Dark Side of the Moon

by Alan Jacobson

“We know who you are.”

  “I’ve led men into battle. I’ve faced down Taliban warlords. Iraqi commanders. Islamic terrorists who wanted nothing better than to put a bullet in my brain or cut off my head. I served to defend our country. For you. For your families. For your freedom. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

  “It matters sir. But you also know it’s important to follow orders. And that’s what we’re doing right now.”

  “Sometimes you have to question those orders if you know they’re blatantly wrong.”

  “Really sir? I happen to know you never told that to any of the troops under your command.”

  Was this one of my men?

  “Son, I can tell you served. Ask yourself this: how can this possibly be helping your country? Think of the damage it’ll do if I’m kil—”

  “I told you to shut up!”

  Something hard struck his skull, his head bounced against the van floor … and once again, everything went black.

  17

  Grand Hyatt

  Floor 22

  New York City

  Shit!” Rodman said, doing his best to cover the woman’s mouth and simultaneously keep her body planted firmly against the mattress. “Give me something to tie her up.”

  Zheng shoved the man’s body aside and ripped off the pillowcase.

  While Zheng held her down, Rodman wrapped the material around the woman’s face, forcing open the jaw and wedging it in her mouth. Rodman grabbed another and tied it around her eyes. “Get her ring. And his wallet.”

  Rodman pushed his thigh and leg against her body while Zheng pulled an emerald-cut diamond off her finger, found the man’s the wallet, pocketed the cash, and removed the driver’s license.

  “Bedsheet.”

  Zheng ripped it off the mattress and tied the woman’s legs. They set her on the desk chair and fastened her limbs to the wheelbase and armrests.

  Three knocks on the door.

  Fuck! Rodman was not sure if he said it aloud, but he rushed to the front of the room and let Vail in. He told her to be quiet—but she saw the woman in the chair—and gave him a look: “What the hell’s going on?”

  He leaned into her ear. “Not Lansford. We screwed up. We’ve gotta get out of here. We’ll take the stairs. You take the elevator.”

  Rodman nodded at Zheng, who bent over in front of the woman.

  “We’re gonna leave now. Don’t make a sound. We got what we came for. No one’s gonna get hurt—unless you scream. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “No sounds for fifteen minutes. Understand?”

  Again, she indicated agreement.

  “We’ll be listening. You call for help sooner than that, we know where you live.” He held up the driver’s license. She nodded vigorously.

  They quietly left the room and pulled the door closed then jogged down the hall. Vail pressed the elevator button as her colleagues entered the stairwell.

  Forty-five minutes later they rendezvoused back at their car, which was parked a block from Bryant Park.

  “Now what the hell do we do?” Vail asked as she turned over the engine.

  “We get some sleep. And tomorrow we try again.”

  “How?” Vail asked. “How’d we get it wrong? We had his room number.”

  “We got it earlier in the day. He must’ve changed rooms. Maybe he didn’t like it. Or the heater broke. Or he’s not a smoker and the place reeked. Take your pick. All that matters is that the NYPD’s gonna be alerted. Hopefully they’ll think it’s a robbery.”

  Vail snorted. “How many robberies do you think involve an injection of tranquilizer? Hopefully this guy is somebody, a public figure of some kind. That’ll keep the detectives busy trying to figure out who has motive.” She turned left on West Forty-Third Street.

  “Hopefully we weren’t caught on camera,” Zheng said.

  “We were,” Vail said. “Somewhere. But unless they’re looking for us, I don’t see how that’ll lead to anything. This is New York City. Always people on the streets, no matter what the hour is. Especially around Grand Central.”

  “For what it’s worth, I sent the guy’s name and address off to OPSIG,” Zheng said, pocketing his phone. “Maybe they can do a little magic to cover our tracks.”

  “Our people will be monitoring the NYPD,” Rodman said. “If anything weird comes up about a robbery at the Grand Hyatt, they’ll deal with it. Somehow.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, while en route to Aerospace Engineering, Rodman took a phone call from Dykstra at the Pentagon.

