The Thought Cathedral

by Nathan Williams

  The overweight man from Guangzhou nodded toward Mr. Z and waved his hand as if to shrug off the entirety of the debate the group had just completed. “Just take him up to see Zhànshì. Let him decide.”

  Mr. Z turned to Phong and said, “Come with me.”

  Phong sighed heavily. It had already been a long evening, and he was loath to pitch his idea yet again. He followed Mr. Z along a carpeted aisle to the rear of the auditorium until they came to an elevator with darkly tinted glass extending all the way around.

  “Who is Zhànshì?” Phong asked, as they ascended. Phong’s voice was suddenly loud in the relative quiet of the elevator.

  “The real Mr. Z,” the old man said.

  Phong frowned, but remained silent.

  The elevator came to a halt on the fourth floor, and the old man led him into another hallway with plush red carpeting. As they walked, they passed a series of men dressed in suits and ties gazing into telescopes. No, they’re kaleidoscopes, Phong thought. He traced the line of sight of the nearest client, which led his eyes to a small room. The rooms, Phong observed, were blocked off from the hallway by a marble partition. As he progressed behind the old man, the angle opened up to the interior of one of the rooms and exposed a nude woman, posing on a small stage.

  The man previously known to Phong as Mr. Z made a gesture with his arm, and two men in suits materialized behind them as they walked quickly to the end of the hallway. Once at the end, Phong followed the old man up a narrow metal stairway, much narrower than the ones the hostess had led him up earlier that evening. A trap door was opened, and they climbed out into the cold winter Shanghai air. By the presence of a pool, now empty, and a series of metal tables, Phong deduced that the roof was used for dining and entertainment during the warmer months.

  Phong followed the old man to an open area, and turned as his three cohorts stopped and gathered behind him. Preventing my escape, Phong thought. In that moment, a hot shudder shot up his spine as he realized he was about to lose his life. One of the men pulled a pistol from underneath his coat, and pointed it at his head. Phong’s last thoughts shifted to Cynthia, a split second before he heard and felt something slice through the night. Phong heard a thud as the man with the pistol was sent backwards. Another thud as the torso of another of the men jerked backward and he collapsed to the ground. In the commotion, Phong’s vision was drawn to movement off to his left. Tuniyaz. Tuniyaz was kneeling, his pistol drawn and his shooting arm extended in front of him.

  The man previously known to Phong as Mr. Z was pulling his own pistol when a bullet from Tuniyaz’s weapon pierced the old man’s torso where his heart was, and his body folded to the ground.

  Tuniyaz rushed to him. “C’mon, Phong. No time to lose.”

  Phong, incredulous, said, “You shot all three of them?”

  Tuniyaz shifted his gaze to some random elevated point across the street. “No. Couldn’t have done that myself.”

  Phong was in shock. Tuniyaz grabbed his arm. “C’mon! We’ve got to get moving!”

  Phong followed Tuniyaz back down the narrow metallic staircase to the fourth floor, then down an emergency stairwell at the rear of the building. They emerged into an alley where Tuniyaz had a sedan waiting. Phong slid into the back seat along with Tuniyaz and they sped off into the Shanghai night.

  “How did you know?” Phong asked.

  Tuniyaz shrugged. “Got a ‘heads up’ from your boss.” A few moments later, Tuniyaz said, “You’re a lucky man, Phong. Somebody saved your life tonight, and it wasn’t me.”

  Chapter 39

  The Bronx, New York

  Friday, March 7, 11:23 a.m. EST

  Only two of the seven men in the van were superstitious, and Metz wasn’t one of them. His thoughts were entirely analytical, running meticulously through the standardized routines and contingencies that the team had practiced hundreds of times. It was more difficult this time, however, given that they didn’t have any updated information as to the interior of the four-story building located at Longfellow Avenue in the Bronx. The original plans of the building indicated it had been built as a twelve-unit apartment building with an open floor on ground level, where a small shop had done business until three years prior, when the building had been purchased by a Chinese national who they knew to be an executive for a Chinese marketing firm with offices in Manhattan. Soon after the building had been purchased, the ground level had been converted to a garage. Presumably, this was so it would be easier to transfer hostages. But they didn’t know whether or not any of the other floors had been remodeled or what to expect after they’d made the initial breach and entry.

