Emerald Death (3 page)

                                    *****

Father Niles McKenzie thought about the man he had just met outside the church.  His eyes had quickly seen past the façade of bravado the young soldier of fortune wore like a shield. Young Mister Hannigan was a man of destiny, though he wasn’t aware of it yet.  He reminded McKenzie of another young adventurer he had known during the Great War, his commanding officer Captain Dane Hawkins.

            It had been a long time since he had thought about Hawkins and the others, fallen friends and colleagues, ghosts that haunted his dreams and his waking hours besides.  The Great War had been terrible, a war to end all wars, they had said of it.  Only the end of the war had not brought about safety and security, but an unprecedented time of global strife.  The villains had gone to ground, and for more than a decade, the Fighting Hawks had gone after them.

Devil Dog Davis.  McKenzie grinned, wondering how the old warhorse was doing.  He almost wished he had written, and kept in touch with the very few survivors of the old gang.  But he had not done so.  Instead, he had fled to a remote corner of the world to find a place where he could lay his demons to rest.

            Just like Captain Hawkins. 

            What had happened to Dane Hawkins?  McKenzie remembered him as a mere boy, thrust into a role of leadership at far too young an age to handle the burden. As members of their group had died, McKenzie knew that Hawkins carried each death as a personal failure of his leadership abilities, and that he questioned every decision he had made, wondering if perhaps his men might yet live had he chosen a different path.  McKenzie, the spiritual leader of the company, had tried on many occasions to get Hawkins to see the truth; that it was war and that even the best laid plans sometimes went awry. 

            He had failed Hawkins, failed to help him deal with his guilt, until one day the man had just vanished almost as if he had never truly existed.

                                    *****

Gregor Shotsky entered The Broken Tusk through a side door, slipping out of the light and pausing to let his eyes adjust to the interior lack thereof.  He was relieved to see Mike Hannigan sitting at the bar, quietly sipping a beer and getting the lay of the land.  Shotsky smiled to himself; young Hannigan was learning. He made his way to the bar, and dropped his duffle on the floor next to Hannigan’s.

“Glad I caught up with you my friend.”

           Hannigan fired up a Lucky Strike. “Gregor, I figured you had forgotten about me.”

Gregor caught the faint tremble in his voice and the way the young man fumbled his cigarette.  “What’s happened Mike?”

           Hannigan took a drink of his beer. “Trouble.”

            “What kind of trouble?” Gregor’s face twisted with concern.

            “Three men, claiming to have been sent by your friend, picked me up and tried to take me out in the bush and kill me.”

            “I’m pleased to see they did not succeed.  How did they know to use Francisco’s name?”

            “That, Gregor, is a very good question.”  Hannigan shot him a hard look.

            “Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with it?”

            “I’m sure of nothing, which is why I’m asking you now.” Hannigan’s voice was flat and cold.

            Gregor shook his head.  “I swear my friend, I have no idea what any of it was about.  In fact, I am planning on joining you in working for Francisco.”

            “Then I guess that just leaves Francisco.” Hannigan said, turning slightly on his stool.

            “Don’t be rash my friend,” Shotsky admonished.  “I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation.”

            “Not according to the priest, Father McKenzie.  ‘A truly evil man,’ that’s what he said.”

            An expression of total bafflement crossed Gregor’s face.  Hired killers?  Strange priests with dire warnings?  …What kind of deal had he gotten them into?

                                    *****

Francisco Degiorno leaned back uncomfortably in the woven wicker high-backed chair.  His white suit was stretched tightly across his obese frame.  His thick black curly hair was slicked back against his skull.  Thick drops of sweat beaded on his brow; even the ceiling fan above did little more than stir the constant hot humid air.  He took a white handkerchief and used it to mop away the sweat as he thought about his latest venture.

