan
Copyright Pat Mullan 2011
An Athry House Book
www.athryhouse.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people, or real locales is used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author/copyright owner.
PRAISE FOR PAT MULLAN
"Pat Mullan is a natural born storyteller with a gripping, engaging style. He may just be the next big thing in Irish crime fiction." Jason Starr, author of LIGHTS OUT
"Just when I'd lost faith in thrillers, along comes this humdinger to revive my joy in the art" -- Ken Bruen, St.Martin's Press author of 'The Guards
"You know you're reading a good thriller when you start to cast it for the movie before you've even finished." -- Eithne Hannigan, BOOK REVIEWS, CONNEMARA LIFE magazine
“An even mix of Crichton and Clancy and written equally as well. It's a classic page-turner and almost comes across as though it had been adapted from a screenplay” -- Pod-Dy Mouth
“With rapid-fire pacing and well-drawn characters, Mr. Mullan takes the reader on a magic carpet ride all over the United States, England, Belgium, Switzerland and Hong Kong to weave a tale most evil and scary. The plot involves the very presidency, and the group plotting against our democracy is made up of very determined right-winged fanatics. Pat Mullan is a mature and knowledgeable writer who puts together a thriller with the best of them. An excellent read!” Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer, MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW.
"An entertaining and thrilling read of the first order...the chilling suspense will keep you restless !!!" -- Narayan Radhakrishnan, NEW MYSTERY READER
“Good, tight writing, clean prose that just zips along, and characters that are engaging and memorable all contribute to a great new book in the thriller genre.” – Peggy Vincent, Author and Reader.
“This is an exciting and gripping novel. The writing is clean, tight, and tense, and the characters, even the walk-ons, are very real and believable. The protagonist is both tough and likeable, and the villains are credible in their motivations and their private agendas.The climax is stunning.” - Ardath Mayhar, Writer's Digest 10th Annual International Book Awards (Ardath Mayhar is the author of sixty novels, She began her career in the early eighties with science fiction novels from Doubleday. Atheneum published a number of her young adult and children's novels. Changing focus, she wrote westerns (as Frank Cannon) and mountain man novels (as John Killdeer). Four prehistoric Indian books under her own name came out from Berkley.)
For Jean
PROLOGUE
1970
Korea
The wind almost blew MacDara off his feet as he grabbed the outer door to the Emergency Room and forced his body inside. A chaotic sight unfolded before his eyes. The two emergency tables were occupied - one by a Korean youth with a deeply lacerated forearm which Captain Green was carefully suturing, the other by a thirtyish looking G.I. who was getting his leg wrapped in a soggy plaster cast. The floor was untidy with bundles of clothing and the disposal cans overflowed with bloody swabs and bandages. Strips of surgical tape were suspended in readiness from I.V. stands and the sides of the medication cabinets. Two G.I.'s lay on litters inside the door awaiting their turn for treatment. An I.V. ran into the smaller semiconscious one and the other gripped his abdomen and moaned constantly. Medics were rushing back and forth with syringes, plasma and intravenous bottles. MacDara edged his way through and moved down the corridor to check in with Sergeant Taylor. People who were injured and people who thought they might be lined the pale green walls of the corridor and sat or slouched on the sagging black vinyl couches in the outpatient area. Empty litters were stacked near the door for return to the ambulances. An old mamasan wailed unceasingly on the floor beside a bedraggled little girl.
"That's all that's left of her six kids. She lost the other five. Drowned when the monsoon washed their hooch away She and the little one wouldn't be alive now if they hadn't been rescued by a couple of guys from the 1st Cav."
The information came from Sergeant Taylor. But neither had time to dwell on this tragedy. Another victim had just been brought down from the hill. A young G.I. - unconscious, no sign of life. MacDara cut the uniform from his body and attached an electrocardiogram machine. There was no response. The needle traced a wobbly and uncertain line on the paper. As MacDara adjusted the I.V. Captain Green called for a scalpel and rib-spreader. He made an incision near the heart. There was little blood from the wound. Then he inserted the device to separate the ribs and exposed the circular pink mass of the heart. MacDara handed him the adrenalin. He injected it into the heart. There was no response. On Captain Green's orders, MacDara cut the electric lead from an old ECG machine, stripped the wire bare at the ends and inserted the plug in the nearest outlet. The Captain applied it directly to the heart. The flesh was scorched and the body bounced on the litter each time the electricity was applied.
After thirty minutes, they gave up.
MacDara was half asleep, holding his head in his hands at the desk in the outpatient area when the telephone startled him. It was Major Whiteside.
"Who's the senior medic on duty tonight?"
"I am, Sir".
"OK, MacDara. Get someone to take over for you and meet me in ten minutes at the side entrance to the operating theater."
Major Whiteside was the Commanding Officer of the 53rd MASH and the senior surgeon on the hospital staff. He sounded unusually strained. MacDara didn't stop to inform Sergeant Taylor. Instead he left through the rear door of the emergency room and bounded the couple of hundred yards to the barracks. He knew his friend Murph was in bed at this time of the night.
"Murph, Murph, wake up! Major Whiteside needs you in Emergency now!"
