by Mike Bogin
“If NSA raids anyplace in New York City, I’ll find out about it,” Tremaine offered with absolute confidence. “I’m wired into Dispatch. Anything goes down inside the five boroughs, I’ll find out.”
Gonzalez and Al Hurwitz were both impressed. Tremaine adjusted into his seat, feeling less like he was the outsider.
“The guy has killed seven of this city’s sixty-eight billionaires, plus two more Chinese billionaires,” Owen summarized. “The other night, my friend asked me how he could shoot a billionaire. I don’t mean that my friend was planning to do anything. But he was curious about how the shooter could even know where to find his victims.
Law enforcement has been down that thought process, but they missed the key point. Intel Division has poured through the Web for chatter about the shootings. FBI, NSA, DID…every agency is looking at blogs, boards, but did anybody else think to look at where these events were advertised ahead of the shootings?
My wife, Callie, got the idea that instead of Googling each shooting, she checked for events calendars that included Sands Point and the Barrow & Taylor Auction and Mamaroneck. Everything Callie went on was public information. I couldn’t see it. Maybe I was too close. But she did.” Owen looked over to Tremaine to convey that he did listen, that he was acknowledging Callie.
“There is only one website that had all three events listed ahead of time,” Owen continued. “Nearly a half-million entries now, but only that one site had all three events ahead of the shootings. It even detailed sponsors, expected participants, and linked to prior year’s attendance.”
Owen highlighted six events. Each was scheduled to be coming up within the coming two weeks. “If we had a screen, I’d put the sites up straight from a laptop and we’d have the links, too.” Outside of The Bunker, he had no docking station or a connected projector.
Fiscal Q2 open shareholders meeting and directors election, MediMode Inc., St. Regis Hotel, Two East 55th Street at 5th Avenue; 8/14
Organic and Local, Foodistas New York, Eataly, 200 5th Avenue; 8/17
Zachy’s White on White Event featuring the finest examples of white Burgundy wine in the world today. Zachy’s Wine and Liquor, Scarsdale, NY
Minikes and Jungreis at J. P. Morgan, 383 Madison Avenue 13th Floor, 8/22
New York Bankers Association Financial Services Forum, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 8/22 – 8/24
The Twenty-Fives Annual Dinner Cruise, The Hudson River Estates, 8/25
“These are the elite events that are currently showing on those sites,” Owen explained. He had already verified that the website was updated twice daily; each event showing there was still actively on schedule.
“We may not be able to find out his identity, but if he really is drawing his targets from these listings then we may be able to get ahead of him. We could put ourselves inside the target before he attacks.”
“Who is we?” Gonzalez asked.
“All of us,” Owen responded.
Gonzalez looked skeptical. He was the only one present who had any business within a strike operation.
“During one five-week period in the Battle of Stalingrad,” Gonzalez told them, “Vasily Zaytsev, a Soviet sniper, killed two-hundred twenty-five enemy soldiers, including eleven well-trained German snipers sent out to kill him. A movie was made about it. Enemy at the Gates. You should watch it.”
“Meaning?” Owen asked, after a long pause.
“Meaning this guy is the real deal. I’m not pontificating for no reason. Twenty thousand individual soldiers in the U.S. Armed Forces could kill the four of you before you could get to any one of them. Hell, there are thousands of illiterate tribesmen in the hills of Afghanistan who would kill you, too.
Do you have any idea how much money the army spends so professional soldiers don’t need to go head-to-head with those guys? We call in hundred-thousand dollar missile strikes so they don’t blow our heads off. You are not equipped for the task.”
“Then we’ll get help, major,” Owen urged. “Right now, let’s put our heads together and think about where he might attack. Then we work on stopping him. Based on what we know about previous attacks, will he choose any of these as targets?”
