by J. B. Turner
“On the surface, maybe,” said Malone. “But I think he meets two out of the three criteria which interest me. A need for identity and a need for belonging. The charity work or god complex, call it what you will . . . Add this to his ego, and you have a very interesting case. And you begin to see a picture.”
Reznick stayed quiet.
“On the surface, all is well. But something intrigued me about him after you described the inside of his house.”
“What was so interesting about that?”
“Three things. Firstly, the fastidiousness . . . Nothing out of place. It was ordered to a meticulous degree. A man who—”
Meyerstein interrupted, her patience wearing thin. “That’s a big leap, from being OCD to being a terror suspect.”
“It’s important to build up as full a picture as possible. It shows a type of personality. Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder. People have repeated thoughts, feelings, obsessions, or behaviors that make them compulsive.
“The second aspect is that, according to recent research, modern terrorists are far more likely to be highly educated and come from wealthy backgrounds. This guy is, to all intents and purposes, a potential cleanskin. Ford is highly intelligent, rational, and can be dispassionate to ensure he can focus on the job in hand—namely, surgery. But, along with indications of Ford being superficial, glib, all surface, I believe there is a narcissistic element to his personality.”
“Narcissistic? In what way?” asked Reznick.
“His fixation with self, an identity wanting to belong. I’m talking about the pictures of him in his house, the letter from the mother of the boy he saved. Your notes mentioned monogrammed towels in the bathroom. It reminded me of a case I’d worked on in the nineties.”
“Which one?”
“Does the name Eric Robert Rudolph ring a bell?”
Meyerstein nodded. “The Olympic Park Bomber. A classic American lone-wolf terrorist. Set off the Atlanta bomb back in 1996.”
“The very one. Narcissism was part of his psychological makeup, among a host of other things. With Ford, that may be part of his story.”
Meyerstein pinched the bridge of her nose. “So, where the hell does some glib and arrogant doc with OCD and narcissistic tendencies fit into the plan?”
“Look, I’m not saying this guy is the one. However, he certainly needs further investigation. But that will take time.”
“Something we don’t have.”
A member of Meyerstein’s team shouted from the monitoring room, “Hey, he’s on the move! He’s carrying a bike, wearing cycling gear.”
They all went to watch the real-time images from the van parked on East 63rd Street.
Meyerstein said, “OK, I want motorbike-courier surveillance activated.”
The next hour was spent watching Ford cycling through the streets of Manhattan, weaving in and out of traffic. Midtown, downtown, and then the East Village. There, he locked his bike on the metal railings outside the soup kitchen on East 11th Street. More covert footage showed inside the soup kitchen. Ford was serving out big bowls of soup to men seated at long tables. He wore hygienic latex gloves like the rest of the volunteers.
Meyerstein dialed a number on her cell phone. “Roy, it’s Martha. Are you watching the footage from the East Village?” She nodded. “Yeah, it looks like around a dozen young men and women, and four or five middle-aged volunteers helping out. I’m still waiting to find out who’s on the list. And also at the homeless shelter. Get that info ASAP.”
Reznick stared at the image of Ford on the screen.
“Who the hell are you?”
Thirteen
The sour breath and the smell of urine were making Ford feel queasy. He was twenty minutes into a ninety-minute stint at the East Village soup kitchen.
He looked down at the drugged-up panhandler in front of him. Pathetic. He was wearing a stained Obama T-shirt and filthy pants.
Ford kneeled down and checked the man’s blood pressure, before pulling back his eyelids. No response. The eyes were glassy, pupils small. He held his breath so he wouldn’t inhale the noxious chemicals circulating in the panhandler’s system, and gently shook the man’s shoulder.
“Michael, are you there?” He was glad he had his surgical gloves on.
The man tried to speak, but only a low moan emanated.
“Michael, you’re at the soup kitchen on East 11th Street.” He raised his voice. “Do you understand?”
