by Bob Mayer
“I saw them. They’re no longer functional. Tell me about the detonator?”
Merrick displayed the device. “Not bad. Radio controlled is interesting. Gives more operational flexibility than setting a timer. But it also requires the person initiating to be within FM range which means line of sight. And there’s the off chance someone else transmits on the same freq before you’re ready. That would cause an oops. That’s why it wasn’t hooked up before emplacement. You caught whoever made it just before they did that.”
“Any idea who?”
Merrick shrugged. “I’ve played with radio detonation, along with some other demo guys on the teams, but they don’t teach it at the Q-Course for the reasons I just mentioned. Too uncertain.”
“Who does use radio detonation?” Kane asked.
“Either someone really stupid or really smart,” Merrick said.
“That narrows it down to both ends of the bell curve.”
“The Soviets on the smart end. They like to teach dangerous things to foreigners who come to their terrorist training camps and then go home and use it. Field-testing concepts via others as experimental dummies. Ditto for the Libyans who have their own camps cadred by people who were trained by the damn Russkies. And hadn’t blown themselves up. Yet. The Jordanians run some camps.”
“Who do the Libyans and Jordanians teach?”
“The Jordanians train Red Army Faction. Those people killed a banker in Germany last week. But they aren’t into bombs. Or operating here in the U.S. The Libyans? They trained those Nation of Islam guys. Remember, those yahoos who took over those buildings in DC earlier this year? Again, though, not into bombing. Yet. They also train the IRA. They do like bombs, but haven’t used radio detonated. That we know of, since the Brits keep intel close to the vest.”
“Fuck,” Kane muttered.
“You been to Ireland lately?” Merrick asked. “What do your folks call it? The Old Country?”
Kane leaned back in the chair. “Who else?”
“The Agency dabbles in it,” Merrick said. “Which reminds me. Anything further from our friends at the CIA?”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean ‘yet’?”
“I kinda told Trent I’d get back to him on something so I don’t think they’d want to kill me.”
“’Kinda’?”
“He bugged this place. And my landlord. I asked him not to any more. I didn’t think he was going to take no for an answer.”
“He’s never going to stop.”
“I know.”
“I was thinking about it while driving down,” Merrick said. “You and I know some shit that should never become public. Maybe someone was trying to permanently silence you?”
“Lots easier ways to do it than blow three people up.”
“What couldn’t you tell me on the phone?” Merrick indicated Kane’s various wounds. “I’m willing to bet there’s a connection. Debriefing time.”
Kane quickly updated his former teammate on the events on the night of the Blackout, 13 July. It was like old times, a mission debriefing after being exfiltrated and back at the hooch in the A-Team basecamp in Vietnam, surrounded by sandbags and plywood and rebar and Marston mat. Succinct, just the facts. No interruptions.
When Kane finished, Merrick shook his head. “You were in a fucking war.” Coming from one of a handful of soldiers who had a star on their combat infantry badge, indicating two wars—Korea and Vietnam-- that was saying a lot.
“But it’s over.”
“Apparently not.” Merrick indicated the bomb.
“I doubt I was the target,” Kane said, playing devil’s advocate to see how Merrick would respond.
Merrick gave him a disbelieving look.
“No one is going to miss any of those people in the fire,” Kane argued.
“Bullshit,” Merrick said. “How much do you think was in those two duffle bags?”
Kane shrugged. “At least a couple million.”
“And you just left it there to burn?”
“I wasn’t thinking too straight after being drugged, burned and hung.”
“Fucking pussy. Always letting the details distract you. Whose money was it? NORAID?”
“I assume so.”
“They’re not going to be happy. Nor the IRA about the M-16s.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Kane said.
“You said Damon talked about some sort of insurance just before Quinn killed him,” Merrick said. “What if he actually did have it? This Quinn guy was after his IRA info.”
Kane shook his head. “Damon wouldn’t have given up the location of that place to anyone other than his Trinity. He had to keep that close. Anything you can find out about who uses radio-controlled bombs and where the C-4 came from would be helpful.”
