by Mike Bogin
Bidding in the room began at eight million dollars U.S., exceeding the auction house estimate from the start. Proxies offering bids for telephone bidders from within a side booth raised their paddles to ten million even. The winning bidder, Goujun Leong, countered bids up to twenty million dollars, smoothed his jacket, then resumed his seat without comment, displaying indifference. From that moment forward, Barrow Taylor resounded with record prices. A small jade-green lidded bowl no larger than a cereal bowl, with details on its top and sides to mimic the spineless remains of a dead sea urchin, was opened to reveal a complete town scene sanded and fired into one ceramic masterpiece. The single bowl, which fetched nine million Euros, was purchased by Charles Zhou, developer of New Shanghai.
Following the auction, management made appointments for the next day to coordinate the money wires, insurances, followed by the evening transportation of the lots to their new owners. Although Barrow offered its own highly-skilled services, their Chinese buyers, they well knew, would bring their own curators in to supervise the foaming and crating for each and every item. Leong had secured the services of the director of transportation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His team would execute all packing, with smaller items joining Leong for the return flight on Leong’s personal aircraft.
The transportation hub was located off East 70th. Directly across the street was a 24-hour parking garage. On the corner, next door to the garage, the pre-war brick apartment block was under renovation, its spaces gutted to the lath and plaster walls ahead of being reconceived as prime rentals for the chic midtown marketplace. On the south side of the building, fifth floor, rear apartment, the air-conditioning unit was removed, leaving only a metal grate between the empty apartment and the street-side, directly viewing the twenty-foot wide by ten-foot high steel doors on Barrow and Taylor’s north side. A white Mercedes Sprinter van pulled into the loading area coming east from York Avenue, followed by a black Mercedes 600 Pullman that maneuvered in parallel to the building.
The driver and his front seat passenger stepped out at once, both attired in black dress suits despite the lingering hot summer air. The passenger scanned along the street and buildings before opening the rear passenger-side door to allow Zhou outside. Zhou, dressed in tan pants and a white shirt, remained on the telephone as his packing crew worked.
Coming from the east and heading west toward York Avenue, Guojun Leong arrived, bringing with him a temperature-controlled cushioned transportation trailer on specialized air-suspension designed to minimize both bounce, pitch, and yaw such that an unprotected egg could be safely carried straight to JFK. At a cost of one million pounds sterling, Lloyd’s would insure the ninety-eight million, seven-hundred twenty-six thousand pounds sterling, over 1.3 billion renminbi, cargo against damage or theft until it was on the tarmac at BCIA, Beijing.
Guojun Leong, slight and dapper in deep blue summer-weight wool and wearing a blue and red Hermes scarf tied into an Ascot, stood to the south side of the south door with his hands clasped. Only his right index finger indicated commands, up and down, right and left, stopping as his precious cargo was loaded. Behind him, three German curators traveling together arrived to drink the champagne offered by Barrow and Taylor’s gracious management. All three intended to fly together on Lufthansa as far as Berlin before departing to their own art institutions. Doctor Heinz, supervising director of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, was immediately recognized and greeted by Charles Zhou, who had met Herr Doctor while viewing exhibits in Shanghai.
Right on time. He looked over her tailored clothes through the scope and moved to the white man, who wore an older suit; a button hung loosely, faded stains on the lapels. Something about the man, Leong, made the prospect of killing him a pleasure. He sighted on the second man’s temple as Zhou whispered something into the white man’s ear.
Tsui Huang smacked the Polo-shirted shoulder of a young black worker, disapproving his efforts to use brute force to raise the wheels of his dolly over an inch-high steel lip along the base of the garage doorway. (Select 1.) Guojun Leong stiffened and turned imperiously, making no comment. (Select 2.) Charles Zhou (Select 3).
