Unlucky Day

by J. R. McLeay

  Hannah glanced at her watch.

  “It's 12:09. We might still be able to catch him.”

  Joe nodded.

  “I'm going to approach on foot in case we need to chase him through the back alleys. Do a circle of the block in the cruiser. If you don't see anything suspicious, meet me outside the front door in a few minutes. Then we'll head up to the roof together to block his escape.”

  Joe took off running up the middle of the street toward the tall building. Alternating glances between the rooftop and the perimeter of the building at street level, he searched for any sign of the sniper.

  He knew there were precious few seconds remaining to block the killer's escape.

  14

  30 Washington Square West

  July 7, 12:05 p.m.

  The sniper watched the flurry of activity at the corner of 5th Avenue and Washington Square North through his rifle scope. It seemed as if every police car in Lower Manhattan had responded to the emergency dispatch.

  Normally, he'd be packing up his gear and making his way downstairs to bypass the cordon. But something held his interest for a little longer. He wanted to see his pursuers up close one more time. There was something intriguing about this detective. The sniper was hoping to find some clues he might use for future leverage. Within five minutes, two familiar faces emerged from one of the cars stopping at the scene.

  The sniper's scope followed the senior detective as he spoke with the attending patrol cop. He swung his rifle to a line of cops running toward Washington Square Hotel on the northwest corner of the park. He smiled at how easy it had been to misdirect their attention. Shifting his focus back to the crime scene, he watched the detective look into the front seat of the cab and place his finger over the hole in the windshield.

  What's this? the sniper thought. He's walking into the middle of the intersection and pointing in my direction. Not in the direction of the hotel—toward the rooftop of my building. Surely he can't see me in my camouflaged position? The sun is too high to glint off my lens. Now he's running toward me! Shit. This is going to make exfiltration more challenging. No time to leave in the usual way.

  The sniper quickly disassembled his rifle and packed it in his case. Then he reached into a canvas knapsack and pulled out a thick rope and two grappling hooks. He threaded one end of the rope through the eye of one hook and tied a secure clinch knot. Then he crouched down and moved to the opposite side of the rooftop elevator room.

  He stopped at the south edge of the rooftop and looked across the gap to the adjacent building. The two buildings were at the same height. It was only fifteen feet across to the other rooftop. Looking down into the gap, there was a ten-story drop to the top of a smaller connecting building. Just enough to kill or seriously maim the sniper if he fell. But there was no other option. He knew the cops would be rushing up to the rooftop in seconds, and there was no other way down.

  He grabbed the rope three feet from the tethered hook and began to swing it up and down in widening arcs. He released the hook and flung it onto the rooftop of the adjacent building. Pulling the rope toward him, the hook caught a utility pole. He fished the other end of the rope through the handle on top of his rifle case and lifted the rope to shoulder height. The case slowly slid down the rope toward the other side until it bumped against the side of the building.

  He tied the other end of the rope to the second grappling hook and secured the hook to a pipe on top of the elevator shaft. Throwing the knapsack over his shoulder, he reached up with both hands and tested the rope to be sure it would hold his weight. Then he began traversing the gap, moving hand over hand as his body dangled over the open chasm.

  When he got to the other side, he detached the hook from the utility pole. Then he turned to the other building and swung the rope up in a bullwhip movement. A wave ran the length of the line until it reached the other end and made a clanging sound. The hook on the other side bumped away from the pipe atop the elevator shaft. He swung it back over to his side. Just as he heard the sound of the utility door fly open on the other building, he scampered to the far side of the machine room on the new building. Crouching low and out of sight, he waited twenty minutes until the voices from the adjacent rooftop disappeared.

  When the cops were gone, he fished two thin knife-like tools out of his pocket and inserted them into the exterior lock of the machine room. After jimmying them for a few seconds, he swung open the door and pulled his equipment inside. Finding a storage space behind some old boxes, he hid his rifle case and pulled on an old baseball cap. Then he threw the knapsack over his shoulder and began making his way downstairs.

  With no sign of police on the main floor, he slipped out a side door and joined a group of students walking into a residence hall across the street. He set his knapsack down at a table on the north side of the cafeteria then watched the building across the street for the next two hours. When he was sure things had died down, he walked back across the street to the building where his rifle was stored. Taking only seconds to jimmy the lock on the side door, he made his way up to the elevator room where he retrieved his case.

  Later that evening, he began planning his next move. He knew his next hit would raise the level of fear to an entirely new level and set the entire city on edge.

  15

  Park Slope, Brooklyn

  Five Years Earlier

  The young man approached a townhouse in the tony neighborhood of Park Slope with a mix of fear and excitement. He'd searched for his birth mother his entire life and hoped today to finally meet her. She wasn’t expecting him, and he wasn't completely sure she was his real mother. New York's adoption laws blocked the release of birth parent identities without their consent. But the young man was very resourceful and determined.

