The Ultimatum: A Jeremy Fisk Novel

by Dick Wolf

  Madison B. jumped to get a better look, without thinking where on the staircase she might land, or how. In a flash, Mary Rose shot forward and wrapped her arms around the girl, catching her.

  Mary Rose then felt the tug of all of the other kids at once, launching themselves and their combined three hundred pounds toward the “flying toy.” All of them except Ethan, who remained in place to declare, “It’s not a toy, it’s a quadrocopter.” Or rather he tried to remain in place. The Walkodile pulled him into the air like a kite.

  Mary Rose lunged, coming up with a fistful of his gym shorts. She set him down and tried to rein in the rest. Combined, they were too powerful. It was let go or be dragged face first down the stairs.

  “Halt!” Alice screamed, her brows dropping and her chin jutting into her fiercest “teacher face.”

  The kids put on the brakes. All, incredibly, remained afoot.

  Alice inhaled, apparently fixing to deliver a stern rebuke. Her attention was diverted by a collective megawatt smile from the children. The drone was heading right for them, with an increase in altitude of a few inches as it passed over each step.

  The kids called to it, as if it were a puppy.

  Mary Rose looked to Alice, who, like her, grabbed on to one end of the Walkodile. “I guess it can’t hurt to look at it,” the teacher said. Turning to her charges, she added gruffly, “If you can stay still, monsters. Those propeller blades can chop off your fingers.”

  “They’re rotor blades,” said Ethan.

  Alice asked, “What’s the difference?”

  “Propellers propel, rotors lift.”

  “Can rotor blades hurt you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. Be still, all of you!”

  The tide of people going up and down stepped aside to let the drone pass. Pointing at the black block of foam the drone carried, a middle-aged man said to the woman accompanying him, “That looks like a rifle.”

  The woman with him stopped and stared at the metallic cylinder—like a gun barrel—that protruded from the foam. “Can’t be . . .” she said, more hopeful than certain.

  “Better safe than sorry.” Grabbing her elbow, he led her away.

  What if he’s right? Mary Rose wondered. This sure wasn’t like any publicity stunt or promotional gimmick she’d ever seen. The drone carried no ad or signage, save SPECTER, whatever that was, in fairly small letters that she had been unable to make out until right now, as the thing came to within ten feet.

  “Maybe we should go,” she said to Alice, having to raise her voice over the buzz of the rotors.

  “No,” the kids pleaded at once. “Please!”

  Alice looked over their heads to Mary Rose, with entreaty of her own. “Why not stay one minute?” she said, waving at the kids, standing still in two rows. Mary Rose interpreted Alice’s question as, “I get so few of these moments when the rug rats’ attention is fully occupied, where I can relax. Why not just let me enjoy it?”

  Mary Rose relented in spite of the fear clawing her intestines.

  The drone descended so that the barrel sat at her eye level, allowing her to see into the gaps in the foam to either side of it. The barrel—gunmetal gray—had a worn authenticity. It lacked the usual sleek shell of a rifle barrel, but its various bolts and pins and vents seemed designed for specific and genuine functions, as opposed to the relatively random placement on toy guns or the arcade versions. And the telescope atop it had no frills whatsoever, the way the good toys do.

  “Alice, I think it has a G-U-N,” Mary Rose said, cupping her hands on the nearest shoulders, aiming to steer the kids away.

  “A gun?” Ethan asked.

  “I so want to get a gun!” exclaimed Derek.

  An illuminated red dot appeared at his hairline and slid down his forehead. The barrel traced its path.

  Goose bumps jumped up all over Mary Rose’s body. She knew—or at least she felt that she did—that things were about to get very bad. She stepped between Derek and the drone. The red dot reappeared on her shirtfront.

  “Let’s go. Now!” she barked, tugging her end of the leash.

  The kids didn’t heed her order, yet, somehow, as though she’d come into superstrength, the whole Walkodile came with her. It took a beat for Alice to help; it appeared that she first had to process the situation and then shake off her shock. Soon they were moving down the stairs, their twenty feet moving in sync and at a good pace. Unfortunately, the drone stayed with them, the red dot fluttering about Mary Rose’s shirtfront, seemingly trying to fasten itself to the area of her heart.