The Mk-110 is a KAC-manufactured gas-operated rotating bolt semi-automatic weapon readily available in forty-nine of fifty states, firing a 7.62mm, lightweight at 3.5 kilograms (empty), and designed for quick acquisition multi-target firing with high accuracy using stock loads. BRASS. Select 1, on 2, on 3. In under one second, all three were dead.
* * * * *
“Shut the damned doors,” the stockroom manager screamed. Tsui Jackie Huang was positioned with her torso outside the doorway, but her left arm and the remains of her head were directly under the door so that Barrow staff had to stop the door from dropping down all the way, leaving it hovering a foot above the floor. The lifeless bodies of Guojun Leong and Charles Zhou lay still on the pavement outside, each shot through the head.
Barrow’s New York managers rushed to exert damage control that was beyond anyone’s ability. Each held cell phones and shouted orders as attorneys both in New York and in the UK—where they had been awakened just before 5 a.m.—initiated examination of liability factors. Barrow’s British solicitors vacillated; the auction house bore no responsibility whatsoever for the artifacts themselves as these had already left the possession of the auction house, but there was no clear definition regarding to what extent Barrow’s security responsibilities actually might be faulted, nor could they conclude with certainty that Barrow bore no responsibility beyond its walls, since no one could collect his or her purchases without having to have been situated in proximity to where the three victims had been shot. Fortunately, there had been very little precedent for litigation amongst the newly moneyed Chinese.
A thick crowd gathered on the corner of 70th and York, gawkers leaning and stretching over each other to see the bleeding corpses. Two police units blocked off 70th. The center of the street stood deserted, with a dozen or more pedestrians grouped inside the entrance to the 24-hour car park. Leong’s driver and bodyguard crouched behind the Mercedes cargo van.
From inside the open garage doors, Barrow’s staff pressed against the interior walls. The young black staffer who had been getting scolded moments before by Tsui Jackie Huang leaned out from the interior wall and snatched a glimpse, looking for any sign of the shooter. Had he been a target, the sniper might easily have shot an entire magazine through his brain.
Owen and Tremaine fought through traffic, then Tremaine took charge of the uniforms on scene. Inside seven minutes from the time of the shootings, Owen coordinated additional units to cordon from 1st Avenue to the East River Esplanade, from East 68th to East 74th. SWAT squads jogged heavily, spreading themselves through every building on the north side of 70th. Their own MK11s set with the safety off, fire-ready.
“Here,” shouted one of the SWAT team, pointing toward the alterations to the A/C grate where the thin metal ribs had been spread wider, fourteen and seventeen inches above the floor height, at the precise barrel and scope level for a prone-position shooter. He rushed to the door jamb then blocked anyone else from entering.
The shooter was long gone. Owen’s chest still thumped from the adrenalin rush, but again they were chasing from behind. A wall of plastic sheeting hung inside the construction site behind the SWAT officer; Owen stepped through then kneeled down. The sight-lines out the A/C grate looked directly toward the metal doors of the auction house. The moment Owen stood up, he realized what to evidence to move on and fast—his pant legs were filthy. Whoever had been lying there had to be covered with construction dust. The whole place was a dense dirty-white powder of wall plaster along every surface.
Street cameras. Someone on the cameras between 2:05 and 2:12, when the call went in through 911. Somebody five-ten to six-feet-two, probably white, moving like an athlete, carrying a large bag or satchel, would be there with a dousing of that construction dust. Owen texted directly to Christiana
Dansk. “Expedite immediately.”
He hit ‘Send,’ then eight men in nearly identical street clothes, sky blue shirts, dark gray pants, and light gray waist jackets parted the plastic sheeting.
“Clear out!” they ordered, shoving past the NYPD SWAT commando like he was their placemark. “We have this under control. Clear this area now.” The accent was pure Boston Red Sox.
Three of the NSA agents circled behind Owen and Tremaine, opening their arms to herd them out through the plastic-masked entrance.
“Hey! Fuck off,” Owen screamed into the agent’s face. He jabbed a single finger into the guy’s chest. “You all get the fuck outta here. This is NYPD territory.”
