by Chris Mooney
‘Maybe I should ask Rosemary Shapiro to represent me.’
‘Maybe you should. She’s good, and she gets results – especially when it comes to going up against the city. But, as I’m sure you know, lawyers like Rosemary Shapiro charge big money to defend criminal cases. That kind of defence will bankrupt you. Best-case scenario is she takes you on pro bono in the hope that, after your criminal trial, she’ll be able to mount a civil suit against the city. And let’s say she wins and gets you a nice payday. We’re talking years, maybe even a decade or more, until you see a single penny. And you want to know the worst part?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘The worst part is that your reputation will be destroyed,’ Donnelly said. ‘This consulting gig you’re doing? Gone. All your hard-won experience, your Harvard degree – no one is going to want to hire someone who may or may not have been working in collusion with a gunman/serial bomber using your father’s name. Perception is the law of the land. No one in their right mind will hire you to investigate so much as a parking ticket because no one in their right mind is going to want to draw that kind of publicity to themselves – and you already know that kind of publicity will haunt you, thanks to the internet.’
Donnelly sighed. His shoulders slumped as he leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands on the table. ‘What I’m saying is that the truth doesn’t matter. Nine-eleven, what happened right here in Boston with the Marathon Bomber – the public never knows the full truth. They’re fed what we’re willing to feed them, and we only feed them a fraction of what really happened – just enough to fill their bellies so they’ll be satisfied and turn their attention back to their lives or on to some other fresh new horror, like what’s the latest and greatest with Kim Kardashian and her stepfather, Bruce Jenner – or is he now her stepmother?’
Darby said nothing. Waited for the rest of it, thinking about the papers, how if she didn’t sign them they’d boot her from the case – and yet the governor and mayor could still turn around and try to make her their scapegoat. If she signed the papers, she could stay on the case in an advisory capacity – and yet the mayor and governor could still use her as their scapegoat. It didn’t matter how this thing flushed out. She was dealing with men who took out people with a pen or a phone call.
‘I’m trying to be a friend here,’ Donnelly said.
‘And just how much is this friendship going to cost me?’
Donnelly opened his mouth to speak. It hung open for a moment until he sat back in his chair, as if recoiling from a noxious odour.
Darby grabbed her phone. She pressed the button and the screen came to life. The app she had opened previously, one that used the phone to record conversations, was still running.
‘However this thing unravels, at some point it will end,’ he said. ‘You’ll go back to your life, and the rest of these people will sit back and think about how they’re going to destroy you.’
‘They’re already doing that. They have the time and the resources and the venom. Signing those papers isn’t going to change that.’
‘Why did you get involved in this?’
‘Murphy didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘And you do?’
‘I didn’t want the gunman to start shooting. You’re welcome.’
‘You think you maybe jumped in because you saw a chance to get back at us?’
Darby got to her feet. ‘Good luck with the gunman.’
The door opened and SAC Gelfand came inside, alone, his face wan when he said, ‘Big Red has made contact.’
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+04.52
‘Made contact?’ Darby said, confused – and alarmed. There was no way the gunman could have made contact with anyone by phone, email or text because the bomb squad was jamming all cellular, Wi-Fi and radio frequencies in the area, and had shut down the BPD internet and the phones inside the lobby. ‘Made contact how, and with whom?’
‘I don’t know the how yet,’ Gelfand replied, frustrated. ‘As for whom, Big Red contacted – or I should say, the pregnant hostage made contact with a reporter for the Boston Globe. Guy named Dave Carlson.’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Donnelly visibly stiffen.
Dave Carlson covered city and state politics, but his specialty was uncovering corruption. He had won a Pulitzer for his work on the Boston Catholic Church sex abuse scandal and was awarded another one just last year, for his in-depth reporting on former BPD Commissioner Christina Chadzynski’s decades-long reign of behind-the-scenes corruption and terror involving Boston’s most notorious Irish gangster turned serial killer, Frank Sullivan. Carlson had been the go-to reporter because he had an unnamed source close to the investigation. Darby knew who the source was because she was the one who had provided Carlson with the necessary details and information he needed to make sure neither BPD nor the city could spin the story for their benefit.
‘Carlson broke the story about ten minutes ago on Twitter,’ Gelfand said. ‘So far, he sent out four tweets, all of them allegedly from Big Red.’
What did surprise her was how the gunman got access to Twitter when every single line of communication coming from the station had been shut down. And why hadn’t Donnelly given her the boot?
Gelfand read from the screen of his BlackBerry. ‘The man who is holding myself and another woman hostage is Big Red. Big Red wants a peaceful resolution to the situation and promises not to detonate any more bombs or harm the hostages or my unborn baby as long as former mayor Briggs promises to come inside the lobby and talk openly and honestly on live TV.’ He looked up. ‘That’s it.’
Donnelly’s face was mottled red when he spoke to Gelfand. ‘You assured me the area was locked down.’
‘It is locked down. I just got off the phone with the bomb squad guy, Ted Scott, and he assured me – again – that there is no way in hell the gunman could have made contact with the reporter – with anyone. Every single goddamn cell phone and Wi-Fi signal in that area is being jammed, and we shut down the internet and phones inside the lobby.’
