Identity Found

by Ray Green

  He gave it just two minutes before tentatively opening the door and looking around: there was no-one in sight; the deafening siren whooped unrelentingly on.

  He rushed back into the office, now unoccupied. Where would he find what he was looking for? As far as he could ascertain, there was no other office area in the building, so it had to be here, somewhere. Behind the reception desk, were two grubby-looking, steel filing cabinets. He attacked the first, opening each drawer in turn and rapidly scanning the labels on the files. It all seemed to relate to various project details. Exasperated, he turned to the second.

  The top drawer, according to the file labels, contained financial information: invoices, bank statements, debtors and creditors lists, and so on. He slammed it shut, without investigating further. The second drawer, however, contained what he was looking for: personnel files. There was a photocopier in the office, but he was nearly out of time; he decided to risk just taking what he needed. He grabbed the two or three files which looked promising and slammed the drawer shut, before stuffing them inside his jacket and heading back out into the warehouse area.

  He quickly made his way to the large roller door through which he had entered the building. As he stole a glance outside, he could see around a dozen people, all gathered in a huddle in the parking lot. None seemed to be looking his way. The Toyota had stopped around fifty yards up the road, a whisp of smoke from its exhaust signalling that James had managed to slip away and was now waiting with the engine running. With a last quick glance to left and right, he stepped outside and walked, as calmly as possible, towards the waiting car.

  Just as he approached the car, he heard a two-tone siren and, seconds later, a fire truck swung around the corner, racing towards him. He waited while the truck sped by, before crossing the street and sliding into the passenger seat.

  ‘Did you get anything useful?’ enquired an anxious-sounding James.

  ‘I think so,’ he replied.

  ‘Then let’s split.’

  As they pulled away from the curb, they saw a police squad car swing around the corner, coming towards them. Unlike the fire truck, this car was maintaining a modest pace.

  If he’s responding to the emergency signal, thought James, why is he going so slowly?

  They drove away, leaving the chaotic scene behind them.

  Chapter 34

  The scene which greeted Mark as he approached the building was not what he had expected. A fire truck, with emergency lights still pulsing, filled most of the small parking lot, a group of around ten or twelve people, huddled together, looking curiously on as two firefighters rushed into the building.

  With practically no free space in the parking lot, he pulled up in the street and stepped out of the car, making his way towards the group of people watching the scene unfold.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, flipping open his warrant card holder and showing his I.D.

  A rather rotund guy in jeans, grubby white tee-shirt, and a New York Yankees baseball cap responded. ‘Fire alarm’s gone off,’ he said, taking a last drag on the stub of his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and grinding it beneath his boot. ‘Pretty sure there ain’t no fire, really, but I guess the fire department gotta come, just in case. Anyway, it don’t bother me … gives me a break from work and a chance to have a smoke. We ain’t allowed to smoke inside the building you see.’ He lit up another cigarette, inhaling deeply, holding the smoke for a few seconds before blowing it out in a long, steady stream.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ said Mark.

  He strode towards the open roller door just in time to meet the two firefighters emerging from the building ‘What’s happening guys?’ he asked, flashing his warrant card once again.

  ‘False alarm,’ replied one of men, ‘like most of the calls we receive.’

  ‘Any idea what caused it?’

  ‘No mystery there … come and take a look.’

  Mark followed the two of them into the building, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the transition from bright sunshine to relative gloom.

  ‘There … see, someone’s smashed the glass and set off the alarm.’

  ‘Why the hell would they do that?’

  The firefighter shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe someone thought there really was a fire, or maybe it was a disgruntled employee who just wanted to make mischief.’

  Or maybe they just wanted a break and a smoke, thought Mark reflecting on the discussion he’d just had. ‘OK, I’ll take it from here if you like. I’ll talk to all the employees and try to find out who did it. You guys get back to the station, so you can be ready for any real fires called in.’

  As he watched the fire truck manoeuvre laboriously back and forth until it could exit the parking lot, a creeping doubt began to snake through his mind. It could just be coincidence but, in his gut, he couldn’t help suspecting that there was some link between Julia’s investigation of this company, and the deliberate triggering of a false fire alarm.

  As the fire truck finally set off up the road, he approached the group of workers, still standing around, chatting in the spring sunshine.

  ‘OK,’ he said raising his voice just sufficiently to quieten the buzz of conversation, ‘can I have everyone’s attention please?’ A dozen curious faces turned towards him. ‘As you’ll probably have guessed already, it was a false alarm; there’s no fire, but someone deliberately set off the alarm by smashing the glass in the alarm box. I intend to find out who it was.’

  A subdued murmur of surprise and indignation arose from the group of workers.

  ‘Now then, who’s in charge here?’ continued Mark, silencing the grumbling.

  Everyone looked at everyone else blankly, until the only woman present stepped forward: heavily made-up and sporting an improbably tall hairdo. ‘Mr Johnson’s out on site right now, so there ain’t no-one in charge really.’

  ‘And you are, miss?’

  ‘Jessica Bianchi … I’m Mr Johnson’s personal assistant.’ A small ripple of laughter from the rest of those present prompted her to whirl around. ‘Alright you scumbags … I’m the receptionist too, but I am his personal assistant.’

