Grand Central Noir Page 15

  Brilliant driving. Here is an extra ten dollars for not killing us.

  Fuck you cracker, he said.

  He did the hand shooting gesture at me as he roared off. I picked up the black bomb-bag as Ma used to call it. It was handmade in the Galway Leather Shop in Prospect Hill. She used it for carrying groceries from town on a Saturday. She watched every news program on Northern Ireland and knew what a bomb-bag looked like.

  I walked in and checked the departure board. I had plenty of time. I saw that the next train to Poughkeepsie was 4:55. I had 30 minutes. I walked up. I walked down. I walked around. House of Pain wise. For once the American tendency to exaggerate was justified. Grand in name. Grand in nature.

  I noticed a tall Dominican woman in a Brooks Brothers tailored suit – so she lacked the breast breaking out tendency rampant in Washington Heights. She was arguing desultory with a heavy set Dominican man of approximately 200 pounds who was dressed in a Hugo Boss suit that was creased, I guessed, from lounging about waiting for his next assignment. He had minder/thug written all over him. Especially on his nose which had been broken a few times. But she was the real boss.

  They were sitting near me in Café Spice at Table 32. I could not hear the conversation. Burst ear drum from jumping off rocks at Callow Lake. The guy was going on at length about something. She looked over. She did the eye-to-heaven move and smirked over at me. I nodded (the Galway bear hug). He did not notice. He kept talking. Eventually I walked over.

  Is this guy bothering you? I asked her. She looked at me. She looked at the bomb-bag. She looked over at the minder. He was on his feet by now.

  Fuck off, fucko – mind your own business.

  Fuck off, fucko – I like that one. I might use it.

  She laughed. He frowned.

  He did the finger jabbing thing. At my chest.

  Get away from us.

  He looked like he was going to take a swing.

  Shaun – hold it! she said.

  Thanks for your concern but I am perfectly fine. Shaun here can be a bit impetuous at times. Just like yourself at the moment actually.

  Okay – if you say so.

  I nodded. I stared at Shaun. We stared at each other. Love is a battlefield.

  I said to her you are beautiful. You should not be smoking. It will destroy your fine skin. It will cause capillaries to break through the surface. Then Shaun will drop you.

  She laughed.

  Shaun will drop YOU actually if you are not careful. Thanks for the compliment and the Government Health Warning. I will think it over.

  I nodded (what else?) and wandered off to catch my train. I took a window seat. I opened the Irish Echo so I could find out what was happening in Woodlawn and the rest of New York Irish America Land where I sometimes did jobs. Peter McDermott was covering 20 stories as usual. He was the paper. When the train pulled out I put down the Echo.

  I always liked travelling on the Hudson Line. It soothed me. It moved me. First the black tunnel then the projects and storefront churches of East Harlem and then the 125th Street stop. Then the views of the Hudson wide and deep. Like an Irish grudge. Barges moved slowly upstream against the current. Across the river the New Jersey Palisades shimmered for me.

  I looked up when I heard familiar voices and saw the beautiful couple walking down the aisle. They were headed to the dining car. She spotted me as they walked past. She winked and did a discreet follow-me gesture. Shaun did not notice. Great minder.

  It was hard to leave the view of the slow deep Hudson but it was easy to follow her sinuous flow to the dining car. I sat as close to them as I could. When she spotted me she smirked. She was good at smirking. Smirking was her middle name. And smoking. They were studying menus. Then they ordered. The food arrived – pizza for Shaun, salad for her. A silver tea service was set on the table in front of them.

  She beckoned me over. Shaun looked up. He frowned. He put down the pizza. I knew it was serious when he abandoned his food. I was wary.

  Are you following me? she said.

  No actually – sorry to disappoint! That’s Irish humor by the way.

  I am très désolé. That’s French by the way.

  Quelle surprise. That’s French plus irony.

  Okay I got it I got it! Are you travelling to the end of the line?

  Always!

