Takedown, page 22
A voice crackled over Chris’s radio. “No, one’s enough,” Chris said in the radio. “We’re pretty tight in here as it is.”
“So why haven’t you opened it?”
“What?”
“It.”
“Oh. We’re waiting for the bomb squad, just in case it’s booby-trapped. The last thing I want is to explain to the lieutenant why the proper precautions weren’t taken after someone gets blown up,” Chris said, then motioned over Gavin’s shoulder. “Speaking of the devils… I mean, demons.”
“Very funny,” Gavin answered as he turned to see the bomb squad approach. “So this was your idea?”
“What?”
“The bomb squad… the standby ambulance… the fire truck… the catering truck.”
“What catering truck?” Chris said with alarm.
“Just kidding. Although I could use a coffee and a buttered roll.”
Chris sighed. “Yeah, like I told ya, I just wanted to follow proper procedure. Why?”
“Nothin’. I just hope for your sake something blows up.”
“You’re so sure it won’t?”
“I’d bet my house on it,” Gavin said.
Chris snorted. “Fine, all the change in my pocket against what’s left of your house.”
“Ah, I don’t want to take your money. But think about it. He doesn’t like bombs. He hasn’t used one yet. Whoever opens that door is more likely to get a suction-cup arrow in the forehead… or a boxing glove in the nose.”
“Then maybe you should open the door, tough guy. I’ll send the bomb squad home.”
“Good idea, but may be too late. He could be watching us right now,” Gavin said, looking around.
“I’ve got eyes on all roads leading to here looking for him. If he gets within a mile in any direction, he’s ours.”
“Suppose he puts on glasses, a fake nose, and a mustache?”
“Ah,” Chris said as he waved Gavin off and left to address the bomb-squad team.
Gavin backed away, glad to not be making the decisions right now. Bomb squad, he thought and shook his head. On a day like today. These guys made him feel fortunate to be in homicide. The temperature had climbed to around ninety, maybe more, and these brave men were dressed in black, insulated, modern-day versions of knights in armor. Black helmets with thick face shields. The only thing going for them was that the viaduct provided shade. In the sun they would probably pop like black ants under a magnifying glass.
A few moments later the immediate area was cleared and the perimeter was widened. The two sizeable locks were cut with hydraulic bolt cutters and then the latches were cabled and uneventfully pulled open from a safe distance. Everyone stayed put as the black knights tiptoed inside. A few minutes later they walked out and took their helmets off.
“All clear,” yelled one member of the squad.
“May I make a suggestion?” Gavin said to Chris as they came out from behind a patrol car.
“No,” Chris said.
“Send everyone away but forensics and spread the word that all we found were lawnmowers and rakes. Let everyone know we were wrong. False alarm. Otherwise, by tonight the word will be out about the container and we’ll lose any chance of him ever showing up here again. Also, break off any visible spot checks down the road, and keep one pair of eyes on anyone coming in here.”
Chris tugged on his chin in thought. “I hate to say it, but you might be right. But I still think I was right to bring everyone on board to open it. If something were to go wrong…”
“You did the right thing, Big Dog. Get ahold of your bomb squad and tell them the plan before they hit the perimeter.”
Chris nodded and started off to cut off the squad.
“I’ll see you inside the box,” Gavin called, then started toward the container. He had only gone a few yards when he slowed to a stop, frowned, and then looked left. Some excavating equipment, several fifty-five-gallon drums, beyond that some dirt hills with tall grass on top blowing in the breeze, an old steel fence with a gate that was cracked open, a weed field, and beyond that… low tide.
Gavin strolled the length of a football field and found himself standing atop a bulkhead at the edge of a canal, the only water being a foot-wide stream cutting through the muck, bottom fed from a cement culvert about fifty yards away, behind the stores on Main Street. The water was probably coming from the spring-fed duck pond across the street. Definitely low tide. Gavin looked at the bulkhead on the other side. The high-tide mark was about three and a half feet above the muck. To his right he saw the stream widen until it reached the bay’s low-water mark, about a quarter mile away. By his feet was an old wooden ladder thick with barnacles and seaweed… except for the middle of the rungs. He turned and looked back in the direction of the storage container.…
“Where were you? Taking a leak?”
“When’s high tide?”
Chris shrugged. “About six hours from dead to peak. Smells pretty low right now.”
Gavin nodded. “We might have caught a break for once.”
“How?”
“He’s got maybe an hour, possibly a two-hour window twice a day that he can get in that creek with a small boat,” Gavin said, pointing his head toward the old bulkhead a hundred yards away. “So far everything he’s done has been by or on the water. I don’t think he drives here. I think he gets here by boat at high tide… and probably only at night.”
Chris nodded. “That’s what I would do,” he said as he looked at his watch. “It’s time.”
“What?”
“His face is being spread across every channel as we speak.”
“All the more reason to come at night,” Gavin said.
“If he does, we’ll be ready for him. Come on, let’s have a look in here.”