  There was never any secret he'd been adopted. He'd shuttled between foster homes until a childless couple finally adopted him at the age of eight. He wondered if it was his unusual appearance that kept his natural and foster families from adopting him. He had an oddly-shaped upper lip and unusually narrow-set eyes. Children at school teased him mercilessly and he'd been mistreated by his adoptive father. It was almost as if his appearance made him less human, giving others license to abuse him.

  When New York changed its adoption disclosure policies, it provided him a glimmer of hope. The new law allowed adoptees over the age of eighteen to receive non-identifying information about their birth parents. This included information about the parents' race, religion, occupation, and the name of the agency that arranged the adoption. He already had his amended birth certificate, which showed his original birth date and place of birth. It wasn't too difficult to correlate the information to identify his mother's name and location.

  The Adoption Information Registry revealed that his mother at the time of his birth was single, Catholic, and unemployed with a tenth-grade education. The adoption agency on record was St. Vincent's Adoption Services. When the agency refused to disclose his mother's identity, he returned after closing hours and used his lock-picking skills to break in. After searching through the files for five minutes by his adopted last name, he found a folder under the surname Weir. It contained a copy of his original birth certificate with his name and his mother's maiden name blotted out. His father's name was listed as Unknown.

  When he got home, he magnified the size of the certificate using his computer's photo-editing software. Then he printed the enlarged certificate and held it over a bright lamp. He could barely make out his mother's maiden name: Sarah Feeny. His own birth name was listed as Brian Feeny. A quick Internet search of the New York City White Pages pulled up seven matches for a Sarah Feeny. Two were black, three were under the age of thirty-five, and one was over the age of seventy. That left only two who would have been of childbearing age when Brian was born. But only one was Catholic.

  He tracked down her address and confronted her, but her reaction suggested there was no connection. As a result of his repeated childhood abuse, the young man h
ad become super-sensitive to people's body language. He'd learned to recognize when someone meant to do him harm and when they were lying. The woman looked him directly in his eyes and spoke in a natural tone of voice. She was either a superb actor, or she wasn’t related to him.

  He'd hit a dead end. Where else could he search for his mother? Could she be in jail? The adoption registry information hinted at a troubled past. Research on his unique facial deformities correlated with fetal alcohol syndrome. His mother had been an alcoholic; might she also have been a junkie? Had she turned tricks to feed her drug habit? Maybe she’d moved outside the New York metropolitan area. That would make his search much longer and more problematic.

  After some deliberation, it suddenly hit him. There could be a much simpler possibility. It was possible his mother had married and changed her name. After checking the public record of marriage licenses issued in New York City over the last twenty-three years, he found five women with maiden names of Sarah Feeny. Three had married in a Catholic church. Their addresses were easily traceable using the couples' married names.

  Neither of the first two women demonstrated any sign of familiarity when he met them. The Brooklyn brownstone was his last chance to trace his natural mother. He hoped his appearance might trigger a memory and that the woman's reaction would reveal the lineage. His birth mother would have noticed the unusual facial characteristics in her newborn baby and likely been informed of their cause. If he had any doubt about their connection, he was prepared to take a hair sample for DNA testing.

  Walking up the steps to the front door of the expensive home, he couldn't help thinking how different his life could have been if his mother had kept him. If this was her, she’d certainly improved her standing since her high-school dropout days. Could her newfound wealth have provided a better education and more opportunities for her son? Would a loving mother have sheltered him from the abuses he received at the hands of so many vicious strangers?

  He knocked on the door and straightened his hair. The sound of heels walking over a tiled floor became progressively louder as someone approached the door. It swung open and a beautiful blonde woman in her late thirties appeared. Her eyes widened as she looked at the young man. It was obvious that she recognized his face immediately.

  “Mother?” the young man said.

  His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour. The woman had his same hair color, and her pupils were wide as saucers, betraying her excitement.

  “It's me, Brian. Your son.”

  The woman stood in the doorway for a long moment with her face flushed and her chest rising and falling with adrenaline.

  “I—I don't know who you are,” she stammered. “I don't have a son. Please...leave me alone.”

  She began to close the door. The young man leaped forward and placed his hand on the door.

  “Please. I can tell you recognize me. I just want to talk for a few minutes. I've thought of you so often.”

  The woman paused. For a brief moment, it appeared as if she might acknowledge the connection and rush out to embrace her son. But the sound of someone working in the kitchen behind her snapped her out of her thoughts, and her expression suddenly shifted.

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said matter-of-factly. “I don't have a son. If you don't leave, I'll have to call the police.”

  Two little girls about the age of five or six came scrambling up the hall behind the woman and peered out the door.

  “Who's that funny-looking man, Mommy?” one of them said.

  “Go back inside, children. It's nobody. He's got the wrong address.”

  The woman's eyes made contact with the young man one last time before she shut the door and bolted it from behind. In that last moment of contact, he knew from the agonized look on her face that she was his mother.

  16

  Battery Park, Lower Manhattan

  July 7, 7 p.m.

