by Mike Bogin
Owen, who was in the middle of sipping at his coffee, lurched, spilling a splash across the desktop. Three hundred thousand hits? “I’m not following?”
“On YouTube. You’re becoming quite famous. If I can take a short twenty minutes of your morning, I would like to interview you for my blog.”
“The early bird gets the worm.”
“Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
“I was saying that you are up working very early.”
“Not at all. Quite the reverse, actually. I am speaking from New Delhi, where it is now after 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The local number you called is a VOIP line.”
Owen said the first words that came to mind. YouTube? Calling from India?
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I don’t know what you are talking about”.
“First of all, I want to thank you so much for speaking with me as my followers have many questions. In order of rank, their most popular question is what was it like for you, under rifle fire mind you, to remain on the boat to try to fight that raging fire when your companions had abandoned you?”
“I knew there was a fire extinguisher so I grabbed for it.”
“And it turned out to be useless. We could all see that. What did that make you feel? Frustration? Anger?”
“Frustration, I guess.”
“Were you aware that there could be an explosion at any moment?”
“I had to try putting out the fire.”
“Not only that, but after diving into the cold river, you swam back to rescue one of your companions. Our followers want to know, do you have lifesaving training? Are you an experienced swimmer?”
“No. I’d say I’m average. I don’t do much swimming. Most of the time it is with my kids.”
“We understand that you are married and have two young sons. Perhaps it was very like the way mothers have lifted autos off their children. You certainly appear proficient, having had the skills to summon when you needed them. Only your swift, selfless action rescued your companion from severe injury and quite possibly death when the boat did explode.”
“Look, I just did my job the best I could. Anyone would have done it.”
“The video doesn’t lie, Lieutenant. There were five people aboard your boat and only you alone acted so bravely.”
Owen looked around The Bunker, feeling suddenly conspicuous. Maybe only people in India knew about this. It was all ridiculous. He hadn’t done anything. Man, don’t let this get back to Callie.
“Your department awards a Medal for Valor that our followers feel strongly that you should receive. We have been asked whether it is possible for Indian citizens to nominate you.”
“I’m sorry. Look, I have to go now. Thank you.”
Owen pulled YouTube up on the laptop. The video was right there at the top of the Most Watched section on the Homepage. 480,000 hits over one night. Nearly a half-million…
Apparently, someone on the Arcadia had sneaked a camera onboard. Within the camera frame, the fire looked bigger. A lot bigger than he remembered it being. He hadn’t realized how bad it was. From the zoomed-in view off the Arcadia, the fire extinguisher looked the size of a Venti coffee. He only now realized that the puny fire extinguisher would have been practically useless even if it had been at full pressure. He was probably lucky that it didn’t work at all or he might easily have stayed on the boat until it blew. Jesus. The camera followed him diving off and swimming for shore then focused right on his face when he saw that Al was still only feet from the boat and he turned back to help. The video followed his arm going around Al and saw him swimming hard toward shore until help came out.
He really did look like a lifeguard. After watching the video, he was careful not to walk around with a stupid grin across his face.
Dansk took care of that in short order, calling Owen into a closed-office come-to-Jesus session. Dansk rose from her desk after he took his seat, then she circled around his chair, looking down at him using her height advantage.
“I’m running a hundred-man division within a thousand-officer unit, Cullen, and I keep having to take my time with one detective. You! With all the assets we have in fighting terrorism, I keep having to adjust to one cowboy!”
Think about the whole chessboard, Owen kept telling himself. The circling. The looking down at him. Of course she knew about the river. Dansk was dressing him down because she knew. This wasn’t about Owen having done anything wrong; this was all about controlling him to leverage the credit. She wants the credit for her three-billion-dollar machine. She wasn’t even probing into how he had gotten ahead of the curve, how he had placed himself between the shooter and the Twenty-Fives.
“We were assigned to protect people who might be targeted,” Owen responded. “After we went into the water, I had no communications capability. Neither did Tremaine. The first thing I had to do this morning was requisition a new cell phone.”
“You just happened to be at that spot, sixty miles away from here, along with two FBI sniper squads. It was a random fluke. That’s your story?” Her voice raised an octave. Not the usually controlled demeanor that allowed her to thrive in the male-dominated old boy network.
“Yes,” Owen replied. “I never want be a sitting duck like that again if I live to be a hundred.”
He almost smiled. Tremaine had said he was never any good at lying.
Dansk took a seat behind the tall, narrow table desk that exposed her legs. She spread her long, manicured fingers atop a paper and, like a giant spider, slid it across.
“This office will hold a press conference in one hour. Here are your authorized talking points. Stick to them. No more, no less.”
Owen read them through:
The New York City Police Department is part of a Joint Task Force that is assisting other departments across the region.
Protecting Americans is always our first mission.
