Fade to Black

by David Rosenfelt

  “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Get your ass down to the station. I think I figured out what’s going on.”

  I hang up, rather than wait for him to berate me and threaten me with death if I’m wasting his time. His curiosity will get him down there without me having to say anything else.

  On the way I toss the possibilities around in my head, and it all makes sense. Horrible sense. Then I ask Jessie, “When was the last time you renewed your driver’s license?”

  “Last year. I remember, because I hate the picture.”

  “Did you take an eye test?”

  “Of course.”

  We get to the station and I quickly take out the case files and look through them for what I need. Whether or not it’s there, I know I’m right, but it would be nice to have confirmation.

  I find it just as Nate is walking in. “This better be good,” he says. “I don’t know why you couldn’t tell me on the damn phone.”

  “He hasn’t told me, either,” Jessie says. “And I was sleeping next to him.”

  I take the piece of paper out of the file and hand it to them. “Look at this,” I say, and they do so together.

  “So?” Jessie asks.

  “Holy shit,” Nate says, understanding where I’m going.

  I nod. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

  Jessie is frustrated. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?”

  “As you can see, that is a copy of William Simmons’ driver’s license. He couldn’t see five feet in front of his face. His medical records say that and his daughter said the same thing.”

  “So?”

  “So according to the date on that license, it was issued three months before he died. He had no money, no home, certainly no car … so he went to get a driver’s license? And they said fine, even though he couldn’t see well enough to sign his name to the application?”

  “I understand that is strange, maybe impossible, but…”

  “Read the license, Jessie. Read everything on it.”

  So she does, slowly and carefully, to herself. Then she says, “Oh my God, he was an organ donor.”

  “Bingo. William Simmons was killed for his organs. They are harvesting human organs.”

  “Holy shit,” Jessie says.

  Jessie gets on the internet, which fortunately is also open twenty-four/seven.

  The statistics for organ prices on the black market are stunning, as are the number of organs in the human body subject to transplant. There are stories about people dying and legally helping fifty people with their donated body parts.

  In addition to heart, kidneys, lungs, and livers, the ones I thought obvious, we discover that things like eyes, tissue, stem cells, bone marrow, and much more are also valuable and in demand.

  The black market is apparently worldwide, operating in the shadows and fueled by enormous amounts of money. It would seem, based on what she finds, that one person’s intact organs could be worth well over a million dollars.

  It’s a world I knew very little about, and when this case is over, it will go on the short list of things I wish my amnesia would let me forget.

  I have to assume that William Simmons’ driver’s license is a fake, though we have no opportunity to assess that right now. We don’t even have the original, just a copy, and while it looks legitimate, I don’t see how it can be.

  Simmons would not have sought a license, and he would not have been given one if he did. I assume that the licenses were forged after the fact to cover the hospital’s actions.

  At this point, we can’t know the extent of the criminality. Was Simmons murdered simply to get his organs, or did the conspirators merely take advantage of a situation they did not create?

  And if he was murdered for his organs, how many other similar victims were there? How many people were killed so that their body parts could be harvested?

  I’m assuming there were also others, not necessarily murder victims, who had their organs taken, probably without the family’s knowledge. Would every family member even know whether their deceased loved one meant to donate their organs? Would they think to question it?

  And is this all doubled, meaning it is going on in Las Vegas as well? Are people at Harriman Hospital complicit, as they obviously are at Bergen?

  Is that why this was a combination Tartaro/Silva operation? Is it because they’re operating worldwide, and Tartaro was responsible for the western half of the country and Asia, while Silva covered the east and Europe?

  Most importantly, and most horrifyingly, is the terrorist event possibly scheduled for today designed to accumulate victims so that their organs can be taken? Is it literally meant to be one last, huge killing?

  These are all questions we need to answer, and answer as soon as possible. But one thing is very clear; we’re going to need to act before we have all those answers.

  Now.

  “We need to get Bradley in here,” I say.

  Sometimes you just know when you’re right. You can feel it in your gut.

  I know we’re right about what’s been going on at the hospital; it checks all the boxes. Nate and Jessie know it as well; even though this has been a case filled with maybes and what-ifs, they haven’t pushed back on the theory at all.

  I expect more resistance from Bradley, and I’m relieved when we don’t get it. He doesn’t even complain about having to come to the office at five o’clock in the morning, since he knows we wouldn’t dare call him in if it wasn’t tremendously important.

  So he listens to a straight recitation of where we are and what we think. There’s a lot to update him on; for example, we hadn’t had a chance to tell him that Dr. Cassel lied about checking out Travis Mauer. But when I drop the bomb on him about the organ harvesting, he doesn’t flinch.

  “You guys nailed it,” he says, when I’m done.

  Nate asks, “So is Galvis bad, or just Cassel?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But at this point it doesn’t matter. We need to stop what might happen, and sort it out later. If I’m right, there is going to be an explosion today. Two in fact, one here and one in Vegas.”

  “But we don’t have any idea where,” Jessie points out.