  CHAPTER 22

  Gathering the two nearest children toward her, the younger of the two day-care teachers turned her back to the quadrocopter and attempted to inch down the Museum of Natural History steps.

  Two views of the scene, one recorded by the Department’s Domain Awareness cam at Eighty-First Street and Central Park West, the other from the museum’s security camera, were projected onto giant screens at the front of the secure auditorium at the NYO, the FBI’s New York headquarters at 26 Federal Plaza.

  Like the Strategic Information and Operations Center in Washington, this windowless SCIF accommodated more than a hundred people, each in a comfortable leather desk chair at a workstation with a landline telephone, a pair of power outlets, a legal pad with the Department of Justice logo, a cup holder, and an adjustable desk lamp. The sort of place where you stayed awhile. This was where the 9/11 Commission had been entrenched.

  Fisk sat at the farthest of five concentric half-circular table rows from the screens, watching the laser marker run up the young day-care worker’s sternum and the back of her neck. The red dot settled on the base of the skull, above the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain stem that controls the heart and lungs. Fisk felt the collective cringe of the hundred law enforcement people in attendance. Snipers, this crowd surely knew, aim for the center of the medulla oblongata, the “apricot.” From this proximity, even if the Ultimate Sniper app made colossal errors in calculating the effects of wind direction or velocity, the AR-15 aboard the drone would have zero difficulty in killing the woman. The only question was whether the round would bore through her and then into the head of the tall boy in the Yankees jersey.

  The quadrocopter pivoted toward the museum entrance, the laser dot falling on the face of the bronze Teddy Roosevelt, allowing the two teachers to hurry off, towing their charges with one of those giant multikid leashes that had become increasingly popular in the city. The device then drifted up the steps, where people hurried out of the way. Although the NYPD Domain Awareness cam provided audio, their dialogue was lost beneath the high-pitched whirring of the rotors. But it was clear from their faces that they had grown quite aware that this was no kid’s toy or publicity stunt.

  “Here comes our hero,” said Weir, who stood at the lectern at the head of the room.

  Both screens shifted to the Domain Awareness cam’s view of the middle-aged African American man bursting out of the museum lobby and onto the steps. He wore a Museum of Natural History security guard’s uniform, which resembled the NYPD’s summer class-B uni, the one with the light blue short-sleeve shirt. He drew a “26”—a twenty-six-inch black polycarbonate straight baton—as he charged the drone, meanwhile shouting to the people standing around watching—instructions to get to safety, based on their rapid departures.

  The guard circled the Teddy Roosevelt statue, meanwhile winding the baton back, apparently trying to sneak up on the quadrocopter and swat it from behind. As he stepped in front of Roosevelt’s horse, the drone spun around, as if it had sensed his presence. Its gun barrel flashed twice. Explosive reports drowned out all other sounds.

  The guard staggered backward, bloodstains blooming on his shirtfront, and crashed into the pedestal. More blood splashed the horse’s forelegs. He appeared to be unconscious by the time he’d slid to the base of the granite pedestal. Around him, people ran screaming in horror or dropped to the ground themselves, in order to
present the smallest target to the drone.

  “Security guard Earl Johnson was pronounced dead in the ER at Mount Sinai at one twenty-three P.M.,” Weir said.

  Fisk cursed himself for not doing more to get Yodeler.

  “And this is the last anyone saw of the shooter.” Weir waved at the screen nearest him, which, like the others, played a low camera angle of the drone descending the stairs to the subway, like just another hurried commuter. People trying to flee into the stations flung themselves out of the way, into the walls of the stairwell. Those exiting the station quickly got the picture one way or the other and did likewise. Another camera showed the drone sailing over the turnstile at head level, again parting the commuters before descending to a train platform and disappearing into the dark tunnel.

  “The end,” said Weir. “The thing headed into the D and F train tunnel uptown, where the MTA’s got no more cameras, and it hasn’t turned up on any others.”

