Molly was talking to her producer on the phone, trying to coordinate a live broadcast in the next few minutes. While they talked, Molly scribbled notes furiously in her notebook and then hung up.
“Sammy, you ready to go live?” she asked.
“Ready, Molly.” he replied. By now he was wearing a set of headphones connecting him directly back to the local broadcast studio. “I’ll cue you in as soon as they let me know.”
Molly grabbed a small mirror out of her bag and checked her makeup. Her face looked fine, but her hair was a little mussed from the run. She quickly ran a brush through it.
“Thirty seconds, Molly,” Sammy shouted.
Molly tossed her bag towards Sammy’s feet and then stood facing the camera licking her lips, trying to keep them moist as she prepared to ad-lib her live report.
“Ten seconds, Molly,” said Sammy.
He held up his free hand, palm open and fingers spread out and began to count down with each digit, finally he gave her the go signal, pointing at her.
“This is Molly Robbins reporting live from the Embarcadero station in the financial district of San Francisco….”
* * *
The rapid departure of most of the agents from the FBI Command Center had quickly transformed the conference room from a cacophony of noise and drama to an almost unnatural quiet. The few technicians who were left began speaking in low voices, just loud enough to be heard over the squawking, crackling police radios.
“Hey, look, it’s the Embarcadero on CNN,” shouted one of the technicians, pointing at the TV.
“Quick, turn up the volume,” said Casey.
“…we are now monitoring a breaking story from San Francisco,” the voice of the CNN newscaster intoned. The camera was slowly panning over the scene, showing the haphazardly parked police cars and groups of police officers trying to hold back a large crowd. The camera stopped panning as it focused on the face of young woman.
“The film you are seeing is from KRON TV in San Francisco,” the CNN newscaster continued. “Let’s listen in to their broadcast.”
“…repeating again. About thirty minutes ago, a number of men thought to be federal agents…uh…FBI agents, were seen running down Market street directly towards the Embarcadero Station. A number of them rushed into the station while the local police kept anyone else from entering. Shortly after that the station was evacuated and since then there has been little visible action. We do know there are a number of agents still in the station. I was told just a few minutes ago by someone who claimed to be in the station when it was evacuated, a woman was arrested there. We have no official confirmation, but I was told by a witness the police had detained the woman inside the station. Now…oh.” Molly stopped speaking for a moment as the camera panned to the left.
“Right now as you can see, a tow truck has just arrived. It seems to be backing up to a police car. Uh… uh…I’m not sure why.” Molly went silent for a moment. “OK, the tow truck operator appears to be fixing a tow bar to the police car. I have no idea if this activity has anything to do with the activities in the station or what…. now the police seem to be moving the other police cars away from the one going to be towed. Again, we don’t know the significance of these actions, but since there is no indication the police car you are looking at has broken down I think we can assume this must have something to do with the person being held in the station.”
The camera panned back over to the entrance to the station. Four men, two in uniform and two in suits, were huddled in a tight conference just beyond the entrance. Molly Robbins continued to keep up her play-by-play.
“…what you are looking at again is the entrance to the Embarcadero Station. We don’t know the identities of all four men in the picture, but I’m sure that one of them, the one on the left of your picture, is John Gonzalez, Chief of BART Police. The other uniformed officer is Deputy San Francisco Police Chief Dan Willmot. We think, but we are not sure, one of the men in the suits is Lance Jessep, Special Agent in Charge of the local FBI office, but that has not been confirmed. We don’t know the identity of the fourth man, although he does appear to be the one directing the operation.”
* * *
Gordon Lewis was talking earnestly to the senior police officers and to the local SAC, Lance Jessep, concerned about extracting the woman from the station over open ground with so many people around. She might try to run into the crowd, or Al Rahman might just decide to blow her up.
“Look,” he said to the two senior police officers. “I want us to move very slowly and carefully as we bring her out. Dan,” he said looking over at the Deputy Chief, “Put two sharpshooters on that roof,” pointing to a mid-sized building with a clear view of the BART Station and its surroundings. “You instruct them that if, and only if she starts to run, they should take her out. OK?” The Deputy Chief nodded, and then jogged over to the Special Weapons and Tactics truck that had just driven up.
“Now,” Gordon continued to the others, “we still haven’t worked out what to do with her. My suggestion is we get her out of the City as soon as possible. Lance,” he said turning to the SAC, “what do you think?”
“Well, I don’t recommend we take her out on either the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate. We are going to have to drive her down the peninsula, and then get her to a safe place where the bomb can be removed.”
“Hell,” said Gordon, “that’ll cause a logistical nightmare. We will have to clear the roads and freeways along the route. It’s going to be rush hour soon. Is there no other way out of the City?”
“What about a helicopter?” suggested John Gonzalez. “We can have one land right on top of the one of these high-rises.”
“Uh, I don’t know,” said Gordon. “What if Al Rahman sets off the bomb while the helicopter is just taking off. No, I don’t like that one.”
“Well, what about moving her to a secure location here in the City where we can put her on a chopper,” the chief countered.