  Mark couldn’t help but smile at the way her strident rebuke instantly silenced all of them. He guessed that for a sole female to hold her own in this male-dominated environment, she had to be pretty tough.

  ‘OK, Miss Bianchi … thank you. Now I’m going to need everyone back inside and then I’ll want to talk to each of you separately.’

  They all exchanged puzzled glances, before shuffling back towards the building.

  If it really was just coincidence that the incident had happened right here, at Johnson Brothers, then he would be wasting a great deal of precious time, but somehow, he just knew there had to be more to it than that.

  ***

  It was almost two hours later that he finished talking to all the male employees. All of them had denied breaking the glass and setting off the alarm … which of course they would do, wouldn’t they? But Mark reckoned he was pretty good at spotting when someone was lying, and he got no sense whatsoever that any of these guys were doing so. He let them all get back to work while he conducted his final interview with the girl, Jessica, in the office.

  ‘So, Miss Bianchi, you were here, in this office when the alarm sounded?’

  She leaned forward, placing both elbows on the desk. ‘That’s right. I was talking to a potential client about a building project.’

  ‘So, you wouldn’t have been able to see who set off the alarm in the warehouse, then?’

  ‘No, but … look, Detective Bowman, some of them guys are a bit, well … rough and ready, but I don’t believe any of them would have deliberately set off that alarm. They really ain’t bad people you know. And what’s more, if one of them did do it, and Mr Johnson found out, he’d fire them on the spot, and building jobs ain’t exactly growing on trees around here.’

  Mark nodded, ‘So who else might have been in the building at the time?’

/>   ‘Well, like I said, I was talking to a client – English guy as it happens – but he couldn’t have done it; he was here in the office with me when the alarm went off.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Well, there was another guy who’d been in just a few minutes earlier. He was looking for casual work, but I told him we didn’t have no vacancies. He was kinda persistent, but this other guy was waiting to talk to me, so I shooed him away.’

  ‘He went back through there?’ said Mark, indicating the door to the warehouse.

  ‘Sure … it’s the only way in and out apart from the fire escape doors.’

  ‘Hmm, you say these two guys came in just a few minutes apart?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘So was it a busy sort of morning … lots of people coming and going?’

  She laughed: a shrill, harsh sound which startled Mark. ‘Hell no … business is real slow right now. Those two guys were the only visitors we had all morning.’

  Just two visitors all morning, and they just happen to turn up within a few minutes of each other? The suspicions which had beset Mark ever since he had arrived now morphed into near-certainty.

  ‘Is there anything which looks out of the ordinary since the incident with the alarm?’

  She drew her black-rimmed eyes together in a frown. ‘How d’you mean – “out of the ordinary”?’

  ‘Anything out of place, or missing?’

  She glanced around the office, still looking puzzled. ‘No … I don’t think so.’

  ‘Papers, files?’ he prompted.

  ‘Well most of them are right here,’ she said, standing up and turning to point to the two metal filing cabinets located right behind her desk.

  ‘Can you check them for me please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She spent several minutes going through the drawers of the first one before concluding, ‘I think everything looks OK here, but why—’

  ‘Please, Miss Bianchi … can you check the other one.’

  ‘OK … whatever you say,’ she said, shrugging as she opened the top drawer.

  Mark waited patiently, not wishing to hurry her unduly. She leafed through the files in silence, before closing the top drawer and turning her attention to the second. As soon as she opened it, she froze for a moment, before turning back to Mark. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open, her scarlet lips forming a perfect ‘O’ shape.

  ‘What is it?’ prompted Mark.

  ‘All the personnel files are all missing.’

  Now there could be no doubt whatsoever: these two guys had been working together to create a distraction and steal those files. But what was the link to the mystery woman he had been tracking? He thought back to the CCTV footage he had studied a few days ago, when she had been driven away from the pathology lab by an accomplice. Maybe there had been two accomplices in that car. Then it struck him: the car – a silver Camry. His mind flipped back to the moment when he had first driven up to Johnson Brothers that morning. The car which was just pulling away from the curb as he drove past … a silver Camry.

  Shit! He had missed them by seconds. And he still didn’t get the licence number. What’s more, he knew that there were no CCTV or traffic cameras in or around this old industrial park, so there was no chance of picking it up that way.

  ‘Dammit!’ he hissed, slamming his hand down on the desk.

  The girl visibly recoiled. ‘I … I’m sorry … I didn’t realise …’

  Mark raised a conciliatory hand. ‘It’s OK … OK. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ she said, still looking unsettled, ‘we’ve got it all on the computer, so I can easily print off new copies of everything.’

  ‘OK, well that’s good,’ he said, making every effort to level his voice and calm the mood. ‘Perhaps you can make copies for me as well.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ she replied, now managing a smile. ‘Always ready to help the NYPD.’

  ‘One more thing … and this is important.’ She gazed at him, wide-eyed. ‘Do you have any contact details for either of these two guys?’

  The business card James had left, still lay on the desk. ‘Only for this one,’ she said handing Mark the card. ‘He’s the one who’s a potential client.’

