All The Big Ones Are Dead

by Christopher A. Gray

  Bishop was a smart, experienced, carefully observant interrogator. He was not a torturer. His abilities extended beyond those of most interrogators for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the list of kills to his name was incontrovertible so the depth of his experience was etched in his face and eyes. It was not something that Bishop thought about or talked about. He did not lose sleep over it. Nor did he burden others with the knowledge. What Bishop had, more than any other skill in any other interrogator’s toolbox was the ability, in a very short period of time, to make his subject believe every word he spoke. It was a rare ability.

  The housekeeping officer at the covert detention and interrogation facility on the fourteenth floor of a financial tower on Nassau Street, arranged for Bishop and Kwok to drive right up to the interior loading dock in the underground shipping & receiving area. There was nobody present, the security CCTV system was turned off for their arrival, and they had a high-speed freight elevator all to themselves. The truck would be secured right where it was by a three-man team who’d been tasked as support only a few hours after Bishop had re-entered the U.S. The team had been in Manhattan for at least six hours already, but they had no place to go until Bishop and Kwok roosted somewhere. They didn’t know what was inside the truck and they didn’t care.

  On the fourteenth floor, the facility housekeeper led Bishop to a specially designed room and locked him in. Kwok had expected to enter the room as well, but the housekeeper had blocked her way.

  “You’re not cleared for this,” was all he said, then motioned for her to follow him. The two of them settled down silently in a small, well-stocked cafeteria-kitchen where the housekeeper offered coffee.

  “I can make a macchiato,” he said. “They’re good. This is a great machine.” It was a huge, Italian-made machine designed for a busy, neighborhood coffee shop, not an overgrown office lunch room. Kwok looked for the joke or the sarcasm but found nothing but a simple question about whether or not she wanted coffee.

  “A macchiato? Sure. Thank you.”

  The housekeeper busied himself making coffee.

  “You get many visitors?”

  “I do. It’s quiet today, but there’re usually always enough bad cookies to keep a regular stream of agency, FBI, NSA, DHS and Coast Guard detainees rolling through.”

  “You shut down CCTV and the shipping-receiving area every time? Seems like painting a big ‘Hey the interrogation suite is over here!’ sign on the place, though?”

  “Almost every detainee arrives in business clothing of some sort. They’re escorted by agents dressed as business people. They arrive through the front lobby for ‘meetings’. Most of them leave the same way they arrived. A few of them leave in a helo from the rooftop pad. Your particular circumstances are unusual.”

  “How long has this location been operational?”

  “Four months. It will be relocated soon.”

  “Really? That’s how this place works?” Kwok asked seriously.

  “No!” the housekeeper laughed, as he added a touch of steamed milk to tag the macchiato. “That was all bullshit. Or maybe it wasn’t. I can talk about this facility all day and all night and you still won’t know anything about it.”

  Kwok shut her mouth, momentarily put out. She recovered quickly and smiled at the housekeeper.

  “Nice weather we’re having,” she said.

  “That’s better,” the housekeeper replied.

  ***

  A few minutes later, Agent Chantal Kwok was fighting a burst of anger that was rapidly coming to a boil.

  “What do you mean? Now?” she said, hearing her voice rise a little more than was strictly professional. She got herself quickly under control. “Inspector,” she said after taking a breath, “we just brought in a major player for covert interrogation. I want to be in on this. Your timing could be better.”

  “I’m sorry,” Linders said on the line, “but that’s it. My boss, who is also our boss, says I’m to interrogate with Bishop and to do it now. That means we’re short one person on the ground in the Upper West Side. Remember that John Logan is a key player too—for the good guys—and you have been crucial to the security and protection team. I’m in-transit to your location now. You need to clear security and get to the car that will arrive for you in less than ten minutes.”

