by J. B. Turner
“So has Stanton spoken to the Liebers?”
“Not yet. He’s due to meet them around midday. We don’t think there will be a problem. But we’re on the clock now.”
Meyerstein rubbed her eyes. “I appreciate your help. And, trust me, we need every bit of help we can get.”
Froch’s desk phone rang and a red light lit up. “I must take this. The President’s national security advisor.”
Meyerstein nodded and got up from her chair. “Let me know as soon as you hear from Stanton.”
“Count on it.”
Meyerstein left Froch’s office and felt a migraine coming on. She headed to a bathroom and popped a couple of Advil, then washed them down with a small bottle of water she had in her bag. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. The shadows under her eyes. She applied some fresh Touche Éclat. Then she touched up her lipstick.
She closed her eyes for a few moments, hoping the pain would subside. There were so many things going through her head, it was unreal. Analysis, counterterrorism briefings, Reznick’s presence on the team, pressure from Black, missing the kids. The more she thought about it, the more she knew she needed a vacation when it was all over.
The door opened behind her. Standing there was a fresh-faced, dark-haired woman. Her high cheekbones and peachy complexion made Meyerstein envious.
The woman gave a insipid smile and approached the mirror. She took a small bottle of perfume from her bag. Then she turned to Meyerstein and sprayed the cold spray into her left ear.
“What the . . .” was all Meyerstein managed to say before the words couldn’t come.
“Take care now,” she said as Meyerstein collapsed to the floor, struggling for breath, the woman staring down at her, smiling.
Then she was swallowed up in a spiral of darkness.
Twenty-Four
Reznick checked his watch as he sat in the back of the SUV parked outside the State Department’s office in New York. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It showed 10:45.
“What’s taking her so long?” he said to the driver. “She’s been away for over an hour.”
The Fed just shrugged. “Relax.”
Reznick felt his foot tapping. He’d never been good at waiting.
“Wasn’t she supposed to be in for twenty minutes?”
The Fed nodded. “It happens. Meetings run over all the time.”
That was true, Reznick thought. But Froch didn’t seem like the sort of person who allowed meetings to run over. A stickler for detail. A small-print kind of guy.
The waiting went on. He looked at his watch at least a dozen times in the space of fifteen minutes. And still nothing.
He wondered what was keeping her. Neither the FBI driver nor Chisholm, sitting in the front seat, seemed unduly bothered.
Reznick leaned forward and tapped Chisholm on the shoulder. “That’s an hour and a half she’s been gone. Is that normal?”
Chisholm was checking his emails on his BlackBerry. He turned around and grimaced. “No idea, Jon.”
“Look, do you wanna at least send her a message asking her how long she’ll be?”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, if she’s in a meeting with Froch and some of his State Department buddies, you can rest assured she won’t want to be disturbed by us, asking her where the hell she is. I know Martha. Have for a long time. And she doesn’t like being disturbed in meetings.”
Reznick sighed. “She had a twenty-minute meeting, Sam. She’s now been gone a while.”
“You need to get out more, Jon. Here in the real world, meetings run over all the time. It’s a pain in the ass. But we roll with it.”
Reznick remained unconvinced. She’d said earlier that she wouldn’t be long. But here they were, an hour and a half later, and she was still inside.
He pondered on that. He’d always been strict about timekeeping, especially back in his Delta days. If you were given forty-five minutes to do a task, it meant forty-five minutes max. Not a second more. A night run for thirty miles over rough terrain had to be completed in less than twelve hours. And on and on it went.
He was obsessive about the time. It kept him focused. But anything that ran over jarred with him. He liked order. Precision.
The minutes dragged. He checked his watch again.
“She’s been gone an hour and fifty minutes, Sam.”
“What do you want me to do? She’s an FBI assistant director. I can’t just go marching into the goddamn office, asking what the hell is taking her so long.”
