by Mike Bogin
Things are going to heat up now.”
He ran the calculations through his head. Samples taken
+/- 6:30 a.m. With helicopter transport they could be in ten different quality labs inside thirty minutes. 7 a.m. Twenty past two now. 7.33 hours. Pressing hard, seventy-two hours to full profile. Minus 7.33. Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday 7 a.m. Would they even need a full match? How many snipers with size thirteen shoes would they have in their database? Anything under several hundred and they would already have DNA sample sets to compare on a narrow target field. Partial DNA could be sufficient to reduce to a tight group, potentially even an absolute. That reduced timeframe to less than 48 hours. Wednesday at 7 a.m. Less than two days.
“DOD has DNA records on every single member of the armed forces. By 7 a.m. Wednesday, if he’s been in the U.S. military, whoever cleaned this street will ID the shooter,” Al said.
He handed the car keys to Owen. “You drive.”
From the passenger seat, Al tracked down Mamaroneck’s city manager, who tracked down both the Chief of Police and the Supervisor of City Maintenance Services. Mamaroneck PD confirmed that a police unit had responded to an anonymous call about a motorcycle accident. No accident was found so it had been coded as a 148.9, false report.
Al tried phoning Matthew Turner. Voicemail. Bureau reception desk could not locate Turner, either. Al knew before he phoned that Turner would never step up to make the kind of stink necessary to get cooperation from Defense Intelligence or NSA or whoever it was who took the blood samples. Pressure washing and bleach don’t signal interagency cooperation.
Al’s mind was racing with questions and speculations. He was bloodied. Blood = DNA = Positive ID. Once the suspect’s identity was established, what would they do next? Put traces on all current credit cards, ATM, debits cards. Would the shooter use plastic? Would he have the sense not to? Would he have the cash on hand to have any choice? Plastic perfume/plastic poison. Plastic would locate him anywhere he went on the planet.
He was injured. How badly? The motorcycle had to have been functional. How badly could he have been hurt and still drive it? Would he need the use of both hands? Both feet?
Would he seek medical care? Would he still be using the motorcycle? Would he have other means of transportation? Once identity was established, they could get rental vehicles or any cars or trucks registered to the shooter. That was within easy database access.
Owen glanced over while Al dialed Major Gonzalez.
“He’ll keep away from medical facilities,” Gonzalez confirmed. “If he’s ambulatory he can field-dress wounds. He’ll sew himself up if he has to. With a simple fracture, he might even set his own bone.”
“I heard,” Owen told Al as he hung up. “He’s capable of sewing himself up or even setting bones. So tell me this…why does Superman shoot people?”
“Not just any people,” Al corrected. “There have been valets and waiters, caterers and chauffeurs, and he hasn’t harmed any of them, not that you’d know that from watching the news. He’s passed on plenty of easy targets. All he wants is rich people.”
“What’s he got against rich people?” Owen tried to imagine thinking about rich people, really rich people, but he realized he had never met any of them. Whatever he knew about super-rich people was all from television.
“This is about power, is my guess,” Al speculated. “Maybe he’s showing the rich that their money is worthless. Money can’t save them from the hand of death.”
“So what would send a soldier over the edge?”
Al watched the freeway ahead of them. He took his time framing the response. “Maybe he isn’t a soldier now. His career could be over. Then what? What does a sniper do after the military? Where could he put his skills to use? Take away a man’s job and you take away his manhood.”
“So his rifle becomes his dick?” Owen shook his head. Too simplistic. He hadn’t expected Al would be into Freud.
“I said ‘job,’ not ‘gun,’” Al chastised. “We like to think of how capable these men really are so long as we have them deployed overseas and killing Taliban. We don’t think a lot about these men after they come back home. Imagine your entire identify disappears and you suddenly need to reinvent yourself. Now add 360 million weapons in private hands. The image gets real murky real fast.”
Al looked down at the text coming in from Major Gonzalez. “In 2005, army tripled sniper training numbers to match its sniper-strength in battalion to Marine Corps at 27 snipers per battalion,” he read aloud. “Nine battalions per division. 3,000 active-duty snipers. Plus Marines and Navy equals 4,800 equals a nightmare.
With DNA ID in hand, Major Gonzalez says that DOD will deploy kill teams to every place connected to him.”
“Four-thousand, eight-hundred snipers,” Owen repeated. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph.” Then it occurred to him that 4,800 was just the tip of the iceberg. That number only included active-duty, not retired, not reserves, not police, and all only U.S. None of Dansk’s foreigners was included in that gathering.
“Just because they have the blood samples doesn’t mean they have an arrest,” Al pointed out. “He still has to be caught.”
Owen nodded. “Tremaine has connections inside NYPD dispatch. If anybody makes a move against Bigfoot inside the Five Boroughs, we’re going to find out.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Al drove Owen home to North Corona. When they turned off Roosevelt, Owen’s eyes fixed on a four-foot pile of their belongings heaped at the curb in front of the house. Callie rose from behind the stacks, then turned back toward the front steps and doorway. Four packed bags were outside the front door.