  “Grrr,” Kwok replied, only half joking. “All right, I’m rolling. I hope you and Bishop squeeze this guy dry. I mean it.” She spoke her own mind regularly, on and off the job, but she also knew when to not question orders but simply get on with whatever was needed. She had been hoping to get more time in with Bishop, partnering with him for at least another couple of days as they ran down Mr. Jorge Tudor’s network. Working with Bishop was enlightening and satisfying. And the coffee here is really good, she sighed, looking at the empty cup. She was tired and she needed to find another gear, so she shook her head clear and got moving. And I’m taking another coffee to go.

  Chapter Twenty One

  A secure interrogation room is a stark, unpleasant place. A rectangular metal table, seemingly cut from a single piece of metal, dominates the room. It is generally not a large table, but it is bolted to the concrete floor and cannot move. There is a heavy metal chair on each side of the table. The chair designated for the detainee has legs that are four centimeters shorter than the interrogator’s chair. The detainee chair has welded steel rings attached to the front legs so that a detainee can be shackled in place. There is another ring welded to the front edge of the seat to which handcuffs can be shackled in order to prevent the detainee from using his hands and arms to gesture. The chairs are featureless, with solid, medium height backs, no arms, and a flat, cold, uncomfortable seat. The chairs are likewise bolted to the floor. There is a video camera in each of the four corners of the room, mounted exactly two meters high, usually invisible to a detainee because the cameras are in deep shadows and aimed at the pool of light thrown by ceiling mounted spots that illuminate only the table and chairs. A three meter by two meter rectangle of wall on one side is taken up by a bullet-resistant window that is mirrored on the interrogation room side so that a detainee cannot see who is watching. A microphone hangs from a stiff cable, exactly one meter above the center of the table. There is an intercom system that can be used to question a detainee without an interrogator present in the room. The intercom system can also be used to play music, ambient noise or whatever the interrogators choose.

  In the observation room on the other side of the mirror, there are controls to adjust the temperature in the interrogation area, increase and decrease the brightness of the overhead lighting. A digital recording system clearly captures everything that is said. In the observation room there are two more video cameras mounted on heavy tripods. At the main door to the room—the door through which detainees arrive—there are three switches: the room light switch, a recording kill switch, and an emergency alarm button. Directly under the center of the table, there is a ten centimeter drain hole in the floor. The drain is covered with a metal mesh that is welded in place. The room smelled of urine and vomit, not because it was filthy, but because at Bishop’s request a specially developed spray had been applied to the top of the drain immediately prior to Tudor’s arrival.

  Jorge Tudor was shackled to the detainee chair. He was sitting silently, head bowed, waiting for the man on the other side of the table to say something. Agent Michael Bishop was staring at Tudor from his position in the interrogator chair. Bishop was silent because has was listening to data being fed to him by Alexei Rector through the almost invisibly tiny receiver in Bishop’s right ear. Twenty-five minutes had passed since a pair of security contractors had sat Tudor down heavily on the chair and shackled him in position. Bishop had been concentrating on the information that Rector had begun feeding him ten minutes earlier. When Rector indicated that he was done, Bishop stood up.

  “You are Mr. Jorge Tudor,” Bishop said in a normal tone, half-turning toward the door.

  “What?” T
udor responded. It came out softly. The sudden question had surprised him. His throat was dry and he was thirsty. He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Sorry,” he tried again. “What?”

  “You are Mr. Jorge Tudor,” Bishop repeated.

  “Yes,” Tudor replied.

  “Do you have anything to say to me?”

  “Yes,” Tudor replied, “I want my lawyer.”

  “Mr. Tudor,” Bishop said, still speaking calmly and normally, “look carefully around you, then reconsider your request. This place,” Bishop paused for a few seconds, staring placidly at Tudor, “is not your local precinct station.” Bishop briefly looked up at the ceiling, then at the walls, turning his head slowly for effect. “I will be back to restart this conversation.”