“Yeah, we could take her out to the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park. The chopper could land there and we can secure the park to be sure that Al Rahman is not in range,” Lance Jessep responded.
“That sounds better,” said Gordon Lewis. “We run the tow truck with the car behind down to the park, then the chopper takes her out and over the Bay to a secure location. That sounds good. OK, Dan, can you have a police helicopter meet us in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park?” Gordon asked.
“Do you have a destination in mind?” the police officer responded.
“I’m working on it. By the time you have the chopper in place, we’ll have a destination. All right,” he said looking at the two men, “let’s get to it. We’ll bring her out now, nice and easy.”
* * *
Casey’s cell phone rang. “Casey Jennings,” she said absently as she stared at the television.
“Casey, its Gordon. Listen, I need you to do something for me. We have the woman in custody. We are about to evacuate her, but we have to find a military base nearby with a hospital equipped to handle her.”
“OK, Gordon,” said Casey. “I’ll get on it right away.”
“Call me back as soon as you have a location. Don’t try for permission. Just find it. I’ll get the clearance.”
“No problem. Oh, Gordon,” Casey continued quickly before he hung up, “I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but we are watching the whole scene on CNN. It’s being broadcast live.”
“Oh crap,” said Gordon. “Price of a free country etceteras…” He paused, then said, “Say, Casey, you know what…if you’re watching this on CNN, then we can try to ID her as we bring her out. Is the FRS up and running yet?” he asked referring to the Face Recognition Software the FBI had tried to deploy to find all the assassins.
“Hold on,” Casey replied, “I’ll check.”
She called out to one of the technicians in the room and he just shook his head with a disgusted look. She knew they had been trying to make the software work all day b
ut it had been generating so many false positives it had to be shut down. Casey turned back to the phone.
“No luck I’m afraid. The FRS is still not working.”
She could hear Gordon Lewis swear under his breath. “Ok. Well, when she comes out of the station I will have her pause for a moment. I am sure the camera will zoom in on her. I want everyone in the control room to look at her face and compare it to the pictures Kosnar gave us.” He paused very briefly before continuing. “Get Kosnar as well. He might have some special insight into what she looks like. Do it now and I will call you back in about three minutes.”
Casey quickly relayed Gordon Lewis’ instructions to the small group of agents still in the room and then hurried out of the conference room to get Vladimir Kosnar.
After completing his seemingly endless interview with the profilers, Vladimir had asked permission to sit with the agents monitoring the closed circuit television system that had been set up at the FBI headquarters to monitor crowds and traffic around the Moscone Center. The initial plan had been to use the FRS software to identify the women Al Rahman had potentially deployed around the Moscone Center, but when the software failed to work, the value of the video surveillance had diminished. The two agents who had been manning the surveillance monitors were pulled out onto other more pressing assignments and Vladimir Kosnar had been left in the room alone. Casey had dropped into the control room a couple of times and the first time she had sat with him briefly, watching as the images from thirty cameras were rotated through eight different screens. She had tried to speak with him each time she visited but he always seemed completely intent on looking at each camera shot and so after that she had left him alone.
He was still alone at the monitors, hand on the camera control lever when she walked in and seemed to catch him by surprise. He quickly recovered and seemed pleased to see her but his face darkened as she quickly relayed what was happening at the Embarcadero station. He followed her out the surveillance room with one quick glance back at the monitors as she led him back to the command center.
Her phone rang again as she walked back in. “They’re bringing her up the steps right now,” Lewis said as soon as she answered. “We’re going to walk her over to a police car, which will be towed away by a truck. Stand by.”
He was back on the phone a few seconds later.
“Casey, are you there? Is everyone ready to make the ID? We are bringing her out now.”
“We’re ready Gordon,” she replied. “Go ahead.”
* * *
Natasha Mislov was so afraid she was shaking. She had been standing for almost fifteen minutes until one of the men finally told her to sit down. She did as instructed, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, head resting on her knees. She could not understand what the man had meant when he said there was a bomb inside her body. That was ridiculous. How could that even be possible? But why was nobody coming close to her? Everybody was keeping their distance, treating her as if she was a dangerous criminal, as if she had some strange disease.
How did they even know who she was? She wasn’t here to spy on anyone. That wasn’t her job any more. Actually, she did not even know what her job was. All she had been told to do was stand outside Moscone Center and try to shake hands with important people. What was the crime in that? Was it possible they were arresting her for the industrial espionage she’d done all those years ago? Maybe they knew about it then, but were just making the arrest now. But the bomb. That didn’t explain what the man said about the bomb. One of the men had asked her name and a couple of other questions, and she had given him her pseudonym, but when he asked where she lived, she decided it was better not to answer any more questions.
* * *
Lance Jessep looked over at the woman on the floor. She looked scared, which made him feel uncomfortable. If she had been correctly identified, he realized, he probably knew more about her predicament than she did. He felt sorry for her, tried to ask her a couple of questions, but all she would tell him was her name. His instincts told him Officer Pallard had done a good job, an amazing job, actually, in noticing her. Anyway, they would know in a few minutes, when they took her out. If they could not confirm the ID, then they might have lots of explaining to do. However, if experience and instinct counted for anything, he was pretty sure he knew she was one of the women even without the formal confirmation.
