by Wally Duff
87
It was Friday afternoon. The president was going to be in Chicago in ten days, Monday, September 11. Kerry took her nap. I was on the computer going over my previous bomber notes when my mole contacted me:
He is going to strike next Friday, the 8th. The target is an abortion clinic on South Cottage Grove Avenue, on the South Side of Chicago. I learned he still has an ample supply of C4, but I don’t know how he is going to plant the bomb.
Recently, I attempted to solve the entire problem, but he slipped out of my trap by only a few minutes. His two helpers weren’t as lucky. You no longer have to worry about them.
They have been eliminated.
My hands shook as I read the message. The mole had almost ruined my chance at having the exclusive on the story by attempting to kill the bomber. The mole didn’t succeed, but the bomber’s two female collaborators had become collateral damage.
At least now we had only one bad guy to deal with.
It was time to try our system to foil the bomber. In the wine room, David had taped Kerry and me having several conversations. He had also recorded me doing things around the house when Kerry was with Carter. David had wired it so that when I started the recording the sound would go off and on for two hours.
I stepped into the wine room and called David.
“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” I said.
“Not at all,” he said. “I was thinking about taking Margaret to the park after she gets out of preschool. Why?”
“My mole has given me the date the bomber plans to strike. It’s next Friday. It’s an abortion clinic on the South Side. The Irregulars need to meet with Tony and one of Carter’s reporters at Dinkel’s in an hour.”
“Don’t forget to start the audio recording when you leave.”
“I have it here in the wine room. I’ll text everyone else and turn it on when I leave.”
88
An hour later, we sat in Dinkel’s dining room. Since it was Friday, Alicia watched our kids. Margaret was still in preschool.
Before anyone arrived, I swept the room for bugs. I didn’t find any and felt it was safe to tell them about the upcoming attack next Friday. Brittany Simon, the reporter Carter had assigned to the story, also joined us and sat next to me. Tony was there and made sure he grabbed a seat next to her.
I gave them a copy of the email I had received from the mole.
“What do you think?” I asked, after everyone had read it.
Tony locked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “That’s not the target.”
What?!
“It isn’t?” Cas asked.
“Nope, gonna be Mittelman and his lab.”
“And how would you know this?” Brittany asked.
“Obvious target is this women’s clinic, but the NSA is picking up a lot of chatter that indicates Mittelman is the bomber’s real goal,” he said.
“And my mole is wrong?” I asked.
“Not sayin’ that exactly,” he said.
“Then what are you saying, exactly?” Brittany asked.
“Bomber knows the Chicago PD has limited resources,” he said. “Was almost caught in Arlington five years ago. Figures out there has to be a mole in his organization. Taking advantage of that, mentions to his group the clinic is his target, knowing the mole’ll tell us. But he’s really going after Mittelman.”
“He didn’t count on the NSA finding out,” David said.
“Didn’t, because those guys are good at hearing stuff, especially since 9/11,” Tony said.
“What can we do?” Cas asked.
“Feds are putting on the full court press around Mittelman’s lab and have for the past week. They don’t trust Hogan to do the job. Chicago PD has been assigned to help too.”
This isn’t good for our team.
“What about the target abortion clinic?” I asked.
“On next Friday, some of our people’ll be at the clinic so they can arrest the bomber.” He paused. “If he even goes there.”
“I have an idea,” Brittany said. “Why don’t you have one of your people immediately begin to act like one of the clinic’s doctors?”
“Too expensive,” Tony said.
“Hear me out,” she said. “When patients call the clinic, the office staff will say a new doctor is coming into the practice, and he’ll be sharing night call with the clinic doctor.”
“Brittany has a great idea,” Cas said. “After business hours, send all the phone calls from the real doctor’s answering service to a Chicago Police Department phone. When the bomber calls with a phony emergency, our own guy can go to the clinic posing as the new clinic doctor.”
“I can set up a medical website for the new doctor and create a whole new identity for the decoy, one that’ll withstand a thorough computer search,” David said.
“When the bomber calls, he’ll get the message that the decoy doctor is on call,” Cas said. “If the bomber does an online check of the doctor, he’ll have to believe our guy is real.”
“Then your men can surround the clinic and arrest him when he shows up,” Molly said.