  The screens reverted to a map of the United States and the FBI shield with the scales of justice and the motto Fidelity, Bravery, Loyalty.

  “Now let’s turn to putting this SOB in the Box.” Weir’s reference to the Metropolitan Correctional Center’s SHU—the infamous special housing unit—drew a smattering of applause. Like Fisk himself, most of the audience seemed to be waiting to hear the FBI agent’s plan before cheering it.

  “Detective Fisk of NYPD Intel has been leading an initiative to draw Yodeler into negotiations over the release of Merritt Verlyn, to at least put the shootings on hold, but . . .” Weir cocked his head at the giant video screens, frozen on the image of people screaming in horror on the steps in front of the Museum of Natural History.

  Fisk tasted bile. Had the agent meant to imply that the guard’s death had been a consequence of the lack of progress in the negotiation?

  “Here’s the latest from Yodeler,” Weir said as the image shifted from the e-mail Fisk had received from makarov228 on the way here:

  Jeremy:

  Another day, another death. Tomorrow too is another day, and tomorrow too there shall be another victim, needlessly, unless . . .

  Yodeler

  Before sending his response, Fisk had shared a draft of it with Weir and Evans. He sat with them in a borrowed office down the hall, watching their brows furrow and their lips purse as they each read over the draft, which had been printed out and carried in to them by a secretary. Fisk, who had e-mailed it to them ahead of time, had no idea why they couldn’t have just read the thing on their phones.

  Dear Yodeler:

  Be reasonable. Democracy entails due process. Even if the president himself decided to pardon Verlyn, the process would realistically take several days. Hold off for, say, 48 hours, until I give you a detailed progress report? You seem somewhat intelligent. Is that asking too much?

  Det. Jeremy Fisk

  Weir sighed. “This is just gonna honk him off.”

  “Part of him believes we’re going to release Verlyn because of what he’s doing.”

  “But that’s crazy.”

  “I think so too, but if he agreed with us, he wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Evans weighed in with a click of his tongue, his version of raising a hand. Thus getting Fisk and Weir’s attention, he said, “Why not ask him to please be reasonable?”

  “If any of the digs works, if he gets hot enough under the collar to fire off a response, mission accomplished,” Fisk said. “The hope is he’ll slip up and we’ll find out where he sent his angry response from.”

  Weir and Evans shared a look known to any child who has just told his parents of a wild plan involving the family car. Weir then shook his head. “You tell him.”

  “His last e-mail was from Diego Garcia,” Evans said. “Do you know what that is?”

  Fisk did. “Tropical island in the Indian Ocean.”

  “Do you know about the U.S. Navy base there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know about the CIA black site down the beach from it?”

  “I’ve heard the rumors, sure.”

  “The rumors are accurate. Diego Garcia is British territory, the facility was used for interrogation techniques prohibited on U.S. soil. The facility was closed over a year ago. Completely razed.”

  Fisk knew most of this. The rest, he guessed, he could have learned on any of a thousand spook fanboy websites.

  “Ain’t no one there now but the crabs,” added Weir.

  Evans sighed. “Yet it’s where Yodeler’s e-mail originated.”

  “Good,” Fisk said. “We’ve learned that he knows his black sites, and that he’s got mad tech skills if he can make it seem like he and his ten-buck burner phone are transmitting from there.”

  Now, in the NYO secure auditorium, as their e-mailed response to Yodeler was projected, Weir gave a brief summation of Fisk’s rationale, adding with, “We’re rooting for Detective Fisk to be on the money.”

  In other words, Fisk thought, if things went wrong, the FBI had distanced itself from the communication. And if things went right, the Bureau had supported it. Standard CYA procedure—Cover Your Ass.

  “So here’s what we’ve got on tap,” Weir went on. “The op name was chosen at random, in case you’re wondering.” With a nod, he cued Evans, who hurried into action with his laptop. Both of the big screens launched a PowerPoint slide show, commencing with, in bold white letters on black that reminded Fisk of an action movie title, OPERATION QUIZ SHOW.