Then Gelfand looked to Darby and said, ‘He made you toss the satellite phone and its battery out the front door of the station. That’s what you told me.’
She nodded. ‘I gave it to Grove after I helped Anita Barnes into the back of the EOD vehicle. Where’s Carlson? Have you talked to him?’
Gelfand shook his head. ‘I sent agents out to the Globe’s office and to Mercy Park on Cabot Street.’
‘Why there?’
‘That’s where the media is congregating.’
‘So the gunman has got to be using his own satellite phone. That’s the only way he can be making contact with the outside.’
‘That’s exactly what Scott just told me.’
‘That portable router I saw – it was misdirection. He wanted me to see it because he wanted us to think he was operating the bombs on either a cell signal or Wi-Fi frequency. He didn’t want us to know he had his own satellite phone with him.’
‘And if that’s the case – and I believe it is – then we’ve got a major problem,’ Gelfand said. ‘Jamming a satellite signal takes specialized equipment – military-grade equipment that Scott doesn’t have access to. He will have got to appropriate it from a military base – provided they have it on hand.’
‘Where?’
‘He’s making some calls. Scott thinks the Parsons base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, might have the equipment. If they do, we’re talking a good hour or so until they arrive.’
Donnelly added, ‘Allowing him to call whomever he wants.’
Gelfand sucked in air through his nose. ‘Correct,’ he said.
‘He could be controlling the bombs from that phone.’
‘Gee, thanks, Peter, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Gelfand glared at him for a moment, then his expression turned dour. ‘Look, if he is using a satellite phone, bottom line is we have no way to shut it down until the appropriate equipment arrives.’
‘Or we take him out.�
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‘And how, exactly, do you suggest that? There aren’t any windows in the lobby, so the snipers don’t have a clear shot – even if they did, there’s that little matter of the suicide vest being hooked up to a heartbeat monitor. I talked through the scenario with our guys – you were there, Pete – and they said even if they were lucky enough to get off a single headshot and put him down, that would leave them thirty seconds to a minute before his heart stopped. That’s not enough time to figure out how the bombs are all connected together – or where they’re located. Even if we didn’t go that route – if our plan was to take him down and then get the hostages and our SWAT people out of there – there’s no way they can get to safety in a minute’s time, and a minute is being generous. The two IEDs he has with him inside the lobby, the pressure wave from the blast will kill them.’
‘We’re assuming this heartbeat device of his works.’
‘You think he’s bluffing? We already had one explosion in Quincy. What makes you think that there won’t be a second IED? A third and a fourth? Who knows how many of these things this guy is using.’
‘There is one solution,’ Darby said.
Both men looked at her.
‘Deliver Briggs and the camera crew.’
‘And watch him and everyone else get killed on live TV,’ Gefland said. ‘Great solution. Wish I had thought of that.’
‘He’s not going to kill Briggs. He wants Briggs to live so he can suffer publicly for his sins. That’s what your man wants.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but you also said that the first bomb would be used someplace where no one would be killed or hurt, that he was going to use it to make a statement. Well, he sure as hell accomplished that. That IED he left in Quincy killed two people.’
‘That target has some significance to him. The others will too. No matter which way you look at it, he’s got you guys cornered.’
Gelfand caught her tone and said, ‘What’s with this “you guys” shit? You abandoning ship?’ Then he saw the expression on her face. ‘You didn’t sign the forms?’
Commissioner Donnelly answered the question. ‘The paperwork’s in order,’ he said, reaching into his pocket to answer his phone.
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+04.58
SAC Gelfand, veteran of bureaucratic wars, backstabbing and finger pointing, knew better than to speak about sensitive matters when other people were nearby. Every person represented a possible leak, and he couldn’t take any chances. He waited until they had stepped outside the trailer to tell Darby about the remaining contents of his phone call.
‘This way,’ he said.
She followed him around the corner of the MCP, to a narrow space between the trailer and the chain-link fence overlooking Battery Park. An awning had been extended to give privacy from the helicopters that were constantly hovering and recording. They were also out of view from the mix of law enforcement and emergency personnel anxiously milling around the lot.
Commissioner Donnelly was not with them. He had stayed behind in the conference room to take a phone call from the governor who, along with the mayor, was on his way to a press conference.
Why had Donnelly deliberately lied to Gelfand about the papers being signed? What was Donnelly planning? What was his angle? His agenda?
‘That plastic explosive you collected underneath your fingernail? Lab confirms it’s TATP,’ Gelfand said, turning his back to the wind, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. The awning flapped like the snap of a canvas sail caught in a storm, and the steady chop-chop-chop of the helicopter’s rotors from high above droned through the air. ‘Chemical mixture the gunman used was spot on. Ted Scott says he’s never seen anything like it – says our guy has to be a chemist or have a strong chemistry background.’
Darby nodded, watched the traffic coming and going, coming and going.
‘If the situation isn’t resolved in the next few hours, Hostage Rescue is going to take over,’ he said.
‘By the time they fly out, the nor’easter will be in full swing here.’