  “Looks like Lansford will be joining their chief executive officer, Bill Lastings, and chief technology officer, Scott Durn, at Citi Field for a Mets game tonight.”

  Vail laughed. “I grew up a Mets fan.”

  “And now?” Rodman asked.

  “Still a Mets fan. What can I say, I’m a masochist.”

  “And the Nats?”

  “Nats fan too. Except when they play the Mets—which is way too often.”

  “I have a hard time with baseball,” Zheng said. “Too slow.”

  “That’s because you have ADHD,” Rodman said.

  “No, it’s because I can’t sit still for three minutes waiting for the pitcher to adjust his hat, spit on the mound, go through all his superstitious gyrations just to get ready to throw his next pitch. I lose interest. My mind starts to wander to other things.”

  “Like I said,” Rodman said with a laugh.

  Vail found a parking spot and fed the meter.

  “Citi Field is a major sports venue,” Vail said. “The Mets are competitive these days, so they fill the stands—at least 35,000 people, if not more. Not exactly an optimal place to make a covert move on someone. In fact, the words ‘covert’ and ‘sports stadium’ don’t go together.”

  “You got another idea?” Zheng asked. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Rodman looked up at the skyscraper. “We don’t even know if he’s in this building. He could be at a meeting five miles away.”

  Vail thought a moment. “Got an idea. Meet you back here in an hour, ninety minutes at the outside.”

  “Where you going?” Zheng asked.

  “Checking out my idea.”

  Vail hopped the subway and took it uptown to the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative’s headquarters, the brain of the city’s Domain Awareness System. A marriage of software and hardware designed jointly by the NYPD and Microsoft, it was the ultimate crime-fighting tool that utilized a several thousand-strong network of closed circuit cameras, radiation sensors, audio microphones, license plate readers, and nuclear detectors. Deployed all over the city on officers’ utility belts, trucks, boats, helicopters, and police cruisers, the devices took air samples, used video with facial recognition and audio to find problems—or to help locate a perpetrator if a crime had been committed.

  One of the chief operators of the system—Vail knew him only by his first name, Isamu—was a trim man who spoke fast and worked his keyboard faster. Vail wondered about his name, as he did not look Japanese.

  Vail used her faux Department of Defense identification to get Isamu to the security window. He saw her and did a double-take, then had her buzzed in.

  “Department of Defense? I thought you were with—”

  “Still am,” Vail said. “Long story. And even if I had the time, I couldn’t tell you.”

  He gave her a sideways glance as he led her back to his ops center. “Okay. That’s weird. But whatever.” After a few more steps, he said, “Undercover?”

  “Yes, you could say that. So you haven’t seen me today.”

  “Right, sure. And what can I help you find?”

  “Not what. Who. Name’s Jason Lansford.” Vail gave him a photo she had gotten from the DMV records and another they had obtained from his LinkedIn page. It loo
ked a lot more recent than the one on his driver’s license.

  “Any idea where he might’ve been at any point in the day?” Isamu asked as he fell into his ergonomic chair at a workstation that faced large wall-size displays.

  “Matter of fact, yeah. Not for sure, but probably.” Vail gave him the address of Aerospace Engineering and approximate times to check.

  “So how’d you get the Japanese name?”

  “During World War II,” Isamu said as his fingers danced across the keys, “my dad was stationed in Tokyo and met my mom. I was named after her grandfather, who was MIA at the end of the war.”

  They were interrupted by a beep from Isamu’s computer.

  “Got him! Eight-eleven. Entered the Aerospace Engineering building. I can track him into the elevator and … that’s where I lose him. Give me a minute to see if he leaves.”

  “I knew you’d be able to help.”

  “You knew, huh?”

  “I hoped.”

  “More like it.” He laughed. “Oh, there you are. With two other guys.” He leaned closer and looked across the room at the screen. “You’re undercover, eh?”

