by J. B. Turner
The sound of fireworks exploding in the distance temporarily snapped her out of her thoughts. Like gunfire. And again. Then the Manhattan sky lit up. Bathed in dark purples and bright reds as the pyrotechnics illuminated the night. She thought of the millions of people watching on TV. And the hundreds of thousands watching in and around New York City after a dark, dark day for the city.
She checked her watch. It was 9:26 p.m.
Her thoughts turned to her family back in DC. She hadn’t spoken to them since that morning, shortly after the attacks had begun outside Yankee Stadium. She had messaged her teenage children and her saint of a mother, who was looking after her kids while she was away. And she’d told them not to worry. But she knew that like most people, having seen the images and footage on the news, worry they would. She even thought of her former husband, a professor. He was still shacked up with a student of his. The young woman he had dumped Meyerstein for. It hurt. Deeply. The shock had been almost too much to bear. The deception had cut deep. And the wounds hadn’t healed yet. She wondered what they were doing at this moment. Were they enjoying a vacation in the Hamptons? She knew he borrowed a small beach house, owned by two old friends of his, in Montauk. She wondered if he was there, with her, enjoying a romantic meal for two. Walking on the moonlit beach, bottle of wine in hand, bathed in the beam of the Montauk lighthouse. Meanwhile, she was alone, staring out into the night.
She pushed her personal thoughts to one side. The more she tried to piece together the chain of that day’s events, the angrier she got, thinking about the deeply compromised Leon Cortez, who was now dead. It was unfathomable that he had put lives at risk, including his fiancée’s, and threatened highly sensitive investigations. Perhaps irreparably.
She had known of only one agent in all her time who had succumbed to drug addiction. And he was a rookie, a high-flying Penn State graduate who had joined the FBI at the same time as her.
Her cell phone rang, the sudden noise startling her.
“Meyerstein speaking,” she said.
“Martha, sorry to bother you on a day like this. It’s Steve Conti, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility.”
“Steve, thanks for calling back. Did you look over my notes on the meeting with Leon Cortez?”
“Just finished. I see Special Agent Cortez signed off on the notes too.”
Meyerstein sighed. “Now he’s dead.”
“I just heard. What a fucking mess.”
“Indeed. He didn’t try and hide anything. Completely up-front when asked to explain.”
“How the hell did this all come out today?”
Meyerstein sighed. “Purely by chance. A guy who works for us, a consultant, was out in Southampton. Speaking to the eldest O’Keefe brother. The brother mentioned that he had passed on his concerns directly to Special Agent Cortez.”
“This is explosive stuff.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I know exactly how this will be covered in the media if it gets out. And once the social media circus starts up, the FBI will be eviscerated.”
“Let’s not even go there.”
“So, Steve, do you need anything else from us at this stage?”
“The fiancée is . . .”
“Being interviewed by two special agents as we speak. We got to her just in time.”
“And she doesn’t know he’s dead.”
“Not yet.”
“Might be best if we get her down to DC. I don’t want her doing anything crazy.”
“I have no objection to that, at least once we have her statement.”
“There’s another thing: I’m reading that she works at JFK. Is that right?”
“Yes, I believe so. Customs.”
“Shit. We’ll have to dig into whether she facilitated any smuggling operations. Thanks, Martha. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”
Meyerstein ended the call. She stared out at the lights piercing the gathering gloom. She could only imagine the despair in the homes of the families of the ten slain NYPD officers. Down on those New York streets, they’d drawn their last breath as they served the city. Mown down by three maniacs.
There were so many questions still to be answered about these killings. And the questions just seemed to be mounting, including what the FBI’s part was in the whole terrible chain of events.
Meyerstein was struggling to come to terms with the bad decisions and poor choices of one corrupt special agent. But it was all linked to poor oversight within the New York field office. She could barely believe that the FBI had received a specific tip-off from Robert O’Keefe. A tip-off that could have exposed the whole conspiracy. A chance to arrest the O’Keefes. The decision by Cortez to bury Robert O’Keefe’s call was unforgivable, and would almost certainly lead to House and Senate Intelligence Committee inquiries. She would be called to testify. It wouldn’t be pretty. It would be brutal. And all captured on live national TV.
Meyerstein considered her earlier telephone conversation with Reznick. He’d said that Greer, before he was gunned down, had specifically mentioned Campbell as being a powerful player in the Aryan Brotherhood. A conduit between them and MS-13. But also, perhaps, a US intelligence asset with links to the Mexican drug cartels.
Was the late Charlie Campbell being protected as a DEA asset? Were they pulling the strings? She could well imagine that if Campbell had had knowledge of drugs traveling from Mexico on certain routes up to New York, the DEA would have wanted to protect such a vital source. Was Campbell informing on the cartels, bringing back intel to the DEA? But also the CIA?
Had the Agency or the DEA, or maybe both, pressured the NYPD to drop any investigation into Campbell or the O’Keefes, to protect operations going on in Mexico? Had they been keeping the NYPD out of the loop? But some NYPD narcs had taken things into their own hands, finally busting Charlie Campbell. She knew it was possible. Perhaps even likely.