  Bishop stood and walked toward the door. The lock buzzed as he approached and he left the room without another word or glance at Tudor. As the door was closing, Bishop put his hand on the lever handle and hauled it closed with a startlingly loud slam. Tudor jerked once in his chair and the wrist shackles dug painfully into his skin because of the sudden movement, which were the desired effects. As Tudor cursed, a different door directly behind him opened. Tudor strained immediately to turn and see who had entered, but the shackles restricted his movement.

  “Who’s there!” he demanded.

  The security contractor who’d entered the room, following protocol that required an authorized person to be in the room at all times, remained silent. Tudor struggled to turn around in the shackles for another half-minute, then settled down again, prickly fear building, sweat on his forehead beading up. It was a futile effort. The shackles and the welded rings were perfectly well designed to keep him in place.

  Bishop entered the observation room on the other side of the one-way glass. There were two people present—Inspector Diane Linders and a male NSA officer assigned as an observer.

  “Diane,” Bishop said, smiling at her. “I thought you were locked into an operation in the Upper West Side? It’s nice to see you in the two-hundred block. I was hoping to bring Kwok in on this.”

  “Superintendent DeCourcey and Deputy Director Claes want me here with you,” Linders replied, “and Agent Kwok back on uptown.” She was staring straight ahead, and spoke a little more formally than she’d intended, showing some of her own dissatisfaction at the sudden switch. “How do like your catch of the day?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  Bishop turned from the view of the interrogation room to glance briefly at Linders.

  “Kwok and I have been working well together, Diane. I had a plan to get her cleared by the facility and use her in stages for this interrogation.”

  “I understand and I’m sorry. She wanted to be here just as much as you I think. I only managed half a minute of protest with DeCourcey and Claes before they cut me off. Everybody is… excited about your catch.” She stopped for a moment and started thinking about the number of times that orders from higher up had forced her to reset and re-plan on-the-fly in the midst of crucial stages. She looked up at Bishop and swore to herself that he looked like he was thinking about the exact same thing.

  “I really wanted Kwok here,” Bishop said. “She seems… competent.” It was becoming evident to him that he was attracted to Kwok for more than her capability in the field. He felt momentarily uncomfortable at the thought. That kind of feeling wasn’t supposed to impose on his typically unassailable attention to the business at hand. He was also smart enough to avoid fighting the reality of the feeling. Knowing about something while being able to file it away for future reference as opposed to acting on it immediately was also part of Bishop’s skill set.

  “I would have liked a chance to say goodbye, Diane.”

  “She’s not going to Mars, Michael,” Diane replied, smiling as she realized what Bishop was getting at, “just uptown. You two will cross paths again shortly, I have no doubt.” Bishop looked sidelong at Linders, realizing that he’d just been found out. He smiled despite himself and the situation.

  “So, back to Mr. Tudor here?” Linders said, refocusing. “Seems your net has dredged up a player, Michael, so he’ll look a little better when you’re barbecuing him on a spit. He kept his mouth shut on his six-month stretch quite a few years ago. So what do you do here when someone hollers for their lawyer?”

  “Communication with the detainee’s lawyer will be permitted,” the NSA officer in the room suddenly spoke up. He’d been completely silent and they’d almost forgotten he was there. “A lawyer,” the man repeated, “but only after the interrogator has confirmed to me that all preliminary questions have been satisfactorily answered. As a designated field liaison to Interpol, you are free to stay or leave, Inspector Linders.”

  Linders was no rookie. She knew that questioning by effective interrogators could sometimes appear shocking, even to someone with her experience. Still, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to see Bishop at work. She was even more sure that no lawyer would ever see the inside of the facility.

  “I need coffee,” she said, making up her mind, “if it could be provided.” Bishop said nothing. He was watching Tudor intently and waiting patiently for Linders to either leave the observation room or settle in.

  “As you wish,” the observer said, looking absently at some files on the table in front of him. He waved, very slightly, toward the door. “Tell the sentry stationed in the hallway what you want.”

  Bishop looked up, momentarily, as Linders turned toward the door. He nodded at her, but said nothing.

  “Time?” Bishop asked the observer.

  “Four minutes,” the observer replied.

