by Mike Bogin
After a minute, he pulled another cell phone out from under the mattress, one of the phones he took off the six-man team. He inserted the sim card and connected the battery, dialed and waited.
When he finally got through again, he told the machine, “You were wearing bright purple with frills. You kissed the little bald man on top of his head.”
Crazy Thumbs felt chills down his spine when he read the words. He switched over to commercials during the middle of an interview.
“EE, what were you wearing that night of the shootings?” he asked. When Elliot paused, he switched on the booth microphone and asked overhead, “Were you wearing purple?”
The blood ran out of Elliot’s face. He didn’t need to say a thing. Thumbs didn’t need to hear. He could see his answer through the glass.
“There is no Dimitri Vosilych,” Spencer told them. “I was at the stadium. I didn’t kill the detective, either. He unloaded on me. If I hadn’t been wearing a vest, I’d be the dead one. We both fell. He died; I broke my legs and got caught. They put me in a secret prison. No lawyer. Torture. Right here, right in Washington, D.C. But I’m out. I escaped. They came after me in West Virginia and murdered the two women who helped me.”
Thumbs used hand gestures to tell EE that he was calling the police, but EE waived him off.
“What do you want from me?” EE asked.
“Tell them I kill rich people. Tell them I’m back.”
Elliot looked frantically at Thumbs and shook his head. No way.
“I can’t help you,” Elliot insisted. “Don’t call here. Ever.” Elliot slammed down the line. “I’m not going there. Never again. Its bullshit, Thumbs. The whole thing. Delete it. Right now! That’s never going on the air. You hear me! Delete it!”
*****
From the top of the highest roof, at 23 East 74th, Owen watched with binoculars, scanning the constant flow of delivery vans, florists and liquor vendors, caterers, musicians, and furniture rental companies passing below on Madison with frenzied staff barking orders and pointing directions as men and women rushed to offload. He counted sixteen of them, trucks and vans both, in just a half-hour. Nearly every one of them had boxes and tables and rolls of linens large enough to conceal a long weapon.
“Hell, Spencer might already be inside,” he muttered.
Using the tablet, Owen emailed Dale, questioning him about the timing. “When did the cameras come online?”
The reply was succinct. At least one-hundred-ninety-three had come on during the prior two weeks. It was therefore impossible for Spencer to have set the others up.
Dale sent the links. The first displayed the sidewalk looking outside from a building that could have been anywhere. The second was inside the subway station at 35th; Owen didn’t need a flag for that one since the camera looked straight onto the platform and a pole that said “34th St.” He tapped the third link, the one that had caught his eye. He glanced at the odd street view below, then saw it was all the way over on 71st. Zip. A dead end.
After the vans were offloaded and pulled away, young men in black pants and athletic shoes, all carrying daypacks, started showing up on the sidewalk, greeting one another and congregating in small groups. When another van pulled up, three of the closest men recognized it and trotted over to open the doors. The driver stepped around and shouted greetings then pointed to where he wanted the men to position the podium and the key rack they had just dragged out from the back of the van. All at once, they dropped their backpacks and peeled out of their various sweaters and hoodies, revealing white shirts underneath. They pulled black vests from their packs, pinned on nametags, and fumbled with black clip-on bow ties, helping one another to get these straight before jamming their other clothes into the packs and tossing these inside the van.
Three men who looked like the Road Warrior walked past with knives and ammunition hanging from their thick black vests and black helmets with dark visors, each obviously carrying a rifle inside a soft case in their black-gloved hands. Miller’s snipers. All the way from the rooftop, Owen could see the outlines of their weapons through his binoculars.
They calmly deployed right past the valets and all the people walking down the sidewalk on Madison. None of these New Yorkers seemed bothered or flustered or even curious. They emerged onto the Whitney’s roof a few minutes later, positioning themselves behind sand-colored fabric shields that looked like full-length kites.
Are those supposed to fool Spencer? Owen wondered.
More two-man teams came out onto the roof tops all along the west side of Madison where there were the best vantage spots looking down onto the Whitney. They were unzipping their rifles before they were out the rooftop doors. The first man, carrying the longer weapon, positioned himself kneeling along the short wall at the edge of the rooftop while the second man, carrying a shorter weapon, dropped into a prone position aiming back toward the rooftop access door. Owen saw nine of them deploy. He heard through the headset fourteen chill voices calling off by number. It came off like just another day at the office for them.
Hearing them left Owen’s heart pumping even faster.
Owen turned around and was nearly blinded. The sun reflecting off the lake inside Central Park shocked his retinas. He squinted to see rowboats before turning his eyes back to the Whitney. The casual efficiency playing through his earphone left the upsetting impression that he was the only man there with any sense of urgency. One after another, he spotted places where a shooter could be hidden right now; huge HVAC units were on every roof, at least three vehicles were parked illegally across the street. Spencer could be inside a moving vehicle. He could be standing behind the curtains in twenty, thirty, fifty windows!