Meyerstein could see Cortez was just a small piece of the puzzle. It would take months to untangle the whole sorry mess. Maybe years. Maybe they’d never get to the bottom of it. It felt as if they were firefighting: always on defense, reacting to events as they unfolded.
She could only imagine how it would look if the story came out. But it would have to come out. Otherwise that would be just another cover-up.
What was also clear was that Reznick had killed one of the MS-13 guys in cold blood. She knew there would be ramifications.
Meyerstein was loath to admit it, but she was in awe of Reznick. She played by the rules, and while she might have disapproved of Reznick’s killer instincts, she couldn’t avoid the fact that his methods cut through a lot of niceties. A lot of bureaucracy. FBI special agents could use deadly force, but only when the agent had a reasonable belief that the subject posed an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury. A verbal warning, if feasible, should be given before any use of deadly force.
Reznick would have to be held accountable. But Meyerstein knew that she would never testify against him in such circumstances. The city owed Reznick a huge debt. He was out there hunting those bastards down. Himself. One man.
Besides, Meyerstein admitted, she was finding it hard to reconcile the idealistic young woman she had been when she joined the FBI with the hard-bitten assistant director who realized that sometimes in life, things get messy. Lines get blurred. In this particular case, what was the alternative? The surviving gangbanger goes to prison, gets out in a few years, recommencing his crimes, killing, and intimidation, dealing drugs and murdering innocents?
Forget the law; what about justice?
Meyerstein knew full well the end-justifies-the-means approach could not, ordinarily, be endorsed. It was not only unethical and unlawful; it wasn’t the right way for the FBI or any law enforcement agency in the twenty-first century to act. But still, she knew the job had changed her once deeply held views.
She felt as if her by-the-book beliefs were slowly eroding. Maybe because of Reznick’s influence and ho
w he operated. But then maybe it was the years of seeing criminality in all its guises and permutations—whether terrorism, violence, homicide, or whatnot—and how the bad guys didn’t care if they were put away for years or decades. There were always more to take their place.
Meyerstein could see that Reznick’s consultant status within the FBI, which she had introduced, might become untenable. She wondered if her friendship with Reznick was clouding her judgment. That didn’t sit right with her. Everyone had to work under the same rules. The same laws. But the reality was she was the one allowing Reznick to operate with impunity.
She felt deeply torn as to how to deal with Reznick. On the one hand, she admired his bravery and maverick approach to often sensitive operations. He got results. Each and every time. But on the other hand, she was the one allowing him to become a law unto himself. She was the one allowing him to continually go rogue.
Meyerstein saw that her deployment of Reznick, while getting results, had compromised her own role at the FBI. She was letting his actions go unchecked. He wasn’t being held accountable. And she knew some of her colleagues were talking about her. Spreading rumors and imagining reasons she let Reznick get away with so much. None of it was true. But the gossip gnawed at her.
She wanted to be seen for what she was: a tough, smart FBI assistant director who was respected in the intelligence community. She wondered why none of her male counterparts were accused of similar transgressions. It was common knowledge in the Hoover Building that Associate Deputy Director Ted Ramirez was carrying on with a pretty FBI SWAT team member, Roberta Stevens. But as far as Meyerstein knew, there had been no insinuation about Ramirez’s ability to do the job. It was a double standard. However, as a woman, she had long since grown accustomed to male colleagues being given the benefit of the doubt in the workplace. But to be fair, their misgivings weren’t only about Meyerstein’s close relationship with Reznick. They were also about how she deployed Reznick, a known assassin who used to work for the Agency. She sensed that her use of the unorthodox Reznick was beginning to erode some of the trust, goodwill, and respect from her colleagues that she had built up over the years. That bothered her. A lot. So what was she going to do about it? Was it time to pull the plug on Jon Reznick?
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if her FBI colleagues might be right. She was shielding Reznick time and time again when his actions crossed into illegality, threatening to derail investigations. She was taking the flak for him. But why?
Was it her and not just Reznick who had crossed a line? Maybe it was more personal for her than she had imagined. All of a sudden, it dawned on her. She did care about him. Far more than she’d probably care to admit. Sometimes at the end of a hard day at the office, the children in bed, she would think of Reznick as she relaxed with a glass of wine. She invariably wondered where he was. What was he up to? The relationship appeared, on the surface, to be purely business. But she had begun to wonder if her high-powered job at the FBI was compatible with a character like Jon Reznick. Was she jeopardizing her career by remaining so close to him?
The fact was, to her, Jon Reznick was indispensable. Not only in the classified investigations she worked on, but in her life. He didn’t walk away when the going got tough. He didn’t bullshit. He was strong. And he wasn’t interested in the machinations of power. She liked that about him. He was a lone wolf. A hunter. And it was that single-mindedness and focus, not to mention his self-deprecation, she found so appealing.
