Escape

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Eric took a sip of his coffee. "Remember those guys you saw sitting at the trading posts, looking up at the monitors? And how there wasn't even guys at some places? It wasn't too long ago when there'd be three or four queued up at every one of those seats, waiting to get on. There'd be a lot of pushing and shoving, and even the occasional fistfight. And tell you what...nothing but nothing stopped the trading."

  "Not even some guy croaking?" Zak asked.

  "Leave it to you to find some way to throw a little death into this," Marlene said.

  "Actually, Zak's right." Eric lowered his voice. "They've had guys die in here and they fixed it so that the trading didn't stop, not even for a second. In fact, I was here a few winters ago when some guy who'd been shoveling snow at his house in Yonkers came to work and dropped dead at one of the monitors. Fell right off his seat onto the floor. But did that stop anybody? Hell no, other guys were stepping over him to get to his chair. They had some security guys drag him out the front door before the cops or ambulance could get here and interrupt business."

  "Oh come on, that's an urban myth," Marlene scoffed.

  "No, God's truth, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my guinea eye. If the cops had found him dead on the floor, they might have taped the area off and had a big investigation. But nothing shuts down the stock exchange if they can help it... except maybe blowing up the World Trade Center. That did it for four days, and the country lost more than a trillion dollars in capital."

  Suddenly, Mariano stood up. "I need to find the restroom," he announced. "Need me to go with you, Pops?" Marlene asked.

  "What, you going to take me into the ladies room, or something?" he replied. "I'm perfectly capable of unzipping my own pants and washing my hands, thank you very much."

  "You got two choices, Mr. Ciampi," Eric said. "You can go up the stairs and you'll find one. Or you can go back in the direction we came, and you'll find one just past the computer room."

  As Mariano turned to go, Marlene nodded to the twins, who got the message and jumped up. "We need to go, too," Giancarlo said.

  "Well, come on, you two," Mariano said. "At least we can use the same room. The Three Amigos pissing together, right?"

  "Right."

  Mariano started to leave, then seemed to remember something and turned back. "Don't be getting my daughter in no more trouble, Enrique!"

  "No sir, I wouldn't dream of it." When the old man was out of range, he looked at his cousin. "Think he'll ever forgive me? That was thirty years ago, for chrissake."

  "Sorry, Enrique. He can't remember where he lives half the time, but he will never, ever forgive you for getting me tossed in the slammer."

  The three black NYPD officers sipped at their coffees as they waited for the noontime crowd to filter out of the stock exchange cafeteria. Finally, it got down to a couple of traders, a half-dozen food-service employees, a couple of other cops, and the woman and the guy with the Gotham City Bank jacket who'd been with the two boys and old guy they'd seen when they entered the building that morning.

  The kids and the old man had been gone a while, and the woman was apparently getting agitated because they weren't back yet. She got up and walked past them to look out the door, then came back shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. The guy in the jacket got up, and they left the cafeteria, heading for the stairs to the upper floors.

  When the last of the other customers left, except for two other officers, the first set of officers got up and walked over to the table where the others were, apparently in no hurry to get back to their beat. "How ya doin'?" said one of the seated cops, a beefy Italian-looking guy about fifty years old with salt-and-pepper hair.

  "About to head out," the leader of the three replied. "Just stopped in for the free lunch."

  "Yeah? I ain't seen you guys around before. What precinct you with?" asked the other seated cop, a prototypical Irish officer with red hair and a round face covered with freckles.

  "The 23rd."

  "Shit... all the way down from Harlem just for cafeteria food?" the Italian officer laughed, rolling his eyes at his partner. "At least we're only from the First—Battery Park substation."

  "Hey, I got a kid in college. If it's free, I'm there," the black officer laughed. Actually, he didn't have a kid and had never been married. He had been a sergeant in the United States Army before he'd been dishonorably discharged because he'd refused to fight against other Muslims in Iraq.

