First Strike (42 page)

“They walk out the front door,” said Nazir, “after we have the guns.”

“What's to stop you from simply blowing up the building?”

“None of my men want to die. As I see it, the ship arrives, I send word to my men, and the students get released.”

“What happens to your men?”

“I assume you arrest them and they go to one of your little torture camps.”

“I have a feeling they wouldn't like knowing their leader sold them down the river.”

“They volunteered for it, Mr. Brubaker.”

“I'll take it to the president,” said Brubaker, “but you need to stop throwing students from the building. It's a nonstarter.”

“I'm sorry, no,” said Nazir. “Every hour, at approximately half past the hour, a student drops. If you try to put up a net or something like that, we will simply shoot them and then throw them. We stop when the weapons arrive and we've been able to inspect the contents.”

“That's insane,” said Brubaker, barely above a whisper. “You're a—”

“Monster?” interjected Nazir. “Maniac? Barbarian? Yes, all three.”

“I was going to say coward,” said Brubaker. “That boat is twelve hours out. That's twelve more kids.”

“Then I suggest you speak with your president as soon as possible and get the ship moving. We stop executing the students only when the shipment arrives.”

 

58

RIVERSIDE PARK

NEAR NINETY-EIGHTH STREET

NEW YORK CITY

As Tacoma steered Igor's navy blue Range Rover along Riverside Drive, Dewey picked up his cell and hit Speed Dial.

“CENCOM.”

“Task Force one six,” said Dewey. “Damon Smith. Tell him it's Andreas.”

A few moments later, Smith picked up. “Hey, what do you got?”

“We're getting ready to move,” said Dewey. “I'll be out of range for I don't know how long. I'll call you when we surface. In the meantime, the operation is going to be run from a remote location. Our eyes and ears is a guy named Igor. To the extent he needs any information, I've given him your number.”

“You have a way in?”

“Yes.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Have you been able to disrupt their communication?”

“We tried jammers along the base of the building, but we're still picking up spectrum coming off the upper floors. The problem is, the terrorists are too high up. We thought about somehow firing one through an upper-floor window. Problem is, even if we pack it in protective packaging and it still functions, they're just going to throw it back out.”

“We need one, Damon,” said Dewey. “One that blocks cell and walkie-talkie transmissions. We'll be using Pentagon spectrum. Just make sure your COMMS people don't use a military-grade jammer.”

“We'll figure it out.”

“Thanks.”

“That it?”

Dewey glanced at Katie.

“Actually, no. There's one more thing.”

“Whatever you need,” said Smith.

“We could use another body,” said Dewey. “We need a fourth man.”

“I have plenty of agents. I can also send one of the Navy guys upstairs. What's the SPEC?”

“Number one, he needs to be able to climb. We're going to be moving quickly up through the elevator shafts, and whoever it is has to keep up. Ideally, a Ranger.”

“White thread?” said Smith.

“Yeah. Winter School.”

“What else?”

“He needs to be calm. Someone with combat experience. Also, I'll have in-theater command authority. If it's one of your SWAT leaders, he needs to understand that.”

Smith was quiet for several moments.

“Let me find someone. When do you leave?”

“We're leaving now,” said Dewey. “I should've called you earlier. If you have someone, get him to Riverside Park. There's a lot beneath the Henry Hudson Parkway at Ninety-ninth Street.”

By the time Dewey hung up, Tacoma had parked the Range Rover along Riverside Drive.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was cloudless, the temperature in the eighties. Moving now was not ideal; night would be better, but Dewey didn't want to wait.

Always, a thought lurked in the recesses of his mind. A single word, but it kept sounding, like a chant from a distant room.

Daisy
.

He saw her eyes looking at him as they stood in the driveway. That moment, just before it happened, and then the moment itself, as he leaned toward her. He remembered the softness of her lips against his. Then came the sight, the memory, of the student falling from the dorm …

He pushed it away. He had to.

He pressed his earbud.

“Commo check,” he said. “Igor?”

“I'm here.”

“Check one,” said Katie.

