by Alex Kava
“Of course,” Wurth said, tugging off his gloves and stuffing them into his pocket with one hand while the other hand started punching numbers into his cell phone. “I’ll get someone down here.”
“And Charlie, I sure hope to hell your local guys thought to secure those videos,” Kunze said.
“Not to worry. Of course they took care of everything. Just hang on, okay?”
“I’m just saying I better not see videos of those backpacks on the local news.”
“We’ve got it taken care of, Ray.”
Maggie stayed back. She’d been a part of these multi-jurisdictional cases before. She knew all the collegial talk from the flight here was over. It was time to let the pissing contest begin.
CHAPTER
24
Nick allowed Yarden to cue up the video for him. He had already tagged several segments from cameras on the third floor, particular instances that had drawn attention before the bombs went off.
“We were watching them,” the little man told Nick, as his long fingers flew around the computer keyboard, poking with incredible ease and efficiency. “Shoplifters often use backpacks. And they’ll work in teams. That’s what we thought was going on.”
Yarden sat back and let the first video play. He folded his arms over his chest, shooting glances at Nick, as if anxious for his reaction. Nick leaned forward. The film was grainy, black and white but the angle was decent. The backpacks looked ordinary. Not trendy. Big and bulky and, from the shift in this young man’s walk, heavy.
Yarden keyed up another video on a second monitor, but left the first playing.
The second young man was shaggy-headed, a bit shorter and thin. The backpack was identical.
At first glance it bothered Nick that these guys looked like older versions of his nephew, Timmy and his friend, Gibson. Clean-cut young men, ordinary with confident strides. There were no slumped shoulders. No shifty eyes or heads darting from side to side. They didn’t look at all like nerds or social misfits. Nothing like perhaps Klebold or Harris who had been responsible for the Columbine school shootings.
What was even more disturbing to Nick was that they didn’t look anything like he expected a suicide bomber to look. Did he expect brown-skinned Arabs? Yeah, he did. And he knew he wasn’t alone. Someone suggests suicide bomber and the mind readily conjures up that racial profile.
“They aren’t exactly what you’d expect, are they?” Yarden asked as if he could hear Nick’s thoughts.
“No. Not exactly.” He avoided glancing at Yarden, wanting to at least appear objective. He suspected the security officer was looking for Nick’s approval, hoping to bond, confidants taking sides in what could turn into a finger-pointing showdown. “Do you have any decent front facial shots?”
“All of us have been upstairs helping.” Yarden suddenly sounded offended. “I only had a few minutes with these before I left to pick you up.”
“Sure. I understand.”
“I thought that was supposed to be your job.”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right.” Nick could play the diplomat if needed.
“I found a flash. And one of the explosions.” Yarden started stabbing at the computer keys again, ready to please and make up for not having what was requested. He fast-for-warded a video clip, shoppers in full-speed animation. Then he stopped and freeze-framed, taking a few more seconds and zooming in before he started the video again.
Nick watched, amazed that even without sound the wall of bricks exploding in front of him made him wince.
“Where is this camera?”
“All of these are third floor. This one is around the corner from the food court.”
“Play it again,” Nick asked. “Only this time in slow-mode. And zoom out.”
“Zoom out?”
“Yes.” He didn’t even glance at Yarden to acknowledge his skepticism. Instead, Nick leaned forward and waited.
The shot took in the entire stretch of the long hallway, brick walls on both sides. One side had interruptions of doorways. The other was solid. Signs hung above the doorways and in several other locations. Nick watched the wall explode again. It was the side with the interruptions.
“What’s on the other side of that brick wall?”
“There’s not much down this hallway. Some offices. Restrooms.”
“Play it again,” he asked.
This time just before the wall exploded, Nick pointed at the monitor. “Stop.”
Yarden responded quickly.
“Zoom in on this sign.”
Yarden obeyed immediately, no hesitation. The sign read WOMEN.
“Is the men’s restroom next door?” Nick asked.
Yarden quickly consulted a map of the third floor that was spread out across a bulletin board.
“The men’s restroom is clear down at the end of this hall and,” Yarden said, his voice higher than normal, “on the opposite side.”
“So this explosion came from—”
“The women’s restroom.”
CHAPTER
25
Before he went through the security checkpoint Asante found the airport restroom labeled FAMILY. The single room was larger than he remembered: one toilet, a sink and counter with a changing table and most importantly, a bolted lock on the door. It was perfect. No one would bother him here.
He checked his watch as he hung the garment bag on the door hook. He still had plenty of time to catch his flight. While he unpacked the essentials from his duffel bag he turned on and adjusted his over-the-ear wireless headset. He tapped a number and put aside the phone.
One ring and an answer. “Yes?”
“Give me an update,” he said as he dug out of the duffel bag a compact, but expensive and powerful electric shaver, zipping it out of its case and setting both aside for now.
“Text messages indicate Dixon is at the hospital.”
“He’s okay?” Asante chose his words carefully. But then he already knew the boy was alive. His grandfather had as much as confirmed that in his angry phone call.
