Gold’s throat was scratchy from the votive candles flickering near the altar. Our Lady of Guadalupe had neither the majesty of Immaculate Conception nor the grandeur of Saint Michael’s, but its simplicity and warmth embodied the essence of South Chicago. The parish was founded in 1923 to serve the Mexican immigrants who had come to work in the mills during the steel strike of 1919. It was first housed in a wooden structure at 90th and Mackinaw. By 1928, the parish had outgrown its original building, and a sturdy brick replacement with an onion-shaped dome was constructed at 91st and Brandon. Except for the wear on its dark red bricks, Our Lady looked the same as it did when the cornerstone was laid, and it was always full on Sundays.
Gold nodded respectfully to Father Ramon Aguirre, the energetic young priest sitting on the opposite side of Theresa in the front pew. Father Aguirre had grown up in South Chicago and brought new energy to Our Lady when he’d returned to the community five years earlier. Gold took Theresa’s hands and held them tightly. Her husband had died ten years earlier in a forklift accident at the Ford plant at 130th and Torrance. Her four surviving daughters ranged in age from eleven to seventeen. The older children were watching their younger siblings in the back of the church. Supportive friends and relatives spoke quietly in Spanish. The altar was filled with hand-cut flowers from the neighbors’ yards.
Theresa clutched Gold’s hands as she cried. “How could this happen?” She repeated it several times—trying to make sense of the harsh reality. “How could God let this happen to my beautiful girl?”
Gold felt a lump in his throat. His words couldn’t stop the pain. He could only try to provide a little comfort.
Theresa’s anguish became more palpable as she spoke to Gold about her eldest daughter. Christina had been an honors student who had avoided the temptations at Bowen, where the drop-out and pregnancy numbers were often higher than the graduation rates. “I’m never going to get over this. It’s such a waste.”
“Yes, it is.” Gold felt helpless. He was relieved when Battle came forward. “This is my new partner, Detective Battle.”
“A.C.,” he corrected him, holding out a hand. “I’m terribly sorry about your loss, Mrs. Ramirez. You have my deepest sympathies.”
“Thank you, A.C.”
Battle’s large frame made the pew shake when he sat down next to Theresa. He explained to her that he, too, lived in the neighborhood. “I lost a son in the first Gulf War. I got a little comfort knowing he died doing something he loved—serving our country.”
“He must have been a fine young man.”
“He was.” Battle tapped her hand softly. “And I’m sure your daughter was a fine young woman.”
She took a couple of deep breaths as she turned and spoke to Gold. “People are scared, David. The children are afraid to go outside.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re going to find the animal who did this. You’re going to stop him before he kills anyone else.” She fought to maintain her composure. “Please tell your father I’ll find somebody to look after him for the next few weeks.”
* * *
“I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” Battle said.
Yes you can. “She’s tough,” Gold said. “She’s raised five kids by herself.”
“We need to find the person who killed her daughter.”
“We will.”
They were walking down the steps of Our Lady when Mojo and her cameraman approached them. “Any update on the identity of the bomber?”
Gold held up a hand. “Please, Carol. We just paid our respects to the mother of the victim at the Art Institute.”
To her credit, Mojo instructed her cameraman to lower his camera.
Gold and Battle were halfway across 91st Street when the ground rocked again. Gold ducked as he saw a Plymouth minivan parked a half-block south on Brandon explode into flames. The warm evening air filled with smoke.
Gold pulled out his BlackBerry and punched 9-1-1. “This is Detective David Gold of Area 2. There’s been an explosion in a car parked on Brandon, a half-block south of 91st, down the street from Our Lady of Guadalupe. Need police and fire assistance now.”
Sirens immediately pierced the night. Gold and Battle enlisted several passersby to keep people away from the flames. Mojo and her cameraman set up on the steps of the rectory, and they went on the air live. The mourners from Our Lady came outside to check out the commotion.
The first squad cars arrived within minutes. They were followed by a pumper truck, a hook-and-ladder, and an ambulance. As Gold was directing them toward the fire, he felt his BlackBerry vibrate. He had a new e-mail. He immediately hit the reply button and pressed Send. Then he opened the message.
