Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

So Jojola had been spirited out of Taos in the luxury of Tran’s private jet, after which the two friends had gone to the gangster’s home on Long Island. However, he’d remained there only as long as it took to contact David Grale, who was the man who would have the best intelligence on the whereabouts and plans of Andrew Kane and his al Qaeda assassins.

The liaison with Grale had been Dirty Warren who, cursing and asking him if he knew any movie trivia, met him in Central Park one night and then led him underground through to Grale’s hide-out, where he had once been a captive. For more than a month, Jojola had mostly lived underground with his host, a roller-coaster affair at times due to Grale’s wild mood swings. The former social worker at times brooded in darkness, unwilling to move.

In the worst moments, he pronounced that the “end of times” was near and that he welcomed the “coming of evil men” to the city so that the final battle could begin. Other times, he was a shadowy whirlwind of action, hunting “the Others,” a different breed of Under-Worlders, as the Mole People referred to their home-evil men and women, devoid of humanity-as he gathered information about Kane.

Grale and Jojola both were committed to watching over the Karp-Ciampi clan-partly because of a mutual affection for the family, but also the knowledge that Kane would be drawn to them. Several times, Jojola had nearly been caught by Marlene, who seemed to have an uncanny sense for when he was near.

Now, with the possibility that she wouldn’t survive the night, Jojola wished that he’d let Marlene know that he was alive. Suddenly, there was the sound of distant gunfire echoing down through the sewers from the cathedral above. Jojola started to climb the ladder back to the manhole cover to see if he could help, but Grale grabbed his arm.

In the dim light from above and the flashlights they carried, Jojola could just make out the other man’s gaunt face and the small spot of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. Grale had been coughing a lot of late, and Jojola suspected tuberculosis. But at the moment, his eyes were bright with some inner fire as he tugged and said, “Come on, John. Whatever is happening up there, we’re not going to be of much use now. Their fates are in the hands of God. But Lucy needs our help, and I think that if we find her, we’ll find Kane.”

Jojola looked down for a moment, then nodded. “Where do we go?”

“North, John,” Grale said turning to run. “We catch a ride north.”

As they moved swiftly, splashing through foul water of the sewers with only their flashlights for illumination, Grale explained that he thought he knew what Lucy was trying to say with her sign language. “It’s as we suspected,” he said.

His spies had reported an unusually large number of rough-looking men passing in and out of an old apartment building on the north end of the island near Baker Field. The strangers weren’t the usual age for students; plus they all seemed unusually fit and didn’t interact with anyone else in the multicultural neighborhood.

Grale had sent more of his people to hang out in the park-digging in Dumpsters, begging on street corners, and sleeping in stair-wells-to keep their eyes and ears open. Even Jojola had visited the neighborhood, acting the part of a drunk derelict, but there’d been no sign of Kane. However, a Caucasian male, with chestnut hair, a scar beneath his right eye and a crooked nose was occasionally seen entering and leaving the apartment building where the others congregated.

“The building is across the street from Columbia University’s track and football stadium,” Grale explained as they emerged from a sewer into a construction zone that brought them to the tunnel between the Times Square station and the blue line subway station, the rail that ran north to the very end of Manhattan. “The stadium is called Baker Field.”

“I get it,” Jojola said. “But what about ‘annoy Satan.’ Was Lucy trying to say that Kane is Satan?”

Grale barked out a laugh. “Not a bad guess, but Lucy knows that Kane is just one of the minions,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what she’s saying. It took me a minute-and I had to think about the area around Baker Field-and that’s when it hit me. As you already know, there’s a big park on the far end of the island close to the stadium, as well as the Columbia University boathouse, where they store their crewing boats. The park has a lot of trails and softball diamonds, as well as a large, tree-covered hill that sort of juts out into the water-the northernmost point of Manhattan from which the Henry Hudson Bridge crosses the Harlem River to the Riverdale section of the Bronx. That’s where the Harlem River meets the Hudson River-a turbulent stretch of water called Spuyten Duyvil.”

As the two moved quickly through the tunnel toward the subway station, other pedestrians gave them a wide berth. Unshaven, lank haired, and pale from a lack of sunlight, with their long, dark cloaks billowing, they looked pretty rough. Probably smell bad, too, Jojola thought.

Just before reaching the station, Grale stopped for a moment to say something to an old black man playing the saxophone behind a beat-up hat in which a few dollars had been tossed. Jojola looked behind as they took off running again and saw that the old man was talking into a cell phone.

“Spuyten Duyvil? I still don’t get it,” Jojola said as they reached the stairs leading down to the subway platform.

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” Grale said. “It’s tied to an early piece of New York folklore, but I think it’s what Lucy meant by ‘annoy Satan.’ Another word for ‘annoy’ could be ‘spite,’ and, of course, Satan is the devil.”

“And?”

“Spuyten Duyvil is sort of a bastardized Dutch from the original European colonizers on that part of the river,” Grale said. “Some people think it translates to ‘Devil’s Whirlpool,’ which is certainly apt for the water conditions. But the more accepted definition is ‘in spite of the devil’-it comes from a story I’ll tell you about sometime. I think Lucy was trying to sign ‘spite the devil,’ and I think she was trying to say she’s going to be taken someplace near Baker Field and Spuyten Duyvil.”

Jojola heard the rumble of an approaching subway. At the sound, Grale began taking the stairs three at a time, urging Jojola to keep up. “Come on,” he shouted, “or we’ll miss our rendezvous with the devil’s pal, Kane.”

Many blocks away, the people in St. Patrick’s Cathedral jumped when there was a small explosion at the main door, followed by an invasion of rifle-bearing SWAT team officers. The new arrivals very nearly shot Tran, who quickly dropped his rifle and raised his hands, but K. C. Chalk had identified him as one of the good guys just in the nick of time.

The SWAT teams were surprised to discover that “the situation” was well in hand. The FBI’s Chalk, as well as civilians, apparently including a small Asian priest, the district attorney of New York, a thin young man who spoke with a Western drawl, a nun, and an altar boy with an ax had taken on a well-armed team of terrorists and won the day. One of the terrorists had even been jumped and beaten senseless by spectators as he tried to draw a bead on the avenging nun.

Everywhere they looked, the officers were confronted by a grisly scene. Along with people killed by bullets, a woman’s head lay at the bottom of the steps leading up to the altar.

One team quickly made their way to the Pope, who was kneeling on the floor, holding the head of a wounded priest with a badly scarred face.

“Leave me, Father,” the dying priest begged. “I’m not worth your trouble. I have sinned against you and God for the sake of my love for a woman and a child. God turned His face from me for my sins.”