by John Meaney
"Where was it, the laser?" I knew there was security all over the place, around the UN.
"Roosevelt. Across water."
That made no sense.
"Tell me specifically where the laser was."
"Can't. Remember."
"Were you there? In the place where they set it up?"
"No."
"Who told you about it?"
"Al."
This was getting nowhere.
"Al who?"
"Mossad. Case. Officer."
I doubted it.
"Does he mean Albrecht Reinhard?" asked Moshe.
"Shut up," I said. Then: "Oh, fuck."
Because Appleton was shaking, and his eyeballs were white, rolled up inside his head.
"Balls." Moshe knew what he'd done. "Fuck. I'm sorry."
Trembling had set in, growing more violent. White spittle was gathering at the corners of Appleton's mouth. He was breaking down fast, as some implanted psychic booby-trap – tripped by the mention of Reinhard's name – detonated in his mind.
Then Blackstone was between me and Appleton. He took hold of the Englishman's head and pressed hard on nerve points. He laid Appleton down across the cot.
"Nice work," said Moshe.
Appleton looked comatose, but peaceful. Whether Blackstone had arrested Appleton's mental breakdown, I wasn't certain.
"Looks like you people have skills of your own," I said.
"Yes," said Blackstone. "My people do."
I didn't think he meant the CIA.
THIRTY-FOUR:
NEW YORK, November 1963
All I could think of was Fern in a Black Path safe house, her cover blown. But if I couldn't focus clearly, we were done for.
"You'll be wanting one of these." Blackstone was holding out a walkie-talkie.
"Thanks pal," said Brummie Greenmore.
We were hurrying together down the main steps. On a concrete apron, our car engines were already running, each with a CIA driver at the wheel. The other agents, plus the rest of Brummie's team, were climbing inside. Moshe and I got in to the same car, taking the rear seat. He had a New York guide book in his hand.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Roosevelt Drive." Moshe showed me an entry in the book. "It says here, the buildings are mansions."
"More like redbrick condos." Blackstone settled in beside the driver. "Made to look old."
Our driver gunned the engine. Then our five-car convoy was screeching across the concrete, leaving tyre burns.
"We'll need to slow down," I said, "when we get near the flashpoint."
"I think they know that," murmured Moshe.
"Sorry."
"That's OK." In the front seat, Blackstone turned his head. "Your friend is still alive, from what Appleton said."
"I know." I tried not to think what that might mean. "Perhaps she'd rather they'd killed her."
"Not Fern," said Moshe. "She's a survivor."
Blackstone nodded, his face grave, perhaps understanding that the word survivor holds a special connotation for us. Then he removed a radio mike from its clip, and established contact with the local field office.
"I need a team in place, very discreet," he said. "We'll be there in twenty."
"Roger. What else do you need?"
"We need a special forces unit to—No. Hold on." Blackstone turned to me. "How good are the English guys? Can they operate with just half a team?"
"They're actually two teams. They work in four-man patrols, not sixteen like your guys, and they're the best."
"Then we'll use them." Blackstone raised the mike once more. "I just need some local agents. Rendezvous in the building supervisor's office, assuming there is one."
"Got that. They'll meet you there."
"Good work. Out."
As we drove, the images that snapped through my mind in painful succession featured Fern writhing and screaming. Maybe that was better than a bullet in the brain. Maybe it wasn't.
"We'll be in time," said Moshe.
Soon enough, we were driving along Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, parallel to the bank of the East River. Moshe gestured out into the channel, to the low green mass in the centre.
"That's Roosevelt Island, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "Shit. Was that what Appleton said was the firing-point?"
No wonder I'd been confused: Roosevelt Drive or Roosevelt Island, I'd not known which was which.
"It's in line of sight with the Peace Globe." Moshe leaned over to the other side. "And if that block up there is Tudor City, then I'd say it isn't in line with the sculpture. The UN building itself is in the way."
Moshe had a sniper's sense of geometry. I trusted his judgement.
