Black Friday

by Alex Kava

  As he watched Maggie, now he wondered why it had taken him so long.

  “Stop it right here.” Maggie interrupted Nick’s thoughts, pointing to a monitor in the upper corner that had caught her attention. “Can you zoom in on his baseball cap?”

  Yarden obeyed instantly.

  “What is that?” She pushed her chair back and stood for a better view, tapping the screen with her index finger. “We’ve been focused on finding a front shot but what’s that on the side of his cap? It’s a logo, isn’t it?”

  Yarden moved forward, careful to keep from leaning too close.

  She’d been taking notes, pages of them in her miniature notebook. As Nick swiveled and stood to take a closer look at the monitor, he glanced down at the notebook before he glanced up. In a brief glimpse, all he caught was the word PROFILE at the top of the page.

  “Oh, I know what that is. It’s the Golden Gophers,” Yarden said, beaming like a school kid answering the tough question for his favorite teacher.

  “College team,” Nick explained to Maggie.

  “Right. University of Minnesota,” she said without missing a beat. Nick was impressed. Yarden even more enamored. “Looks like he’s wearing a letterman jacket, too,” she added. “Jerry, doesn’t that look like the university’s insignia? It’s an M, isn’t it?”

  Yarden was already punching keys and zooming in on the guy’s upper left chest where Maggie had been pointing.

  “Minnesota fan,” Nick said.

  “Or he’s a student,” Maggie countered.

  The phone on the wall rang.

  It startled all three of them. Yarden looked at it as though he’d never seen it before. He glanced at Maggie, then Nick.

  “Must be the guys upstairs,” he said, but still didn’t move to answer the phone like he didn’t want to be reminded of what was upstairs.

  At first Nick thought Yarden was waiting for someone to instruct him once again or to give him permission to answer it. However, one good look at Yarden’s face and Nick could tell the apprehension was dread, not uncertainty.

  The phone must have rung a dozen times before Yarden pushed himself out of the chair and reached for it.

  “Security.” A pause and then he added, “This is Jerry. Jerry Yarden.”

  Nick tried not to watch, but it was impossible to look away. Yarden’s entire face crunched together like a man waiting for something or someone to hit him. He nodded and swallowed hard a couple of times, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his collar.

  By the time he returned the phone’s receiver to the wall Yarden had lost all color in his face.

  “Security thinks they have another bomber,” he said in almost a whisper.

  “You’re kidding?” Nick asked. “Where?”

  “In the southwest parking lot.” The Adam’s apple bobbed again. “They wanna see you and me upstairs.”

  Maggie’s cell phone started ringing. A couple seconds later, Nick’s started ringing, too.

  CHAPTER

  31

  “He may have gotten left behind,” Charlie Wurth told Maggie as he helped her into a bulletproof vest.

  It didn’t make sense this many hours later.

  “Maybe he was hiding somewhere inside the mall,” Wurth added as if he could sense Maggie’s question. “Waiting. You know, thinking he could leave after everything settled down a bit.”

  Maggie could tell the new Deputy Director of Homeland Security had never worn a Kevlar vest before just by looking at the way he had cinched up the straps of his own vest. His fingers were shaking slightly, just enough that she noticed. He was nervous. Of course, he was nervous. It shouldn’t matter, but it managed to ratchet up her anxiety. The adrenaline was already causing her heart to race.

  “What makes them think he’s one of the bombers?”

  “They said he was sneaking around the back.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “And a backpack,” he quickly added. “A red backpack.”

  Maggie glanced at the three other men in the small exit way. They were gearing up, too. In silence. No conversation. Only the snaps and clicks of their equipment. SWAT team. Cool and calm. Or so they appeared. It was chilly here, a draft coming from somewhere and yet she could smell their sweat.

  Maggie glanced beyond the exit way. A.D. Kunze was nowhere to be seen.

  “He sets that thing off out there,” Wurth continued and now Maggie could see beads of sweat on his upper lip, “we’re in a heap of trouble.”

  “I’m a profiler, not a negotiator. What exactly do you want me to do?”

  On the phone, Kunze had told Maggie it was “show-time.” He followed up with, “Security says they’ve got a live one. And you need to be able to tell them whether they do or not.”

  It had sounded like a joke, a dare. But he was serious.

  She had had stranger requests but not from her assistant director. Cunningham would have never sent her out like this.

  “What exactly is it you want me to do, Deputy Director?” she asked again.

  “They’ve got him cornered. Now, maybe he’s just some kid with a red backpack. Scared out of his wits because of all the excitement. But if he’s one of the bombers…we can’t take that chance. These guys—” Wurth’s hand waved at the SWAT team as if he were only now introducing them to Maggie. “They can’t take him out if there’s a chance that pack’s gonna blow. Cops can’t approach him either. Same reason.”

  That was it. End of explanation.

  Wurth pulled a ball cap on and started struggling into a blue jacket that had SWAT on the back. He made it look like the Kevlar vest was a straitjacket. It took a couple attempts of poking his arm behind him into the jacket before he found the armhole.

