Counterplay bkamc-18

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Not when he’s the one in control,” Andy said. “I can’t explain…but sometimes we’re all in here together, and it’s all stirred up. He knows about the chess pieces only when he’s back inside with the rest of us. So he let me send them when I was out, but nothing else.”

  “But why am I the white queen? Why not my mother?” Lucy asked.

  Andy looked at her like she was kidding him. “You’re mom’s too old. Geez, I’m just a kid.”

  “Are you saying you have a crush on me, Andy?” Lucy asked.

  Andy blushed. “I don’t like girls. But you are good and nice. Once I tried to get out when your daddy and Kane were at a party, and Kane got a bad headache trying to keep me in, you asked if I was okay…or really, if Kane was okay. You felt my forehead to see if he, I, had a temperature…like a mom is supposed to.” Andy shook his head sadly from side to side. “Like my mom never did.”

  “And that’s why I’m the white queen?” Lucy said. “Because I’m nice?”

  “Sort of…but mostly because the white queen is the most dangerous piece on the chessboard.”

  “Me? Dangerous,” Lucy said. “Now, I do think you have me mixed up with my mom.”

  “No, I don’t,” Andy said. “Why do you think Kane brought you back here and wants to do bad things to you? He’s afraid of you, and it’s because he knows, deep down, that I would want to help you stop him. Now, will you please shoot me?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I probably should, but I can’t murder an innocent boy.”

  Andy stomped his feet. “Girls are so dumb.”

  Lucy smiled. “Sugar and spice…now what is he planning to do?”

  Andy looked sad again. “He’s going to leave here with you. He has a boat waiting for him at the Columbia University boathouse. Then he’s going to take you to some place called Spite and Divel and meet a bigger boat to take you and him up the Hudson River to a safe place. But the others are going to stay and kill everyone.”

  “Spuyten Duyvil,” Lucy said.

  “What?”

  “Spuyten Duyvil is the name of the place you just mentioned,” Lucy said. “My dad once told me a story about it.”

  “I like stories,” Andy said. “I wish my mother had read me stories. I…uh oh, he’s coming back. Good-bye, Lucy, find a way to make him stop.”

  “Good-bye, Andy,” Lucy replied.

  Kane scowled. “I hate being called Andy. And I thought I told you to take your fucking clothes off.”

  Kane was interrupted by a knock on the door. “What is it!” he shouted.

  The terrorist who’d escorted them back poked his head in. “The Vatican has the money ready to transfer, but they are demanding that we release the Pope first,” he said.

  Kane glared at Lucy, then reached out and grabbed her by her hair. “Oh are they,” he yelled as he pulled her out of the room and began walking back to the cathedral. “We’ll see about that.”

  When they reached the altar area, Kane shoved Lucy over next to the Pope, who grabbed her hand. “Are you all right, my child?” he asked.

  Lucy smiled. “Yes. I’m not afraid,” she said.

  “Good,” the Pope said with a smile. “Because I am.”

  Kane said something to Azzam, who said something to the largest of the terrorists standing near the Pope. The man immediately pulled a large knife from a sheath behind his back. With one hand, he cupped the Pope’s chin and pulled his head back, with the other he placed the knife at the pontiff’s throat.

  Kane jumped down the stairs and ran over to the camera crew. “Roll ’em,” he screamed as he grabbed the microphone.

  “Okay, assholes,” he said. “I told you no breaking the rules. Send the money NOW! Or I’ll fucking roll the bastard’s head down the steps of St. Pat’s.”

  The cell phone of the terrorist who had brought him the news rang. The man listened and then nodded to Kane. “It’s done,” he said.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Kane shouted. He took out his own cell phone and called Emil Stavros. “Is it there? Give it a second…okay, good.” Speaking back into the microphone, Kane was calmer. “Okay, just a little misunderstanding. But let’s not have any more of those. In the meantime, get the plane ready, and we’ll all get through this just fine. And as a gesture of goodwill for you coming to your senses, I’m going to send out your Agent Hodges and Lucy Karp. She will be unconscious but unharmed. When she wakes in a couple of hours-after my colleagues and I are long gone with His Pontificy-she will have the information on how to defuse the bombs we have set in the cathedral, and then everyone can go home. See, I’m not such a bad man.”

