Fade to Black

by David Rosenfelt

  But the odds against that wrong number were worth bucking, if the alternative was Nick having to set the device. Nick was not the brightest guy in the world, although there was no one other than himself that Philly would have trusted to do the job.

  Philly put the device in the bag, and again went over the instructions. The restating of the plan was probably unnecessary, since it was to be done exactly the same as the rehearsals. But Philly wasn’t taking any chances.

  Nick was to arrive at twelve thirty, go up to the food court and order two hamburgers, fries, and soda at the counter, and take it all to a table near the center. He would put the bag under the table, and at twelve fifty he would leave.

  The bag would remain under the table, and Philly would leave his jacket draped on the seat. He would also leave one uneaten hamburger on the table, as well as half of the drink. It would appear to anyone that he had gone off, probably to the bathroom, and was coming right back.

  The chances of anyone thinking otherwise and reacting within those ten minutes in a manner to avoid the explosion were infinitesimal.

  The whole process at the storage facility took about fifteen minutes, and Philly and Nick left and drove off in their separate cars. Nick carried the bag very carefully, and laid it gently on the seat on some pillows. He knew that it would take the phone call to set it off, but why take chances?

  Bradley comes in to give us the news: the judge said no.

  According to Wiggins, the FBI lawyers got the impression that it wasn’t a close call, that there wasn’t nearly enough evidence to warrant the kind of action we are asking for.

  Nobody is surprised; everyone is disappointed.

  I float my idea about going on CNN and scaring the shit out of everyone in New Jersey, but Bradley kills it for all the obvious reasons. I could do it anyway, but I think he’s right. Jessie and Nate don’t like the idea, either.

  Then I suggest my getting Philly in a room and pounding on him until he confesses. Nate thinks it’s great and offers to be the pounder, as long as Philly is the poundee. But Jessie is opposed, and Bradley says no. I can say this; if a bomb really goes off today, I’m going to find Philly, and no one is going to stop me.

  There is very little we can do proactively to stop whatever might happen. Bradley calls in every cop on the force, and they are directed to the various shopping malls that are potential targets. Security personnel at these places have been alerted as well, but none of us have any confidence that these moves will make a difference. It is truly needle-in-a-haystack time.

  “Where is Philly now?” I ask.

  Jessie, who is in charge of the surveillance, heads to her office to find out. Whenever a cop is tailing a subject, he or she files frequent reports to update where the subject is and what he’s doing.

  “Where do you want to go?” Nate asks. We’re going to be part of the team watching for something suspicious, but we don’t have a specific assignment, so as to maintain flexibility.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe Paramus Park or Garden State Plaza. They get younger demographics than The Shops at Riverside.”

  He doesn’t ask why younger is important, because he knows. Younger victims mean younger, healthier organs.

  I call Roberts in Vegas and brief him on our total lack of success. He’s going to make an effort to get a local judge to issue the order for Vegas, but he and I know he has no chance of prevailing. As little evidence as we had here, at least it was New Jersey based. Roberts essentially has nothing.

  “Take a look at this,” Jesse says, coming into the office holding a piece of paper. The tone in her voice and look in her eyes convinces me to cut the call with Roberts short.

  “What have you got?” Nate asks.

  “Mulcahy reported in a half hour ago,” she says, meaning Neil Mulcahy, the cop assigned to tail Philly. “I didn’t see it because I was in here.”

  “And?”

  “He followed Philly to a storage facility in Lyndhurst. He met a guy there and they went inside for about fifteen minutes. He had no way of knowing what was going on in there. He was looking for guidance on what to do, but I wasn’t there to tell him.”

  I can tell she’s beating herself up over that fact, but she shouldn’t be, and I tell her so.

  She continues, “They left and Mulcahy followed Philly, like he was supposed to, so he doesn’t know where the other guy went. But he got a picture of him with a zoom lens.”

  She hands me the picture. It’s of Philly and some bearded guy who none of us recognize, leaving the storage facility and walking toward their cars. The bearded guy is holding a large plastic bag, and by the way it is hanging, it looks like it’s pretty heavy.

  I know what must be in there, and it sickens me.

  But I also know what is on there, and it gives me an idea.

  “Can you guys make out the writing on that bag?” I ask.

  Nate, Jessie, and I stare at it, all squinting, but none of us can make it out.

  “Can you blow it up?” I ask.

  “Of course; it’s on my computer. Let’s go.”

  We follow her into her office, passing by Bradley’s on the way. “We got something,” I yell to him, and he’s out of his chair like it was an ejector seat. He follows us to Jessie’s office and to her computer.

  While Jessie presses keys on her computer, I fill Bradley in. I’m annoyed with myself; I should have told Mulcahy what was going on. If I had, he could have guessed what was in the bag and followed it, rather than Philly.

  We’re all looking at the computer screen as the image gets larger, and the focus centers on the shopping bag. Each time it gets larger, it gets blurry, and then Jessie brings it into better focus. But the larger it gets, the less focused it is.

  Finally she stops, apparently having done the best she could. The letters are there; it looks like two words, but most of the second word is obscured by the man’s body.