  “That’s not entirely true. We have some idea. It’s going to be where there are a lot of people, but more importantly, it will happen in a place where most of the victims will be taken to Bergen Hospital. We can figure out that radius.”

  “It’s Saturday; it has to be a shopping center or a movie theater. There aren’t any concert facilities or sports arenas near Bergen,” Nate says. “And we don’t even know what time it might happen.”

  “If it’s a shopping center, then some time around midday. If it’s a movie theater, then at night.”

  “First thing we need to do is alert security in every possible place,” Bradley says. “And we have to call in Wiggins and the FBI. They have the resources, and they can bring in the ATF. Bomb squads will be crucial.”

  I shake my head. “I agree with all of that, but it’s not enough. We’d be depending on luck, and that’s way too big a chance to take. And we’d have to get lucky twice; here and in Vegas. Not going to happen.”

  “You got any better ideas?” Bradley asks; a well-timed question, because I think I do.

  “Yeah. Wiggins told me that the explosives that courier would use would be triggered by a cell phone call, that the devices themselves would have cell numbers to be activated remotely with a phone call. So we shut down the cell towers.”

  “Shut down all the cell towers in North Jersey?” Bradley asks.

  “Every one that could provide service to the radius that Bergen Hospital covers. I don’t know how many there are, but there must be a lot of them. Shutting them down is our only way to ensure the device doesn’t go off.”

  “Different companies own different towers,” Nate says. “We have no way of knowing which provider would be the one on the device.”

  “Th
at’s why we have to get them all,” I say, and then I turn to Bradley. “Wiggins needs to do this, because it has to be a Federal judge, and it needs to be done immediately. Each provider is going to have to be served an order on an emergency basis. It should cover the Bergen County radius, and the service radius for Harriman Hospital in Vegas. If a tower reaches the edge of the radius, they should opt to be overly careful and shut it down.”

  “This is a huge ask,” Bradley says. “We know we’re right, but to get a judge to issue an order like this … I don’t think we have enough hard evidence.”

  “You’ve got to convince Wiggins, and he needs to convince the judge. Make sure they realize that whoever says no is going to have a lot of blood on their hands.”

  All we can do now is wait.

  I remember enough about the old me to know that I have never been good at waiting. My jaw starts to clench, and then it spreads to the rest of my body, until it feels like I am going to explode. It’s not the most pleasant of feelings.

  This waiting is going to be in two parts, and that’s in a best case. First of all, Bradley has secured a 7:00 A.M. meeting with Wiggins by triggering some kind of Homeland Security emergency alert procedure. He will be trying to get Wiggins to go after a court order to shut down all the cell towers. So we have to wait and see how that goes.

  I can’t imagine that Wiggins can make the call by himself, but assuming he wants to and can get the needed approvals, then they have to go to a judge to get the order issued. Which means more waiting.

  I’d feel better if this approach was likely to succeed, but it isn’t. It’s going to be a very heavy lift to get Wiggins and the judge to go along; we really don’t have that good a case to make.

  It’s almost eight o’clock, which means that Bradley has been gone for more than two hours. Nate and I have been just sitting and basically doing nothing; we’ve insulted each other a couple of times, but our heart really hasn’t been in it.

  Jessie’s been on the computer doing whatever it is that Jessie does on the computer. But she’s using the computer in my office rather than hers, because she wants to be here when Bradley gets back and gives us the news.

  I called Lieutenant Roberts on his cell phone at 3:00 A.M. Vegas time to update him on what was going on. He answered the phone sounding completely awake despite the time, which is very definitely a cop thing, and possibly a Vegas thing as well.

  I don’t know if he thinks that we’re right or not, but he certainly didn’t dismiss it out of hand. He’s going to wait along with us to find out whether we can get a judge to issue the order, since it would cover Vegas as well.

  With Harriman being so close to the Strip, his list of potential targets is considerably larger than ours. Every hotel, every casino, is a potential disaster waiting to happen, triggered by a simple cell phone call.

  Bradley finally returns and comes straight to my office, where we’ve been hanging out. “Good news and bad news,” he says, and we just wait to hear it.

  “The good news is that the Bureau will seek the court order, and in the meantime they will figure out what to do if they get it, meaning who to deliver it to, and how to do it quickly. He thinks it can all be done electronically.”

  “And the bad?” Nate asks.

  “He thinks we’re probably wrong, but doesn’t want to take the chance that we might be right. But neither he nor the people he works for thinks we’ll get the judge to go along.”

  “Why?”

  “A bunch of reasons. It will cause very significant public disruption, and if the reason for it gets out, a good amount of panic. And except for Lewinsky’s brief mention of the sixteenth, there’s no solid information that today is the day. They can’t keep those towers down forever.”

  “What else?”

  “There’s too much hunch involved without any real evidence that this organ thing is happening. They were not terribly impressed with the fact that William Simmons had a driver’s license, even if it turns out to be a fake.