Reznick tried to keep his natural aggression in check. “Can’t you at least call Froch’s assistant or secretary? Ask how long she’ll be?”
Chisholm shook his head and smiled. “You’re wound up too tight, Jon, do you know that?”
Reznick said nothing.
“OK, OK, I’ll deal with it,” Chisholm said, and he made a call. “Hi, sorry to bother you. This is Sam Chisholm of the FBI.” A long silence. “Yes, Counterterrorism. Thank you. Can you put me through to Ed Froch’s secretary?” A pause. “Hi, could you tell me what’s keeping Assistant Director Meyerstein?” Silence. “Are you sure? I’m sorry, how long ago? Are you positive?” He nodded and closed his eyes before ending the call.
Reznick leaned forward. “So, where the hell is she?”
“She left more than an hour ago.”
“What?”
Chisholm dialed another number. He waited for a few moments and left a voice message: “Martha, it’s Sam. Where the hell are you? They said your meeting finished way before ten. It’s now eleven seventeen and no sign of you.”
“We need to get up there,” Reznick said.
Chisholm gritted his teeth. “What the fuck is going on?”
They got out the SUV and rushed through the security door, where they were patted down and given temporary passes to enter the building. They rode the elevator with two security guards to the eighth floor, and headed straight to Froch’s office.
The secretary let them in while Froch was on the phone. He hung up immediately.
“I’ve just been alerted that Assistant Director Meyerstein isn’t with you,” he said. “So where the hell is she?”
Chisholm ran his hand through his hair. “Shit.”
“I’ve just ordered the security cameras to be reviewed. Something’s not right.”
“No fucking kidding.” Reznick began to pace back and forth. “Did she say where she was going?”
“I assumed she was heading back to base.”
Froch’s desk phone rang and he picked up on the first ring. “Yes?” He nodded. “On this floor? Put the building on lockdown. Right now!” He hung up. “Security says the footage shows she went into the restroom on this floor. No sign of her since then.”
“Fuck!”
Reznick ran out of the office with a security guard in tow, and headed back down the corridor in the direction of the female restroom. He barged inside. It appeared empty, but he saw one door partially shut. He spread-eagled himself on the floor and saw legs and shoes—it was Meyerstein, crumpled in a heap.
“End stall!” Reznick shouted at the guard. “Call 911! Now!”
He pushed back the door with his left hand and kneeled down. He gently cupped a hand behind her head and felt the pulse in her neck. “Very faint, but alive.” He touched her cheek. It was getting cold. Clammy. Her lips were turning blue. Then he spotted some crystalline residue in her hair.
He pushed back her hair and saw the same residue on her earlobe. It reminded him of a hit by the Israelis on a Palestinian terrorist on the West Bank.
He turned to the guard. “Seal this place off! Don’t let anyone out of this building, do you understand?”
The guard nodded and passed on the instructions over his radio.
Reznick turned his attention back to Meyerstein. “Stay with me, Martha!” He tapped her cheek, trying to rouse her, and began to shake her.
H
e turned to face the guard. “Where the hell are the paramedics?”
A few moments later, Chisholm came in with a female paramedic, who took Meyerstein’s pulse.
“Not good . . . Very faint. Is this an overdose?”
Reznick pointed out the drug residue. “Someone got to her.”
“With what?”
“Opiate, almost certainly. Try for fentanyl.”
“How do you know?”
“Just do it! Naloxone, you got it?”
The paramedic nodded. “I’m on it!”
Reznick turned to Chisholm and cocked his head. “Let’s go.”
“We can’t just leave her.”
“She’s in medical hands. Leave two of your team with her. We need to act fast.”
Two Feds were called up to stay with Meyerstein as the paramedic fought to revive her. Reznick and Chisholm headed down to the building’s security room, which contained banks of CCTV monitors covering entrances and exits.
The head of security pointed to a freeze-framed image of a young woman wearing a dark pantsuit, perhaps in her late twenties, long brown hair, State Department ID hanging around her neck.
