Book of Souls

When he went to Nancy ’s room, she was already wearing her new black dress and standing in front of the mirror in the lavatory. She seemed determined to keep her face dry while she applied makeup. An old friend from the Bureau had stopped off at their apartment and picked up one of Will’s dark suits. The two of them hadn’t looked so smart since their wedding day. He put his hand on the small of her back.

“You look nice,” she said.

“You too.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, her voice quavering.

“I’ll be by your side every step,” he said.

A Ballard-Durand limo picked them up at the hospital entrance. By discharge protocol, Nancy was rolled on a wheel-chair right up to the curb. She held Phillip close and stepped inside the Cadillac. Will was surveying the drive and the street as if he were on the job, protecting a witness. A small cadre of agents from the New York office flanked the limo like a Secret Service detail assigned to dignitaries.

When the limo drove off, Frazier put down his binoculars and grumbled to DeCorso that Piper was in a cocoon. They followed at a distance and in a short while they were parking their car on Maple Avenue, the white-pillared funeral home in view.

The Lipinskis had been informal easygoing people, and their friends from the community made sure the service matched the couple’s sensibilities. After a heartfelt eulogy from their priest from Our Lady of Sorrows, an endless stream of coworkers, bridge partners, parishioners, even the mayor, stood and delivered touching and funny anecdotes about two caring, loving lives, cut short. From the front pew, Nancy wept a steady stream and when Phillip got too loud, Laura would walk him up the aisle to the lobby until he settled down. Will stayed tense and ready, craning his neck, searching the crowded hall. He doubted they’d be inside, among them, but you never knew.

Mt. Calvary Cemetery was in north White Plains, a few miles away from the Lipinski home, adjacent to the grounds of the Westchester Community College. Joseph always liked the peaceful area and in his methodical way he had purchased a family plot thirty years earlier. It was waiting for him now, the dark brown earth freshly backhoed into side-by-side graves. It was the kind of crisp, autumn morning where the sun was thin and flat, and leaves crackled under the feet of the mourners tramping across the lawn.

Frazier was watching the graveside communion through binoculars from a service road a quarter of a mile away. He had his plan. They’d follow the funeral procession back to the Lipinski house. They knew the wake would be held there because they had the Ops Center in Groom Lake hack the funeral home’s server to grab the Lipinski funeral itinerary and the limo drop-off address. They would wait until the evening, when Will and Nancy were alone with their son, then enter and extract Will, using as much or as little force as was required. They’d do a sweep of the house, looking for anything he might have found at Cantwell Hall. Once they had Will tucked away at forty thousand feet they’d seek further instructions from the Pentagon. His men agreed that two hits on the same house on two successive nights carried the best element of surprise.

While the priest said a graveside mass, Frazier and his crew munched sandwiches. While Nancy threw a handful of dirt on her parents’ coffins, the watchers were caffeinating themselves with cans of Mountain Dew.

When the service broke up, Frazier was still closely observing. There was a crush of mourners surrounding Will and Nancy, and Frazier lost them for a while in a sea of dark blue and black overcoats. He shifted his attention to their limo, which was parked at the front of the procession, and when he spied a man and woman with a baby in her arms climbing in, he had his driver move out.

The funeral procession snaked its way back to the Lipinski house. Anthony Road was a short, heavily wooded dead-end street. It was impossible for Frazier to park there without being made, so they took up position on North Street, the main artery, and waited patiently in the fading afternoon light for the visitors to depart.

The Ballard-Durand hearse, a black Landau coach, glided up to the private aviation terminal at the Westchester County Airport. The black-suited driver hopped out and had a look around before opening the passenger door. “We’re good,” he said.

Will got out first, helped Nancy with Philly, then hustled them into the terminal. He came back outside to lay some cash on the driver and extract their bags. “You weren’t here, you understand?”

The driver tipped his cap and drove off.

Inside the terminal, Will immediately spotted a medium-built, hard-bodied man with cropped gray hair, jeans, and a leather bomber jacket. The man unfolded his arms and reached inside a pocket flap. Will cautiously watched his hand as it emerged pinching a business card. He came forward and presented it.

DANE P. BENTLEY, 2027 CLUB.