Robert Tanenbaum: Malice

The Islamic terrorists at first demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from the Muslim-dominated state of Chechnya. However, they soon revealed that their real mission was to pull off an act of terrorism so shocking and heinous that it would rival the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

The cathedral was rigged with plastic explosives set to go off after Kane made his escape on the word of Palestinian terrorist Samira Azzam. The suicide mission would have been accomplished, except for the quick action of Marlene Ciampi, the district attorney's wife and a security expert. Along with other concerned citizens and federal agents, she prevented the murder of the Pope by Azzam and the demolition of the cathedral. All of the terrorists, including Azzam, were killed.

The rest of the media, of course, had had a field day with the events. But it was Stupenagel who'd broke the definitive story on what had occurred at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which had also been particularly critical of the Department of Homeland Security.

In the aftermath of the attack, there'd been a lot of finger-pointing at both the department and the FBI, each blaming the other for security lapses. However, Ariadne's story had revealed that it was the Homeland Security department that Kane had infiltrated. The breach not only had exposed the Pope and the hostages in St. Patrick's to a terrorism attack, but also had resulted in the earlier deaths of several federal agents trying to capture Kane in Aspen, Colorado.

According to a Department of Homeland Security press release issued in response, the agent whose identity Kane had assumed had come from another agency-the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives-and therefore wasn't personally known to Jon Ellis, the assistant director of special operations for the department. Ellis had been responsible for directing his agency's efforts to find Kane, as well as providing antiterrorism security for the Pope's visit, and he'd been taking the heat in the press for what had happened.

Public pressure mounted on the government after Ariadne's stories began to appear, and a U.S. senator from Montana, Tom McCullum, had been calling for a congressional hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee and threatening to subpoena "if necessary" the directors of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and others to testify. However, McCullum was in the minority party and so far his demands had been stymied by the majority party and the administration as "not in the best interest of national security."

Ariadne's last story had been published shortly before Karp was shot. After he recovered, Karp had not complained about the story. In fact, his off-the-record indication was that he was pleased that the information had come out.

Then Ariadne's second story was published when Karp was still in the hospital. In it, the complexity of Kane's plot was revealed. According to Ariadne's anonymous sources, Emil Stavros, a powerful banker and political kingmaker, was being blackmailed by Kane to wire the ransom money into offshore bank accounts. Kane had known of the murder of Stavros's wife and used it to force the man to cooperate or else spend the rest of his life in prison.

If that wasn't enough of a conspiracy, Ariadne had then linked Stavros to Rachel Rachman's campaign and implied that the assassination attempt on Karp had been motivated by revenge, not to secure the election for herself. The big question was-with Kane dead-who else would have had the motive and the juice to persuade Rachman to pull the trigger?

After Karp was shot, Murrow had gone into his office to secure whatever papers might have been left out and noted the school photos of the murdered children spread like a fan on the desk. Next to them was a yellow legal-sized notebook with a series of names and incidents with lines leading from one to the other. He'd studied the pad for a minute but concluded only that the names and lines were connected to the photographs.

Even in the hospital, Karp kept working the case. The day before he was released, he'd called and asked Murrow to quietly run the name Jamys Kellagh through the CCIC national crime computer. He'd had a few hits, including a Kansas City bank robber named James Kellough, who'd since had a sex change. However, none of the names matched the spelling, nor seemed to strike a chord with Karp, who was playing his cards close to the vest and didn't volunteer why he was interested in the name. But Murrow knew it had to do with the yellow legal pad and the murdered children.

While he had not criticized Ariadne's stories, Karp made it very clear to his inner circle that no one in the DAO was to comment to the press or provide information, even on background, regarding what they were referring to as the "The Kane Affair." He'd emphasized his point by giving Murrow the evil eye.

Recalling the glare, Murrow wondered if Karp would blame him for this latest story. He considered what it would take to keep Karp from ever seeing the new article in the Guardian, a weekly so-called alternative newspaper. But even if he could pull off that miracle, Murrow knew that the big dailies were sure to follow up on the story, and he'd be suspect again. In other words, he was doomed. There was bound to be a call from Karp in the morning.

Beyond his boss, Murrow had his own concerns about the stories. But it had less to do with incurring his boss's ire than being worried about Ariadne's safety. It was one thing to challenge the competence, and even integrity, of a U.S. law enforcement agency. But she was now intimating that a foreign government-the Russians no less-was involved.

He knew that his girlfriend had as much courage as any man. She'd written stories blasting dictators and mob bosses, corrupt politicians and dirty cops. She'd been shot at, beat up, and sued. She was no more apt to back off a hot story than Karp was likely to stop prosecuting criminals.

Murrow heaved a sigh. One of these days he was going to retire and write a series of books on the exploits of the Karp-Ciampi clan and their strange collection of friends, though no one would believe him and he'd probably have to publish their adventures as works of fiction.

In the meantime, the balancing act was wearing him out. Back at the DAO ranch, Harry "Hotspur" Kipman, the chief of the office appeals bureau and one of Karp's most trusted friends, was handling the business end of the office by overseeing the assignment of cases to the assistant district attorneys and running the weekly bureau chief meetings. But that left the actual running of the office-the telephone calls, the paperwork, the press conferences, and personnel matters-to Murrow.

By education and training, Murrow was also a prosecutor, but he had served as Karp's special assistant ever since Karp had been appointed to replace DA Jack Keegan, who'd left for a judge's seat on the federal bench nearly two years earlier. As the special assistant, Murrow's job had been to act as Karp's troubleshooter, keep an ear to the ground for what was going on in the office, and be the official keeper of Karp's time.

It hadn't left Murrow with much time to devote to the job he liked best, which was running Karp's reelection campaign. No swallow returning to Capistrano, no salmon swimming upriver had ever experienced a more instinctual homecoming than Murrow to the messy nest of politics. He so loved the battle that he'd even had to admit to himself that Rachman's death at Marlene's hands, and the opposition's failure to field a replacement candidate, had taken the fun out of election night.

In fact, that day he'd been feeling downright bluesy as he contemplated that the election was only a few weeks away and then they would all be back to the real business of the New York District Attorney's Office, which was prosecuting criminals.