“And when no one calls, we can blow off the whole operation and concentrate on Mittelman’s lab, where the bomber’s gonna do his thing.” Tony hesitated. “But I like it. Clinic doctors won’t be at risk. Captain’ll be happy with that, and cost’ll be minimal.”
“Where are you going to be, Tony?” David asked.
“Been thinkin’ about that. Might join you guys at the clinic on Friday.”
“Why not be at Micah’s lab?” Molly asked.
“Fed’s top brass’ll be there for that one. All chiefs and no Indians. Not much for lowly detectives like me to do.”
“What will you do at the clinic?” Cas asked.
I knew his answer before he could open his mouth. “Tony is going to be the decoy doctor,” I said.
89
“Only place for a rising star like me to be,” Tony said.
“Then shouldn’t you begin watching the building on Monday?” Brittany asked.
“Clinic closed for Labor Day.”
“Then how about beginning on Tuesday?” she asked. “You might be lucky and take him down before he can bring the bomb in next Friday.”
“If he brings it in, which no one thinks he will,” he said. “Cost a lot of money to do a twenty-four-hour surveillance for even two days. It’s killin’ our budget to watch Mittelman’s lab. But I can pop by in a doc’s uniform once or twice early in the week, so if the perp is watchin’, he’ll think I’m the real deal.”
“Since your funds are such a problem, maybe we can help you watch the clinic building, and I’ll coach these guys on how to do it,” I said.
“Huh?” he said. “Never considered that, but gotta a problem with it.”
We waited.
“You guys aren’t cops,” he continued. “You can’t be there.”
“That’s easy to fix,” Molly said.
Tony gave her the hard cop-eye stare. “I said, you guys aren’t cops. You can’t be there. End of story. Got it, sweets?”
Molly stared back at him. He didn’t blink. Neither did she.
I’d never seen her have attitude about anything. Now she did.
What’s up with this?
“This isn’t my first rodeo with stuff like this,” she said. “I’ll take care of it, okay?”
“How you plannin’ on doin’ it?” he asked.
“We’ll sign a release to cover your ass,” she said. “We get hurt, it’s on us, not the Chicago PD.”
“Like civilians do who go on a ride-around with cops in a black and white?” he asked.
“Exactly,” she said.
“Gotta run it by the captain. He goes for it, I’ll fax the papers for you guys to sign before we go any further with this.”
“We’ll have our lawyer check it before we sign it,” Cas said.
“Linda?” I asked.
“For sure,” Cas said.
Tony and Brittany left. The rest of us lingered around the table trying to figure out how we could structure a surveillance schedule around our daily parenting activities without the bomber knowing what we were doing. Safety had to be key. Our lives were at stake.
“The bomber watches our every move, right?” Cas said.
“With the cameras he has trained on our homes,” I said, “that would be a reasonable assumption.”
“And don’t forget the GPS trackers on all of our cars,” David said.
“Why don’t we just remove them?” Cas asked.
“David and I talked about this,” I said. “If we do that, it’ll alert the bomber that we’re on to him.”
“And we don’t want to do that,” David said.
“So, what we have here is a great plan but no way to implement it,” I said.
“XSport Fitness,” Molly said, and then glanced down at her iPhone.
The rest of us stared at her.
“And?” Cas asked.
“We all go there,” Molly said.
Cas softly banged her head in her hands. “God help us.”
“That might be okay too,” Molly said.
“Ah, Molly, could you expand on your idea a little?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, as she stared at her phone.
We waited. She read something from her screen and then sent a text.
She read the reply and looked up. “Where were we?”
“At XSport Fitness,” I said.
“Oh, right. So, see, we all walk there, and by now, the bomber has to know that. That eliminates his GPS trackers, since we don’t use our cars.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” I said. “When it’s one of our times to watch the clinic, we walk to XSport and drop our kids off. We then sneak out the back door and drive away in an Uber or Lyft.”
90
Friday night, Carter and I were in the wine room. Kerry was asleep in her crib upstairs. We had the Nanit app on.
“I talked to Brittany,” Carter said. “She told me about your meeting and your plan. I would like to hear it from you.”
I told him the details.
“Thanks again for supporting me on doing this,” I said, when I finished.
“It might be a terrific story, and you’ve waited over five years to finish it. I admit I’m worried, but if you insist on being there, this seems the safest way you can do it.”
“Did Brittany also tell you that one of the cops is going to pose as the doctor?”
“She did. It’s Tony Infantino.”