  The morning's hit on the cab driver had proven more challenging than expected for the sniper. He'd made a narrow escape under close pursuit by the two detectives. He knew he’d have to be more careful with his next attack. He also knew the detectives would be winnowing the list of suspects and that eventually he’d come under suspicion.

  Tonight, he planned the perfect alibi.

  At 7:00 p.m., wearing a mustache, sunglasses, and a baseball cap, he walked into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at the edge of Battery Park. He carried a heavy gym bag in his right hand. It took all his strength to hold his body straight so as not to raise suspicion as to the bag's contents. His sniper rifle dangled from a shoulder harness down the length of his back under a long coat.

  When he reached the elevators, he pressed the button for the top floor with his knuckle. There would be no need for any guest room subterfuge today. No more hiding, nor rapid extraction. This time, everything would be automated.

  When he got to the top floor, he walked to the end of the hall and entered the stairwell. Walking up two flights, he picked the old-style door lock leading up to the mechanical room. Emerging onto the rooftop, the view was perfect. It had a raised lip around the perimeter, with no tall buildings nearby for anyone to look down on him. And he had an unobstructed view of the ferry terminal across the treed expanse of Battery Park.

  He set to work immediately. He took off his coat and laid his rifle on an air conditioning unit. Then he swung the bipod legs down and pointed the barrel toward Whitehall Terminal two thousand yards to the south. Looking through the scope, he could see the bow of the Staten Island Ferry where it lay nestled in its mooring.

  The 7:20 p.m. scheduled departure to Staten Island was busy loading passengers. Even at this relatively late hour, there were still many passengers boarding after a long workday in the city. The pack of bobbing heads streaming up the gangway presented an easy target. But nobody would be shot in the back of the head this evening. The sniper wondered which unlucky commuter would be in the wrong place at the wrong time on his return journey tomorrow morning.

  He unzipped his gym bag and pulled out a device that looked like a waffle iron. He twisted a knob on its side, and the two sides began to separate as scissor arms connecting them elevated the upper plate. Placing his rifle butt on the top surface, he peered through the scope and swung the barrel a few degrees south. He turned the knob a couple more times and looked through the scope again. It took three or four adjustments until he had the barrel pointed where he wanted.

  Then he reached into the bag and extracted three heavy sacks. He propped one behind the end of the rifle butt and the other two around each end of the bipod legs. He tried moving the rifle and it held firmly in place. Then he pulled a small black box out of the bag and placed it at the front edge of the platform. The device had an actuator arm, which he inserted into the trigger opening. Pulling out his cellphone, he tapped the screen a couple of times. A motor inside the black box whirred for a moment, and the actuator arm pulled back against the trigger. The rifle clicked.

  He tapped his phone again and the arm whirled forward, releasing the trigger. He pressed a button on top of the black box and a digital display blinked the current time. He quickly checked his phone to verify the numbers matched. Then he inserted a five-round clip into the stock and looked through the scope to make one final adjustment.

  The last thing he pulled out of the bag was an object that looked like a small drone. At each corner of the device were six-inch propeller blades encircled in a metal housing. His final step was to hook two cables attached to the bottom of the drone to eyelets on top of the rifle and the black box.

  Picking up his empty gym bag, he took the elevator down to the hotel lobby and calmly walked out the front door. There was a warm, gentle breeze. As long as the weather held overnight, he'd be several miles away from the scene of the next killing.

  Twelve hours later, the 7:00 a.m. Staten Island Ferry slowly chugged toward Lower Manhattan. The thirty-minute crossing of New York Harbor was one of the most breathtaking pass
ages on earth. Steaming directly past the Statue of Liberty, passengers saw the spectacular skyline of New York City rise higher and higher as the vessel approached Whitehall Ferry Terminal.

  But not many people were paying attention this morning. Everybody was checking their email or catching a nap before starting another work day. At 7:20 a.m., the ferry sounded its foghorn, announcing its arrival into port. Five minutes later, six thousand commuters shuffled through the ship's bulwark into the terminal. The bleary-eyed passengers could have no inkling that more than a mile away, an unmanned rifle was taking random aim on the crowd of faces.

  On the other side of the harbor, a lone man stood on the shoreline of New Jersey, watching the ship’s exodus through binoculars. At 7:25 a.m., he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen twice. Three miles away, the black box atop the Ritz-Carlton Hotel whirred and its actuator arm slowly retracted. It took almost three full seconds for him to hear the poof of the rifle after he saw the passenger's head explode.

  Moments later, the sound of panicked screams wafted across the bay as people stampeded into the terminal. The man waited only a few short seconds before tapping new instructions onto his phone screen. Soon after, a long thin object lifted off the roof of the Ritz-Carlton hotel and began flying toward Liberty State Park.

  The man wondered how many people would notice the odd object flying across the harbor. No matter, he thought, because he would be long gone shortly after it landed in a heavily forested section of the park.

  Two minutes later, he was on the New Jersey Turnpike headed into the haze of downtown Newark.