She hailed a cab, got in and, after telling the driver where to go, got out her cell phone and called Morgan Prescott. It was not an official call but something that came out of her conversation with Mush.
.G.
“Brooke’s in the building,” George said as he popped into Bridgestone’s office, which was about to become Brooke’s again . . . Bridge hoped.
“No, Brooke is here,” she said as she entered and put her bag down on the table.
“Brooke, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Some lamebrain thought it would be a good idea for me to step in until you came back . . .”
“Thanks . . .”
“You okay?”
“I am now, because of you.” Brooke gave him a peck on the cheek.
Bridge had had many commanding officers but that was the first time any of them had ever kissed him. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That call was the most important call of my life.”
“Oh, that?”
“Yeah, that! How did you ever pull that off?”
“The commander in chief pacific fleet, who is your husband’s commander, and me went through SEAL training together, so I tapped an old poker debt.”
“And how much did the president owe you?”
“There, I kinda owe him, ya see. They don’t blow a nuclear missile submarine’s location, ever. That little phone call cost the government a few million dollars in scrambling TACAMO aircraft and diverting active units to cover her while she was afloat and vulnerable, emanating open frequencies.”
“Yeah, they don’t like their very expensive boats exposed like that. I learned that when they pulled me from the Indian Ocean. Which of course is classified so we will speak of it no more.”
“You know, the president said a very logical thing. He said, ‘the Nebraska is out there to protect America from a far off threat. Whereas Brooke is dealing with an immediate threat to the nation right inside our borders.’ He made the choice to sacrifice the operational details of a deep deterrent fleet missile boat to get you back on the team.”
“How did he know that phone call would do the trick?”
“He was in command of a fighter squadron in the first Gulf War. He knows what it is like to lose people. And so do I. So we figured it was the best medicine to get you up on your feet and back in the game.”
“I don’t know, Bridge, sounds a little too touchy-feely for macho guys like you and the boss.”
“Let’s just keep that little chestnut between us, okay Brooke?”
“Got it.”
Bridge got out from behind the desk and waved his hand for Brooke to take her chair. “Please . . . I’d rather face a platoon of bad guys than try to tackle one more FEID stroke 1213-s form.”
“Yeah, the paperwork kinda takes all the fun out of it,” Brooke said as she took the seat. She opened the briefing folder on her desk and scanned it.
Her eyes widened as she read the preliminary report of the attempted suicide bombing. “When did this . . . ? Oh, thank God!” She scanned the contents. “This woman cop, Kylee, I’d like to meet her. She saved the day!”
“Yes, it could have been really bad. Twenty-five hundred pounds of nasty would have left a deep crater on Fifth. And they’d be killing two birds with one stone.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s obvious they were targeting the team and they would have certainly destroyed St. Pats.”
“I guess the crusades are still with us,” Brooke said.
“No, hate, ignorance and the trumping of ideology over the value of human life is still with us.”
“You are just knocking down every myth I ever had about you, Sergeant.”
“I’m just glad you’re back, Brooke. Now let’s get these sons of bitches before they hit us.” Bridge left her office.
Brooke opened her desk draw. She found the gold-leafed card and dialed the number. “Brooke Burrell-Morton for Mr. Valente . . . Yes, I’ll hold.
Valente picked up the phone on his end. “Director Burrell, it’s good to hear from you. I was relieved when Warren told me that you survived that horrible attack.”
“Pure luck, but it was awful. A lot of good people died.”
“Well, I’m glad you are safe. So how can I help with your investigation?”
“Mr. Valente, I am not calling you about the inquiry. I have a request.”
“Call me Julie. What can I do for you?”
“I have convinced Morgan Prescott to create a trust fund for the children of my staff that got killed in the attack.”
“He agreed to put that kind of money up?”
“I kinda asked him to . . . because we saved his family and he kept saying he could never repay us . . . and I was just talking to my husband and suddenly it all clicked.”
“I see.”
“But the fund needs a trustee, someone to administer it and make sure the intention to pay for the children’s education is executed. Based on your history and public service, I have a feeling you are that man.”
“Well, I’m honored. How much did Prescott commit to?”
“Ten million, and he will manage the portfolio so it’s bound to grow.”
“Well, of course I’ll do it. I think it’s a great idea. And thank you for asking me.”
“Thank you, Julie. I needed to do something. The thought of all these kids losing a parent and what they are going to have to go through . . .”
“What do you want to name the fund?”
“The Nigel Otterson fund.”
“Who is that?”
“A wise man who never got to be a father.”
“It’s a very nice thing you’ve done here.”
“Well, maybe I’ll sleep better.”
Chapter 35
Good Neighbors
“So, Steve, the bomb squad came out because of the cargo in the back of the truck, which police officials are categorizing as industrial chemicals that were being transported illegally by the driver and could, I emphasize, could have interacted during the cleanup from the accident and exploded like a bomb. Reporting live from Fifth Avenue in Midtown, I’m Reggie Lang, News 12 . . . back to you, Steve . . .”