  One of the team members handed a blue jacket to Maggie.

  “And me?” she had to ask Wurth.

  Evidently he thought he had explained everything he needed to explain. He looked up at her as he struggled with the zipper, his fingers still giving him a problem.

  “You can tell us if he fits the profile of the other bombers.”

  He said it as if it were a matter of fact. Maggie wanted to laugh. This was crazy.

  “And if I can’t?”

  He stopped. So did the SWAT team. The look on Wurth’s face told her immediately that hadn’t been considered.

  “I know you’re probably a little nervous, Agent O’Dell,” Wurth said, quiet and slow, sounding like a child’s father. Suddenly she was “Agent O’Dell,” when all during the flight she had been Maggie.

  “I’m not nervous.” Her stomach told her differently but she had learned long ago to set aside the nerves. That wasn’t the problem. She knew how to focus. She trusted her gut instinct. She could respond and perform under stress. But this was ridiculous and she wanted to tell Wurth exactly that. Had he ever examined crappy, black-and-white surveillance video? “This isn’t the way profiling works.”

  “Look, Agent O’Dell.” This time he took her arm and bent toward her, close enough she could smell the pepper-mint on his breath, almost as if he thought what he was going to confide wouldn’t be heard by the SWAT team despite the crowded exit way. “This may be our only shot to prevent another tragedy. A.D. Kunze is willing to take a risk on your talent. So am I. Now we just need you to be willing to take that risk, too.”

  He was a smoother politician than she had given him credit for.

  “Let me borrow your tie,” she told him as she pulled on the blue SWAT jacket.

  Wurth looked surprised but didn’t question her or hesitate and he tugged at his necktie.

  “Anybody have gloves?” she asked and was immediately handed a pair.

  She pulled on the gloves, the fingertips too big but they were warm and she wouldn’t be handling anything that required perfect dexterity. Then she took Wurth’s bright red necktie and wound it around her left wrist, making a knot and letting the ends dangle about six inches.

  “When I raise my left hand above my head,” she told
the SWAT team, and demonstrated, “that means ‘take him out.’” They all nodded. She turned to Wurth, waited for his eyes. “Make sure whatever law enforcement is out there now knows the signal.”

  She had no intention of raising her hand but she knew they would look for a signal. More importantly, they’d wait for a signal. With several law enforcement agencies taking part, it was better they wait for some signal rather than misjudge and react to any sudden movements.

  One of the SWAT members was already relaying the message over the radio strapped to his shoulder, but Maggie waited for Wurth’s assurance, his commitment, his accountability.

  “Absolutely.”

  She watched his fingers rezip his jacket and this time she noticed they weren’t shaking.

  “Okay,” Maggie said. “Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  This time Nick led the way while Yarden hung back, always a couple of steps behind. He showed his ID to the guard at the bottom of the second escalator. National Guard, sniper unit. By this time no one made it upstairs without scrutiny and security clearance.

  As Nick climbed the stairs—all the escalators had been stopped—he felt his breathing change. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to see what was at the top of the third floor. His father used to tell him there wasn’t anything worse than seeing a body ripped apart in a car accident, flesh peeled back, burned or mangled. As county sheriff, Nick had a couple of opportunities to judge for himself. But Nick had seen worse—the small blue bodies of two little boys, carved and left by a serial killer in the prairie grass along the Platte River. Could anything top that? He hoped not.

  He knew how this worked only because two weeks ago as part of his training for the new job position he had attended a seminar on terrorist attacks and what to look for at any one of the facilities where they provided security. It had been intended to be a guide on how to convince their clients to upgrade their systems. Two weeks ago Nick thought the seminar preached scare tactics. The “what if” scenarios seemed a bit over the top. Now he realized how wrong he had been.

  Thanks to that seminar the information was all still fresh to him. So he knew the protocol. In his mind, he tried to prepare himself for what he was about to experience. Rescue mission always came first: treat the injured, put out fires, make the building safe. Those who were wounded and injured were now on the first floor, across the street at the hotel triage area or on their way to a hospital.

  Next came the recovery while preserving evidence. At this point, those who were left wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. For several hours they would become a part of the crime scene, helping answer questions that they should never have been expected to be asked. Maggie had once told him that even after death, victims were an investigator’s best hope for telling them who the killer was.

  Almost at the top of the escalator and Nick felt like he was holding his breath. His heart pounded against his rib cage. The entire air smelled scorched up here. Someone had finally turned off the Christmas music. The eerie silence that replaced it was almost worse.

  The scene before Nick struck him as surreal. A black crater had been cordoned off. A half dozen crime techs in Tyvek suits silently walked a grid, measuring, mapping, scooping, sifting and photographing all of it, grid by grid. He knew they would eventually do this with each site.

  “Dig out the crater,” was what they called it. All of the debris within an area fifty percent bigger than the crater itself would need to be examined. The techs were using sterilized equipment to sweep up and sieve. Seemed odd to Nick at first that they’d need sterilized stuff to handle what had already been burned, but what you brought to a crime scene could be just as detrimental as what you took away.

