"Yeah, to a mere hundred and fifty thousand," Tran replied.
"Yeah, a mere hundred and fifty thousand," Lucy agreed. "But they're cooped up on the side streets in Midtown until they march-that's only about a dozen blocks to check out. If we get going early enough, we can get to them all before they start marching."
"And what exactly are we looking for?" Tran asked. "I doubt they have Sons of Man name tags or T-shirts. And I suspect security will be pretty tight, so that rules out spotting their machine guns."
Lucy turned bright red. "I'm not sure what I'm looking for," she said. "I just feel like I will know it when I see it." She turned to Jojola. "I saw some of this before…when we were on the butte. I know it's not much of a plan, but it's what I got and I think I'm supposed to be there."
"I'm willing to do this," Ned said. "But not with you. I promised your mom that I'd keep you out of the rough stuff, if it happens."
"Spoken like a true future son-in-law," Tran cackled, which caused Ned and Lucy to blush.
Lucy squeezed Ned's hand. "Sorry, love, but I have to be there, I'm the only one who knows even kind of what I'm looking for," she said. "In fact, you're the one I can't allow to go. But I promise, first hint of anything rough and I'll duck around the corner."
"What do you mean by that?" Ned replied. "You're for sure not going if I'm not."
"I can't let you," Lucy argued, and explained the vision she'd had in her dream of Ned lying on the ground as a man pointed a rifle at him. She could hardly remember any details about the man, but she could still recall the sight of Ned's face as he looked down the barrel, knowing he was about to die.
"Doesn't mean it's going to come true," Ned countered. "And it doesn't matter. You go, I go, or we both stay here and whatever happens, happens."
The pair was about to argue more, but Jojola stopped them. "Look, I'd just as soon you both stayed, but Lucy is the only one with any inkling of what to look for and Ned isn't going to let her come alone. So let's move on." He turned to Lucy. "That's a lot of ground to cover, so I think you should draw us a picture of what this triskele thing looks like so that Tran and I can cover one side and you and Ned can cover the other."
Everyone had agreed to the plan when Tran asked another question. "What do we do if we find something? We can keep in touch by cell phone, but we won't have any weapons; how do we stop these guys?"
It was Jojola who answered. "Same way I stopped you and your buddies back in 'Nam."
"Oh, you mean not very well." Tran smiled.
"No," Jojola replied with a grin of his own. "I mean, any way I could."
The streets of Manhattan were only marginally warmer for the St. Patrick's Day Parade than the plains of Colorado had been. However, that didn't stop tens of thousands of watchers and participants from congregating on Midtown at dawn, nor the myriad Irish pubs around the Fifth Avenue route from opening their doors early to snag the first of the celebrants.
The first St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York was in 1766 when Irish soldiers in His Majesty's army on the "island of York" held a parade of their own, before heading off to celebrate in a more stereotypical Irish way. Two hundred and forty years later, the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York was the largest in the world and one of the very few where everyone still walked, no cars or floats allowed.
The two-mile-long parade route began at Forty-second Street in Midtown and proceeded up Fifth Avenue to St. Patrick's Cathedral, between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets, where traditionally the Archbishop of New York would bless the marchers. They would then continue on to Eighty-sixth Street, skirting the east side of Central Park before hanging a right, moving onto Third Avenue for the last hoorah.
Millions of people would eventually line up to watch the 165th Infantry-formerly the "Fighting Irish" 69th-lead the procession of more than 150,000 kilted bagpipers, drummers, drum majors, high school band members, cheerleaders, dance ensembles, representatives of every branch of the services, and the loyal members of the Irish societies, including the Emerald Societies of the NYPD and NYFD, as well as thousands of real Irish folk who'd flown in from Eire herself.
In the grand tradition of those first soldiers, many of the revelers were already inebriated as Lucy and Ned elbowed their way through, and sometimes over, the weaving masses. They were searching for the needle in the haystack and the green beer-swilling straw kept getting in the way.