Casey’s bicycle crunched under both front tires when Al turned his Camry into the driveway, but Owen ignored the bicycle, panicked, and sprinted through to the kitchen. Empty. Taking three stairs at a time, he met Callie at the top of the staircase, her arms filled with clothing from the boys’ room.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
He tried blocking her way, reaching to take the clothes from Callie’s arms. She twisted and pushed past him along the wall before Owen wrapped an arm around her waist to stop her from going toward the door.
“I’m sick of it, Owen! Let me go!”
“Would you just talk to me? Just talk to me. OK? What are you doing?”
Callie leaned into his face, screaming. “I can’t stand it! When I look across the driveway and see Shelley’s, it makes me physically sick. Do you hear what I’m saying? It makes me want to vomit!” Owen’s arm dropped away from her waist. “I made the appointment to see a lawyer on Thursday, after work. I’m not living like this, Owen. I’m not raising the boys like this. No more! You hear me? I’m done.”
Owen’s legs melted out from under him, sitting him down hard at the top of the stairs. The screen door slammed behind her as Callie brought out the load to the curb.
Casey ran inside filled with excitement. “You ran over the old bicycle! Can I pick out the new one?”
Owen took the little red-head into his hands and kissed the top of Casey’s forehead.
“I want you to you to come Thursday with me to see the lawyer,” Callie told Owen. “The first visit is free. After that, we need to decide if we want to hire him. If you don’t come, I’m deciding for the both of us.”
What? Owen was confused. Was that how it worked? Go see the lawyer together?
“I’m not waiting around for these kids to be in high school so maybe house prices come back and maybe we can sell this place. Either we short sell now or we hand the frigging keys back to the bank. I don’t care anymore. I’m done. You hear me, Owen? D-O-N-E. Done.”
Owen understood. It was only the house. He exhaled, not realizing until then how he had been holding his breath. He began tickling Casey and both of them were instantly laughing. Callie was
tempted to throw her shoe. She would have done it, too, except that Liam appeared next to her, standing quietly, his intuitive sensitivity tuned-in, as usual.
“You going to come?” she asked.
“I’ll come.”
“For real? You mean it? No excuses?”
“For real. No excuses.”
“For real?”
“Yes.” Casey ran up four stairs and leaped down onto Owen’s neck. Liam reached his arms around Owen’s waist.
Al’s right, Owen thought. You hold on to your family.
When the screen door opened, Al was bent over looking at the mangled bicycle beneath his car. He turned to see Owen and his two boys coming out the door with glasses of lemonade.
“I made it,” Casey announced.
“Casey.”
“Well, I helped!”
“This is Mr. Hurwitz,” Owen told them. “Mr. Hurwitz works for the FBI. You guys know what the FBI is?” Both boys nodded in the affirmative.
“Al, this is Liam and this one here is Casey. Sons, shake hands with Mr. Hurwitz.” Liam and Casey both offered their hands, giving Al firm shakes.
Casey looked up at his dad. “He shakes funny.”
Out of the mouths of babes.
Liam ran inside their house, coming back with the baseball mitt he had been working-in since March, oiling it and sleeping with it under his pillow like his dad had shown him. He had a man’s mitt, too, and a soft foam baseball inside it.
“OK,” Owen agreed, “but just until Mr. Hurwitz finishes his lemonade.”
Liam moved back up the sidewalk, away from the Camry, half wound up and threw a nice pitch straight down the pipe into Owen’s glove. Owen returned it with a quick, light, arcing toss that Liam snatched out from the air. The next throw was a full windup, stylish, but too high and not as accurate.
“Get warm first,” Owen advised.
Liam nodded back and stretched his arm until Owen returned the ball. Casey returned from the back with his bat and stared down his older brother. Liam threw his fastball just above Casey’s whiffing swing, calling out “strike” to tease the four-year-old.
“Give your brother a chance,” Owen scolded softly.
Al placed his glass on the cement beside the car tire and walked over to the spot where Liam had been pitching. He raised his hand, signaling for Liam to toss him the ball, which he caught by clapping both hands against his chest. Al showed Casey the ball, then tossed it underhand toward the plate. Casey wouldn’t swing. Underhand was for little kids.
“I can do better,” Al promised. He reached out both hands to catch the return throw with his fingers out wide, looking like a clapping seal.
Without a word, Liam came up from behind and gently slapped behind Al’s right knee until he moved it to where Liam directed. He shifted Al’s left leg before miming an easy rotation for Al to try, slowing it down into smaller parts: the turn, the arm rising, moving the torso, then the hips. Liam repeated four times, with Owen smothering Casey in a hug so he would not get too impatient.
“Power comes from mechanics, back and legs,” Liam whispered. He repeated the motion, then placed the ball into Al’s throwing hand.
Casey lined up at the plate. Al hesitated for a moment, then twisted and let fly close enough that Casey took a hard swing, catching only air. Al waived off trying again, but could not keep himself from smiling.
Owen had told Callie that Al Hurwitz was outside, that he wanted her to meet him. Cleaning out the house could wait. But Callie wasn’t cleaning. She was inside the house, first calling her office manager for the name and telephone for the lawyer and then working on his secretary to fit them in for a Thursday afternoon appointment. Everything she had told Owen was the truth, so help her God, just with that one exception. She hadn’t called the lawyer. Not without Owen. Now that she had that accomplished, meeting Al was fine with her.