  “First up is ATF,” said Weir, trading nods with someone seated in the front row of tables, the screens dissolved to the official shield of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which also featured the scales of justice. “They’re sending up two of their mobile crime labs. Technicians will be able to analyze bullets and shell casings at the scene, rather than waiting on Quantico. Now, casings and bullets can be cross-checked instantly against the ballistic evidence database at ATF’s national lab down in Rockville. They’re also deploying eighty-five of their special agents.”

  Good, thought Fisk. Boots on the ground. Finally. And top-quality boots. The ATF agents were a breed apart in terms of their ability to canvas neighborhoods and ferret out weapons.

  The screens shifted to the Secret Service’s star insignia superimposed over a photograph of four Secret Service agents guarding President Obama during an outdoor speech. Weir said, “Secret Service will also be assisting local police. They have units dedicated to protecting against the sort of scenario we’re facing.”

  The next slide up, a photograph of a blonde wearing a blue jacket the back of which was nearly filled with FBI EVIDENCE RESPONSE TEAM. She was snapping a photograph of a midnineties SUV at a gas pump—a Beltway sniper crime scene, Fisk guessed.

  “Also the Bureau has some four hundred agents around the country working the case, following leads on the gun we recovered earlier today, talking to people at every UAV manufacturer, every hobby shop, checking out social media. We’ve issued a carefully crafted note telling the public that we have reason to believe there’s a sniper and requesting their help. Plus we’ve set up a toll-free number and a reward and a Web presence to collect tips from the public, with teams of our agents-in-training working the phones.”

  Fisk got the familiar sense that something was wrong, that the operation was missing something. He couldn’t put a finger on what.

  Weir had the bases covered, including—and this perhaps was an historic first—working in concert with the NYPD: the Department’s Emergency Service Unit was deploying to rooftops and other appropriate vantage points along with the countersniper division, just to look for drones. Also, to intercept drones, Intel chief Dubin had brought in a team from NYPD’s office in Tel Aviv, Israel, which had been established to gather intelligence on Middle Eastern threats at the source. The team would deploy in New York City a version of Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome, the mobile all-weather air system that uses state-of-the-art APG-70 radar to detect short-range rockets and artillery shells fired fr
om distances of four to seventy kilometers away, and, lately, Hamas unmanned aerial vehicles. APG-70 saw everything bigger than a baseball, through rain or even thick fog.

  In addition, the Air Force would deploy a trio of Boeing E-3 AWACs Sentries, the aircraft that carried the distinctive thirty-foot-in-diameter rotating radar domes, capable of detecting and tracking hostile aircraft operating at low altitudes over any terrain. Commissioner Bratton had assigned one of the Department’s Hercules teams—elite, heavily armed, Special Forces–type police units—along with the NYPD aviation unit, 24/7, based on a pattern analysis of killings.

  The Aviation Division had fifty-seven cops in four Agusta A119 Koalas and three Bell 412s, each of which were equipped with 360-degree cameras and sophisticated sensors far more sensitive than those normally used by police. If that gang didn’t know already how to intercept a drone, Fisk would bet they were at their Floyd Bennett Field base in Brooklyn being briefed right now.

  What’s more, Weir went on, the JTTF was bringing in the intelligence community and its satellites. If that weren’t enough, the JSS—the Joint Surveillance System of the U.S. Air Force and the FAA for the atmospheric air defense of North America—was in on the act. Weir had sent in everyone but the Marines.

  The sum total was that Weir had managed to galvanize his fellow law enforcement officers into action; the room practically buzzed with their electricity.

  Fisk wondered what was eating at him.

  The crowd applauded and banged approval onto the table rows when Evans reprised the Operation Quiz Show slide, this time with the insignias of two dozen agencies beneath it, the way corporate benefactors are listed on the backs of the T-shirts given out at benefit 5Ks.

  And it hit Fisk: for all of its might and sophistication and number of boots, the joint operation had overlooked the simplest and fastest way to determine Yodeler’s identity: ask Merritt Verlyn.