Meyerstein had read his file. She knew his psychological profile. She sensed he wasn’t a guy that sent flowers, unlike her ex-husband. That didn’t bother her in the slightest. But she could see that she didn’t want to be without Reznick in her life. Even just to hear his voice on the phone. But she had serious concerns about his mental state. She worried that he was more damaged than she realized. He had issues. Serious issues. His behavior greatly troubled her. She felt uncomfortable with his use of amphetamines. She knew he was using drugs all the time. He didn’t bother to hide it from her. She’d lost count of the number of times he had knocked back two Dexedrine with a cup of coffee, or bottle of water, during an operation. She’d noticed, but she’d never said anything. She had always figured that Jon knew what he was doing. But after what had happened with Cortez . . . now she wasn’t so sure. Had his drug use played a part in the killing of the MS-13 member in Gowanus earlier? Was he trigger-happy? What could she do about it? Would he listen to her? What was she to him, after all? His boss? Or something more? She made a mental note to talk to him about that. The drug might help his performance, but had it begun to impair his judgment? While amphetamines would no doubt make him alert and poised to meet any threat, the downsides, of which there were many, included mood swings and, in rare cases, psychosis.
Meyerstein reflected on all of this for a few moments. She had never taken a step back to realize how long she had put up with his drug use. Had turned a blind eye to it, because she didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to know.
Not to mention how her attitude toward her work had changed in the time since she’d known Jon Reznick. Her mind-set had gone from by-the-book FBI operations to high risk. Her views were changing too. She had developed a skin as thick as a rhino’s since she’d been working with Reznick. He didn’t give a shit about what people thought. And she had begun to feel much the same about the politics within the FBI.
She wondered sometimes what her career had all been for. The sacrifices, the time away from her family, the loneliness, and the specter of plots and conspiracies her team had investigated, which seemed to leave an indelible mark on her. The feelings of emptiness on days like this. It reminded her of the terrible hours and days after 9/11. The shock of such a monumental attack on US soil, less than a mile from where she was now in lower Manhattan, still lingered. She could see the Freedom Tower glistening in the moonlight.
It was as if every bad day at the office, every disappointment and every sliver of anger that had lain dormant inside her for years, was now being stoked up inside her.
Meyerstein felt like a different woman than in her younger days. Her idealism was retreating into the mists of time. She thought of her precious children, her mother, back in DC. She wanted to hold them tight at that moment. To hug them. To reassure them.
That wasn’t an option now for the families of the slain NYPD officers. The pain, the suffering, would be enduring. The heartbreak. She thought of the knock at the door that each and every wife, husband, or partner of one of the dead NYPD cops would have gotten that day. To listen to a solemn-faced colleague telling them, as they stood on their doorstep on July 4, the gut-wrenching news that their loved one would not be home that night. Or ever again. From now until the day that they themselves died, the Fourth of July would not be a day of celebration. It would be a day of grief.
Meyerstein sighed, realizing she’d lost herself in dark thoughts. She needed to snap out of it. She turned around and faced the huge TV screens in the conference room. Fox News and CNN were playing. Shots of vigils outside Yankee Stadium and in the Financial District. And one just off Times Square. Lingering close-ups of grim-faced New York police officers standing guard.
She thought again of Lauren Reznick, down there, among the crowd of idealistic young men and women, lighting candles, praying for peace.
Meanwhile, out on the streets, working in the shadows, Lauren’s father was neutralizing each and every threat he encountered. Unseen. Unloved. Unbowed. She cared for Jon Reznick. She imagined how she would react to the news of him being shot. Maybe even killed. She worried about him. A lot. But unlike her colleagues, she appreciated the serious risks Reznick took and the deep sacrifices he made for America. He put himself on the line. Time after time. He didn’t back down. She loved that about him.
The phone on her desk rang. She was sorely tempted to just let it be. But she never could.
“Yeah, Meyerstein speaking.”
“Assistant Director Meyerstein . . .�
� The voice belonged to Bobby Levinson, a nervous FBI analyst within the Counterterrorism Center in McLean.
“What is it, Bobby?”
“Channel thirty-two, turn to channel thirty-two.”
Meyerstein picked up the remote and keyed in the number. Four separate still images showed what looked like Todd O’Keefe at the wheel of a pickup, date-stamped three minutes earlier. “Is that him?”
“One hundred percent sure.”
“Where?”
“South of the Theater District. He was picked up by four different NYPD cameras.”
“Have we alerted police, Homeland Security?”
“Everyone.”
“But where is he now?”
“Thirty seconds ago was the last visual. NYPD Emergency Service Units and undercover units are on it.”
“Do we think he’s targeting the vigil in Times Square?”
“We don’t know for sure. We do know there are a lot of police there.”
“Good work, Bobby. But we need to intercept him. Get on it.”
Meyerstein ended the call and updated the Director, who would then inform the President’s national security adviser. She switched channels and looked at news coverage of the vigil in Times Square. She wondered if they shouldn’t just try and clear Times Square. But she knew that was almost logistically impossible. The number of people, the size of the area. It would cause mass panic.
She picked up her cell phone and called Reznick and updated him.
“We need to clear the area,” he said.
“I considered that,” she said. “Would take hours at best. There would be panic, people getting crushed, and in the mayhem, you could guarantee that O’Keefe would carry out another attack and also manage to escape.”