Below Owen, the valets drilled on their lineup and rotation to the cars, over to the garage, and back to the keyboard. While Owen paced back and forth with the binoculars, he could tell that the valet manager was instructing a new hire about tearing the tickets and attaching the matching stubs to the key rings before hooking them onto the board. Then the manager gathered the whole group to bring them out to the curb, where he pointed out the second garage on East 80th. He looked like a coach settling down his team with last-minute instructions before the big game.
You have no fucking idea, Owen thought. Bait. Miller might as well be tying them all up like sheep. While you stand and watch, boyo. For money.
Owen watched as down on Madison a black Cadillac limo arrived at ten minutes to six. Four more limousines arrived directly behind that first Cadillac. Valets ran to the doors while the drivers stood at the front of the first and second cars, waiting until their passengers were safe before ducking behind the wheels to pull away. Owen’s hand reached out unconsciously to pat the leather wallet holding his gold medallion as women in fashionable evening gowns looked up from their phones to waive at other guests.
Owen tried to spot Spencer, knowing that it was impossible.
He clearly remembered watching the “Bigfoot” camera footage taken from the Central Park West attack. He could smell the gasoline that had been all around their speedboat and sensed the black smoke and the fire. “Jesus.”
More people were arriving now. The valets opened doors for the drivers and passengers then took the wheels and pulled out onto Madison with practiced efficiency. In two minutes there were already dozens of guests bunching on the sidewalk in front of the Whitney.
Owen swept down Madison Avenue, where a steady stream of traffic was bumper-to-bumper along the east-side lanes. He counted the cars. There were New Yorkers inside every one of them; people out to have a good time. He was supposed to protect them!
Owen scanned the windows and rooftops another time. At least a hundred people were gathered into smaller groups below him, kissing cheeks, shaking hands.
“The old man would knock you out of your socks!” he yelled at himself. “You don’t thi
nk twice. Nobody buys you! You do what you were trained to do. You do the fucking job!”
The medallion came out of his pocket as if on its own while he sprinted for the elevator. His eyes were glued to the numbers while it took forever getting down. He turned his body sideways to get through and leapt into the ground floor lobby, then charged toward the center of Madison with his medallion held high above his head.
Waving his arms, he stopped traffic then curled his lower lip to let go the loudest whistle he’d blown. Two of the off-duty rental cops looked up.
“Sniper!” Owen screamed. “Shut it down! Get these cars out of here!”
He snatched the walkie-talkie from the closest officer.
“This is Detective Lieutenant Cullen, Intel,” he called in. “Level Three! Repeat. Level Three! 10-31 at Whitney Museum, Madison at East 75th. Live sniper.”
Miller’s team spotted Cullen below and broke off from their positions, hustling down their egress routes in lock-step as sirens joined into a cacophony for blocks around.
“Block Madison,” Owen ordered the off-duty patrolmen. Grabbing one of them by his sleeve, Owen ran down the center line the half-block to the front of the museum.
“Inside,” he shouted. “Everyone off the street and away from the windows!”
The guests stood still initially, staring at him and looking around for the source of the sirens. Owen slammed his hands onto a black tuxedo jacket and shoved the man and everyone in front of him toward the interior courtyard.
Women were screaming. Several lost their footing and fell out of their high heels as the rush Owen triggered swelled into a stampede. Owen dragged one fallen woman behind him while pushing and herding them all under the cover of the museum’s entryway.
An unmarked police vehicle turned south on Madison, jumped the curb and screeched to a stop on the sidewalk. The uniformed driver opened his door and crouched behind it, gun drawn, looking up at the windows above them. Owen recognized the passenger, a captain from the 19th Precinct.
The captain turned his eyes upward toward a police helicopter that appeared, hovering high above the street then walked quickly and confidently to put his arm around Owen’s shoulder.
“What have we got, Cullen?”
“Sniper, Cap,” Owen yelled into his ear. “Getting ready to attack the event. We need to set a perimeter and lock down every building along the west side.”
He pointed at each of six different buildings. “We need to go through them floor by floor.”
*****
“Goddamnit!” Miller shouted. The second the snipers reported it, he knew. Cullen. They didn’t need to mention “red hair.”
Miller threw his cell phone at the wall, exploding it into fragments. After the outburst, he inhaled deeply, held his breath, then exhaled and looked for the phone to get out the sim card.
“It’s a setback,” he told Jeffers over the phone, “not a catastrophe.” His sniper team was all secure and accounted-for. But Spencer would likely get out through the chaos. “If they catch Spencer, we’ll deal with it.”
“How?” Jeffers voice came off breathy and strained.
“Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it,” Miller told him coolly. “I didn’t bring that nut job into this, you did,” he reminded. Triage didn’t leave room for diplomacy.
“And what about Cullen?” Jeffers demanded.
“He’s got no evidence. Cullen has told his Spencer story all over town. He just made a few thousand NYPD cops deploy on his say-so. He’s already on suspension. They don’t catch Spencer, would you want to be Cullen? He’s still the loser who left his partner to get killed.”