"After you've dropped us off" – Blackstone was addressing our driver – "why don't you take Moshe here over to the island."
"Yes, sir."
"And we'll join you later." Blackstone leaned forward. "Stop here. "
We pulled to a halt. There was a steep rock face, practically a cliff, with outdoor steps cut into it. The building we needed stood on top of the slope. I was out of the car fast, and running up the steps, with Blackstone beside me. Behind us, the car pulled back into the traffic flow, and was gone. At the top, the luxurious redbrick building stood in front of a genteel square. Somewhere, in one of the upper storeys, Fern was a prisoner.
If they've raped her—
Later.
But if she's—
Not now.
Now we kill the bastards.
Another of our cars was already on the square, and Brummie's team were already entering the building. A blonde-haired man in a grey suit was beckoning them in.
"That's Briggs," said Blackstone. "Local agent-in-charge."
"OK." I pushed out a breath. "OK, then."
Inside, we entered the supervisor's office. Briggs and several other agents had blueprints and typewritten lists neatly lined up on the big desk. They looked calm, considering there were armed Nazis in the building, not to mention an atomic bomb ready to blow, a quarter of a mile down the road.
Brummie said: "Have we access to the rooftop apartment?"
"Um..." The supervisor, sweating, rubbed his face. "There's extra deadbolts, like. Really secure. But I got a key for the apartment below that one, if that's any—"
"Give him the key," said Blackstone. "Now."
"Yes, sir."
"We've got watchers all around the square." Briggs spoke up as Blackstone looked in his direction. "No sign of the opposition, but there are hundreds of windows. Could be half a dozen snipers, and we wouldn't know it."
It wasn't snipers I was worried about. Just an observer with a radio trigger, because if the Black Path operation was blown, they wouldn't wait for some clever laser light show: they'd detonate the thing the old-fashioned way.
I wondered what Moshe might find on Roosevelt Island. Then the here-and-now snapped back into place.
Fern. You'd better be all right.
We spilled out of the supervisor's office, Brummie and Rob Fields in the lead. Beside me, one of Briggs's men was carrying the biggest shotgun I'd ever seen. We moved fast and silently up the stairs. Then we were taking up position in a corridor, before an apartment door. All of us, apart from the SAS guys, who were no longer in sight.
I looked at my watch.
Three minutes to go.
Blackstone had used a doctor's stethoscope against the wall. He'd raised two fingers and pointed, then shook his hand and pointed again. Two people in the main room, an unknown number of people farther inside.
Two minutes and—
A yell sounded from the apartment.
Briggs muttered: "Shit."
"Go," said Blackstone. "Go now."
The man with the shotgun was already in position by the apartment's door. He blasted the top hinge, then the bottom. Blackstone took a long step, and smashed a kick into the door. It door exploded inwards.
Inside, glass shattered. Someone shouted: "Vorsic
ht!"
I threw myself past Blackstone, going in low, hitting the floor in a shoulder roll, coming up to one knee with my Beretta drawn. Two double shots sounded – thump-thump thump-thump – as I lunged forward, into the lounge.
Two dead Nazis were splayed on the floor. Brummie and his men had already moved on. There was a bedroom door, and they kicked it open.
"Fern!"
Yelling...
I ran, but I was the third man in, behind Brummie and Rob. On the bed, atop Fern, a man was bucking. Her bare legs were wrapped around his waist. His buttocks were half visible, the muscles clenching powerfully—
Bastard.
—and the splash of blood everywhere – as if Jean-Paul found me with her – but it was hard to get a decent aim because of the—
"No, lad!" shouted Brummie.
—struggle, so I snapped the safety on, reversing my grip so the Beretta became a hammer. Snarling, I went for him, but Brummie's grip tightened around my arm, and then I realized the Nazi bastard's bucking motion wasn't so much an attack as the desperate flopping motions of a landed, dying fish.
He slumped.
We waited, checking. Then Blackstone rolled the man off Fern. She spat blood.
"David." Red stained her teeth. "I knew you'd come."
Like a lioness after the kill.