  Jeremy Oteri was massaging his lucky charm with his thumb and index finger, a silver bullet from a Kalashnikov that had embedded itself in his armor as he rode in a convoy to Tikrit, Iraq in March of 2004. Oteri, a six-foot man who was a five-year veteran of the unit, was speaking quietly with the team’s point man, Tim Harvey. They seemed to be communicating verbally the same routines that Metz was doing in his head. Also present were Jeff Birch, Shawn Drumm, Randall Elmore, and David Orlando. Three members of the team—Drumm, Elmore, and Orlando—were brand new, having replaced Escobar, Johnson, and Martin who had each sustained injuries during the raid of the firehouse a few days prior. This was the second aspect of the raid that worried Metz—the fact that three of the seven men were new, and he didn’t know for sure they would have the seamless coordination that characterized the vast majority of their missions.

  The third reason for worry was that they hadn’t had time to rehearse. On most missions, the team had ample opportunity to gather prior to the actual raid and complete a series of dry runs over the course of several hours. Today was different. At seven o’ clock that morning, they had been woken by a phone call and told a decision had been made to execute a raid set preliminarily for eleven o’ clock that same morning. By eight, both of the SWAT teams involved were at headquarters, where they had an hour to formalize their plans. They had suited up by ten and now it was fifteen minutes until the pre-determined launch time, and they were in the Bronx on their way to their target. Awaiting them were possibly multiple hostages and, most likely, a very prepared and well-armed cadre of Chinese operatives.

  Oteri and Harvey fell into silence, leaving only the sound of the occasional thumping of the tires against the concrete of the streets. Metz felt the van slow and execute a couple of sharp turns before coming to a stop. Orlando opened the door and the seven members of SWAT Team Alpha exited onto a parking lot adjacent to an office building on Bryant Street, a block west of the target structure. They completed a last check to make sure their microphones and earpieces were functioning properly. As they finished their checks, Metz heard Jermaine Simmons, commander of Team Echo, announce to the insertion command officers, who were holed up in an FBI van two blocks away, that they were approaching their target.

  Due to a series of storage units behind the target building, Simmons’s team would approach on foot moving northbound on Longfellow Street before veering off to the right near the front of the building along a narrow alleyway between the target structure and the adjacent building. Once through the alley, they would gather at the rear of the building. Team Echo would breach the rear entrance, Team Alpha the front. The two teams would not enter at the same time, however. Team Echo would hold back initially to prevent the two teams from firing at each other along the central corridor. The timing of Team Echo’s entry into the building would depend on what Metz and his team encountered.

  Metz signaled with his arms for the team to proceed forward. Harvey led the way on foot across the remainder of the parking lot, across a grassy area between two more mixed-use brick buildings, and then they entered onto Longfellow Street. Metz caught the tail end of Simmons’s team as they disappeared into the alleyway, moving to the rear of the target structure. Everything was going as well as could be expected so far. All was quiet as Team Alpha gathered at the front entrance. Oteri stepped forward and placed a charg
e on the door.

  Metz said, “Command, this is Alpha One. Charge is set and Team Alpha is ready to roll.”

  Command: “Team Echo, charge set?”

  “Affirmative,” Simmons said. “Charge is set. Team Echo ready for the green light.”

  Command: “Clear to proceed in three, two, one…”

  Oteri lit the fuse and the men of Team Alpha stepped back. A thunderous explosion pierced the air and reverberated up and down Longfellow Street. Harvey kicked the door in with his right leg and Metz followed him and Oteri into the building.