“His grandmother is having emergency heart surgery. Rebecca is on her way.”
“So they’re together?” He punched up the map of the mall’s third floor on his computer screen.
“She asked what he got her into.”
Asante slid his finger over the small computer screen, zooming in on the map where Carrier #3’s bomb had exploded. GPS devices were packed in the backpacks, but every carrier was also given a brand-new iPhone so they could track both carrier and bomb in case one of them decided to leave the backpack behind. He had chosen to keep them all on one floor, the combined blasts close to each other, causing the greatest structural damage as well as creating a larger blast area. That had been his priority. Now he checked to see exactly where Carrier #3’s backpack was when it exploded. Zooming in he could see it quite plainly: the women’s restroom. The young woman not only had Dixon Lee’s iPhone, she had been carrying his backpack.
“Sir?”
“Continue.”
“Her name is Rebecca Cory. She’s a student at the University of New Haven, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut. Her father is William Cory of—”
“Credit cards? ATM card? Driver’s license?” he interrupted as he peeled off his clothes. He didn’t need to know the entire portfolio they had amassed. Just those details that mattered.
“ATM card through First Bank of Hartford,” the female voice continued, pleasant and soothing as though she were reciting menu items for a special dinner. “She took out a cash withdrawal of fifty dollars two days ago in Toledo. However, a MasterCard looks to be her choice of payment. She uses it for everyday incidentals. Up until two days ago, a daily Starbucks charge in West Haven. Connecticut driver’s license.”
“Revoke all three. Immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want her feeling disabled.” He stood before the mirror now in only socks and boxers, thinking this is exactly how he wanted Rebecca Cory—stripped
and vulnerable. Figuratively speaking. At least until it was safe to kill her. “Tell Danko that he can find the girl and Dixon Lee at the hospital.”
“And if he does?”
“Extract both.”
“Yes, sir.”
Asante would find another way to use the boy. An extra cutaway when the time was right. A bargaining chip, perhaps.
“What about the other young man?” he asked.
“His name is Patrick Murphy. I’m still working on him.”
Asante gave her instructions for what came next, including what to do with Murphy. Before he hung up he gave her a new contact number to use. Then Asante removed the SIM card from the cell phone, destroyed it, and flushed it down the toilet. The portable memory chip held all the traceable data including personal identity information and a record of incoming as well as outgoing calls. From the duffel bag pocket he pulled out a new SIM card and slid it into the cell phone. In seconds he keyed in the password for his wireless headset, punched in a couple of codes and the phone was as good as new and ready to use. He put it and the headset on the sink, safely out of his way.
The shaver indicated that it was fully charged. Within seconds he shaved off his goatee. He reset the shaver’s rotating heads so they wouldn’t go all the way to the skin but would leave a half inch. Then he started path after path over his head, watching the dark hair, some of it three to four inches long, fall to the sink.
Next came the hair color. The formula was his own special mixture. He squirted it into the palms of his hands and rubbed it over the new stubble, watching his hair turn honey-colored before his eyes. He massaged it into his eyebrows, too.
Cleanup took only a few minutes. Everything he no longer needed, including the syringe, was flushed away or washed down the drain. The hiking boots went into the trash can along with the rest of his clothes. From the garment bag he unzipped an expensive suit, navy blue and tailored to fit him perfectly, as did the white shirt. He left the collar open and stuffed the tie in the duffel bag. He replaced his over-the-ear wireless headset and tucked the cell phone into his breast pocket.
Finished with discarding the Project Manager, he flipped open his wallet to his driver’s license and held it up. Once again, he looked like Robert Asante, an ordinary businessman traveling to his next appointment. More importantly, the man in the mirror matched the man in the driver’s license photo.
It was time to move on to the next site. Time for the next stage of the project.
CHAPTER
26
“We already have our company investigator reviewing the tapes,” the small man named Jerry Yarden told Maggie as he led her through a back hallway.
Maggie couldn’t believe it. The security company was reviewing its own tapes? She stopped herself from asking whose authority and what protocol gave them that go-ahead? She’d learned years ago that questioning the locals risked offending them. The result only made her job tougher. It was better if they believed she was on their side. Most people already believed that federal law enforcement would sooner point fingers and place blame than present solutions and share credit.
“I understand someone in security noticed the young men before the bombs went off?”
“Oh yeah, we noticed. Three identical red backpacks.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder, not slowing his rapid, almost erratic pace. “You betcha we noticed.”
Yarden was Maggie’s height, small-framed but long-limbed, arms pumping and swinging loosely as he walked. He reminded Maggie of a propeller with a thatch of red unruly hair.
“How did you know they were red?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your surveillance cameras are black-and-white, right?”
“Oh sure. We started following them up on the floor,” Yarden explained. “We’re trained to watch what people bring into the mall with them. We see something suspicious, we follow on the floor. You know, large purses, shopping bags with return items, backpacks, even baby strollers. We had a woman last month sneaking cashmere sweaters under her baby. You’d be surprised what people do.”