“Sag Harbor, Central Park West, the Chinese, Mamaroneck; every one of those targets was outside, all but the Chinese were at ranges over two hundred meters,” Gonzalez explained. “Sag Harbor, Mamaroneck…both over open water. He likes open terrain and he doesn’t mind moving across long distances. Take a deeper look at the dinner cruise.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The DNA results reflected what his security chief anticipated; the shooter or shooters were military-trained. Carlton Jeffers scanned the briefing notes with a scowl turning down the sides of his mouth. The results were not just a United States soldier, but one of the army’s most elite men.
Things were already bad enough. He hadn’t slept through the night in six weeks; now his doctor had him taking Ambien and his blood pressure was up again. He was taking it to get sleep in order to be alert, but now his brain couldn’t process anything clearly on the first take.
“Let it go,” the security consultant advised Jeffers. Where Jeffers was headed didn’t fit with the framed diplomas, the awards, the photographs of Jeffers shaking hands with presidents.
“Right now you are in sole possession of information that you don’t want to have. Believe me. Leave it to people who do this for a living. I can use trustworthy channels to pass the test results to NSA and that’s the end of it.”
But Jeffers knew the men he worked for, capricious billionaires who were accustomed to getting what they wanted.
“You expect me to wait on federal bureaucrats while these killings set us back twenty years? While killing billionaires turns into a national sport? I can’t stay out of it,” Jeffers shouted. “I’m taking charge.
Federal, state, and local law enforcement is falling over one another. Ten billionaires are dead and that foul-mouthed hack is on the radio spinning the killer into a goddamned Robin Hood!
I created the ‘Job Creators.’ I tell half the billionaires in this country how to manage their media presence. My job is all about managing the story. When the ‘class warfare’ story turns into ‘Bullets for Billionaires,’ how does that make me look? How does that make Americans for Patriotic Action look? I’ll tell you how. Pretty damned foolish!” He fumed.
“I’m also supposed to turn out sixty billionaires for Vision Partners meeting every single month,” Jeffers continued. “That’s on me, too!
Last month, eleven showed up. This month I had to completely cancel the meeting. No attendance means no funds, no directives, no momentum, and my ass!
“We didn’t cancel after 9/11!” he griped. “Even our core director’s council isn’t immune; their own wives and children are going into hiding.
So don’t tell me this is overreach. I understand hubris and this is not that.”
He continued in a deadly monotone: “Americans for Patriotic Action can cease to exist. This organization, the institutes, the legislative council, thousands of jobs, hundreds of political careers, four hundred million dollars per year and growing…it all rests on the whims of men who can change their minds and get interested in something else.
Just like that.” Jeffers snapped his fingers. “It can all disappear.”
“It’s a dangerous game, withholding evidence in a federal investigation,” the consultant said.
Jeffers shook his head. “When nobody will ever prosecute, there is no crime.
You get me the talent. From this moment forward, I’m getting this under control.”
“Stay out of it,” his security consultant told him again. “These things morph. They can go sideways in a second.”
“That’s why I pay you,” Jeffers reminded. “No blowback. Make sure of i
t.”
Thursday, August 16, 0530
Three New York City locations had ties to the suspect: E 144th Street in The Bronx, Murray Hill, and Great Kills on Staten Island.
Team Leaders, TL, Assistant Team Leaders, ATL, Security; three full units with demolitions made ready doughnut charges, flash bombs, and grenades outside each target.
Raiding structures is all about overwhelming force. Trained men moving fast are statistically proven to minimize both friendly fire and collateral casualties. In urban settings, patience breeds casualties. Simultaneously assaulting each location at maximum velocity was about saving the lives of the men going through the doorways. They were not going to allow reaction time; nobody inside could get to a grenade or to a cell phone, either.
E 144th Street. Side alleys east and west. Frame-construction tri-plex. Snipers were positioned with visuals on front and rear doors.
The raid team, dressed head to toe in black and wearing facemasks, readied behind the entry specialist in a single-file snake formation. The primary weaponry each carried consisted of Heckler & Koch UMP 45 micro-machine guns using 25-round clips of .45 caliber ammunition and firing 600 rounds per minute. M84 flash grenades.
