have to answer to any civilian review board, fat-bottomed top brass, or even the mayor. Once, shortly after 9/11, some deputy chief had tried to insert one of his stooges into the CTU’s secret headquarters, which in those dark days were in Brooklyn. Byrne, or so the story went, marched down to One Police Plaza and threatened to put the dope’s head through one of the double-glazed windows on the fourteenth floor; and since Frankie and Commissioner Matt White had been partners in the old days, that was the end of departmental interference in the CTU.
Lannie took a deep breath of pride—pride in his unit and pride in what he had already accomplished just getting into it—and squeezed off nine shots in lightning succession. Three hits, six misses, but at this distance that was pretty good, good enough for government work.
“You shoot like a sand nigger,” said Byrne, inspecting the target. “No wonder you guys always lose.”
Had anyone else said that to him, Lannie would have brought him up on charges; from Byrne, it was a compliment. “You know, I could have your badge for a crack like that, Captain,” he ventured.
Byrne laughed. “Which is one of the things that’s wrong with this country today. In the old days, in New York, that’s how we used to talk to each other, the Irish to the Italians to the Jews. Nowadays, you foreign pussies go running to the U.N. if somebody looks at you askance.”
“Askance? What does that mean?”
“It means you’re in America now, Buckwheat, so learn American.” Byrne slipped the .38 he had been using back into the holster that he wore on his right hip. He popped the clip—there was another term they didn’t want you to use anymore—out of the Glock and left both pieces of the weapon on the shelf.
They walked together out of the old Academy and into the glorious sunlight of an afternoon in New York City. Almost instinctively, Lannie turned east, toward Second Avenue, but Byrne took him by the arm and headed west, toward Gramercy Park, instead. “We’re in Chelsea, remember?” he said.
The corpse of Cabrini Medical Center lay directly across the street. The century-old Catholic hospital had closed down in the spring of 2008. Byrne could feel Lannie’s gaze on him as he reacted to the sight. “What is it?” said Saleh.
“It’s an old hospital.”
“I know that.”
“Cabrini Medical Center. One of the oldest Catholic hospitals in the city. Not financially viable, the state said. And now it’s gone.”
Lannie shrugged. “So what? New York’s got plenty of hospitals.”
Byrne put a hand on his shoulder: gently, but firmly. “It’s what we were just talking about. It’s the past, old New York. It’s what used to be. And now it’s not.”
Lannie still didn’t get it. Byrne kept his hand on his shoulder as he spoke:
“It was named after Mother Cabrini. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian nun from Lombardy. She was the first American citizen ever canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1946, every wop in this town went apeshit when Pius XII punched her ticket to heaven. If you don’t believe me, ask Vinnie.”
“So I guess that makes her pretty special.” Lannie hoped his tone came off as encouraging, but knew it didn’t.
Byrne seemed to let it slide. “I’ll say. I was born there. I was named after her. And one other thing—”
Byrne still hadn’t moved. His hand was still on Lannie’s shoulder, his eyes still focused across the street, at the back of what used to be Cabrini Medical Center.
“My father died there.”
Lannie felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket, but he didn’t answer it, or even glance at it. He didn’t want to break the mood, even though to him this was all ancient history, and foreign ancient history at that. “I’m sorry, boss,” he said.
“It was a long time ago,” replied Byrne.
They started walking. “You know,” said Lannie, “not all Muslims are Arabs.”
“So the Iranians tell me,” said Byrne. “But you’re not Persian. Hell, you’re not even Irish.”
“And not all Arabs are Muslims,” Lannie said, undeterred. “Some of us are Christians.”
“And not all Christians are Catholics, but all Catholics are Christians. So what does that prove?”
Lannie had no answer. He was 24 years old, and even though he knew pretty much everything about life that was worth knowing, like computers and girls, he also knew that he knew almost nothing about anything that actually mattered. He was on the CTU thanks to Capt. Byrne, especially considering he couldn’t shoot for shit.
Byrne buttoned his overcoat against the raw spring wind. “So, is that your own personal .38?” Lannie asked. Walking with the boss was awkward, and it helped to have some neutral conversational topic.
“Yes, it’s mine. And no, not originally. It belonged to my dad. He was wearing it the day he was killed in the line of duty.”
Byrne got that faraway look in his eyes that everybody in the department knew so well. It was a look that said: this far and no farther. There are some lines not to be crossed.
Byrne had picked up the tempo now, barreling west past Teddy Roosevelt’s birthplace and across Fifth Avenue. It was as if he knew something was up, was responding to some unarticulated urgency, and it was all Lannie could do to keep up with the old man…on any level.
They had crossed Seventh Avenue, into Chelsea, and were heading north when Lannie felt his cell phone buzz again. Involuntarily, he stopped and pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was one of those shitty departmental phones, standard-issue, not his BlackBerry, which he had left back at his desk in case something really important happened.
“What is it?” asked Byrne. If it were really important, whoever was on the other end of the line would have called him. On the other hand, if it had anything to do with computers, Lannie would be the go-to guy. And that was, after all, the reason Byrne had hired him. Certainly not for his marksmanship.
Lannie glanced at the display: URGENT. He picked up the pace. They didn’t have to say anything. Byrne got it. That was one of the things that made him such a good chief.
They hit the intersection of 20th and Eighth, nearly running now, and headed north.
They rounded the corner. Up ahead was an old, nondescript warehouse, one of the few buildings that hadn’t been converted into artists’ lofts or art galleries. Actually, that was not quite true: most of it had in fact been converted, but there was still a big chunk of the giant building, which occupied a full city block in two dimensions and rose five stories into the air, that had been given over to the CTU. Not that any of the other tenants knew about it.
That was one of the things that still made New York New York, thought Byrne as he spied the building: not making eye contact with neighbors was still considered a virtue.
They pulled up in front of the building. “Mother Cabrini—Frances Xavier Cabrini—is the patron saint of immigrants,” said Byrne. His cell phone was buzzing now, too.
Lannie beat him to