Thanks to the joint intelligence work performed by the Counter-Terrorism Division of the New York City Police Department and other agencies, I was fortunate to be one of a group of officers in a position to help prevent a terrorist action.
The camera happened to be on me. Whatever I may have done is just one small piece of a much larger effort.
I am proud to serve the people of the great city of New York and to be a member of the finest police department anywhere.
It was all true, so why did it all sound like lies?
“Go have your fifteen minutes of fame, Detective Lieutenant.”
Al was going through a grilling so similar that he and Owen could have swapped places. And nobody was asking even the basic questions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“WTF, O?”
Callie knew. Her text was the first thing that came through on the new cell phone. Not 11 a.m. yet.
“Oh my God. O, oh my God,” she said when he called. “People have been calling all morning. Shelley showed me the video. What were you thinking?”
“It’s a mob scene right now,” Owen responded. “I’m at Police Plaza. They had me sitting down at a table with Dansk and the Chief of Police.” Dansk’s voice was deeper than the Chief’s sandy high-vowel sound.
It’s all moving too fast. “I’ll come home as soon as the hubbub dies down,” he promised.
“What do I tell the boys?”
“I’ll be home. Wait for me.”
Voicemail messages full. Christ. Emerson Elliot called? Is that a joke?
It wasn’t a joke. And a producer from “Letterman” wanted to have him appear. “Letterman”! “The Today Show,” too. Agents offering to represent him?
Only one message had anything to do with the job. “Call me back at the central reception,” Al asked. “384-1000. Did you get a new phone? We need to speak. Meet me at the co
ffee shop, you know the one. Leave me the time and I’ll be there.”
Owen had already shaken more hands this morning than he would usually shake in months. Strangers were recognizing him and stopping to say “Good job” and “Thank you.” Being tall with a big head of red hair wasn’t the best way to be inconspicuous.
Is Al dealing with it, too? Why the coffee shop and not at the Bureau?
It was strange, strange and uncomfortable; Owen didn’t enjoy his moment of fame. Emerson Elliot? Letterman?
During the press conference, Dansk took charge and directed the flow, setting Owen up to deliver the pat lines she had provided. She handled it like a five-million-a-year football coach; without ever offering up a single factual piece of evidence or any clue, Intel Division came off the big winner, just as she intended. He really did want to give credit to the department, so why did it sound like such bullshit?
One minute he was on Dansk’s shit list and the next minute she publicly puts him up for citation?
On the drive home, Owen dialed 384-1000 and then hesitated. Intel Division phone, Intel Division conversation. Anything he said could be circled straight back to Dansk, all legal and above-board.
He wasn’t going to say yes to either Elliot or Letterman, so should he even tell Callie, he wondered?
“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” Callie accused him. He was hardly inside the door.
“It all happened so fast, and then it was over. I didn’t expect any attention.”
Callie burrowed into him, squeezing tightly, and then changed her mind, pushing him back and punching him in the chest. Painfully. Callie hit hard and her fists were small and knobbly, too, like being jabbed by an elbow.
Owen reached up to massage the spot.
“Don’t do that, you hear me!” She really was scared.
He tried to explain, but Callie started to sob and then all he wanted was to hold her. The punch felt better than seeing her cry.
Owen couldn’t tell her that it was her idea that had made everything possible. Those people on the Arcadia owed their lives much more to Callie than to him.
“You could have been killed, Owen. Our sons have one dad, you! We come first. You hear me, O? Christ!”
“Honey, I’ve been on the job forever and this was only the second time I’ve been anywhere near gunfire. Everybody is making such a big thing of nothing. The only thing damaged was our cell phones.”
“I don’t like this, O. This is too much. You’re risking your life! What billionaire would ever cross the street to help you or me or for Liam and Casey?
No! For a bunch of billionaires who don’t care if you live or die? They don’t care! It’s us who care. They don’t get to have you, O. It’s not fair.”
Tears rolled out from puffy bloodshot eyes down into the corners of her mouth. Her breathing was uneven, interrupted by hiccups that she couldn’t get under control.
Owen took firm hold of Callie’s shoulders to move her into a chair then kneeled down in front of her to be level with her face. When he spoke, his voice was strong and clear.
“I’m not going on TV, Callie. I already told that to the public relations people at the department. I’m not going to play their hero to score points for anyone.
Callie, I will never put anything ahead of you or Liam or Casey. Not ever. But I’m going to get this guy. If I can.”
People don’t get to use guns to make their points, he thought. Not cops, not anybody.
“We are a system of laws, Cal. The laws are the glue that holds everything together. I serve the law.”
“You serve the law? O, what are you talking about? Glue? There is no glue. It’s all falling apart. This house, this family, this country. Fix this, O. Fix what you can touch. You can’t fix the rest.”
“Nothing is falling apart and I’m not going to get hurt. You hear?”
Callie tried to dab away her tears. “What do we tell the boys? They’re going to see that video! What do we say to them?” she wanted to know.