One through six counted off. Their Team Leader was “One,” Assistant Team Leader “Two,” their Point Man “Three,” Radio Telephone Operator “Four,” and their security elements “Five” and “Six.” All had names, of course, but not during missions.
“Go!” Both doorknob and deadbolt were blown out eight inches around the door and frame with charges designed to yield fearsome booms. One second to entry, red laser dots zipped up walls, boots crashed onto stairs and up. Security team members secured each level. At the top level in four seconds. Solid door, steel security frame around lock. “Blow it. Go go go!” M84s inside. Crash interior doors one, two.
“Clear!”
E 39th, Murray Hill. Five-story stucco-on-brick structure. Sniper One in parking garage. Sniper Two rooftop east. Third floor. Windows east/west. Solid walls north/south.
Snake formation in parking garage. Entry Specialist, “Three,” to front. Shield. Glass store door to entry hall. Etched. “Go!”
Flash grenades shook the narrow brick building, followed fast by heavy boot falls running inside.
Empty.
Katan Avenue, Great Kills, Staten Island. Two-story townhouse. Wood frame construction. Sniper one north side, open yard. Sniper two across street, south side, corner. Front door open.
Snake formation assembled side yard east. Visual on army fatigues on coat rack; combat boots in hall.
“Red red! Go!” One, two down hall to front room, kitchen, toilet. Three, four, five, six upstairs. Flash grenade. Suspect disarmed. Zip ties on suspect and woman.
Lights. Visual identification. “Negative. Repeat. Negative.”
* * * * *
Al returned to the apartment at ten-thirty, turning on just one sixty-watt bulb in the small entry before stepping around the misplaced furniture to flop in semi-darkness onto the soft cushion beside Trudy’s regular spot on the couch.
Segments of incomplete thoughts, jumbled snapshots from childhood memories. His father’s face across the chessboard. Eamonn and cup after cup of tea. Throwing the baseball with Owen’s boys. The yellow-green John Deere lawnmower on Cove Road. Trudy with her arms full of petitions. When he noticed the microwave clock showing 1:19, he stood up stiffly, waiting a fraction to be steady on his feet, and then shuffled toward the bedroom hallway. He banged against a hard surface, knocking over one of the end tables that had been shifted by the paramedics from its regular place. Copies of The Economist and Commentary fell out of the lower shelf as he managed to get it upright again. His throbbing shin reminded him that so much had changed so quickly.
Al awakened in the morning wearing his street clothes. His mouth felt dry, cottony. He panicked for an instant, imagining he had been drinking. After rolling onto his back, he tore off the necktie and looked around him, taking a silent inventory of the dark green curtains, their linings yellowed, hanging over a window that looked out on a non-descript alley wedged between brick walls. Two mahogany armoires with mirrored fronts. A child’s desk with no chair. His laptop computer beside a tarnished Kiddush cup positioned on top of a Guinness Book of Records from 1959. Between the window and the door, a twenty-inch RCA television on top of a TV dinner tray. He reached for the remote. Not to watch; he needed noise.
* * * * *
Tremaine’s cousin called him. The minute reports included complaints about three different early-morning raids. “Not one of those was dispatched out of NYPD, Fat Cat,” she said.
“If it wasn’t PD, who was it?” Tremaine asked.
“I don’t know that,” she answered. “If I knew that, wouldn’t I be saying? What I know is doors was kicked in at three addresses. Says here that men in black helmets and black everywhere was carrying machine guns. You said call you about anything weird. If that’s weird enough, I’ll give you the addresses.”
A couple pointed to gaping holes in their building’s front door, complaining how the police had come crashing in without warning. They were in and out and left so fast that they were all gone before the family could get out of bed and get dressed.