  Even the first word is very hard to make out. Nate looks at it and says, “Carls?”

  I was going to say the same thing, but I have no confidence in it.

  Jessie smacks her hand on the desk. “No! It’s Cara’s. It’s got to be Cara’s Village.”

  “What is Cara’s Village?” Bradley asks.

  “It’s a toy store; I bought a set of blocks there for my nephew a few months ago. Let me go to the website.”

  Within seconds the Cara’s Village website is on the screen, and at the top is their logo. “It’s the same style lettering,” I say. “No doubt.”

  “Please tell me it’s within the hospital coverage area,” Bradley says.

  She nods. “Paramus Park. That’s got to be the target.”

  Like everything else in this case, we are going on educated guesses. Unfortunately, we’ve been wrong most of the time. After all, we had been thinking that we were dealing with a drug case.

  And we can be wrong again now. Just because the guy was carrying a Cara’s Village bag doesn’t mean that he’s going to attack that shopping center. But it makes sense. He probably has done some dry runs, and he would have used a bag to do it. Also, having a bag from a store in the same shopping center would seem completely normal.

  Of course, the guy could have nothing whatsoever to do with an attack, and he could just have been buying some toys for his kids. But you take your best guess and you go with it, and our best guess is this guy is going to be carrying a bomb into Paramus Park today.

  Bradley decides to direct more manpower to Paramus Park but still keep the other places covered. He sends out the photo of our suspect to every cop in his command, with instructions to detain him on sight, using whatever force is necessary. Niceties are not going to get in the way here; if we find this guy, he’s going down.

  Nate, Jessie, and I go out to Paramus Park in a van specially equipped for electronic surveillance. Jessie will stay in it, and it will be the communications hub. Bradley has stayed behind to run the whole operation.

  This is our one shot.

>   There are twelve cops already at Paramus Park when we arrive.

  They came in unmarked vehicles, so our target would not sense the heavy police presence. Jessie parks the van way in the back, in an empty area of the parking lot.

  I come up with a plan for what to do with our guy should we catch him, and I tell Jessie to prepare for it. She’s not happy about it, but will go along. At least I hope she will; it is the one foolproof way to make sure that Philly DeSimone goes down.

  It’s five minutes before noon when we get into the mall, and we don’t see anyone resembling our boy. There’s no telling what time he’ll be getting here, if he’s coming at all, so we could be in for a long wait.

  We spend our time walking around, looking for him but also looking for a package that he might have left before we got here.

  Nothing.

  We have every door covered with personnel, and Nate and I are sort of playing free safety, roaming and making ourselves available to get anywhere that we’re needed.

  We’re passing near the South door at twelve thirty when I see him. I’m positive that it’s him, and that feeling is reaffirmed by the fact that he’s carrying a bag that says Cara’s Village. I say a silent thank you to Jessie for buying her nephew that set of blocks.

  Nate and I make contact with the two other cops watching that entrance, but they’ve already seen the suspect. I make a slight motion for them to come toward him from the sides, and they start to do so. I am going to meet him head-on, and Nate is going to go around and block off the exit, should he try to run. Nate is a really good exit blocker.

  We converge on him, and it takes a few seconds for him to register what is happening. Once he gets it, he quickly looks around and sees that he’s surrounded on all sides. None of us have drawn weapons, since the last thing we want to do is start firing in a crowded area, especially with an unexploded bomb in the potential cross fire. If he goes for a weapon, we are close enough to stop him before he can reach it.

  He decides that his best chance is to run back toward the open door, but there is no way he is going to get by Nate. Nate gives him what looks like a left jab to the throat … the punch doesn’t travel more than six inches. But it sends the guy to his knees, gasping.

  We all move in on him, and I yell out to the shoppers that have seen the punch, “Police. We have this under control.” Within seconds we have him on his feet and handcuffed, and I have the shopping bag. It’s fairly heavy, and whatever is inside is gift wrapped. I sure as hell hope it’s not another set of blocks.

  I have a communications wire attached to my wrist, and I talk into it to Jessie, who is on the other end. “We have our man. You know what to do.”

  “Bomb squad is on the way. How about letting them handle this?” she asks.

  “Jessie, you know what to do.”

  “Yeah,” she says, clearly not pleased. If by some chance I’m still alive, I suspect I’ll be sleeping in my apartment tonight.

  We go out the back, and the parking lot is still empty. Jessie pulls up in the van, and I get in with the suspect and the shopping bag. I turn to Nate and say, “See you in a little while.”

  “What are you doing?” he asks, but I don’t answer. Instead Jessie gets out. She’s staring daggers at me, but manages to murmur, “Please be careful, Doug.”

  I hear Nate asking Jessie what is going on, but I don’t wait around to hear her answer; I already know what it will be. I also know what his reaction to it will be, and it will include some choice obscenities.

  I secure the suspect in a chair in the back and drive out to an area in the back of the parking lot that is completely empty; there are no cars or people for at least a hundred yards, and behind us are woods. I park the van and shut it off.

