How did they link Rytter to the Ramapo hit? They had to know something. Are they getting closer to us? What if Rytter talked before he died? What about Sparks and the reporter? A reporter? Goddamnit. Take it easy. Harlee didn’t know about California. But he knew about the operation. But he wouldn’t have told the reporter anything. Sure, he was a bit unstable, but he wouldn’t betray the operation to this reporter—Gannon, Jack Gannon.
Why was that name familiar?
Felk went to his laptop and looked at news reports he’d saved.
Christ.
Gannon wrote the Nebraska story. But there was another reason his name rang a bell with Felk. He went to the first news reports on the Ramapo heist.
There it was.
Jack Gannon with the World Press Alliance. He was the first to report that the FBI had an eyewitness.
Eyewitness.
It all came back to her.
That bitch from Queens.
40
New York City
Erik Rytter extended his arms through the driver’s window. He dropped his keys to the ground, got out of his car, raised his hands, palms out, walked to the rear right of his car and got on his knees.
“Don’t move, sir!”
The air tightened in the twenty-eighth-floor boardroom of the FBI’s Manhattan office where investigators were watching twenty-six minutes of digital recording made by Nebraska state trooper Duane Hanson’s in-car camera. Morrow had lost count of how many times he’d viewed it in North Platte and during his return flight to New York. Now he was using it to kick off today’s case-status meeting and brainstorming session. The window shades had been drawn to dim the light.
The deadly takedown played out on the room’s large monitor. Rytter disappeared from view. Hanson approached him, gun drawn, issuing commands, disappearing from the frame, leaving the audio to replay the life-and-death struggle, the firecracker pop of the gunshot, Hanson scrambling to his car, his frantic call for an ambulance.
The recording ended with murmurs and paper shuffling around the table as the shades were opened.
“This break is critical,” said Glenda Stark. “We must capitalize on it. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. We’ll update and assign. Over to you, Frank.”
“First,” Morrow said. “I want to stress that the tattoo is our key fact, the evidence that led to Rytter. It may lead us to the others and result in their prosecution. It’s all linked to our eyewitness. The tattoo is absolutely holdback from the public. Our objective is to find the other suspects, not spook them. Is that understood?”
Morrow’s eyes inventoried the faces at the table before he continued with the warrants executed at the Heavenly Rest Motor Inn in Teaneck, New Jersey. An FBI Evidence Response Team was still processing the room rented under the name Karl Ballack.
“Nothing has surfaced yet, but the clerk recognized Rytter as a guest. We’re running the room’s phone and all pay phones in the vicinity and checking cameras in restaurants and gas stations nearby.”
Morrow said agents were showing Rytter’s photograph to staff at the Freedom Freeway Service Center in Ramapo.
“We’re still working on that front,” Morrow said. “We are also asking the NYPD, the counties, New York and New Jersey to circulate his photo with motorcycle shops and tattoo artists.”
As for other areas, Morrow said that Canadian authorities had confirmed capturing Rytter on security cameras at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Prior to that, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had nothing more on his movements in Canada. Nothing had emerged yet showing entry into Canada from the United States. Morrow said it was believed Rytter entered Canada from the States using false identification, or entered at an unsecured point in the border. Meanwhile, he said, U.S. federal aviation security cameras picked him up at Chicago’s O’Hare.
“We’re interviewing a dentist from Milwaukee. She sat next to him on the Toronto-to-Chicago flight.”
Morrow used the remote for the monitor to show a timeline in development. “This is where we pick him up.” Dates and times starting with Rytter in Teaneck, New Jersey, then in Ramapo, New York at the heist, then to Toronto, the flight to Chicago, the car rental and his death in Nebraska.
Details of Rytter’s entry into the United States in the time prior to the heist were uncertain. Rytter’s genuine German passport did not show any entry into the States, according to American and German security.
“Again, he may have entered this country with counterfeit ID.”
“What do we know about his background and associates?” an agent from the Department of Homeland Security asked.
For the benefit of those who had just joined the case, Morrow summarized. He said that the BKA was investigating Rytter’s activities in Germany. “They are interviewing his relatives and friends and so far they tell us that Rytter was private and secretive. He was a former member of the Bundeswehr, Germany’s national defence force. What they’ve learned is that after he completed two tours of Afghanistan with the Kommando Spezialkräfte, the elite KSK, he became a private contractor with a number of murky security firms with contracts and subcontracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He never talked about what he did. It’s believed to have been his last known area of employment.”
“Are we able to get to any of the contractors he worked for?” asked an NYPD detective with the joint task force.
“Not yet,” Morrow said. “We’ve got the CIA, Defense and State Departments Intelligence looking into that aspect. It’s a world of ghosts because many of the contracts are linked to national security.”
Morrow wrapped up the meeting and nodded to Dimarco. The NYPD detective had spent much of his time peering over his bifocals at his own status sheets. As the room cleared, the two men talked quietly.
“Anything on Gina Saldino, Al?”
“No. Her friends have no idea where she went for vacation. She did withdraw three thousand in cash before her holiday, but since then we’ve got no action on bank accounts or credit cards.”
“Phone records?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t like this,” Morrow said. “She’s an unknown factor.”
“We’ll keep on it. Are you ready to go?”
“I have to take care of something. Why don’t you grab a coffee downstairs. I’ll meet you there.”
The Nebraska shooting was front-page news in New York where the media had inundated the FBI with calls and emails demanding more information on the dead suspect. The New York FBI office had prepared a short press release. Morrow needed to review it before it went out to ensure it did not hamper the investigation.
The draft gave the time, date and location of the traffic stop in Nebraska and a summary of the incident, without revealing key details. It confirmed that the suspect was Erik Rytter, a German national from Munich. It stated that Rytter was a former member of the Bundeswehr, Germany’s national defence force. Morrow revised the wording so that it said: It is believed Rytter participated in the armored-car heist at Ramapo. The investigation continues. Morrow did not want any other details released.
Less than forty minutes later, Dimarco guided the NYPD’s unmarked Chevy along the Van Wyck Expressway. While Dimarco took a cell-phone call, Morrow considered Jack Gannon. That guy was good, always ahead of everyone on the story. Morrow admitted a begrudging admiration of Gannon. He was a relentless digger, so well sourced he was dangerous. Morrow would have liked to have been allied with him. They could have helped each other.