INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series) (36 page)

‘There’ said Henderson poking his finger in the screen between them, Ryan and Kevin realized that he was standing behind them all this time. ‘There’s a gap behind the bridge, what if we wait there, I don’t think anyone will notice us’

‘That’s a great idea’ said Ryan. ‘We will park our cars behind that line and will wait...hmm so that’s settled then’

‘Let me see first’ suddenly McRae again came and joined them.  They showed him the place, or the place where they might be.

He said ‘Nice one. Perfect place for dealing in money. Illegal money’

‘Of course, they hardly wanna get caught’

‘But we don’t have the money with us’ said Henderson.

‘I told you’ said Kevin. ‘Money was never a part of my plan. A empty suitcase which we will give to McRae , and which later he will present to the kidnappers when they come, while we will wait and watch after that we will jump in the right moment and will bring them down.’

‘I still don’t know how good your plan will be’ replied Henderson.

‘What if they shoot me right away when I go there to give them the suitcase?’ McRae shuddered at his own thought.

‘Nope’ said Kevin. ‘They will not do anything, they will first open the case, and will be really startled for the moment to find it empty and we will take that chance to cover you and bring them down’

‘Hey, guys’ suddenly Alan called out from the other corner. ‘I think I just found something’

‘What?’ said Ryan.

Alan stood up and bought the page where he was writing, to them . ‘I studied them quite a lot and just understood something’

‘Well?’ said Henderson and waited for him to say it.

Alan read out the sentence again. ‘ ''And the place is not grand here, it doesn’t even have a stationary shop in the centre’’, This was the sentence right?’

‘Yes, what does that mean?’

‘I think he mixed a few important words with a bunch of crap words’ Alan went on looking at everyone. ‘The important word is ‘Grand’. Okay so ‘The place is ‘Grand’ leave this ‘place’ thing .So ‘Grand’ then next main thing is the ‘stationary shop’ . The word ‘shop’ doesn’t have a value. It’s just said to form a meaning. So we take ‘grand’ and ‘stationary’ from here. And the last word is ‘centre’ which is essential to form the right meaning’

‘So you picked grand stationary centre, right?’ said Ryan.

Alan nodded.

‘But come on it still sounds shit to me’ said Kevin, looked at the page. ‘Grand stationary centre? Oh come on, what could this possibly mean? Nothing’

‘You can’t find the meaning because you’re too busy trying to prove there isn’t one’ said Alan. ‘The meaning got to be in this’ Alan was still not sure about the meaning himself.

‘It’s just three words, what meaning can it have?’ said Ryan who was also curious about what was the meaning, rather than how could they find out the meaning.

‘Grand stationary centre’ Ryan thought about these words. He had no idea why Alan thought these were important and he will probably never find one himself. It was utterly meaningless.

Henderson listened to them then said after a few minutes. ‘Look everyone; we are damn short on time. So if anyone knows anything, just say it’

‘Okay if you look at this’ said Alan who also realized that they were indeed short on time. ‘It’s just like jumble words. The words are jumbled this time instead of the letters to form this little puzzle type of thing. And I don’t think it will be hard to jumble the words a little more to form the right answer now. First, the ‘Grand stationary centre’ will become ‘Grand centre stationary’. And after that it’s obvious right?’

‘Obvious? It’s still not obvious to us’ said Ryan.

‘Oh’ Alan made a disgusted face but went on anyway. ‘It should be hard for no one now, to make the words Grand Central Station’

Everybody remained quiet for a moment looking at Alan in such a way as if he said something bad in the middle of a crowd and made everyone feel embarrassed. But that was not the case here. Ryan was the first one to make a decision. Others were still wondering about this jumble words thing.

‘Well how do you know it will form a name of a place?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t know that’ said Alan ‘I extracted these letters from this sentence and what I could only think of, is Grand Central Station. There was nothing more to think about this’

‘Hmm’ said Ryan thinking himself now that he got the answer. ‘You’re right it can only mean this’

‘But what does it mean by this?’ said Kevin. ‘I mean what does this kid wanna say through this? That he is in the Grand Central Station? The abductors kept him there ?’

‘Yes, of course he means that’

‘Oh, weird choice, I can say that’

‘So what should we do now?’ asked Alicia who was quiet all this time.

‘First we need to be sure about the location’ Henderson took the lead. ‘If this proves to be a wrong one, then there will be no time to turn back and follow another lead.’

‘We heard the sound of a train in the video, you remember that?’ said Alan. ‘And now it’s the grand central station. You see both of it matches, he’s in a station that’s why we heard that sound.’

‘Right’ said Henderson. ‘I nearly forgot about that’

‘Okay, look we need a neat plan’ replied Alan trying to be practical.

‘You start with it’ Henderson urged him.

‘Kevin and you Ryan, I will let you move with Kevin’s plan’ said Alan. ‘Just do what you wanted to do’

‘Then what?’

‘I will go and look for the kid in the station’ continued Alan with utmost urgency ‘But you both will also need to visit the Bronx because I might be too late searching for the kid, so in that case you will need to show up with the money to the kidnappers . But wait for my signal, if you don’t get my signal within 5, you attack them and try to dominate them, and if you do get the call then you dominate them a little more freely. Okay, so any questions?’ Alan turned his gaze at everyone who was looking back at him.

‘Yeah, sounds okay’ Ryan remarked.

‘And you Ryan take a normal car not an official car with NYPD logo in it. I don’t want them to suspect that there is a cop car in the area.’ Alan instructed. ‘Kevin and you both wait in the car a few metres away from the main area, while you let Mr. McRae go with a empty suitcase, bag or briefcase, whatever , when you see them come. After when...okay after that I think you’ll know what to do, right?’