            The Germans had first approached him almost a year before, telling him just enough to get him intrigued.  They had spoken of a lost city deep in the heart of Africa, one filled with riches beyond the imagining.  Francisco had smiled at the superlative; he had a very active and vivid imagination.  So, while helping the Germans with one figurative hand, he had begun planning to beat them to the prize with the other. He had started searching for men - foreigners who wouldn’t inadvertently expose his scheme with an offhand comment in the local bars and brothels - who were not afraid of hardship and danger, in order to mount an expedition of his own to search for the lost city ahead of the Germans.

            One of his contacts, a Russian named Gregor Shotsky, had promised to try and round him up some men from the crew of the tramp steamer The African Queen.  Now that the steamer had finally put into port, the last pieces had been set up on the board; it was time to begin the game.

            Degiorno mopped more sweat from his brow, drumming the fingers of his other hand on his desk.  Did the Germans suspect at all that he possessed a photographic memory and had recreated the map they had shown him - the map that detailed the city’s precise location in the impenetrable jungle - right down to the smallest detail?  If they did, then he was most certainly a marked man.

            His rendition of the map currently resided in his safe hidden behind a Monet painting on his wall.  …Only Lumumba, his trusted lieutenant, who doubled as the bartender in The Broken Tusk, knew of its existence.  Most men knew to give the giant African warrior plenty of room. Lumumba would never betray his employer, even under threat of death.  But the Germans, with their guns, might not find the big warrior so intimidating.  Degiorno was running out of time and he knew it.  If he didn’t get moving soon, the Germans would have his head.  Where was Shotsky?

                                    *****

Father Niles McKenzie looked up as a shadow briefly blocked the sunlight streaming through the door.

            “Have you gotten all the arrangements made for the supplies, Dad?”

            McKenzie couldn’t help but smile as he looked at his adopted daughter.  Bridget Ellen O’Malley looked so much like her mother she almost seemed a carbon copy.  Her long red hair was usually hidden beneath a nun's wimple—a necessary accoutrement given the rough men that lurked about the trading post—but just now she wore it in a ponytail that hung halfway down her back.  Her green eyes glowed with an emerald light, an effect that was only accentuated by the smattering of freckles across her sun-bronzed cheeks.  She had grown in to a beautiful young woman, and he still wasn’t sure when it had happened.

Her parents had died during a cholera epidemic years before and McKenzie had taken his sister’s only child in and raised her as if she were his own child rather than his adopted one.  He had schooled her in spiritual matters - and not just the teachings of the Church - as well as teaching her to do field surgery and medical work.  She was his assistant and good right hand at the Mission.  The one thing he couldn’t teach her was what it meant to grow up into a young woman.  The Congo was a poor finishing school.

            “Almost, Bridget.  In fact, I’m sure that we have enough, but I’m thinking about riding along on the boat with them this trip.”

            “Oh really?” she replied, arching an eyebrow at him.  She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.

            “Yes really,” McKenzie told her.

            “And just why would that be?” she asked.

            “I want to find out more about someone I met today.  A young man, whom I think has a lot of potential for good.”

            “Another lost soul?”  Bridget asked, with a wink.  Nevertheless, her curiosity was irrepressible and obvious.  “So where did you meet him?”

            “Right out front.  He took out three men and walked away relatively unharmed.”

            “Took out?  You mean he killed three men right in front of the church?  This is the man you’re so interested in?”

            “Yes.  His name’s Hannigan.”

“Sounds like a real catch.” Bridget said half-sarcastically.

McKenzie wasn’t fooled.  That he had even mentioned the young soldier of fortune was enough; he knew his adopted daughter was interested, and God knew there were few young men he felt worthy of her.  He knew her well enough to know that she would like Hannigan, but he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.  Still, if he was right about the young man….

            “Let’s go over to The Broken Tusk,” McKenzie told her.  “That’s where he was headed.”

                                    *****

Mike Hannigan noted a subtle shift in Gregor Shotsky as a fat man in a white suit entered the bar from a door in the back.  He wondered if this was the legendary Francisco Degiorno.  The sweating, waddling man didn’t look like much of a power broker, to say nothing of Father McKenzie’s evil incarnate, but Hannigan had learned that looks could be deceiving.  That was just one of the hard lessons Spinnelli had taught him.