  As Mark went to take the card, she hung onto it, reluctant to release it. ‘Can I take a copy first?’

  ‘Sure, but please don’t try to contact him until you hear from me that it’s OK to do so.’

  Her face fell, but she nodded her acquiescence.

  Thirty minutes later, Mark was on his way. Once again, he had come almost within touching distance of unravelling this perplexing situation, but once again failed. Just what the hell was going on?

  Chapter 35

  James was poring over the documents which Kyle had managed to purloin. The other two listened intently as he read out various pieces of information.

  Johnson Brothers had eighteen permanent employees and, currently, fifteen casual workers. It was immediately noticeable that almost every name in the latter group sounded Hispanic. Two, however, stood out from the rest: Mohammed and Ahmed Bashara – the same names that appeared in the cryptic, handwritten note on the back of the murdered journalist’s document.

  ‘So,’ said James, ‘now we’re clear about the link between these two guys and this building company. But that, in itself, doesn’t prove anything. We still don’t have any evidence that they’re planning anything bad.’

  ‘What else do we know about them?’ said Kyle.

  ‘Well, according to these profiles, both are US citizens, and …’ He paused as he turned the page.

  ‘I wonder how thoroughly the company checked that out,’ interrupted Kyle, his voice dripping with scepticism.

  Juanita felt a twinge of anger at the way Kyle kept letting slip his disdain for ‘illegals’. He knew full well that she, herself, was an ‘illegal’ in his terms. She guessed he’d never known what it was like to try to escape poverty, hardship, or conflict in one’s country of birth. She decided to let it pass.

  James continued, ‘Looks like they were originally from Syria … we’ve got names for their parents: Joram and Amena … seems they still live there.’

  ‘Anything about how long these guys have been in the USA and what they’ve been doing since they’ve been here?’ said Juanita.

  James shuffled through the papers he was holding. ‘The files are pretty thin, but we do have résumés for them … of sorts. Mohammed has apparently lived here for three years and it looks like he’s just done a whole series of casual labouring jobs during that time.’

  ‘And the other guy?’ asked Juanita.

  James leafed through several pages, taking around twenty seconds seconds to skim read them, before replying. ‘Ahmed … yes, looks pretty much the same.’

  ‘Anything about how they supposedly achieved US citizenship?’ said Juanita.

  ‘No, I can’t see anything.’

  ‘If they’re US citizens, I’m the fucking pope,’ spat Kyle.

  Juanita fought back the urge to remonstrate with him. They were, after all, on the same side here, whatever Kyle’s prejudices. ‘Have we got anything else?’ she said.

  James flipped through the pages for a few more seconds, before shaking his head, exhaling noisily. ‘That’s it I’m afraid.’

  ‘Dammit,’ muttered Kyle, ‘after all that we don’t have a thing to confirm or refute our suspicions.’

  An idea occurred to Juanita. While the two men continued raking through the papers in the hope of extracting something useful, she flipped up the lid of her laptop and powered it up. It took her barely a minute or two to find what she was looking for: the FBI list of most-wanted terrorists. It was a very long shot; there were just fifty-one names on the list, representing only the most dangerous and hunted known terrorists in the world. What were the chances that their suspects would be on that list? What were the chances that they’d even be using their real names? Nevertheless, she sc
rolled through the list. There were just four individuals whose last names began with ‘B’: Abas Badour, Dabur Burki, Kabir Beydoun, and … Mohammed Bashara. She clicked on the name and brought up a photograph.

  A cold shiver crawled down her spine as she gazed into those dark, deep-set eyes, which somehow seemed to radiate pure evil. The hooked nose and sunken cheeks gave way to thin lips set in a grim, straight line, framed by a moustache and a long, bushy, black beard. She sat mesmerised for several long seconds before shaking off the trance.

  ‘Guys, guys … I’ve got something!’

  They both looked up. ‘What? What is it?’ said James.

  ‘Come and look,’ she said, stepping aside to make room for them and swivelling the machine sideways a little.

  The three of them huddled around the laptop. As the two men gazed at the screen, it was clear that they had been struck by the same spell as she had been, seconds earlier; they were rendered silent for some moments.

  Kyle finally broke the silence. ‘OK, maybe … just maybe, that’s our man … or one of them anyway, but remember what we said earlier: it’s a real common name in the Muslim world. And we can’t even be sure that this guy working at Johnson Brothers is using his real name.’

  ‘I know, but …’ she hesitated, fearing that what she was about to say would be ridiculed, by Kyle at least.

  James seemed to sense what she was thinking; he laid a gentle arm across her shoulders. ‘What is it Juanita? Nothing’s off limits here.’

  She turned and looked him directly in the eyes. ‘I just … feel it. Somehow I know it’s him.’

  Kyle cut in. ‘You can’t know it. It’s a very long shot at best.’

  Her eyes blazed as she shook free of James’s arm. ‘Call it women’s intuition … call it what you like. I know it’s him.’

  ‘Oh, give me a break,’ muttered Kyle.

  James intervened. ‘Hey, back off, will you? We’re supposed to be working together here.’