The Intercept jf-1

by Dick Wolf

  “Okay. So you guys are gone.”

  “We are in the chute.”

  “No worries. I’ll follow through. You guys got the update on bint Mohammed?”

  “Another dead Muslim,” said DeRosier. “Not the kind of pattern you want to see on a day like this.”

  “Listen, stay alert, okay? Look sharp.”

  “You think The Six are at risk?”

  “Somebody on that dais is. You and Patton have a privileged vantage at this thing. I don’t know what we’re looking for, but chances are you’ll be in the best position to see it.”

  “Shit. All right. You got it.”

  Fisk rang off. Trying her cell was the most obvious first thing to do. His call went right to voice mail.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Where are you? Call.”

  He hung up and checked his call register, remembering trying her once late last night, getting her voice mail. That was at 12:13 A.M.

  No call back from her. No text. No nothing.

  Not that unusual, the gap in communication. But now it formed an inconvenient hole in time.

  He tried his own apartment landline. Covering every base.

  After four rings, voice mail.

  “Hey. It’s me. Trying you here. Give me a call.”

  He was off the bridge, and now faced with a decision. Either go back to Intel, make one last run at his rakers for street information, and keep waiting for Gersten to announce herself. Or check on her back at the hotel.

  It went without saying that he truly had no time for this errand. But in the end, the two choices melded. There was that little voice inside of him saying that the two were related.

  Fuck it, he thought, hating to give in to the paranoia. He switched on his grille flashers and banged a U-turn.

  * * *

  Fisk dodged a few early Sunday travelers towing suitcases to the reception desk, making his way to the row of a dozen golden elevator doors. One opened to his right and he pushed inside, half expecting to find Gersten exiting, instead making way for an attractive woman with a Prada shoulder bag who glared at him with the hard-edged confidence of a hooker on her home turf.

  The doors opened on the twenty-sixth floor. Fisk turned left into the hallway, and realized that he did not know Gersten’s room number. He ducked into the hospitality suite and found a woman clearing away food-stained dishes. He asked her if she knew anything about the room arrangements on that floor, and she answered him in a dialect of Spanish that Fisk did not understand.

  He quickly went back down to the front desk. A young female clerk examined his shield and summoned security. A thin, almost frail-looking man who looked about twenty-five emerged from a door behind registration, wearing gray slacks, a blue blazer, and regimental striped tie. Fisk guessed that Sunday mornings were the training shifts for new hires.

  This guy had a clip-on ball microphone on his lapel, the black wire running from the back of his neck to an ear bud. He took a look at Fisk’s credentials a beat longer than he needed to, and pretended not to be intimidated.

  “What can I do for you, Detective Fisk?”

  “You have a master key, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Gersten, Krina. Twenty-sixth floor. Under her name, or maybe registered to NYPD or the mayor’s office.”

  The clerk found it and looked up. “Twenty-six forty-two.”

  “She didn’t check out, anything like that?”

  “No, sir. And the room hasn’t been cleaned yet.”

  “Last accessed?”

  “Last room card read was… twelve-oh-seven A.M., this morning.”

  “Let’s go,” said Fisk, starting back to the elevators at a brisk pace.

  The young security guard followed close behind. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  Fisk ignored the question until they were alone aboard an up elevator with the doors closed.

  “You know who is registered on twenty-six?”

  “Yes. The airline heroes. The Six.”

  “A detective assigned to their security detail is… is missing.” The word bumped Fisk. It was difficult for him to say. Was she missing? If Fisk walked into her room and she was sacked out in bed — who would be more embarrassed, Gersten or him?

  “When you say missing…”

  “I don’t know if she’s missing. She missed her ride this morning, I know that much. And I have very little time. So let’s go see, okay?”

  The guard picked up on Fisk’s anxiety and just nodded. As they watched the numbers rise, something occurred to him. “I have to let somebody know what I’m doing,” said the guard suddenly. “That okay?”