"Shit! Goddam! You were in danger of getting brained" Murph yelled as he sat bolt upright in his bunk. Everybody knew that Murphy Armstrong slept with his shovel under his pillow at night. Murph suffered from an irrational fear of a North Korean invasion.
Murph pulled on his white uniform, grabbed a parka, and followed MacDara across the compound to the side entrance to the Emergency Room. Once inside, MacDara briefed Murph on the night's events and casualties, turned over the outpatient desk to him and headed for the operating theater.
Major Whiteside arrived two minutes later and directed MacDara to prepare a private examination room and equip it with a sigmoidoscopy kit. When it was ready, the Major returned with a tall, saturnine Colonel. Few words were exchanged. The Colonel undressed and Major Whiteside placed him on his side on the bed and asked him to tuck his knees up in a fetal position. What followed was almost a dreamlike sequence in MacDara's mind. As Major Whiteside guided MacDara in providing light, he entered the Colonel's rectum with a proctoscope and retrieved several long, rubbery, cartilage like objects. They looked like nothing MacDara had ever seen before. The procedure ended as quickly as it had commenced. The Colonel dressed and left. MacDara disposed of the objects. Major Whiteside cautioned MacDara to keep the matter confidential.
ONE
1994
New York
Owen MacDara looked out of the 34th window of GMA headquarters on Park Avenue. It was 4 p.m. on the second Wednesday in October. The sky was gray and threatened snow. Dozens of yellow taxis moved north and south on Park Avenue in a relentless stream. He wondered if he'd be lucky enough to get one at six o'clock.
Global Management Associates was MacDara's alter ego. After the army and Korea he had headed for New York and started in investment banking. In two short years he was a Vice President. One year later he had a plum European assignment, working out of London with relationship management responsibility for high net worth clients in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). Within a few years MacDara was a Senior Vice President back at headquarters in New York with general management responsibility. And impatient again. He hadn't made that million yet. And he didn't like working for others.
In 1984 MacDara resigned from the investment bank and formed Global Management Associates with two close colleagues. GMA's mission capitalized on their skills. They provided financial advice to high net worth individuals and management consultation to financial institutions. Their territory was the world. Ten years later GMA had become the advisors of first choice for the global financial marketplace. And MacDara had prospered. He had long ago made that first million.
MacDara was lucky. A cab had just pulled up outside his building to discharge a fare and he beat three other people to the taxi's door. This was New York. Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, at work. Every month Owen and three close friends from his days in the army in Korea met at their favorite watering hole, Costelloes. The cab dropped Owen at the corner of 50th Street and Second Avenue. He walked the rest of the way. Costelloe's entrance almost begged for anonymity. Carved out of an old brownstone building the faded canvas awning covered a dimly lit entrance set well in from the street.
Connolly will be standing at the bar as I enter, mused MacDara to himself. He was glad of the certainties of this life.
Murphy Armstrong, in these moments of self-doubt, thought he should see a doctor, a psychiatrist. But the thought passed as quickly as it arrived. He didn't really think that he was going crazy. But he did think that he was being followed. It's just that he never saw anyone following him. Not even their shadow. It had all started three weeks ago. He had left his law office on the west side of Manhattan and had decided to walk across to Second Avenue. He'd stayed late preparing a brief on a discrimination case. A triple header. His client was a young, black woman. She had a strong case of discrimination on three counts, being a woman, being black and being the victim of sexual harassment. He was on his way to Costelloes, the pub where he met every month with a few of his old army buddies from Korea. It was a Monday night. Few stayed late in town on a Monday and most Manhattanites were home, glued to the TV, recovering from their weekend in the Big Apple. So the streets were relatively deserted. He was walking alone on 53rd between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, heading east, when he felt the sensation for the first time. The hairs standing on the back of his neck, a palpable sense of danger. He stopped and looked back, scanning the street in both directions. But there was no-one there and the feeling wouldn't go away. He kept walking and gradually forgot about it, convincing himself that he was overtired, overworked. His body reacting to stress. He didn't really believe that but he wanted to give himself a scientific explanation. A rational man's way out.. He didn't tell his buddies about his fears when he met them at Costelloes. He was afraid that they would ridicule him. Tonight Murphy Armstrong had that same sensation of being followed. He was walking towards the west side, to the Peppermint Stick, to pick up Jack Cummins before they headed for their regular session at Costelloes. He stopped at Fifth and 52nd to buy a pretzel from a street vendor. There wasn't a soul in sight but he still felt that he was being watched. He walked briskly, frequently looking over his shoulder and seeing nothing.
