Crescent City Connection

Daniel outside. Your two paramedics will carry the stretcher, so we can see their hands at all times. They will be covered from inside the house. Lovelace will walk with them. Our two people will hand Daniel over and receive Lovelace.”
    Ferguson handed the phone to Lovelace. She said what she’d been coached to say. “Grandpa, I need to walk in by myself. There’s media out here. I want the world to see me walk in.”
    “Well, of course, honey. You can have anything your little heart desires.”
    Skip fought nausea. She was way past “Let the Good Times Roll.” She thought of the peaceful feeling the witches always gave her. What would they do? she thought. She tried deep breathing, chanting as she breathed.
I breathe in courage and strength and the spirit of all the warrior women who have gone before me. I breathe out cowardice and ineptness and failure.
    She was making this up as she went along, and it wasn’t working.
    She dropped the last part and tried to think in specifics. Were there any warrior women? There was Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction—that was close enough; there was Boudicca, the British queen whose army slaughtered seventy thousand Roman invaders; there was Athena, chief strategist for Zeus; there was Deborah, the Hebrew warrior.
    And of course, there was Joan of Arc, but Skip wasn’t going to mess with that one.
    She tried their names.
I am Kali, goddess of destruction, I am Boudicca, leader of the Celts, I am Deborah…
    The one that worked was Kali. She imagined herself with a necklace of severed heads, a demeanor so savage her face alone could probably destroy mere mortals.
    Or anyway, make them fuck up. That’s all I ask—just make them fuck up.
    And stay with me in there. Don’t leave me alone with those assholes.
    How odd this was did not occur to her, all she knew was that she’d never been more scared in her life, and she certainly wasn’t going to pray to the Christian god. For one thing, she never had; for another, Jacomine claimed to have Him sewed up.
    * * *
    Abasolo had seen to it that when the makeup expert fattened Lovelace up, he padded a pair of jeans for Skip, making them pillowy at the top, as if a blouse had been tucked in, and sewed in a holster. She had tried them on briefly at Headquarters, but, because this mission wasn’t yet authorized, a cursory fit was all there was time for.
    The clock read two thirty-five as she changed into them. Expertly, Abasolo patted her down. “No good,” he said, “I can feel it.” There was no time to send for the tailor.
    “I wonder,” said Ferguson. She turned her back and took off her bra. “Padded.”
    They improvised, and when they were done, several experts could feel nothing when they patted Skip down. It was two forty-five. They gave her a second gun—a tiny North American .22— in a bra they had padded with tissues and handkerchiefs. Neither was going to be easy to get to, but it was the best they could do in the allotted time.
    In the second bra cup, they fitted a small wireless transmitter and a tiny pair of wire cutters.
    Goerner was pale, but strangely calm, as if he’d finally worked off all his nervous energy. All he said was, “Get a move on, y’all,” in a quiet, almost serene voice.
    King sat in a corner biting the side of his index finger. They’d practically had to tie him up to get the operation going, and bitter words had been exchanged before he finally called the acting chief, who agreed instantly; in fact, so quickly Kohler joked that he must have already spent a few hours dodging reporters. Skip suspected that wasn’t the whole story.
    She’d noticed Abasolo talking very quietly on his cell phone—he’d probably called Joe Tarantino, who had briefed the chief before King called. Throughout the whole day, Abasolo had moved like some dark, knowing shadow, anticipating what had to be done, smoothing the way for it.
    The two of them—he and Skip—had always been a great team, but this was something new.
I’m going to owe him bigtime
, thought Skip.
That is, if I’m around.
    She tried to clear her brain, banish thoughts of mortality.
Breathe in, breathe out. The hell with chanting.
    Ferguson said, “Okay, everyone?” and dialed.
    The psychologists had been called and had agreed this was the only alternative.
    The TAC unit was at the ready, with strict instructions to stand by until Skip came out, or asked her bra bug for help, or it became clear from the bug that she was out