  Fisk nodded. “Sure.”

  The guard tilted his head toward his lapel mic. “This is Bascomb. I am keying into room…”

  “Twenty-six forty-two.”

  “Twenty-six forty-two. I am with an NYPD officer — I mean, detective — at his request.” Bascomb turned toward the corner camera. “Yes, George. I saw the man’s badge. Fisk. Intelligence Division. I’m not sure.” The doors opened, Bascomb following Fisk down the hallway. “I’ll let you know. Not at this time. I will advise.”

  At the door, Bascomb pulled out the master key card attached to his belt by a lanyard. He slid it through the slot, and the interior lock whirred, the light turning green. Fisk opened the door, Bascomb stepping back to allow him to enter first.

  Fisk stopped a few steps inside. He did a preliminary scan of the room, then realized he was looking at this as a crime scene.

  The bed had been roughed up, the pillows dented. It looked slept in. No lights on, windows closed, television off. No sign of a struggle or anything amiss. Just an empty hotel room.

  Still, Fisk had a tight feeling in his gut. A psychic scent. The feeling that something bad had happened here.

  Fisk took a few more steps inside. Bascomb appropriately hung back. On the dresser to Fisk’s left was a handful of change next to a half-empty bottle of designer water from the minibar. A metal corkscrew sat on the desk blotter.

  “You don’t have any gloves, do you?” Fisk asked, hating these words as they left his mouth. But he was a cop, and any enclosed space had the potential to become a crime scene. And too many cases were lost forever due to the arriving officer’s clumsy first steps.

  “No,” said Bascomb, a note of worry in his voice.

  “Fuck,” said Fisk, more about the general situation than the lack of gloves. “Do me a favor, Bascomb, and stay right where you are, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gloves or no gloves, Fisk went to the dresser. He opened the six drawers one at a time. Gersten’s underwear and two unopened packages of panty hose lay in the first one. A sweater, a folded white blouse, and a pair of blue jeans lay in the second. The rest were empty.

  Fisk found her carry-on suitcase in the closet, closed but unzipped. He pawed through it quickly, finding nothing of note.

  He walked to the side of the bed, studying the carpet for signs of disturbance or staining. Nothing.

  On the nightstand was the usual iPod dock and digital radio combination alarm clock. He opened the drawer in the nightstand, finding a Bible and various table tents advertising hotel services. He had seen Gersten do that before, gathering up the triangle brochures upon check-in and stuffing them into a drawer, out of sight. Seeing this familiarity gave Fisk a burst of optimism.

  Inside the bathroom, he found a stack of fresh towels on the rack. No used ones on the floor. Clean water in the bowl. He recognized the flowered pouch Gersten used for her cosmetics and toiletries.

  No puddles of water on the counter, the sink, the shower floor. Everything was dry. The bathroom showed no sign of having been used that morning.

  That was troubling. Where would she go without washing her face or her hands first?

  Fisk came back into the main room, avoiding Bascomb’s curious gaze. Fisk decided to change it up for a moment, focusing on what he had not yet found. />
  Her shield. Her weapon. Her phone.

  He pulled his cell and checked for messages from her. He dialed her again, hoping he would hear a ring if her device was somewhere in the room.

  No ring. And the call went right to voice mail.

  He put away his phone. His hand was shaking a little. He stood still in the center of the room. He didn’t want to give in to panic, but this wasn’t right. He had no evidence of foul play — none whatsoever — but Gersten was no flake.

  He had always considered the fact that, in their line of business, he might have to face something like this someday, a professional incident that would cross into personal territory.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself. He forced himself to think like a cop.

  Was this connected to everything else that had gone on that weekend? It had to be. This was too large of a coincidence.

  But — as with everything else — how? What was the link? Was there something about this antiterror case that could have blown back on Gersten? Was it indeed a threat to The Six? Had she discovered something last night?