  “Save it,” Vail said. “Just tell me if Lansford left the building.”

  A couple minutes later, Isamu sat back. “He did leave, about … eleven minutes before you arrived. Took an Uber cross town to this address.” He jotted it down on a pad and handed it to Vail.

  “Grand Central Station?”

  Isamu grinned conspiratorially. “Maybe he went to the Tumi store because he needed a new suitcase. Or he bought a deli sandwich from Mendy’s.”

  Back to his hotel room? Or maybe he took a train somewhere.

  “Did he leave Grand Central?”

  “You know, I have real work to do,” Isamu said.

  “I’ll get the violin out of my car. Oh, wait. I took the subway.”

  Isamu laughed. “Give me a minute, I’ll let you know if facial rec picks him up leaving the premises.” He moved a joystick and scanned video in rapid fast forward mode—but the computer beeped again and he froze. “Got it. He did, indeed, leave. Three minutes ago.”

  “Headed?”

  “North on Forty-Second. And … then he caught a cab.”

  “This guy is killing me.”

  “You look quite healthy to me. Very healthy.”

  The comment jarred Vail’s attention. “Watch those hormones, Isamu.” She gestured at his ring. “You’re married.”

  “Yeah, so? I’m not dead.”

  “Keep looking at me like that and you will be.” Vail straightened up. “Let me know where he goes. And if you can figure out what he did while in Grand Central, that’d help too. It’s important.” She pulled out a pen and jotted the number down on a pad. “When you’re done, eat this piece of paper.”

  “Eat it?”

  “Shredding it works too.”

  Isamu hesitated a moment, then said, “For you, anything.”

  Vail rolled her eyes. “Good seeing you again, Isamu. Until next time.”

  VAIL MET RODMAN AND ZHENG near the entrance to Aerospace Engineering thirty minutes later. She explained where she had gone and the capabilities of the Domain Awareness System. Rodman knew about it, but Zheng did not.

  “Anything?” Rodman asked.

  “Yeah. He’s not here. He went to Grand Central and then caught a cab.”

  “Back to Grand Central?” Rodman asked.

  “He needed a new Tumi suitcase.”

  “What?”

  “No idea what he was doing there,” Vail said. “Could’ve been having lunch in the food court.”

  Vail’s phone buzzed with a text from Isamu:

  reviewed gc cams

  he bought a tumi ;-0

  actually he met a woman

  in front of apple store

  no hits in system

  sending you a screengrab

  “Hmm. So he apparently met a woman at Grand Central.”

  “Do we have an ID?” Zheng asked.

  “Photo’s coming through but she’s not on any watch list. Maybe Dykstra can get something not available to the NYPD or listed in federal databases. Could be completely meaningless. Business associate. Friend who lives in New York.”

  “Or another spy,” Zheng said. “His handler.”

  “You’re right. We can’t deal in possibilities without facts.” Vail became aware of two men who were eyeing her a couple dozen yards away. “I think we should move. We’re attracting attention staying here so long.”

  “You’re the one attracting attention,” Zheng said. “That red hair of yours.”

  Yeah, that’s it. “Then again, we are a bit of an odd trio: a red-headed Caucasian woman, a huge black dude, and a short, stocky Chinese guy.”

  “Hey, New York’s a melting pot,” Rodman said as they made their way over to their car.

  “We have tickets to the game tonight?” Vail asked.

  Rodman nodded as they reached the vehicle, casually keeping watch over the two men, who were now over a block away. “We do.”

  “We know where Lansford’s going to be. Let’s focus on that. Check the place out, try to determine where he’s sitting and how we’re going to take him.”

  “I agree.” Zheng climbed behind the wheel and cranked the engine. “We’ve got time to plan it right. Let’s use that to our advantage.”

  18

  Vandenberg Air Force Base

  Eisenbach walked into the multimedia room and took a seat next to Kirmani.

