Dead on Arrival

‘Well, dang,’ Mahoney said, and rattled the ice around in his glass. ‘So you got any ideas for how to get Fine?’

Well dang? What was with Mahoney?

‘No,’ DeMarco said.

‘How ’bout you, hotshot?’ Mahoney said to Emma. ‘You’re the one who always comes up with cute ideas, like letting that Cuban gal kill that yokel so the Bureau could get to Lincoln.’

Emma stared at Mahoney like she wanted to throttle him, either for the hotshot tag or for implying that she had deliberately allowed Pugh to get killed. Mahoney, however, was oblivious to Emma’s stare. Partly he was oblivious because he was Mahoney, and partly he was oblivious because after he made the remark he reached over and picked up the bourbon bottle to refill his glass.

‘No, I don’t,’ Emma said. ‘I was hoping — for once — that you might use your influence to get the FBI to take a harder look at Fine. I’m sure a statement to the media would be too much to ask for …’

‘You got that right,’ Mahoney said.

‘… but you could at least sit down with the Bureau in private and tell them what you think.’

‘I already did,’ Mahoney said, surprising both DeMarco and Emma. ‘But I don’t have a lot of confidence in their nailing him, particularly now that the bastard’s so popular. The polls are showing he’ll get Broderick’s seat when they hold the special election in Virginia.’ Mahoney laughed. ‘I heard the other day that Oprah’s gonna have him and the guy from Illinois on her show at the same time. Anyway, bottom line, the Bureau’s gonna walk on eggs around Fine. There’s no way they’re gonna take him into a room and whack him with a rubber hose until he talks.’

‘So that’s it?’ Emma said. ‘Fine gets a seat in the United States Senate after everything he’s done?’

‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Mahoney said, his tone incredibly laid back.

For some reason, and DeMarco couldn’t understand why, Mahoney was not at all upset that Nick Fine wasn’t going to go to prison for his crimes.

Emma must have been having a similar problem with Mahoney’s nonchalant attitude. She sat there studying him for a minute, biting her lower lip as she thought. Then she said to Mahoney, ‘Are you thinking that-’

‘Yep,’ Mahoney said.

Thinking what? What the hell were they talking about?

DeMarco wondered.

Mahoney tossed the bourbon remaining in his glass down his throat. Then, with some effort, he rose from the chaise longue. ‘I gotta get goin’,’ he said. But before he left, he winked at DeMarco and said, ‘Don’t worry. I think things are gonna work out just peachy.’

74

He and the boy bowed their heads in prayer and gave thanks to God. The strike had finally ended.

It would take a week to get back to Cleveland, and then they would have to spend at least one more week making sure that nothing at the refinery had changed and verify that the facility was back in full production.

He would have the boy write the letters on the way back to Cleveland, because there would be little time for writing when they returned, and though the boy was a good thinker, he was a poor writer. It would take him some time to write the letters, which had to be in his hand and using his own words.

The first letter the boy wrote would be to his mother. He would tell her that he loved her and not to be sad for his death. He would tell her that he did what he did to avenge his father and because he believed in God and God’s path and God’s promise to the faithful who died for Him.

The second letter he would address to the president of the United States. He would say in that letter that he did what he did to avenge his father and all Muslims throughout the world who had suffered at America’s hand. He would say that as long as America supported the Jews in Palestine and refused to accept the true faith, more Americans would die — and more Americans like him would help them.

Because he was afraid the letter to the president would be held up by underlings, he would send a copy of that letter to the FBI office in Cleveland and one to this man Mahoney, the speaker of their parliament.

He would mail the letters for the boy on his way out of Cleveland.

75

Bianca Castro was in the prison library, looking at yesterday’s papers, checking on how the markets were doing. Not great but not bad. She shoved the papers into the bin and walked back into the stacks to find a book she wanted, a book on real estate investing.

She had never dabbled in real estate. She didn’t know that much about it. She had always stuck with blue chip stocks and index funds, and right now she had a ton of dough in ten-year CDs, since she wouldn’t be needing access to her money any time soon. And since she had the time, she figured she might as well educate herself on real estate investing. Another thing that interested her was the futures market, but she didn’t know much about that either, just that futures were extremely risky but the payoffs could be huge. Maybe the library had some books on that subject too, but she doubted it. Most of the books in the damn place were lawbooks. All these women, most of whom could barely read, were always trying to find something on which to base an appeal.

She was running her fingers along the spines of the books when she heard a shoe scrape the floor to her right. Two bitches, both of them Hispanic, were coming toward her. She didn’t like the expression on their faces but she wasn’t too worried. The fourth day she’d been at the prison she’d demonstrated, in a particularly brutal fashion, that she wasn’t a person you wanted to mess with.

The two women stopped a few paces from her. There was barely room in the narrow aisle between the bookshelves for the women to stand abreast, and there was no room at all for one of them to maneuver around behind her. But then she heard a noise, and she glanced over her shoulder and saw a third woman, also Hispanic, coming down the aisle from the other direction.

‘You remember Jorge Rivera?’ one of the women said.

‘Who?’ Bianca said. ‘Who the fuck is Jorge Rivera?’

Then she remembered: the driver she’d used in D.C.

‘He was my cousin,’ the woman said, and she pulled a shiv out of the waistband of her jeans, a toothbrush handle filed to a lethal point.

The Ukrainian had used a glass cutter to cut a neat circle out of the hotel room window. Now all he had to do was wait for the water taxi to come across the river.

On one side of the Elizabeth River, in Portsmouth, Virginia, was a waterfront complex called Portside that had concession stands and hotels and an open area for outdoor concerts. Directly across the river, in Norfolk, Virginia, was a larger waterfront shopping area called Waterside, and it was filled with retail stores and places to dine and drink. A small water taxi for foot passengers and bicyclists traveled between Portside and Waterside every half hour. The Ukrainian was on the Portsmouth side of the river.

Both Portside and Waterside were currently awash in red, white, and blue. There were balloons, bunting, and banners everywhere in honor of the American holiday called Fourth of July. The Ukrainian had heard there would be a fireworks show that night, and he wished he could have stayed to see it. He liked fireworks and he liked celebrations. He would have bought a glass of beer and flirted with long-legged American girls. ‘Hi, my name’s Jack,’ he would have said to them, and they would have gotten drunk together and watched the fireworks exploding over the river.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to stay for the fireworks; he would be miles away before the show started.

He checked his watch, and even without the binoculars he could see the water taxi loading on the Norfolk side of the river. Several men in white uniforms, maybe five or six, were walking onto the ferry together. He knew there was a large navy base in the area and he was guessing that the men in uniform were naval officers, and