Wake Me When It's Over

by Cheryl A Head

  “Okay,” Judy said stubbornly. “But I’m coming back in the morning for the briefing.”

  A half-dozen golf carts were lined up in the hallway in front of Spectrum’s main door. Charlie, Judy, and Cynthia hopped down from their cart.

  “Looks like we have a full house,” Judy said.

  She was right. Don and Gil were sitting around Don’s desk, with the patrol schedule in their hands, looking up at an enlarged copy of Cobo’s four levels taped to the wall. Carter Bernstein was perched at Charlie’s desk, charging his BlackBerry and busily tapping away at his laptop keyboard. In the conference room, Tyson and the two DHS agents were sorting color-coded bracelets into manila envelopes. The top of Judy’s desk was filled with bags of White Castle burgers and chicken sandwiches, and the aroma of steamed onions and beef grease had taken up residency.

  “Who’s out catching the bad guys?” Charlie asked loudly.

  “We all are, Mack,” Don bellowed. “But an army travels on its belly. Have a few sliders.”

  Carter leaped from Charlie’s desk with apologies, pulling the cords of his laptop and phone from the outlet next to the desk.

  “Don’t get up, Carter. We’ll go into the conference room. What are you working on?”

  “I’m leaving in a few minutes for the monitoring room, but I’m still following up on some Dudiyn information.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Not yet, but I’m waiting for a couple of things. I’ll get it written up for you as soon as it comes in.”

  Cynthia passed on the White Castle, but Charlie and Judy grabbed a couple of sandwiches apiece, and moved toward the conference room. Ty and the two freelancers shifted to one end of the table, leaving space for the work on the briefing book. Don and Gil stopped at the door of the conference room as they prepared to return to the patrols.

  “They should be starting the bomb sweeps soon, so we’re heading out to the floor,” Gil announced.

  “We’re coming, too,” Agent Mann announced.

  “You buy these, Don?” Judy asked, chewing a slider.

  “I did. I even got extra dill pickles for you. I also have my receipts.”

  “Good man.”

  “Stop it,” Gil said, smiling. “Things are confused enough without the two of you being nice to each other.”

  Judy and Don offered snorts, and Charlie chuckled. The others didn’t know what to make of the levity with the clock ticking down to a terrorist attack. But the Mack team had learned from experience that humor could often make a dangerous, even bleak, situation bearable.

  By 11 p.m., Judy had completed binding the briefing books, Cynthia and Ty had returned to their offices, Carter Bernstein was monitoring cameras in the Spectrum glass office, Don and Gil were keeping tabs on the scheduled work, and most of the freelancers were back on patrol.

  “Almost done?” Charlie asked Judy.

  “I’m done. Just doing a quality-control check.”

  “Okay. Stack the books in the conference room when you’re finished. You need any help carrying the chargers and radios to your car?”

  “Aren’t you driving me to the hotel?”

  “No. I better stick here and prep for the team meeting.”

  “I could stay.”

  “No. You can’t.”

  “I could give Carter a break from the monitoring.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “Fine,” Judy said with resignation. “Then I guess I could use a hand taking the equipment to the car.”

  Charlie had her feet atop the desk and had begun to right herself when the two-way radio squawked loudly.

  “Mack. Get up here, level two. The bomb squad has found something,” Don’s urgent voice crackled.

  “What is it, Don?” Charlie shouted into the radio.

  “Explosives. North side of the GM display.”

  Charlie grabbed her jacket and unlocked the desk drawer. She reached in and pulled out her revolver. Judy stared wide-eyed at the gun, but grabbed her purse and followed Charlie to the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Well, I’m not staying here,” Judy answered on the run.

  When they reached the second level, Mandy and Hoyt were parked in the concourse near the Chevy Camaro concept car.

  “We just got here, and the bomb squad ordered us to stay back,” Mandy said.

  “Where’s Don?”

  “Over there,” Mandy said, pointing to the stairwell on their right.

  “Okay. Let’s go. Leave the carts,” Charlie ordered. “Judy, you’re staying put. No arguments.”