  She laughed. I could see her epiglottis. I could see her wet tonsils. They were pink. They were beautiful.

  Buzz off bozo Shaun days.

  Buzz off bozo – fuck off, fucko – you are into alliteration, Shaun-o.

  Do you have an idea who this is? Shaun said pointing at the woman.

  Not yet. Perhaps you can introduce me?

  She’s Martin Laffey’s girl.

  Interesting, I thought.

  She’s a woman actually. Not a girl. You’re a girl’s blouse.

  Harold got up swinging – I sidestepped it. I hit him on the side of the head with the silver teapot. He did not see it coming. I yanked his tie down as hard as I could. Ties are a liability. His head smashed off the table’s edge. He crumpled. More creases for the suit. The woman moved back to avoid any spilt tea.

  I bet that smarts in the morning she said.

  Unlike himself, I said.

  She laughed.

  She kissed me. It was spicy.

  You better go before he comes around. Here is my card. Call me. I am staying at the Majestic in Poughkeepsie. I have a suite. You are sweet. Make sure you come and seed me. See me I mean. I love upper cuts. With teapots. I love Irish accents.

  I am in luck, so!

  She laughed.

  The last stop was coming up unlike Shaun whose eyes were closed tight. He was dreaming black night. His pizza was getting cold.

  I nodded at her. I walked away.

  Outside I hailed a cab. This time the driver was a white guy with emphysema. Great! The cab smelt like a mobile cancer ward. Terminal end. I preferred the Haitian headhunter. I cranked open the windows. The guy’s lungs must be blacker than black I thought.

  The AC won’t work with the windows open.

  Yeah – but my fucken lungs might, so let’s go.

  He muttered under his breath. He drove off.

  I blocked out the cigarette smell.

  I thought of the woman’s deep laugh – her pale pink epiglottis – tendrils of silver saliva laced with Latin spices. I might get to like Dominicans yet. Or at least one. I tried to focus on my meeting in central Poughkeepsie with my newest client, Martin Laffey.

  I foresaw some tank traps on the foreshore.

  Grand Central: Terminal

  - by Terrence P. McCauley

  JAMES HICKS HADN’T PLANNED ON KILLING ANYONE THAT MORNING.

  In fact, his schedule was pretty light. Other than his daily check-in with his operatives, the only thing on his calendar was to blackmail a new asset into working for the University. Some finance geek who hadn’t covered his embezzlement as well as he’d thought. Bad luck for him. Good luck for Hicks. The man would either agree to work for Hicks or evidence of his greed would be sent to the client from whom he’d stolen: a nasty warlord in Eastern Europe with a penchant for dismemberment.

  Hicks checked his watch when he reached the corner of 45th and Lexington. He’d been trained to be early for his appointments and he was early now. Lateness led to sloppiness and sloppiness got you killed. James Hicks had been in this line of work for a long time and planned on being in it much longer.

  The meeting was scheduled to take place at the would-be asset’s office in the MetLife building on Park Avenue, just behind Grand Central Terminal. Plenty of time for Hicks to grab a cup of coffee at a place called Joe’s in the terminal before he ruined yet another man’s life.

  He went through the lobby of the MetLife building and rode the escalator down to the main concourse of the terminal. There were plenty of other coffee places in midtown, but Hicks liked Joe’s strong, flavorful brew.

  He liked the terminal even more than he like
d Joe’s coffee and went there whenever he could. He loved the energy of the place. The hurried people. The connectivity between trains and subways and the buses and cabs outside. Tourists taking pictures of the old building; gawking up at the grandeur of the place while the cops and the people who worked there went about their business.

  The agency known as the University had stationed Hicks in New York so long ago, he couldn’t remember living anywhere else, though he’d been posted in several places all over the world. He loved how New York purified old wounds through its energetic indifference to the problems of its citizens. The flow of traffic on busy streets offered instant absolution of past sins because everyone was too busy to care about what you’d done right or what you’d done wrong. The whole city lived in the present with a healthy contempt for the past and a guarded view of the future.

