New Connections

To draw out the assassin, we had to create distance.

Tom Foley hadn't accepted the plan right away. He needed convincing—and I took that on myself.

"This is the chance to plant the idea that he's protected even when he can't see it," I said. "Once that sinks in, no one will even dream of trying again."

The whole approach rested on one assumption: there would be more attempts. Tom Foley had already walked around with bodyguards more than once. Unless it was pure show of force, that meant he was rattled. Plenty of people hated a corrupt politician—rivals squeezed out of deals, abandoned gangs, or someone bought by a hostile officeholder. I'd have bet a dollar Foley himself had no idea who wanted him dead.

Either way, I used what I knew to sell him on it.

"Instead of staying glued to you, we'll set the routes, the formation, and every position in advance. Timed plans. No improvisation."

Basic principal-protection doctrine. Every mercenary knows it—and I'd run it myself. Foley must have found it convincing enough, because he signed off.

Two days after we changed the detail, Foley walked the streets alone while we screened him at set intervals.

I felt the shift near Forty-fifth Street and Sixth Avenue. A man came toward us with his hat pulled low and his coat buttoned tight. Nothing about him stood out from the crowd—until you watched the eyes. Put an assassin in front of his target and those eyes lock on. Every nerve focuses so the job is perfect. His gaze was sharp, resolute, fixed on Foley, and his line of approach never wavered.

My instincts flagged him for another reason. I'd seen that look before, in another life. Unshakable conviction. The same eyes Middle Eastern terrorists carried.

I slipped a hand inside my coat and closed it around the gun.

The gap between the man and Foley shrank to about ten yards. I started to draw.

"Власть народу! Death to Tammany's dogs!"

He roared it as he pulled his own weapon. The same shout answered from another direction at the same instant. Not one of them—two.

I put the first round into the first man's head.

Bang!

Swung the muzzle and took the second.

Bang! Bang!

Two rounds punched into his chest. The second man fired a wild shot at the sky as he went down.

Patrick, Gavin, and Corey sprinted in and threw themselves around Foley. I looked from one body to the other. The first words had been Russian I couldn't place; the rest was plain English: Death to Tammany's dogs. Anarchists. No question.

They'd been bombing America for more than a decade. Closest example was only a year old—the San Francisco parade bombing that killed ten and wounded forty. I stared at the corpses on the pavement. The same madness that ran through anarchists and communists would keep staining the world the way their blood was staining the street. Knowing how that story ended left a bitter taste.

"You saved my life!" Foley strode over and seized my hand. He hadn't forgotten my name—he'd never asked it.

"Kieran Graves."

The Irish Brotherhood funding the IRA for Irish independence. Russian anarchists preaching the overthrow of capitalism. Two very different kinds of zealots, and in the space of days I had been both the assassin and the man who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠killed assassins. But I wasn't Nox anymore. I was Kieran.

"I won't forget this day!"

Tom Foley—corrupt enough to be valuable—was now a Tammany Hall heavyweight in my debt. A new connection, and through him, more to come.

A crowd closed in. The police who arrived secured Foley first and only then came looking for me. Their questions stayed fixed on the man who had shot the gunmen. While they worked, Patrick talked with Gavin and Corey and never took his eyes off me.

Once it was over and we started for home, Gavin and Corey wouldn't stop.

"That was insane. How did you even know both of them were shooters in that split second—and hit them clean?"

"Honestly, I only knew when I heard the shots. By the time I looked, they were already on the ground."

Patrick had something else on his mind.

"You see his face? When he realized they were Russians he looked completely blindsided."

"Never seen them before either," I said. "Wasn't personal."

Capitalists who grew fat on workers' blood gathered in the Tenderloin to play. Put a bullet in a corrupt politician there and you wake the world up. That kind of faith had roots in the Russian Revolution. Only months earlier something had set every anarchist's blood on fire: the Tsar gone, a provisional government of bourgeois and socialists in his place. Drunk on the example, they wanted the same revolution here. Different animals from the communists. Anarchists rejected every system that crushed men; communists dreamed of proletarian dictatorship. Among Russian immigrants in America the two camps lived side by side, tangled together.

"Anyway," I said, "it came from the belief they could change the world."

"...I can't get a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠read on you. Talk and think like a Harvard boy, shoot like a veteran. What the hell are you?"

"A rookie."

Patrick half-closed his eyes and let out a short laugh.

"Whatever you are. Today was something else."

Every headline in the city belonged to the Foley attempt. Of everything I'd done so far, nothing had drawn this much light.

I was reading the papers in a corner of the basement factory when Leo spoke up.

"But is this Kieran really you?"

"Stopping an anarchist hit and keeping Tom Foley alive? That's huge."

Even Marcus, who rarely looked surprised, couldn't close his mouth. Leo scanned the columns and clicked his tongue like something was missing.