“Will?” Merrick said, in a tone to get his attention. “The IRA? You took out their money to weapons connection. And the money. And the weapons. About the only thing you didn’t do was piss on ‘em.”
“Let’s not talk about getting pissed on.”
“Oh yeah,” Merrick said. “I kinda forgot that. That was a bad day.”
“And technically, Quinn killed Damon.”
“You’re the only one who is aware of that. How many people know what happened?”
“You.”
“Who else?” Merrick pressed.
“Thao.”
“Who else?”
“Some people have an idea but nothing for certain,” Kane said.
Merrick waited him out.
“I told Toni this morning,” Kane admitted. “Sort of. A cop named Strong figured it out and said something. But he wouldn’t tell anyone else. I trust him. Marine vet, Walking Dead. As I said, Damon didn’t have friends. Nor Quinn. Except--”
“Who?”
“Sofia Cappucci,” Kane said. “But she couldn’t have known Quinn was at the factory or who he really was, given his cover. She just knows he’s gone. And Toni says she isn’t that upset about Damon being out of the picture or Quinn. I think Sofia gets over the men in her life pretty easily. She’s not mourning her recently departed husband, that’s for certain.”
“Geez, you’ve got enemies in every direction. What do you think Damon’s insurance was?”
“Told you, that was bullshit.”
“What if it wasn’t?” Merrick said. “Did you hear any of the names that he gave up to Quinn?”
Kane shook his head. “No. My ears were still ringing from the explosions. Woozy from the knock out drug on the dart. And I was too far away. And hanging. As you said: Always pre-occupied with the small shit.”
“So those connections are still there,” Merrick pointed out. “You’re holding something back,” Merrick added, having worked with Kane in life or death situations on multiple missions.
Kane sighed. “Crawford’s man told us he believes Toni’s father set me up with NORAID. Marcelle knew I was meeting Damon that night because I told him to arrange it.”
“This is a clusterfuck,” Merrick summarized.
Kane was still trying to untangle the knot. “It’s a bit sophisticated and dangerous for NORAID to mount something like this. And if they were after me, why not just a bullet in the head on the street?”
Merrick held us his hands in surrender. “I got no clue. What about the IRA? Maybe they sent some people over?”
“It’s possible.” Kane saw his former teammate’s eyes shift and he pulled the forty-five and spun about as the door slammed open. Merrick snatched the HK-sub, tucking the stock tight into his shoulder, finger on the trigger.
“Freeze!” someone yelled from the doorway. “Drop your weapons.”
“Fuck you,” Merrick responded. “Drop yours.”
Two men crowded shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, revolvers at the ready. One was a tall, gangly black man and the other a short, stocky white guy with a pock-marked face.
Kane sidled right, eyes and muzzle on target, making sure he was out of Merrick’s line of
fire. “Who are you?”
“FBI,” the white guy shouted. “Drop your weapons.”
“I didn’t hear a knock,” Kane said. “Nor do I see a badge. You’re outgunned. You drop your guns. You aren’t dressed like Feds,” he added.
The two exchanged a glance. They wore jeans, t-shirts, and unbuttoned denim jackets. The black guy sported an over-sized afro and the white guy had long, stringy hair, both trying too hard to look like anything but law enforcement which meant they probably were what they claimed.
Merrick didn’t go for small talk when guns were drawn. He strode forward into their indecisiveness, submachinegun at the ready. Both men aimed at him, but he ignored their weapons. He went to the short white guy and pressed his forehead against the muzzle of the revolver while putting the tip of the HK under the man’s chin.
“Wanna play?” Merrick asked. “Ever wonder if that firing on reflex when shot in the head thing works? I have. Wanna find out? I’m kinda curious.”
“Back off,” the agent said, with little conviction. He looked into Merrick’s eyes and what he saw shook him. He lowered his weapon. “Take it easy.”
His partner surprised everyone by pointing his revolver at his own head. “’Hold it! Next man makes a move, the nigger gets it!’”
