Bolden held it in his palm. “Am I supposed to thank you?” Mystified, he looked past the man’s shoulder as a Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the mouth of the alley. The rear door opened, but no one stepped out. “What do you guys want?”
The blond man with the scarred cheek lifted the nose of the pistol. “We want you, Mr. Bolden.”
3
The five men had gathered in the Long Room, and now stood around the stout, burnished table waiting for the clock to toll midnight. Meetings were to begin with the new day. The new day offered hope, and hope was the cornerstone of the republic. No one drank or smoked. Both were forbidden until the meeting had adjourned. There was no rule, however, against speaking. All the same, the room was silent as a crypt. A problem had arisen that none of them had foreseen. A problem unlike any the committee had ever faced.
“Damned clock,” said Mr. Morris, shooting an irritated glance at the ormolu ship’s clock set on the mantelpiece. “I’d swear it’s stopped ticking.”
The clock had come from the Bonhomme Richard, John Paul Jones’s flagship, and remained in its original condition. Jones, in his ship’s log, had lamented its tendency to run slow.
“Patience,” counseled Mr. Jay. “It won’t be but another minute, and we can all speak our conscience.”
“Easy for you to say,” responded Mr. Morris testily. “I suppose court is out of session. You can sleep all day.”
“That’ll do,” intoned Mr. Washington, and it was enough to quiet them both.
They came from government, industry, and finance. They were lawyers, businessmen, politicians, and policemen. For the first time, a member of the Fourth Estate had been offered a place at the table: a journalist with close ties to the Executive and a Midwesterner’s unvarnished honesty.
They knew each other well, if formally. Three of the five had been sitting, standing, and, as was often the case in this room, arguing, across the table from one another for twenty-odd years. The newest among them, the journalist, had been inducted three years earlier. The last-by tradition their leader, and as such prima inter pares-had guided them the past eight years, the longest period the Constitution permitted one in his position.
Tonight, they had convened to discuss his successor.
Just then, the antique clock struck the hour. The men took their seats around the table. When the final chime had rung, all heads were lowered and the prayer read.
“We now make it our earnest prayer,” said Mr. Washington, “that God would have these United States of America in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens at large, and particularly for their brethren who served in the Field, and, finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demand ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”
“Amen,” murmured the collected voices.
It was given to Mr. Washington to preside over the meeting. He stood from his place at the head of the table and drew a breath. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I bring the meeting to order…”
“About time,” murmured Mr. Morris. “I’ve got a six A.M. flight to New York.”
4
What’s this all about? You got me. Now tell me what’s going on.”
Thomas Bolden leaned forward, picking at a shard of glass embedded in his palm. His pants were torn where he’d slipped on the sidewalk, the flesh peeking out raw and bloody. The blond man sat to his right, the pistol resting on top of his leg. The Hispanic man took the jump seat. Tinted windows blocked out all view of the passing cityscape. A partition separated them from the driver.
“Mr. Guilfoyle will answer your questions as soon as we arrive,” said the Hispanic man. His shirt hung open where Bolden had ripped it, revealing a tattoo on the left side of his chest. A rifle of some kind.
Guilfoyle. Bolden tried to place the name, but it meant nothing to him. He noted that the doors were locked. He considered kicking out the windows, but then what? He turned his mind to the men around him. Neither had been the least bit winded after leading him on a six-block chase. The larger man was obviously a master of judo, or a related martial art. He’d thrown Bolden to the ground as if he were as light as a feather. And, of course, there was the pistol. A Beretta 9 mm. Standard issue to army officers. The silencer, however, was nonstandard. He had no doubt that the blond man knew how to use it. He observed their bearing, their upright posture, their steady, assured eyes. He guessed that they were ex-military. He could hear it in their clipped voices. He could sense the soldier’s rigid discipline.
“Sit back. Relax,” said the darker man.
“I’ll relax when I get back to my girlfriend,” Bolden snapped, “and see to it that she gets to a hospital.”
“She’s being taken care of. You don’t have to worry about her.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“Irish, make a call.”
The blond man seated to Bolden’s right pulled a cell phone/two-way radio from his coat and put it to his ear. “Base One to Base Three. What’s the status on Miss Dance?”
Miss Dance. They knew Jenny’s name, too.
“Base One,” growled the response, amid a burst of static. “This is Base Three. Subject en route to NYU emergency room with an NYPD cop. ETA three minutes.”
“How bad is the wound?”
“Superficial. Ten stitches at most.”
He slipped the phone into his pocket. “Like Wolf says, you don’t have anything to worry about. Put your mind at ease.”
Wolf and Irish.
Bolden looked from one man to the other. Who were these two well-trained, capable thugs? How did they know his name? Who was Guilfoyle? And what in the name of Christ did any of them want with him? The questions repeated themselves endlessly. “I need to know where you’re taking me,” he said quietly. “What’s this all about?”
Wolf stared back at him. His eyes were yellowish and faintly bloodshot, flickering with a barely controlled animosity. The will to violence radiated from him. It was a force as bracing and impossible to ignore as a slap in the face. “Mr. Guilfoyle will explain everything to you,” he said.
“I don’t know a Mr. Guilfoyle.”
“He knows you.”
“I don’t care if he knows me or not. Where do you get off attacking my girlfriend and forcing me into this car? Who the hell are you guys, anyway? I want an answer!”
Wolf bolted out of his seat. Fingers pressed tightly together, his arm shot forward and speared Bolden in the chest. “I said to relax. Are we clear?”
Bolden bent double, unable to breathe. Wolf had moved so fast that he hadn’t had time to react, to even register the assault.
“There’s no mistake,” said Irish. “You, sir, are Thomas F. Bolden. You serve as the treasurer of the Harlem Boys Club Foundation and sit on the club’s board of trustees. You were awarded that silver plate right there on the floor earlier this evening for your work with the club. Am I right so far?”
Bolden couldn’t speak. His mouth was open but his lungs were paralyzed. Far away, he heard the citation being read, the words a dying echo. “Thomas Bolden began his work at the Harlem Boys Club six years ago, taking part in the Wall Street Mentoring Program. Blessed with a natural rapport and genuine affection for our youths, he soon became a regular volunteer at the club. Three years ago, Mr. Bolden, in cooperation with the Gang Intervention Unit of the New York Police Department, founded Brand New Day to offer positive lifestyle alternatives to youths living in problem areas. Through an integrated course of counseling, mentoring, and academic and vocational instruction, Brand New Day provides young men and women in the Harlem area a way out of gang-related activities and a means to break out of the ‘circle of destruction’ that claims so many of the neighborhood’s youth.”