Buffalo Soldiers (An Upstate New York Mafia Tale Book 2)

by Nicholas Denmon

  Chapter 7

  Sydney Price barely finished lacing up her shoes when Briggs burst into the office. His black eyes were afire. His broad chest heaved as if he had run a few miles and he was strapping his glock into an underarm holster.

  “We gotta go. The Galleria Mall just took a bomb hit. Definite civilian casualties.”

  She stood up so fast she felt light headed. “What?”

  “They think it was a terrorist hit.” His lips were tight.

  Agent Price sprung into action. “Alert the local authorities. I want everyone on this. Have Agent Timms notify the local hospitals. I want every ambulance in the city down there. Agent Moreland!”

  Travis Moreland was walking past the door grabbing his laptop but stopped midstride. “Yes ma’am?”

  “See to it that the vans are prepared. I want everyone coming with me on this. Have Agent Tolbert bring a field kit.” She turned to Briggs. “Call the local authorities and tell them to help the wounded but be careful, we’ve all seen secondary blasts intended to hit emergency personnel. Also tell them not to touch anything at the scene. I don’t need their fingers all over this.”

  Briggs turned, phone in hand.

  “Anything, Briggs.”

  He nodded his head and walked out of the room followed by Agent Moreland.

  Sydney pulled out her iPhone and dialed a number with the 202 area code for Washington D.C. A secretary answered and before she could finish her greeting Sydney interrupted. “I need Operations Director of the Criminal Division Randall Smith.”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry he is in a meeting at the moment.” The voice cracked with the line and she was pretty sure it had to do with the enormous amount of cell phones dialing all at once across the city.

  “I don’t care if he is taking a shit. You tell him Special Agent in Charge Sydney Price is calling from the field office in Buffalo, NY and we have had a suspected terrorist attack in a highly populated shopping mall, civilian causalities confirmed.”

  “Please hold.” There was a click and then some soothing music began to play overlaid with facts about the FBI. She hit the mute button and called out to her staff, “Okay guys, gather your stuff. We ride now.”

  The building emptied out and they clattered and spoke in hushed tones as they climbed the stairs downward. Briggs wore an FBI jacket and Sydney had her Kevlar vest strapped on just in case. The others wore jeans and had badges on their hips along with their guns. Dr. Tolbert, wearing her khaki pants and a blue half-sleeve knitted sweater hustled along carrying a large field kit to analyze evidence and chemicals found on the scene. Agents Conrad and Timms raced downward. One carried a laptop and the other a small video camera and a USB cord to tap into the mall surveillance systems.

  Briggs’ phone rang as they piled into the vans Agent Moreland prepared in advance of the team’s exit.

  “Agent Briggs.” He held the phone in his hand and transferred it to Bluetooth as he settled into the driver’s seat and Sydney climbed into the seat next to him, still on hold. After a few short responses he hung up, but they were well on their way to the Galleria Mall by then. He hung up and looked at her. His eyes shone like chiseled onyx. “Twelve dead. Thirty-two wounded. The bomb squad has already run a preliminary sweep of the premises and they say its clear.”

  She nodded her head. “Agent Conrad, pull up a blue-print of the mall. I want to know the top roadways that come up to the premises. I want any video we can find of the roadways leading to and from that plaza. I want plates of all vehicles leaving slightly ahead of the pack and before all the emergency vehicles and concerned parents started heading towards the blast site.”

  “Yes ma’am.” She looked back and noted Travis furiously punching holes into the keys of his laptop. The soft blue glow that hit his face cast an eerie pall over his set features. The only thing that moved in his face were darting eyes that moved from one window on the screen to the next.

  Still the music played on the phone and she heard a repeat of the FBI facts from earlier.

  Please pick up. Please, please please.

  And then they did.

  “Hello Special Agent Price. This is Randall Smith.”

  “Director Smith.” She exhaled as his name trailed from her lips. “I trust you’ve heard about the explosion at the Galleria Mall here in Buffalo, NY?”

  “Yes, Special Agent in Charge, I have. Don’t worry though, this falls out of your purview. Everything we have from ground sources describes this as a terrorist attack. We won’t call it that of course, for the time being.”