"Bodyguard Kieran. Too thin. If they'd put the full name or a photo, this whole neighborhood would've gone crazy."

"That would've put a target on his back for every anarchist left," Marcus said. "That's why they kept it quiet."

He was right. Manhattan alone held more than two million people. The name Kieran didn't automatically mean me. My mother was proof enough—she barely looked at papers, and even if she had, she wouldn't have imagined it was her son.

"Break's over. Back to work."

I hauled a bolt of cloth, then stepped into the little office they'd set up in the corner of the workroom. Mother sat at the desk rubbing her temples over the ledger.

"Something wrong?"

"Unpaid bills, what else. Orchard Street is always trouble."

"Which accounts?"

"Klein and Levis. Both two weeks overdue."

"I'll go collect myself."

She realized the slip the second she said it and shook her head hard.

"No, son. It's fine. We'll wait a little longer."

"Then it becomes a habit. Write down how much each owes."

"I'm telling you, wait—"

She wrote the figures anyway.

"Don't come on too strong or we'll lose the accounts. Soft and steady, understand?"

"Of course. Be right back."

Orchard Street sat only five hundred yards from Hester, where we worked. They called it the Jewish Broadway—pushcarts and clothing shops packed tight. The men who sold off those carts were cartmen, pushing cheap pants, shirts, dresses, underwear. I found Mr. Klein among them. He owed twenty-three dollars and had been stringing it out for two weeks without even setting a date—just stalling for the fun of it. Still was.

"Come on, tomorrow's fine, isn't it? You're blocking customers. Get lost."

The thick-bearded man waved me off. I didn't move.

"I'm not leaving without the money."

"Listen to this. You think I'm going to stiff you? Huh?"

"After two weeks of delays, yeah—people start thinking that."

"What did you say?!"

Klein snorted, glanced around, then beckoned toward a corner. Two street toughs ambled over, spitting. Klein pointed at me and raised his voice like a man filing a complaint.

"This bastard just said I look like a thief. Makes a man want to quit the business. A few days late and this is how you treat customers?"

"We got it. We'll handle him."

They closed in. The one on the right wore brass knuckles and threw the first punch without warning.

Whoosh.

One thing that had changed lately: I no longer had a reason to hold back. For the next few days, while the anarchist story still had heat, I might as well be invincible.

Before the gleaming knuckle filled my vision I twisted clear and drove my fist into his solar plexus.

"Guh—!"

He clutched his chest, choking. His partner rushed me. I kicked him square in the face. Crack. He hit the pavement flat.

I grabbed the first man by the hair while he was still rubbing his chest, dragged him in front of Klein, and held his gaze while I slapped the thug across the face.

Slap!

"When do I get the money?"

"..."

Slap!

The cheek ballooned, veins bursting red like a roasted sweet potato. Klein went pale, fumbled a small pouch at his waist, and shoved the cash at me. I let go of the hair; the body folded. Twenty-three dollars, exact.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

As I turned away, Klein's thin voice followed me.

"We're done doing business. Don't ever come back here."

I snorted and walked to the next cart—Mr. Levis, three stalls down.

"Funny, I was just about to pay you today. Good timing."

He handed over the prepared eighteen dollars. Two overdue accounts settled clean. I headed back to the shop.

Mother was happy—until she realized two accounts had just walked away forever. Then she delivered a full backhand of a scolding.

"You little—!"

How hard it was to open one account, how I could drop two in a single afternoon, did I think clients grew out of the ground—she kept going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠until my ears felt blistered.

I sighed. Even at home the lecture would continue. Just then the savior arrived: Gavin from the Marginals.

"Tom Foley wants the detail again today."

Anarchists were everywhere. The fear that they would try harder just to erase the failure was exactly why he kept calling for me. And it wasn't only Foley.

"They handed us the whole Tammany Hall convention. Patrick and Corey are already there."

Tammany Hall sat near Union Square, the same ground where Mother had first carried a picket. On the way, Gavin passed along Tanner's message.

"Boss says thanks to you his own price went up. He'll settle the favor soon."

"A few thousand dollars, you think?"

"That's stretching it."

"Anyway, I'm personally grateful to you, Gavin."

"Me? What did I do?"

I clapped his shoulder and gave him a bright smile.

"I was about to cough blood from Mother's lecture. You're my hero."

"What did you mess up this time?"

"Dropped two accounts."

"Yeah, that earns a beating. Anyway."

He joked that he'd keep rescuing me. We caught a streetcar on Broadway, got off at Union Square, and walked East Thirteenth Street until we reached it: the political machine that had ruled New York City since 1789, the organization that turned money and power into legal abuse—Tammany Hall.

A large banner hung over the entrance, announcing the convention.

Two accounts gone—but I had a feeling I was about to open far better ones.