It read, “Free Hassan. We won’t miss next time. IFF.”
Chapter 19
“HE’S TAUNTING US”
Gold held his BlackBerry against his ear. “You got a trace on the e-mail?”
Fong’s voice was filled with frustration. “Working on it. Looks like it was initiated in Somalia. The tracking information is garbled—and probably fake.”
You have no idea. “He’s taunting us.”
“Yes, he is.”
Gold and Battle were standing next to the charred minivan belonging to the owner of a house across the street from the rectory. He had parked the van at seven o’clock. The bomb could have been planted anytime thereafter. He had been inside Our Lady when the bomb had gone off. There were no casualties, but an elderly couple who lived nearby were taken to South Chicago Hospital for smoke-related injuries. The detonator was a Motorola Droid serviced by Verizon.
“Got an ID on the detonator?” Gold asked.
“Too soon to tell,” Fong said. “My people are taking it to our office for analysis.”
“He might still be in the neighborhood. We’ve cordoned off a two-mile radius, and we have choppers in the air. We’re stopping every car and every pedestrian.”
“If he’s still there. How did he know you were at Our Lady?”
“Mojo is following us everywhere. So is every other local TV station. And CNN. And Fox News. The WGN chopper got here before the police chopper.”
“Check your car for tracking devices.”
“We did.”
“Check it again. In the meantime, keep your line open. Maybe he’ll contact you again.”
And you still won’t be able to track him. Gold hit Disconnect and looked at Battle. “Nothing.”
“We’ll get him if he’s still in the area.”
“Right.” Gold was checking his BlackBerry when he saw a pair of headlights coming toward him on Brandon. His eyes focused on a rusted Nissan Sentra a half block away. He felt an adrenaline rush as his instincts took over. “Get out of the street!” he shouted.
The people on the sidewalk leapt out of the way. Gold grabbed a girl who had strayed from her mother and pulled her behind a pumper truck. Battle dove behind an ambulance.
Gold smelled burning rubber as the Sentra screeched past him, missing him by a couple of feet. It weaved between a hook-and-ladder and two police units before it fishtailed as it turned right onto 92nd.
Gold and Battle sprinted to the Crown Vic. Battle punched the accelerator. Gold placed the red strobe on the dashboard. They circled the block to avoid the fire engines on Brandon. They turned right onto Burley, made another right onto 92nd, and headed west.
No Sentra in sight.
Battle had a vise-like grip on the wheel as the Crown Vic bounced across the Metra tracks just north of the South Chicago station. “Where the hell is he?” he snapped.
Gold’s shoulder burned as he picked up the police radio. “All units in South Chicago. This is Detective David Gold of Area 2. We are attempting to locate a Nissan Sentra last seen heading west on 92nd near Brandon.”
The response came from the chopper. “This is Sergeant Hayden. We have a visual of the suspect heading southbound on Baltimore near 93rd. Repeat: we have visual of the suspect heading southbound on Baltimore near 93rd.”
Their tires screeched as Battle made a sharp left turn onto Baltimore and headed south past the Metra station. He pointed at the taillights of a vehicle two blocks away. “There.”
Gold’s heart pounded as he picked up the microphone again. “In pursuit of a late model Nissan Sentra heading south on Baltimore at 93rd. Suspect may be involved in the car bombing at 91st and Brandon and other bombings earlier today. Suspect should be considered armed and dangerous. Proceed with extreme caution.”
“Hang on,” Battle said.
Gold braced himself as they closed the gap. Two units joined them when the Sentra turned left onto South Chicago Avenue and roared into the railroad viaduct next to the sag channel near the mouth of the Calumet River. They closed to within fifty feet of the Sentra as they raced past the junkyards and warehouses adjacent to the railroad tracks and the Skyway.
The police radio crackled again as they approached the intersection where South Chicago Avenue dead-ended into 95th. Two ancient grain elevators loomed in the distance. “We’ve cut off westbound 95th,” the voice shouted. “We’re directing him eastbound to the 95th Street bridge.”