Jeffers weighed the consequences. His own phone calls had opened the doors to NSA’s vault. If they got to North Bergen, it could lead back to APA. “Cullen leads back to everything!” he said.
Miller looked out to Nussbaum and the techs. They knew. The live scene was splashed across the projection wall.
“It’s under control,” Miller answered hurriedly. “I’m cleaning house now. Cullen leads them here, there won’t be anything here to find. This is going away.”
He hung up and shouted orders. “Listen, we’re shutting this down.”
He grabbed a garbage can and ran toward them. “Cell phones and hard drives. Get them out. Now!”
All four of them stared, frozen in place.
“This place is compromised. I need cell phones; I need the laptops. You hear me?! Now!” He snatched Stephen’s phone, cracked it open, pulled the sim card and dropped the phone into the can. “Laptops and phones. Do it!”
Nussbaum shut the laptop and leaned his weight onto the clamshell. “There’s business plans, applications in development. No. You don’t get the laptop. I didn’t sign on for that. Fuck that.”
“You got that shit backed up somewhere,” Miller yelled, spitting his words into Stephen’s face. “Don’t play innocent.
“What? You think all this is kosher? There are enough felonies here to put you away for life. Right this minute, I’m the best friend you have.”
Their faces paled. Life in prison got their attention.
“Wait outside for me,” he ordered them. “No going back to the hotel. I’ll buy you new clothes.” He fanned money at each of them, counting out thousands into their hands until they acquiesced.
Miller was already grabbing wads of paper towels and beginning to wipe down the desktops as they shrank toward the exit. All except Dale.
“I need to go back to my room,” he complained. “My meds are there. Even if I replaced them, my names are on the prescriptions.”
“We’ll sort that out. Go!
Miller ran to the sink and reached out every cleaner there, gallons of it, then ran sprints across the inside bullpen, along the sink counter, and all through the inner workspace until these were empty.
It was ridiculously inadequate. Nowhere near enough to spoil DNA and cover fingerprints.
“You saw it in him and you let it happen!” he screamed at himself.
Cullen couldn’t keep it together and now he was forced to scramble for options.
Miller looked for answers in every direction. Then he spotted his answer. Above.
No ladder around. Miller looked at the swivel office chairs. Those wouldn’t work.
He ran inside the windowless space and returned with a solid chair that he lifted on top of what had been Kip’s desk. He ran back again to get the hot bulb from his desk lamp.
With the hot incandescent bulb fizzing inside the moist paper towels, Miller climbed up onto the desk and then stepped carefully up onto the chair. Once he had his balance, he straightened himself to reach the hot bulb up against the sensor on the ceiling and held it there against the wax seal.
Even though he was expecting it, when the fire sprinklers let loose the forceful spray blasted him off the chair. He bounced off the desk and landed on the floor face-up with the wind knocked out of him and a cascade drenching him from above. He picked himself and dizzily zigzagged toward the outside door before remembering to drag the garbage can out with him.
Stephen, Dale, Dilip, and Kip were waiting inside Miller’s sedan. He couldn’t hear them, but the security light threw enough light to show the shapes of their heads through the rear window. It was obvious that they were arguing and agitated.
His head ached. He had to close one eye. Somehow, that allowed him to organize his thoughts. He combed his hand through his wet hair. A clump of loose strands laced his fingers afterward.
He stared at them then forced himself to snap out of it. I might have a concussion, he realized, but there was no time available to devote to any concussion.
Adding Owen Cullen to the team was on Jeffers. It’s on Jeffers to gather resources now, he decided.
He called Jeffers back. “
In two minutes, there’s going to be fire engines all around here,” Miller said. “I have their cell phones and hard drives. We need a safe house until this blows over. I need you to do something. Have a call placed to 293-459-2200. Tell them Miller needs SH and EXX for five.”
“SH and EXX,” Jeffers repeated.
“For five. I’ll be on 95 South,” Miller told him. “Reach me in the car.”
“No loose ends,” Jeffers reminded Miller. “That was your own emphasis. I have adopted it as policy.” Jeffers went silent on the other end of the line for what seemed like minutes as Miller expected to hear sirens at any second. By then, all four techs had turned back, watching while Miller dragged the waterlogged garbage can.
He popped the trunk and splashed laptops and cell phones inside then slammed it closed. The car keys shimmied in his hand as he looked at them. He couldn’t get his eyes to focus.
Miller opened the passenger door where Stephen had his seatbelt on. “You drive,” he ordered Nussbaum. He needed to raise his voice to be heard over the approaching sound of fire trucks. Stephen fumbled nervously, unable to get out of his seatbelt. Miller pressed the release for him and slapped the keys into Stephen’s gut. All three terrified techs in the back seat looked like they were verging on tears.
“Where are we going?” Stephen asked insistently after getting behind the wheel.
“The venue is compromised, obviously” Miller replied succinctly. “We’ll set up at a new location.”
The sirens were getting close. “They’re coming here. The fire sprinklers must have set off a silent alarm. You need to start the car, back up, and drive.”
