won’t be seeing this kind of attention,” the reporter gushed as he turned to a tall priest with a pitted, scarred face while the camera followed.
“I’m speaking with Father Aidan Clary, who is normally responsible for securing St. Patrick’s,” the reporter said. “A little different scenario today, eh, Father?”
The priest looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t want to look in the camera. “I’m really not supposed to talk about it, but yes, it’s different. Today will be different.”
Her mind raced ahead. So the plan is to kill Butch and me at the cathedral? The white king and white queen. She thought about calling her husband or Jaxon. But what? Tell them a priest who’d once had bad acne as a teenager and now spent his life as the custodian of a cathedral might be an assassin? Even if he was-and maybe whatever Kane or Azzam had planned was already in place-her daughter was in St. Patrick’s, and if something went down, Marlene was going to be there.
She picked up the telephone and dialed a number. “I need to talk to him,” was all she said to the man who answered.
A half hour later, the Homeland Security agent on the landing stood up as Marlene appeared at the door with her dog. “I know I’m not supposed to go outside until my husband arrives to take me to the cathedral, so would you mind giving Gilgamesh a quick walk before his bladder bursts?”
The agent looked at the dog like he’d just been asked to handle a rattlesnake. He was a big man, and well armed, but it was the biggest canine he’d ever seen in his life. Damn thing could take my arm off with one chomp, he thought.
Marlene noticed the hesitation and smiled. “Don’t worry, he’s well trained and really just a big baby. Come on, give him a pet.”
Nervously, the agent put out his hand and gave the dog a scratch behind the ears. Gilgamesh responded by leaning against the agent and moaning with pleasure.
Marlene smiled sweetly. “Please.”
“Sure, why not,” the agent said taking the leash. “Come on, boy, let’s go for a walk.”
As soon as the agent got on the elevator and it started down, Marlene rapped lightly on the door with a spoon. A moment later the door sprang open, a hanging ladder appeared, and then Tran pulled himself up onto the landing, followed by Yvgeny. Someone on the floor below removed the ladder as the three quickly slipped into the loft and shut the door.
Tran had formerly owned the Chinese restaurant food and equipment store on the first floor of the loft building, as well as the space on the second, third, and fourth floors. He’d used it as both a front for some of his nefarious activities, but more as a way of keeping an eye on his friends in the loft. He still owned the building but had moved in a new tenant on the bottom floor, an import company that did very little importing-at least nothing much that was reported to U.S. Customs. It came in handy when he wanted to use a secret way into the building from the basement and then up to the fourth floor below the loft.
After the twins had greeted the “guests,” Marlene had sent them grumbling back to their room. Then she explained to Tran and Yvgeny why she’d suddenly focused on the ceremony at the cathedral as the most likely time for an assassin to try to kill Butch and herself. “It might not be more than a woman’s intuition, but I want to get inside but stay in the background until I can figure out what’s going on…. I know it’s asking a lot, but I’d like some company if I can arrange this.”
Tran smiled. “I didn’t have anything better to do today.” He shrugged. It was the unspoken truth that he had a crush on Marlene and would have walked into the fires of hell if she was going.
Yvgeny nodded, too. “I have-how do you put it-a dog in this fight, too,” he said. “However, I have been troubled by how Kane was playing his game, and you might not be correct on who they plan to target.”
“What do you mean?” Marlene asked.
“Andrew Kane is supposed to be something of a chess master, no?” he began. “He buys elaborate chess sets and prides himself on his game.”
“Yeah, so?” Marlene said.
“Well, I was asking myself recently, Why is he playing like such a rank amateur game?”
“You’re losing me,” Tran said.
“Let me explain. Chess is not about how many of your opponent’s pieces you can take,” Yvgeny said. “The object is to place the other’s king in checkmate in as few moves as possible. Great players take pride in piercing to the heart of the enemy’s defenses without making it a war of attrition. And for the truly great players, taking your opponent’s king when the other side did not see you coming is an even more satisfying achievement.”
“I know you just said something important,” Marlene said. “But I still don’t get it.”
Ivgeney laughed. “Kane, who may or may not still be running the show, has played like a beginner. He kills the black bishop. He kills the black knight. He tries to kill the white bishop, kills a white knight, and tries to kill another. Then all those pawns, black and white. It’s sort of a ‘last man standing’ strategy that no chess master would pride himself on, unless-”
“Unless what?” Marlene and Tran said together.
“Unless he is using the Naranja gambit…once used by the Spanish chess master, Orlando Naranja, in a world championship match,” Yvgeny said. “Essentially, it entails sort of an all-out attack, a war of attrition in which he even sacrificed his queen. But it was meant to distract the opponent and force him to defend against, while Naranja’s real purpose was a simple three-move strike from another direction.”
“So what we think Kane or someone is trying to accomplish-the assassination of the district attorney of New York and his pesky wife,” Marlene said, “is really a distraction for the true purpose, which is to-”
“-place in checkmate the real white king, the Pope,” Tran finished. “And the white queen?”
Marlene looked at the television set. “Lucy,” she said.
Ten minutes later, the Homeland Security agent knocked on the door of the loft. “Sit, boy,” he said, pleased that the dog had followed his every command.
The door opened and Zak poked his head out. “Yes?”
“Oh, hi, where’s your mother?” the agent asked. “I brought her dog back.”
“She’s napping,” Zak replied, “and doesn’t want to be disturbed.” He took the leash from the agent and pulled the dog inside. “Thank you,” he said and shut the door on the bemused agent.
32
Andrew Kane approached the short, compact man with the tidy black mustache and held out his hand. “Colonel Grolsch,” he said to the head of the Swiss Guard security team. “Good to see you again.”
“Ah, Senore Hodges,” the man replied, shaking his hand. “Your people are in place, I assume?”
“Yes, indeed,” Kane said with a smile. “My people are in place. And yours?”
Kane looked to where Grolsch indicated the two men clad in Renaissance helmets and blue, red, and yellow tunics. He knew from the Catholic history books he’d been forced to read as a child that the colors were those of the Medici family and the uniforms supposedly designed by Michelangelo. The men were armed with swords and halberds-a combination spear and battle-ax. Not much of a threat, he thought.
“It is a small group”-Grolsch shrugged-“but with all the other security efforts outside and inside, I am comfortable. And your people?”
“Similar placement,” Kane said. “But also two-females-among the nuns in the choir.”
“But can they sing?” Grolsch asked.