  “And the last thing, as if all the rest wasn’t enough, is that even if we’re right about everything … the motive and the timing … we still have only a small chance of preventing it. Because if we shut down the cell service, then they pull the device, and do it tomorrow. Or next week. Or the week after that.”

  I don’t necessarily agree with all that he is saying, but there’s no use arguing the point. All he is doing is quoting Wiggins, so convincing him won’t accomplish anything. Now if I could talk to the judge, that might be a different story. But that’s not going to happen.

  “We need to come up with a plan in case we get shot down,” I say.

  Bradley nods and says, as he’s leaving the room, “Let me know when you have one.”

  I come up with a couple of ideas, both pretty weak.

  If the judge refuses to issue the order, I can take advantage of the celebrity and credibility I have and go public. I can warn people about what I think might happen, and warn them to stay away from the areas that are possible targets.

  I can even berate the justice system for not intervening to protect the public, and hopefully shame them into doing something. I have no doubt that the TV networks would cover whatever I had to say about this. I’m a citizen, and as such I have the right to speak out, and the platform to do it from.

  Of course, as a member of the police department, I have no such right. I’d probably get fired, especially if my dire warning turns out to be a false alarm.

  The greater negative is similar to the one Wiggins voiced; all it would do is make the bad guys retrench and delay their attack. They don’t have any time pressure, or at least none that I know of. So it would appear that I was wrong, and if I tried to go back to the well when the threat once again became imminent, no one would listen.

  The other possible strategy I’ve come up with would be to find Philly DeSimone, take him into a room, and pound the shit out of him until he talked. I could find him easily, since we have had a tail on him for a while. The “pounding the shit” part is more problematic; I would be fired, arrested, and probably imprisoned. And it might not even work.

  But it would be fun.

  I’m alone in my office having these fantasies, when the door opens. I’m hoping it’s Bradley with news, but it’s not: it’s Nate. “I just thought of something that makes me even surer that we’re right,” he says.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s pretty disgusting.”

  “Nate…”

  “Okay. We thought that Shawn and Tony Silva got their heads cut off because the killers were sending a message. But…”

  I interrupt, because I’ve realized where he’s going. “They were using the organs. If they were going to kill reasonably young, healthy people, why let the organs go to waste?”

  “I told you it was disgusting,” Nate says.

  I nod. “And remember that the coroner admired the cut? He said it was clean, almost surgical. Said he couldn’t have done a better job himself.”

  “Dr. Cassel,” Nate says. Then, “Can you imagine that somebody might have paid money for Tony Silva’s heart? I didn’t even know he had one, but if he did, then whoever got it was ripped off.”

  It’s almost nine thirty, and we still haven’t heard a decision. Wiggins called Bradley a while ago to tell him that the petition was filed with the court, and it was now out of his hands. According to Bradley, he didn’t sound optimistic.

  It’s been six and a half hours since I woke up in bed with the realization of what I think has been going on. It feels like a month.

  And still we wait.

  Ever since Joey Silva went to jail, Philly DeSimone has been heavily guarded.

  Part of it is just being smart and careful; a person in Philly’s new position never knows when someone might take a shot at him. Certainly there are enough people Philly has wronged in his life. And while Joey doesn’t seem to realize that Philly is responsible for his current plight, Philly can’t be quite s
ure of that.

  The other part is that Philly has an interest in it appearing that he is in danger, since from the beginning he’s wanted the appearance of a possible war between Tartaro and Joey Silva. Might as well continue that deception.

  But on this morning, Philly left without his guards, because he did not want anyone to know where he was going. He was meeting Nick Saulter at a storage facility in Lyndhurst, where he had been storing the explosive device since getting it from the courier.

  Philly would have preferred not to be so directly involved, but he’d had no choice. He was the only one who had met with the courier, and who had received instructions on how to set the device. He hadn’t trusted that to anyone else, mainly because no one else in his organization besides Nick knew about this.

  He hadn’t regretted that decision. This way no one other than Nick could ever talk to the cops about him, and that would be dealt with after this was over. He knew that Nick believed his pay for doing this job would make him wealthy for the rest of his life, and that was actually true.

  What Nick didn’t know was that his life was going to end before the day was out. Philly did not come this far to leave any loose ends.

  Nick was waiting for Philly at the storage facility, and they went inside. Nick was already wearing the beard and glasses that would serve as enough of a disguise to make him impossible to identify if the security cameras successfully photographed him. He brought with him the shopping bag from Cara’s Village, a toy store inside Paramus Park, that he had gotten during the last rehearsal.

  Having the device in that bag would make it even less likely to attract attention, since many shoppers would have similar bags. It was made of a heavy plastic, strong enough to carry the device, but not quite strong enough to withstand the impact of the explosion. A bag made out of steel wouldn’t be nearly strong enough for that.

  Philly didn’t need to teach him how to set the device, because he was going to do that himself. That presented the tiniest of risks; the device had a cell phone number, and only Philly knew that number. But if someone, anyone, happened to dial a wrong number in the next few hours and reached that device, it would not go well for whoever was standing nearby.