The Eternal War

wedged between them. ‘You’ve just been signed over to FBI custody.’ He smiled coolly. ‘Your sorry, murdering, terrorist, scumbag butt is ours now.’

Maddy turned to the others, standing together on the forecourt outside the precinct station. ‘All right, it’s half past nine. I guess there’ll be some police clerical staff at their desks by now who can sign a release form for us.’

She looked at Liam, Sal, Bob and Becks. ‘So … Liam, you come with me. The rest of you, just … just stay here.’

‘But what if they won’t let him go?’ asked Liam. He opened his mouth again and was about to point to both support units, Bob reaching inside an old mackintosh he was wearing to pull Foster’s old shotgun from the waistband of his trousers. Quite clearly eager to bring the thing out of retirement and use it once again.

‘No! We’re not shooting this place up! I said that already. If they say no, then we’ll just have to figure something else out.’ She pointed up at the sky, where a solitary column of dark smoke arced across the cloudless blue morning. ‘See that? Everyone’s watching the news. Everyone’s watching nine-eleven unfold. People are angry and very, very frightened … and that includes the cops. As far as they know, right now, this could be the first of a whole wave of terrorist attacks.’

She took a fluttering edgy breath. Nervous. ‘The last thing we want to do this morning is kick up a disturbance, OK?’

Liam shrugged. ‘All right.’

She reached out and grabbed his arm. ‘Come on.’

They climbed a couple of steps off the pavement and crossed a small forecourt that would normally have been filled with patrol cars and police bikes. Pretty much all of them were out this morning. Crowd control. Panic control.

They stepped in through swing doors and ahead of them was a counter and a thick panel of perspex behind which two female uniformed officers and several plainclothes officers stood, all of them staring at a small portable TV perched on the corner of one of the desks beyond.

Maddy stepped up and wrapped her knuckles lightly on the barrier. ‘Excuse me?’

Maybe they heard, maybe they didn’t.

‘Excuse me!’

One of the women in uniform managed to tear herself away from the screen. Maddy could see her eyes were red with tears. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered to Maddy, as if they were old friends, ‘it’s awful, isn’t it?’

Maddy nodded. Right now, she felt disconnected from the disaster slowly developing at the south end of Manhattan, but she certainly remembered the emotions all around her back at school, while they, like these police officers, had sat and gasped and cried as they watched the flames climbing the sides of both the north and south towers.

‘We’re here to collect our … uh … well, our cousin. He was brought in last night and cautioned, I think.’

The woman on the far side sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Right … yes …’ She seemed a little relieved to have something to put her mind to. ‘Gonna need a name, please.’

‘Madelaine Carter. And this is Liam O’Connor.’

‘No, I need the name of the arrested.’

‘Oh, right … it’s Abraham Lincoln.’

The woman nodded. Pulled out a clipboard with a computer-generated event log clipped to it. ‘Lemmesee … lemmesee …’ Her finger ran down the printed page. ‘Abraham Lincoln? A D amp;D …’ She looked up at them. ‘Drunk and disorderly. Looks like he was booked in at ten fifteen last night.’

‘That’s him,’ sighed Liam. ‘He … uh … he does like a drink every now and then.’

‘Gets him into all kinds of trouble,’ added Maddy.

‘We’re going to give him a right telling off, so we are.’ Liam shook his head sternly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be him when we get the fool home.’

The woman nodded absently. She picked out a reference number and began entering it on to a computer. ‘Going to need you to sign a release form. Are either of you members of his immediate fam-’ She stopped dead, her mouth slung open, her eyes on the screen. ‘It says the FBI came for him this morning.’ The policewoman looked up at them. ‘You just missed him. We transferred jurisdiction to them — about ten minutes ago.’

Maddy swallowed nervously. That doesn’t sound good.

She stared uncertainly up at Maddy and Liam, a look of growing suspicion in her eyes. ‘I … uh … you say you know this Abraham Lincoln? You’re associates of his?’

Associates? That made them sound like … criminals.

‘We’re, like, family … sort of,’ she said with a faltering smile. ‘Uh, is there a problem?’

The policewoman ignored her question. ‘Just one moment.’ She turned away from them, hurried across the front office to where the others were gathered, still staring at the small TV set.

‘Liam … something’s really wrong,’ hissed Maddy.

The woman was saying something to the others, then suddenly all five heads turned from the TV to look their way.

Oh crud.

‘I think we should leave,’ said Maddy.

‘I think you’re right.’

Liam waved his hand and called out to them. ‘Hey, you know what, fellas, we’ll come back another time! I can … uhh … see you’re all rather busy!’ He backed up a few steps from the counter and the plexiglas shield.

‘Stay right where you are!’ called out one of the plainclothes officers, his hand absently reaching under his jacket.

‘Oh crud!’ hissed Maddy.

Sal stood between both support units outside on the pavement, feeling strangely conspicuous. She noticed the same eerie stillness here as she’d seen on countless occasions in Times Square: people standing motionless, gazing up at the sky, most of them with a mobile phone to one ear, sharing these moments of horror with a loved one somewhere else in the city. Even some cars were still, stopped at intersections though they had a green light, their driver-side doors open or window wound down to see better the thick pall of smoke filling the sky.

With all eyes tilted upwards, it was only Sal — seen the 9/11 sky far too many times already — who noticed the black van smoothly rolling out of the precinct’s forecourt. As it turned left on to the intersection and rolled past them, she thought she spotted the ghost of a familiar bearded face through the grilled window in the back of the van.

‘Uh? Was that …?’

Becks looked back down. ‘What is it, Sal?’

‘That van …’ She pointed.

Becks followed her finger. ‘The black van? Registration Washington BLL 443.’

‘Yeah, I thought I just saw …’ Her uncertain voice faded to nothing as the van calmly weaved its way around the stopped traffic, took a right and disappeared from view.

Liam grabbed hold of Maddy’s hand, turned and ran out through the swing doors.

Outside, down three wide steps on the pavement, Sal and the other two looked up.

‘Maddy!’ called out Sal. ‘I think … we think we just saw Abraham being driven away in a — ’ She stopped. ‘Hey, what’s up?’

Maddy grasped her shoulder, struggling to fill her wheezing lungs with air.

‘Maddy? You all right?’

‘We — ’ wheeze — ‘we … got a new plan!’

‘What is it?’

At that moment the double glass doors of the precinct swung open and several uniformed police emerged, hands resting on their gun holsters, looking around at the passing foot traffic on the pavement.

‘Run!’