Memoria (29 page)

Anna
Gautier
, a.k.a. the St
eel Lady, strode
in front
, chin up, making it clear she couldn't care less about Bud Jessup walking to intercept her, let alone speak to him. She looked straight ahead, her face unemotional.

When he was at an arm's distance from her,
the two men confronted him: the dark, burly Lionel Batford and the long, round-faced Nicholas Floyd. Jessup attempted to bypass them to block
Gautier's
way, but the two wouldn't let him. The captain grinned and raised a brow.

"Ms.
Gautier
?
" he called. "Hello?"

The woman didn't stop.

"Don't force me to-"
He stopped, unwilling
to pull rank
. He hurried after her, nearly catching
her
up by the checkpoint. "Anna, you sure you're all right? Can you tell me what's going on?"

The police guards at
the checkpoint saw something going on and blocked the electronic turnstiles. One of them walked out of their room, another phoned the guards' room upstairs
. Three more guards appeared on the balcony with
se
mi-auto
weapons
in their hands. They shouted to Lionel and Nicholas to stop when the two tried to
get closer to the captain.

Gautier
reached
the checkpoint and looked back. Her tough lips curved, distorting her face
into
a grimace of contempt.
Jessup expected her to give him one of those pieces of her
mind that, together with her unbending will
and fearlessness for
authorities, had earned her the Steel Lady moniker. She was never short
of
criticism for
the powers that be whenever
migrants' interests were at stake.
She couldn't care less what
the media wrote about her, let alone what society would think about her.
As far as she was concerned, t
he
New York police chief
—
whose job it was to make sure the migrants
stayed guarded in their camps,
well locked
up
at night and under control
during
daytime
—
could shove his opinion where the sun didn't shine.

"So we're
under arrest
, then
?"
she said in her deep low voice, her eyes piercing him.

The captain shook his head.

"Just curious how the Memoria talks went."

Her eyes glistened with amazement.
She looked puzzled, then thoughtful, contempt replaced by surprise.
The next
moment,
her political expertise
suppress
ed
all emotion
.

She looked up at him, "Don't you know yet?"

"Know what, exactly?"

Her stare stopped at something behind his back. Jessup turned. The Memoria fighters and the agent by the s
tation entrance had disappeared, replaced by three patrol cops. Gizbo and the sergeant stood nearby together with the other migrants' leaders.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he said.

Both the lieutenant's and the sergeant's radios
sprang
to life
. The stadium staff duty officer demanded to speak to the police chief.

"
You might be looking for a new job," she dropped heading for the turnstiles. "Sooner than you think."

"Pardon me?" Jessup said.

"
Make sure you watch the evening news," she said without looking back.

Lionel Batford and Nicholas Floyd walked past, Floyd
pushing him out of his way.

"Shall I detain him, sir?" a guard shouted coming out of the checkpoint.

Jessup
gestured them to be let through.
Gizbo stepped to
ward
him, holding out the radio. The captain took it.

"Captain Jessup," he said into the microphone.

"Sta
ff duty officer here, sir."

"What is it?"

"You'd better come here
yourself, sir. You've got to see this."

"What do you mean, officer?"

"
You need to come t
o the staff office, sir. Frank S
helby has been sighted by the perimeter, accompanied by two unidentified civilians. I've already sent a patrol to intercept them."

"Don't shoot!" Jessup barked into the radio. "
We need them alive!"

He threw the radio back to Gizbo and ran to
ward
the stadium. When he ran past the choppers, his cell phone rang. Out of breath, Jessup slowed down. The phone showed a number he didn't know.
He hesitated, then answered.

"Jessup here."

"Captain?" an unknown voice said.

"Yes."

"My name's Serge Gillan. I'm an independent reporter."

"Who gave you this number
?
"

"Later," the voice in the receiver, too, was out of breath, as if the caller had just
run a
hundred meters. "My life's
in danger. I'm afraid that-"

Jessup covered the receiver and turned to Gizbo
, about to ask him to detect the caller
's
ID
.
But the words in the phone made him jump. He listened to the voice, called the lieutenant and dictated him an address.

S
pecked with
the
midday sun, the Harlem's dark waters splashed against the
iron drain
way
. The river breathed with coolness.
Max
stood inside the
sewage tunnel
. Behind his
broad
back, Frank could see
the clear sky and part of
the
steep bank
opposite
. Underfoot, brown
foam
flowed into the river.