Moving with any sustained speed was difficult. The side streets had been closed off for a block on either side of Fifth for the first half dozen blocks or so to provide places for the marchers to assemble, every group assigned to a particular spot on a particular street. And each enclave was a party unto its own, with bleating bagpipes competing against blaring horn sections while drummers tried to keep the beat with both and neither. Meanwhile, military honor guardsmen in dark glasses not necessary in the sunless caverns between the buildings watched the pretty girls who strutted about in uniforms of their own. Banners representing the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Loyal Sons and Daughters of County Cork, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Clan-na-Gael, and a thousand others waved to and fro along with many thousands more tri-color flags bearing the orange, white, and green of Ireland.
They wandered through the crowded side streets-Tran and Jojola on one side of Fifth Avenue, and Ned and Lucy on the other-and got up to Forty-ninth Street when Lucy found what she was looking for…or at least hoped it was what she was looking for when her "totem" showed it to her. She was standing in the middle of the crowd with Ned, stamping her feet and blowing on her fingers to ward off the cold when she looked up and saw the owl glaring down.
Actually, it wasn't a real owl, but a plastic or clay version that building superintendents placed on ledges to keep pigeons away. Lucy followed the faux owl's gaze to the big, brightly colored banner proclaiming that bit of street was occupied by the representatives of the Irish Society of County Heath. Like many of the other Irish society banners, this one depicted a religious theme-St. Patrick walking on a green hill between two large, slightly askew stone monoliths. It was the stones that got Lucy's attention, or actually the symbols embroidered on the stones. As clearly as on the day he'd said it, she heard Cian's voice: There are stylized versions-such as a triskele where the legs are represented by spirals. The earliest of those discovered so far were found on Neolithic carvings in County Heath in Ireland.
As far as she knew, there was no connection between the County Heath and the Sons of Man beyond a shared, and common, symbol. But Lucy was absolutely sure that she'd come to the right place and pointed out the banner to Ned. "Maybe they just have a flair for the dramatic," she said.
Lucy called Jojola and Tran, explaining her conclusion. "We're off to mingle," she said. "You guys keep looking in case this is a red herring. Then maybe you can follow along when we move out onto the parade route."
The young couple walked over to join the worthies of County Heath, many of whom had been taking liberal advantage of Tully's Irish Pub in the middle of the block. Speaking in perfect Irish Gaelic, Lucy soon had those nearby convinced that she was from the home county itself, and was welcomed as a long-lost cousin to them all. Lucy introduced her "American boyfriend," whose reception was not quite as enthusiastic given that his last name, Blanchet, sounded suspiciously English.
When the greetings died down and the others went on about their business, Lucy huddled against Ned to stay warm and give herself a chance to look around. But outside of the banner with the triskele, nothing seemed remotely linked to any sinister plot by the Sons of Man. She wondered if she'd jumped to her conclusion too swiftly.
The County Heath was represented by one of the larger cadres of bagpipers and drummers, a good fifty in all, led by a huge, red-haired drum major with a tall bearskin hat. His legs stood out like tree trunks from beneath his plaid kilt and he glowered fabulously for the Japanese tourists with their cameras. The county was also represented by two members of a color guard, one bearing a U.S. flag and the
other the flag of Ireland. Off to one side, several members of a precision drill team were practicing, tossing rifles through the air to one another.
Lucy looked at the drill team for a moment before realizing what she was seeing. Then it came to her. "Rifles," she said.
"What?" Ned replied. He started to turn to see what she was talking about.
"No," she warned, "don't look. But there's a drill team behind us with rifles."
"Oh, yeah, well, I've seen the kind of rifles they use at the county fair," he said. "They're fakes and can't shoot."
"Are you absolutely sure about that?"
Someone was watching the young couple who'd arrived late and now stood huddled in the midst of the County Heath representatives. But the girl appeared to be from Ireland-he'd overheard one of the bagpipers saying that he could even place her accent as coming from a small village "to the west of where my people originated from." The boy didn't look like much, just another skinny kid.