“We’ve checked. This woman entered the bathroom, just after Assistant Director Meyerstein. She left twenty-two seconds later. Precisely.”
Reznick stared at the woman. High cheekbones, a fresh face with dark, deep-set eyes. He leaned closer. “Zoom in on her ID!”
The head of security did as he was told. The ID read Sacha Hall.
He typed the name into his computer and it came up blank. “There is no Sacha Hall with State Department accreditation.”
“So how the hell did she gain entry to this building?”
The man flushed a dark crimson. “We’re checking it out.”
Reznick stared at him. “When did she leave this building?”
He clicked a button and it brought up another image, this time showing the woman leaving via the main entrance at 10:05 a.m.
“I need those images,” Chisholm said.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to run it past—”
Chisholm pointed at the man, hand inches away from his face. “You get those images to my guy right fucking now! You got it?”
The head of security nodded, visibly shaking. “Yes, sir.”
“OK.” Chisholm handed him an FBI business card with an email address on it. “Send them to Andrew Livingston, FBI Counterterrorism. Right now. But send them secure. Do you understand what that means?”
The security guy just nodded. “Encrypted, yes. You got it.” He keyed in the email address and sent it across. “Consider it done.”
Chisholm turned to Reznick. “What a fucking mess.”
“Tell me about it.”
They headed out of the building and into the waiting SUV. Chisholm’s cell phone rang. He answered and listened. “Hold on.” He covered the mouthpiece and looked at Reznick. “It’s Livingston. He’s got our mystery girl. Facial recognition has just made a hundred percent match at Grand Central’s food court. They’ve been tracking her via security cameras. There’s a shadow with her. A big guy. Jeans, shades, Yankees hat.”
Reznick tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Let’s move it!”
Chisholm ended the call as the car sped through the Midtown traffic, until it pulled up outside Grand Central. Reznick and Chisholm headed through the soaring main concourse. They rushed down to the food court, knocking people out of the way, scanning faces, trying to block out the announcements, earpieces relaying the command and control from Livingston.
“She’s on the move, headed for the platform. Yeah, she’s on Track Three on the 42nd Street Shuttle.”
Reznick sprinted down a ramp to the platform, only to see the train pulling away.
“Damn!”
He heard Livingston’s voice in his ear. “Reznick, next train will be along in thirty seconds from Track One.”
Reznick and Chisholm headed across to the waiting train.
A minute passed. Then two.
“What the fuck is going on?” Reznick said, frustrated at the delay.
Chisholm called Livingston and ordered the lockdown of Times Square station—less than a mile away—so no one could exit. Eventually, nearly five long minutes later, the 42nd Street Shuttle thundered away from the station into the tunnel.
A minute later, they were there.
Reznick and Chisholm squeezed off the car, along with hundreds of others. Bustling and shoving and moaning into Times Square station. Down badly lit corridors, down stairs, avoiding street kids and homeless musicians, until they got to one of the lower platforms.
“Where the hell has she gone?”
Livingston’s voice in his earpiece. “We got her. She’s on the Seven platform.”
Reznick saw a sign and sprinted for it, careening down more stairs. He heard the roar and rumble of a train.
He descended onto the platform, scanning the faces. He spotted her. She turned and stared straight at him.
Reznick moved toward her.
The huge man appeared from the crowd behind her, eyeballed Reznick, and calmly pressed a gun against the back of the woman’s head. He stared at Reznick with cold eyes as he shot her dead.
The noise was like an explosion in the confined space. Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere. Crowds screamed. Panic ensued. The sea of people parted.
It was then that time seemed to stop for Reznick. Shocked faces. Blood. Screaming. He was in the moment.
Reznick drew his 9mm and aimed at the man, but the target had already made his move.
The gun was already in the man’s mouth, his fierce eyes locked onto Reznick.
Then the man calmly blew his brains out on the platform, the back of his head exploding in an eruption of blood.