  No — she would have followed up on it. She would have taken it to him, to Intel. She would not have gone off half-cocked. Unless…

  Unless she had stumbled upon it unknowingly.

  Fisk turned to the security guard standing just inside the closed door. “Bascomb. Here’s what’s going to happen. I need you to alert your security group to initiate a search of the entire hotel. Start with the construction areas and any closed floors. This is going to mean inconveniencing people. This is a New York Police Department detective you’re looking for. Have your group dial 911 as well so we can get some uniforms in here.”

  Bascomb nodded and turned to his microphone. Fisk gave him a brief description of Gersten to repeat.

  When he finished, Fisk said, “Now you and I are going to open every door on this floor and check every room.”

  Chapter 68

  Traffic heading south through Manhattan was horrible, even with NYPD motorcycle escorts. The gridlock was such that there was nowhere for them to go. Nothing to do but wait for the clots to work themselves through.

  They crawled down Seventh Avenue past Penn Station, affording everyone a look at the still-closed block on West Twenty-eighth where the terrorist Baada Bin-Hezam had been gunned down.

  Then past the Fashion Institute, across Twenty-third, across Fourteenth, into Greenwich Village where Manhattan Island narrowed into the thumb of the old town. As they left behind the cool shadows of the midtown skyscrapers, the heroes became aware of the magnificence of the morning. The sky was Magritte blue, almost fairy-tale perfect. Sidewalk pedestrians wore sun hats, ball caps, and shorts, watching the Suburbans roll by with cups of iced coffee in their hands.

  They crossed Houston Street, moving toward Canal. They rolled past a massive electronic checkpoint, demarcated by tactical operations vans, a generator truck, and rows of screening stations. People waited calmly in line, as though having taken a special vow of cooperation that morning. Despite the heat and the long wait time, no one appeared to be complaining.

  Once gates were moved and the Suburbans were inside the security perimeter, movement was easier. They rolled along an open lane toward the staging area for the ceremony near Trinity Church at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street.

  Frank had the Sunday New York Times with him, and was reading the front section concerning the building dedication. “There’s Trinity,” he said, looking up at the brownstone neo-Gothic cathedral. “See the steeple? Says here it rises two hundred eighty feet. Until the end of the nineteenth century, it was the highest point in Manhattan. Now — it’s this.”

  They looked the other way, high up toward the top of the soaring One World Trade Center. Not only New York’s tallest building — including its spire, rising 1,776 feet tall in honor of the year of American Independence, it was the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the third tallest in the entire world. Its sheer glass façade shimmered in the hot July sun.

  “The first twenty floors above the public lobby are all base,” Frank said, scanning the article. “Then sixty-nine office floors, including two television broadcast floors and two restaurants. There’s an observation deck opening soon. And it’s a ‘green’ building with renewable energy, reuse of rainwater, all that.”

  Maggie looked out with her hand covering her throat. “What about safety?”

  “Yup. Structural redundancy, dense fireproofing, biochemical filters. Extra-wide stairs, and all the safety systems encased in the core wall. Probably the safest building in the world, I would imagine.”

  “Would you go up it? All the way to the top?”

  “Absolutely,” said Frank. “You?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I think I would wait a few years. What about you, Magnus?”

  Jenssen glanced at the building. “Why not?” he said.

  “Ha,” said Frank, still reading. “Says here there’s a waiting list to become a window washer.”

  “Never,” said Maggie.

  Frank folded his newspaper and said, “I’m with you on that one.”

  They had parked, but were kept waiting in their vehicles for a few minutes by agents in sunglasses talking into the cuffs of their suit jacket sleeves. Maggie Sullivan was wearing her flight uniform, and Magnus Jenssen took note of two pins on her lapel, one of an airliner set against the Canadian flag, one of an airliner against the American flag. He noticed the detectives wearing flag pins also.

