"Mom's in Idaho with Dad," she replied to Tran. "He needs her help right now with the trial only a couple of weeks away."
After meeting with Jojola and Tran, Lucy looked for the business card Ellis had given to her months ago after debriefing her about having been Kane's hostage when he tried to escape. She found it in the bottom of her purse, where she'd tossed it, and gave him a call. He seemed happy but surprised to hear from her.
"I need to talk to you," she said. "I think someone is planning an assassination during the St. Patrick's Day Parade."
Ellis was silent for a moment, then spoke in a low voice. "Don't say anything more. Can you meet me?"
"Yes. Where?"
"You name it."
"Okay, Grand Central Station under the constellations, nine o'clock tonight," she said.
"Pretty public, but I'll be there," he said.
Lucy had arrived early so she could get a seat on the mezzanine above the main terminal floor and watch for anyone "casing the joint." She laughed at herself for going into spy mode with the silly reference to meeting under the constellations. Anybody with half a brain and who knew Grand Central would immediately recognize it as the ceiling of the dome, where lights had been built in to represent a starry, constellation-filled sky.
She saw Ellis arrive and waited for him to turn in her direction before giving a little wave. He didn't acknowledge the wave, but as he looked around he nonchalantly made his way to her table. She got right to her theory about an assassination occurring during the parade but had decided against telling him how she arrived at her conclusion. She didn't feel like being questioned about the Sons of Man or the book, which would have felt like having to defend Cian.
"That doesn't give me a lot to go on," Ellis said. "But tell you what, there's going to be quite a few dignitaries at this year's parade-sort of a show of support for New York after the fiasco at St. Pat's-and I already have a Homeland Security detail assigned to the viewing platform at Eighty-sixth Street. I'll let them know there's a new potential threat."
"What about the archbishop?" Lucy asked. "The tradition is for the archbishop to bless the marchers from the steps of St. Patrick's."
"Well, this can't go any further," Ellis said. "But because of the grim nature of what occurred at St. Patrick's this past fall, the archbishop decided that it was too soon to be celebrating on the grounds. So he's decided to join the others on the viewing platform. We'll keep an extra guy on him. In fact, I'll be on the platform myself."
Lucy picked up her purse to go, but Ellis stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Can I ask why you didn't pass this information to Jaxon?" His eyes locked onto hers.
"He's no longer with the good guys, is he? I mean, he quit the FBI, so what good is he?" she replied, and left before she started to cry.
The morning of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Lucy rose at five, leaving Ned asleep in bed. She crept out to the living room, where Gilgamesh lifted his massive head and wagged the stump of his tail. "Ssssshhhh, good doggie," she said as she located the clothes she'd secreted behind the couch. She slipped into a pair of long underwear and then several layers of other clothes. Grabbing her parka from the coatrack by the front door, she slipped out.
So far so good, she thought as the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened.
Jojola and Tran stood there with amused looks on their faces. The Vietnamese gangster looked at his watch. "Goddamn, she's ten minutes late," he complained, and handed another dollar to Jojola.
"Ten minutes too late for you to win the pool, you mean," Jojola said, laughing. Just then the elevator bell chimed. Someone above was requesting the elevator. "But save the dollar for our boy, I think he hit it right on the nail."
"He probably found a way to keep her in bed so that he could win," Tran groused, pulling Lucy out of the elevator so that it could go retrieve the winner of the pool. "I shouldn't have to pay for cheating."
A minute later, the elevator doors opened again and Ned stepped out.
"You slept in your clothes?" she asked.
"Nah, you know better than that," he answered. "But tossed them on pretty quick so I could catch a sneak."
"A sneak?"
"Yeah, a sneak."
"I couldn't sleep and was just going out for a walk."
"A sneak and a lousy liar," Tran added, handing Ned the dollar bill.
The four headed out the door with Lucy still trying to proclaim her innocence. "Ned was pretty damn sure you weren't going to sit at home waiting for the feds to stop the people who killed your friend," Jojola explained.
Lucy put up her hands in surrender. "Okay, you got me," she said. "But I was just going to have a look around and see if I could spot anything before they got to the viewing stand…if that's where this is supposed to go down. I appreciate that Ellis at least listened, but I think he only half believed me. And besides, he doesn't know what he's looking for."
"And you do?" Jojola said. "So what's your plan?"
"According to the poem, the bad guys are marchers," she replied. "So that narrows it down some."
"Yeah, to a mere hundred and fifty thousand," Tran replied.
"Yeah, a mere hundred and fifty thousand," Lucy agreed. "But they're cooped up on the side streets in Midtown until they march-that's only about a dozen blocks to check out. If we get going early enough, we can get to them all before they start marching."
"And what exactly are we looking for?" Tran asked. "I doubt they have Sons of Man name tags or T-shirts. And I suspect security will be pretty tight, so that rules out spotting their machine guns."
Lucy turned bright red. "I'm not sure what I'm looking for," she said. "I just feel like I will know it when I see it." She turned to Jojola. "I saw some of this before…when we were on the butte. I know it's not much of a plan, but it's what I got and I think I'm supposed to be there."
"I'm willing to do this," Ned said. "But not with you. I promised your mom that I'd keep you out of the rough stuff, if it happens."
"Spoken like a true future son-in-law," Tran cackled, which caused Ned and Lucy to blush.
Lucy squeezed Ned's hand. "Sorry, love, but I have to be there, I'm the only one who knows even kind of what I'm looking for," she said. "In fact, you're the one I can't allow to go. But I promise, first hint of anything rough and I'll duck around the corner."
"What do you mean by that?" Ned replied. "You're for sure not going if I'm not."
"I can't let you," Lucy argued, and explained the vision she'd had in her dream of Ned lying on the ground as a man pointed a rifle at him. She could hardly remember any details about the man, but she could still recall the sight of Ned's face as he looked down the barrel, knowing he was about to die.
"Doesn't mean it's going to come true," Ned countered. "And it doesn't matter. You go, I go, or we both stay here and whatever happens, happens."
The pair was about to argue more, but Jojola stopped them. "Look, I'd just as soon you both stayed, but Lucy is the only one with any inkling of what to look for and Ned isn't going to let her come alone. So let's move on." He turned to Lucy. "That's a lot of ground to cover, so I think you should draw us a picture of what this triskele thing looks like so that Tran and I can cover one side and you and Ned can cover the other."
Everyone had agreed to the plan when Tran asked another question. "What do we do if we find something? We can keep in touch by cell phone, but we won't have any weapons; how do we stop these guys?"
It was Jojola who answered. "Same way I stopped you and your buddies back in 'Nam."
"Oh, you mean not very well." Tran smiled.
"No," Jojola replied with a grin of his own. "I mean, any way I could."