“Hey, it’s a free country. But this is my place originally. I don’t want to be around, you know—”
“What?” She sat up in one motion, crossed her legs, grabbed a throw pillow, and covered her lap.
Diaz flushed. “I don’t want to hear any noise, okay?”
“Noise?”
“You know...when you’re in there.”
“Sex. You’re talking about sex. It’s okay to say it.” A twist formed in one corner of her mouth. “You think I’m a screamer?”
In his mind’s eye, Diaz pictured the vibrator in the bathroom drawer. “I don’t think anything.”
He felt hotter than ever as she broke into a teasing smile. “You’re not embarrassed, are you—embarrassed to think about the things women do?”
“Of course not!” But he did feel something—something uncomfortable. “Just keep the noise down and it’ll be fine, okay?” He finished his beer in one gulp and set the bottle back on the table too hard.
Jennifer froze at the sound.
Diaz sensed her gaze on him, but he wouldn’t meet it. He felt the redness washing across his face and neck, like a rush of steam rising from a deep dark shaft. If he wasn’t careful, he’d fall toward that place.
He touched the back of his neck and felt clammy sweat there. The apartment was a furnace and the pipes were knocking. Without another word he put on some shoes and a coat, stepped out into the hall, and pulled the door closed behind him.
NORTH OF 181ST STREET, A pedestrian bridge connected Riverside Drive to a walking path known as the Hudson River Greenway. Diaz crossed at a brisk clip and headed south, this portion of the path running close to the northbound lanes of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Near the George Washington Bridge, the path meandered through some trees—leafless in the winter cold—and passed through a tunnel under the southbound lanes.
He felt restless. Pent-up energy shot through his legs like an electrical charge and with his hands in his coat pockets a shudder pulled his shoulders toward his ears. It may have appeared to a passer-by as a response to the cold, but Diaz didn’t feel cold. He felt like a man on fire.
Twenty feet above him, traffic roared over the road. He went through the concrete underpass and proceeded along the river past the tennis courts, which were dark. The rain had stopped but the air remained damp, bone-biting. There weren’t many people about, only the occasional jogger or brave cyclist. In front of him, Diaz could see his breath in clouds like exhaust from a smokestack.
Why had he responded that way to Jennifer? Resistance to change? But if he didn’t want her bringing other men back, he could’ve put the kibosh on it right there and then. It was his apartment, the one place where he had complete latitude, but he caved in and ran like a coward as soon as she challenged him. Did he have feelings for her? He didn’t think so, but he’d never considered that before. She was stunning, but that wasn’t the same as an emotional attraction.
No, he decided, it wasn’t that. What had angered him was the lack of control. Up in the apartment, he didn’t want to lash out in response, ruin a good thing. That’s why he had to get out of there. That and only that.
Where the path crept close to the parkway, Diaz paused and turned to look at the giant bridge, the George Washington, its suspension cables lit up like a string of beads, the tops of trucks gliding along the roadbed in a straight line like hockey pucks on ice. It would take a lot to blow that bridge, he thought. Still, it was only a matter of time before someone tried.
His mind jumped to the package near the steps of St. Pat’s. To succeed as a bomb technician, he’d learned many years ago, it wasn’t enough to concentrate on the mechanics of an IED. If that was all he’d done back in the armed forces, he’d have ended up in no better shape than this guy Albert Horn. Maybe worse, if there was such a thing. No, the key was to get inside the head of the bomb maker. If you could think like him, you could anticipate how he might operate.
Maybe, Diaz thought, he had to approach Kahn the same way. Because he felt that the space between him and Kahn had become a minefield, and maybe he wasn’t doing such a good job of watching his step anymore. Like that thing with looking up “procedure” in the dictionary. He was trying to win an argument, but that was like trying to win an argument with a drill instructor. The drill instructor didn’t want to hear anything but “Yes, sir, yes”—no matter whether they’d gone off for a Sunday stroll or Armageddon had erupted outside the chain-link fence.
Still, that damned package near the steps...Diaz knew for sure it was nothing the second he’d wrapped his mind around it. Just knew it.