35
Krogan sat at the kitchen table of his host’s Jamaica Queens apartment, roaches scurrying around his bare feet, dressed only in the boxer shorts he’d put on to go outside and get the newspaper. Light passed over his left arm through an open barred window. The sounds of people, horns, and trains went unheard as he stared at the front page. “More Terror,” he said, reading the headline over a strange-looking picture of a flipped boat. The paper said the capsized ferry was the fastest in the world and belonged to some casino. He smiled. Fastest in the world, he thought.
Krogan turned the paper over and saw a picture of himself on the back page throwing the Ninja guy out of the ring. He read the title: “Resurrected From The Dead.” He cringed after the words left his mouth and had to shake off a shiver. He read a little farther and found the article was about his host and how he had revived his career. “Fools!” Krogan laughed. “He did nothing.”
He turned back to the front page and then back to the last page. He did this several times. He didn’t care that the front page would get more attention from humans. He didn’t need their attention. But he did like what he saw on the front. “More terror,” he quoted again, looking at the flipped ferry. He no longer wanted to look at the back page. He didn’t even want to see the title again, but he paused a moment to picture the detective reading the title and laughing… knowing. He thought about the Frisbees again.
“Agghhh,” he yelled, then threw the paper across the room, where it came apart and floated to the floor.
Krogan clenched his fists and closed his eyes, seeking a vision. Communicating between worlds was not as difficult for him as it was for others. While he was comfortable in the darkness of his host, his view was limited to human eyes and he needed the eyes of comrades in the waterless place. They might be in pain from the light, but their view was vast and none would deny his request, lest they pay the consequences of his wrath. He would not bother asking them to find Buchanan. Wherever that man was, demons in the other world were not likely to get close. No, the preacher would be inside one of thousands of angel clusters. But the one responsible for the capsized ferry—now there was someone with potential. Influencing someone with a brain could be a welcome change of pace.
The vision Krogan saw came fast but was not what he expected. He opened his eyes, pushed a kitchen chair over on his way across the room, and turned on a small television with rabbit-ear antennas. He waited impatiently as a fuzzy version of the image he saw in his vision appeared on the TV. No wonder the vision had come so quickly, with so many eyes watching televisions.
At a knock at the door, Krogan turned and, after a moment, smiled and nodded knowingly. He opened the door and pulled Tanya in by the arm. Her glassy, distant gaze confirmed what he already assumed.
“Tell me what you’ve found,” he said.
“Reverend Jesse J. Buchanan lives in Hamden, New York, at Samantha’s Dairy Farm,” she said in a monotone, expressionless.
“Hamden? Where’s Hamden?”
“Just west of the Catskills. Take the Clearview Expressway to the Throgs Neck Brid—”
“Enough. I’ll find it,” he interrupted. She immediately stopped speaking.
He thought for a moment, piecing together answers to questions he had wondered about over the last couple of years at the zoo while eating leaves. Samantha was Buchanan’s granddaughter. She had died in the Norway crash with her parents. Buchanan, unfortunately, had survived the crash and had been hiding from him upstate before he got brave enough to hunt him down with that stupid tortoise. He’d named a dairy farm after the girl. As a memorial? Or…
“Do you have the phone number for this… this farm?”
She handed him a piece of paper from her small, black purse.
He left her standing where she was while he went to his bedside and dialed the number. An answering machine picked up. The voice was a young girl’s. He wanted to leave a message but instead slammed the phone down. Buchanan would know in an instant he had been found… and he would run off again with his granddaughter… who was still alive!
Krogan went back to Tanya, who was staring into space, her purse in hand. He looked deeply into her eyes. “When I snap my finger you will not remember any of your assignment or research regarding Buchanan. It never happened. You’ve been here with me the whole time,” he said, then thought a moment, smiled mischievously, and said, “You will also develop a headache and be irritable to everyone but me. The only time you will have relief is when you think of me fondly.” He snapped his fingers.
Tanya blinked slowly, then frowned as she became aware of her surroundings. “I… I feel… strange.”
“A pity,” Krogan said, then walked away to get dressed.
Tanya followed unsteadily, looking about the apartment. “Where are we? What happened to this place?”
“We had a wild time. You were an animal. Don’t you remember?”
“I did this?” she said, pointing at herself as she looked around the messy apartment in amazement. “I tried to stop you,” he said, pulling his pants on. “You hit me and started throwing things. You said you were better than any wrestler.”
“Me?”
“You were drunk. You drank half of that bottle of tequila on the counter.”
She looked at the counter. “Me?”
“You. Why do you think you have that headache?”
Tanya frowned, then winced and palmed her forehead. “I’m… sorry,” she said.
“Don’t apologize. Just clean up your mess.”
“Where are you going?”
“To visit a friend. What are you driving?”
Tanya thought a moment. “My Ferrari, I think.”
Krogan smiled. “Give me the keys… and your money.”
Tanya did as she was told and said, “What time are you coming back?”
“I’m not.”
She didn’t reply at first, watching him pull his boots on. “How will I get home? I… I don’t think I even know where I am.”
“You’re in hell, baby. Call a cab.”
“I have no money.”
“Then take my bike.”
“Where is it?”
“You just walked past it on your way up.”
She frowned. “But I’ve been here all night,” she said, then winced again, harder.
Krogan didn’t reply, just grabbed the tequila and laughed on his way out the door.
