CHAPTER 64 – CHICAGO
Four days later, the day after his mom’s funeral, Lynch stood in his dress blues on the side of a temporary stage on the plaza off Washington Street across from City Hall, just outside the shadow of the Picasso. Blue skies, light breeze, temperature in the seventies.
There’d been press conferences a couple times a day as details broke. Too much press to keep things indoors. Trucks from all the networks, all the Chicago stations, dozens of affiliates from major markets nationwide had lined the streets all around City Hall ever since the story broke.
Damage control was in full spin. The official story? The president had tabbed Weaver, a rogue agent upset at his demotion, to prevent the president’s dark secret from destroying his re-election chances. Today, Hurley and his Chicago crew wanted the big local climax – the DA giving an update on the legal situation, the commissioner outlining the successful undercover operation led by Lynch in cooperation with national intelligence liaisons. Then it was Hurley’s turn. He was going to give a speech and give Lynch a medal, the Chicago crowd hoping that, after today, the press would go home, that it would be a Washington story.
Hurley walked to the podium and paused a long moment.
“I stand before you today both proud and ashamed. Proud of our police and our city for the profound courage and determination with which they have confronted and overcome remarkable odds and intense opposition to bring this dark chapter in our city’s – in our nation’s – history to light and, finally, to a close. And ashamed, for the first time in my life, of my family. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. Murdered, I had always been told, by agents of intolerance. By people who would not abide his attempts to heal the racial divide in our country. And now I learn that he himself killed to hide the secret of his own sexuality, to hide it from the intense bigotry that my own grandfather – the man who raised me, who raised so much of this city, a man I loved and still love today – did far too much to engender. And we have all learned how those secrets kill, not just thirty years ago but still today. These secrets, these bigotries, kill not just in this recent outbreak of violence but every day – when a child’s dream is deferred, when a community’s soul is torn, when any person cannot become who they ought to be because of who someone else sees them to be. When any child feels that his or her dream, however large or small, may be beyond their grasp because of the color of their skin, or the nature of their faith, or, yes, because of their sexuality. These secrets still kill. Lives and dreams.”
Hurley paused, looking out over the crowd. Lynch couldn’t believe it, but the son of a bitch actually had tears rolling down his cheeks.
“In the coming weeks, my administration will be announcing a series of initiatives to help ensure that every dream is nurtured, every child valued, every secret hatred rooted out. But this is not the day for that. Today, I want to recognize another Chicagoan who had to grow up without his father because of my own family’s failings. A man whose personal integrity and courage, I must admit even in the face of the initial reflexive resistance of my administration, is responsible for exposing this last evil. I am proud to bestow the Chicago Police Department’s highest honor on Detective John Lynch.”
Lynch walked up to the podium, let the commissioner drape the medal over his head. He took a quick look at Johnson. She was sitting in the middle of the front row with the network guys, the national guys out of New York and DC. She was a front-row property now. He raised an eyebrow, asking, and she gave him a quick nod. Everything was set to go.
Two hours later, Lynch was back in his jeans and a sweater, backing the TR6 out. On the radio, it started.
“The
Chicago Tribune
will report in its morning edition that Mayor David Hurley III is implicated in the ongoing cover up involving the recent Confessional Killings and the shootout on the north side four days ago that left seven dead. The
Tribune
reports the mayor’s involvement is proven in part by a recording captured by Chicago Detective John Lynch, and has released the following excerpt–” The radio started playing part of the conversation between Lynch and Hurley that Lynch had taped in Hurley’s office the night before the shootout.
Lynch had heard enough. Johnson was holding up her end. He switched over to FM, the classic rock station, right into the middle of “Born to be Wild”. Laughed a little at that.
Cubs home opener today. Usually that meant forty-five degrees and rain, but today the weather was a postulate for the existence of a benevolent God. Johnson’s bosses at the
Tribune
had given her two tickets to the corporate field boxes, first row behind the Cubs’ on-deck circle. But Johnson was flying back to New York for another TV thing, so Lynch had a ticket to burn.
He pulled out his cell, called Dickey Regan.
“Still owe you lunch, Dickey. How about a dog and a beer?”
“Dog and a beer? You cheap bastard. Jesus, I would have dropped trou for you, you told me you were gonna serve up the president and the mayor.”
“Nobody wants to look at your pasty white ass, Dickey.”