  “Please let me know at precisely five minutes and thirty seconds.”

  A minute and a half later, the observer said, “Time.”

  “Thank you. We’ll add three minutes and twenty seconds to each absence.”

  The observer nodded, then made a note in one of his files.

  ***

  David Trask did a good job of ignoring the excruciating pain in his leg as he bounded up the 81st Street subway exit stairs and walked at a brisk pace along 81st, away from the park and in the opposite direction to his destination. Once he settled into his walk the pain subsided, and he was able to minimize his limp. Bishop and any people the agent briefed would be expecting to see him limping noticeably, and Trask knew it.

  At the moment he was wearing silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses with dark lenses, jeans with small holes in the knees, and a lightweight beige sport jacket. He was chewing gum enthusiastically. He carried a large shopping bag in his right hand. He kept his left hand in his pocket, which helped him sway his shoulders slightly as he walked, taking attention away from that measure of his limp that he failed to disguise. His fast pace would have made it difficult for anyone following him on foot to keep up without periodically breaking into a trot.

  Trask turned right onto Columbus, then right onto 83rd to head back to the park. Halfway down the block he abruptly turned around and doubled back towards an alleyway he had previously selected for its proximity to the park and its lack of video surveillance. Before turning into the alley he glanced around for any pedestrians or vehicles that might have been following him. Satisfied that there were none, he entered the alley and stood behind a dumpster. He kept his eyes on the sidewalk as he spat out his gum and replaced his sunglasses with horn-rimmed, lightly tinted glasses. He retrieved a collapsible cane and an olive colored trench coat from the shopping bag. He put the coat on over his sport jacket and a frayed tweed flat cap that had been in the coat pocket, and then neatly folded the shopping bag, placing it in the same pocket that the tweed cap had been.

  The man who exited the alleyway looked nothing like the man who had entered. His careful gait was marked with a slight limp, one that looked to be more from age than injury. His shoulders slumped, and his upper body swayed left and right as he leaned on his cane with every other step. He looked at the ground as he walked. His expression was tired and pained.

  *** />
  The ride in the blacked out SUV was not the first time Kwok had been transported to a location by a professional driver. But this particular ride, mid-morning through Manhattan, was a siren-soaked, scary one that looked and felt that it would come to a screaming, metal crunching end at any moment. She was trying to think about the exact language to use if she lost her nerve and had to ask the driver to slow it down, when her phone buzzed. It was a reply from her CBP partner, Eli Turner.

  ‘Got your msg. was slightly busy.’

  ‘Whats up?’

  ‘Riding the primary and his gf.’

  ‘Any action?’

  ‘Nsf.’

  ‘On my way to u now’

  ‘Linders told us, good to have u back’

  ‘In the east 50s now, see u rsn.’

  ***

  David Trask’s surveillance of Julius Coppola had indicated a meeting between him and John Logan. That barista would also be there, on a so-called walking date with Logan prior to the Coppola meeting. It was the perfect opportunity to eliminate them all. He might be able to kill at least one without it registering in a witness’s consciousness right away. One, two, three. Then, by the time onlookers realized what had happened, Trask would melt into the bush, emerging onto the street dressed as the gum-chewing middle-aged man once again. Julius would be first of course, but who to kill next? Should Logan watch his girlfriend die before his eyes, or should the barista witness her boyfriend’s death? The choice was easy. Logan must go before the girl, in case he tried to defend her. It is too bad they can’t watch each other die, Trask thought, so romantic. But there isn’t time or the privacy I need to set up such a tragedy.

  Along the way he passed a bakery. I’ll have to stop by here tomorrow to get a tart for my mother.

  Trask was able to maintain the same shuffling gait as long as he needed to. Thanks to many hours of practice, his walking pace, while still appearing to be that of an older person, was not as inefficient and slow as it looked. His wounded thigh was wrapped tight and it was painful, but it was actually helping the disguise. He’d taken just enough painkiller to take the edge off without slowing him down.