Altoids! He scoffed. Oranges! The damn thing couldn’t have been more harmless. He barely felt threatened when he stooped over it, therefore experienced little relief when he cut into it and saw the contents.
Out on the greenway, Diaz took a deep breath of cold air. Suddenly he felt too calm—like he could fall asleep right there on the path, his eyelids and feet heavy with the stress of the day. He forced himself to walk forward, still heading south, away from the apartment. Soon the path came tight along the parkway again. Diaz felt the whoosh of each car roaring by, the vacuum tugging at him. It raised a familiar sensation in his chest, a sensation that he may or may not like, but to which long ago he’d become accustomed.
Without thinking further, Diaz lifted his left leg and scrambled over the jersey wall. There were only a couple of feet between the curved concrete of the wall and the solid white line of the shoulder. He hewed to the wet, narrow space, absorbed the rush of air from passing cars time and again, ignored their occasional horns.
This was crazy, he knew. But the feeling! It made him high—as high as any drug—and as he walked abreast of danger, all of his worries melted in the intensity.
IN FRONT OF A BUILDING in the financial district, the stalker spotted Gavin Littel at last. The time had gotten past nine o’clock. The stalker knew the time as well as anyone, having checked his watch every fifteen minutes for more than two hours. He’d come to the corner of Wall and Hanover Streets at seven o’clock because Littel worked late most nights, no point in freezing one’s ass off any longer than necessary. Already the stalker’s fingers were stiff and achy, his raincoat wet through. A few degrees colder and it could snow.
Gavin Littel walked out the grand front entrance of his office building and up the sidewalk. The stalker followed thirty paces behind. If he lost his target he’d just come back tomorrow and start again. He was eager to get on with things, but aborting the mission would be better than getting too close here and running the risk of raising suspicions. Littel worked as some kind of vice president in the bowels of Powers Bank. That much the stalker knew, but he didn’t know precisely what the man did up in that tower all day. The means of employment didn’t figure much into his calculations. He only guessed that Littel worked a job befitting his name. He wasn’t an investment banker or a big-money trader. He didn’t have the look. Button cuffs wouldn’t cut it in that crowd and the tie didn’t seem lush enough and the suit just didn’t hang the same way as the ones on the guys who rushed in and out of limos all day long.
When Littel went down into the subway, the stalker had to close the gap. Fortunately, there were plenty of people down there, even past rush hour. The stalker hid in the crowd on the Number 3 subway platform and in a few minutes they were on the train heading in the direction of New Lots Avenue.
Littel paid the stalker no mind, stood there leaning against the pole in his raincoat and working the toggle on his Samsung with his good hand. The stalker grabbed the last seat and faded into it, unnoticed. Just another drone. But when Littel exited the station at Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, things got trickier. Many of the people getting out were Hasidic Jewish men dressed in black with black hats and side curls. Most of the rest were African-Americans. The Hasids mostly headed west. Littel and the stalker headed east, two of only a few white guys in a stream of darker faces.
The stalker hung back again and had to allow Littel to turn of
f of Eastern Parkway onto Utica before wading after him into the larger crowd by the commercial strip. He spotted him again a quarter-block down, a man of medium height with a head of thick light brown hair cut conservatively. Littel’s walk was measured and strong, even athletic, and you would only perceive a slightly unnatural swing in the shoulders if you were looking for it.
The stalker was in fact looking for it. That hitch affirmed that he had the right man.
Littel went into a pub near the corner of Utica and Prospect Place. Through the window, the stalker watched him hang his raincoat on a peg and take one of two open seats at the bar. The rest of the place appeared to be three-quarters full, which was perfect, so the stalker went inside and slid into the banquette by a table for two. Speaking in a pronounced New York accent, Littel ordered tap beer and some food. In more neutral inflections, the stalker did the same, but would nurse his beer, only taking enough sips to keep up appearances. Littel watched the Knicks game on the television over the bar and chatted occasionally with the bartender. The stalker ate a cheeseburger and fries while he watched Littel’s back.