"Jesus Christ," breathed one of the CIA men.
"I think I crushed his kidneys," said Fern. "He lost his erection when I broke his nose."
"Nice work." Brummie pointed at the corpse's torn throat. "Even before you bit through his carotid. Very nice work."
Fern was beginning to shake.
"David..."
My paralysis dissipated, just as I realized that I'd not been able to move for several seconds. I squatted, pulled her off the tangled bed, and lifted her like a baby.
"It's OK, sweetheart."
"Yes."
Then I carried her out into the lounge and laid her on a couch. Gently, I pushed the couch to an oblique angle where she wouldn't see the other corpses. Her trembling was natural, the aftermath of shock. When she came out of it, we'd be able to talk.
A cold draught swept in from the broken windows: Brummie's means of entrance.
I waited.
Fern was almost ready to talk when Briggs came in, walkie-talkie in one hand, a sheet of paper in the other.
"The apartment," he said, "is leased to a movie company. Neuhof Productions. It's a director who lives here. French, Jewish, name of Albert Reynard."
Fern grimaced.
"Albrecht Reinhard," I said.
"Description is six foot four, striking eyes, whatever that means, and red hair."
"So he's dyed his hair." I remembered that as a student, Albrecht Reinhard had been an actor. "The height's an exaggeration. That's because he's got charisma. "
"You got a dossier on the guy?"
"Not with me. But I'd recognize the fucker in an instant." I turned to Fern, who was rubbing her face. "You're OK now."
"Jean-Paul," she said.
Oh, sweet fuck.
"What about him?"
The awful thing was, some part of me thought that if he were dead, Fern would be a traumatised widow, looking for comfort.
Jean-Paul's my friend.
"He's due at their office. Neuhof Productions. Two p.m."
Jean-Paul. Running his own op against Black Path?
"Where's that?"
"Empire State Building."
The time now was 11:57, but if I knew Jean-Paul, he might be there already. The riskier the rendezvous, the earlier you turn up. He might already be in danger.
Blackstone gave a slow nod to Briggs. "Get the cars ready."
"On my way."
"Do you know which floor?" Blackstone asked Fern.
"No. Sorry."
"All right. You're going to hospital, and we're—"
"Jean-Paul is my husband."
"Oh." Blackstone looked off balance, for the first time since I'd met him.
He's seen how I feel about her.
"We'll take good care of him," he said.
"Thank you. Can I talk to David alone?"
"Yes." And, to me: "Don't take too long. We're ready to move."
I watched him leave through the ruins of the front door. One of the other agents was searching the bodies, while the others pulled open cupboards and drawers. The rest of Blackstone's team would already be inside the cars outside. No one was in earshot when I leaned close to Fern, touching my cheek to her temple.
"David?"
"Yes."
"We were working with Ignatieff."
Shit.
"You're KGB," I whispered. "You and Jean-Paul."
"No."
I couldn't process this. Either she was with the Soviets, or she wasn't.
"Maybe," she added. "Sometimes it's hard to tell. Just who's running who?"
"What's the operation, Fern? What were you doing in Washington?"
"Passing reactor blueprints to Ignatieff." Grimacing, Fern took hold of my neck. "He helped us track down reprocessed uranium. Stolen by Black Path, here in the US. If he does well, he gets influence against... The ones who want to invade us. You know. Soviet hawks."
Ignatieff was a Russian patriot who wanted peace for his country.
"They've more uranium?" I meant Black Path. "Another bomb?"
"No." Her face stretched, not quite a smile. "The fuel's stored in two West Coast synagogues. One in Seattle, one in L.A."
"Fuel, but no bombs?"
Fern's grip weakened on my neck, and she closed her eyes, lying back on the couch.
"We don't know what they're up to."
By we, she meant herself and Jean-Paul. But I had the advantage of having interrogated Appleton, and knowing how Moskowitz had been subverted by Strang.
"They want the authorities to find the stuff," I said. "And blame it on Jews. A set-up."
After the bomb went up here, if we allowed it to happen.