  The Irish cop nodded. "I'm hearing you, brother," he said. "I got two in school and another one living in my basement, no job, eats like a horse. But whaddya gonna do? Old lady says he stays, or I'm sleeping on the couch."

  "This is the best deal going," said the Italian cop. "It ain't like the old days when my dad was walking a beat and could count on a free meal wherever he wanted. In them days, the restaurant owners liked having cops in their joints. Kept the riffraff and robbers out. Even in Little Italy, all the mobbed-up guys was the first to insist that you eat and drink as much as you wanted. They knew that none of their competitors was going to shoot the place up with a cop on the premises."

  "Hell, Geno, half of them wiseguys was your dad's cousins anyway," the Irish cop laughed.

  "Yeah, what do you know, O'Toole, ya frickin' Mick," Geno replied. "I heard your old man had a pint in every saloon on his beat."

  "Man, were them the days," O'Toole sighed.

  The black cop, whose name was Kareem Mousawi, smiled. "You got that right ... it ain't like the old days," he replied. Nor will it ever be again, Inshallah.

  The Italian cop looked at his watch. "Shit, running late. Eat up O'Toole, we got to get back." He looked up at the three black cops, who didn't seem to be going anywhere. "I guess you boys up in the Two-Three are pretty lax about long lunch hours, eh?"

  "Now that the temperatures have cooled some, the brothers are pretty quiet," one of the younger black cops said.

  "Well, we were just heading out," Mousawi added. With that he turned and walked out the door followed by his two companions.

  They'd just reached the hallway when two large Middle Eastern-looking men in dark suits and dark glasses appeared from the direction of the stairs. Advance security men for Prince Esra, they exchanged nods with the police officers as they passed by.

  A few seconds later, the prince and his entourage arrived from the same direction, escorted by a stock exchange official, who was giving a running dialogue like a guide at a theme park. "This is the cafeteria, nothing too exciting there, and I take it we all ate enough at that lovely luncheon upstairs. Just ahead are the 'brains' of our little endeavor."

  The prince was accompanied by other Middle Eastern men, as well as two white guys in suits and a white woman. They all walked on down the hall and around the corner, headed for the computer room.

  Mousawi adjusted his Kevlar vest. It was uncomfortable under the tight-fitting uniform shirt. Then again, beggars can't be choosers. It was hard enough to steal three NYPD uniforms and badges—five if you counted the two guys upstairs—much less get a perfect fit.

  And you've been chowing pretty well lately, Mousawi, he thought. This was the third "free lunch" he and his companions had eaten over the past two weeks. The first two had been trial runs to see if it would be as easy to walk in with their weapons as their informant had told them. The first time, he'd braced for the worst and was prepared to run if the security guards so much as sniffed in his direction. But the guards had hardly given him a second glance, and the other cops ignored them, too, except to say hi.

  Now, everything seemed to be moving right on schedule. "It's time," Mousawi said to the two officers accompanying him. "With Allah's blessing, tonight we enter Paradise as martyrs." He reached inside his vest for the silencer and unholstered the 9mm, while his accomplices did the same. When they were ready, he nodded in the direction the prince had come from. "Go to the end and set up. Make sure no one gets through," he said and then turned and reentered the cafeteria.

  Without
hesitation he walked up to the two police officers still lingering over their coffee. The Irish cop had his back to him, but the Italian cop saw him coming, first with a smile and then a frown when he saw the gun and silencer.

  "What the fuh..." he shouted as he went for his gun. He died instantly when the bullet entered his brain through his left eye socket.

  It took the Irish cop longer to realize that something wasn't right. Even then he didn't try to reach his gun until he saw his partner's brains hit the wall behind their table. He turned just in time for a bullet to blast away his jaw, slamming his head to the table; a second bullet in his temple finished him.

  Mousawi looked up and saw a young Hispanic man standing twenty feet away holding a mop. He'd stopped in mid-swipe to watch the unusual event between the police officers, and realized too late that he was in danger. He shoved his mop handle in Mousawi's direction and turned to run. A moment later, he lay dying on the floor with two bullets in his back. ¿Cómo mi esposa y cabritos sobrevivirán? he wondered as the third bullet crashed into his head.