  When they were allowed out of the vehicles and assembled before the security checkpoint, Jenssen stood in line behind Maggie Sullivan.

  He watched the agent run his wand over and around her legs and outstretched arms. He paid special attention when the wand passed near the twin metal pins clipped to the breast of her uniform. No beep.

  He stood next, holding the same pose. The wand traced the outline of his body, over and around his left wrist, inside of which were the two short wire antennae. No reaction. Over his breast the wand blipped ever so softly as it crossed a pin he had put on one-handedly while dressing that morning. It depicted the flag of Sweden, given to him by the clueless ambassador aboard the aircraft carrier the day before. The screener wanded it again, just to be thorough. Another gentle blip.

  He moved on, unaware that the device was actually registering the small trigger device inside his breast pocket, with a tiny pebble-size battery.

  Jenssen stepped through. Before he could relax, however, another security agent wearing blue gloves waved him over.

  “Hold out your arm for me, sir.”

  Jenssen extended his wounded left arm, presenting his cast for inspection. The agent touched it very lightly, then asked him to rotate his arm at the elbow. His wrist and forearm were quite sore, but Jenssen complied, masking the pain.

  “Bend it back for me, please.” Jenssen bent his elbow as though about to drive it into the face of the screening agent.

  The man visually examined the arm edge of the cast, then nodded.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  When the rest were cleared, Harrelson, who had also been wanded — and who, along with the detectives, had to unload and present his sidearm for inspection — stepped to the fore.

  “Hard part’s over,” he said. “Now everybody follow me.”

  Chapter 69

  Fisk went into every room on the western half of the floor, finding no one and nothing having to do with the disappearance of Krina Gersten. He then moved on to the other half of the hallway, which was closed for renovations, inspecting each room and each half-finished bathroom with the same results.

  No sign of Gersten, no sign of anything amiss.

  Another, more senior security guard was in the hallway now, as was a uniformed cop. Fisk returned to one of The Six’s rooms, the one with the cello inside, belonging to the musician. Nouvian had left his television on with the sound muted, and Fisk stared absently at CNN’s coverage of the hour leading up to the memorial cer
emony at Ground Zero.

  He checked his phone again, wishing she would just call and end this thing — thought he couldn’t for the life of him imagine where she could be. He backed up his thought process again. What did it mean that she was gone?

  If the threat involved The Six, nothing had been accomplished here at the hotel. They had all gotten into the cars and were en route to the ceremony, no problem. So — why would someone, anyone, need to put Gersten out of the way somehow? As the group’s shepherd, she posed no direct threat to anyone trying to harm them…

  Unless the threat was from within.

  But that defied logic. What would be the point? One of The Six? Or — even Patton or DeRosier?

  Never mind the fact that they had their chance to do great damage yesterday, when they shook Obama’s hand. No Al-Qaeda agent would have passed up an opportunity like that…

  Unless the sitting president wasn’t his or her target.

  On the television screen before Fisk, former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, descended from a private jet at LaGuardia Airport. They shook hands with greeters at the bottom of the stairs, waved at the cameras, then disappeared into a waiting limousine with U.S. flags fluttering on the rear bumper.

  Fisk stared. He thought way back to Ramstein, to the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s directive, discussed in the months before his assassination. Bin Laden of course did not know he was going to die as a result of a special military operation initiated by President Barack Obama. His prime antagonist at that time was perhaps the sitting U.S. president. But his sworn enemy was the man who, in his eyes, had conducted a crusade of brutality on the Islamic world for the previous ten years.

  Bin Laden’s number one target was George W. Bush.

  Fisk’s mind reeled. The Yemeni hijacker, the elusive Saudi art dealer, and the fundamentalist convert sleeper agent in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. All participants — and all decoys.

  Maybe the hijacking had been ordered to insert, not Baada Bin-Hezam into the United States, but one or more of The Six. The weakness they had chosen to exploit was the American celebrity machine, and its love for ceremony.