Dismissing them as a threat, his attention was drawn to a pair of cops walking through the crowd. His hair was longer and dyed a different color from when he was on the force, and he was wearing sunglasses and a tam, but he turned quickly away just in case one of them might remember him.
Paul Stewart was proud to be a dedicated assassin for the Sons of Man. He was not a first son of a first son, not even a second. He'd been born to a female distantly related to Andrew Kane and had only advanced to a foot soldier for the cause. But that was okay, he was also a true believer and had signed up for the marines out of high school so that when the time came, he would be a trained warrior as well.
Only problem with the marines was that the corps corrupted itself by allowing niggers, spics, and gooks to join. He hated them all and had been dishonorably discharged after nearly killing a black marine. He'd then returned to New York, where his distant cousin Andrew helped get him a job on the New York City Police Department, in part by magically turning his dishonorable into an honorable discharge. He'd repaid the favor by doing anything his cousin asked him to-whether it was roughing somebody up, delivering messages, or reporting anything interesting on the NYPD grapevine. He'd even disposed of the bodies of a couple of teenaged girls after Kane was finished with them.
Whoo, boy, he used to think, if the public only knew what I know about Cousin Kane, who at that time was only a wealthy lawyer and venture capitalist with aspirations to become the mayor of New York City. But Stewart was a man who knew who buttered his bread and kept his mouth shut.
Cousin Kane had saved him again after he'd played a little too rough with a black crack dealer, who refused to pay Kane a "business tax," and left him in a permanent vegetative state. Kane had seen to it that the dealer's family was paid off and that any potential charges against him had been stuck in a file folder and stamped "No Prosecution." The file had been sent on to the District Attorney's Office, where the deal was it would never again see the light of day. That is until that Jew bastard, Butch Karp, arrested Kane, and his pal, V. T. Newbury, started digging into the files.
Stewart had been fortunate that the statute of limitations on his crime was up and he couldn't be prosecuted. However, Newbury had taken his file and many others in the same situation to the chief of police, Bill Denton. Next thing Stewart knew, he'd been drummed off the force. Left with only a partial pension, he'd started drinking heavier and it wasn't long before his wife left him and took the kids.
Abandoned and feeling sorry for himself, he was contemplating sucking on the end of the barrel of his handgun when he got a call from someone working for Kane, who had recently escaped custody. He was to go to a camp in Idaho where he was introduced to his family's history and happily swore allegiance to the Sons of Man. There he'd been trained for his mission until he thought of himself as a perfect killing machine.
Returning to New York, he'd waited to hear if the mission was a go, afraid that his chance at glory and redemption might get canceled. But then he got the call to meet with Jamys Kellagh and heard the words he had been waiting for: It was time for a Son of Man to march with the sons of Ireland and silence the critic. Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh!
It didn't even matter to him that he probably wouldn't survive the mission. He was striking a blow for Aryan America and the only leaders who saw the danger of allowing every subhuman from Africa, Latin America, and Asia to invade the country. And the only leaders who were prepared to do whatever it took to wipe out the sand niggers in the Middle East, including using nuclear weapons. Then they'll see whose oil it is.
He daydreamed that his name would live on forever. Two hundred years hence, when little Aryan American schoolchildren read about great patriots who'd sacrificed their lives, his would be right up there with Nathan Hale and Davy Crockett. They would hear how he saved the country from rampant appeasing left-wingers and the threat of being overrun by mud people. And the Jews, don't forget the fucking Jews, Paulie boy, he reminded himself, so ready to die that he hardly noticed the pain of the Valknut he'd branded into the inside of his bicep the last night in Idaho.
Stewart was getting antsy for martyrdom and tired of reviewing the plan. It was pure genius and made use of a talent he already possessed. In the marines, he'd been assigned to a precision drill team; in fact, it was one of the black members of the team whose head he cracked with the butt of his gun. He claimed it was an accident during close order drills, but it was obvious he'd hated the man and had purposely swung the rifle so that it would connect.
Somehow, the Sons of Man had got him an invitation to join the County Heath drill team. He'd heard a rumor that the society had ties to the Irish Republican Army, but the tough part had been getting him a weapon.