  The Jamaican woman replenishing the fruit offerings Mousawi shot twice in the chest. The bored Puerto Rican girl at the cash register managed to scream when she saw her co-worker drop an orange and fall to the ground with bright red flowers growing on the front of her white uniform shirt. But her scream was cut short by the bullet that struck her in the throat. She sat down on a stool that had been provided for her at her register and tried futilely to keep the blood from gushing out of the wound. She shook her head no when the killer aimed his gun at her, and thought maybe she'd won a reprieve when he pulled the trigger and there was only an empty click.

  No matter, Mousawi thought. I've got more. He ejected the empty clip, slammed in a new one, and then shot the girl between the eyes. Walking back into the kitchen, he shot a short-order cook from the Dominican Republic and then the cook's brother and first cousin, who were washing dishes.

  Mousawi bolted shut the Emergency Exit door that was to "remain open during business hours," and then went back out into the cafeteria. His two comrades, Ali and Farak, were dragging in the body of a fat man in a business suit and trader's jacket that read "Bank of America" on the back. "He wanted a cup of coffee and a donut, and refused to go back upstairs," Ali explained.

  They left the cafeteria and stood looking down at the long smear of blood that trailed off down the hall. "Inshallah," Mousawi shrugged. "No sense worrying about it now. Take up your new posts, and from now on, don't ask questions, just shoot."

  The trio walked to the intersection with another hall. The two younger men turned right and took up positions behind filing cabinets moved there earlier, so they could get the drop on anyone who came down the hall. Ali reached into one of the filing cabinets and pulled out two martyr's vests.

  Mousawi turned left in the direction of the brains of the New York Stock Exchange and The Sheik. And my destiny, he thought.

  Behind him, the younger men put on their vests and shouted, "Allah-u-Akbar! Allah-u-Akbar!"

  "Allah-u-Akbar!" he yelled back. "Tonight we will feast in the garden of bayt al-ridwan!"

  Marlene guessed that her dad and the twins had gone upstairs. But Eric checked the bathrooms on the floors and then the visitor's gallery for her; they were nowhere in sight.

  "They must have gone back down," Eric said.

  "Sorry about that. I know they're supposed to stick close by."

  "Don't sweat it. They're not getting out down there. I can hang for a few more minutes, then I got to get back to work."

  As they waited, Marlene asked him about something that had been bugging her about their earlier conversation. "What if the market started to crash but something happened to the computer downstairs that prevented its circuit breakers from kicking in?"

  "That's another reason for the backup system. It has its own set of circuit breakers, so if the main computer didn't shut the place down, the secondary computer would."

  "What if somebody blew up both computers?"

  "Geez, is this what you think about all day? Blowing shit up?"

  "Sometimes," Marlene shrugged. "But humor me, what if terrorists blew up both computers?"

  "Nice try, Osama," Eric said. "If they blew up the backup computer, of course nothing happens. This computer keeps whirring away, and if necessary its circuit breakers kick in. But if both computers suddenly go offline—i.e., somebody blows them both up—there's no trading. Might as well have flipped the circuit breakers. Don't get me wrong, it would be a hell of a mess to pick up the pieces, which they'd have to do by reconstructing the data from those computers—by using data from computers with other stock exchanges—and of course, closing the stock exchange during trading hours hurts financially. But in the end, they couldn't keep the circuit breakers open and crash the market by blowing up both computers."

  "So where's this backup computer?" Marlene asked. "Or is that a state secret?"

  "Now I'm starting to get a little suspicious. We had a guy here from the Department of Homeland Security and he said to be wary of people who ask a lot of questions about blowing shit up."

  "So it's a secret," Marlene said.

  "Nah. They don't talk much about it, but it's not too hush-hush if I know about it. It's at MetroTech."

  Marlene's eyes narrowed. "MetroTech? The urban renewal project in Brooklyn?"