I felt my face flush.
“She doesn’t know about your past history with the detective.”
Hold it.
This was too easy. Ever since I was blown up in Arlington, he had been overly concerned about my safety. And he hated Tony because he knew about our affair fourteen years ago. Now my husband seemed to be all in.
Something isn’t right.
“Have you been talking to the FBI?” I asked.
“I have not directly spoken to the FBI.”
“How about someone from the NSA?”
This time he didn’t answer.
“But Brittany has,” I continued.
“Yes, she has.”
Gotcha.
I kept pressing. “The feds are certain the bomber will go after Micah and his lab.”
“They are.”
“Are they still picking up chatter about this?”
“Yes. In fact, it’s increased.”
“You think we’re stupid for watching the clinic.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it.”
He remained silent.
I began to shiver. “Can we discuss this upstairs? I’m freezing in here.”
“Would you like to relax instead and watch a couple of DVDs?”
“Sure. Which ones?”
“The Day of the Jackal and The Manchurian Candidate.”
“As long as they’re the original versions. I can’t stand the remakes.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that.”
We went upstairs to the TV room and sat down on the couch. Since David had cleaned up the mess of DVDs and jackets, we had a reasonable chance that any movie Carter selected would be in its own jacket. He put on The Day of the Jackal.
The Jackal movie was set in 1963. In the film, the bad guy made a special gun that he disguised as a crutch. It made me wonder if terrorists ever watched flicks like this. Hopefully, modern security techniques would unmask a crude weapon like that.
The Manchurian Candidate involved a war hero, initially a good guy, who was brainwashed into being a bad guy. While dressed like a priest, he was instructed to assassinate a presidential candidate at Madison Square Garden.
President?
Darn it. Now I wouldn’t sleep. All I would think about was a bad guy wearing a clerical collar and using a crutch, showing up at the United Center to shoot the president.
91
Two hours later, I sat up in bed wide awake. “That’s it,” I said.
Carter snoozed on his stomach. “What?” he said sleepily.
“Wait a second.”
I went into the bathroom and turned on all of the faucets. As long as we whispered, the cascading water would cover what I was going to say. I beckoned for him to follow me into the bathroom.
“Molly suggested that we come up with a fake plan to divert the bomber’s attention,” I whispered in his ear.
“Say again?” he whispered back.
“Go with me on this. Monday, we have a meeting here at the house to discuss possible future targets for the bomber other than abortion clinics.”
“But won’t that be a problem because it’s Labor Day?”
“I forgot about that. We’ll do it on Sunday so it won’t interfere with any holiday plans.”
“Okay, so you have the meeting and he’ll hear your plan.”
“Exactly, and I think I figured out our faux target.”
He waited.
“The President of the United States.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You got this from those two DVDs.”
“I did. I’ll tell the girls and David that since the bomber is now using a gun, it’s obvious to me he’s going to shoot someone famous to bring national publicity to his cause.”
“The president, when he comes here on September 11th.”
“And the bomber is going to make a gun disguised as a crutch, or something like that, so he can sneak it into the United Center.”
“You’ll then make a carefully prepared list of measures to prevent this.”
“Which of course we won’t do at all.”
“He’ll assume you’ll be totally immersed in these plans, and he won’t suspect that you’re planning to trap him two days before that.”
“That’s my plan, bubba.” I leaned against his chest. “And I’m sticking to it.”
“I hope it isn’t too perfect a plan.”
“How so?”
“You have to apprehend him on Friday, or there might be a bigger problem than blown up abortion clinics.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re about to give your killer a blueprint to shoot the president.”
Honey, I hope you’re wrong.
He climbed back into bed and fell asleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the events coming up, so I went down to my computer and wrote and printed the scripts for our meeting on Sunday.
We were going to discuss the bomber’s case with the knowledge that he was going to hear every word we said. Our discussion had to sound spontaneous, but we couldn’t afford to make any mistakes he might pick up on.
When I finished, I entered everything into my file. It wasn’t until I went over my files that I’d figured out how to keep Tony from being blown up.
In every clinic bombing, the killer had hidden the device in the men’s bathroom. If he did it this time, the police could
have a bomb expert, possibly disguised as an orderly or nurse, find and defuse the bomb. When Tony went in later that night, the bomber wouldn’t be able to set off the device. I hoped the bomber would then enter the building to see what went wrong.