by David Wind
“It’s a little fancier than a gun shop,” O’Rourke said.
“The hijacking tapes came. I set up the conference room with a television and tape deck.”
“They sell these over the counter?”
“Uh-uh. The sale of crossbows is prohibited within the city limits.”
“We’re lucky no one’s used them to chill anyone before. How did you get them?”
“Richard Thomas is a personal friend. He had these delivered from his Jersey store when I explained that you needed to see them.”
Hyte picked up the crossbow and checked its balance and telescopic sight. He put the scope to his eye and aimed out the window. The cross hairs centered on the ramp of the Manhattan Bridge. He followed a Volkswagen.
“According to the brochures, these weapons are more than just deadly. Their accuracy range is around fifteen to twenty yards. The ‘scoped model is called a magnum. Effective range is about twenty-five yards. They’re powerful, Lou. Real powerful.”
“He showed you how they work?”
O’Rourke picked one up. Butting the back end of the weapon against her abdomen, she used both hands to draw the string.
“This one has forty-five pounds of draw weight tension on the prod—the bow. When it’s first strung, the safety is automatically engaged.”
She flicked the safety off and pulled the trigger. “It makes a silenced gun sound like a cannon. And they even have multi-shot revolving barrels and a foot stirrup and hand hook set up for easier and faster reloading.”
Hyte took it from her and strung the crossbow. He chose a round head from the bolts on his desk.
“That’s used for target practice.”
He slid the bolt into its groove under the flat metal clip that held it immobile in the release seat above the trigger mechanism. He pointed the weapon at the stuffed chair against the wall, clicked the safety off, and fired.
He wasn’t able to track the bolt, even though he heard the low sound of its release, and the thunk it made when it struck the wood through three inches of cushion.
“Jesus,” he whispered. It took him a quarter of a minute to work the bolt free.
“Richard called them toys,” O’Rourke said.
“They’re anything but. Did you hear from Cohen?”
“Cohen and Roberts should be here by six. Miss Graham called about four.”
“Thanks.” He hoped Emma would understand that until they found the killer, his time would no longer be his own.
<><><>
Empty food cartons, paper plates, and dead beer bottles cluttered the conference room table. Midnight was fifteen minutes away. Tuesday was almost over. Sy Cohen and Jimmy Roberts had left a half hour before. Hyte sent a reluctant Sally O’Rourke home ten minutes later, after telling her that starting tomorrow, she was plainclothes.
It had been thirty hours since he’d gotten the phone call about Samson. He had another nine hours before his meeting with the chief of detectives.
He picked up the passenger manifest for Flight 88 and looked at the names of the first-class passengers.
Sylvia Mossberg lived in Englewood, New Jersey. Michael Barnes resided in Rockland County, just outside of Manhattan. Sonja and Jack Mofferty lived in Bay Shore, Long Island. Jonah Graham was in Westchester. The Helenezes’ address of record was Portugal. J. Milton Prestone resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hyte scanned the coach passenger list. He crossed off Kaliel’s name. That left eleven passengers living in the New York Metro area; among them was Lea D’Anjine, who lived in Manhattan with her adoptive parents. Her name was now Lea Desmond.
His eyes locked on the name. It had taken the little girl months to recover from the hijacking. He’d felt, perhaps irrationally, that he had an obligation to help her. Shortly after the hijacking, he had begun to visit Lea and her parents. Emma had gone with him, and had developed a strong tie with the girl. Hyte had often wondered if he was using Lea to replace the time he’d always spent with Carrie.
For Hyte, going to Boston once a month and staying at a hotel while Carrie slept at home was very different from her twice-monthly visits to New York. The intimacy between them had lessened, and it hurt.
He stopped himself and studied the crew list. He crossed off Flaxman, Samson. The next name was Joan Bidding. She lived in Rego Park, in Queens. Of the five stewardesses, two lived in Manhattan.
Earlier, he’d divided the passenger list between Cohen, Roberts, and O’Rourke. They would check on the current whereabouts of each passenger.
He assigned O’Rourke the task of contacting the manufacturers of the various crossbows to get a distributor list as well as the current retail outlet list.
He wondered what else he could do. He glanced at the video tape cassettes of the hijacking. There were five of them. Each was an hour long. Two edited down versions of the hijacking were television specials. The last three were consecutive and detailed every minute the camera spent in first class.
He had shown the unedited version to the three cops, forcing himself to watch when the terrorist killed Anita Graham. It had taken almost an hour for him to lose the taste of bile from his mouth.
He looked back at the list. Flaxman and Samson were beginning-to-end hostages; the Jordanian student was with the coach passengers.
He sensed that there was a purpose for their deaths, a purpose tied into the hijacking itself. But what?
“Goddamn it!” he shouted, his hand sending the legal pad skittering across the table.
<><><>
Hyte unlocked his apartment door and went wearily inside. He turned on the stereo and poured two fingers of Martell’s cognac into a snifter. An old Beach Boys song came on as he turned on the shower, using the hot water to help ease his tension.
Wrapped in a towel, he returned to the living room. He sat on the couch, cradling the cognac, and took a long swallow.