“That him?”

            “Yes,” Gregor replied, his face expressionless.

            “I got some questions to ask him,” Hannigan said, his voice hard and cold.

            “Yeah, me too,” Gregor answered, his tone matching Hannigan’s.

            “Gregor!  How good to see you,” Degiorno called as he crossed the bar.

His manner seemed friendly enough; if he was behind the attempt on Hannigan’s life, he hid it well. 

          “Francisco, come join me for a drink,” Gregor answered, hiding his anxiety behind a toothy grin.

Hannigan watched the interplay, unimpressed.

          “Exactly what I had in mind, old Friend,” Degiorno replied with what looked like a sincere smile.  “It has been a long time.”

          “This is my friend, Mike Hannigan. He is interested in working on the job you told me about.”

          “Ah yes.  I was hoping you had been able to recruit some men to help with this endeavor.”

          Hannigan watched the man’s face as he spoke.  There was no indication that Degiorno had ever heard of Mike Hannigan before this moment.  But if that was the case, how had the three men known to mention his name?  What else was going on? 

          Hannigan shook his head, still trying to figure it all out, but just then the door to The Broken Tusk opened, and he saw something that put the threat of death completely out of his mind.  The most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life stepped across the threshold, followed by the last man he would have expected to find in a dive like this, Father Niles McKenzie.

Chapter Four

Mike Hannigan had just reached the priest and the girl when the loud sound of several engines reverberated through the bar.  Several of the mercenaries gathered there looked uneasy.  Hannigan’s attention, however, was fixed only on sight, not sound. 

            “Hi there, pretty lady, Mike Hannigan at your service,” he said gallantly.

            “You’re Mike Hannigan?” She looked at the priest.  “I thought he’d be taller.”

            “Yes I am Hannigan, and I’m almost six feet tall,” he growled.

            “From the way Dad described you, I thought you’d be taller,” the redhead told him.

            “And who might you be?” Hannigan asked, drawing himself up to his full height.

            “Bridget Ellen O’Malley if it’s any business of yours, which I doubt,” she replied with mock haughtiness.

            “Hey, you came looking for me, Lady.  Not the other way around.”

Behind him, several of the mercenaries were up and moving, heading out the back door of The Broken Tusk.

            “Uh, kids, we don’t have time for this right now,” Niles McKenzie interjected.

Both turned to look at him.  “This bar is about to be raided by government troops and they don’t look particularly happy.”

            Gunfire erupted in the street outside as the soldiers spotted the mercenaries trying to escape.  Hannigan looked at McKenzie and O’Malley.  “The stairs!”

He turned and headed for the steps that led up to the second floor, presumably flophouse suites.  He spotted Degiorno and Shotsky moving that way as well.  Hannigan was halfway to the stairs when he realized that the priest and his daughter hadn’t moved.  He turned back to them.  “Come on!” he told them.

            “Go with him Bridget,” McKenzie said, shoving his adopted daughter towards the stairs. “I’ll catch up to you,”

            “I’m not going to desert you, Dad.”

            “You’re not,” McKenzie told her, his eyes urging her to follow Hannigan. “I'll meet you at the Mission.”

            “Bridget, come with me,” Mike Hannigan urged, reaching for her.  He caught her hand and drew her along behind him as he climbed the stairs.

            “Where are we going?” Bridget asked.

            “I have no idea, Bridget, up maybe?” Hannigan told her, still half-dragging her up the stairs.

            “Is there another way out of here?” Shotsky asked, spinning Degiorno around to face him.  Sweat was pouring down the Italian’s face.

            “The roof,” Degiorno gasped.  His bulk was not made for running, especially in the African heat.

            “Lead the way,” Gregor Shotsky shoved him towards the door.

            “Dad,” Bridget said, trying to tug loose and head back down the stairs.