“Reggie, what have we learned about the driver?” the news anchor asked.
“All the medical examiner’s office is saying at this time, Steve, is that the body is being put through a battery of tests to determine if the driver was either ill or under the influence at the time of the accident. Their findings, as usual in these kinds of cases, will be . . .”
“They are lying to their public,” Dequa said as he muted the sound on the news.
“Should we call the papers and claim responsibility?” Amid said.
Dequa consider it for a moment then decided against it. “Why have some of the population leave the city, which would surely happen? It would just lower the casualties. Maybe we let them have their perceived success in containing the truth of the attack.”
“It is amazing how they have managed to make our actions seem like accidents. The rocket attack, this truck . . . it is almost as if Allah . . .”
“No, Amid, it does not matter what they think today. Soon they will bury their dead in numbers that will cripple this city and bring this nation to its knees. Then they will know forever that they have been lied to.”
“You have great faith, Dequa.”
“You don’t?”
Amid froze as the question sliced through his soul like a saber. Fear tingled all over his skin as he was searching for the words when Dequa smiled. Amid felt light headed and just smiled in return.
“The northern team will be diverting them tonight,” Dequa said referring to Paul’s plan.
.G.
Jim Aponte was getting that look from his wife. They were at it again, at
almost nine o’clock. Reluctantly, he got up from the couch and looked out his living room window. He took out his cell phone to call the cops on Wally and his brothers who just kept banging and making a racket on whatever it was they were customizing. He looked at the phone and decided maybe not to get them in trouble for doing the same thing he loved, working on his car. So he went out the front door to try to reason with them one more time.
.G.
“He is coming now,” one of the two who stayed behind said. “Let’s get out the back.”
Jim walked right up to the garage door and rapped on it. “Wally? Wally? It’s Jim. We got to talk, buddy.” Jim listened . . . The hammering had stopped. “Wally?”
He went to the front door. The house lights were now off. He hadn’t noticed that before. He knocked on the door . . . tried the bell . . . looked through the living room window . . . even tapped on the glass. No one was home. He stepped back to look upstairs when he noticed the light coming from the garage door, which wasn’t all the way down. “Well, at least I can see what you guys are working on,” he said to the empty house as a form of permission to assuage his curiosity.
Jim lifted the middle door of the three and was taken aback. No car! In fact, no tools, just a beat up metal garbage can all dented with hammer blows. Not even any hammers. “What the hell?”
He entered the garage. There were eight huge blue plastic barrels and the place smelled like shit. Literally. He was confused then he saw something on the bench. It was a stick of dynamite. There were a few wires and a battery on the surface as well. He stepped backwards, almost tripping over one of the plastic barrels. It was heavy and didn’t move.
Jim had always considered himself a fair-minded man. Being a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, he knew of prejudice and the way people jump to conclusions about you by the way you look. He hated that. Fought it all his life. Now he was in a beautiful, quiet, mostly white neighborhood. Most of the folks were kind enough. There were a few knuckleheads who gave him sneers and cold looks but, on the whole, he got along fine with his neighbors and was even on the community advisory panel. So when the four Middle Eastern boys moved into the old Hornsby place, even though his wife had a mild concern, he put his best spin on it—this is America, they have just as much right to be here as we do.
Now he was looking at his worst nightmare. But even at that moment, he tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. He went around their house looking for tree stumps—something that might explain TNT, although it was still stupid to have it lying around. Then he closed the garage door and stepped lively to his house.
“You did good; they stopped,” his wife said.
“Wake up the kids. Call your mother. We are sleeping over there tonight,” he said as he picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“It isn’t safe here. There is something going on over there and I want you and the kids as far from it as possible. Now go get the kids and call your mom.”
He pointed to the upstairs as the police answered the phone. “Hello, this is Jim Aponte. I live at twenty-one . . .”
.G.
As Brooke and George were walking out of the meeting room, Bridge walked up to them pointing back to the room so they about-faced and went back in.
Detective Harris followed them in.
“Whatcha got, Harris?” Brooke said as she sat back down.
“Yonkers PD just found a bomb factory, fertilizer, ammonia nitrate, fuel . . .”
“Just like the truck . . .” George said.
“I’m heading up there now. There’s a stick of TNT that matches the batch number assigned to Empire Construction.”
“Your floater?” Brooke said.
“Exactly,” Harris said as he turned to leave.
“I’m going to scramble the New York FBI crime scene unit.”
“Whoa . . . who’s in charge?” Harris stopped in his tracks.
“You are, and I’ll put it in writing.”
“You got that kind of juice?”
“I made them an offer I was willing to refuse,” Brooke said referring to her demanding of a director’s grade pay and power, hoping they’d turn her down and she could stay in Hawaii.
