“My name is Glen Smith,” he shouted through the door. “Ms. Rose, I just need to ask you some questions.”
“About what?”
“About Barbara Baxter,” he replied loudly. “She called me before the accident.”
Christine glanced down at Sarah at the mention of her mother’s name. She just stared back up at her with her left hand clinging to Christine’s pant leg.
“Ms. Rose, I can show you my ID. Just look through the peep hole.”
Christine slowly approached the door. When she reached it, she instinctively put her hand on the deadbolt handle to make sure it was locked and turned as far as it would go. She glanced back at Sarah one more time and slowly put her eye to the small hole. “Okay, show me.”
On the other side of the door, a badge came into view.
Christine studied it, but it was too small to make out any details. The picture looked blurry and far away, but she thought it showed someone with light brown hair.
“Please, Ms. Rose,” he said. “I just need to get some information on what you know. We’re trying to find out who did this, and you might have some details that can help.”
Christine did not reply. Instead, she stood still thinking. The badge did look official, and she’d seen enough to remember generally what they looked like. Reluctantly, her hand moved to the deadbolt.
Suddenly, Christine heard something behind her. She quickly turned and looked through the kitchen at the back doorknob. It was moving back and forth. A moment later, the deadbolt higher up on the back door could be seen turning from the other side, slowly unlocking itself.
Christine gasped and instantly flipped up the light switch on the wall next to the door. The warning signal.
Standing on the front porch, Glen Smith shielded his eyes when the bright light came on.
Just over a hundred feet away, the unmarked police car sat silently in the dark. Inside, the two officers sat in the front seats, each with a trickle of blood running down their neck and pooling around their collars.
Christine backed up, away from the door, and waited to hear the running footsteps from outside. She kept waiting and reached back to grab Sarah’s arm, feeling her way down to her tiny hand. There was still no sound of the officers running toward them. Christ, how long could it take?!
Christine turned to see the deadbolt on the kitchen door finally complete its turn. Next the doorknob moved again, but it was locked too. The knob was quietly being turned from the other side, but this small lock was preventing it. It stopped turning. Then it began to shake. Someone was trying to break it.
“Oh god!” Christine cried and pushed Sarah into the corner. “Somebody please help!”
Just then the back door burst open, and four men dressed in black rushed through. They scanned the kitchen in a fraction of a second before spotting Christine at the far end of the adjoining room. They covered the distance quickly, raising assault rifles to their shoulders.
Suddenly without warning, a figure came crashing through the front window of the living room, sending glass in every direction. Before hitting the floor, he fired from a large gun in his right hand, and the first two shots hit the lead attacker approaching from the kitchen. The black-clad figure crumpled to the floor in front of the other three.
The man in the living room jumped out of the way as bullets tore into the floor where he was kneeling, and pieces of wood and carpet jumped into the air after him. Bullets continued to follow the man across the room as he crossed the floor and ducked into a corner, out of direct sight of the kitchen. In a blur, he took advantage of the momentary safety and raced to the edge of the wall where the men in black were simultaneously trying to step over their dead friend as well as swing around the large door jamb to get another clean shot at him. The second attacker, now in front, came around quickly but saw two flashes before he could squeeze off his own shots. He fell face first next to his lifeless friend.
Christine screamed and dropped to the floor, pulling Sarah down with her. She grabbed the girl’s small frame and quickly pushed her back behind the large sofa.
Three more shots went off. She could hear the sound of powerful punches landing and things getting smashed. It sounded like the whole kitchen was getting demolished. Christine flinched when she heard something huge crash against the floor on the other side of the couch. She kept her head low and frantically grabbed Sarah’s arm. In one quick motion, Christine pushed off of her knees and they ran for the front door. She grabbed the doorknob and quickly unlocked both it and the dead bolt, flinging the door wide-open just as she heard a grunt behind her. Someone fell to the floor with another thud.
They were out and running! Christine came to a sudden stop on the grass and looked around. She spotted the unmarked police car and sprinted towards it, still pulling Sarah behind her. “Where were you?!” she yelled, reaching the driver’s side and yanking the door open.
She shrieked when she saw both men sitting in the front seats, dead. “Oh god!” She looked back at the house. More gunfire could be heard inside. She shuddered and grabbed the driver. Cringing and with her eyes half closed, she pulled him out and let his body fall with a crunch onto the hard pavement.
Christine quickly ran to the other side of the car while Sarah hid behind the driver’s open door. With a disgusted look, she pulled the second officer out and onto the ground. “Get in!” she cried to Sarah.
They both jumped into the car and crawled over each other to the opposite sides, where Christine grabbed the keys still in the ignition and started the car. Instantly, without seat belts or even closing the doors, she dropped it into gear and punched the accelerator.
With a giant surge, the car lurched forward with both doors slamming closed from the momentum. Spinning tires left long skid marks as Christine peeled out, sideswiped a nearby truck, and sped away.