“Say their dad is a hero. There’s nothing wrong with those two looking up to their old man. We don’t need to say anything else. Heck, that video isn’t even close to all the crazy stuff they see on the television every single day. They’ll be fine. A couple days from now it will all blow over.”
“Why does this have to be you? This case is bad, O. Let somebody else do it!”
“Callie, I need to do this! I can’t walk away and leave the tough stuff for somebody else. This is ME, Cal! Dansk is chasing funding. The FBI and NSA and God only knows who else, they’re all chasing whatever it is that they’re after. But this guy is killing people, Callie, and I’m going to stop him. I’m one little guy with one job, but I’m going to get my job done.”
“I’m scared, O.”
“Don’t be.”
“Owen Patrick Cullen, you promise me you won’t get hurt. Look at me.”
“I won’t.”
“I want you to promise.”
“I promise.”
“You swear?”
“Yes! I swear. Everything is going to be fine.”
Owen left a message for Al, saying simply “three.” Then he found a ball and went looking for his boys. Middle of the week, middle of the day, and he was going to take a half-hour to play catch with his sons.
* * * * *
Owen arrived at The Blue Spoon first, so he ordered a cup of coffee at the counter. In the display fridge, a cheesecake reminded him of the last time he and Al had come there. The night before they went to the lake. Mike and Shelley moving. The lawyer. Bankruptcy.
He went to pay but the cashier wouldn’t take his money. “Your money is no good here, Detective. We’re proud to serve you.”
Al came in ten minutes late. On his way there he had stopped to purchase a prepaid cell phone. He also took extra time to walk through two buildings, front to back alley, both times hiding to watch if he was being followed by his own people. Even Turner had to know that it was more than a coincidence that Al had been on the river.
Coming through the door, Al caught the server’s attention by making the sign of lifting a cup of coffee, pointing at Owen, and then holding up two fingers for another of the same.
Owen saw Al then he looked back at the cashier, who was texting something on her cell phone. She had just taken a photo of him.
He suddenly realized that Callie had a point.
“Al, I don’t want to be this hero,” Owen affirmed. “We can tell Dansk and Turner about Spencer and the websites and the whole thing. Let them figure out what to do.”
“No!” Al snapped back with an intensity that Owen had not seen in him before. “Turner has had Gonzalez debriefing all day, but my bet is that Gonzalez won’t give Turner a thing. At least I hope not. If we’re going to finish this, you and me, we’re going to need Gonzalez.”
Al’s coffee arrived at the table. The server topped Owen’s cup, then lingered. “Can I take a photo?” she blurted, her cheeks blushing. She had passed her iPhone to Al and brought her face in close beside Owen before he could even respond. Al framed the shot and pressed the button, then turned the camera, taking a photo of himself.
“It takes a second,” she explained. “Press it and wait.” She leaned in again, resuming her wide smile. The second time Al got it right.
“Wait. You’re the one he rescued,” she exclaimed. “I want one of you, too.” Al posed with his lips together, making an awkward semblance of a smile.
“Well, we’re both famous,” Owen grumbled. “This is going to be really helpful, being an intelligence detective and being recognized wherever I go.”
“While it lasts, enjoy.” Al found himself enjoying the simple act of just looking at Owen’s face. He was enjoying everything, even looking forward to the $200 supply
of packing boxes that he had purchased online. The coffee tasted good, too, rich and deep with just a slight bitter edge.
After taking a second sip, Al locked eyes on Owen. “We can get him,” Al announced. “At the river, he held all the cards: position, timing, means of escape. That was our mistake. We are not going to make that same mistake twice.”
“Look, Al. I’ve got Callie and the boys to think about.”
“Shush. Hear me out. We’re not going to chase Bigfoot. This time, we bring Bigfoot to us.”
* * * * *
“Twenty-eight billion dollars!” EE shouted. “Put it end to end and that’s enough cash to reach the moon and halfway back again. You can’t take it with you, boys!”
His ratings were never higher. He had them talking about him on Sunday morning political talk shows, getting all serious about “Emerson Elliot…will he destroy free speech?” and “Is anything still sacred?”
“I’m telling you. Bullets is out there, one man against the machine. Real class warfare and all the forces that this mighty USA can muster haven’t been able to stop him!”
Emerson was proud of himself. For seven weeks he had kept up his energy, stayed on topic despite his ADD. Since the “Showdown on the Hudson,” Elliot really wanted Crazy Thumbs to get the red-haired cop onto his program. He still had no idea that Owen Cullen was the very same detective to whom he had handed the I KILL RICH PEOPLE index card.
But he was taking hits now, too. The Phoenix affiliate dropped the show, leaving zero penetration into Arizona. Austin was their last affiliate in Texas. Some asshole newcomer named Darrell O’Dow came out of nowhere and was stepping into Elliot’s slot as he faded across every red state.