The drill team used old M1 carbines rendered harmless by the removal of the firing pin and a metal wedge in the barrel. Otherwise, the M1 was a fine weapon that had served well in World War Two and the Korean conflict. While it didn't have the firepower or fully automatic feature of its descendant the M16, the M1 was deadly in the right hands.
Before they were allowed to bring their useless rifles into the staging area, Stewart and the rest of the team had been required to hand them over at an NYPD checkpoint for inspection. When the rifles passed, they were handed back with the warning to the team not to let them out of their sight.
Taking his time, Stewart had gradually made his way to Tully's, where he ordered a Guinness. As the bartender poured it, he nodded toward the back and quietly mumbled, "Second door on the right. Lock it when you leave."
Stewart casually got up, wandered to the back with his rifle, opened the indicated door, and slipped into a small storage room. Behind a filing cabinet, he found a perfect replica of his drill M1-only this one was in working order.
He switched guns, walked back into the bar, where he downed the Guinness in a single drain, and went back outside to await his moment of glory. As he stepped off the curb, a drunk grabbed at his rifle.
"Let me show you how to twirl that thing," the drunk slurred.
"Not today, pal," he snarled, and caught the man in the solar plexus with the butt of the rifle. It happened so fast that most of the other bystanders laughed when they saw the drunk on his hands and knees vomiting from "too much, too soon."
Stewart glanced back at the cute Irish girl to see if she'd noticed his martial skills. But she was on her cell phone. Didn't matter, today she'd see what a real man was made of; then she'd really have something to call home about.
He happily pictured her crying over his dying body when she realized that a great patriot had given his all. But the reverie came to a close when the tail end of the parade passed by Forty-ninth Street and those in the staging area marched out onto Fifth Avenue with a great cacophony of bagpipes, drums, and cheers.
If not for the circumstances, Lucy might have enjoyed the walk. At least it brought them back out into the sun, plus there was something about bagpipes and the rat-a-tat-tat of the snare drums that made it almost impossible to march out of step. She waved to t
he crowd even as she kept an eye on the drill team marching and performing at the head of the County Heath pipes and drums.
As they passed St. Patrick's Cathedral between Fiftieth and Fifty-first, Lucy saw John Jojola moving parallel along the sidewalk. She caught his eye and pointed to the drill team, but added a shrug just in case Ned was right and the rifles were useless. She saw him signal to someone on the other side of the avenue and a few steps farther along spotted Tran on the stairs of the cathedral. He waved to her and she waved back.
Thirty blocks later, Lucy was tired of the parade and growing nervous as they approached the viewing platform set up where the marchers would turn east on Eighty-sixth and head toward Third Avenue. The procession had become stop-and-go as each group put on their best show for the dignitaries.
At last, they were in sight of the platform. Lucy scanned the dais and spotted Ellis standing to one side of a large, red-haired man in a suit who was seated comfortably, obviously enjoying the spectacle, feet tapping to the whir of the pipes. She nearly stumbled into a bagpiper, however, when further inspection revealed that Jaxon was also on the platform, standing next to the archbishop.
Lucy was about to call Jojola and warn him that she thought the archbishop was the target when she was distracted by the bagpiper she'd almost run over. He nudged the fellow next to him and said, "There, Sean, you see the big fellow with the fiery hair…that's the grand marshal, Tom McCullum. He's a U.S. senator, wouldn't you know, and a Mick if you can believe it!"
"Aye, Bryan," Sean replied. "I hear he's a regular firebrand and recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He's calling for an investigation into that little to-do at the cathedral with the Pope and all. Also, gave a speech to the Hibernians about the Patriot Act-was none too fond of it, I hear, in fact was real critical about invasions of privacy and government spying on citizens."
"Well, I don't know what to think about that," Bryan said. "I don't like government intrusion any better than the next American, but maybe it's for the greater good and the only way to deal with these terrorists. We can always get our rights back when it's safe again."
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