After a while, Littel shed his suit jacket. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, but without the jacket the stalker got a better look at Littel’s prosthetic right hand. He watched carefully now as Littel employed it almost like a real hand, holding a fork with it, even using it to lift his beer. The fingers moved individually and with great precision, all things considered. This confirmed that Littel still used a myoelectric externally powered prosthesis. It would have a six-volt battery inside and electronics that read muscle signals like a miniature nodule of artificial nerves. When Littel lifted his arm to wave for a third beer, his sleeve rode down, exposing more of the prosthetic arm, and the stalker let out a sigh of relief.
Given the expense and rarity, myoelectric prostheses were no picnic to steal. It had taken the stalker several months to find enough parts to replicate one just like Littel’s, and it was a relief that his target hadn’t changed equipment in the meantime. The stalker studied the artificial arm from across the room. It was a showy variety, styled more to stand out than to blend in—more cyborg than imitation flesh. Indeed the outer casing consisted of discernible parts rather than unified artificial skin.
The stalker smiled to himself. This construction played in his favor when replicating the prosthesis, as a casing with seams would reveal less tampering. In a short while, just to be sure, the stalker planned to get an even better look at it.
AROUND 11:15, THE KNICKS CONCLUDED their defeat at the hands of the Jazz and Littel finally got up to go. He’d drunk quite heavily and now appeared unsteady on his feet. He struggled to crawl back inside his jacket and raincoat, declining help from the bartender.
The stalker, whose name was Warren Manis, appeared to look on impassively, but inside he felt delighted. A drunk target made his job much easier. He paid the waitress in cash and followed Littel from the pub.
Littel stumbled along the sidewalk for one block and turned left onto St. Mark’s Avenue. His row house had two stories and a basement. Behind a low wrought-iron fence, the empty poured concrete front yard measured six by eight. A red aluminum canopy covered part of the stoop closest to the door, and someone—Littel himself?—had painted the roof cornice red to match. Most important, a row of trash bins hid but did not block the door to the basement, accessible under the stoop. Littel himself used the main front door, and Manis watched him disappear inside.
Manis knew that Littel lived alone, his ex-wife having moved out several years ago. He knew that he slept on the top floor and that he never used the burglar alarm and that a series of night-lights cast a faint blue-green hue over every room in the house. He had been there before when the house was empty, but he needed to visit now when Manis was at home, in order to see the arm in person, touch it, measure it, download the software, get the replica just right. And to do so with the greatest margin of safety he had to make sure that Littel had come home alone. Any visitors—and most especially a light-sleeping date—would create complications that Manis didn’t need.
Now he walked around the block, waiting for Littel to settle in. Though puddles remained in the street, the dampness of the evening had lifted, and a crescent moon hung over Brooklyn to the east.
At half past midnight, Manis returned to the row house. With no one about, he stepped over the low wrought-iron fence and went immediately to the basement door. Mechanically inclined, he faced no challenge with the simple lock, using a tool he’d specially crafted to jimmy it. He removed his shoes inside the basement door and proceeded toward the upstairs bedroom, pausing to listen patiently after every few steps.
Manis found Littel passed out in bed, his head at an angle that suggested drunken sleep. He was snoring loudly with his good arm extended across the queen-size bed. The prosthesis was not in the bedroom, so Manis walked gingerly to the bathroom down the hall, where he found the arm lying atop a clean towel on a shelf.
This was perfect—just perfect. He wouldn’t even need to risk using a flash.
Manis closed the bathroom door and took a tape measure from his coat pocket. He extended it eighteen inches and laid it parallel to the arm on the table, then snapped a series of pictures, making sure to get all sides and every angle.
By one o’clock he had gone and Littel still lay sleeping, none the wiser.
TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK,
TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK
3.
DAY TWO—Light
ATOP THE PUTTY-COLORED FILING cabinets in Lieutenant Capobianco’s office stood a collection of framed pictures: his wife, his parents, his daughter at various ages, as well as pictures from his time on the force, the earliest one showing him on the street as a beat cop and the latest at a ceremony in the Chief of Detectives’ office when he took the reins of the Bomb Squad. There were piles of paper and manila files everywhere, but the tops of these cabinets seemed to be the boss’s one sacred space.
