The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination (29 page)

M
acIan tried
to roll over in his single bed and almost fell out. He hadn’t slept this late in a while, but it was time to get up. He dressed and wandered into the atrium buttoning his shirt. There was someone sitting at the tables under the citrus trees. A girl in a long, fuzzy blue sweater and heavy black tights with a blonde braid draped forward over her shoulder. She watched him moving closer; he could see her eyes darting about for an exit. The closer he got, the more stunning she appeared. Her eyes stayed low as she nibbled the last bits from a tray overflowing with the Brewery’s kitchen specialties.
She won’t stay skinny for long,
he thought. “Have you seen Max? Kid about your age, red coat?” he asked, stomach growling.

It took her a second to choke down whatever bulged her cheek; she blinked several times, noncommittally.

“You know who I mean?” he said, eyeing a pile of crisp bacon.

She offered the plate and a confessional grin.

“You must be Lily. The girl from the hospital.”

She nodded, scarlet-faced. She handed him a slice of buttered toast.

He took it with one hand and extended the other. “Trooper MacIan.”

She put her hand in his, cautiously. He took it, noting that it was, from fingertip to wrist, nearly as long as his own, but incalculably finer. He jammed the toast, then the bacon, then some more bacon, into his mouth. She watched, chuckling inwardly, and probed, “Have you known him long?”

Thankful his mouth was too full to answer before he could think of just the right thing to say, he muttered, “. . . right-hand man.” A few crumbs fell from his mouth.

She seemed to blossom at hearing that. MacIan stopped chewing for a moment, enjoying her in surrogate for his young friend, which made him think of Camille.

She smiled brightly, and said, “I know where he is.”

* * *

I
t was chilly
up on the roof, but a mild wind was trying its best to push up from the south. Max had found some rags and was polishing the Peregrine while old Mendelssohn sat sunning himself in an improvised hammock, smoking a chubby cigar.

MacIan nodded approvingly and waved off a proffered cigar.

“Just met what’s her name . . . Lily.”

Max froze, smiling ear to ear.

“Stunning.”

“Gorgeous!” added Mendelssohn.

“Did you meet her, too?” asked Max.

“No, but I’ll take his word for it. He’s a Trooper.”

MacIan put his hands on the parapet and aimed his face at the warming sun. A break was exactly what he needed. A long break. Time to think. Time to live. Just live.

Mendelssohn blew a few smoke rings, which the wind whisked away. “They’re just going to keep killing ’em.”

MacIan pretended not to hear.

“Klevens didn’t even work for Tuke. He was a bicycle guy. They blew him by mistake. It was his wife they were after. But they don’t care. There’ll be some grumbling — nothin’ll happen.”

MacIan was trying not to respond.

“I talked to Otis this morning,” said Max. “Gina is out of danger. Otis says the hospital is almost out of supplies. They might have to shut down.”

All three men stopped and looked toward the river as the faint sound of sirens began to wail far off in the distance.

“Wonder what’s up,” said Mendelssohn. An eerie stillness ranged over them. “You should go over and talk to the Quakers. The Friends Meeting House. Know where that is?”

“No, but I can find it.”

“They get together around sundown. But you should go now. There’s no service or anything. Talk to the guy who keeps the Meeting House. I know him well. Nick Jaquay. He’s one of Tuke’s oldest friends.”

MacIan exhaled grudgingly and pushed himself off the parapet. “OK, Max. You’re drivin’.”

* * *

F
ifteen minutes was up
. Camille was sitting on her couch drinking a cup of coffee, her father’s blend, and asking why she’d ever liked that flavored swill he railed against. “There’s only one flavor for coffee,” she could hear him braying. “Coffee flavored coffee! God damn it.” She watched a few neon lights blinking on over in the city, but just as she’d gotten comfortable — an alarm rang out from her computer. She flipped it open. Her dashboard was on, but dead quiet. Frozen?

MISH popped up. “Camille.”

“Hey.”

“We have suspended all activity on The Massive due to a Level Five emergency.”

“Oh?”

“Since you’ve become an integral part of this event, we are going to keep you in the loop, a loop you opened.”

“Me?”

“You and Cassandra. We’re just waiting for her to log on.”

Camille detected something disquieting in MISH. She wasn’t her cheerful self, and her speech patterns were more direct. Maybe MISH was several different people. Identity wasn’t what it used to be.

“I’m going to switch you over to an alternate channel, a limited access area of The Massive.”

“OK.”

“I’m sure you’ll find this interesting.”

Her screen displayed the Massive’s regular video player, but it was blank, and MISH was gone. Then the player blinked and there was Cassandra’s face moving in and out of focus. She was balancing a mobile in her arms while shouting orders and dodging a stream of men wearing the same uniform as MacIan. MacIan? Not now, not now.

“Camille? Is that you?”

“It’s me.”

Cassandra pursed her lips. “Ya know, you’re even cuter than MacIan said.”

Camille convulsed. “He’s talked about me?”

“He’s crazy about you, but not now, honey. It’s a fuckin’ madhouse here.”

Camille didn’t care what Cassandra said after that.

Cassandra aimed her mobile at the Barracks’ parking lot. Men were shuttling back and forth unloading pallets of computers. “These just showed up, right after we talked. Guess your connections with Tuke are pretty tight.”

