Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra

journey. He had sat through the madness of a Yankees–Red Sox contest played out in the heated confines of Fenway Park; seen the New York Mets take on the San Diego Padres in their home park of Shea Stadium, knowing it would be the last go-round for the crumbling arena; traveled to Los Angeles to watch the Dodgers swing away against the Cincinnati Reds in the massive ballpark of Chavez Ravine; and he spent a long weekend in St. Louis, managing to get in two games at Busch Stadium. But no park fed his baseball soul as heartily as the small bandbox of Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs.
    Edwards regarded Wrigley as the perfect American ballpark, its confines allowing the fan to get close enough to shout at the players. The fans were knowledgeable and rabid, devoted despite the steady diet of disappointment. It was the combination of the beauty of the park and the indefatigable spirit of the diehards who gave comfort to Professor Edwards.He had spent many decades chasing works deemed forever lost by the art world, and so was at home with impossible quests. And much like his beloved Chicago Cubs, he had learned never to grow complacent but to embrace whatever victories came his way.
    “This is our year, I can feel it,” the man squeezing into the seat next to him said. “We have it all, hitting and pitching, and nothing can stop us.”
    “It shouldn’t be called Opening Day,” Edwards answered, smiling across at the man. “It should be named Optimistic Day. Would make a lot more sense. After today, it’s a straight roll down the hill.”
    “Spoken like a true diehard, Richard,” the man said, “which is one of many reasons I enjoy your company as much as I do.”
    “You surprise me, Andrew,” Edwards said. “Here I thought it was because I always pay for the tickets.”
    Andrew MacNamera was one of six original members of the Vittoria Society, from that first meeting held in the back room of a small restaurant in a New York City suburb. Now in his late sixties and in the second year of a painful battle against the unrelenting demon of lung cancer, he was still as sharp and as focused on the group’s goals as at the end of that first long night of food and drink, where he helped devise a plan intended to secure the future of lost artistic treasures. Though he was, on the surface at least, a soft-spoken academic, MacNamera provided the Vittoria Society with what over the years would prove to be one of its most crucial elements. He had established a worldwide network of informants and enforcers meant to help the group both achieve their goals and keep a step ahead of their adversaries.
    The core of this group grew out of the connections MacNamera had made early in his academic career. While still an innocent and eager college student, he was heavily recruited by a variety of CIA officials and moved off the campus of Northwestern University and into a twelve-year stint as a Black Ops agent, running a number of clandestine and extremely dangerous missions across the European continent. This allowed him to build a connective network of loyalists, government officials, criminals, and Cold War agents he felt would be both sympathetic and helpful to the cause.
    By the time he sat in his seat in the second row of a field-level box along the first base line at Wrigley Field, Andrew MacNamera had put in place his international operation of nearly five thousand sources, givingthe Vittoria Society eyes in corners that were shaded and dangerous. The operation was funded by a well-stocked financial network of art collectors, dealers, academics, and historians who, across a twenty-year span, built a massive cash base to help support their various endeavors.
    “Day baseball will soon be a remnant of the past,” MacNamera said, scanning the ivy walls, watching the players leave the field after their pre-game drills. “Have you ever noticed it’s always the things that give people the simplest pleasure—double features,