  “Where are they?”

  “Headed to rover training in the desert,” Kirmani said. “What’d you find?”

  Eisenbach gestured at the man seated to his right. “Play it.”

  They turned to the screen, where a wide-angle view showed the corridor leading to the bedroom shared by DeSantos and Uzi. A broad figure stepped into the frame, filmed from behind.

  “Well that’s super helpful,” Kirmani said. “How about the reverse angle when he comes out of their room?”

  The technician hit a button and the film fast-forwarded a few seconds to the door opening. He played it at normal speed as the man stepped through, walking toward them.

  “He’s turning his head,” Eisenbach said, “shielding his face from the cameras.”

  “Where he thinks the cameras are—where the base cameras are. Smart move putting them in the opposite location. But … that hat.”

  A deep shadow created by the bill of a baseball cap obscured the man’s features, rendering an identification near impossible.

  “I’ll see if our guys can take that frame and brighten it enough so we can get an ID.”

  “Even if you can’t, analyze his gait, his clothing. Did you check for prints?”

  “Couldn’t,” Eisenbach said. “The black powder would’ve made a mess and there was no time to clean it up before Hector got back. They dusted the envelope and paper but there was nothing.”

  Kirmani leaned in close and pointed to the man’s shoes. “And check that out too.”

  “What do you see?”

  “When I was growing up, I worked as a busboy in my uncle’s restaurant. They used rock salt on the kitchen floor to absorb the liquid from the dish washers, who sprayed water all over the goddamn place. The salt kept people from slipping on the wet concrete but I hated it because it stuck to my shoes and caked up around the edges of the sole.”

  “So you think that’s what we’re seeing there?”

  “Sure looks like it. Check it out. And compare the time code on the video with what the kitchen staff was doing at that time.”

  Eisenbach nodded. “Then we’ll see who doesn’t have an alibi.”

  Kirmani straightened up. “I’m pulling everyone off kitchen duty. Just in case I’m right. We’ll keep them confined till
we know who’s involved. We can’t have them poisoning our crew.”

  “They’re probably safe for the moment,” Eisenbach said. “They left Hector the note for a reason. He’s of no use to them dead.”

  Kirmani looked at the frozen onscreen image. “I’m not taking any chances.”

  19

  Citi Field

  Flushing, New York

  Vail entered the stadium fifteen minutes before Rodman, who had followed Zheng inside. People with business dinners at the upscale Porsche Grille, located beyond the left field wall and featuring a stories-high wall of glass, came early for a comfortable meal. Vail was hoping that Lansford would fall into that category.

  “I tried to case the Porsche Grille but it’s not open yet,” Rodman said via cell phone to Vail and Zheng. “Might be a place where Lansford and the execs would eat.”

  “Still nothing on the woman he met in Grand Central,” Vail said. “They’re doing a general population search, which will take longer. There are what, 9 million in the city?”

  “I’m sure they’re being smart about it,” Zheng said. “Half are men and another 20 percent are minorities, another chunk are brunette and—”

  “Do we have a ping on his cell phone yet?” Rodman asked.

  “No. But if he’s on the company clock, I have to think he’s going to turn it on soon. I’m surprised he’s kept it off this long.”

  “Unless he swapped it out for another number. If he slipped in a new SIM card, we’d never know.”

  “But then the number would change. Not saying it’s impossible, but he’d have to give his company a good reason.”

  “A guy like that could think of several,” Zheng said. “Believe me.”

  “Because you could?” Vail asked.

  “Could. And did.”

  “They’re going to let me know as soon as he turns it on.” Vail walked along the Shea Bridge and glanced left at the field.

  “And if he never turns it on,” Rodman said, “how about you get your buddy to use the Domain Awareness System, track him down that way?”

  “He actually works a normal job, so he’s long gone for the day. And I doubt the NYPD has cameras and sensors inside Citi Field.” Her phone started rumbling in her hand. “Call you back. It’s the director.”