“If thermite is mixed with the paint, the police lab will find it.” Mel grabbed a lab transmittal sheet and a property voucher.
Richie shook his head. “Not the police lab.”
She looked at the standard forms in her hands.
“If you fill those out, the job and the feds will know about the paint.”
“How else are we going to find out what’s in it, Rich!”
“The feds will confiscate it, like they took Mark’s dust.” He beat the pail like a drum. “Time to go off reservation.”
She looked at him and shrugged. What was he talking about?
He rolled his eyes. “We’ll send some to a private lab.”
She smacked her forehead and smiled. “I’ll get the yellow pages.”
Chapter 27
Mark licked his lips, reached for another hush puppy, and studied the bay. Gone were the days of relaxing at the patio restaurant, listening to lapping water and enjoying the view of Pelham Bay. Now his gaze darted under City Island Bridge for suspicious boats, as if he knew what to look for. Suspicious trucks and people were no problem. He’d spot something dirty in three seconds. But boats, as long as they were floating, they looked good to him.
He peeked under the table at Hope asleep in her infant seat. A brown blanket printed with bears all over it was securely tucked around her sides and under her feet. A matching hat with earflaps fastened under her chin allowed only her chubby face and long eyelashes to show. But wasn’t it a bit much?
He placed the back of his palm over her cheek to make sure she wasn’t sweating. The breeze coming off the bay didn’t make it under the shelter of the table. Mel would be satisfied that the baby was warm and protected from the wind. But wouldn’t fresh sea air be good for her, too? He shrugged.
“She’s a little Mel!” Tony said from across the table, and smiled. “Thank goodness she doesn’t have your nose.”
Mark glared at him and laughed when Tony pretended to duck from his stare. “Maybe our next one will look like me.”
Tony whistled. “Is Mel—”
“No!” Mark said. “We barely see each other these days. Opposite twelve-hour shifts.”
“You didn’t drive to Rodman’s Neck just to show off the baby.” Tony squeezed lemon on a platter of baked clams. “And the seafood is off-season.”
“I need your opinion on the towers.”
“I still can’t believe they’re gone.” He sat back in his chair.
“Why did they collapse?”
“Controlled demolition. No doubt.”
Mark exhaled and pushed away his plate. That’s what he’d thought too, but he’s no expert. To hear it from a bomb-squad tech made his stomach sour. “Mel’s Dad said the same thing. He’s been out of the game for a while—”
“Not so long that he can’t recognize textbook examples of controlled demolitions. Mr. Russo is still sharp and you know it. The towers collapsed in seconds, straight down.” He grabbed his napkin and wiped his fingers. “Those cave dwellers are smarter than we thought.”
“Maybe they weren’t the ones who planted explosives in the buildings.”
Tony twisted his napkin and looked at Mark. “They preplanned it, somehow.”
“How did they wire the buildings from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan? They couldn’t have done it.”
“Saudi intel trained the pilots in the damn Arizona desert—in Las Vegas’ backyard, for God’s sake. They must have found a way to wire the towers, too.” Tony smoothed his napkin and patted pinched lips.
“If al Qaeda pre-wired the towers, why did they use airplanes at all?”
“We’ll never find out.”
“What do you mean? Ground zero is the biggest crime scene in the world!” Mark pushed his chair away from the table. “Of course, we’ll figure it out! We always do.”
“NYPD is out of it.” Tony waved a fly away with his white napkin. “The feds took over the investigation.”
“They can’t do that!”
“The feds confiscated all our iron, concrete, and dust samples before we had a chance to conduct tests.” Tony shook his head. “Something smells and it ain’t the fish.”
“Maybe the feds don’t want us to find out what happened.” Mark raised an eyebrow. “They seized my dust sample, too.”
“Dust sample?”
Mark pulled a sandwich baggy filled with dust from his pocket. “I took this from under the World Trade Center concourse three days after it happened. Richie took some to the police lab and they won’t give it back.”
“National Security?” Tony smirked.
Mark nodded.
“Bullshit!” Tony leaned forward and pounded the table.
Mark handed him the baggy. “I was sure the lab would find thermite traces, but they didn’t.”
“The product of thermite combustion would be found, sure. But no traces of thermite. Thermite burns too hot and fast. Nothing remains but iron and silicone spheres.”
Mark punched the table. “I knew there was evidence in the dust sample!” The table shook and he peeked at the baby. Hope was awake but not frightened.
Tony’s eyes grew wide. “What did the lab report find?” He held the baggy in his palm as if guessing its weight.
“Plenty of iron and silicate spheres. Guess the technicians didn’t know what it meant.”
Tony sat still a moment. He took a deep breath and looked at Mark. “I’ll have this analyzed and safeguard the rest. The results won’t mean much without a sample of metal from the rubble for comparison though.”
“Richie snatched a piece from Building 7 wreckage.”
“He did!” Tony almost jumped from his seat. “Have him bring it here ASAP.”
“But the feds will just confiscate it.”
“Hell no. We’re not playing that game again,” Tony said, shaking his head. “We’ll do our tests off the record. My CO will keep this in-house.”
