“Yes.”
“And Dad?”
“Your father was the one who started Stormdrain.”
Aubrey heard herself gasp. She had suspected he was involved, but not at that level. “But I did an online search. Neither of you came up in connection with Stormdrain. Was that because you made a deal with the FBI?”
Her mother nodded. “We also had different names, then. I was Di Hartfeld, and your father was Lawrence Lyndberger. We legally changed to Lynd when we married in 1971.”
How could Aubrey have not known that? But her parents had many secrets they’d kept from her. “Why did you make a deal with the FBI?”
“Things changed,” her mother said. “Your father and I had been naive to think we could remain pacifists.”
“Pacifists? You were setting off bombs.”
“Yes, we were, but we always took precautions that no one would get hurt. Then when some people in the organization decided to take things in a different direction, your father and I tried to stop them.”
“How?” Aubrey asked.
Her mother looked back down at her hands. The sky had darkened. Cars went past on Meridian Avenue. The lights came on around them, casting the giant hand sculpture in an eerie green.
“Mama, what really happened at the brownstone explosion?”
CHAPTER 41
Diana turned toward the sculpture of souls trying to claw their way up out of hell. Would she ever make it out of her own hell?
“I found plans to blow up Columbia’s Low Library,” she said. “Someone had marked up the blueprint indicating where to plant bombs to kill hundreds of people, mostly students.”
Her daughter made a little noise, like a kitten that’s been kicked aside.
“I went to your father and told him things had gone too far and we needed to end Stormdrain. I wanted him to go with me to the FBI. We had to do whatever was necessary to stop it.”
“Did he go with you?”
Diana could still see Larry’s expression of fear when she’d told him what needed to be done. “He was worried,” she said to her daughter. “Concerned our friends would all be arrested and probably go to prison, even those who knew nothing about the library.” She took in a breath. “You see, he knew the FBI would never be able to ignore the intent to kill innocent people. He was adamant that we shouldn’t mention the plan to blow up the library.”
“You went along with that?”
“He persuaded me we could avoid the library disaster and protect our friends.”
“How?”
“We made an agreement with the FBI that we would arrange for each Stormdrain member to come forward, sign an affidavit, and be granted immunity. Your father also insisted that my file and his be kept out of all public records.”
“So you and Dad made a deal with the FBI and got off scot-free.”
Diana winced. “Scot-free? Hardly.”
“The FBI never knew there was a plan to blow up the library?”
The arbor of trees that led behind the Memorial was in shadows. “That’s right,” she said. “We told them about the bomb factory in the brownstone and Stormdrain’s plans to blow up the armory on Lexington Avenue. We also took responsibility for a number of bombings Stormdrain had been involved with. But we assured the FBI that we always took precautions to avoid injuring or killing anyone.”
“How could you be sure the people who’d planned to blow up the library wouldn’t do it?”
“Once the FBI knew about the bomb factory, the plan couldn’t go forward.”
“How did the Stormdrain members feel about Dad and you going turncoat?”
“You have to understand something. Your father was like a god to everyone in Stormdrain. They listened to him. If he said it was time to retreat, they retreated.”
“So what happened?”
“A group of our friends were supposed to be at a neighborhood bar that afternoon. Your father went there to tell them about the deal and persuade them to talk to the FBI in exchange for immunity.”
“And you?” Aubrey asked. “Where did you go?”
“I went to the brownstone, where we held our meetings.”
“Where the bomb factory was.”
Diana nodded. “A few Stormdrain members were there. I wanted to warn them that the FBI would be coming to dismantle everything and let them know we had gotten everyone immunity.”
“So what went wrong?”
“There was a ringleader,” Diana said. “My roommate, Gertrude. I think she went a little crazy. She believed killing was the only answer to righting the wrongs of our society.”
“Gertrude Morgenstern,” Aubrey said.
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Diana remembered the fury and arrogance on Gertrude’s face when she had confronted her in their dorm room with the blueprint of the library. “Why I thought I’d be able to reason with her.”
The memory pushed against her brain, as painful as ever. “A little boy on a red tricycle was riding around in front of the brownstone.” She squeezed her eyes closed, but the memory remained.
The little boy pedaled past her on a red tricycle. He was wearing a blue-and-white-striped sweater. He rode the tricycle around and around on the cracked sidewalk in front of the old brick brownstone, stopping to smile and wave at her. She hurried past him to the weathered oak door and banged hard with the brass knocker. She needed to talk to them.
“Let me in.” She pounded on the door. “Let me in!”
She opened her eyes. Aubrey was watching her, her daughter’s face apprehensive, as though she were expecting a pail of water to be thrown at her.
“The door opened,” Diana said. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “It was Gertrude.”
Her daughter didn’t move, not even her eyes.
“I told her Larry and I had gone to the FBI. That we had told them about Stormdrain, and they had agreed to grant everyone immunity.”
The memory ran through her mind, like sandpaper over raw skin.