  Kane indicated to the camera crew to cut. He then walked up to where Lucy had been fidgeting beside the Pope. “Well, my love,” he said to Samira. “It’s time we parted ways.”

  “I am heartbroken,” Azzam said. “Are you sure you don’t want to remain with me to share the glorious end to this adventure?”

  Kane smiled. “No. You see I have a new love…Miss Lucy here,” he said. “And we’re about to embark on our honeymoon with several hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. Now, if you’d perform the honors.”

  Azzam produced a hypodermic needle and started to walk to Lucy, who turned to Kane. “Please, I won’t give you any trouble if you let me say good-bye to my dad,” she pleaded.

  Kane looked ready to deny her request but got an odd look on his face and nodded. “Sure, one last good-bye between father and daughter. But mind you, no kissing the cowboy. I’m the jealous sort.”

  Lucy walked down the stairs to the aisle where her father sat propped up against one of the pews, holding a makeshift bandage made from Ned’s shirt on his head. “Do whatever it takes to stay alive, I will get you,” he said as she knelt to kiss him on the cheek.

  “I know you will,” she said, then bent as if to kiss him again. “Kane’s taking me to the Hudson by way of Spuyten Duyvil from Columbia’s boathouse. The plan is to blow this place up when he’s gone.”

  Lucy stood and leaned over to kiss Ned. “You are not going to do anything to stop him from leaving with me,” she said. “After that, it’s all fair game, cowboy. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Lucy,” Ned said. “I’m going to marry you when this is over.”

  “Ned, you are definitely going to have to choose a more appropriate time to propose,” she said and wiped at the tear that trickled down her cheek.

  “Okay, okay, break it up,” Kane said. “I told you, no mushy stuff with the cowboy. He’s yesterday’s news.”

  Azzam walked up to Lucy and deftly stuck the needle in her arm. Kane caught her and laid her on the floor. “All righty, then,” he said. “Now you better work me over a little. After all, Agent Hodges wouldn’t have let himself get captured without a fight.”

  Azzam smiled. “With pleasure.” She struck him in the mouth with a fist that nearly knocked him over.

  “Ouch, good one,” he said, spitting out a tooth. “Now, a couple more, and we’ll call it a day.”

  Five minutes later, the doors of the cathedral opened and Agent Vic Hodges staggered out-bloody, one eye swollen closed, his clothes torn-with the unconscious Lucy Karp in his arms. He made it halfway down the steps before sinking to his knees. Two members of the NYPD SWAT team scurried from the police barricade; one of them took Lucy from him and the other helped him to his feet and to a waiting ambulance where Police Chief Bill Denton, Special-Agent-in-Charge Jaxon, Clay Fulton, and assistant director of Homeland Security Jon Ellis waited.

  “I think she’s okay,” Hodges said. “Kane said she’d wake in a couple of hours.”

  “What can you tell us about the situation inside?” Denton asked.

  Hodges shook his head. He started to choke up. “It was a setup,” he said. “Someone on the inside stashed guns. Most of my team and the Swiss Guard never knew what hit them.” Tears sprang to his eyes. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. Azzam was with the nuns’ choir. I never saw her until it was too late. A lot o
f people, including some civilians, are dead because I messed up.”

  Ellis stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder. “That’s all right, kid,” he said.

  “No it’s not,” Hodges said. “I tried to get to my gun, but next thing I knew it was lights out. I’m still feeling a little woozy.” As if to prove his point, his knees buckled again.

  Ellis looked at the paramedic standing by the back of the ambulance. “Got room in there to get my boy checked out?”

  The paramedic nodded. “Sure. The girl’s out of it, but she doesn’t seem to be in any distress,” he said. “Still, I’d like to get going.”

  Ellis helped Hodges to the back of the ambulance. “Go get that head checked out. We can debrief you later. I’ll send one of the boys by to keep you company.”

  “I’d rather stay, sir,” Hodges replied.