The scuffle ended as soon as it started. Two of the blue shirts caught Tremaine off-guard, raising cameras and shooting a fast series of motorized photos so that Tremaine instinctively tried to shield his face, making him look in the photos like a criminal wanting to stay out of the papers. Two more blue shirts stepped to the side of the five of them and raised Tasers at point-blank range.
“National Security trumps your local authority, detectives,” the NSA lead investigator barked. “Take it down a few notches, detectives. Assaulting federal agents and interfering with a federal investigation will get you tased, cuffed, and transported. If you want to represent your department that way, you will be accommodated.”
One hundred thousand Americans employed by 1,271 governmental organizations and 1,931 private companies work on national intelligence. None of them answered to local law enforcement.
Tremaine was plenty angry, but nothing like the look he caught in Owen’s eyes. They were ordering him off his crime scene on his case in his city? Tremaine stayed close, choreographing the tackle he expected to put onto his partner before they both got tased.
Owen puffed hard, inhaling through his nose, blowing out from his mouth, and slowly walked it off, willing himself to turn toward the cut in the plastic sheeting with his hands held up in front of him, palms open. They would have all walked out, too, had one of those men not made the mistake of touching Owen’s back.
Owen spun on a dime and brought his forehead cracking into the other man’s forehead with force enough that the other man buckled down onto one knee. Owen whipped back his leg then refrained before kicking the NSA agent’s face in.
When Owen turned again to walk out, Tremaine beamed. They would have explaining to do, but it was worth it. Tremaine loved seeing the Eagle Scout shift down to the lower gears.
Owen’s head throbbed, but they held the upper hand. NSA could have the room. The cameras were NYPD.
NYPD taped off the garages on 72nd. The NSA never came out to the victims.
Al Hurwitz, along with Eduardo Gonzalez, the army major, arrived to find the room filled with NSA operatives. The two of them made no attempt to get inside. Gonzalez squatted with both legs straddling the first victim, leaning his face in close to examine the entry wound. He was accustomed to the metallic smell of iron-rich red blood. Al gagged; he had to rush across to the opposite gutter to spit again and again to keep from getting sick; he could never get used to crime scenes.
Owen pounded on the garage door, identifying himself as police and ordering the door be raised. As it came up, the sunlight glimmered off the diamond tennis bracelet on Tsui Jackie Huang’s extended arm. A thick pool of blood surrounded her face. It was flattened down more like a mask than a human being. The distinct entry patterns and the particularly acute fragmentation had destroyed the head beyond recognition.
Gonzalez easily identified the wound patterns. “This was no .270. Looks most like a 7.62mm.” Nobody who had served two tours as a sniper and field commander in Afghanistan would have a hard time recognizing it.
“What weapons fire a 7.62?” Al asked.
“Much more common than the .270s,” Gonzalez replied. Hundreds of thousands of weapons in private hands fire the 7.62s. “Every military sniper knows weapons firing 7.62mm rounds. Same ammunition used with the AK-47.” Most common assault weapon in the world. Chinese knock-offs are available at every gun show in the country for $600. Conversion kits making them fully-automatic are sold separately on the internet.
“Illegal to convert them, but pretty much anybody could buy the weapon and covert it yourself the next day for $750,” Gonzalez explained.
Owen was already on the telephone. He wanted the tapes, everything along York and over to the subway station at 69th and Lex. “Look, get me a ten-block radius from 72nd and York. Everything. And let’s get somebody on your end who can dial right in on what I need. Go from 10 p.m. Tuesday to 3 p.m. today, starting with the closest and moving outward.”
Al was thinking along the same lines. New York wasn’t yet quite like London, with excellent camera coverage in 94 percent of public streets and venues, but coverage was getting close. The cameras had just produced key evidence that led to closing on Chambers’ murder.