“Can you set up a roadblock on the bridge?” Gold asked.
“Negative. We have three units coming from the East Side, but they won’t be there in time.”
Dammit. “Block off Ewing and Avenue L. Funnel him into Cal Park. Get him off the main streets so he won’t crash into a house.”
“Ten-four.”
The Sentra slowed down for an instant as it approached 95th. The driver saw the police unit blocking the entrance to the westbound lanes, so he made a hard left and accelerated eastbound toward the drawbridge over the Calumet River that separated South Chicago proper from the East Side. Gold and Battle were right behind, and two police cruisers were on their tail. Mojo led a convoy of news vans behind them. A police chopper and two news helicopters followed the action from above.
The Sentra accelerated up the rusted drawbridge and went airborne as it leapt the crown. It was travelling over a hundred miles an hour when it bounced hard on its tires on the down slope. It skidded to one side for an instant, then it righted itself and continued eastbound. Gold was slammed into the passenger seat as the Crown Vic barreled over the steel-mesh surface of the bridge, and then rattled over a railroad crossing.
The radio crackled again. “Suspect is being routed into Cal Park. Repeat: suspect is being routed into Cal Park.”
The Sentra sped past the marina and through a light industrial area at the entrance to the East Side. It barreled into Calumet Park along the lakefront next to the Indiana border. Battle and Gold followed closely behind. A quarter of a mile later, the road forked. The driver of the Sentra tried to make a hard right onto the access road leading toward the field house and the beach. He misjudged his speed and the tightness of the corner. He applied the brakes too late and lost control. The Sentra elevated onto two tires. It left the ground for an instant, then it came down hard on its wheels in a grove of maple trees next to the softball diamonds. It sideswiped the smaller saplings, then it barreled into a hundred-year-old tree, where it came to a violent halt. The front of the car accordioned, and a large branch went through the passenger side of the windshield, barely missing the driver.
Battle parked the Crown Vic on the access road. Four police units parked nearby. Their flashing lights created a strobe light effect as they bounced off the mature trees. Sirens pierced the evening air. Helicopters hovered overhead, their spotlights shining down on the wreckage. The news vans lined up behind the police units.
Gold, Battle, and a dozen uniforms surrounded the Sentra, flashlights and weapons drawn. The driver was a young man with olive skin and a light beard. He was behind the wheel, eyes open, seatbelt fastened, face covered with blood. He was unconscious, but still breathing.
Gold’s heart pounded as he and Battle approached the shattered driver-side window. “He’s mine,” Gold said.
Battle nodded.
Gold kept his service revolver pointed at the unconscious young man as he chipped away at the broken glass of the driver’s side window.
“There’s your terrorist,” Battle whispered.
Gold shook his head. “He’s no terrorist. Just a garden-variety car thief.”
“You know him?”
“Everybody in Area 2 knows him. His name is Luis Alvarado. Dropped out of Bowen. Spent the last five years in a four-by-ten condo in Joliet for grand theft auto.” He motioned to a sergeant whose weapon was still drawn. “Take him down to South Chicago Hospital and get him cleaned up. And call his mamma and tell her that he’s moving back to Joliet.”
Gold put his service revolver back into its holster. He could still smell traces of smoke from the blast at Our Lady—three miles away. He looked up at the WGN helicopter hovering above the tennis courts. He saw Mojo and her cameraman standing behind a wall of uniforms. His shoulder ached.
They had busted a small-time car thief on national TV while a terrorist was still running free. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said to Battle. “I want to check on my dad for a few minutes. Then we need to get back to headquarters.”
Gold was starting to walk back to the Crown Vic when his BlackBerry vibrated. He had a new e-mail. It read, “I’m watching you on TV, Detective Gold. You’re wasting time. Free Hassan immediately or prepare to watch more people die. IFF.”
Chapter 20
“DOES THAT GO ON EVERY NIGHT?”