  “That’s an order,” Ellis said. “Whatever happened in there wasn’t your fault. Now get out of here.”

  With that, Hodges climbed in the back of the ambulance. The paramedic was about to close the doors when Fulton stopped them. “I think I’ll ride along,” he said. “I’m not much use here, and I’d like to be there for Lucy when she wakes up…especially if things go bad inside.” He looked at Hodges. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  Hodges looked at Ellis and then back to the big detective. “Not at all,” he said. “I’m sure Lucy will want you there.”

  35

  “Watch her hands,” Giancarlo said.

  “What?” his brother, Zak, replied. “Watch whose hands?”

  Giancarlo said, “Watch Lucy’s hands.”

  Like a good part of the rest of the world, the twins were camped out in front of their television watching the events as they unfolded at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At the moment, a large man was holding a knife to the throat of the Pope while their sister stood somewhat to the rear but still in view.

  If the twins had more at stake than some in what occurred, they were also somewhat used to their family going from the frying pan and into the fire on a regular basis. If it gave them a rather unusual childhood, they also developed a strong belief that things would turn out all right; after all, their mother and father were in the fray.

  “So what?” Zak said.

  “I’m watching Lucy’s hands,” Giancarlo said. “She’s signing.”

  “Signing what?”

  “Would you quit being dense? She’s saying something in sign language.”

  “Cool! What’s she saying?”

  After he was blinded by an assassin’s shotgun pellet, Giancarlo had taken up reading in Braille. Then when he regained his sight, he’d remained fascinated by how the blind, and then the deaf, communicated and started to learn sign language, which was one of the sixty-some-odd languages Lucy knew.

  “Um, let me see,” Giancarlo said. “I’m still pretty shaky at this. She’s keeps signing the same thing over and over. ‘Lucy hostage. Annoy Satan. Baker. Field…. Lucy hostage. Annoy Satan. Baker. Field.’ ”

  “I don’t get it,” Zak said.

  “Neither do I,” Giancarlo replied. “But she wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t important.”

  “So who do we tell?” Zak said. “We can’t get anybody on their cell phones.”

  “The guy outside the door,” Giancarlo said and walked over to the front door. He opened it and invited the agent inside. “Um, we think our sister is trying to tell us something about what’s going on at the cathedral?”

  The agent glanced at the television just as Kane stopped the broadcast. “Like what?” he said.

  “We don’t know,” Giancarlo replied. “That’s why we want to go down there and tell somebody like Espey.”

  “Espey?” the agent replied.

  “Yeah, Espey Jaxon, he’s a G-man,” Zak said. “He’ll know what to do with the information.”

  The agent smiled. “Why don’t you just tell me, and I’ll relay the information,” he said.

  Giancarlo frowned. “No. I think we’ll go to the cathedral. Our folks are in there.” He started to walk to the front door, but the agent pulled him back and shut the door.

  “Keep your mouths shut,” he said, opening his coat enough to show them his gun. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Gone,” Zak said. “What’s it to you?”

  “Shut up, kid, and have a seat.”

  “Shut up yourself. We’re leaving, and if you try to stop us, our dog is going to eat you.”

  The agent looked over at Gilgamesh who was standing watching the conversation but wagging his tail. The agent’s orders were to kill the kids and the mother, who had now mysteriously disappeared. He wasn’t looking forward to it; then again, national security sometimes required small sacrifices. He laughed and put his hand on his gun, ready to pull it and shoot the dog. “Yeah, right. Gilgamesh, attack!” The dog just stood there wagging his tail. The agent laughed again, “Gilgamesh, sit!” The dog obeyed.

  The agent looked back at the boys and pulled his gun. “Some guard dog. You little fuckers aren’t going anywhere. Now, sit on the couch while I go check on your mom. If you try to get out of here, the agent at the front door will make things very unpleasant for you.”

  “You said it wrong,” Giancarlo pointed out.

  “Said what wrong?” the agent replied, walking over to scratch the dog’s neck.

  “His word for ‘attack’ isn’t English,” Zak said.