  As they approached, Don and Gil were talking to Agent Mann. She broke off the conversation and made her way through the maze of cars to four men huddled together near the General Motors display.

  “They found explosive materials,” Don said quickly. “But so far no bombs.”

  “Where?” Charlie asked.

  “There,” Don said, pointing a hundred yards away to a seating area where one man, wearing an ATF jacket, held the leash of a Labrador retriever. “Apparently, the dog found something in the planters.”

  “Where’s Mann off to?” Charlie asked.

  “She’s trying to get us more information. She flashed her DHS credentials, and they said she could hang around. They told us to stand here.” Don was miffed.

  Suddenly, the radio crackled again. “We got explosives spotted on level three,” the voice said. “ATF just told us to get back.”

  “This is Charlie Mack. Who is this?”

  “Vince, from the facilities staff, ma’am.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Level three, outside of the Ambassador Ballroom.”

  The Mack team’s three-cart caravan streaked through the hallway to the service elevator. Charlie, Judy, Don, and Gil went up first while Mandy and Hoyt waited. As soon as the door opened, Don gunned the cart out of the elevator. Two facilities staffers flagged them as they approached the turn to the ballroom.

  “We were tacking down carpet, and one of the bomb dogs found something near the benches across from the ballroom. We were told to back off.”

  “We’re going in,” Don announced and shot down the hallway.

  Charlie was about to follow when she remembered Judy. Mandy and Hoyt had just pulled up.

  “Judy, you wait here with Mandy,” Charlie said, jumping from the cart. “Hoyt, I’m with you.”

  The lovers brushed shoulders in their exchange of seats. Mandy stood next to the vehicle, and she and Judy watched in exasperation as they were left behind.

  “Are you as pissed off as I am?” Judy asked.

  “More.”

  “Charlie took her gun,” Judy remembered.

  “I should hope so. The people we’re dealing with aren’t going to give themselves up.”

  “You think it’s more than Heinrich and Dudiyn?”

  “There could be others. We have to assume there are others.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Like we were told: We wait.”

  Ten minutes later, a modified Jeep, topped with an armored dome, passed the cart. Two men in the front seat wore caps with the ATF insignia.

  “Please wait here until we give you the ‘all clear,’” the agent in the passenger seat shouted to Mandy, who waved a half-hearted acknowledgement.

  Dudiyn had slept inches away from the dead cleaning woman. At one point, someone had knocked at the outer door, and he’d sat upright, putting his hand on his gun, prepared to kill anyone who discovered him. When the knocking subsided, he drifted back to sleep. His internal clock awakened him at 11:00 p.m., and Heinrich still hadn’t called. As he relieved himself, he mentally reviewed the work he’d do in the next few hours.

  There were more than thirty restrooms in Cobo, and he had forty bombs. He would place most of the bombs outside the first and second level restrooms, including one with the dead cleaning lady, to aid in his escape. The others he’d plant at the vendor booths where lon
g lines of people would linger and eat. If the diversion had worked, security would already be swarming around the visitor seating areas examining the explosives components in the planters and searching for explosives in the other plant containers.

  His phone vibrated. Heinrich was finally calling. The text said he was waiting. Dudiyn removed one bomb from the heavy bag, then carefully placed the bag into the well of his janitor’s cart. He covered the well with a full package of white rags. He gathered the towels and rags that had made his makeshift pillow, and placed them, along with another single bomb, into a bag with the dead lady janitor, then locked the closet door. His phone vibrated again. Dudiyn taped the ends of the yellow band around his wrist, and as an afterthought he retrieved the blue baseball cap the dead woman was wearing and adjusted the fit. Clean-shaven, his baldness covered, and disguised as a janitor, he would casually move about the hallways of Cobo. He blocked the storage closet with the cleaning lady’s cart, unlocked the outer door, and removed the “out of order” sign before he left. The restroom was open for business again.

