They Disappeared

by Rick Mofina

He stayed on the phone, never removing his eyes from his subject, and started down the alley keeping a distance.

  “What’s going on? Where are you, Jeff?”

  “The Bronx in—Wait.”

  The man suddenly vanished at an angle to cut across the next street. I lost him. Damn. Jeff trotted down the alley, phone pressed to his ear.

  “You’re breaking up,” Cordelli said. “Where in the Bronx? Give me an address!”

  At the end of the alley Jeff scanned the street, his heart rising to his throat. No trace of the guy.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “Jeff! Can you hear me? Give me a location. Brewer and I are in the Bronx following a lead. Where are you?”

  “I’m in a warehouse in Purgatory Point a few blocks from Vakhiyta’s Kitchen!”

  “Say again, I didn’t get all of that! Repeat your location!”

  At that instant Jeff’s focus went across the street and straight through an empty office building. Behind it he glimpsed the man making his way over a large vacant lot toward a larger building.

  Reflex kicked in.

  Jeff shot across the street, triggering a horn blast as he just missed being hit by a car. He lost his balance and his cell phone, which fell to the pavement. He was not hurt but the phone looked broken. The impact had knocked the battery free. Jeff collected the two pieces in time to see the man pass through a gate to a huge old building in the distance.

  Jeff shoved the two pieces into his pocket and jogged along the edge of the vacant lot, using the line of small trees and brush for cover as he neared the building, an imposing four-story stone structure.

  The immediate area was desolate, the dirt and gravel surrounding it a graveyard of abandoned hulks of rusting machinery. The property was protected with a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The gate the man had entered through was padlocked.

  Jeff moved fast along the perimeter, coming to an isolated section with a stand of trees and overgrowth. Judging from the empty beer cans, the smashed liquor bottles and fire pit, this was a drinking party spot. Someone had positioned wooden shipping pallets ladder-style against the fence. Jeff climbed it, moving with care over the razor wire, then lowered himself inside the property.

  He moved quickly along the length of the aging building, searching for an entry point. Doors he came upon were locked. Windows were sealed. He traveled an entire length, moved on to the next, then the next, before he’d reached a corner where a section of wall had crumbled. It had been patched with sheets of plywood that had grayed, rotted and frayed.

  Jeff pulled back on the plywood, and wedged himself through the jagged gap to the inside.

  Inhaling air that was a rank mix of a chicken coop and neglected machinery, he took immediate inventory of his surroundings.

  Be careful where you step.

  The floor was covered with metal shards, broken glass and wood with exposed nails. Near him were pallets of lathes, crates and motors stacked haphazardly and reeking of hydraulic fluid, oil and bird shit.

  He heard the hum of voices and the static-squawk of emergency scanners in the near-distance. But saw nothing. He hid among the pallets and began reassembling his phone. With his hands shaking, he replaced the battery and tried to power up.

  Come on. Come on.

  The phone flickered to life. Good. Battery power showed fifty percent. He silenced the ringer and vibrating features, then called Cordelli. His trembling sweating fingers caused him to misdial and he was about to try again when he heard a shout and footfalls.

  Someone was approaching his area.

  He shoved the phone into his pocket and moved along the pallets navigating around rotting lumber, drums of trash, some leaking with fluid, eroding concrete columns and vines of wiring flowing from the great ceiling with its aging, broken windows.

  As Jeff made his way through the labyrinth of chaos, his ability to hear the voices improved. Men were speaking English and something Slavic, he guessed. Amid the double- and triple-deck rows of neglected and rusted junk, he glimpsed flashes of movement near tables with electronic equipment, yet he was not sure what he saw.

  It was difficult to get closer without risking being discovered.

  He kept moving along a stretch of tarpaulins draped over vehicles; a long row of them pointed to an interior driveway clear to a ramp and secured garage door. What kind of vehicles? Jeff saw the tires, but little more. He couldn’t risk looking, or making a sound. He moved beyond the vehicles until he came to a narrow wooden hallway that was open to the ceiling.

  It looked makeshift.

  Jeff moved along the passage quickly.

  “Here!”

  Jeff flinched, then froze.

  The voice on the other side of the paper-thin wall startled him. He stopped and sat with his back to the wall and tried to control his breathing.

  “Put the flag here, now!”

  Jeff felt the thud of a hammer driving small nails, saw the nails puncture the wall.

  They’re on the other side!

  The only thing separating me from the killers is a quarter inch of wood!

  Table and chair legs scraped on the floor.

  “The camera’s set up, we’re ready.”

  Feet shuffled. Jeff noticed the wall did not touch the floor. There was a four-inch gap. He swallowed and lay flat on the floor and saw movement, boots, but nothing to indicate Sarah and Cole.

  “I want to do one rehearsal read first.”

  Tables and chair legs scraped again.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes. In five—four—three—two—go.”

  A throat cleared, paper rustled.