“Tony, he’s a boss. He can’t take a risk like this. You gotta freeze him out.” He leaned back in his chair. “I won’t ask Richie to bring the metal here otherwise.”
“We need his authorization to conduct some specialized tests.”
Mark rubbed his forehead. “No way—”
“Believe me, Mark.” Tony pressed his palms together and pumped his arms. “My lieu will keep it in house. I’ll ask him to keep a separate, confidential log. We have to build a chain of evidence or the results will be thrown out of court.”
“Damn it, Tony. I know all that!” Mark shook his head side to side. “But I also know, as a boss, your lieutenant has no choice but to go through proper channels. And then we’ll be back at square one.”
Tony rubbed his face and puffed out air.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Tony’s face reddened. “We swore not to talk about it. The whole damn thing was so embarrassing.” He drained his glass.
Mark sighed. He refilled both their water glasses, wishing it was beer, and folded his hands on the table.
“When the feds showed up and demanded the evidence, we were still logging it in. Hadn’t even come up with a strategy yet, never mind conducted any tests. Anyway, our CO refused to release it. He invited their guys to be present during testing. He even offered to videotape all the experiments and make them copies.” He took a sip of water. “He was being super cooperative. He thought they wanted the same thing we did—to find out what explosive demolished the towers. You know, so we could found out who helped the terrorists.”
“So there’s no way jet fuel could be enough, huh?”
“Mark, think about it for more than a minute. It doesn’t make any sense. It is physically impossible for plane crashes to cause the collapse, even with full fuel tanks.”
“Mel’s father explained the physics to me, but a part of me resisted the truth. Because that means someone helped the terrorists plant explosives in the buildings right under our eyes. And we missed it.”
“That’s why we have to keep
our tests under the radar. We don’t know who helped them.”
“Mel and Richie have some good leads.”
“Good, but they have to be real careful.” Tony pulled his chair closer and lowered his voice. “Listen to this, Mark—the feds arrested my CO right in front of us.”
“For what!” Mark stomped his foot and the baby began to cry.
“Obstructing.”
“That’s absurd.”
“We formed a human blockade in front of the lieutenant and the evidence. The feds called for back-up.” Tony looked sheepish. “They arrested all of us.”
“No! That’s crazy.” Mark unfastened Hope and bounced her on his lap. “Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“The lieutenant demanded a phone call. You know Barry Cellone? He’s the only honest reporter left with any . . .” He looked at Hope and blushed. “Well, they ripped the phone from his hands before he could say a word and then released us all.”
“That confidential log is a good idea. We’ll document everything we do for court.” Mark grabbed his cell phone. “I’ll tell Richie to trust your guys with the metal. If I know him, he’ll be here before the end of tour.”
“The sooner we get started the better.” Tony tore his white napkin into tiny pieces.
White remnants blew off the tabletop and swirled into the wind.
Chapter 28
Trotting back to her desk with the Manhattan yellow pages, Mel flipped it open to laboratories and groaned. There were pages of listings. After eliminating medical, clinical, and dental labs she was left with only a handful. She did a quick search through the Better Business Bureau and picked out a lab only ten blocks away. She and Richie dropped off a sample of Justin Newman’s paint, and picked up sandwiches on the way back. They couldn’t be sure whether thermite was used in the towers until they got the results and there was plenty to do until then.
She wheeled Richie’s chair around to her desk and made room for their lunch. “I’ll load the surveillance photos of subjects.”
Richie sat down and started unpacking the bag.
“I’ll take the lieutenant his lunch,” Mel said, grabbing a hero sandwich. “I want to thank him for laying out the money for the lab out of petty cash.”
“Mel, we don’t have that kind of money in petty cash.”
“I figured he probably took it from his own pocket, that’s why I want to thank him.” She ran down the aisle toward the bosses offices and was back in two minutes.
The pictures had loaded. The first image she had shot in front of the Council House was on the screen. A tall muscular man in a gray suit stood to the side of the front doors.
“That’s Martin,” said Richie. “You can cross him off.”
Mel choked on her sandwich. “How do you know his name?”
“He’s security. I bet he’s in every shot. He lives on Chauncey Street. Married with three kids. He’s a good guy.”
She stared at him, shocked that he knew so much about a security guard that worked at the Council House. “Are you related?”
“Just because we’re both black. Makes us cousins or something?”
“Rich! I—”
“Sorry, that wasn’t fair.” He looked at the floor, and when he looked up, his brown eyes were sparkling. “I know him from dropping Eva off at work.”
She squeezed his shoulders. “Wow. You and Eva!” Her partner with her best friend. So Eva must have been the mysterious babe Richie had phoned last night. And he just happened to be in the neighborhood Monday night—on his way upstairs to Eva’s apartment. “That’s great, Rich, but why are you so darn defensive?”
“We got close so fast.” He leaned back and a smile crept across his face. “I’ve never cared so much about anyone. It’s all new to me.” He looked down at his hands and cleared his throat. “You know I had a hard time, not only living as a terrorist for so long, but starting my teenage years as . . .”— he took a breath—“a drug dealer.”