  Chapter 11

  Sunday, January 8, 2006

  Auto Show Press Day

  The second positive on explosives set off an urgent response, and dozens of people converged on the third level. Mandy and Judy had been waiting in the corridor to the Ambassador Ballroom for a half hour. They watched a Detroit Metropolitan Police commander, a team of FBI agents, Ty Pressley and his boss, and four ATF agents with bomb-sniffing dogs pass them by. Three other Mack teams had also taken up position next to them, waiting for word. Mandy picked up the walkie-talkie.

  “This is Mandy Porter requesting a status report. Should we stay in position?”

  A few seconds later came the reply from Don. “Hold your position, Porter; we’re on our way out.”

  The Mack partners, Hoyt, and Mandy were in animated conversation fueled by adrenaline and a carafe of coffee Judy had made. The rest of the freelancers were back on patrols, or doing other duties. Tyson joined the group in the conference room with the latest information from Mike Mathers.

  “They’ve found explosives on level three and in four areas on level two,” he reported. “Now that they know what to look for, they’ll spend the next several hours sweeping all the exhibition areas, the showroom floor, and the meeting rooms on all levels of Cobo.”

  “Do they know how the chemicals got there?” Don asked.

  “Not yet,” Ty said, slumping in his chair.

  “What about Heinrich? Where’s he?”

  “That’s what my boss wants to know. We just came from his office. He isn’t there. Ms. Fitzgerald said he left hours ago. We tried calling him, but he didn’t answer.”

  “We saw him earlier,” Hoyt said. “On the third level.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I don’t know, maybe eight.”

  “Judy, please go talk to Carter,” Charlie ordered. “He’s monitoring the security cameras. If Heinrich is at Cobo, we want to know where.”

  “I’m on it,” Judy replied.

  “When will we know if we’ve beaten the threat?” Ty asked.

  “Maybe not until morning. Meanwhile, we can’t let down our guard. We’ll keep up the patrols, as best we can, without impeding ATF work,” Charlie said. “Oh, and I better give Tony a call.”

  Charlie was leaning in through Cynthia’s doorway. The Spectrum offices were quiet. Most of the staff would return to work tomorrow at six. Except for the light pouring from the monitoring room and glowing from Cynthia’s desk lamp, the hallways were dark. “I asked Judy to sit with Carter in the monitoring room.”

  “Yeah, I saw her go in. This whole thing is pretty nerve-wracking, and the staff is antsy. They’re watching the bomb teams moving around the place, and they want to be part of the action.”

  “I know what you mean. Mandy’s mad at me for holding her back and, as you can see, Judy’s still here.”

  Cynthia nodded, then cupped her brow in her hands. “My head is aching.”

  “You should take something.”

  “I already did. It hasn’t kicked in.”

  “We’re doing some brainstorming. You want to join us?” Charlie invited.

  “Sure. It might help me to focus.” Cynthia stood and walked toward the door, grabbing a couple of apples from the bowl on her coffee table and flipping one to Charlie, who caught it neatly. “Here’s some brain food. My contribution to your thinking game.”

  Passing empty cubicles, they moved stride for stride on the carpeted walkway toward the temporary Mack suite. Then Cynthia suddenly stopped in her tracks.

  “Oh, damn, damn. With all the bomb stuff, I forgot to tell you. Amy called. She saw Heinrich earlier tonight.”

  “She did? Where?” Charlie spun around.

  “Near the Guí VIP party.”

  Charlie ran to the monitoring booth and gestured for Judy and Carter. “I need you two to get the tapes from the Guí Motors display and bring them to the office.”

  “How many days of tape do you need, Ms. Mack?” Carter asked.

  “Not days, just from the last four hours. Bring them as quickly as you can.”

  The Post-it notes were already mounted on the white board in the conference room. Don usually liked to run the team meetings, but he deferred to Charlie when it came to her sticky notes sessions. Nevertheless, he stood at the board serving as a human pointer. Gil and Cynthia had made themselves comfortable at the table— Gil with his third cup of coffee, and Cynthia with shoes off and a foot propped on her chair. In the outer office, Judy and Carter were viewing security footage on Judy’s desktop.