20
The large, thick door buzzed and slid open, allowing Cheryl Roberts to step in from the lobby outside. She held up her ID and badge and lay them on the small table in front of her. The officer before her, dressed in body armor, scanned the ID. He then typed in her badge number and waited to see if the photo in the database matched.
Roberts looked around the large room where two more armor-clad officers stood by watching her carefully. Behind them, the rest of the room looked more like a common office than the first floor of an ultrahigh security building.
The nondescript, gray building was the new electronic and security nerve center of New York City. All computers, security systems, phones, and electronics for the largest police department in the world came through this stronghold.
Most people, even residents, did not know that New York had more than 6,000 security and surveillance cameras installed throughout the city, monitoring tens of thousands of citizens daily. They also had thousands of microphones planted in public buildings, airports, bus stops, and many other places where groups of people formed. The microphones were constantly listening and feeding the audio back to the nerve center which searched every stream for patterns of words that were considered interesting.
A young man approached Roberts. With red hair and light freckles, he looked like someone new to both the uniform and the workforce. In fact, he barely looked out of high school.
“Officer Roberts?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Hi, my name is Justin Fischer. I’m your tech.”
“My tech?” she asked.
He nodded. “Everyone accessing the cameras is assigned a tech for assistance.”
“For assistance or supervision?” she asked.
He grinned but did not reply.
“Okay.” She reached out to take her identification back but was cut short by the officer behind the table.
“We keep these until you come out,” he said dryly.
“Both?”
“Yes.” He finished typing and clicked his mouse, then turned to retrieve a printout. He lay the paper down in front of her and handed her a pen. She lo
oked it over, surprised how much of her information was on the form. After signing, she looked at Justin who was waiting patiently with a slight slouch.
The larger officer picked up her paper and filed it. “You get your ID and badge when you leave.”
She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Okay.” She walked past him to where Justin was standing. “I guess I’m all yours.”
Justin smiled politely. “Follow me, please,” he said and led her down a long hallway to the stairs. After descending two floors, they wound their way through a series of twists and turns. As they walked, they passed several large rooms each with walls completely covered with hundreds of video screens. In front of the screens sat a dozen team members watching as the views automatically switched from street to street.
“Wow,” Roberts mumbled, passing their fourth giant room. “This is amazing.”
Justin stopped at a red door labeled simply with a number 6. He opened the door and waited for her to walk in first. Inside was a huge desk with three giant monitors in front of the keyboard, all displaying dozens of small windows from different street cameras. “So, you said you needed to look at a specific camera,” Justin commented as he sat down. He motioned for Roberts to sit down next to him.
“That’s right,” she said, taking the seat. She looked at the images. “I can’t believe how clear the pictures are.”
“All cameras installed in the last three years are high def,” Justin replied. He typed in his ID and password and brought up a map of the city. “Where are we looking?”
Roberts squinted and looked at the map. “Between 5th and Madison.”
Justin typed in “Madison Street”, and the map quickly zoomed in. An older picture of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was easily recognizable from the top. Justin looked at her. “Saint Patrick’s?”
“Mmm..hmm,” Roberts answered, studying the map. “Do you have a view of the north side?”
Justin zoomed in further. “Well, we have a camera here on the corner of Madison and East 51st.” He used his mouse to bring up a separate window with a list of all connected cameras. He then entered the two street names which displayed an icon on top of the map. Clicking the icon instantly filled the right hand monitor with the live video feed from the Madison intersection.
Roberts was impressed. She stared closely at the picture, trying to get her bearings. “Which direction is this facing?”
Justin pointed to a small compass display in the right hand corner. “This is facing east.”
Roberts looked disappointed. “So it’s facing the wrong way?”
“Not necessarily. They’re bidirectional.” Justin said, moving the mouse. “Let me see if we can view the opposite direction.” He clicked another button, and it switched the view to west. “Most of these cameras are actually quad units which means we can view each of the four directions.” They both watched the camera feed switch to a disturbing view of a black and smoldering block of rubble.
“What time and day?”
Roberts looked at him. “Saturday morning at 11:00 am.”
Justin began typing in the date when he stopped and looked back her. “The time of the attack?”
She nodded.
“Some of us have spent a lot of time with the FBI going over these feeds.” He entered the date and waited several seconds while the video picture changed.
The picture switched to an older video feed showing the giant cathedral still standing tall and majestic in the morning sun.
“Can you freeze that?”
Justin clicked his mouse and froze the picture. Roberts leaned in over his shoulder and looked closer at the screen.
“This is five minutes before the explosion.”
“Correct.”
“Can you roll it forward in slow motion from here?” she asked.
“Yep,” he replied and adjusted the video speed.