  “‘Greetings from God’s slave to the United Nations. You did not start this tragic war but if you are people with courage, determination and humanity, you will acknowledge our action today as the final call to end it….’ No, stop. I want to change something before we start again.”

  Jeff’s heart stood still.

  They’re making a video—a demand or ultimatum for maybe an attack on the UN!

  Realizing what was unfolding, he had to do something fast.

  He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, knowing that he was exhausted, not thinking clearly. He couldn’t leave until he found Sarah and Cole.

  He grabbed his phone and in several quick texts to Cordelli, Jeff alerted him that he couldn’t talk. He’d found the killers in a factory in Purgatory Point in the Bronx. It was extremely urgent that Cordelli give him a number by which he could relay live critical one-way information.

  Jeff’s last text ended with:

  It’s life and death. Time is running out!

  CHAPTER 58

  Tremont, the Bronx, New York City

  “He’s in a warehouse in Purgatory Point,” Cordelli told Brewer.

  Brewer was driving.

  “That’s five miles from here, we’ll take Major Deegan.” Brewer checked his mirrors, then rolled his unmarked Crown Victoria west out of Tremont, a section of the Bronx once known as a neighborhood of lost causes.

  Brewer and Cordelli had come to Tremont to follow Brewer’s lead that a foreign crew was making a film without permits in the Bronx. Brewer’s source, the film location manager, was able to narrow his information to a factory in Tremont but the detectives had found nothing, even after a call to the Forty-sixth Precinct for help. Nothing had surfaced.

  Their frustration underscored Brewer’s simmering resentment.

  As he knifed through traffic on the expressway, he could not stop considering it punishment that he had been ordered to partner with Cordelli for the rest of this investigation.

  Klaver had been assigned to work with Ortiz to help teams completing the canvass of restaurants and various outlets based on Jeff’s re
called details from the van.

  Nothing had come out of that aspect of the investigation, either.

  Until now, with Jeff’s call, no major breaks had surfaced for anyone, not the Joint Terrorism Task Force, NYPD, Homeland, FBI, Secret Service and the thirty agencies that were going full tilt on the case.

  With a threat looming, the fear of being powerless to stop it intensified.

  Brewer had to get his anger off of his chest.

  “I don’t understand how you could just lose Griffin,” he said. “The last time that happened he made contact with the suspects.”

  “The FBI had him. Nobody ‘lost’ him, Larry. He was never in custody.”

  “Did they triangulate his phone?”

  “They had him leaving Battery Park, then northbound near the Queensborough Bridge. Then they lost his roaming signal.”

  “I would have never let him out of my sight.”

  “No one can hold a candle to your police work, Larry. Look, we’ve got him again so why don’t you push this ‘my way’ crap aside so we can take Griffin’s lead and work this thing through.”

  Brewer swallowed the remnants of his bitterness.

  “Call the Fortieth,” Brewer said. “Request some help to meet us at this Vaketa Kitchen, or whatever it’s called, so we can find the warehouse. Better get ESU on standby.”

  Cordelli was staring at his phone. Something had come in.

  “It’s a text from Griffin,” Cordelli said. “Give me your phone, I’ve got to make a call.”

  “What’s he saying?” Brewer passed Cordelli his cell phone and, while reading Jeff’s message, Cordelli called the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center. His call was answered on the second ring.

  “This is Detective Cordelli with an urgent request. Is this Renee?”

  “That’s right, Renee Abbott, Detective. How can I help?”

  “You’re going to get a call from Jeff Griffin. He will leave his phone on for a one-way transmission of critical information, originating from the suspects. Do not respond. Mute your line and patch it through to the task force for processing. Alert them now. Are you ready for Griffin’s number?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Okay, it’s 646-555…”

  CHAPTER 59

  Purgatory Point, the Bronx, New York City

  Jeff called the number Cordelli had texted him.

  No one spoke at the other end but the display window showed that his call had connected.

  Good.

  Jeff activated his cell phone’s speaker and set the phone on the floor on his side of the wall. Then with the utmost care to be quiet he slid the phone under the gap. It picked up the sound just as the man on the other side resumed making his statement.

  “‘Greetings from God’s slave to the United Nations. You did not start this tragic war but if you are people with courage, determination and humanity, you will acknowledge our action today as the final call…’”

  Jeff’s heart hammered against his chest with such force he feared the men would surely hear it. He worked on controlling his breathing while praying that Sarah and Cole were near.

  God, please let them be alive.

  Jeff drew back when the statement suddenly ended with a burst of activity.

  “Let’s go! This is it! You know your jobs!”

  From that point on, orders were shouted in a foreign language over the movements of people rushing, equipment cases being loaded and snapped shut, zippers being closed, computers shutting down, tables and chairs shoved.

  Jeff grabbed his phone, then lay flat on the floor, pressing his face to the gap to see what was happening. His view was restricted to the boots of men hurrying, moving out. How many were there—twenty, two dozen? Then he heard the ring-clink of chains and held his breath.

  Then he saw small white sneakers contrasted against the large military boots.