  “Sir, what ground sources are these? I would think that I of all people would have heard some chatter about a terrorist attack. My sources in that regard are still intact.” Names and faces flipped through her mind like a telephone index. She fell out of her thoughts as Briggs careened around an SUV with a soccer mom who was oblivious to their sirens.

  “It’s been a decade since the Lackawanna Six, Sydney. We don’t expect you to have the carry over on this. It’s not a slight. It’s just the facts. This is a Counter-Terrorism event and as such the National Security Branch will be working alongside the NSA to determine the suspects and the security breach.” Director Smith fell silent for a moment and Sydney took the opening.

  “Very well, sir. We will be on scene to assist in the initial cleanup and to lend hands to the forensics and evidence collection. Also, sir, off topic but just as important, I need you to initiate protocol Hanssen.” She glanced at Briggs to make sure the meaning passed over him. When she saw no reaction she looked away.

  The director coughed and Sydney couldn’t tell if he was choking or clearing his throat. “The Hanssen Protocol? You’re sure of this? In your crew?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. Not at all.” She hoped that he wouldn’t get too immersed in the details of the Hanssen Protocol. He knew she was in a situation that barely lent itself to open conversation.

  Christ. This is what it has come to, initiating a Hanssen Protocol within my own ranks.

  Sydney watched the roadway roll under the van at ninety miles an hour. The Hanssen Protocol was aptly named after an FBI Agent who sold sensitive information to the Russians for decades. It was the name given to a set of contingency plans in the event that a mole was suspected within the Bureau.

  “No. I imagine you wouldn’t be sure. Okay, we will initiate it. Oh and Sydney, just a heads up here, Simmons is the on site Agent in Charge for the National Security Branch. I’m sure you knew that, but just wanted you to be prepared in case.”

  This day can’t get any better.

  “Thanks. I’ll be fine.” Briggs looked over at her again when he heard the tone in her voice and she put her fingers to her head like a gun and pulled the imaginary trigger. Briggs was kind enough to give her a wan smile, but his eyes still shone with broken bits of glass and his knuckles were white on the wheel.

  “I know you’ll be fine, Sydney. You don’t have a choice. I have a meeting to go to, keep me updated.” Director Smith hung up the phone with a click.

  He never was one for long goodbyes.

  She put the phone down and grabbed the door handle as Briggs turned the corner into the mall parking lot.

  “What was that all about?” Briggs’ muscled arm hiccupped as he switched gears and Sydney’s eye flicked to the crease for a moment before she answered.

  “Special Agent Simmons is the Agent-In-Charge on site.” She didn’t elaborate but she knew she didn’t have to. Briggs was well aware of their history.

  “Todd Simmons?” His brow furrowed and his lips pulled into a slight frown.

  “The one and only.”

  “The same asshole that came up with you during the Lackawanna Six? The same ass-clown that took Peter Askearn’s job seven years later? That Todd Simmons? I’m sorry, Syd. I know how much you hate that prick.”

  “Water under the bridge.” Sydney thought her words sounded like a load of crap to her and realized by Briggs’ sideways glance that they weren’t fooling
Briggs much either.

  Agent Conrad piped up from the back of the van. “I have the blueprints for the mall. I also have surveillance video from Duke Rd and Walden Avenue that shows a grey van with tinted windows speeding away from the mall moments after the blast. We should be able to pull plates with a video enhancement.”

  “Excellent.” Sydney opened her mouth to ask the make of the van when they rounded a bend in the mall lot. Smoke billowed out of the east wing and Briggs summed it up as he sped towards the pandemonium in front of them.

  “Holy shit.” His voice croaked with the shock of the scene before him. A dozen ambulances lined the shoulder while a pair of black and whites pulled into the roadway they had just entered and began to block it off from other traffic hoping to approach the scene. At least a dozen news vans stood about twenty yards beyond the flashing lights while a clearly frazzled spokesperson tried to field a barrage of questions.

  They pulled next to the other of their two FBI vans and began to pile out. Sydney took a brief look at the blueprints Agent Conrad had found and then exited the van and glanced at the chaotic scene in front of them.