"I need to go," I added.
"David. Afterwards" – Fern's breathing seemed to stop, then – "I'm going to tell Jean-Paul. About us."
There was no time. If I didn't get moving, there wouldn't be an afterwards.
"Fern? Did they...?" I looked at the sprawled bodies. "Did anyone say anything about radio detonation?"
The fancy use of a laser – for the sake of TV, and blaming New Jerusalem – required line of sight, but a radio trigger could be hidden anywhere, so long as it was in range.
"I saw radio triggers," she said.
Balls.
Quickly throwing a tarpaulin over the globe wasn't going to help. That would have been too easy. With a radio trigger as backup, our covering the sculpture would tell them that we knew about the bomb, and then they would abandon the laser gimmick, trust to their other false evidence – like Moskowitz's testimony, like Appleton's – and simply blow the thing.
"I'll see you later."
"David... Yes. Go."
I was sprinting by the time I reached the door.
Blackstone drove, while I sat up front beside him. We moved fast along Roosevelt. Up ahead, on the right, the beige Queensborough Bridge spanned the East River. It had no exit onto Roosevelt Island. The island, in the centre of the river, served only as a foundation for the bridge support.
"You know we have to cross Queensboro' all the way, then take a smaller bridge back onto the island," said Blackstone. "You don't want to go straight to the Empire State?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
Articulating what was churning in my mind was pointless, because real cognition happens below the surface. Even when we passed the UN, and my heartrate accelerated as I glimpsed the black-and-gold Peace Globe, I was aware of a sense of doubt, or perhaps unease, that told me to slow things down and think them through.
On the Queensborough Bridge, we used the lower deck, passing the old elevators, now disused, that I remembered riding as a kid. Me and Uncle Isaak, snow cones in hand. Then the roundabout
route that Blackstone had promised, as we exited on the eastern end of the bridge and doubled back, finally, to Roosevelt Island. We parked at the edge of scrubby grassland on the island's southernmost tip, and got out. Another car was there, with one of Blackstone's men inside. Moshe was poking around in the grass. He waved, and hurried toward us, a wrapped package in his hand.
"How's Fern?"
"OK," I said. "We got her."
"Good. That's good. So." He pushed out a breath. "I've found a tripod stand, half tucked away inside a bush."
"Here?"
"Yeah." He pointed at some straggling low bushes. "And something else. I found this beside the stand."
Unwrapping the package, he showed me a Seder and a Torah. Blackstone, who had been scanning the waterline, turned to see what Moshe was holding.
"Holy books?" Blackstone asked.
"Exactly."
"Jewish holy books," said Blackstone. "It seems such obviously fake evidence that it's comic, but it isn't. Not when people are panicking."
"Maybe." Moshe looked out across the water, where Blackstone had been scanning just moments before. "Notice anything about the sculpture?"
"Er..." It took me a moment. "Oh. There it is."
A low concrete wall almost totally obscured it. The wall was a barrier that I hadn't noticed earlier, driving past on Roosevelt Drive. It had simply been part of the background.
"Not much of a line of sight," said Blackstone.
"Exactly. You can see the UN building clear enough, but the sculpture?" Moshe looked at him. "You'd need more elevation to really make it work."
The island was low and flat. To our right, the Queensborough Bridge thrummed with traffic. In front of us was the East River, and beyond that Manhattan, the UN in the foreground and that wonderful skyline behind it. Just another ordinary day in New York.
"Let's go," I said. "Whatever's going on, we're not finding it here."
Moshe turned around on the spot, a slow full circle. Then he pointed up at the Queensborough Bridge.
"Plenty of elevation up—"
That was when the rifle shot sounded.
Oh shit oh God, no!
The crack of sound and the shock of adrenaline slamming through my body were simultaneous. By the time rational thought started to surface, I was already sprinting, changing angle, then again, zigzagging but heading towards the bridge, because I couldn't outrun a bullet but I could get close enough to take him down, take Reinhard down if it was him, provided I survived.