He thought about Emma.
She’d stopped by his office, earlier. She had wanted to see him tonight. He explained that they couldn’t meet because he was working on the new case. She told him that she was going to San Francisco. A problem had developed with one of the new catalogue stores. Following that, she’d favored him with a long and searching gaze that he had not been able to fathom.
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow night. I’ve got a seven o’clock flight.”
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
“I was hoping for more, but I won’t argue.”
Hyte swirled the cognac. Emma was quite a woman. Susan had been quite a girl. Given everything by her father, she expected her life to be easy and ordered. It had been, until Hyte broke her rules, forsaking her father’s bank for the Department.
His hours had added to the wedge that had divided them. The other things came later: his unwillingness to talk about the Job, the secrecy of what he was doing. She complained that her life had become pointless, an unfilled void.
Emma was vastly different: she fascinated him.
She was a strong woman who was capable of having a career and a relationship. She had no need to live life through another, but was able to share her life and accept his without trying to change what he was. While he sometimes believed that he was trying to make up for what had happened to her mother and father, he had no doubts as to his feelings for her.
Hyte swirled the snifter and smiled. It was at times like tonight, he admitted, that his feelings for Emma bordered on compulsion.
He knew, too, that if he were to remarry, it would be to someone who could accept his work. If I get married, he told himself, it would be to an Emma Graham.
He laughed. The trouble was, he added to his silent dialogue, there was only one Emma Graham.
Hyte drained the cognac and stood. The doorbell chimed. Puzzled, he went to the door. “Yes?”
“Is that any way to greet me?” asked Emma.
Hyte stepped back to let her enter. She shed her coat in the living room and sat down. “I hope y
ou don’t mind,” she said mischievously.
Recovering from the surprise of seeing her at his door, he smiled. “Not at all.”
“It’s funny,” she said. “I keep thinking about going to San Francisco, and leaving you.” She laughed lightly, a trace of self-embarrassment underlying the sound. “I tried to figure out a way to bring you with me.”
“I wish I could go, but...”
“...you have a case. I know. It’s all right. I’m just in a mood.”
“How about a drink?”
She shook her head, patting the cushion next to her. He joined her, slipping his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head back.
“The manager of the store is having problems. It shouldn’t take too long. A few days at the most,” she said. “It’s not necessary for you to take me to the airport.”
“I know.”
“But I needed to be with you tonight.”
They fell silent; the only sound came from the stereo. He drew her closer, kissing her forehead lightly. Her simple statement made him feel closer to her. Then Emma lifted her head and looked at him. “Have you made any progress on the new case?”
He studied her face. Her eyes were wide, the black pupils almost blending into the brown irises. He wondered how to tell her that someone was blowing away the survivors of Flight 88, and that her father might be a victim. He knew he’d have to, eventually. But not tonight. He didn’t want to spoil the warmth of the moment.
“No. I’ve got nothing, yet.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Darkness shrouded the room. The only light came from three small floods, set in a ceiling tract, and directed at one wall.
The sixteen-foot wall was a new addition, built seven months before. It was plywood, painted a flat white, and it covered the two windows behind it. A horizontal row of photographs lined the wall. The first three had crosses, made by a thick black marker, marring their glossy surfaces. The first picture was of Richard Flaxman. The second, Elaine Samson. The third, Barum Kaliel.
There was one chair in the room. A workbench was set against the wall opposite that with the photographs. On a third wall, a television rested on a stand.
The television was on, its picture fed by a VCR. The figures on the screen were the passengers on the hijacked Trans Air Flight 88.
The room’s solitary occupant, sitting in the chair and holding a black crossbow, turned from the television and looked at the photo wall. The occupant of the room had taken a new name, Samael, God’s Messenger of Death. It was the name of a little known figure from Hebraic mythology. Samael’s divine mission would be to teach the lessons of life, one of which was the acceptance of death, to those who believed they had outwitted it.
The crossbow was set. Seventy pounds of tension held the prod stiff. A hunting bolt rested in the triangular rapid-fire barrel. Samael stroked the weapon, one finger caressing the anodized aluminum shaft. Samael raised the weapon toward the fourth photograph. Slowly, Samael drew the trigger back.
The sound of the bolt’s release went unheard above the sound of Rashid Mohamad’s voice berating the passengers. In the semidarkness, the golden bolt’s flight was invisible; the only sound was the broadhead striking wood. The bolt’s shaft vibrated. The arrowhead was buried two-thirds of the way into the wood.
Samael, God’s Messenger of Death, teacher of acceptance, smiled. The hunting bolt had bisected the head of the next victim.
Chapter Twenty-two
At exactly eight forty-five A.M., Hyte gave Mason his report. “The problem is that we don’t have a single hint as to who the killer might be,” he summarized.
“Have you given any further thought to the possibility that they’re terrorist reprisals?”
“It doesn’t add up. Terrorists don’t use crossbows; they use machine pistols and bombs.”
“If not terrorists, then who?” Mason asked.
“I make it as one of three possibles—a passenger who’s gone a little nuts, a psycho, or a relative of one of the original victims.”