Mel’s eyes moistened. Richie hadn’t had an easy life, pretending to be someone he wasn’t throughout his young adulthood. He, like Matt, had given up so much for this city. A pit formed in her stomach thinking about how Matt had never gotten the chance to be happy. And that was her fault. She refused to break her rule about not getting romantically involved with her partner, no matter how much she wanted to, and he refused to date anyone else. She wondered for the zillionth time how different her life would have been if Matt had lived.
She stared at Richie, and sighed, so proud of him for getting through it all—and saving so many lives in the process. Why didn’t he see all the good he’d had done? Now, he could have a happy life—if he let himself. He deserved it, even if he didn’t think he did.
“Stop gawking at me and answer your phone.” Richie held out the receiver.
“What?” She hadn’t heard the phone ring. She held back a chuckle. Shaking her head, she jabbed the flashing button on the phone console. “Intelligence Division, Detective Ronzone. May I help you?”
“It is I who wishes to help you,” said a male voice with a Spanish accent.
Mel glanced at the images on her monitor and suddenly pictured the man she’d met the day she took them. “Vando!”
Richie’s eyes widened. He grabbed a pen and starting scribbling.
“Why do you think the Council is involved in the attacks?” Mel wondered how Vando could be so far ahead of them.
“I’ve studied the Council for years. It is not at all what it pretends to be. Once you see things from a different perspective, everything becomes clearer. And young lady, when I say everything, I mean—everything!”
Richie tapped the desk and held up the notepad. She quickly read Richie’s chicken scratch and nodded. “How did you know about the elevator shafts?” she asked.
“So, it led you somewhere. Excellent.”
“It sure did.” Richie patted her shoulder and held up the pad again. She read aloud what Richie had written. “Do you know anything about High Rise Renovation?”
“Keep looking into them. It leads to the same road.”
Mel shrugged and scrawled a big question mark over Richie’s pad.
Vando cleared his throat. “The day we met, we both snapped photos.”
“They’re on my screen right now.”
“The white middle-aged man in the green suit is with Simon Demolition.”
She clicked through the images. “Dirty blond hair? Slender build?”
“He’s standing next to the black security guard.”
“Okay, got him. Works for Simon Demolition, you said.” She elbowed Richie and pointed at the green-suited man standing next to Martin.
“He is one of the two high-rise demolition experts employed by the company.”
She gulped. “The man in the green suit specializes in high rise demo?”
Richie took notes.
“The two experts are contracted all over the world to head skyscraper demolition projects.”
“I hadn’t realized high-rise demolition was a field of expertise.”
“Vegas hotels, office buildings, all tall buildings—situations where damage to surrounding buildings needs to be minimized. The demolition has to be safely controlled. If you watch the implosion of any high-rise building, you’ll see the similarity to the implosions of the twin towers and Building 7.” He paused. “It’s textbook, really.”
Mel sighed and rubbed her forehead, letting that sink in. “My dad is—was—an architect. He videotaped the towers’ falling and insists they were demolished by preset explosives.”
“Your father is correct, detective,” Vando said. “A professional demolition company planned the collapses of the three World Trade Center buildings and trained operatives to carry it out. And now you have the name of that company. It’s up to you to prove it.”
“What about the airplanes?” Mel shook her head. “Why were the passengers sacrificed if the towers were going to fall anyway?”
Richie was practical
ly sitting in her lap straining to hear Vando. She pushed him away and pointed at his phone. He huffed and scooted around to his desk. He pressed the line Mel was on and then slowly lifted the receiver.
“Window dressing to cover the preset implosions.”
Her stomach ached. She couldn’t comprehend intentional loss of life on such a large scale. And her head hurt trying to grasp the concept. The idea that planes had been flown into the buildings to distract people from something even worse distressed her to a level she had never felt before. Deep down, it resonated true. She was chilled to her core. “Why?”
“Transnational insiders are gaining control over the world’s commerce and resources by scaring the people into accepting extreme measures in exchange for being safe from terrorism. It’s all a big fraud.”
Now her heart hurt. “So many people died.”
“If they get away with this, they’ll never stop.”
“Then help me prove it! Give me names. Who are the insiders?”
“They are untouchable, young lady. They hide in the shadows.”
“I don’t accept that!”
“You can stop the insiders from implementing another staged attack by arresting the independent contractors they hire to do their dirty work.”
Mel couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. She loosened her grip on the telephone receiver. “Okay, I’ll start with the henchmen.” She sighed deeply and looked at Richie. He stood at his desk, his jaw tense and back rigid. She read his expression and knew he felt the same. “But we’re not stopping until we put away the insiders.”
Richie nodded and held up his fist. Apprehensive about what they were up against, Mel let out a long breath. She was so thankful that Richie was just as determined as she was to bring down the perpetrators. One by one, if need be, until they get to the top.
“I’ve been fighting them a long time.” Vando’s tone sounded solemn but nowhere near defeated. “We may never send the true monsters to jail, but one day they will face God’s judgment.”
“I’m not giving up before I even get started!”
The Council House (The Impoverished Book 3) Page 12