  It was James Hicks’s kind of town.

  Grand Central reminded him of why he still did this kind of work. It reminded him of the importance of it and such reminders kept him alive.

  Hicks got off the escalator and entered the stream of people heading toward the Lexington Avenue entrance when he spotted the man who would ruin the rest of his day.

  The man who might make his career.

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the man in question. He was neither good looking nor tall, well dressed nor shabby. He was just another unremarkable man of medium complexion and appearance, not all that different than the thousands of other people who pass through the terminal every single day.

  People didn’t notice this man because they weren’t trained to spot him. But Hicks was. He knew this man was known by many names in many parts of the globe, but the one that stuck longest was Khan. He was one of the deadliest men alive and he was twenty feet away from him walking through Grand Central Terminal.

  Hicks forgot all about coffee and his appointment in an hour and began following Khan. He noticed he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but wasn’t carrying a backpack or anything that might have a high-yield kill ratio. He was probably carrying a handgun, but that was to be expected.

  Hicks had a .22 holstered in his waistband, but his most valuable weapon at that moment was his smartphone.

  Khan’s common appearance had made it difficult for authorities all over the world to capture him. He could pass for Arab, Latin, Israeli, Italian, or any of the Baltic nations. The fact that he could easily slip into any of those languages made it even more difficult to spot him. He had no tattoos or particular habits that might trip him up and lead to his capture.

  The only reason Hicks knew this man was Khan was because Hicks had seen him once. It had been five years ago when Hicks had been part of a team assigned to wipe out a terrorist cell in Kandahar. It was the kind of black bag op that didn’t make breaking news and no one made movies about. The kind of op that never officially happened. The kind of op men like Hicks spent their lives doing.

  Hicks had been wounded in the assault, but saw one terrorist escape in the melee; clamoring up a concrete wall of the compound. Hicks’s gun had skidded just out of reach when he fell and the fleeing terrorist spotted him just as he’d reached the top of the wall.

  He’d brought his AK-47 around and gauged the distance between them. Shooting the American would be worth it if he could kill him, but taking the shot could cost him his life if he missed. So the two men simply stared at each other – studying each other for what seemed like hours but, in reality was only seconds – until the ops team burst into the yard. By the time Hicks looked back to the top of the wall, the terrorist was gone, but his face was burned into his memory.

  In the years following that night, he’d seen that face in intelligence bulletins from all over the world. He saw that face in the terminal now. Ahmed Khan.

  He wondered why Khan hadn’t pulled the trigger. Hicks wondered if he himself would’ve taken the shot had his gun been closer. He thought he knew, but thinking and knowing were two different things.

  Given Khan’s common appearance, Hicks knew he’d need official confirmation that this man was actually Khan before he killed him. Hence, the smartphone being his most important weapon at the moment.

  Hicks walked quickly through the thick crowd, keeping his distance from Khan as he tried to get a decent enough angle to get at least a profile picture of the man. The terminal was always full of people taking pictures at all times of the day, so one more wouldn’t necessarily alert Khan.

  But if Khan spotted him – and recognized him – the crowded train station could become a slaughterhouse.

  Smartphone in hand, Hicks walked around a group of commuters trudging to work and made like he was taking a picture of the painted ceiling high above the concourse, but snapped a picture of Khan instead. If the terror leader knew his picture had been taken, he didn’t show it. Hicks watched Khan move well past him before he followed.

  On the surface, Hicks’s device looked and acted like any other smartphone on the market. He could make calls, surf the web, even download popular apps.

  But tapping on one particular app activated the personal camera on his phone, which quietly scanned his face and retina. Once his identity was proven, Hicks was prompted to enter another, longer passcode, which allowed him access to the most secure – and secret – wireless network in the world.