“All right,” Mason said, nodding ponderously. “You have conditional authorization to extend the preliminary investigation.”
“That’s pretty damned noncommittal. Contingent upon what?”
“I have to bring this to the PC and chief of department. Ray, you’re still a lieutenant. There are protocols.”
Hyte sighed. The rule was simple. Someone of the rank of captain or above must head a task force. “I want this one. It’s important to me.”
“That’s horseshit and you know it.”
“No,” Hyte said stubbornly. “In the sixteen years I’ve spent on the Job, the favors I’ve asked of you haven’t been that many or that big. I want this case and I don’t care what you have to do to get it for me!”
“Ray, you’re a desk cop. That hijacker made sure of that.”
“No! When my father died, you had no business taking on his murderer yourself. But you did it because it was a personal obligation.” He stopped speaking until he gained control over his emotions. “To a degree, this case is like that for me. I know things are a little sticky up high, but I have to have this case and I don’t want it turned into a political issue. And I don’t give a damn who heads the task force, so long as he doesn’t interfere with me.”
“Even a nominal head of a task force will want input if he’s taking the responsibility.”
“Then get me a temporary promotion to captain.”
“I can’t justify that in this instance,” Mason said, meeting Hyte’s eyes openly. Then, slowly, he nodded. “But I’ll think of something. How many more people will you need?”
Hyte exhaled slowly. Without putting it into a direct command, Phil Mason had given him his task force. “One more for now. A clerical as well.”
“Give me the names and I’ll okay them.”
“I’ll also need to borrow half a dozen bodies for a day or two for interviews with the coach passengers and crew.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mason said. “Maybe pull in a dozen off-duty uniforms for overtime. Get it done quicker that way.” He paused. “I’ll call a press conference for five.”
“I’d like to keep this one close for a little longer.”
“You’ll handle this exactly the way I tell you, because if you don’t, someone else will. Ever since Son of Sam, it’s been departmental policy to inform the media of a serial criminal as soon as we have established a pattern. If you want this case, you’ll play by my rules!”
Hyte knew he had no choice. “I’ll play.”
“Have a statement ready for the conference.”
“Phil—”
“Just do it. And Ray, no matter what you think I owe you, you’re going to owe me big on this one.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t give me sure! Give me the autopsy reports, the sixty-ones, all the follow-ups, and a list of possible suspects. And I want it on my desk in an hour.”
<><><>
One hour later, Hyte sent the copies of all reports to the chief of detectives, along with a short, written update of his own. The suspect list was a Xerox copy of the passenger and crew manifest, with the names of the dead people crossed off.
Then he called the boss of Queens Homicide and asked him to put Tim Smith on loan to the CD’s staff. Captain Kelsey was more than obliging. Hyte knew it wasn’t the polite request that had garnered him Smith; it was the fact that Kelsey did not want to have the chief told he wasn’t a team player.
He called O’Rourke into his office. She wore a three-piece suit: gray skirt, white blouse, and matching gray jacket. The shirt had a no-nonsense collar surrounding a slender neck.
“You look good in plainclothes.”
“Thank you.”
“Where are Cohen and Roberts?”
“Doing the passenger check.”
“What about you?”
“I found only three major manufacturers of the crossbows. They also make the bolts. They’re sending distributor
lists.”
“Feds?”
“No response yet. Interpol wired that they have no MO that fits our killer. They did have two cases of death by crossbow; they caught both perps. One is dead; the other’s serving life in a Greek prison.”
“Tim Smith from the Queens squad will be in today. Make him feel welcomed.”
“Sure. What happened with the chief?”
“We’re covered. Call down for a clerical to fill in on your job. Written authorization will follow.”
O’Rourke’s smile illuminated the room. “Thanks, Lou.”
He winked. “Where are you carrying?”
“Purse.”
“Backup?”
O’Rourke stood, raised one leg, and put her flat-heeled shoe on the chair. She hitched her skirt up without embarrassment to reveal a lightweight .32 holstered to her thigh.
“Hope your boyfriend doesn’t mind.”
This time O’Rourke winked.
When she left to make her calls, he looked at the list of names, and stopped at Joan Bidding.
He dialed her number. A woman with a Hispanic accent answered, “Beeding reseedence.”
The maid informed Hyte that Mrs. “Beeding” was out, but would be back at noon. He left his name with the message that he would stop by to see her.
He went back to the list, noting all the addresses of the passengers and crew who lived outside NYPD jurisdiction.
From his middle drawer, he took out the preprinted address book listing the various police departments in the surrounding counties.
He called O’Rourke on the intercom. “The clerical here yet?”
“Just now.”
“Bring her in.”
When O’Rourke came in, he saw that the “her” she had in tow, was a tall and slim black man in his early twenties. He wore a silver mezuzah on a thin silver chain. “Lieutenant Hyte, this is Randal Schwartz,” O’Rourke said.
He blinked. “Schwartz?”
Schwartz smiled pleasantly, “It takes a little getting used to. My great-great-grandfather was a Falasha, an Ethiopian Jew who immigrated here. I guess, like most immigrants, he wanted to sound more American. Ankushabale isn’t exactly a common American name.”