“Sure. Johnson’s off to do the New York circuit again. I gotta dust my Pulitzer just to keep my self-esteem up.”
“Listen, the dog and the beer? That’s in the
Trib
’s field boxes for the opener. You can even wear your
Sun-Times
cap, stick it in their eye.”
Regan laughed. “OK, Lynch. Give me twenty to put my ‘Hurley-gets-his’ column to bed, then pick me up out front.”
Lynch hung up, dropped the cell on the seat, decided to take a spin around Grant Park while he waited for Regan, wondering would Hurley slip out of this somehow. What he had on tape, it would muddy him up, but it might not take him down. Lynch decided it didn’t matter.
Done his part, done his best.
CHAPTER 65 – SAN FRANCISCO
Ferguson sat in the new InterGov offices, watching CNN. Of course, Ferguson wasn’t Ferguson anymore, and InterGov wasn’t InterGov.
Nice day in San Francisco, nice view of the Bay from the Embarcadero Center. Emerging Market Investments was the name on the door. That had been the transition plan for a while - get out of the government contracting business. Too many ties someone might run down. Take their seed money, move it into the private equity/hedge fund space. More than enough inside knowledge to make most of the right calls. With a focus on business opportunities in the Middle East, China, India, the Pacific Rim, even Africa, they had built-in cover, could get teams wherever they needed them. And everybody on board was going to get filthy stinking rich.
Ferguson needed to get some people into a couple of places right now. Big spike in traffic on a lot of the nets the various three-letter pukes were monitoring, the Al-Qaeda types thinking this was their big chance to kick the Great Satan while he was down. Really, that just meant they were sticking their heads up out of their rat holes for a change. Target-rich environment. Ferguson had to go. Had a flight down to San Diego to brief a SEAL team on a little exercise in Malaysia.
Ferguson was about to click off the TV when the Hurley story broke. Son of a bitch. The Boy Scout had not only saved the girl, he’d gotten Hurley, too, or dinged him good at least. Ferguson smiled. His boy Lynch had game - even made that punk Hurley hang a medal on him before Lynch stuck the knife in. He clicked off the set, grabbed his go bag by the door, stuck his head into the next office.
“Wheels up in twenty, Chen.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my parents, the late Tom and Debbie O’Shea, who always supported my dreams, and Dad especially, for raising me in a house full of books where reading was cool.
To my family. For my ex-wife Meg, we might not be together now, but we were when I wrote this, and it didn’t make things any easier when I would run off to play with my imaginary friends. For my daughter, Shannon, a fine writer herself and often my first reader. This book is better for her insights. And for my sons, Danny and Nick, who make every day happier than it should be.
To the teachers who first made me respect language and its rules – Dorothy Weiss and Sr Mary Loretta at Holy Angels School and Fr Peter Enderlin at Marmion Academy. And the others who then made me love it – Jim Boushay at Marmion and the Stockings, David and Marion at Beloit College. And finally Tom McBride, also at Beloit, who put a boot up my ass because love is hard and you have to put the work in.
To my agent, Stacia Decker, for taking a shot on a guy who didn’t know nothing about nothing and making this work. The lady makes dreams come true for a living.
To my editor at Exhibit A, Emlyn Rees, and his limey compatriots. Their help and faith has been nearly enough to overcome my genetic antipathy toward the English. (He’s Welsh, and therefore claims exemption, but he should know better than to expect that degree of geopolitical awareness from a bloody Yank.)
To the writers I am fortunate to call my friends for their support and, occasionally, their booze. Kevin Fenton, John Hornor Jacobs, Joelle Charbonneau, Chuck Wendig, Chris F Holm (and the lovely Kat), Lou Berney, Hilary Davidson, Scott Phillips, Frank Bill, Matt McBride, Kent Gowran, Jay Stringer, Steena Holmes, Thea Harrison and so many others. For a lot that spends so much time thinking of ways to kill people, they really aren’t that bad.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan O’Shea is a Chicago-area writer. Drawing on Chicago’s settings and history, the novels explore the city’s history of corruption, but with a national, even international flavor.
EXHIBIT A
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A is for Attitude!
Copyright © Dan O’Shea 2013
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ebook ISBN: 978 1 90922 314 1
UK Paperback: ISBN: 978 1 90922 312 7
US Trade Paperback: ISBN: 978 1 90922 313 4
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