Diaz found it odd, getting called into this office by Kahn instead of Cap. He waited for the sergeant to close the door before taking one of two battered guest chairs. Kahn must’ve felt funny, too, as he didn’t go near the back of the desk. Instead, he pulled the other guest chair sideways and faced Diaz from there.
“The lieutenant asked me to speak with you.” Kahn took a deep breath. “About your behavior yesterday in front of the cathedral. I told you I was going to have to put it in the report.”
“And the lieutenant read it?”
Kahn shook his head. “He’s sick as a dog. I don’t think he’s reading many reports just now. For the Times Square thing, yes, but not for false alarms.”
“So how’s he know what went down?”
“I had to tell him.”
Diaz crossed his legs. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“You knew I’d have to.”
“No way. You said you’d have to put it in the report. I got that part.”
“Well, you can’t act out of turn like that and expect a superior officer not to say something. What if you did it again and weren’t so lucky, got yourself blown up? Hell, got someone else blown up?”
Diaz nodded. “I get it. You’re covering your ass. Don’t expect me to be pleased about it.”
“It’s got nothing to do with pleasing you, Manny. It’s got to do with your behavior. You can’t go around doing shit like that. I explained it to you yesterday.”
“You explained it yesterday. So why are we here in Cap’s office with the door closed?”
“Because you’re being issued a reprimand.”
Diaz rocked his free foot in silence.
“A letter will be put in your file.”
“Great. Who’s applying the reprimand—you been deputized?”
“Not exactly. The lieutenant will do it when he gets back, but he wanted you to be aware ASAP so it doesn’t happen again.”
“To protect yourselves.”
“To protect the public!” Kahn tented his fi
ngers. “Look, Diaz, you know what they say about every new bomb tech in the first twenty-four months: a danger to himself and others. It’s our own version of a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous.”
“I ain’t some rube, Kahn. I got more than a little bit of knowledge. I’ve disarmed more IEDs than…” Diaz caught himself, swallowed.
Kahn dropped his hands to his thighs. “Than I have. That what you were going to say?”
“Than anybody here, probably.” Diaz gathered himself. “I don’t mean it as disrespect. I know this is a different theater than a war zone. Just saying I’m not all green, Sergeant.”
“Then stop acting green!” Kahn had raised his voice. He shook his head and lowered his tone. “I’m still rooting for you, Manny. I’m on your side. I know it doesn’t always look that way.”
Diaz nodded, chewed the inside of his lower lip, thinking this was a time to keep his mouth shut for once.
Kahn, seeing he had nothing to add, stood up and put a hand on the doorknob. “We done here? We square?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s go, then. We got a crime to solve.”
AES OPERATED OUT OF A couple of rooms on the fourth floor of the PSA 4 building on the corner of Avenue C and East Eighth Street. It was a surprisingly modern structure—much more modern than the Third Precinct building that the Bomb Squad shared. Where the Third had a cramped and dark entrance, PSA 4 headquarters featured an atrium with natural light, and the halls were more antiseptic than at the Third, lacking the character that a patina of decades-old dirt could impart to a place. In addition to all that, the people who worked there were different. The Housing cops—who worked in the NYPD but were not of it—gave the building downstairs an altogether different vibe.
Diaz himself had entered the building only a few times, always to visit one of the AES detectives. He never failed to feel like a trespasser in there. But Brian O’Shea certainly didn’t feel that way. He had his office in the building, of course, but there was more to it than that. O’Shea was the kind of person who seemed at home in whatever space he occupied. He was the kind of guy who walked out of a rumble in an alley with a bloody lip but a smile on his face. The kind of guy who didn’t bother asking to pet your dog and in minutes had it doing tricks that you’d never taught it. He was the kind of guy who always had his feet up and always wore a placid expression.
A Danger to Himself and Others: Bomb Squad NYC Incident 1 Page 5