  The package is on a chair next to the suspect, and I take the chair across from him. The clock on the console says twelve forty-five, and the suspect is already nervously staring at the package and the clock.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “I’m not talking to you,” he says.

  “Why are you here?”

  He doesn’t say anything, but he keeps looking at the clock.

  Twelve forty-six.

  “You were seen with Philly DeSimone today. We want to know why.”

  No answer.

  I pretend to dial my phone, and then I talk into it. “The suspect is not responding to questions. Send somebody out to get him and bring him in.” Then I pause, as if listening to a response, and say, “No rush; we’ll wait. We have nowhere to go. An hour is fine.”

  There is a flash of panic in the guy’s eyes, as he comes to believe that I don’t know what’s in the package, and that we’re going to be sitting with it for a while. I don’t know what time the detonating phone call is set for, but he does, and he’s worried about it.

  What he doesn’t know is that everything said in the van is being taped.

  Twelve forty-nine.

  “You sure you don’t want to talk to me? Once they come to get you, it’ll be too late.”

  He finally speaks. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Ah, the verbal communication is established. What’s your name?”

  “Nick Saulter. Can we get out of the van? I have claustrophobia.”

  Nice try, Nick, is what I’m thinking. “I don’t give a shit what you have, Nick” is what I actually say. “Tell me about Philly DeSimone.”

  “What about him?”

  “What does he want you to do?”

  “I’ve got nothing to say about that.”

  “Up to you, Nick.”

  Twelve fifty-two.

  Nick hasn’t taken his eyes off the clock; it’s digital, and I swear, the last time it advanced by a minute he cringed. But he doesn’t say anything. His mind must be racing to come up with some solution, but there’s no good outcome.

  If he does nothing, then someone will be calling the device, and he will be blown to bits. If he tells me what I want to hear, then he will be sent to prison for attempting a terrorist act. It will be an attempted mass murder, which will not go well for him.

  Twelve fifty-four.

  If he was smart, he’d know that even if I took him out of the van, when the device eventually blew up, he’d get chewed up in the justice system in the same fashion as if he talked. Staying silent has no upside whatsoever.

  My guess is that it would be called at a round number time, probably one o’clock. There would be no reason to have told him that it will go off at twelve fifty-seven, or one oh three. That’s just not human nature.

  Twelve fifty-six.

  “All right! There’s a bomb in that bag! It’s going to go off in four goddamn minutes.”

  “Who gave you the device?”

  “Philly DeSimone.”

  “When and where?”

  “This morning, at a storage facility in Lyndhurst.”

  “How long has this been planned?” I ask.

  “For months. Let me out of this van!”

  Twelve fifty-eight.

  He’s panicked; it must be set for one o’clock.

  “Why did Philly want to kill people?”

  “I don’t know; I swear. He never told me.”

  “The same thing is happening in Las Vegas. What is the target out there?”

  “I heard him say a casino, but not which one. Please, it’s going to go off.”

  “At one o’clock.”

  “Yeah, one o’clock!” The digital clock advances to twelve fifty-nine. “In one minute!”

  I open the bag and rip open the package. “I had bomb squad training at the police academy, which fortunately predates my memory loss. If it isn’t obvious how to disable it, then I will leave it outside and drive away.”

  The clock moves to one o’clock. “Shit!” Nick screams. “It’s going to blow.”

  “I forgot to tell you,” I say. “We set that clock five minutes ahead.”

  Fortunately, I recognize the type of connection on the device, and
I am able to cut the appropriate wires. I’m not sure why I haven’t been nervous this whole time; maybe I better start seeing Pamela again to find out.

  “Safe to come in,” I say to everyone outside who has been hearing all of this. “The device is disabled.”

  I hear cars screeching up, and Nate and Jessie are the first ones into the van. Jessie’s first move is to hug me, which as first moves go is a pretty good one. Fortunately Nate does not do the same.

  “You might want to read Nick his rights,” I say to Nate.

  He nods. “I will. Then, after I strangle you, Jessie can read me my rights.”

  I call Roberts in Vegas as soon as I get out of the van.

  I tell him what has happened here, as well as Nick’s saying that the target in Vegas is a casino. I also tell him that Bradley, who has arrived on the scene, is calling Wiggins. My guess is that after the day’s developments, this time they will be able to get the order to turn the cell phone towers off in Vegas.

  Bradley comes over and says, “You do nice work for a psychopath.”

  “You’re making me blush, but I cherish your approval.”

  “That was a stupid stunt,” he says. “First-class, grade-A stupid.”

  “That’s not quite the approval I cherish. What did Wiggins say?”

  “That he’ll get the judge to issue the order if he has to waterboard him.”

  “Good.”

  “You want to do the honors and arrest Philly?” Bradley asks.

  “I don’t care about Philly, but Nate would love doing it. It’s the renowned Dr. Cassel that I want the pleasure of arresting.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be at the hospital today, even though it’s Saturday. He’s expecting a lot of casualties.”

  Bradley and Nate go off to arrest Philly, while I take Jessie with me to deal with Cassel. He’s someone I can handle on my own, but it’ll be nice to spend time with Jessie, and will give her plenty of time to yell at me for taking stupid chances.