  During their preparations and lead-up to the operation, Metz had feared another assault of automatic weapons fire, similar to what had happened at the firehouse. This fear, however, did not materialize as they were met by silence. Metz signaled for Birch, Elmore, and Orlando to break off and move up to the second floor, while Harvey, Oteri, Drumm, and he continued down the central hallway toward the center of the building. They had made it ten feet forward before a sliver of a man of Chinese descent with an automatic weapon appeared in the entrance of a room down the hallway and haphazardly sprayed the hallway with bullets.

  Harvey and Oteri returned fire with a hail of bullets, then dashed forward toward the man before disappearing into a room adjacent to the one where the Chinese man was located. They had narrowly avoided another burst of gunfire as the weapon reappeared, again spraying the hallway with random fire. Metz and Drumm, who had lagged behind Harvey and Oteri, ducked into a room to their left as the bullets zipped by.

  Into his mouthpiece, Metz said, “Alpha Two and Alpha Three, can you get a couple of flashes into that room?”

  “Affirmative,” Harvey said.

  The bullets had ceased momentarily and Metz leaned his torso into the hallway. He saw Harvey and Oteri make a heroic dash to the room where the gunfire was coming from and Harvey tossed a couple of flash grenades in. The grenades detonated, causing a tremendous explosion. As Harvey and Oteri plunged themselves into the room, weapons ready to fire, Metz sprinted toward them, followed closely by Drumm. Metz, still in the hallway, leaned in and saw through the smoke that Harvey and Oteri had shot one man, who was lying motionless, but alive, on the floor, and Oteri was frisking a second one.

  Metz motioned for Drumm to move back down the hall, where the two of them quickly entered and cleared a handful of the rooms on the first floor. In his earpiece, he heard a transmission from Orlando from the second floor. “This is Alpha Five, we have isolated automatic weapons fire coming from about halfway down the central corridor on beta level. We could use some assistance.”

  Metz said, “Echo One, this is Alpha One. We have the west half of alpha level cleared. Come on in. We could use some help on alpha level as well.”

  “Roger that,” Simmons said. “We’re coming in.”

  In the FBI’s command center for Operation Crimson Shield near the Midtown shoreline, Rose and a few other high-level FBI supervisors had gathered along with a large contingent of support personnel to listen as the operations unfolded at each of the three separate locations: the building in the Bronx where Metz and his men were located, a second building in northern New Jersey, and the sea vessel moored at Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. Cardenas, Walker, and several other agents involved in the investigation were present alongside Rose. All were present except for Reardon and Frank, who were at headquarters with a group of lawyers and prosecutors meeting with Lyn Lee and her legal representation.

  The atmosphere in the command center was tense as the raids on each of the three locations were tracked as they proceeded. The audio for all three, which had been set up in different areas of the room, could be heard simultaneously. The agents sent to the boat had already apprehended two guards without any gunfire and secured the boat, while the raid elsewhere in New Jersey was proceeding similarly. The building in New Jersey had been a hotel before the Chinese ownership purchased it. The SWAT unit there had been met initially by four men in street clothes who were well armed and had modern body armor, but who had offered little resistance against the resources of the SWAT team. The men were in the process of clearing the building one room at a time.

  Metz moved back down the central corridor on the first floor toward the door on the west side of the building where they had entered, followed closely by Drumm. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the guys from Team Echo spill into the corridor. Three of them made a sharp left turn, heading up the stairwell. Metz walked quickly to the end of the central corridor and then dashed up the stairwell to beta level, where a firefight was in progress. Drumm fell in behind Metz on the second floor landing. Peering down the corridor here, Metz saw the members of his team had taken cover in two rooms located near the landing and were firing periodically at a couple of Chinese adversaries who had taken refuge in a room at the center of the building. At the opposite end, Metz saw a couple of Simmons’s men on the landing, taking aim with their rifles.