  Later those same techs would be on hands and knees doing a fingertip search of the same areas. They’d make sure even the tiniest fragments of evidence didn’t go unnoticed. But it wasn’t just about collecting debris. They were measuring and examining dents and dished metals, looking for embedded scraps, swabbing for undestroyed explosives, testing for solid residue.

  The task appeared insurmountable. And they would have to repeat it two more times at two more blast sites.

  “Mr. Morrelli?”

  Nick almost forgot why he was here. For a minute he felt invisible, looking in from the outside, tiptoeing on the edges of his dream or someone’s nightmare. He turned so suddenly he bumped Yarden, almost knocking him over.

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem.” Jerry Yarden looked like he might be sick at any minute, his face ashen, eyes wide.

  “Nick Morrelli.”

  The man approached, watching his step as he made his way over. He wasn’t part of the collection team and wore a navy blue suit instead of the Tyvek overalls. Still, he had on paper shoe covers—what looked like a size fifteen. Goggles dangled from his neck alongside a paper face mask. Purple latex gloves stuck out of his jacket pocket.

  “You don’t recognize me.” The man seemed disappointed.

  Nick took a better look. He didn’t expect to find anyone he knew up here.

  “David. David Ceimo. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Good to see you again, Nick.” He put out a hand.

  “Almost didn’t recognize you without your helmet in my gut.”

  That garnered a wide-mouth grin. Had he smiled first off, Nick would have immediately known the man even without a Mizzou gold and black mouth guard. The safety had sacked Nick twice in one game, a string of quarterback blitzes contributing to the Huskers’ embarrassing and rare loss at home to the Univerisity of Missouri. Not a fond memory even now as Ceimo’s hand devoured Nick’s.

  The two men had gone on to make the NCAA All-American team, but if Nick remembered correctly, Ceimo had made it all the way to the big house. Minnesota Vikings, first-round draft. Unfortunately he also remembered the tall, lean Ceimo had been injured his second year, final game of conference play, a huge hit that left him on the turf. To look at him now it hadn’t affected him a bit, and though he had trimmed down a bit he still looked like he could tackle anyone who got in his way.

  “I’m here for Governor Williams,” Ceimo told him.

  “Chief of staff.”

  “Congratulations.” Nick kept the, “you’ve got to be kidding,” to himself. Why should he be surprised? Ceimo was probably wondering the same thing about him. A one-season quarterback now representing the largest security company in the country? “Have you met Jerry Yarden?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Ceimo said, extending his hand to Yarden.

  “David and I played football against each other.”

  “That right?” Yarden stood between the men, craning his neck, looking from one to the other. “Seems you know a lot of people here.”

  Nick ignored the comment and told Ceimo, “Jerry’s the head of security here.”

  “Actually assistant to the director.”

  Both Nick and Ceimo cocked their heads at almost the same insinuating angle.

  “The director’s still in New Jersey. There for Thanksgiving,” Yarden rattled off in defense.

  “Yeah, state fire inspector is stuck in Chicago,” Ceimo told Nick and Yarden, crossing his arms and obviously finished with the small talk. Nick didn’t mind.

  “There for the holiday, too. O’Hare’s backed up. This snow’s canceling flights left and right.”

  “Governor stuck somewhere, too?” Nick asked. It was an innocent question but Ceimo’s glare didn’t take it as innocent.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said instead of accounting for the governor’s absence. “The governor wanted me to keep you guys informed, as a favor to your boss. Wanted you to have a heads-up. Be one of the first to know in case there’s something more we should be looking for.”

  Yarden was nodding, bobble-head style.

  “It’s looking like these guys didn’t do this on their own.”

  Nick was just about to tell Ceimo they already knew about the potentia
l fourth bomber in the parking lot.

  “They may not have even known they’d volunteered to be shrapnel.”

  “What do you mean?” Yarden asked.

  “You’ve located the detonators,” Nick said. That would be the first step.

  “Need the fire inspector to verify, but my bomb expert seems convinced.”

  Nick couldn’t help noticing Ceimo said, “my” bomb expert and wondered why the hell he was telling them any of this? They were simply security. On the totem pole of jurisdiction they came pretty close to the bottom of the stack.

  “What exactly is your bomb expert convinced about?” Nick asked, only because it looked like Ceimo was waiting to be asked. He seemed to be enjoying doling out the information slowly.

  “Understand only a handful of us know about this, okay?”

  “We got that loud and clear.” Nick was tired. They all were. Patience wearing thin.

  “Bombs were detonated from off-site.”

  “Off-site?” Yarden didn’t understand. Nick thought he might have heard wrong.

  “The bombers didn’t detonate their own packs?”

  Ceimo nodded. “Someone else did it from outside the immediate perimeter.”

  “Somebody else? How could they do that?” Yarden still seemed confused.

  But Nick wasn’t. He knew exactly what Ceimo was suggesting. They’d spent hours viewing miles of tape and the whole time, all three of them—Maggie, Nick and Yarden—kept saying the same thing, “These kids don’t look like homicide bombers.”