Frank held the
attaché
case
tight in one hand and supported Maggie with the other, preventing the girl from collapsing into
the
effluent
.
Nauseous and
giddy, s
he didn't seem to care any more.
On their way
,
she'd very nearly fainted
with the stench and exhaustion.

Frank couldn't think straight himself. He didn't smell anything, his nose senseless ever since
the start of their underground journey.
Still, he felt like shit,
which was appropriate, and didn't want to throw up
when least needed, like the coa
ch had done.

As if hearing his name,
Max
turned back, nodded to them and jumped into the river. It was only chest deep. Frank led Maggie to the edge of the drain and stood behind her back.

"Catch her," he pushed the doll-like body
into
Max
's arms.

She was too tired even to cry out.
Max
grabbed her in
his powerful arms, not to let her go underwater,
then
turned the girl onto her back and swam to the bank, pushing her along.

Frank looked out.
E
ncased in a concrete foundation
, t
he
tunnel
hung
over
the river
. Overhead,
tree tops rustled over
a high barbed-wire
fence
. Further on, the river
meander
ed preventing him from seeing how far the fence stretched along the bank slopes.

He looked in the opposite direction and still couldn't
work out
how far the 151th
Street
station platform was
with
its
stadium and the checkpoint.

"Jump!" the coach called out as he helped Maggie to get out of the river.

Frank lifted the
attaché
case
overhead and
stepped out. Cold dirty water enveloped him, his feet bogged
down
in the silt. He pulled
one out, lay on his chest and struck out
with one arm
to
free the other foot.

"Hurry up!" the coach
looked
up, worried.

Next to him,
Maggie on all fours
puked bile onto the concrete.
Max
couldn't help her. He turned to the
approaching Frank in the water,
"
Where are you!"

Max
grabbed the
attaché
case
before Frank could get out and opened it
, producing a gun.
He snapped
the safety catch,
pulled the bolt back in the breech and peered into the barrel
where a
cartridge glistened in the sun
. H
e shoved the gun under his belt and
pulled his shirt out of his trousers
to cover
the hand grip
.

"
Grab my hand," he reached
for
Frank
. "Maggie? You think you can walk?"

"Sure," she wheezed,
wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

"Come on, then," Ma
x dragged Frank
up
onto the concrete
.
"
W
e've got to get to the fence. The sooner we get inside the perimeter, the better
it'll be
for all of us."

They helped Maggie back on her feet and supported her up the hill.
The concrete wall overhead, about three
body lengths
tall, was
covered
with
old
cracks
,
wide and deep enough to
scramble up
.
Numerous deep
crevice
s made the
potential climb a child's game.

The coach glanced around and turne
d his pale sunken face to Frank.
"You go first."

Frank looked up and noticed, only a few feet over the wall, a
security
camera pointing at the Bronx.

"What if they see us," he said.

"
Don't waste our time," the coach snapped. "Just climb the
fucking
wall. I'll help Maggie from my
side
, and you
drag her up. Is that
clear?"

"Yes,
sir,
" Frank paused, racking his brains for the best way to
negotiate the barbed wire
on top of
the wall.

Once again he fixed
the
attaché
case
with his trouser belt
, wiped the palms of his hands and started the climb, his fingers grasping at the cracks,
his toes pressing
into
the c
revice
s
.
Soon he approached the tight c
oi
ls of
barbed wire. Disregarding th
e
ir
sharp
ends
, he lifted the
coils with his elbow, grabbed the wall
's
edge and pushed himself up. A few seconds later, he
managed to force his leg over
the other side
and straddled the wall, the barbed wire on one side digging into his ribs.

First
thing
, he reached for the
attaché
case
, opened it and rummaged
through
the tool
box
for some wire cutters.
He cut the wire in two places
making enough space for Maggie, and called
out to
the coach. Max
was already waiting with the girl standing on his shoulders. Frank grabbed Maggie's outstretched arms
and pulled her up onto the
l
edge. He wanted to help her
hook her leg over the wall when a sharp pain in his side
blurred his vision. For a few seconds,
Frank sat on the top open-mouth
ed
, unable to move, and when the pain subsided, the girl wasn't on the wall any more.