The Eternal War

CHAPTER 18

2001, New York

‘See anything?’

Becks shook her head. ‘I see no one who matches his identity or similar.’

Liam shucked his shoulders. ‘To be honest, I can’t imagine us spotting anyone similar. He’s an odd-looking fella, so he is.’

Although he seemed to Liam to be an utterly peculiar individual — one moment manic and excitable as a child, the next curmudgeonly and as bad-tempered as a mule — there was something about him he found vaguely likeable. Perhaps it was because he seemed so honest. His over-the-top mannerisms, his loud voice, his thoroughly expressive face, seemed utterly incapable of masking whatever happened to be going through his mind. Lincoln appeared to be one of those people completely incapable of deceit.

Or, as Liam’s Auntie Dot used to say, the poor fella wears his heart on his sleeve.

He recalled one of the other lads on the Titanic being a bit like that, one of the junior stewards. Liam remembered thinking the lad wasn’t going to last long on the ship. Too ready with a muttered curse if he failed to get tipped. The chief steward said the lad was a bad penny. Trouble. Certainly not the kind of young man they wanted wearing a White Star uniform.

Liam gazed at the winking lights of traffic backed up at an intersection and wondered if that lad was one of the lucky few who’d made it off the ship alive to be picked up later by the SS Carpathia.

› Maddy?

‘Yes?’ she groaned. Her cold had chosen the last half an hour to get worse. Her head was pounding, her throat was rough, her arms felt like she’d been bench-pressing hundred-pound weights and her legs like they’d run a marathon.

› There has just been an incident logged on the New York Police Department’s internal intranet system that I calculate as having a high relevancy factor.

She pulled her chair along the table to face the webcam. ‘Whadya got?’

› ‘19:31 hours. Disturbance on corner of Mott and Canal Street. One male, Caucasian, approximate age 22. Possibly a vagrant. Booked in using probable alias — Abraham Lincoln.’

‘Oh boy … We got him! What’s he gone and done now?’

› Data entry originates from Precinct 5 police station.

‘Any idea where that is?’

› Just a moment … searching.

She snatched her inhaler off the desk and took a wheezy gasp from it; asthma and a cold — no, strike that, flu — oh, and a whole pile of unwelcome stress on top of that. She wondered how much punishment her frail body was supposed to be able to take.

› 19 Elizabeth Street.

Sal and Bob were probably closer. She dialled her number.

‘Sal?’

‘Yes?’

‘We’ve got ourselves a winner. He’s only gone and got himself arrested already!’

‘Surprise, surprise.’

‘He’s being held at the precinct station over on Elizabeth Street. No more than five minutes from you, I think.’

‘You want Bob to go in and break him out or something?’

‘God no! That’ll kick up a mess we can do without. No, just go in and ask about him. Doesn’t sound like he’s done anything too serious. Say he’s your eccentric cousin or something and you’re there to take him home and give him a frikkin’ good talking to.’ She shrugged. ‘We might get lucky and they release him into your care.’

‘OK … I’ll give it a try.’

Maddy hung up, settled back in her chair and groaned into a hankie before dialling Liam. It took him about two dozen rings before he finally answered.

‘Ah, so you managed to figure out how to answer it, then, Liam?’

‘Aye. Them silly little buttons on the front all look the same to me, so they do.’

Her patient, long-suffering sigh rustled down the phone line before she proceeded to explain as quickly as she could where Lincoln was and that they’d best come home to the arch. She figured Sal wasn’t going to have much luck talking the police into releasing Lincoln. Chances were they’d probably let him out first thing tomorrow morning with a verbal warning if he hadn’t done anything too bad … on bail, if he had.

She hung up and aimed a hang-dog look at the webcam. ‘Can I go get some bunk-time now, do you think, Bob?’

› Recommendation: minimum four hours’ sleep. You are not functioning to your full ability. You look like total chudyah.

Maddy smiled, surprised … and not a little impressed with computer-Bob. ‘Sal’s been teaching you more naughty words, hasn’t she?’

› Affirmative.