  Those are Sarah’s shoes!

  She was wearing them when they’d left the hotel to visit Times Square.

  Jeff then saw a set of smaller khaki canvas sneakers.

  Those belong to Cole!

  His wife and son were right there, so close. Jeff’s stomach twisted. He wanted to bust through the wall but was helpless. There were too many opponents. He’d be overpowered, captured, killed. He drew his fingers into fists; his agony turned to rage.

  Vehicle doors opened and closed, engines started, revved, and within seconds they were gone.

  CHAPTER 60

  Manhattan, New York City

  Underwater.

  Aleena Visser was below the surface.

  She could not open her eyes. The roar of the pressure throbbing in her brain and her ears was deafening.

  I’m awake. I’m not awake. I’m dreaming.

  Remembering and not remembering.

  A story in New York.

  “We need a special edition on New York…. Would you to please deliver this for me…?” A gift, a pretty music box. “Would you please deliver this for me in Manhattan?”

  Joost insisted.

  Joost was dead. No! No, it’s not true! It can’t be true!

  “Would you please deliver this for me in Manhattan?”

  The newspaper headline on the plane: Murder-Kidnap Case Stirs Terror Fears at UN Meeting in New York.

  She delivered the music box.

  The strangers. My contact. It’s true. All true. Being chased by two strangers. I am guilty.

  What’s in the music box?

  The strangers. They’re chasing me. They’ll kill me.

  No!

  Aleena was swimming, swimming hard underwater. The forces chasing her were faster. Open your eyes! No! Open your eyes, you must see! The water is dark. I can’t see!

  Swimming up with powerful save-your-life strokes, kicking up.

  Breaking the surface to see, she gasped at the horror enveloping her.

  Blood!

  Aleena was swimming in blood and the screams pierced her ears.

  No!

  Thrashing, she felt the tubes on her face, the IV fastened to her arm, and she smelled the antiseptic tape, the disinfectant in the air, the starch of laundered sheets, her hospital bed.

  “Noooooooooo!”

  Nurses flew into the room to hold her, comfort her—one called for the on-duty resident, another soothed her.

  “The number, call the number…718-555-768—”

  “Easy, sweetheart, you’ve been in an accident. Easy.”

  “She’s still in shock, delirious. Incoherent,” one of the nurses said.

  But through her tears Aleena knew.

  “Call the police! I need to tell them the number! Oh, please call the police! I need to tell them the emergency number….”

  “Shh-shh, the police know about your accident, dear.”

  “Everyone’s going to die if you don’t call the fucking police now!”

  CHAPTER 61

  Purgatory Point, the Bronx, New York City

  Jeff held his breath and waited.

  Long after the vehicles had left, he remained fused to the wall, cursing himself for not knowing how many vehicles there were, or the makes, or the destination.

  Where did they take Sarah and Cole? Their manifesto vowed imminent pain and suffering—but where, what are they planning to do? Oh, Jesus!

  The questions tormented him as the building fell silent.

  Was it safe to move now?

  He swallowed, uncertain exactly how much time had passed, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to investigate for anything to lead him to his family. Jeff stood and hurried quietly along the wall until he came to its end and peered around it to the vast factory floor divided by decayed half walls,
heaps of rotting lumber, wiring, piping and drums of trash.

  It appeared deserted.

  He made his way to a corner with two mattresses, chains, junk-food wrappers and a toilet.

  This must be where they held them.

  Battling his anger, he turned.

  In the distance he saw the remains of offices, tables, workbenches, and headed toward them. The area had been cleared, little left but trash. He sifted through it until his cell phone’s red light started blinking with a text from Cordelli.

  Safe to call you now?

  Yes.

  Jeff’s phone rang.

  “What’s the situation in there?” Cordelli asked.

  “They’re gone. They’ve taken Sarah and Cole!”

  “We’re out here with ESU. Come out to the large open door to the west with your hands up palms out so they can clear the building and we can pursue them.”

  Jeff trotted to the door and raised his hands as instructed.

  Within minutes heavily armed ESU members wrapped in body armor swept into the building and scoured it. Cordelli and Brewer arrived after them, wearing Kevlar vests, weapons drawn. They took Jeff aside.

  “Are you hurt?” Cordelli asked.

  “No. What did you get from their demands on the call?”

  “The task force is processing it with national security,” Cordelli said.

  More investigators arrived from the NYPD, FBI, Homeland and other agencies. As they began processing the scene, radios crackled and the air thudded with an approaching helicopter. Brewer was sober-faced and anxious.

  “How many people were there?” he asked Jeff.

  “Maybe two dozen.”

  “And they had vehicles?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many were there? What were the makes, colors? Did you get plates?”

  “No, I got nothing. I only heard them rolling out.”

  “You really didn’t see much.”

  “No.”

  “How did you get here?” Brewer asked.

  “Luck.” Jeff found an empty take-out cup and held it up. “See, it was a V, not an L. It led me to the restaurant and I followed a guy here.”