  Sulfur permeated the air along with the scent of warm black tar and charring wood. A triage tent had been erected another thirty feet beyond the emergency vehicles and the Emergency Medical Technicians were hooking IV’s to the myriad of wounded and wrapping wounds and plugging holes as fast as they could. Further beyond the tent were several body bags that would be the final homes for the several dead that waited their moment on ice at the local morgue. A crowd of men and women stood in various states of disarray. Each called out for someone they knew to be in the mall. Some did so with tear streaked faces while others stoically stood silent. Some had the shell-shocked look of those in disbelief, their mouths hanging open and their trembling fingers trying to hide the horror that hid beneath.

  A score of firemen poured into the building from beneath the protection of their yellow suits and visor helmets. A few carried axes and other equipment but others carried collapsible stretchers in pairs. The bomb squad and K-9 units stood in a circle, the dogs obediently resting on their haunches next to their handlers.

  Another set of FBI vans parked on the other side of the fire trucks and they had monitors hanging from the outside. Several agents were watching them and talking on their phones while still others hammered away furiously at keyboards linked up with the FBI database. Sydney walked towards the field command post with her unit in tow. A young agent greeted her with a gaunt and pale look. He was dressed for full-scale combat with a Kevlar vest and an Assault Rifle slung over his shoulder.

  Sydney walked up and with her most authoritative tone asked, “Where is the Special Agent in Charge?”

  “Agent Simmons is at ground zero.”

  She nodded her head and turning to her men she said, “Agents Conrad, Timms and Moreland, stay here and offer your help with anything they might need to aid in the investigation. Briggs and Dr. Tolbert, with me.”

  Her men began to disperse and she headed towards the mall entrance, her much smaller escort at her heels. The sun descended beyond a trio of evergreens that huddled at the edge of the lot. It seemed to Sydney that it wept silently for the dead as it leaked a trail of red along the horizon that bled to a soft orange the further out the color dripped. A gull that had traveled too far inland on winds from Lake Erie portending winter let out intermittent squawks of sorrow. A thinning finger of smoke pointed at them from above the dome of the Galleria Mall and swayed to and fro with the changing gust of the circular wind as if to warn them from entering the building.

  Despite the warmth of the sun, Sydney felt a chill climb her vertebrae like a ladder when they walked through the wide open doors that led into the mall’s grey and white checkered tile floors. A balcony ringed the hall and the three of them walked in silence as they followed the horde of emergency personnel that walked endlessly towards the building’s center.

  The hall seemed eerily quiet despite the hundreds of voices echoing along the corridor, as if they spoke in hushed whispers and the cloud of shock pressed down on their words to muffle their very existence.

  When they rounded a corner and came in view of a large fountain, Briggs seemed to have gotten the memo too.

  “Jesus Christ, Syd.” His voice was barely audible and snuck through his cracked lips in less than a whisper. He still did better than Sydney whose voice stuck in her throat completely and Dr. Tolbert who stopped walking and let a solitary tear wind its way along the crease of her cheek.

  A row of body bags lined the hall and seemed to stretch on for the length of a football field. She stopped counting at thirty. Blood streaked the floor; some in obvious trails where the dead and dying had been hauled from the rubble and glass that littered the floor. Smoke still billowed out of the blackened store that seemed to have once been a purveyor of shoes. Dozens of footless shoes scattered the area, it was the ones that still had feet in them that brought a fresh set of tears to Dr. Tolbert’s eyes.

  Sydney felt her stomach roll over but bit her bottom lip and forced herself to focus. She was glad she did because a short and balding man with an athletic build strode purposefully towards them. He wore the black suit commonly associated with FBI agents, but then again, Sydney wouldn’t expect anything else from the man.

  Todd Simmons always did everything exactly by the book.

  She would have laughed if she didn’t feel so saddened by the scene in front of her. The one thing she was certain of was the fact that a book didn’t really exist.

  Just layers upon layers of insulating bureaucracy.

  Another agent walked at his side reminding her of a weasel the way he seemed to perpetually sniff at the air. She eyed him up but Agent Simmons met them first and held out his hand. Sydney hesitated and then clasped the offered digits.

