His atmospheric observations were interrupted when half a block down the street, Gunther and Carter’s car suddenly exploded. The force of the blast shattered the cops’ windshield and debris showered down on the top of their car, including several chunks of flesh and blood.
“What the hell?” Halladay shouted, as a wet mass hit the hood in front of him. He raised his arm to the front of his face when some of the blood splashed toward him and mingled with the rain that was already hitting the dashboard.
Jon stared, unmoving, at the burning wreckage of the teachers’ car, the same way he had stared at the door when Gant had abruptly left the lobby.
“I watched that car the whole time,” he finally said, pointing at it limply and looking over at his partner. “From the moment I told Gant that they were gonna talk. There’s no way someone could have planted explosives in it.”
“What, you think it was an RPG or something?” the older cop said, looking around at the buildings nearby.
“That’s a thought. Didn’t look like it, though…. Looked like a bomb under the car, the old-fashioned way.”
“Maybe it was already there,” Halladay offered, “before you started to watch the car.”
“What?” Jon said, then thought a moment. “Yeah, that could be it. They knew the professors might talk about the bribe and blow up their plans to take over the city, so they planned to blow them up during Dayfall. Makes sense…. That would get rid of them and also add to the chaos and sense of danger at the same time. I could see the headlines—‘NYU faculty members who predicted apocalypse are killed in it.’ I bet Render and Gant could see those headlines in their minds, too.”
“But do we know that Gant was actually in on this?” Halladay asked.
“Whattaya mean?”
“Maybe he called Render to tell him, and Render made the move. Maybe Gant doesn’t approve of this kinda stuff, like you were guessing when you talked to him.”
Jon thought back to his conversation with Gant in the lobby, and had to admit it was possible. He wondered if they should confront Gant again and see how he responded to what had just happened.
“One thing’s for sure,” Jon said, looking at Halladay. “It’s definitely not the Mayor who’s behind this. I’m sorry for accusing her, Frank, and for doubting your judgment.”
“Don’t apologize to me, kid. I’m totally biased against Render, ’cause he’d probably mess up the deal I’ve got with the cathouse.”
Jon stared openmouthed at his partner, as the sirens of first responders became audible for the first time. Then he asked, “Do you think I should apologize to the Mayor?”
“Naaah, I wouldn’t talk to her until you have some hard evidence for her. You’re not exactly on her good side right now.”
John nodded humbly.
“On the other hand,” Halladay added, “the same question I asked about Gant applies to Render: Do we even know he was in on it?”
“Who else would Gant have been calling?” Jon said, thinking it through. “Maybe just someone to detonate the bomb.”
“Ya know what else is interesting…. They didn’t blow it in the parking garage, which would have damaged the place where Render lives. They waited until the car got clear of it.”
“Yeah, so the perp probably had eyes on.”
Jon unconsciously began to drum his fingers on a non-bloody part of the dash in front of him as it all came together in his mind but then retracted his hand when they hit some of the wet pieces of glass that had come to rest there. “The killers are our only chance at proof now—we need to find one of them.”
“Forensics from that might turn up some leads,” Halladay offered, pointing at the burning remains of the car.
“That could take days, which we don’t have,” Jon said. “Let’s head back to base.”
While Halladay started navigating the traffic jam caused by the explosion to make it the couple of blocks to the garage for the Flatiron, Jon called Amira and told her to comb all the surveillance footage available from the block where it had happened, in the hope that she might get a look at someone who was casing the street, and maybe even using a cell or some other device that could activate a bomb.
“You think he’d be that dumb?” Halladay asked after Jon ended the call. “The chaos killers avoided any cameras during their other attacks.”
“Desperate times, desperate measures,” Jon said.
Halladay suddenly braked so hard that Jon almost hit the dash.
“What?” Jon said.
“If the bomber did rig that car just now,” the big man mused, “this one was sitting in the same garage. And you weren’t even watching ours….”
The two cops looked at each other, and then instinctively down at the floor of the car, and then back at each other again. A car door slammed next to them at the curb, making them both jump in their seats, and then chuckle nervously at each other when they realized what had happened. But both seriously thought about getting out and walking the rest of the way to the Flatiron, knowing that might pose some significant dangers, too. In the end they decided to brave the brief car ride, figuring that they would already be resting in pieces like Gunther and Carter if their car had been rigged, too.
24
Not long after they reached the lab in the Flatiron Building and began watching Amira do her thing, she picked out a possible perp from the street cameras. She found a male figure mostly concealed in an unused doorway that provided a vantage point of the street, just prior to the explosion. She watched the footage of his movements before he situated himself there, and noticed that he might have been subtly scanning the area for a hiding place. She found the best angle to zoom in and lift a shot of his face, which was unremarkable except for a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a receding hairline.
The facial recognition scan didn’t take long. The military records database quickly identified the man as an Army explosives expert named Kevin Witwer. The data trail on him went blank after he left the service three years earlier, which was a classic sign of mercenary activity. There was no record of him ever being in New York, let alone recently, but fortunately another name popped up as a possible identification by the software. This one was Kevin Williams, who entered the Homeland Security database when he had to show ID to purchase some materials that could possibly be used in the manufacture of EFIs or “slapper detonators.” This Kevin had a current address near Times Square.
“Looks like the cameras today wasn’t the only time he got sloppy,” Halladay said.
“Lucky for us,” Jon said. “Compare his address to the underground map, and see if there are any Belows near it.”
Amira did, and she found one behind a subway platform in an unused part of the Port Authority station along the Eighth Avenue Blue Line.
“I would guess the main access point for that would be here,” she said, pointing at a spot on the screen with one hand, and adjusting her olive-green head scarf with the other. “This is an entrance just beyond the north end of the used portion of the station, so to get to it they would just walk among the commuters and step aside into this hallway. No one would see them when they’re opening the door, so I imagine if Williams and the other perps are using that Below, that’s how they would get in and out of it.”
“Is there another way to that Below?” Jon asked. “One they’re not likely to be using as much, or watching as closely?”