Twenty-Five
Reznick somehow managed to block out the noise and chaos that followed as people scattered amid the carnage. He felt detached. Part training, part instinct. His mind seemed to have split from what he had just witnessed. He began to think rationally. He got a Fed’s iPhone and zoomed in, photographing both faces.
Reznick stood above the man’s body as blood pooled around his shoes. He was surprised that the front of the man’s face was remarkably intact. But the woman was a different matter, a gaping hole where half of her face had been.
He stared at them for a few moments. The woman’s face was virtually unrecognizable, torn to shreds by the bullet, but he had already seen her Slavic features on the surveillance footage. Her mouth was slightly open, as if aware only for a split second that she was about to die. The man looked Russian—perhaps Slavic, too. Pieces of his flesh, fragments of bone and brain matter were all over the platform. Eyes pale blue, still open.
He wondered what had driven the man to kill the woman and take his own life. What did he want to hide? What was worth dying for?
Reznick saw Chisholm in his peripheral vision but didn’t let on. He bent down and rummaged through the man’s pockets. Nothing.
Inside the woman’s jacket pocket there was an iPhone. He put it in his pocket and disappeared into the fleeing crowds—with Chisholm and two Feds who’d joined them—before anyone could ask any questions.
His mind raced as he ran from the chaos of the station and stepped into the steam-bath humidity on street level, the sound of car horns, the neon advertising of Times Square. Hundreds of people all around, cop cars pulling up.
Chisholm’s driver hailed them from the SUV, and Reznick, Chisholm, and the two Feds climbed in.
Safely inside, Reznick handed Chisholm the woman’s iPhone. “This is her phone. We need to download everything on it. Let’s get back to The Fairfax.”
The driver hit the gas and they sped away.
Chisholm held the cell phone gingerly and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag.
“What the hell happened?”
Reznick breathed out as Midtown Manhattan flew by. “They eyeballed us. The guy shot the woman first. Then he shot h
imself. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Chisholm’s face drained of color as he stared at the phone. “We’re using facial recognition to try to establish who they were.”
“And?”
“We believe they may be Russians.”
“Working on whose orders? The Russians I know don’t shoot each other. I think you need to look at that again. Is this Boston all over again? Are we talking Chechens?”
“Distinct possibility. We’re working this from all angles.”
“What’s the latest on Meyerstein?”
“Not good. She’s unconscious, on a ventilator. Doctors believe it’s an offshoot of China White, a form of fentanyl. Two hundred times more potent than morphine. The Russian mob’s very involved in the importation of the drug.”
Reznick put his head in his hands. “Fuck.”
Chisholm held up his hands as if to pacify him. “Take it easy, Jon.”
“Look, Chisholm, they might be Russian, they might even be Russian mob, but why the hell would he kill the woman and then kill himself? They don’t want us to get below the surface.”
Chisholm closed his eyes for a moment. “Here’s another problem we’re facing. Who the hell would target Meyerstein? Counterterrorism thinks we might be compromised in some way.”
“Communications?”
“Should be impossible, but . . . it can’t be ruled out.”
Reznick stared at the streets as they headed uptown. “How the hell did they get to her?”
“Too early to say.”
Chisholm’s phone rang. “Yes, sir. We got the female’s phone. Computer forensics will copy over the contents of this phone and we’ll have the analysis within the hour. You’ll have the results as soon as I get them. Sir, I’m well aware of that.” He nodded a few times before he handed it to Reznick. “General Black wants to talk to you.”
Reznick hesitated.
“Don’t worry, it’s encrypted.”
Reznick cleared his throat and took the phone. “Sir.”
“I just heard about Meyerstein. This is quite outrageous.”
“Indeed it is, sir.”
Black let out a long sigh. “Jon, your photos of the two dead individuals will be very helpful. Save us a lot of grief with NYPD. We’re strictly in-house on this. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.”