Maggie smiled to herself. Actually she wouldn’t be surprised.
His Midwest manners kept track of her, politely leading the way and holding doors open. Now he pointed to a door at the end of the hall.
“We thought they were shoplifters,” he said. “None of us expected those backpacks to have bombs in them.”
He beat her by four lengths to the end of the hallway, yanked the door and again held it open for her, his feet spread apart and both arms engaged like the door was a ton of lead. She pushed aside the fact that she could probably bench-press Yarden’s weight let alone hold open the door for herself. Instead she thanked him and stepped inside.
He led her through a maze of offices and back to another door. When he opened this one she immediately noticed the room was dim and lit from only the wall of monitors, four rows of ten across with a long control panel of keypads, switches and color-coded buttons.
Sitting at the panel with his back to them was the lone investigator, square-shouldered, dark hair. There was something familiar about the man. Before he swiveled around Maggie recognized Nick Morrelli.
He, however, was not prepared. He did a double take, looking from Yarden to Maggie and back to Maggie.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said with his trademark smile, the one that employed dimples and white teeth in the glow of the computer monitors.
“Hi Nick.”
“You two know each other?” Yarden seemed disappointed.
“We’ve worked together before,” Maggie answered, leaving it at that and watching to see if Nick would be compelled to add more. “So you’ve left the D.A.’s office? You’re an investigator now?”
“For United Allied Security.”
“Yes, the mall’s security company. Do the local authorities know you’ve been reviewing the videotapes?” Maggie asked Nick but looked back at Yarden who avoided her eyes. Finally Yarden nodded, his head the only part of him in motion now, arms glued to his sides. He reminded her of a bobble-head.
“Yeah, no problem there,” Yarden said, still nodding.
“They’ve got their hands full, you know?”
She noticed his cadence grew faster with a slightly higher pitch in relation to his amount of guilt. Even the tips of his ears grew red.
“We’re only here to help,” Nick told her but Maggie knew from experience that Morrelli’s loyalties were sometimes divided, and often resulted in something close to personal quicksand.
Four years ago Nick Morrelli had been county sheriff of a small Nebraska community that was held hostage by a killer—a killer who was targeting young boys. To solve the case Morrelli had struggled to abandon a lifetime of loyalty to his father, the previous sheriff, in order to save his nephew. Maggie and Nick’s paths had crossed several times over the years but most recently last summer when, once again, Maggie had been sent to Nebraska to profile another killer. This time Nick’s loyalty to a childhood friend had almost jeopardized the case.
“Well then, so you two know each other,” Yarden said, anxious to break the silence and ease the tension. “That should make this easier, right?” The little man spun a chair around and held it for Maggie. “Ms. O’Dell—”
“Agent O’Dell,” Nick corrected.
“Oh yeah, right. Agent O’Dell.”
She sat in the proffered seat, next to Nick, giving him only a glance and focusing her attention instead on the wall of monitors. They had been cueing the tapes, stopping them at important intervals. Over a half dozen of the screens were already freeze-framed.
“As you can see, all we’ve been doing is tagging segments that might be relevant.” Nick waved a hand at the screens. “Isn’t that right, Jerry?”
“Right. There’s an awful lot of tape to look at. We’re just trying to narrow it down. We’re not discarding anything. We’re just looking and tagging.”
Maggie almost felt sorry for the nervous little man. She
could hardly tell him to relax, that it was Nick Morrelli she didn’t fully trust and not Mr. Yarden whom she had only met moments ago.
“Agent O’Dell will need to see the carriers,” Yarden said quickly, grabbing the opportunity to move on. He took the seat on the other side of Maggie. “The tapes are grainy at best.” Even before he scooted his chair forward his fingers were flying over the control panel. “We work on a three-second system. That is the camera takes a shot every three seconds. It’s not continuous, so it might seem a bit jerky if you’re not used to it.”
“Do you have a Z97 filter or HDzoom pack?” Yarden’s fingers stopped in midflight and he looked at her with obvious admiration. Not only did she understand the three-second system but also the new state-of-the-art technology.
“We don’t have anything quite as sophisticated,” Yarden said, glancing over to Nick as if he was to blame, being the company’s highest authority on the premises.
“The company is considering updates,” Nick said almost too quickly.
Maggie heard a bit of defensiveness in Nick’s tone. She ignored it and focused instead on Yarden who was cueing up segments for her to view on monitor after monitor.
“This is one of them.” He pointed at the first screen.
Maggie leaned forward. Nick didn’t. Had he already seen these? Of course, he had. She wondered how long Morrelli and Yarden had been at it.
From the grainy quality of the video all Maggie could decipher was that the man was average height, clean-cut. He was wearing jeans, a jacket with maybe a logo on the shoulder, and tennis shoes. There was nothing extraordinary about him.
She felt the two men watching her, gauging her reaction, waiting.
Yarden added more views, cueing monitor after monitor until there was a line of grainy freeze-framed images of two different young men with the same backpack walking separately through the crowded mall. Only one instance showed the two of them together.
“I thought there were three?”