Michael’s sad eyes opened and began to focus as he came to. “I ain’t got nowhere.” His speech was slurred. “Got kicked out of the fucking Baruch. You believe that? I’ve been kicked out of shithole central.” He began to laugh, exposing surprisingly white teeth. “Obama sure as hell won’t be living in the Baruch tonight. One thing we’ve got in common, right?”
Ford nodded politely, his empathetic mask on show for the world to see. “No, I don’t suppose he will.”
Michael closed his eyes and tears spilled down his face. He began to hum the tune to “The Lord is My Shepherd.”
Ford stroked his cheek and smiled. “We’ll take care of you, Michael,” he said as he helped the man over to a chair.
His mind flashed back to his suburban teenage years. He remembered his father looking at a man in the same predicament, at a soup kitchen organized by his church. Ford had thought the whole setup was phony. He didn’t give a damn about the downtrodden or those that had fallen on hard times. Darwin was right—it was survival of the fittest. The smartest and toughest would inherit the earth. The meek would inherit absolutely nothing. His father, by contrast, cared passionately about those less fortunate. He blamed society for people’s ills and not the people themselves. It was his Christian faith.
Ford made sure Michael was safely on the chair. “I’ll bring you over some nice soup.”
Michael looked up at Ford, tears still streaming down his face. “The Lord as my witness, I will find the strength.”
For a split second, Ford wanted to take a gun, press it to the man’s head, and blow his brains out, putting him out of his misery. That’s what people did to lame and crippled dogs. They put them out of their misery.
“I’m sure you will, Charles.”
Ford’s cell phone began to vibrate in his top pocket, and he moved across to a quiet corner to take the call, facing a wall.
“I wanted to let you know,” the familiar voice said, “we’re on track with preparations.”
“When will I know the final details?”
“When we know, you’ll know. Leave us to worry about that. You’re doing great. How do you feel?”
“Alive. I want to do this.”
“We know.”
The line went dead.
Ford stood staring at his cell phone for a few moments. This was real. He felt wired.
He breathed in deep and let it out slowly. He breathed in deep again.
“Who was that?”
Ford spun around and saw Michael staring at him, a stoned grin on his face.
“I—”
“You got a secret girlfriend, is that what it is? I knew it!”
Ford managed a grin. “You know how it is.”
“I heard what you said. That you want to do this.” Michael winked conspiratorially. “Wanna do what? You leading a secret life, huh?”
Ford stared into Michael’s dark eyes. His stomach knotted tight. He realized he would have to call this in and get it taken care of. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
Michael leaned in close to Ford and flung his arm around his shoulder like a long-lost college friend. “Your secret’s safe with me, man,” he whispered, the sour breath impossible to escape.
Ford felt revulsion and a dark anger begin to consume him. He stared into Michael’s stupid eyes for what seemed an eternity. But he kept his emotions in check.
His thoughts turned to what awaited the panhandler.
And slowly, the anger began to dissipate, a sense of calm and wellbeing wash
ing over him.
Michael was as good as dead.
Fourteen
Just after six in the morning, in a bedroom in the upper part of the duplex apartment within The Fairfax, Jon Reznick was woken by a burly Fed on the early shift. “Hey, Jon, we got lattes and cappuccinos delivered up from Starbucks,” he said. “What do you like?”
Reznick rubbed his eyes and groaned as he came to. He looked through into the apartment’s living area and saw Malone tapping away on his laptop. “Latte for me.”
The Fed smiled as he handed him a cup.
Reznick pulled off the lid and sipped the piping hot coffee. The caffeine jolt was just what he needed. “Damn, that’s nice.”
The Fed left him alone to get ready, shutting the door behind him. He pulled on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and headed through into the improvised intelligence hub with his coffee.
Reznick sat down on a sofa and looked over at Malone. “So, what’s the latest on Ford?”