  As he followed Khan, a simple screen opened on his phone offering a sparse menu of options. He selected “Identification,” which prompted him to select a file to upload. He selected the picture he’d just taken of Khan. It usually took the face-recognition software a minute or two before it identified a subject. Since Khan was one of the highest priority targets in the world, a section chief – maybe even the Dean himself – would be notified directly. Hicks would then receive one of three plain orders on his phone:

  Cease and desist.

  Investigate and report.

  Terminate.

  Hicks waited for one of these three orders to come in as he followed Khan down to the lower part of the terminal. He didn’t waste time trying to figure out where Khan was going or why. He just watched his target and waited for orders.

  As soon as they got to the lower level, Hicks knew why Khan had gone there.

  He went into the men’s room.

  Hicks didn’t need to follow him in there because there was only one way in and one way out. Since they were underground, there were no windows or other doorways Khan could use to escape. Following him in there could only lead to disaster and Hicks needed to avoid trouble until his orders came through. He drifted over to one of the food vendors instead where he could keep an eye on the bathroom exit while blending in with the dozens of other people lining up to buy lunch.

  He felt his phone buzz, but he didn’t check it right away. He didn’t want to miss Khan coming out of the bathroom. Besides, he knew the considerable resources of the University were probably already coming on line.

  Hicks’s device had a GPS beacon that the University would use to pinpoint his position to within a foot of where he was standing, even here below ground. They knew exactly where he was standing at that moment and would figure out why he was there. A sweep team was probably already on their way to the terminal for any devices Khan may have planted. But Hicks doubted he’d planted anything because Khan wasn’t the type who liked to watch his own fireworks anymore. These days, he planned attacks, preferring to not get his hands dirty by carrying them out.

  He watched Khan come out of the bathroom, patting his hands dry on the front of his t-shirt. It was nice to know that even terrorists washed their hands. He walked past Hicks and up the ramp that led back to the upper level and the street.

  Hicks followed at a safe distance and stole a quick look at his device. The text message was as simple as he’d expected:

  Target confirmed. Terminate immediately. Varsity en route.

  “Varsity” was the University term for a back-up team that would support Hicks when he was ready to kill Khan and clean up right after. They’d b
e able to track his location

  But he’d have to stay on Khan’s trail. He pocketed the phone and kept following Khan as he walked up the ramp and took a right. Hicks sped up to close the distance between them. He had to know if Khan was heading toward the subway, which would make it much harder to follow him, or if he was going out toward 42nd Street.

  Hicks had done too much in his life to think his prayers would be answered by any god, but he prayed the bastard would stay on the street. It would be easier for the Varsity to close in if things started popping.

  Khan walked past the subway entrance and went straight out on to 42nd Street instead, heading west.

  Again, Hicks jogged to keep pace, not wanting to lose sight of a small, dark-complexioned man in a city filled with small dark-complexioned men.

  He spotted Khan in the crowd of pedestrians heading west toward Fifth Avenue. He could relax a bit now because the University was tracking his position and direction. If they didn’t already have a visual of them via satellite, they soon would. Even if Khan killed him, it would be tougher for the terrorist to escape their notice.

  A man like Khan knew all about agencies like the University and their tactics, so Hicks figured he wasn’t planning on pulling an attack today. But Khan was still a target of opportunity – an opportunity Hicks had every intention of taking.

  He followed Khan on a meandering path uptown. He walked north along Vanderbilt, then cut back east to that wide boulevard that was Park Avenue, teeming with office workers from banks and other kinds of financial institutions.

  The terrorist walked past them all without even stopping. Hicks blended in with the crowd where he could and drifted toward buildings when the crowd thinned out. Whenever Khan looked behind him, it was never in Hicks’s direction.

  They continued on Park until 59th Street when Khan headed west toward Central Park. Once again, Hicks jogged to keep pace with him as he turned the corner, but crossed the street instead, like any other New Yorker trying to catch the light before it changed. Trailing Khan from across the street would make him easier to spot, but Hicks had to take that chance. He could’ve spotted Hicks when he looked behind him on Park, so he needed to change up the angle a bit.