Dan O'Shea - Penance

Ishmael Fisher took a quick reading with the range finder from the planned location of his next hide.

Fisher had planted cameras and mics in seventeen churches, all over the city. Once Weaver picked up the signals, he’d have to start running intel, matching possible targets against locations, trying to ID shooting hides, trying to set up ambushes. He wouldn’t have enough bodies or enough time. And he wouldn’t get a signal here. Not until the chosen day.

Lynch, Slo-mo, Starshak, McCord and Cunningham were crammed in a corner both at McGinty’s. 10am, the place not open yet, McGinty in back cleaning up.

Starshak had the paper from 1971, files on the Hurley case and the raid on the AMN Commando. Lynch brought what he’d found in the garage, papers scattered around the table. Lynch ran down what he knew, and Cunningham filled them in on the spook angle, on Ferguson, the Dragon, Fisher.

“This shit has all got to tie together,” Starshak said. “Too many intersections.”

“Whatever happened back in ’71,” Lynch said, “this Fisher’s got the facts. And he had them before we did.”

“But why now?” said Starshak. “Been forty years.”

“Doesn’t matter in a way,” said Bernstein. “We’ve got enough to start putting a murder case together for 1971.”

“Murder case for who?” Lynch said. “Riley’s dead. Old man Hurley’s dead. Riordan’s dead. I checked on the ME from 1971. Anthony? Guy who put the serology together? Died of a heart attack the same night my dad was killed.”

“Convenient,” Starshak said.

“You want more convenience? The two Feds in my dad’s notes? The ones at that meeting? One was killed in action in 1975. The other one died in a car crash in 1977. This Zeke Fisher? If he’s not dead, he’s gotta be a hundred years old. And I can’t seem to prove he was ever alive.”

“Except now we have somebody half that age with the same name running around the city shooting people,” Bernstein said.

“Got the beginnings of a conspiracy case against Clarke,” Cunningham said.

“Obstruction maybe, statute’s run out on that,” said Starshak.

“Tie him to the murder, then the clock keeps ticking,” Cunningham said.

“Except we can’t, not with what we’ve got.”

“One thing we could do, exhume the bodies,” said McCord.

“Which ones?” said Bernstein.

“Hurley Jr and Stefanski. Lots of advances since ’71. Might be able to get some physical evidence. Anthony, too. Heart attack my ass.”

“But where’s that get us, except more evidence for a case against dead guys?” said Lynch.

“Might shake the tree a little,” said Starshak. “Somebody’s got a bug up his ass about this stuff. He sees somebody taking a look at ’71, maybe he makes a move we can spot.”

“It’s an idea,” said Lynch. “What about Fisher? Any thoughts on who else he might wanna shoot?”

“Gotta throw the mayor in the mix,” said Starshak. “Guy seems to be going after survivors.”

“And the president,” said Bernstein.

“Shit,” said Cunningham. “We notify the Secret Service, they’re going to want to know why. We tell them why, we’re sticking our heads up a little higher than I want to right now.”

“It’s all been Chicago so far,” said Lynch. “Maybe we can hold off on the president, at least until we have more evidence he was actually in on it. Everybody who got it so far is tied to somebody who was in on it for sure.”

“But the mayor’s a lock,” said Starshak.

Nods from everybody.

“Still gonna be putting our heads up,” said Cunningham.

More nods.

“Anybody else?” asked Lynch.

“Stefanski never had kids, so far as I know,” said Starshak. “Kind of a notorious skirt hound, though, so who knows? Tommy Riordan’s got a sister and a couple kids of his own, so that’s possible. There’s Eddie Marslovak. Riley’s kid croaked from cancer, and his wife’s dead. Got a nephew that’s an alderman.”

“We start going out to nephews and such, we’ll be in the hundreds,” said Bernstein.

“OK, so I at least gotta get on the phone upstairs, tell them about the mayor,” said Starshak.

“Maybe I ought to do that,” said Lynch.

“Why?” asked Starshak.

“Because I’m on the list, too. If this ties to ’71 and Fisher is targeting the descendants. Officially, the rest of you are out of this. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I’m not hanging you out to dry, Lynch,” said Starshak. “We all get in it, the jig’s up. They know they can’t take us all down.”

“But once they know we’re in, then they’re going to start covering their tracks. Nobody knows we’re looking back to ’71. I let em think I’m playing ball, just me, maybe I can still sneak up on somebody. I’ll call Paddy Wang.”

“Risky play,” said Starshak.

“I’ve been living with the fact my father was murdered for most of my life, but always thought the guys who did it went down at the same time. Just found out they didn’t. Worse than that, just found out they set him up. Risky or not, I’m in.”

“Just keep an eye out,” said Starshak.

“An eye’s all I got left right now,” said Lynch.

Weaver was sitting next to Nancy Snyder on the plane heading out to Chicago, the new troops in the back.

“Your Moriah tip didn’t play out too well, Doc.”

“Our Mr Fisher has an impressive mind, Colonel. I believe he anticipated us understanding his motivations in general and so looked for an opportunity to add an element of religious symbolism upon which we would seize. It fit in very nicely with all the data that you believed, I might add.”

“I’m not playing gotcha here, doc. We all fucked up. You still think this all souls go to heaven angle is the right one?”

“It might help if I had more context. I am not one of your shooters, as you like to call them, but I have to assume that choosing to shoot people only immediately after they attend the Catholic sacrament raises considerable tactical complications for our friend. If he could shoot whomever he wanted where and whenever he wanted, then you wouldn’t even know where to look.”

“You got me there, Doc.”

“So I still believe that the victims being in a state of grace is a central feature of Fisher’s pathology. However, he has moved away from the geographic line, which we now assume to have been simply part of his ruse. And he has returned to Chicago, where he was raised. And, if I understand correctly, his father did favors of a certain sort for the ruling family there.”

“Yep.”

“In all likelihood, then, these killings are meant, in some way, to expiate familial guilt for some previous action, either by Fisher or by his father.”

“Makes sense.”

“So, Colonel, if you would kindly share with me whatever details you have been hiding about these activities, then perhaps I can provide some meaningful assistance.”

“Who says I’m hiding something, Doc?”

“You are always hiding something. It is your nature. And you used something to undermine the Judge.”

Weaver thought for a minute. And, strange as it was, he trusted Snyder. “OK, why not. My ass is hanging out so far now, it’s not going to matter.”

He gave Snyder the entire story — what happened in ’71, the current investigation, what happened between him and Ferguson, everything.

“My, what a tangled web we do weave,” said Snyder when he had finished. “I assume that we have the president’s blessing.”

“We’ve got the president’s nuts in a vice is what we’ve got.”