“OK, Lance,” one of the special agents said as he walked towards his boss. “The car is ready. Mr. Lewis wants us to move her out now.”
“All right,” said Lance, “let’s do it just like we discussed. I want four agents in front of her, four behind. I will walk with the forward team. As soon as my team gets to the exit, we will stop and wait until I give you all the all clear sign. Then, and only then, we will bring her out directly to the car. Does anybody have any questions?”
There were no questions, so Lance looked over at Natasha and began to give her instructions.
“Ma’am,” he said. “We are going to move you out now. We are going to do this very slowly and carefully. Do you understand?” He was speaking loudly, his voice echoing through the large nearly empty station.
Natasha looked up at him and nodded.
“OK, I want you to stand up and walk slowly towards me.”
Natasha stood and moved to pick up her bag but Lance Jessep quickly dissuaded her of that notion.
“Leave the bag,” he shouted. Natasha straightened up, looked at him, and then began to walk slowly.
“OK, very good. Just keep coming. Just like that.”
Jessep and his team walked in front of her, keeping about fifteen feet from her. Behind her, the rear team stepped into place, following from a similar distance. She was boxed in by the narrow walls of the passageway and by the teams of men. As Jessep adopted a sideways gait so he could keep his eyes on her and still navigate the stairway, the group moved slowly through the deserted station.
Suddenly, Natasha stumbled, her foot snagging on a piece of broken tile. One of the agents next to Jessep let out a loud gasp as she struggled to recover balance, but she found her footing, and then continued to move forward. Now they were close to the stairway. As he glanced forward, Lance could see sunlight striking the stairs.
“OK, lets stop right here. Ma’am,” he said to Natasha, “I want you to sit down again. That’s right, just sit down with your back to the wall.”
He watched her until she complied, then ran up the steps, taking them two at a time. As he got to the top, he saw Gordon Lewis and waved him over.
“Where is she?” Gordon asked.
“Right at the bottom of the stairs. We can bring her out any time.”
“OK. Let’s do it, then walk her over to the car.” Gordon paused and looked around at the gathering crowd. “This part is tricky,” he said to Lance, with a frown on his face. “She’ll be in the open now. For all we know, the guy with the remote control could be, in fact is, in the crowd right now.” He shook his head and grimaced and then turned back to Lance.
“Listen, go back down and tell her we are going to take her out of the station and to some place safe nearby. Tell her when she gets to the top of the stairs, you want her to pause for a few seconds. That’ll give the TV crews time to film her and hopefully give us time to confirm her ID. Tell her after that she is to walk directly to the car behind the tow truck. Got it?”
Lance nodded in affirmation. Gordon Lewis gave him a slap on the back and said, “OK, let’s do it. Let’s bring her out.” Lance turned and hurried back down the stairs into the station.
* * *
The camera was directly focused on the exit to the station. Molly Robbins’s voice continued to give a running commentary, although very little appeared to be happening.
“…OK we think they are about to bring the woman out of the station. The police and the FBI have all backed away from the entrance. OK here comes someone now.”
On the screen, Casey could see Lance Jessep and three ot
her men emerge from the station. As the camera panned back slightly, she could see them begin to take up positions on either side of the pathway to the car. Lance had his back to the camera and was looking directly back at the station entrance. Suddenly, the camera zoomed back to the station entrance as a woman emerged and focused on her face.
A technician quickly typed some commands onto his keyboard and the woman’s face was quickly frozen and projected onto a number of computer monitors in the room. Casey stared for a moment at the woman’s face and then glanced down at the sheets of pictures in her hand, trying to find a match.
“Mislov,” one of the agents shouted out as he waved a sheet of pictures in the air. “I think its Natasha Mislov from page three, uh…. second row, third picture.”
Casey and the other agents quickly flipped to that page and tried to make the match. Casey quickly found the picture which was clear and in color but it was also dated, of a woman much younger than the one on the monitor. Casey glanced back and forth between the two trying to confirm the woman’s identification when she felt Kosnar at her side.
“It’s her,” he said in almost a whisper as he stood close to her. “It’s Mislov.”
She turned to look at him and urgently asked, “Are you sure?”
Kosnar just nodded in response.
By now most of the remaining agents were also confirming the woman’s identification as Casey glanced between the picture on the monitor and on the paper. She hesitated for a second and then shouted into the phone.
“Gordon, are you there?”
“Yes,” he replied quickly. “Did you find a match?”
“Yes, we are quite sure her name is Natasha Mislov. Vladimir also thinks it’s her.”
Gordon Lewis did not even bother to respond. Before he had even disconnected the phone, Casey could hear him shouting for them to get moving. Watching the TV, she could see Gordon waving at the woman, encouraging her to move towards the police car. Casey watched as Mislov walked slowly but deliberately towards the car.
Eves of Destruction Page 25