Later, Brooke was all alone in her office, writing a letter to Mush. In the moments in between the demands of the job and on those rare nights when she got home before midnight, she’d just write to him. In her way it was like talking over the day’s events and being close to him. She never thought about sending them; it was just a way for her to stem the loneliness of his long deployments in command of the USS Nebraska.
She toyed with the idea that on some distant anniversary she’d ask him to get over here and sit by his old lady . . . that she had something to read to him from that young woman he married. She had seen pictures of the Morton men and they aged very well. She smiled as she thought of Mush with grey hair and a little paunch saying, “Why don’t you bring that young girl over here to sit on my lap.”
She was writing about the incredible shock she felt at the accusation that she’d had an affair with Jim Mitchell, essentially Mush’s and her boss.
Then she remembered. She picked up the phone and dialed. “Hello, the first lady’s office, please.” She had the insider’s number to the White House switchboard.
“Hello, this Brooke Burrell-Morton I was . . .”
“Oh good, we’ve been trying to reach you. Thank you for calling back. Just a moment please.” Brooke wasn’t sure what she was talking about, then it dawned on her to check her phone. FLOTUS. FLOTUS. FLOTUS, were the last three caller ids. She held the line, and somewhat braced herself for the First Lady of the United States.
“Brooke . . .” a familiar voice soon came over the receiver.
“Mrs. Mitchell . . . er. Hi. How’s everythi . . . Are you okay, Delores?” She just couldn’t play cute like everything was fine and dandy while not acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation.
“I was wondering the same about you,” FLOTUS said.
“I am flabbergasted that anyone could think . . .”
“Brooke, I know. It was cruel and unfair.”
“Delores, I heard that you interceded on my behalf . . .”
“Not just yours, mine, my family’s, our presidency and our legacy. You know, Brooke, something like this, if you don’t nip it in the bud, it lingers, festers, and becomes the fodder for mudslinging, dirty tricks, and sometimes even impeachment.”
“Still, just the same, you stood up for me and for that I will always be in your debt.”
“Listen, Brooke, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough, enough of these ‘gotcha’ media ambushes. It’s patently unfair that a woman can’t spend time with a man and not be accused of bedding him down. It’s infuriating, this double-standard bull . . . crap. I almost wish I had not interceded; that I’d let it play out, then lowered the boom and shame all of them back to ‘J’ school. You know, I used to work at the Denver Post before I met Jim. Some reporters are okay, professional and responsible members of the fourth estate, and I guess I should say, a mainstay of our freedoms. But let me tell you, there are a few scum-sucking bottom feeders out there who deserve to get their just desserts in Macy’s window. Scratch that . . . have their fannies whipped in Bloomingdale’s window.”
“Well, Delores, at least you’re not bitter!”
They both laughed and that released much of the tension and bile that this whole sickly affair had dredged up.
“Oh, Brooke. We must have a few whisky sours over this one.”
“Delores, I’m there. You just say when.”
“After the mid-terms, then if I get a little soused it won’t matter. I’ll be the wife of a lame duck.”
“You sure you haven’t started early there with a little nip of cooking sherry?”
That starte
d another round of laughter.
Twenty minutes later, with heartfelt goodbyes, they hung up. Brooke had a warm feeling that the woman on the other end, who belonged to the world, to history, had a place in her heart for Brooke, and that just made her feel ten feet tall.
She grabbed the pen, and returned to her writing, “Well, you’ll never guess who was just on the phone . . .”
Chapter 36
Home Stretch
Dequa had placed a two-dollar bet on the number eight horse, Hanny’s Hanover the Third, for a win in the sixth harness race. It was a long shot at thirteen to one. He had the racing form under his arm and pencil behind his ear, blending in with all the other race goers on this unusually warm night at the trotters. From the grand stand, Dequa focused his binoculars on the number eight horse as the driver in the sulky behind it guided him around the track and into position behind the outstretched gates attached to the pace car. The starter sat backwards in the car. When all the horses were at the moving gate he would call the start of race and the 350-horsepower modified Lincoln Continental he was in, that served as the rolling starting gate, would accelerate as the horses did the same but with only one horsepower each.
Dequa panned the overly powerful binoculars to the right, at the guardhouse to the Yonkers reservoir just beyond the track’s ground. Its darkened glass, closed-circuit cameras and other sensors were well known to him, but what he didn’t know was why the two county sheriff’s Ford Broncos, both with heavily weaponed tactical patrol force members at the ready, were now also parked there. He immediately had two nerve-rattling thoughts: one, that they had uncovered his plot; or two, the Fifth Avenue bomb attempt just had every agency a little on edge. What did the Americans call it? Oh, yes, an abundance of caution.
As the field of horses rounded the far turn, the crowd yelled and coaxed on their horses. Each hoping theirs, and theirs alone, was heading to an easy payday. Dequa also started saying, “Go, number eight! Go number eight,” to join in. Anyone looking at him could see he wasn’t looking to his left at the far turn but to the far right. No one looked at him, though, because in the middle of a race every one of the twenty-five thousand fans were looking at only one thing, their horse.
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