  “No? He speaks other languages?” the agent smirked.

  “Yeah, Italian,” Giancarlo said. “The word is assalire.”

  Too late the agent heard the rumble start within the big dog’s chest. He tried to reach for his gun, but the big dog already had his forearm in his mouth. The agent screamed as the dog bit down and screamed again at the sound of the bones in his arm being pulverized. He fumbled for the gun with his other hand and almost reached it when he noticed the dog had let go of him. There was a moment when he looked into the dog’s brown-yellow eyes, just before the animal tore his throat out.

  “Mom’s going to be pissed about all the blood,” Zak said as they walked out the front door.

  “I think she’ll understand,” Giancarlo said. He rapped the code on the elevator door. A moment later, the door opened and the hanging ladder appeared.

  A few minutes later, the agent on the bottom floor heard the elevator coming down. Job’s finished, he thought. Figured that was what the scream was about. He waited for his partner to emerge after which they’d disappear-maybe take a month or two down in Costa Rica until the dust settled. However, when the door opened, the agent took a look at the slaughtered body of his partner and threw up.

  Ten minutes later, the twins showed up at the police barricade at Forty-seventh and Fifth Avenue and squirmed their way to the front of the anxious crowd. “We’re District Attorney Butch Karp’s kids,” they told the officer at the checkpoint. “And we need to talk to the FBI guys at the cathedral.”

  “Yeah, right, kids, just like everybody else here,” the officer said. “But sorry, no one gets through.”

  Zak and Giancarlo backed off for a moment. “You got to get through,” Zak said.

  Giancarlo agreed. “But how?”

  “What we need here,” Zak replied, “is a diversion. You ready?”

  “What? Wait! No!” Giancarlo shouted, but Zak had already dashed through the checkpoint, followed by the officer and several others. The officers who closed ranks to prevent other dashes watched the mad chase as Zak darted this way and that, so they weren’t ready when Giancarlo slipped between two of them and took off up Fifth Avenue.

  Three blocks later, winded and barely ahead of the pursuing police officers, Giancarlo ran up to where he saw Jaxon and some other men who were watching a television screen. A pretty woman with dark hair and a mole on her cheek was speaking at the camera.

  “We have increased our demands,” she shouted. “We insist that all prisoners held by the criminal United States and its puppet allies captured in its illegal
wars on Muslim lands be freed immediately. We also demand that all Muslims captured in the Russian war of aggression against Chechnya be released immediately and that all Russian troops leave Chechnya.”

  “She’s building up to something,” Jaxon said to Denton. “I think you better get your guys ready to go in. She knows nobody is going to go for these demands. And where’s Kane in all this? He’s not the sort to blow himself up for Allah or anybody else.”

  “Jaxon, Jaxon!” Giancarlo shouted. “I have to tell you something.”

  A police officer grabbed the boy and started to pull him away, kicking and screaming. The agent looked over and saw who was shouting at him and called out to the officer. “That’s okay. Let him go.”

  When Giancarlo ran up, Jaxon leaned over. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re going to try to get your dad out of there.”

  “Mom, too,” Giancarlo said.

  “Your mom’s inside?” Jaxon said. “I didn’t see her go in.”

  “She snuck in with a couple of guys after she figured out something was wrong.”

  Jaxon smiled. “Smart lady, your mom.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not why I came,” he said. “Lucy was using sign language on the television to tell us something.”

  “What she say?” Jaxon asked.

  “She said she’s a hostage,” Giancarlo replied.

  Jaxon straightened up. “Not anymore,” he said. “She’s out and on her way to a hospital. She’s going to be okay. Now, I need to get back to-”

  “No,” Giancarlo said tugging at his arm. “She said this when they were threatening to kill the Pope. So we already knew she was a hostage. She was trying to say she was still going to be a hostage. Sign language isn’t that exact, especially when Lucy had to be careful no one would notice.”

  Jaxon furrowed his brow. Where is Kane? he wondered. Dead? Killed by the terrorists? Or gone? “What else did she say?”

  “It didn’t make a lot of sense,” Giancarlo explained. “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.”