“I’ve never met him.”

“Well, you’re about to.”

Camille was thunderstruck. She felt a connection to his great-great-grandma, Camillia. Cassandra’s swishing camera work made her queasy. She stared at her screen, imagining MacIan’s face. That silly, dopey, rugged, noble face.

Cassandra set her computer on the conference table, where a number of men were yammering away. They wore highly embellished versions of the Peregrine Fleet uniform and the table was cluttered with mobiles, outnumbering the men three to one.

“This is insane,” said Cassandra. “I don’t have any idea how this is going to work. I’m putting you in the conference call. OK?”

“Sure.”

“MISH showed me how to do it. You know MISH.”

“My new best friend.”

“I love her glasses.”

“Me too.”

All screens went black, then filled with the ever-smiling face of Levi Tuke. “All right then, let’s get down to it,” he said. “Please frame yourselves properly and we’ll begin.”

Camille watched as each face came into sharp focus, wondering if she, too, were being seen what by what she knew to be millions of fellow citizens of the Tuke Massive. A reflex caused her to stop twiddling her hair, which she pushed out of her face, and smiled neutrally. “Here we go.”

* * *

M
ax stood scuffing
the gravel on the roof. His awkward reluctance to drive the Peregrine puzzled Trooper MacIan, until Mendelssohn gave him a how-dumb-can-you-be squint. “All right,” groaned MacIan. “Go get her. I’ll wait.”

Mendelssohn took a puff of his cigar. “That’s what it’s all about. At the end of it all, that’s all there is.” He blew a smoke ring that vanished in the wind.

Max bolted from the roof, down the stairs and burst into the atrium. Lily looked up from a plate of baby back rib bones, pleasantly startled. She met his overflowing smile with a matching one, except for the BBQ sauce, which Max dabbed away with his thumb. “Come on, let’s go, let’s go.”

* * *

M
acIan was not happy
, and a bit nauseated, riding in the backseat of the Peregrine. Max, on the other hand, was feeling about as good as he could. Lily had pulled a pair of heavy work boots over her striped tights, and her hair was stuffed into a matching knit cap with the braid down her back.

She had never been out of Blanox until last week, and on her best day was lucky to eat. Her father had kept a very tight rein on her. But now, every minute was a tasty revelation. A constantly new and mysterious adventure. And at the center of it all — Max. Her heart, and stomach, were overflowing.

They found the Quaker Meeting House and circled for a place to land. The parking lot was under an umbrella of huge oak trees, the back yard too tight, but there was a spot in the alley behind the garden. Max landed and looked over his shoulder for approval. MacIan rolled his eyes, tapped both index fingers together in mock applause, and they all got out.

Nick Jaquay, a bulbous man with thick black eyebrows that rippled like caterpillars when he talked, greeted them in the vestibule. He led them to his spacious office, which opened onto the garden. It was late afternoon, but the news of Tessyier and Klevens’ deaths had brought many Friends to the Meeting House earlier than usual.

The congregation met here every Friday to sit in quiet anticipation of the Voice. They simply listened. To what? They were open to anything. There was absolutely nothing else to their denomination.

Nick Jaquay ushered them into his office, offered Lily a seat at a small conference table. Nick was a good listener, but today he was not himself. “I guess this is about Tuke,” he said. “We’re down to it. Aren’t we?”

MacIan looked worried. “You tell us.”

Nick Jaquay turned pale gray.

S
irens wailed
.

Amongst the hushed throng in Gatekeeper’s Square, certain cherry-haired men drifted toward The Hibernian Gate. The spot where New Hibernia was born. The siren called and they drew nigh.

The Hibernian Gate towered over Gatekeeper’s Square. Seven progressively larger gothic arches gave the square a protective charm and a sense of something barbaric beyond. On which side of the Wall the barbarians lived was a strictly personal calculation. The shortest arch was shorter than the average man, the tallest about the same height as Notre Dame, but the asymmetric layout felt unlucky. All the materials had been stolen from the great churches of Pittsburgh as they were put out of business by The Church. Frugality and winner-take-all religion was nothing new to the Irish.

On the day the Wall was finished, the sirens called all those Boyne had brought to America to this spot. Once gathered, he was lifted to the top of the tallest arch, where he placed the seventh keystone. A simple keystone, about a foot across, of pure white alabaster. It stood out against the gray limestone, but was far too high above the street for the uninitiated to notice, although once pointed out it seemed a beacon. Only those of the sept, of the blood, knew that it bore their most sacred icon — the Black Heart, the original. Ground from the largest black ruby ever known — identical in every dimension to the ones they wore over their hearts.

From high above the crowd Boyne delivered the speech that established New Hibernia. He raised both hands to the Gate. “I declare this wall and all that which lies beneath it, to be ours! And I compel you with the burning tongue of the banshee . . . you who have suffered every indignity for a thousand years, to defend it. This wall is ours! It’s ours!”

The crowd exploded, screaming over and over, “It is ours, it’s ours,” and with those words a fierce nationalism was born. They wailed until the streets were puddled in tears, crying, “The banshees! The banshees! The banshees!”

And lo and behold the sirens were wailing once again — the banshees were calling.

Efryn Boyne is dead.
He is dead.