“Two,” said Rob.

“You're all coming through loud and clear.”

“What about GPS?”

“I have you. Stamford, Connecticut, right?”

“That's not funny, asshole.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus. Ninety-eighth and Riverside, right?”

“Yeah,” said Tacoma.

Dewey, Tacoma, and Katie climbed from the SUV. From the back, they each lifted duffel bags; Dewey and Tacoma's were filled with weapons and ammo, Katie's with a variety of explosives, thermal optical equipment, and powerful sound equipment for eavesdropping. Most were purposed for close-quarters combat: small, powerful, light, highly lethal. Handguns, submachine guns, and an anti-materiel rifle, capable of firing through concrete.

Dewey removed a canister the size of a tennis ball can from his jacket. This was an incendiary device whose main purpose was to sound loud and discharge high volumes of harmless smoke. He moved the lid of the device a quarter turn, and a small red light flashed. It could now be set off remotely. He placed it on the sidewalk, at the base of a tree.

They walked across Riverside Drive, each scanning the street and sidewalks that bordered the road. Several blocks to the north, flashing lights from police cruisers were visible. The cars were parked across Riverside at 103rd, preventing access.

A faint hum came from helicopters above Columbia, fifteen blocks to the north. Dewey counted five in the air, all in a circle outside a no-fly zone the FBI had imposed on the area.

The sidewalk along the park had a few pedestrians on it, seemingly oblivious of the situation at Columbia and the helicopters overhead. An older woman walking a small dog looked up as Dewey stepped from the street onto the sidewalk. She jerked back, as if in fear, then looked away and kept walking. The neighborhood, the city, was on edge, her reaction the first indication of a general mood of quiet fright that permeated the air.

They walked south for a block, Katie in the lead. They entered Riverside Park at Ninety-seventh Street. A long, gradually sloping set of stairs led into the park. A central paved lane for bikers and pedestrians ran down the center of the park, with built-in benches every hundred feet or so on each side, along with big, pretty, well-manicured trees—elm, apple, dogwood, maple. Sweeping lawns of fresh-cut grass sat on both sides of the park. To the east and the city, the grass swept up toward a denser grove of trees to the stone wall that bordered Riverside Drive in the distance. On the other side of the park, the grass ended at another stone wall. The Hudson River was visible beyond the wall.

There were a few bike riders, joggers, many people out for a walk, a few children playing in the park. Dewey entered first and walked along the center path at a casual pace. Katie and Tacoma waited a minute, then followed, holding hands, pretending to be a couple out for a walk. The duffel bags looked out of place and slightly suspicious, but only an experienced officer would've noticed.

At some point, Dewey looked back to see Katie and Rob, several hundred feet behind him. He nodded almost imperceptibly, then cut left, strolling casually to an empty bench on the Hudson River side of the park. He passed the bench, not looking back, and kept walking toward the far wall of the park. Between the river and the wall was Henry Hudson Parkway. Usually the highway was jammed. It now sat empty, closed to traffic. The park wall dropped forty feet to the ground below. It was an empty lot, strewn with garbage, which ran beneath the highway.

Dewey turned. He scanned the park. A young man, sitting on a bench, was watching him. When he saw Dewey looking at him, he looked back at his book.

Dewey looked right. Katie and Tacoma were now also standing next to the wall, still several hundred feet away. Tacoma faced the wall, where he was hammering something into the mortar as Katie stood in front of him, shielding him from view.

What Dewey worried about most was the unknown. The friend of a reporter who sees them, calls the friend, who then reports it on the news, which the terrorists see, causing them to try to figure out why a group of people are entering an old sewer on the Upper West Side. Low probability, but worth the effort of avoiding.

Unspoken was the real fear: that someone working with, or sentimental to, the jihadists would see them and tip the terrorists off.

Dewey removed a small black device shaped like a pack of cigarettes. He flipped open the top. A red switch was hidden beneath. Then he flipped the switch on the detonator. A second later, a low, loud boom came from Riverside Drive. Every head turned to look. The man on the bench jumped up, trying to get a better view. Smoke filled the air—black and sooty, mixed with red, creating a rapidly growing mushroom cloud that had the appearance of chaos.