  Metz signaled to Drumm to follow him up to the third floor but, as he pivoted, another Chinese man with a semiautomatic rifle burst into his vision on the stairwell above. All three men fired their weapons simultaneously. Metz dove to his left to avoid the Chinese man’s line of fire, running into Drumm in the process. The two of them both fell to the landing floor. Metz felt a flash of pain on his right shoulder as he raised his pistol with his right arm in case he needed to fire again. But the Chinese man was down, as well. Drumm was rolling around on the ground in a great amount of discomfort. Metz grabbed at his shoulder, a good amount of blood on his glove when he removed it. A quick glance revealed a bullet had gashed his shoulder. It was bleeding a lot, but it was superficial.

  Drumm was lying on his stomach, groaning. Metz rolled Drumm over, Drumm fighting him until he had him on his back. A bullet had penetrated into Drumm’s vest, close to his sternum.

  “Looks like you took a bullet in the chest, Shawn. You okay?”

  “Knocked the breath outta me,” Drumm said. “Chest hurts like hell. Think I broke a rib or two.”

  Metz called Drumm’s injuries in to Command and looked back to the stairwell, which was still silent. Drumm said, “Go on. I’ll be alright.”

  Metz was deciding whether or not to proceed up to the third floor when Alpha Six, Elmore, appeared on the landing. “We’ve got beta contained. Thought you could use help up here?”

  Metz nodded. “You sure you’re okay, Shawn?”

  Drumm nodded in the affirmative. “You guys go ahead.”

  Metz led Elmore up the stairwell to the third floor. The Chinese man in the landing had taken bullets in the leg and head and was lying motionless in the stairwell, below the third floor landing. The two men sidestepped the body and climbed up to the landing, then proceeded cautiously down the corridor. All was quiet on the third floor. A few moments later, two members of Beta Team appeared on the other opposite landing. Metz and Elmore began clearing rooms, beginning with the rooms closest to the perimeter, and working toward the center of the building as the Team Echo guys did the same working from the other end. On the floors below, the soldiers had already taken a total of five Chinese men hostage and were well on their way to systematically clearing all of the rooms on the first and second floors.

  Unlike the first two, the door on the third room in was locked, so Elmore placed a charge. Once the door was breached, they maneuvered into a deserted apartment. They cleared a kitchen and living area before proceeding further into the complex. At the end of a central hallway, Metz burst through the last remaining door. A small, thin woman with dark, curly hair and dark skin cowered against the wall, her hands raised in front of her. She had dark bags under her eyes.

  “FBI! This is the FBI!” Metz said.

  Metz lowered his rifle and raised his right hand in front of him as if to say “everything is calm.”

  “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  She waved a lock of her coffee black hair out of her eye. She said in a wavering voice, “I’m Clemente. Doctor Patrice Clemente.”
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  “You’re with Brooklyn Capital?”

  She nodded her head. “Sí. I’m an engineer for Brooklyn Capital.”

  Metz said, “Command. This is Alpha One. We’ve got Dr. Patrice Clemente alive. Scared and malnourished, but alive.”

  The men and women in central command breathed a collected sigh of relief, with a smattering of muted clapping at the discovery of Clemente. They listened with rapt attention as Metz and Elmore progressed along the third floor. A little under two minutes and two apartments later, they discovered Sam Than. This began a cascade of discovery. A minute later, Team Echo found Paul Lampier, and then it took another three minutes before Metz and Elmore freed Nina Natarajan. There had been a longer gap of fifteen minutes before they found Halberstom’s wife, son, and daughter as they were being held in the top floor and the doors were locked. By twenty-five minutes after the recovery of Clemente, they had located Than’s and Lampier’s wives. The jubilant men and women shook hands and slapped backs as the field agents at the locations began the long process of gathering evidence and testimony from the building and from the newly rescued abductees.

  “Somehow, they didn’t know we were coming,” Cardenas said to Rose. “I wonder why?”

  Rose shrugged his shoulders. “Good question. Still a lot of work to do. I’m going to allow myself to celebrate a little bit. For a few minutes, anyway.”

  Chapter 40

  Manhattan, New York

  Friday, March 7, 1:39 p.m. EST

  Rose was in his office in central command when his cell phone buzzed. Reardon’s baritone was unmistakable.