  “Agent Price. It’s been a while since Lackawanna.” His beady eyes searched her face but she remained stoic, unwilling to divulge her true feelings towards the man that had stolen her mentor’s job and forced him into private consultations.

  “It has.” She looked past him and surveyed the carnage again.

  Looks like a high powered explosive. Heavier scorching towards the center.

  “You were involved in the Lackawanna Six, Agent Price?” The weasel had stopped sniffing to ask a completely irrelevant question.

  She was about to ignore him when Agent Simmons denied her the luxury.

  “She sure did, Martinez. She was the second best agent involved in bringing down that terrorist cell, even caught one single handedly as he attempted to flee.”

  Sydney knew he was referring to himself as the best agent on that case but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “I was the second best agent, that’s for sure Agent Martinez.”

  A small smile of victory curled out of Agent Simmon’s crooked lips.

  “The best agent was Special Agent in Charge Peter Askearn.” The smile dropped from Agent Simmons.

  “Who is that?” the weasel asked.

  “Exactly.” Agent Simmons turned and waved for them to follow. He switched gears as they walked towards the shoe store and past cloisters of emergency personnel, the wounded, and people offering various testimonies as to what transpired in the moments before the blast. “The situation is this. We have thirty-two dead and will probably have forty by nightfall. Judging by the radius of the blast, the heat patterns, and damage we are looking at something definitely not homemade.”

  Dr. Tolbert cleared her throat and Agent Simmons turned to look at her. She ignored his scowl and looked at the damage. “It looks to be a TNT blast. The crater in the flooring and the lack of a projectile does suggest the absence of a pipe-bomb. If I may, was there a suicide bomber?”

  “What do you mean?” Agent Simmons asked, clearly taken aback by the question.

  “Was this strapped to somebody?” Dr. Tolbert asked, flipping out a note pad.

  The Agent in Charge looked at Sydney then back at Dr. Tolbe
rt. “No.”

  The doctor scribbled on the pad and Sydney could see her running some calculations based on eyeballed estimates of the scene. “I would bet money that in scattered along the blast radius you’ll find some cheap electronics. Most likely they are melted from being so close to the initial blast. But there will still be readable components due to the velocity of the explosion throwing them away from the heat source.” Her eyes drifted to the floor and she walked a few feet from the group who all silently followed her. Sydney noted that Agent Martinez followed her legs while Agent Simmons at least had the courtesy to go up higher to her ass as she bent over and picked up a small metal cap.

  “It looks like a receiver of some sort. I would imagine you are looking at a cell operated device. It is a common way to conceal the detonator. Usually a detonator has a charge button, to charge the transmitter with the power necessary to initiate the blast. Then of course you have the “fire” button that releases the charge into these wires,” she held up the metal piece. “Once the signal is red, well, you get this.” She waved her arm at the scene. “It really is as simple as somebody pressing pound and star on their cell phone once dialed into the correct frequency.”

  She stood with her notebook dangling from one hand, scribbled a few more notes and looked at the rest of them. Agent Martinez looked at her with a wrinkled brow that suggested he might have missed everything she said, Agent Simmons gave a curt nod.

  She’s more then a set of legs, boys.

  Dr. Tolbert meandered off looking at various bits of debris that littered the walkway, and that was exactly how long it took Agent Simmons to dismiss everything the good doctor said.

  “Now that the lady was able to inform us a bomb went off here, the big piece of the puzzle is who did it and why.” Agent Martinez handed Simmons a folder that contained documents and the Agent in Charge perused the information, his lips puckered up in a familiar position. He cleared his throat and continued, still looking at the paper. “The usual crazies are popping out of the woodwork making claims to the attack. We have Al-Qaeda denying it, which is interesting. Libyan hardliners claim its their work but can’t or won’t name the mall they supposedly attacked, and we have the normal claims of success from Hezbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, even the Liberation Tigers of Tamil. A dozen other groups have issued declarations of a great victory over the Zionists or the corrupted Americans. Of course, none of them claim responsibility for the attack, just solidarity for the cause.”