A second report came from the owners of a print shop on the ground floor of a Murray Hill building. Broken glass and a splintered front door frame. Again, they scared the hell out of everyone in the building but were in and out before anyone really had the time to react.
On Staten Island, a soldier dressed in fatigue pants and white t-shirt raised his wrists to show the red bruise lines from the zip-ties that had been used on him.
After speaking with Owen, Al put his telephone next to the bathroom sink and finished showering. He was applying shaving cream when Owen called back. Intel Division was in the dark, too. Other than the complaints coming in about policemen knocking down doors, central dispatch knew nothing at all.
“The timing lines up perfectly,” Owen said, telling Al what he already knew. DNA analysis followed by identification, followed by this blitzkrieg.
Three raids. Not one of the witnesses had described the eight-inch tall yellow lettering that should have been on the back of every jacket. That was the first thing they should have reported.
“No ID means no specified warrants,” Al told Owen. “Most likely special warrants: federally-issued secret authority under the Patriot Act.”
What did they already know?
1. Bigfoot was still at large.
2. NSA had an identity.
3. Between the three addresses, they could get a name.
4. With a name, they could get a photo.
Owen headed for Katan, Great Kills, Staten Island. Tremaine drove to Murray Hill. When there were no witnesses in the building, he continued straight to E. 144th.
Sergeant DeJean Perry, the soldier who had been zip-tied, had closed his door to detectives. From the front stoop, Owen could hear a woman on the telephone inside. “We’re gonna get a lawyer and SUE your ass,” she yelled twice at the door.
Major Gonzalez arrived on the run, punched his fist against the door and barked “Sergeant Perry, front and center.” Owen stepped clear without having to be told.
Gonzalez rotated a quarter-turn so that his shoulder was in profile toward the door. Perry, himself six-feet tall and two hundred pounds of hard muscle, opened the doorway, stepped out onto the small concrete landing, and then followed Gonzalez’s body movement, moving double-time to line up facing Gonzalez. The formation left an arm’s length between them.
“Major Gonzalez, soldier.” Gonzalez stiffened, snapping Perry to salute and returning it before offering his handshake. The two of them made their way to a nearby picnic table situated on the shared lawn between the duplex buildings.
“I punched tickets to Par
adise out from KAB,” Gonzalez said. “Understand you did, too, Sergeant. Speak freely.”
“Yes sir.” Perry admired the battalion emblem tattooed onto Gonzalez’s forearm: a screaming eagle perching its talons on a red-eyed skull framed inside crosshairs.
“I helped put in the hockey rink,” Gonzalez mentioned casually, before shifting his tone. “You know who we’re after. I expect you’re thinking of holding out. Protecting a brother-at-arms. Think again.”
Perry’s face went blank. Gonzalez read his eyes. He was scared. This wasn’t the look of anyone complicit. The fear went deeper. Perry had done three tours, an eight followed by two tens in some of this world’s true shitholes. Whoever made Perry look that afraid had to be truly one of God’s Horsemen.
“Talk it through, First Sergeant. We will remove his ass. Be certain.”
Perry answered slowly. “You looking for Bullets, right sir?”
Gonzalez nodded.
“I can’t be sure.” He coughed, spat, and then continued. “Excuse me, Major. Sir, I let my guys use my address when they don’t have a regular place or they haven’t got any family they’d trust to be getting their mail.”
Gonzalez could feel that Perry had their key. It took all his patience to let Perry take his time.
“I didn’t know this guy,” Perry said softly. “We was in rotation, moving through Bagram and stuck for four days. There was this one dude, white sergeant; he was with us for two days, moving back in while we were moving out. The man was strange, like he was in sleep mode there in camp. White, like I was saying. Five-ten, one-eighty-five, probably light skin if he wasn’t in the sun. Did a thousand sit-ups in the morning. Two hundred push-ups after. With nobody making him do that. Just in his own head, you know what I’m saying, sir? He goes a mile out, every day, and does all this semper fu shit in between the runways.”