Several people, including the man, started running south, away from the explosion.

Dewey removed a small piton and hammer from his coat. He quickly pounded the piton into the wall. He pulled a coil of thick black rope from the bag and pushed it through the piton. He put on a pair of climbing gloves, then strapped the weapons duffel across his back. He tied a knot at one end of the rope, creating a handle.

He glanced at the park. Other than the small, receding figures of people moving away from the smoke, it was empty in both directions.

Sirens pealed from Riverside Drive.

He glanced at Katie, who nodded. Dewey waited a few extra moments, then climbed over the wall, clutching the knot with his right hand as, with his left, he let the rope slide slowly through. The rope went through his left hand, up through the piton, then lengthened in his right hand as he descended. He moved quickly, feet bouncing against the wall of granite. Even through the thick Kevlar-and-steel-mesh-palmed gloves, he could feel the burn of the rope. When he hit the ground, he pulled the rope through the piton up above until it dropped to the ground. He re-coiled it and stuck it back in the duffel, looking right, along the base of the wall. Katie was on the ground, watching Tacoma finish the last few feet of his descent.

The wall loomed overhead. He saw no one. He scanned the abandoned lot beneath the highway. It was empty and lifeless. The tar was cracked, with weeds growing in crooked lines, and garbage, thrown from the park or highway, was strewn about, blown by the wind. At the far side of the lot was a steel fence, which spread all the way from the ground to the lower edge of the overhanging steel rebar of the highway several floors above, preventing access.

“You have company,” said Igor over commo. “Two blocks up, other side of the highway.”

Dewey walked to Katie and Tacoma just as a black sedan appeared to the north, at a gate in the chain-link fence. The sedan was late model, windows tinted dark. Law enforcement.

“Igor, can you run any diagnostics on that car?” asked Tacoma.

“Not the car itself without knowing the VIN, but I have an algorithm running against FBI, Homeland, and NYPD. It's none of them.”

“It's the Plumber,” said Dewey.

A short man climbed from the sedan and stepped to a gate in the fence, unlocking the padlock and pulling the gate open. The sedan pulled in, then the man closed the gate and relocked the padlock.

The sedan charged forward, toward them, accelerating.

“He's going pretty fast,” said Tacoma quietly. “You sure it's him?”

The sedan barreled closer.

“It's him,” said Dewey.

The sedan came within fifty feet, then forty, thirty, not slowing or hesitating. A second later, the sedan jacked abruptly right, brakes screeching, the back tires sweeping over the concrete. It came to a smooth, surgical stop a few feet away.

A moment later, the driver's door opened. A head emerged, followed by a short, stooped man.

He was, at most, five feet tall. He was bald, with a scar along his forehead that looked like the letter
L
. His skin was pale and colorless, almost gray. His ears stuck out.

A smile creased his lips, revealing a mouth half-filled with brown teeth.

He had a high-pitched voice.

“My name is Vladimir Leonid Roestelkolnov. But you may call me the Plumber.”

 

59

FBI TASK FORCE 16

JOHN JAY HALL

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Smith looked at Dave McNaughton.

“We need to get a cell jammer up high,” said Smith.

McNaughton nodded. “I can get one on the side of the building,” he said. “Front or back's gonna be tough.”

“Why?”

“Because my climber will get shot.”

“It needs to be on one of the faces of the building,” said Smith. “As close to a window as we can. The stairwells have a fire barrier. Just slapping it on the end of the dorm won't work.”

“Not that simple. We can't just shoot an anchor up to the roof and hitch up. Way too risky with those bombs. And I sure as shit don't trust any suction device, at least none I've seen, and certainly not on that brick.”

“Keep it simple. Pitons or bolts and a drill with masonry bits, or a hammer,” said Smith. “Have someone belay from the ground. Lead up the side then move around when he gets to ten, snipers at the ready. He won't be exposed for more than a minute or two.”