Malone leaned back in his seat, biting his lower lip. “Good morning, Mr. Reznick. After an hour or so at the soup kitchen, another trip to the Yaffa Cafe. He feels comfortable there.” Malone was handed a coffee. He took a sip. “Thanks. Here’s the thing. This café is like a hipster haunt, an alternative culture HQ . . . has been since before the East Village became more gentrified. But his profile doesn’t fit it at all.”
“What about a list of those working at the café? Photos, names . . . that kind of thing? Has that been checked?”
“Yeah, Assistant Director Meyerstein has just sent over photos and bios of those who’ve worked there in the last eighteen months. A team is trawling them now.”
“So, what angle are you working on now?”
“I’m looking at this from a physiological point of view, as well as the psychological perspective. From what you’ve reported back, and going on what I’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours, this guy is not getting his sleep. He might be getting some during the day, but with two kids in that apartment, it won’t be the quietest.”
“Is he speeding?” asked Reznick.
“Could be.”
“What else?”
Malone sighed. “I got a statement from an old college friend. He said Ford let slip one day that his father beat him as a child if he flunked a test. He said he couldn’t wait to get away from home.”
Reznick said nothing.
“By all accounts, he was a model student. He knuckled down, did the work, but wasn’t the most sociable. Very private.”
A knock at the door. The burly Fed answered and let Meyerstein in. She had a huge tote bag in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other.
“Morning, boys,” she said. She sat down at the table, pulling an iPad out of her bag and placing it alongside her coffee. “Three hundred and twenty-four separate photos and bios. Soup kitchen, Yaffa Cafe, steakhouse waiters and cooks, and also volunteers and employees at the homeless shelter. Three have been flagged as having skipped bail on drug charges, two for outstanding speeding tickets, but all the rest are upstanding citizens. On the surface, no red flags. But we’re working on it.”
Reznick headed into the living area. “You mind if I take a look?”
Meyerstein pushed the iPad toward him. “Be my guest.”
Reznick pulled up the gallery of color photos and short bios of everyone employed by or linked to the establishments. He clicked on the first of the soup kitchen volunteers: a fresh-faced young woman named Candice Olsen, a nineteen-year-old student at Columbia. She’d been volunteering every weekend for the last year, after moving to New York from Cleveland. He scrolled down. The second volunteer he clicked on was a twenty-two-year-old art student from Brooklyn, Leroy Burnett.
“What are you looking for?” Meyerstein said.
Reznick gulped down the rest of his coffee. “I don’t know. Just like looking, I guess. No harm, right?”
Meyerstein shook her head. “You’re an obsessive, Jon, do you know that?”
Reznick grinned and looked across at Malone. “Is that a psychiatric disorder?”
Malone raised his eyebrows, deadpan. “Oh yeah.”
Reznick stifled a yawn. He was restless. He didn’t want to just sit about and twiddle his thumbs. Even during his Delta days, the waiting was the worst. Waiting for the green light. Waiting for the go-ahead. Always waiting. He couldn’t stand that. He’d much rather be doing something.
He switched his attention back to the photos on the iPad. Over the next couple of hours, he scrolled through the pictures and bios while Meyerstein videoconferenced in the next room and Malone researched more into Ford’s background and upbringing.
Reznick rubbed his eyes as he reached the list of Yaffa Cafe employees, past and present. They were mostly young, predominantly in their early twenties. Quite a few were earning extra money while they studied at the Cooper Union—a private college specializing in architecture, art, and engineering—or at NYU, which had dormitories for undergraduates in and around the Village.
Reznick yawned.
Malone said, “You need to get more sleep, Jon, for Chrissakes! You look like shit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You can’t be fine. You had four hours’ sleep last night, and barely any in the previous forty-eight hours. You’re gonna have a heart attack.”
Maybe Malone was right. He didn’t even know why he was scanning the photos. What was the point?
His mind was beginning to wander as he got to the last images, of staff employed at the Capital Grille restaurant. But then he pulled up the photograph of a very pretty young woman, Joan Wilson. Her hair was straight and long, her makeup subtle, and she wore tortoiseshell-framed spectacles.
