Jarvis’s dilemma came not just from his loyalty to Ethan and Nicola. It was far more complex for him than that. His problem came from his equally powerful sense of loyalty to his country. The needs of the many. A United States of America without the protection offered by a Central Intelligence Agency able to operate freely beyond the reach of congressional scrutiny was an America vulnerable to attack from afar. Like all Americans, he knew all too well the consequences of failures of security, of letting foreign nationals with a taste for martyrdom cross onto American soil to launch their suicidal campaigns of hate and mayhem. With the CIA disbanded or broken up piecemeal into fragmentary offices of impotent agents handcuffed to everything from worker’s rights to anti-discrimination and goddamned health and safety laws, a significant fraction of America’s ability to analyze, conclude and act upon foreign intelligence would be forever lost. And along with it, American lives.
Jarvis stared out of the windows of his vehicle as it drove through the crowded streets of Manhattan, the agent at the wheel instructed merely to cruise close to the Williamsburg Bridge. Thousands of citizens crowded the streets, bustling back and forth as they went about their daily lives, blissfully unaware that disaster could strike at any moment, just as it had done before. For most all people, it always happened to the other guy. The bombed-out apartment building in another city. The explosives in a parked vehicle reported on the television. The IED that decimated a platoon of Marines by a roadside in Sangir. Distant, something that could be discussed at arm’s length.
Until it happened on their doorstep, as it had in New York City in 2001. Then everybody’s attitudes changed.
Jarvis was protecting Ethan and Lopez because, frankly, he gave a damn about what happened to them. But as a patriot and a servant of the United States, he was also obliged to give a damn about the other three hundred million countrymen who relied upon men like him to make the right decision, no matter how hard it might be, time and time again.
He looked at his cellphone one last time and then dialed a number. The line picked up on the first tone.
‘Ethan.’
‘It’s Jarvis. Get yourself to Hell Gate right now.’
‘Donovan’s corrupt,’ Ethan informed him down the line. ‘The whole team may be responsible for what happened on the bridge.’
‘I know,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Bring Lopez and Joanna, and Tom Ross, if you can. We’ll take them into protective custody from there. It’s time to bring this all to an end.’
There was a pause on the line, and then Ethan’s voice came through.
‘Understood. We’re on our way.’
Jarvis shut the line off and tried to ignore the waves of self-loathing churning through his guts. It was the only choice he could make, because he never really had one.
He hoped that Ethan and Nicola would understand, one day.
53
‘What kept you?’ Lopez asked. ‘And why the hell did you call Tom’s apartment and order us to come here?’
Ethan and Joanna hurried across the street to where Karina, Lopez and Tom Ross were waiting for them beneath the bare branches of trees lining the sidewalk.
‘We were working things out and didn’t want to be tracked,’ Ethan replied. ‘Karina, Tom, this is Joanna. She’s on our side.’
Tom and Karina glanced suspiciously at Joanna, who kept her gaze fixed on Tom as she spoke.
‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time,’ she said.
‘Why’s that?’ Tom asked, his voice feeble and barely audible above the sound of the traffic hustling past.
‘To stop you having to go through what I had to,’ she replied.
Tom Ross squinted at her without really understanding. Karina turned to Ethan.
‘We can chat about old times over coffee when all this is over with,’ she said quickly. ‘Right now, we’ve got to figure out what the hell Donovan’s up to.’
‘Already done,’ Ethan replied. ‘He’s behind everything: the Pay-Go hit, the hiring of the thieves, bribing both the clerk and the lawyer to assist him and corrupt the court hearing. He’s engineered the whole thing and, by now, I’m pretty sure he’ll know that we’ve busted him.’
‘You got evidence of all that?’ Karina challenged. ‘You go in there and accuse Donovan of all this without something solid and we’ll all go down.’
‘It’s him, all right,’ Joanna insisted. ‘The whole event on the Williamsburg Bridge was a set-up. But the auto wreck screwed everything up for them, and they’ve been trying to fix it ever since.’
‘But how could Donovan have done this without the team noticing?’ Karina protested. ‘Surely, one of us would have realized what was going on?’
Lopez looked at Karina for a long moment before she replied. ‘Karina, the whole team was in on it. You and Tom are the only ones they didn’t cut in.’
Karina stared at him for a long time before she replied. ‘Glen?’
‘All of them,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘That’s why the wraith is hunting them down but hasn’t directly attacked you or us. Donovan made sure that you were positioned furthest from the Pay-Go truck when it went down. He then covered the two thieves driving the flatbed truck. They loaded most of the cases into Donovan’s vehicle, or maybe even another one parked ready, then took a few cases with the flatbed as a diversion. Earl and Gladstone sat on top of them in the back of the flatbed to conceal how many cases were actually there. Donovan then controlled the scene at the Pay-Go and made sure the remaining cases disappeared real fast.’
‘And the thieves who escaped from the bridge?’ Lopez asked.
‘Jackson,’ Ethan said, ‘who was most likely waiting in Queens and helped Reece and Hicks switch sides on the bridge and high-tail it back the way they had come. With the auto wreck taking up everybody’s attention and the police blockade on the east side of the bridge, it’s the only plausible way they could have escaped.’
Ethan noticed that Tom Ross was staring vacantly into space, his dark eyes filled with an emotion that Ethan didn’t want to check out. Karina turned away from them, her hand flying to her mouth, and he heard the name she whispered in horror.
‘Glen.’
Lopez stepped forward and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘You couldn’t have known, Karina. Nobody could have known how this would turn out.’
Karina shook her head. ‘It’s why he wouldn’t move in with me, until this was all over. He kept talking about money worries. I thought he was in debt or something and couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t move in with me to save money, why he was so distant all the time. But all this time, he was planning a goddamned heist with Donovan.’
‘Donovan had it all worked out,’ Joanna said. ‘All we’ve got to do now is bring him in.’
‘Not that easy,’ Karina said as she swiped a sleeve angrily across her eyes. ‘Donovan’s just put out an APB on you both.’
‘He’s done what?’ Ethan snapped.
Karina gestured to Ethan and Lopez. ‘Claims that the two out-of-towners must somehow be tied into all of these murders. You guys showed up in the city at the same time the murders started, have been staying at my apartment and have visited Tom Ross twice. You’ve both had access to police officers on the team, one of whom is now dead, and now it seems that you have government agencies interested in questioning you about events that occurred several months ago in Idaho.’