Merrick burst out laughing and secured the HK. “Good one.”
Kane was lost on the movie reference, which wasn’t unusual for him.
The black guy holstered his gun and retrieved a thin leather wallet from inside his jacket. He flipped it open. “FBI. Agent Tucker and this is my partner, Agent Shaw.”
Kane slid the forty-five into the holster.
While the two Feebs were gathering themselves from the unexpected confrontation, Merrick went to the couch and flipped a cushion over the detonator and C-4. The move, however, did not go unnoticed.
“We need to see that,” Shaw said, pointing at the couch.
“See what?” Merrick asked.
“You got a warrant?” Kane asked as he moved between them and the couch.
“Are you William Kane?” Tucker asked.
“Do you have a warrant?” Kane repeated.
“We want you—” Tucker began, but Kane moved forward, indicating the door.
“You’re on private property,” Kane said, “and if you don’t have a warrant, you need to step outside or I’ll consider this breaking and entering.”
“We were going to knock,” Tucker said, “then saw the weapon and the explosives. You can’t blame us for being a bit anxious. And that,” he indicated the couch, “is probable cause.”
“You just opened my door?” Kane had his arms spread, crowding them back, over the threshold. “Lucky we didn’t shoot you.”
“We had probable cause,” Shaw echoed, but he was backing up.
“You’re Kane,” Tucker said, a statement, not a question. “We need to bring you in for a chat.”
“I need to call my lawyer,” Kane said, “and find out exactly what the term ‘bring you in’ means legally.”
“Do you want my partner to sit on this address while I get a warrant?” Tucker asked. “And we tear the place apart? Put this, and you, into the system? NYPD queried you on our criminal database not long ago.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Kane asked.
“We can discuss it at headquarters,” Tucker said. “Do you need more shit in your life, Kane?”
“He’s got a point, Will,” Merrick said. “The Blazing Saddles bit was good, Tucker. I liked it.”
Tucker leaned close to Kane, whispering so only he could hear. “How about murder, arson, and theft of government property? Given recent events, some people will be very interested in that last crime. We can do it easy and informal or messy and formal. Your call.”
CIVIC CENTER, MANHATTAN
“Did you know this entire area used to be a big pond?” Kane asked as Shaw turned the unmarked Plymouth Fury onto Lafayette off of Canal Street. The Jacob Javits Building housing the New York City field office of the FBI was only two blocks from Toni’s old law firm, run by her father on Broadway. Or formerly run by, depending on his current whereabouts and status. They were in the midst of the criminal justice center of Manhattan with various city, county, state and federal buildings all around.
“That so?” Tucker said from the front passenger seat.
“It was called Collect Pond,” Kane said, “but was filled in after it got polluted and contributed to outbreaks of cholera and typhus. Then this became the Five Points neighborhood. Lots of gangs.”
“Really?” Tucker turned to look over his shoulder. “Irish gangs, right?”
“All sorts of immigrants, not just Irish,” Kane said. “As a matter of fact, up until 1792, the area just south of here was the burial ground for free blacks and African slaves.”
“No mixing of the bodies back then? Even in death?” Tucker asked.
“Trinity Church passed an ordinance just before the turn of the 17th century prohibiting blacks from being buried in church graveyards,” Kane said.
“Christian of them, wasn’t it?” Tucker said.
“Actually,” Kane said, “now that I think about it, I believe the ordinance prohibited blacks from being buried anywhere inside the city limits. This was north of Wall Street, which was the city boundary at the time. I doubt they exhumed all the bodies when they leveled the area so there’s probably remains all around us.” Kane was on a roll. “New York had the second highest number of Africans after Charleston at the time of the Revolution. Most were slaves.”
They turned right on Duane Street and then an abrupt right on a drive that descended into the underground garage of the Federal Building.
“You’re full of useless bullshit, aren’t you?” Shaw asked as he rolled down his window and flashed his ID at a uniformed guard. A barrier was opened and they entered.