Something about her face made him stop and stare. She looked familiar. Very familiar. His mind flashed back to the night Ford was served at the Grille, as Reznick ate at the bar, watching the Weather Channel. He remembered the waitress nodding politely as she took Ford’s card and handing him a receipt.
“Pretty girl,” Meyerstein said, looking over his shoulder.
Reznick shrugged. “Yeah. She served Ford in the Grille when I was there.”
Meyerstein sat down. Almost immediately, her cell phone rang, and she got up again and went back into the adjacent room to take the call.
Reznick kept staring at the photo. His gaze lingered on the brown skin, dark eyes, and gentle smile. He’d seen her in the flesh, which was why he recognized her, but there was something else. Some other reason her face was stuck in his head.
He scrolled back to the top and started looking at all the photos again. Then he came across the reason why she looked so familiar.
A twenty-something girl named Stephanie Young, who worked at Yaffa—hair tied back, a dimple on her chin, wearing no makeup and no glasses, yet she was the double of Joan Wilson.
He scrolled back down to the photo of Joan Wilson: made up, hair down. More attractive. Glasses, which made her look older. He clicked on the image to make it bigger.
A dimple on the chin.
Reznick showed Malone and they compared the pictures.
“How weird is that?” Malone said.
“They could be the same person.”
Malone winced. “I don’t know—the girl in the restaurant looks a bit older, more mature, different eyes.”
Malone called Meyerstein over. “Come and have a look at this. Are we talking one and the same?”
She studied the two pictures for nearly two minutes, side by side. She said nothing, her gaze fixed on one image, then the one beside it. “Son of a bitch.”
“You think it’s the same person?”
Meyerstein tilted her head slightly, as if looking at the face from a different angle. “I think we need to feed this into NGI.”
“What’s NGI?” Reznick said.
Meyerstein stared at the screen. “NGI? Next Generation Identification.”
“The FBI’s most sophisticated facial recognition software,” Malone interjected. “Basic
ally, it can distinguish between twins, and the 3-D face captures take us way beyond two-dimensional mug shots. It’s also got some interesting face-aging elements.”
Meyerstein called up Stamper. “Hey, Roy, pull up the shots of Joan Wilson and Stephanie Young. You got them?” She waited a few moments. “Yeah, that’s them. Run them over to NGI, will you, and get back to me ASAP.” She hung up and stared again at the images.
Twenty minutes later, her cell phone rang.
Meyerstein answered after one ring. “Talk to me, Roy.” She nodded. “Get on it. Don’t pull her in just now. Let’s just do some more digging. Find out who she is and what she’s all about. And when we do, get a twenty-four seven surveillance wraparound for her.” She ended the call and looked first at Malone, then Reznick. “The photos are a hundred percent match. Without a shadow of doubt.”
Malone leaned back in his seat and blew out his cheeks. “This just got a helluva lot more interesting.”
A few minutes later, Meyerstein’s cell phone rang again, and she switched to speaker so everyone could hear.
“Yeah, Roy?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Stamper sighed. “We’re looking over the CCTV footage from the steakhouse on 42nd Street. I’m sending it over. Take a look for yourself.”
They scanned the enhanced footage as the woman handed the check to Ford on a silver tray and left. He picked it up and looked over it for a few moments. He smiled as he took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and slid it under the tray, then got out his credit card. The waitress returned with a card machine and put Ford’s card through the system, giving him the receipt with a smile. She took the money from under the tray, slipped it into her pants pocket and walked away to the next table. “She seemed to know there was money, despite it being covered,” Meyerstein said.
Reznick folded his arms. “She’s the cutout.”
Meyerstein screwed up her face. “I don’t think you can say that at this stage.”
“I just did. Who the hell is she?”
Meyerstein leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
“What if she’s a cutout and a cleanskin?” said Reznick. “Someone who doesn’t arouse suspicion.”