‘Which is why the HRT was put on alert status an hour ago. They’re already airborne, to get ahead of the storm.’
‘Why are we standing out here freezing our asses off?’
‘Because our boy Cooper has information he wants to share with us privately, and because I need one of these.’ Gelfand held up a pack of Marlboros. ‘Just don’t tell my wife, okay?’
‘I didn’t know you were married.’
‘Ten years with wifey numero dos.’ He wrapped his lips around a cigarette and pulled it from the pack.
‘I seem to remember you hitting on me at Jim Delaney’s retirement party.’
‘I wasn’t hitting on you, Doc, I was trying to get you to lighten up, maybe even help dislodge that broomstick you’ve still got jammed up your ass.’ He grinned around the cigarette, lit it with a cheap lighter and inhaled deeply. ‘You’re serious twenty-four seven. I’ve met death row inmates who are more relaxed than you.’
‘I’ve got to come clean about something.’
‘That you’re madly in love with me? Don’t worry, I already know.’
‘I didn’t sign the papers. I don’t know why Donnelly didn’t tell you.’
Gelfand exhaled, looked at her through the smoke.
‘Donnelly’s not a bad guy,’ he said after a moment. ‘At the end of the day, he wants to do the right thing. He might need you when he takes over this thing – and he will, probably, before the day is done, because I can’t establish a nexus of terror, and I can’t stall him forever.’
‘Nexus of terror?’
‘New federal buzzword. Means that we, the FBI, have to concretely prove that what’s happening falls squarely into a terrorist act aimed at the federal government and not some sort of local grievance.’
‘That’s a helluva grey area, Howie.’
Gelfand grinned slightly. ‘Designed that way on purpose,’ he said. ‘With these things, someone has to pick up the tab for the destruction and loss of life. Federal government doesn’t like picking up the check, know what I mean?’
‘The Bureau thinking of throwing this to Donnelly?’
‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’ Gelfand said. ‘But if this mess does end up falling into his lap, he may need you, so he showed you he’s a fair guy by not forcing you to sign the papers right away.’
‘But he will.’
‘Oh yes indeed, make no mistake about that.’
Darby turned away and searched the parking lot for Coop, wondering what was taking him so long. Gelfand searched the darkening sky.
‘My old man told me the only person you can never escape is the person you see every day in the mirror,’ Gelfand said. ‘I cheated on my first wife and treated her like a doormat. I deep-sixed my marriage, drank bottles of Absolut like they were water, and my two kids, my son and daughter, they never forgave me for it – nor should they. But I always think of my kids when I look in the mirror now. As corny as it sounds – and I know it sounds corny – I want to be able to tell them I did the right thing. Not the correct thing, necessarily, but the right thing.’
‘Are we having a moment here?’
Gelfand’s hand swept over the parking lot of flashing lights. ‘This carnival? All this military firepower we’ve got here? It’s all window dressing. If this jerkoff wants to blow himself up, kill the hostages, whatever, we can’t stop him.’
‘When did you get so fatalistic?’
‘I’ve got stage three metastatic prostate cancer. It gives you a certain perspective.’
Darby was taken back by his sudden candour.
‘I found out a couple of days ago,’ he said in a surprisingly casual tone. ‘Nobody knows yet – and don’t tell me you’re sorry or any of that other crap; I’ve had a good life. A great life, actually. You know what I’m gonna miss the most, besides seeing my kids grow up?’
Darby knew the answer. ‘This,’ she said, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder to t
he parking lot. ‘The carnival.’
Howie nodded and sucked greedily from his cigarette. ‘Does that make me some kind of monster?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Darby replied, watching Coop as he fought his way through the crowds. ‘I feel the exact same way.’
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+05.04
Coop didn’t have an expressive face, but that wasn’t unusual. In Darby’s experience, children of Irish Catholic parents learned early on the importance of keeping one’s true feelings hidden. You were taught to swallow your emotions and bury them someplace deep within yourself, and if you went to Catholic school, as she and Coop did, the nuns and priests helped further your emotional education by letting you know that neither they nor God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph gave two shits about your feelings because your purpose in life was to smile and obey – especially in times of great personal stress and suffering. When you reached early adulthood, you were a walking toxic-waste dump, bitter and angry about everything in your life.
Her father, thank God, had spared her from that fate.
Coop, though, had one telltale sign when he was troubled, pissed off or deeply hurt: he’d scratch the corner of his right eye like he was doing right now. Pinched between the fingers of his other hand was a folded index card.
‘Prints we pulled off the disposable cell phone came back with a match,’ he said.
Gelfand’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. ‘That was quick,’ he said.
‘I narrowed the search parameters to focus on suspects from Boston first, then widen out to the rest of New England. The prints on the phone, along with a couple of prints on the paper bag, belong to a retired Boston cop named Trey Warren.’
Now she understood why Coop had asked to speak privately with Gelfand. If Donnelly knew about this, he would have sufficient evidence to pull the case from the FBI.
‘No arrest record,’ Coop said. ‘His prints were just loaded into IAFIS, as every law enforcement officer is required to do.’