Kevin nodded joyfully thinking that Alan have faith on them.

‘That’s a solid plan’ said Henderson. ‘But the station itself is large, how’re you gonna find the kid yourself, it’ll take hours to cover up the whole station’

‘I don’t know, but we do have an advantage over them’

‘What’s that?’

‘They don’t know that we now know where the child is, but we know that, so that’s an advantage. They will be less alert and will keep less backup with them’ Alan's voice was so serious that even if his plan wasn’t so solid, people would be bound to listen to him and would have to work it out in the way he instructed them to. That was one of his qualities, actually he’s a listener himself, he doesn’t often like to take charge of the situation , he likes to sit back and listen what others got to say, but when he does that , he carries it out amazingly.

‘And where do I come in the picture?’ said Alicia after listening everything he had to say.

Now that was a problem for Alan. He worked out his plan quite well, but he totally forgot about Alicia. Yes, that was a good question and a tough one too for Alan, everything was sorted out nicely, but he couldn’t just make Alicia sit in the precinct. But what work was left there to give her anyway?

‘You aid Alan in his search in the Grand Central’ suddenly said Henderson. ‘Just like we were talking about, it will be hard for him to find the kid himself, so there you can help him. What do you say?’

‘Yeah, that’ll be fine for me’ said Alicia.

Alan wanted to go there alone; actually, he liked working alone. He didn’t want anyone behind him, it’ll not let him work freely. And of course not someone like Alicia. She would certainly irritate him, or maybe she’s also good at this. He would be able to check out that too. All in all Henderson was right in some sense of course. There was no point arguing about this.

‘Okay’ said Ryan and moved the table so that they could face the computer. ‘Here is the Bronx bridge, where should we be?’

‘We wait on the bridge’ said Alan.

‘No parking in the bridge.’

‘Then you park your car on one of the sides and then you just wait. The kidnappers will surely come below the bridge. So I think you’ll surely find a place to park your car, when you get there and see the positions. You can’t make out everything from the computer’

‘Mr. McRae do you have any questions about this?’ asked Alan.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have a thousands of questions to ask’ he said ‘But you don’t have so much time for answering , so better get going’

‘Great’ said Alan and took the blazer from the chair where he tossed it before. He wore it and became ready.

Alicia looked at her watch then also hurried behind Alan.

‘You guys don’t be late to reach the Bronx’ said Alan. ‘Arriving late is the last thing that you can do at this moment’

‘Sure’ answered Ryan.

Suddenly Henderson’s phone chirped as he received and said ‘Henderson...yeah...really?...nice work. Remain outside. Yes, Alan will get there soon. And keep me posted if there is anything more to say’

He kept the mobile down and said ‘The uniforms found some suspicious men roaming around the Grand Centre Terminal. The security guards there said that they’re there for the past few days.’

‘Nice’ said Alan. ‘That settles it. Grand Central station it is’

‘Okay so you give me the call’ Ryan informed him.

McRae was also in a hurry so Ryan and Kevin both of them entered the elevator at the same time with Alan and Alicia. They also didn’t want to waste much time. They could wait there and relax until 5. And that would be better. They would even get time to work on their strategy.

‘Right’ answered Alan when both the doors of the lift closed.

THIRTY ONE

Alicia drove rapidly through the east street barring the traffic. They had only 40 minutes, and they knew another 10 to 15 minutes would be gone before they could reach their destination. So it would be real tough finding the kid before 5.

Alicia watched her own watch every few seconds and started hitting the accelerator.

‘Relax Alicia’ said Alan. ‘Drive carefully. The last thing we want now is to have an accident and end up in an ambulance.’

‘I got it’ she replied but she had no intention in bringing down the speed.

Alan switched on the GPS in the car and checked the map. He gave their destination and it showed a way to the station but that was not a short cut of course. But he was searching for a quick way where they could avoid the traffic of the main roads, and drive swiftly.

Alicia said ‘Where would we start?’

Alan looked at her. Her face was still glowing and her hair was falling back and the afternoon sun that was adding a reddish hue to it. It was beautiful. Pity, they were on a mission now and that they didn’t have much time to admire each other.

But still after another minute they got stuck in the traffic of the Park Avenue which was when Alan said ‘We will have to start looking at the terminals, the platforms or any hidden chambers, if there is any, after we reach the station’

‘What if we use the uniforms there?’ asked Alicia. ‘They’re also said to be in civil dresses.’

‘We can’t risk that. A bunch of men suddenly arriving at the station, but not catching a train can arise a lot of attention from anyone. And Donovan’s men might be there among the crowds. They’ll notice us and feel suspicious. We will have to act like common people, just like anyone would do’

Alicia understood it and gave a nod. The green signal came up soon and she hit the third gear and zoomed away from that particular street. After a while there car was speeding through the 42
nd
street and the next minute saw them parking their car in the East  42
nd
street  as they looked at the station in front of them.

The terminal was a old fashioned one made mainly of brick and cement from outside with some of the best vintage design that were available at that time and also the statue of Hermes which was said to be made by John Donnelly company as it represents speed and the god of travellers.

But they barely had time to just give a look at it before entering the main building facing the east side.

As they went inside and found themselves in the great hall, it was full of people with a constant buzzing sound going on in the middle. There was rows of security desks on the left with some reception on the other hand. People here were mostly relaxed, or else in a total hurry. Most of them were carrying luggage, large aristocrats and trolleys, which Alan was often getting bumped with. His eyes were on the up scanning the crowd .So he was bound to get bumped with the luggage on the floor. He could also hear a computerised voice informing people about which train was arriving at which platform, or if the train was moved to the Hudson terminal and this type of things.