Outside, he found the Ferrari parked in front. A convertible-black like everything else Tanya owned. He noticed the license plate: WWX-3. He shoved the seat all the way back and squeezed in. The black leather interior had that new smell, but was already very hot. That would change soon at the speeds he had in mind. He inserted the key and started the engine. He loved the sound of it. What a toy, he thought. He guzzled down some tequila and then looked at the dashboard, noticing a monitor under the stereo. He pressed the power button. “GPS,” he said aloud, remembering the one he’d had on the lobster boat in his last human life. He pressed the menu and scanned down the options until he saw “phone number.” He smiled, took another swig of tequila, then pressed in the phone number. After a brief moment of calculating, “Samantha’s Dairy Farm” appeared on the screen. He pressed, “OK to proceed.”
“Please proceed to the highlighted route,” said a woman’s voice. A road map with a red arrowhead indicating Tanya’s car filled the screen.
Krogan drained the rest of the tequila and threw the bottle into the side of a passing car. He shifted into first and crushed the gas pedal. Horns blared and tires screeched as the Ferrari fishtailed into the traffic, leaving a cloud of burnt tire behind him. He heard one crash and then another as the female voice of the GPS said, “Make right turn ahead.”
36
Gavin stood with Chris before the half-open doors of the storage container under the Roslyn Viaduct with a couple of forensic techs—two women who had introduced themselves as Sasha and Jenny. Sasha was a pretty brunette and Jenny was just as pretty, but strawberry blonde and a little shorter. Chris “Big Dog” Grella had told them to stand behind him in case something went wrong. They both tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t.
The scent of low tide was still lingering in the late-morning heat. The fire truck, ambulance, bomb squad, patrol cars, traffic cops, and crowds of people wondering what in the world was happening had all left. A few plain-clothed spies had been strategically placed near and far to give a no-profile heads-up in case anyone, especially Walter Hess, were to show up unannounced.
“Gloves on now. And please be careful,” begged Sasha.
“We’ll be all right,” Chris said.
“She means with what we touch, genius,” Gavin said to Chris and then turned to the techs. “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s really a kindergarten crossing guard, and we’re all mindless toddlers walking into traffic.”
The women now looked at Chris with benevolent smiles, obviously thinking him adorable. Gavin shook his head, stuck his hands into the stretchy latex gloves, and pushed open the door. “Night visits,” Gavin said, motioning at the hinges.
“Greased.” Chris nodded. “Why would he care if the door squeaked during the day?”
“Exactly.” Gavin took a few steps in and stopped to take in the view.
“Wow!” Chris scanned the interior. “This looks more like a contractor’s workshop than a terrorist’s ammo dump.”
“It’s both,” Gavin said, proceeding very carefully. He didn’t care that the bomb squad deemed the container safe. They had their own definitions as to what a bomb was: something that explodes. But Hess was rewriting the book on how to derail trains and capsize ferries and who knows what else. He was as out-of-the-box a thinker as one could get, and he’d made the art of the unconventional seem easy.
Along the left wall were shelves and bins holding supplies of wood, steel, plastic, rubber, and some scuba gear. Along the entire right wall of the container was a forty-foot workbench, half of it mounted with a grinding wheel, chop box, radial-arm saw, drill press, lathe, and vertical belt sander. The very end seemed to be a small section with books and magazines. Fluorescent lights ran along the ceiling over the length of the counter, but there didn’t appear to be a switch anywhere to turn them on.
Gavin wondered for a moment where the electricity came from, then saw a small generator under the counter. He didn’t remember anyone mentioning an exhaust pipe on the outside, but there had to be one.
The rest of the counter was sparsely littered with bits and pieces and some partially assembled objects that made no immediate sense. Mounted on the wall behind the work counter were all manner of hand tools and a six- or seven-foot-wide plastic laminated map of Long Island Sound. On a shelf under the map were erasable markers of various colors. There were no marks on the map, but semi-erased tints and hints of where marks had been.
“Here,” Chris said, pointing to a reddish area in the light blue water where the ferry had flipped.
“Didn’t you say the ferry hit something anchored in the water just under the surface?”
Chris rolled his eyes. “A minor fact that’s been in every newspaper and news channel, and yeah, I may have mentioned it a few times. Glad to see you’re paying attention.”
Gavin sensed the techs glancing in their direction. “Then you might want to put this in your scrapbook,” Gavin said, handing Chris a small photo he noticed among the counter debris. “Bet you dinner this was taken on the Sachacus.”
Chris looked at the photo of a monitor that showed a map from Glen Cove to New London, Connecticut, where the ferry would dock for the waiting casino bus. The two locations were connected by a dotted line with a little boat image showing the exact location the ferry was at any given moment.
“Their monitor would have helped him confirm that his own, probably handheld, GPS readings were in line with their regular route.”
Chris nodded. “We had wondered whether he followed the Sachacus with another boat to get the readings, or actually went on as a passenger.”
“Probably both,” Gavin said, looking at another tinted smudge mark on the map. “And this would be the Long Island Railroad.”
There was something very eerie about reading the pre-strike map of terror.