“Such good boys,” Al said in greeting as she stepped outside.
“We’re the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’ today,” said Callie. She was impressed when she saw that Al knew what she meant.
“Owen, you know when you went down to the lake swimming with the boys yesterday?” Callie asked. “Well, I had an idea.” She was excited to have Al, an FBI man, there to hear it, too.
They sat down at the backyard picnic table with the pitcher of lemonade.
“You know what,” she went on, “let me get my laptop. It’s easier to show you than to explain it.” After getting home she had been too mad about the house to bring in their luggage, but still she was too excited to wait any longer before checking out her theory on the web.
When Callie returned, she opened the laptop, bringing along with her a list of the events where the shooter had attacked. “If you Google one event, like, say, the Sands Point party, you get ten thousand hits now. Tons of newspaper articles, blogs, everything. But when I add in ‘events calendar,’ the list drops to eleven places.
See, when Mike asked how you would even find a billionaire to shoot if you wanted to, it clicked. I got to thinking about whether the events would have been listed on the web anywhere before they happened.”
Callie Googled to demonstrate. “So here, when you enter Sands Point and Han Dynasty Art Auction and Carver Fischer plus events calendar, look what you get.”
Al and Owen craned to look at the laptop screen.
“There are just two sites that had all three events listed ahead of time. See?” Callie opened OrmansNewYork.com, going back to July listings as well as August. Two-thirds of the events were cancelled after mid-July. Into August, Carver Fischer remained, along with just three other significant events within seventy-five miles of Manhattan. Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Charitable events had virtually shut down.
On the next site Callie opened, many of the same events were displayed along with detailed information, including maps, directions, and links to photographs and descriptions of the annual events held in prior years.
“How would you find a billionaire to shoot? Right here, that’s how.” Callie turned to Owen and could read from his expression that she had done well. They had DSL at the cabin; she would have shown him on Shelley’s computer if things had not gone to hell the night before.
“Oy,” Al gasped. “The two of you! First he thinks of different shoes running different sizes. Now this. You can’t imagine the thousands of man-hours being poured into this investigation. I haven’t seen anyone come up with this.”
Callie looked at Owen, who shook his head. Yes, he had taken credit for the shoes idea. He would explain later.
“Do you know what you may have here?” Al exclaimed. “If this proves to be where he selects his targets, we won’t have to run around like chickens with our heads cut off chasing after him subsequent to more attacks.”
Al saw where Callie was going with this and pressed her to take it to the next level. “Show me what other big-shot events are coming up.”
Then he saw their problem. If the Bureau became aware of specific high-value targets and then did nothing to cancel the events, the fallout would spark hearings, investigations, shuffling heads, and firings. No one could shoulder the responsibility for more dead billionaires.
Nothing was ever easy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Trudy had her back to him when Al came into their apartment calling, “Hi Mama, I’m home.”
TV on. Last game of a four-game home stand, verging on a Yanks sweep. Bottom of the 8th. Four to two Indians, two outs with runners on first and third. A-Rod coming up at bat.
Coming around the end table, Al dropped onto the flower-patterned couch beside her. No hello, no pat on his leg. A-Rod swept his right cleat across the plate, set his legs wide, flexed from the knees, worked two stretch swings, and then brought the bat up high behind him, the end bobbing like a cobra’
s head as it readied to strike. Windup, delivery, split-finger fastball. Inside. Called strike. Strike? Trudy said nothing, as if she didn’t care. That wasn’t like her. Not one bit.
“Mama!”
Trudy shifted slightly, not entirely turning toward her son, who stood quickly, turning on the nearest standing lamp before kneeling between his mother and the television screen, entirely blocking the second pitch. The cracking sound of solid connection between wood and ball had no effect upon her; she didn’t even try to lean around him to see.
Al put his hand under her chin and softly raised her face toward the light, Trudy offering no resistance. “Mama, tell me how you’re feeling.” Al watched her eyes, carefully looking to check her focus, making sure that both moved in unison. “Mama, who am I?”
“Alvin.”
Her voice sounded normal. Was he wrong, did her mouth move less on the left? Her right. “Mama, what inning is it?”
“You’re in the way.” The hard ‘A’ didn’t sound right. More like a waa.
“Mama, reach out your hands. Come on, give them to me.” Al placed his palms up in front of her. It could have been just obstinacy when she didn’t respond. She could be that way, not liking to be fussed over one minute, then petulant five minutes later because he wasn’t giving her enough attention. “Mama, give me your hands and I’ll move away from the TV.”
Trudy’s hands came up slowly. The right hand didn’t find its way onto his hands quite as evenly as the left.
“Mama, stick out your tongue.”
Her tongue came out, not like she was saying ‘Ahh’ for the doctor, but like she was a little girl teasing him. “Open your mouth wide. OK, now move it side to side. Now all around, like you’re drawing circles.” Trudy closed her mouth, refusing to draw circles. It would not have mattered.