“Depends on your perspective,” Kane said. He was in the back, having agreed to accompany Tucker and Shaw and saying his farewell to Merrick, who was headed back to Fort Devens with the detonator. He’d also managed to quickly ask his former teammate for a favor having nothing to do with the current situation using the Army’s powerful NCO network.
The forty-five was in its holster and he wasn’t cuffed so he viewed those as positive indicators that Tucker’s threat had been only that: an inducement to get him here.
This was against Kane’s better judgment, but too much was going on to take a chance on a search warrant. The fact they only wanted to talk meant the FBI was as clueless as Kane suspected.
Weak fluorescent lighting maintained a dismal glow in the garage as Shaw drove to the far end and parked among the other drab federal unmarked cars marked by their blackwalls and radio antennas.
“Come on.” Shaw killed the engine and exited the car.
Kane got out and followed Shaw, noting that Tucker slid in behind him. Shaw opened a metal door and revealed a bleak grey corridor lined with similar doors. They walked in silence until Shaw stopped at one. He used a large key to unlock it.
“After you,” he said to Kane.
The room held several filing cabinets, two desks with chairs, a single chair in front of them and little else. Grey government issue furniture. The charred remains of an M-16 was on one desk, the plastic stock and grip melted away, leaving the blackened receiver group and barrel.
“No windows?” Kane asked. “You guys don’t rate a view?”
“Views are distracting,” Tucker said.
“We like to stay focused,” Shaw said as he sat behind the desk that held several file folders, while Tucker took the one with the weapon.
Tucker indicated the chair in front. “Sit.”
Kane adjusted the seat so it was facing between the two agents.
“Sean Damon,” Tucker said.
Kane didn’t respond.
“Do you know him?” Tucker asked.
“No.”
“You’re full of shit,” Shaw contributed. He wrote something on a
legal pad.
“He’s been missing for several weeks,” Tucker said. “Ever since the Blackout.”
Kane waited.
“I should have said he was missing,” Tucker said. “He’s been found.”
“His remains,” Shaw threw in. “Along with several others.”
“Should we be in mourning?” Kane asked. He looked at Shaw. “Was he a friend of yours?”
Tucker spoke: “NYPD ran you through the database the week prior to the Blackout. In connection with the killing of a mobster named Leon Cibosky.”
“Was that his first name?” Kane asked. “Leon? Seriously?”
“That murder is still unsolved,” Shaw said.
“Nor has the murder weapon been found,” Tucker said. “Twenty-two caliber.”
“NYPD has cleared me of that,” Kane said.
“No, they haven’t,” Shaw said. “No one is cleared until someone is convicted of the crime. No statute of limitations on murder. Do you know what unsolved means?”
“I didn’t go to college,” Kane said.
“You went to West Point.” Tucker wasn’t consulting notes, which Kane took as a bad sign.
“Not a college,” Kane said. “More like a finishing school for wayward boys.”
“You aren’t funny,” Shaw said.
“Many have accused me of that,” Kane acknowledged.
“I tried to get a copy of your military records,” Tucker said. “But was informed they were destroyed in the fire at the National Archives in St. Louis in ’73.”
Kane had not heard that cover story and wondered if Trent and the CIA had anything to do with it. “Shame.” It also reminded him that Yazzie had mentioned not being able to access his records, which made him wonder what access Yazzie had.
“Which is bullshit,” Shaw said, “since the records destroyed for the Army in that fire were for personnel discharged between 1 November 1912 and 1 January 1960.” He was consulting notes, a file folder open on his desk next to the notepad.
“Before your time,” Tucker said. “Weak cover at best.”
“The Army and paperwork,” Kane said. “You know how it goes. You guys are vets, right?”
Neither responded.
Shaw checked the folder. “But you were in the news, Kane. The Green Beret Affair in 1969.” He held up Life magazine with the image of the Colonel on the cover. It had a label indicating it came from the New York Public Library. “You were one of them. That have anything to do with your file disappearing?”