Ernie Miller was good. The best. He imagined he should have been an American Indian or maybe an Indian scout. Kit Carson, that's it. One hundred and fifty years too late. He'd just have to settle for tracking his prey in the urban jungle instead of the lone prairie. Wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans and a black ski cap covering his white-blonde hair, Miller had merged into the black railings outside the 21 Club. He could see Armstrong stop about a hundred yards away on the other side of the street, look over his shoulder, hesitate, and then move on again. He'd been following Murphy Armstrong periodically for about two weeks. Picking his spot. Somewhere sleazy, where random crime was the norm, the accepted. Don't make it obvious. That's what he'd been told. An accident, a mugging, a random act of violence. And take them out separately. It doesn't matter who goes first, MacDara or Armstrong. But whoever goes first must go in a way that doesn't alert the other. A tall order. But Miller thought he had figured out how to fill it. Four of these old army buddies met to 'shoot the shit' every so often. Armstrong and his three buddies. MacDara, Cummins and Russo. Miller had no interest in Cummins or Russo. But he did have an interest in Cummin's place of business. A topless bar, the Peppermint Stick. Real sleaze, just the place for mayhem and an 'innocent victim'. Murphy Armstrong dropped in there occasionally to chat with Cummins, have a beer, and ogle the tits and asses. Miller decided to fill his first order at the Peppermint Stick.
Jack Cummins saw the police burst through the swinging doors of the Peppermint Stick. He had called them. No way he'd tackle the big lug harassing his topless barmaids. The big guy'd been here a couple of times before. Jack remembered. The last time was only a week ago. He had come in with another guy. They had stayed an hour. It had been a slow night and the two of them took the booth in the corner. Two things - no, three - stood out to make Jack Cummins remember. They had tipped Sally a $50 dollar bill. Nobody did that. And they had gotten into a heated argument just before they had left. And, oh yeah, the third thing. Who could forget a six foot three male with white blonde hair? Almost an albino.
Jack nodded to the two cops. One was a regular beat guy. He knew him. He pointed out the albino at the end of the bar who, by this time, was lying halfway across the bar flicking his thumb backwards and forwards over Sue's left nipple.
The albino moved fast. Grabbing Sue by the hair, he yanked her around the corner of the bar and held her in front of him with his left arm. His right hand now held a gun. He squeezed four shots in rapid succession at the two cops. People dived for cover in all directions amid the crash of bar stools and glasses. Two of the shots felled the first cop. He lay face down in a pool of beer mingling with his own blood. The second cop, gun drawn, dived for cover. A shot got Murph right between the eyes as he sat at the bar. Murph never knew what hit him. He was dead before he reached the floor.
The albino backed out onto 7th Avenue and dragged Sue to an illegally parked white Corvette on the corner of 52nd Street and headed west. Sirens blared on 8th Avenue as the surviving cop called in for backup and an ambulance for his partner.
Jack Cummins pushed himself up from the body of his friend, Murph, and looked around at the devastation in the Peppermint Stick.
Sue cringed on the passenger seat of the Corvette as the albino ran all the red lights west towards Tenth Avenue. Her lip was bleeding where he had punched her when she resisted. He'd used a scarf to tie her hands together behind her back. At the 54th Street exit ramp from the West Side Highway, the Corvette skidded. The albino never regained control. The head-on collision with the parked Peterbilt truck finished off the Corvette. Miraculously, the albino emerged dragging Sue behind him. He then hijacked a taxi that had just left the highway, taking the driver and the male passenger hostage. He ordered the taxi driver to head south toward the Lincoln Tunnel. But they never made it. Four blocks ahead a police car had set up an emergency road block. The taxi driver deliberately rammed the police car. Two police officers, guns drawn, moved towards the taxi. But the albino, armed now with a pump-action shotgun, killed them both. Angry at the taxi driver, the albino summarily executed him. The passenger lay unconscious in the rear of the taxi, wounded in the melee. The albino, still dragging Sue, hijacked another car and continued south. He didn't get far. The police had cordoned off the entire West Side from the fifties to the lower twenties. The final shootout at the next police roadblock on 34th Street left one more policeman and the albino dead. The driver o
f the second hijacked car was lucky. He escaped with scrapes and bruises. Sue had not been as lucky. They found her in the back seat. Her throat had been cut.
Jay Russo looked at his watch. It was 6 p.m. Time to wrap it up. He put the finishing touches to the design rendering for a new building in Connecticut. Maybe he'd take another tour of the site this weekend, he thought. Russo Associates had beaten three of the top New York interior design firms in landing the half million dollar project. Taking one hundred and sixty-five thousand square feet of office space from a building shell to move-in condition in just four months was the most aggressive job he'd ever done. And he'd paid a heavy price. For the past eight weeks he'd seen his kids only on weekends. Even then they had to compete with an armful of drawings. Jay locked his briefcase in the credenza in his office. He wouldn't need it tonight. Leaning across the round table that served as a desk and conference table, he grabbed the phone.
"Jimmy, Jay here."
"Tell the guys I'm running a half hour late...yeah, yeah, I know...I'll be there...swear to God..."
"Jimmy, I swear I'll be there - just tell the guys."
As he hung up the phone, Jay thought that sometimes Jimmy Connolly sounded just like his mother.
Jay took a last look around before leaving. The main office space of Russo Associates housed twenty workstations. He had an open plan corner office. There was one conference room. It was in continual demand. Still, this was good space. Madison Avenue was a step up from the drafty four dollar a square foot loft in Tribeca that was their home for their first five years. Russo Associates was seven years old. They had grown from three associates and one small contract to twelve full-time architects and up to ten temporary professionals at project peaks. Total project revenue this year should reach three million dollars.