They both sat silently watching the scene slowly unfold. The crowd outside the cathedral consisted of several groups of varying sizes, most likely tourists, and many more individuals looking, talking, and pausing for pictures. Just as the timer on Justin’s screen approached 11:05, he slowed the video further until they were viewing almost frame by frame.
A black and gray cloud of smoke suddenly burst from the giant double doors which stood wide open. Giant pieces of debris followed in the same instant, showing what looked like large chunks of rock and wood. One piece moved through the video screen so fast that Roberts had no idea what is was. Another giant piece right behind it was clearly a large piece of a pew bench.
Many of the figures standing in front of the church before the explosion disappeared into a cloud of debris that enveloped everything. When it began to clear, Roberts felt a sick feeling in her stomach when she saw how many of the people were no longer there.
The scenes were awful. Watching in this level of detail made her feel like it was happening all over again. She wanted to close her eyes and turn it off, but she was afraid she might miss something crucial. Then finally, after several painful minutes of watching frame by frame, she saw it.
While dozens of people ran back and forth, two figures caught her eye. They were running down the steps, away and toward the outside edge of the camera’s coverage. It looked like a mother and daughter. What was strange was that while everyone else was running away, these two figures suddenly stopped and remained still for a few seconds before continuing.
“Can you zoom in on those?” she asked.
Justin complied, and the computer isolated the frames from the camera and zoomed in, self-correcting for pixilation at the same time. He zoomed in as far as he could, and even though the picture was stretched due to the angle of the camera from down the street, Roberts could clearly make them out. It was Sarah and her mother.
Justin froze on the clearest frame while Roberts studied them. It looked as though Sarah was tugging at her mother, and yet she was not looking at her. Sarah was looking at something else, something out of camera shot.
“Can you determine what angle this little girl is looking at?” Roberts asked.
“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe.” He brought up a new window and began typing in it. To Roberts, all computer syntax looked like Greek. “If we can correct the angle of the picture,” Justin said, watching as the computer squared the dimensions, “then we can overlay our cardinal points of direction.” Next, the video screen was covered with four lines labeled north, south, east and west. “And if we can approximate the direction the girl’s head is facing…”. He typed more lines and the computer then zoomed out to an overhead view of the street, with a red line approximating the angle that Sarah had been looking in the frame. “It looks like she may be looking about…here,” he said. He pointed to the street corner almost directly across the street from the cathedral.
Roberts frowned. “But we can’t see it.”
Justin shrugged. “Well, not on this camera. But we might be able to see it from the camera facing the opposite direction one block down.”
After another ten minutes of angle adjustments and computer enhancements, Roberts could see what she believed Sarah had been staring at. A tall man, in a dark suit, standing on the corner watching the chaos unfold. Unfortunately, she could not see his face. What was very strange to her though was that everyone was running or reacting to the carnage of the explosion, even people on the other side of the street. Everyone except this man.
Roberts collected her badge and identification and signed out. She walked purposefully across the lobby and through the double, sliding glass doors, and was crossing the parking lot when her cell phone rang. She immediately recognized the extension from the 19th Precinct and accepted it.
“This is Roberts,” she answered.
“Cheryl, this is Deborah from the station. I was told by the deputy to give you a call.”
“Hey Deb, I was just on my way back, what’s up?”
“Cheryl, there’s been an incident.”
Roberts’ pace suddenly slowed. �
�What incident?”
“Darlington said you were using one of the safe houses.”
Oh no, thought Roberts. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Deborah continued. “There were shots fired. We’re on the scene now, but I don’t have a lot of detail yet. You might want to get over there.”
“Oh god!” she said, ending the call and running for her car. She fumbled for the keys as she ran. When she got to her car, she swung the door open and quickly jumped in, jamming her key into the ignition.
In her rush, she did not notice the dark figure crouched down in her back seat.
21
Liz Iverson stood in her kitchen cooking dinner for her husband, who sat in the next room in a large recliner, watching a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes. She turned the steak over in the pan and turned her attention back to the small pile of mail on the large granite countertop. She spent a few minutes flipping through an advertisement for the local supermarket. As she turned and dropped it into the recycle bin, her cell phone rang.
Reaching inside her purse, she pulled the phone out and looked at the number.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Liz!” yelled Christine through the phone. “Liz, thank god!”
“Christine? What is it, what’s wrong?”
“Liz!” Christine cried. “They tried to kill us! They tried to kill us!”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Who tried to kill you?” Liz looked through the doorway at her husband who had overheard and was now staring at her.
“I don’t know!” Christine said, still frantic. “They came to the house! I think it was the FBI!”
Liz’s brow furrowed. “The FBI? Why on earth would they want to hurt you? What happened?”
“They came to the house! But when I turned the emergency light on, they didn’t come! They were dead Liz, they were both dead in the car!”
Liz was utterly confused. “Who was in the car? And what emergency light? You’re losing me, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Amid the Shadows Page 8