Al’s brain quickly moved through fine detail. It was no secret at all that a roomful of extremely rich people would have been present the day before. The auction was publicly advertised and Barrow’s had gone to significant extra lengths to assure their security. But the shooter had not attacked before, during, or immediately after the auction. So how could the shooter know that two Chinese billionaires would both be there at that same time the next day?
Who knew that the victims would be there? He cornered Barrow management and rapidly peppered them as to when were the pickups scheduled and how they were scheduled. Was everyone who knew about the pickup working for the auction or were there third parties, also? Are the staffers bonded? What were the security measures used in the hiring process? Were there any new hires?
Al asked to be led to the outer and inner offices and scanned the rooms. Because scheduling could be done only after the auction, it was coordinated in the management offices at the time that purchase arrangements were coordinated with the main cashier. Within each room was a fresh bouquet, one of irises, the other of hyacinths, and each with a large bow in coordinated color. According to the reception staff, these were delivered on Monday with cards attached. “Many thanks. Bernard Drury” These were attributed to the impressionist collector who had purchased the lovely Bonnard in April. Al did not bother to ask for permission before examining the flowers more closely while the senior manager and head of security watched him. The Bonnard purchase at auction would have been reported through the press and on the web. The flowers might have been sent by anyone.
Rubbing the ribbon between his thumb and fingers, he found what he was suspected. The wire and vhf audio bug were threaded through the ribbon.
“Anyone within 300 hundred feet might have listened in on every conversation taking place within this room.”
Barrow’s head of security blanched, wondering about his career marketability if a listening device and a triple murder were to cost him his job. “My God. What sort of a person can even get one of those, those things?” he asked.
Al frowned at him as though he were stuck inside a time warp.
“Who can get these things?” Al huffed. “Anyone with a web connection and a credit card, that’s who! Less than fifty bucks.” But would the military train for that?
Al wanted to hear Gonzalez’ thoughts, but not if it cost them time. He and Owen needed to get to the street camera video files. The major could ride with them.
“At security-level, no,” Gonzalez explained when they met up. “But any good TL, yes. NCOs ready to lead sniper teams have gone through extensive mission experience plus continuing education training in communications, in tactics, in camouflage, and survival training. Implanted listening devices and sound parabolas are in their arsenal for intelligence-gathering. Satellite links and satellite imaging are keys to tactical advantage.” A military sniper could reasonably be expected to employ the use of that listening device. “One badass, w
orking alone.”
Al hoped for reciprocity, that Owen could bring him along with Major Gonzalez inside The Bunker. NYPD and New York Transit Police computer servers archived the enormous digital packets from video surveillance. Al knew only the general specs and hoped to see the system in operation. The Bureau had nothing to compare.
Outsiders were not welcomed into The Bunker except during controlled official “funding parades” when Dansk would charm members of the House Appropriations Committee and both House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Owen texted Dansk for permission without much hope of success.
When he received no answer from Dansk after three minutes, Owen apologized quickly then entered, leaving Hurwitz and Gonzalez waiting outside.
“I requested a tech,” Owen shouted, having relied on his text to generate support on the fly as he ran toward the darkened operations room with its huge high definition monitors.
When no tech arrived, Owen snatched hold of the keyboard and mouse, pulling down menus from the header that supported a mapping tool, search zones, timeframes, and copy functions. Using the mapping tool, Owen displayed the camera matrix overlaying the streets of New York’s boroughs. He clicked once on Manhattan, isolating in on the map view. Right-clicking opened radius and polygon tools for highlighting specific areas. There were six street cams within the area surrounding 71st and York, with one covering the street along York out beyond the corner at E 72nd. Owen placed the cursor over that camera symbol and double-clicked. With the camera signal in the upper left of the screen, Owen saw just below that point a four-arrow spot for directional panning. The immediate view was in real time; police tape and squad cars still blocked the corner at 72nd. Two white ME vans were parked along the sidewalk so obviously the bodies had not yet been transported.