  “Let’s go back to the first note, Don.”

  Don obediently pointed to the Post-it that read: Did Heinrich plant the bombs?

  “Do you really think he’d be the one to plant explosives?” Cynthia asked. “It just doesn’t seem to fit him.”

  “I agree,” Don said.

  “It may seem out of character. But we don’t really know his character,” Charlie reminded them.

  “I wouldn’t underestimate this guy. Just because we don’t like him doesn’t mean he isn’t smart or tough,” Gil said. “It’s odd though, isn’t it?”

  “What’s odd?” Charlie asked.

  “That ATF found explosive chemicals, but nothing else. How were they to be detonated?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “That would be one red and one green note in your system. Right?” Cynthia asked.

  “You catch on fast,” Charlie said, handing two new notes to Don, who placed them among the others.

  Charlie stared at the board for a moment, then poured a cup of the too-strong coffee and sat with her back to the board. “I think we should clean up the board. I’m getting overwhelmed with the number of notes. It’s hard to think.”

  “It doesn’t help that you’ve hardly slept in thirty-six hours,” Gil said.

  “Which notes should we take down, Mack?” Don said, positioning himself in front of the board.

  “Maybe we don’t take any down, just rearrange them.” Charlie turned her chair toward the notes. “Like that one in the questions group about Jones.”

  Don pointed. “Who killed Garry Jones?”

  “Yep. Move that to the bottom. That’s not important.”

  “Not important?” Gil asked.

  “You know that’s not really what I mean, but who killed Mr. Jones probably isn’t as pertinent now. The same with who killed Chenglei. When we started the case, figuring out how his death was connected to a plot against Cobo was a primary question, but now it’s not.”

  “Following that reasoning, I guess we should move the note about Josh below the line, too,” Gil said somberly.

  Charlie stood, and walked to the board. Don stepped aside as she placed the three notes, asking who killed Josh Simms, Garry Jones, and Chenglei, in the middle. “Point taken, Gil.”

  “How about moving all the facts and questions about the Chinese together?” Cynthia suggested. �
��There must be more than twenty of those. Let’s see what’s left then.”

  Cynthia was catching on to the techniques of this game, and Charlie helped Don reorganize the notes. It wasn’t unusual for Charlie to arrange and rearrange individual notes until she had an insight. Sometimes she connected the notes in ways that were expected, and other times placed them in a random order. It was a way to trick the brain into a different way of thinking.

  “Okay, good. Now let’s move all the notes about Heinrich off to the side, including the ones we just put up,” Gil offered.

  After more manipulation of the notes, the board had a lot of white space. Don had taken a seat and found a stale doughnut to go with the over-brewed coffee. Charlie stared and pondered, carefully lifting and then replacing the remaining notes into two columns— one for questions, one for facts and conjectures. Then she shifted them again. Don and Gil had seen her in this reverie before, and waited and watched silently. Cynthia took the hint. When Charlie was done, there were only five notes front and center, all questions. The first two were personal and pertinent: Who kidnapped and hurt Lin Fong? and Who killed Josh Simms? Next were the three, currently relevant, questions: Where is Geoff Heinrich?, How are the explosives to be detonated? and Is anyone else involved?

  Don took the red marker and boxed the personal questions. He then wrote the word payback above it. Don had demonstrated this kind of dramatics on a white board before, and he always meant what he wrote.

  “Ms. Mack, we’ve found something,” Carter said, rushing into the conference room.

  “You have to see it,” Judy said, out of breath.

  Everyone peered over Judy’s shoulder at the laptop on her desk. A not-so-clear video was in pause mode, and she rewound it for a few seconds before she pushed the play button. The security camera’s vantage point was of the Guí Motors display, but included one of the visitor seating areas in the background. They all watched as a golf cart entered and stopped; the driver’s back was to the camera. Then the cart moved again, to a planter holding a small palm bush where the cart paused a second time. Finally, the cart pulled away from the area and out of view.