Gold lowered his BlackBerry. “The Chief isn’t happy,” he told Battle. “He said we shouldn’t have been wasting time chasing a car thief.”
“Duly noted. Was Fong able to trace any of the e-mails?”
“No. Everything was encrypted and sent through bogus accounts. The FBI’s best software people said it looked like it was initiated in Bulgaria.”
“Now we have to shut down e-mail, too?”
“We’d have to shut down every computer on Planet Earth.”
“What about the detonator at Our Lady?”
“A cell phone stolen from a custodian at the old library downtown. The call was initiated from a landline in the field house at Stony Island Park. Looks like he broke in. No fingerprints. No witnesses. No security cameras. We’ve stopped every car within a three-mile radius of Our Lady. Nothing.”
“We can’t shut down every land line in Chicago.”
“No, but we can shut down every cell phone. Homeland Security is still thinking about it.”
Battle frowned. “They should think faster.”
Gold lowered the passenger window of the Crown Vic. He and Battle were parked in front of the weathered brick bungalow near the corner of 89th and Muskegon. At eleven-fifteen on Monday night, the temperature had dropped into the mid-seventies, and a gentle breeze was blowing through the mature maple trees across the street in Bessemer Park. The dull roar of the trucks barreling overhead on the Skyway had been the neighborhood’s background music since the elevated toll road was built in the fifties to create a shortcut between downtown Chicago and northwest Indiana. Tonight, the Skyway was almost silent.
Battle glanced at the steps of the park’s field house, where a teenager was concluding a sale of methamphetamines. The seller darted behind the bushes, and the buyer headed toward the softball diamonds. “A little terrorist activity doesn’t seem to be having any effect on commerce. Does that go on every night?”
For the past thirty years. “Goes in cycles. If we clear the park, they move behind Bowen. Then they go to the Skyway underpasses. Then to Stony Island Park. I open the gym at Bowen two nights a week. If they’re playing hoops, they aren’t dealing drugs or gang banging. Stop by on Thursday night. I’ll get you some playing time.”
“It isn’t a good idea for a fifty-nine year old to shoot hoops with a bunch of teenagers.”
“You can watch.”
“I will.” Battle looked at the house that Gold’s grandfather had bought eight decades earlier for the princely sum of thirty-three hundred dollars. The light
was on in the living room. The front yard and gangways were illuminated by floodlights. “Ever have any trouble?”
“Not much. Our house is a no-fly zone for the gangs. They put out the word at Bowen years ago—anybody who tries any crap at Mr. Gold’s house will get their ass kicked.”
Battle smiled. “The revenge of the science nerds.”
“Something like that. There are easier targets. Everybody knows I’m a cop and I carry a gun. We have the biggest German shepherd on the South Side. His name is Lucky. He’s the sweetest dog in the world—until you piss him off. A lieutenant from Area 2 lives around the corner. A fireman lives down the street. Except for the area around Obama’s house, it’s one of the safest blocks on the South Side. If you go two blocks in any direction, you’re in one of the most dangerous places on Planet Earth.”
“Looks like your dad’s still up.”
“He never goes to bed until I get home.”
“Neither does Estelle. Can I come in for a few minutes and meet him?”
“It’s late. He gets tired.”
“Another time. We’ve had an eventful first day together.”
“Probably a lot more than you bargained for.”
“I’m going to check in on Estelle. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. We need to get down to headquarters.”
* * *
The young man looked at his laptop. The red dot on the map was at the corner of 89th and Muskegon. The Crown Vic was parked in front of Gold’s house.
You’re going to have a busy night, Detective Gold.
Chapter 21
HARRY
Harry Gold struggled to balance himself on his walker as he stood in the doorway of the only house he’d ever called home. He pointed at the still-functional gold watch his grandfather had brought with him from Russia. “You’re late,” he snapped.
“Sorry, Pop.” It didn’t matter what time Gold got home. To his father, he was always late.
Harry let him off easy. “It’s okay, Dave. You’ve had a long day.”
The Terrorist Next Door Page 10
