Cassandra.

They had seen her just once since the rescue. Subsequently, lean, hard men had appeared, calm on the outside, with a don’t-look-at-me-from-even-ten-feet-away attitude, cold-shouldering and ignoring everyone except those closest to Zeb. They had barred any access to her, taking her away from her apartment.

There had been a time or two when some of them had accosted Isakson, the FBI squaring off against some of the most dangerous men, but Broker and Clare had intervened and calmed the situation.

They had thought they had lost contact with Cassandra when the call came from her about the memorial service.

*   *   *

Connor stops his musings as he drives onto Park Avenue, heads toward the Church of St. Ignatius at 84th Street, and jams the brakes hard when he sees the crowd outside the church. A lot of those same hard men, but also many others, some old, a few teenagers, a few Asians and Hispanics.

‘Have we come to the right place?’ Lauren murmurs and then spots Broker, who is indicating some parking spaces far ahead.

As they walk back to the church, they’re joined by Mark and Anne. Anne’s eyes are red rimmed, and the usual spark in her is missing.

Taking in the crowd, she says, ‘I didn’t realize he knew so many people and had so many friends.’

‘A lot of them must be his military buddies. The rest, probably their family and friends,’ Mark and Connor reply simultaneously and then grin.

Anne holds Rory’s hand. ‘Are you okay, champ?’

He just nods, his gaze on Broker.

Broker greets them at the entrance and directs them inside. ‘Cass is over there, waiting for you.’ In reply to Lauren’s unasked question, he adds, ‘She’s fine. She’s a tough one.

‘More important, how are you and champ here?’

Lauren smiles briefly. ‘It all feels like a distant, horrible dream.’

Broker nods. ‘Yes, and if you’re feeling that, then you’ll be fine. Just think of it as something unreal. And as for Rory, he’ll be fine, too.’

They go inside the church, which is packed, a lot of ebb and flow around Cassandra, who’s standing next to Clare and a couple of those hard impassive guys.

Connor feels awkward as they approach Cassandra and senses similar emotions in his entourage. It’s the first time they’ve met socially since the rescue.

Rory rushes up to her and hugs her for all he’s worth, breaking the awkwardness.

‘This wasn’t my idea.’ Cassandra indicates the filled church once she, Lauren and Anne have shed a few tears. ‘Broker insisted, and there were several others who came to me and said they would go ahead with this, with or without my permission.’

‘This is Roger and Bwana. They were with us during our Catskills trip,’ she continues, introducing two men standing next to her, one African-American, and the other, a relaxed Texan.

They both nod to Connor and his party.

‘And this is Andrews. He was Zeb’s handler at the agency.’ She points to another, whose immaculate appearance doesn’t mask hollow eyes and cheeks.

‘Who are all these people?’ Mark asks. ‘I thought Zeb was a loner.’

‘He was. Many of these people are those he helped, or families of those he helped over the years.’

‘Over there’ – she points to a teenage girl accompanied by her father – ‘Dad owns a chain of retail stores in the Midwest. Daughter went to Mexico for a holiday and got kidnapped, with the kidnappers demanding a ransom. Zeb rescued her. There are many such people here. Zeb didn’t know it, but all of them kept in touch with me.’

Cassandra smiles sadly and then chuckles at Mark’s stunned expression. ‘You really thought there would be about ten people or so here at the most, didn’t you?’

‘We all thought that,’ Connor says before wandering away to have a look around and meet some of the people.

What feels like hours later, he turns to the lectern at the front as a hush falls across the hall.

Broker steps up, looks around, and chuckles. ‘I think Zeb would be amused to know that so many had gathered in his memory. I’m sure he never thought he was that important. He would also shrug and think it was all just a waste of time. Thankfully we are all not Zeb.’

The room chuckles with him.

‘But because we are all not Zeb, it’s all the more important to pause from life and remember that there are these unusual people who impact our lives and change us. Today is not about mourning and not about Zeb alone. I am sure there are many more people like him that you might know. Today is about celebrating such people.’

He pauses and waits.

Silence greets him.

‘You bastards, that was the cue for you to shout my name.’

Laughter fills the hall.

‘Some of you will know this next speaker, though I’m not sure why,’ Broker says, stepping aside.

A tall black man, distinguished looking with silver hair, fills the hall with his presence as a frisson of excitement ripples through the crowd.

Matthew Ferrer is widely regarded as the best Hollywood actor of his generation, with a worldwide following that even the Pope would envy.

‘A few years back when I had won the Academy Award for Forgotten, I started receiving weird death threats, and my studio and my agent suggested that I seek personal protection. It did not sit well with me. Here I was, on top of the world, recognized all over the world, women chased me’ – he paused – ‘men, too.’

A ripple of laughter, the crowd hanging on every word.

‘And suddenly, there were these crazies who seemed to be intent on doing me harm. Nevertheless, I took the advice of my agent and spoke to a few people; those few people gave me some names. I also spoke to the LAPD. The LAPD and quite a few of the others I spoke to kept mentioning one name, Major Zebadiah Carter. They also said he was not easy to get to and not very friendly.

‘That suited me, that last bit. I had enough hangers-on in my life without a bodyguard looking at me with doe eyes. My agent called him; no response. I got the LAPD to call him; no response. I called him and left a message for him.

‘He never returned my call, but one night after shooting on location in New York, he was sitting in my hotel room waiting for me, late at night. Boy, did that freak me out – this guy sitting Zen-like in my hotel room all dark, just looking at me, not uttering a single fucking word.

‘“I want to hire you,” I told him. “Everyone I have spoken to tells me you are the best personal protection guy out there.”

‘He just sat there looking at me. I’m sure you all know the Zeb look.’

A loud shout of assent in the hall.

Matthew takes a sip of water.

‘I got him to talk somehow, or rather, he got me to talk and laid down the rules for working with him. Yes, me, Hollywood superstar, toeing his line. It was galling, I tell you, but my agent said I had no choice. Not if I was going to take those threats seriously.

‘Zeb was my personal protector for three years, travelled with me all over the world, and saved me from a katana-wielding stalker in Tokyo, who just pounced on us when I was having dinner with my cast. That was some weird shit. Here we were having dinner in Tokyo’s finest, the restaurant empty save for the cast, and then this guy bursts in through the door, yelling and shouting, waving a giant sword, nearly taking the director’s head off. The guy jumped on my table, and then Zeb showed up, there was a blur, and next thing I know, the guy was hog-tied and Zeb was calmly sampling my dinner.’

His voice chokes.

‘That was Zeb. He could slow time down. He taught me not to take myself seriously. That the world would not be permanently misshapen just because I was no longer in it.

‘I have dined with presidents, met the Pope, romanced the most beautiful women in the world, but I have, I had, only one brother. Major Zebadiah Carter.’

A pin-drop silence and then a roar of applause washes over all of them. Connor notices that there is hardly a dry eye in the room, including his.