  "Yeah. A lot of the heavy hitters in the financial community have moved over there, like JP Morgan and Bear Stearns. Guess they figure Manhattan has a big target painted on it. That place is supposed to be a fortress—bomb-proof, high-tech security ... the works."

  "And that's where the backup system is located?"

  "Yeah, same building where they put NYPD's dispatch center, so you know security's tighter than an Irishman on St. Patrick's Day. They even got some special company working security. Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation. I hear they do a lot of top-secret anti-terrorism stuff."

  "Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation?" Marlene said. "Never heard of them.... Then again, I've been out of the security biz for a while."

  "I hear them Say-ick guys are the real thing. Bet they get paid beaucoup bucks.... What? What did I say?"

  Marlene's face had turned white. "What did you just call them?"

  "Specialized Applications Integrated Corporation? Oh, you mean the acronym ... S-A-I-C.... Everybody calls them 'Sayick.' Why? What's up?"

  "I'm not sure. Maybe nothing. But please, do me a favor, go to the security office and ask if they see anything out of the ordinary. You might have them give SAIC a call and say there's been a credible terrorist threat and to take precautions."

  Eric smirked. "You're kidding, right?"

  "No. I'm hoping I'm wrong—considering everything you've said today about what would happen if the market suddenly crashed—and I don't know how they'd pull it off. But I'm not kidding. Just do this for me."

  Her cousin looked at her for a moment. "What the fuck, why not? I don't mind being the boy who cried wolf. They'll just lock me up and take away my security badge for letting you talk me into this."

  "Please."

  "All right, all right, I said I'm going. What are you going to do in the meantime?"

  "Go find my kids, what else?"

  In the bowels of the New York Stock Exchange, Prince Esra bin Afraan Al-Saud paused politely outside the glassed-in computer room as the vice president in charge of technology for the stock exchange boasted about the Cray XT4, "one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world."

  "If people are the heart of the New York Stock Exchange," recited the VP from a speech he'd given a thousand times before, "this is the brain, capable of tracking millions of transactions all over the world and adjusting market values faster than you can say 'blue chip.'"

  "Blue chip," said the prince and laughed at his cleverness.

  "Ha ha," the VP joined in. "Anyway, we keep this baby locked up in this airtight, temperature-controlled, and, I might add, bulletproof r
oom."

  "Je veux entrer. Je veux voir cet ordinateur 'superbe. '"

  The vice president in charge of technology turned to Amir Al-Sistani, who'd spoken in French. The little man had a face that appeared to have been created from different animals—the eyes of a basset hound and an eagle's nose that might have fit better on a larger head. The VP had dismissed Al-Sistani as a flunky with his store-bought suit and Yassar Arafat headgear until he was informed that the little man was the hedge-fund manager.

  In other words, he was the brains behind Kingdom Investments, Inc. Several years earlier, he'd earned the market's respect by purchasing $10 billion in U.S. government bonds and then using a little-known provision in bond regulations that allowed Kingdom Investments to borrow ten times that amount from the U.S. government. Al-Sistani had then sunk that $100 billion loan into unsecured equities.

  It made NYSE and other stock-market administrators nervous because of the potential for disaster if Prince Esra's company failed. Like Marlene's cousin Eric Eliaso, the experts feared a situation where too many stocks were concentrated in a single entity. But hedge funds were unregulated, nobody was watching, and nobody dared say anything that might cause the prince—or his little manager—to take all that money and put it elsewhere.

  "I'm sorry," the VP apologized. "My French is a bit rusty. No parlez-vous, eh?" He looked over at the young woman, Marie Smith.

  "He asked if he can go in," she said. "He'd like to look at the supercomputer."

  The VP shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't let anybody go in there except the techies. All the climate control and such. Isn't that right, Omar?"

  Everybody looked at Omar Al-Hassan, who had been introduced when they'd arrived at the stock market that morning. He was somehow or another related to Al-Sistani, distant cousins or something, and worked at the stock exchange in technical support.