“Take the BQE,” Hiccock said. “I used to live here.” Just then, Bridgestone’s phone chimed, indicating that there was a voicemail. He retrieved the message as Bill watched his expressions. “Well?”
“Ross said Rodney was on the move with a case too small to be the nuke.”
“Was he headed out of town or carrying something else?”
“We’ll know soon. Ross was making a move on him. We must have been in the tunnel when he called. Anyway, you know the reason I asked for Palumbo was for cover, in case we had to deal with locals. Flashing an FBI card could keep a lot of nosy cops out of our business. I don’t suppose you have any official looking I.D. on ya?”
“Well let’s see.” Bill opened his wallet and rifled through his I.D. cards. “Office of Homeland Security, no, National Security Agency, no, Defense Intelligence, nah, Central Intelligence, uh uh, Oh here we go, Federal Bureau of I. By the way, on this case I am the lead agency for all these agencies, so since they all are working for and reporting to me, I get to hold all the cards, so to speak.”
“Cool!”
Customs Agent Hector DeNardo was scanning the last container of the current tier when the radiation monitor in his hand registered low-level contamination. He quickly got out his handheld scanner and waved it past the decal on the door. In an instant, the shipping history of the container was displayed on the device’s four-inch display. He relaxed a bit when he saw it was from Teva Radiological Industries Ltd. Petah Tikva, Israel. Still he’d report it, after lunch.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sometimes Allah smiles on you and sometimes he’s looking the other way. It was a fast shootout as the two Jersey City cops stopped and fought it out with the guy dragging the dead body down the alleyway. They happened upon him by accident while investigating a call on a gas leak. Since the dead guy with half his head missing had no I.D., the only thing they found was the set of car keys in his pocket. As other cops and investigators arrived, they pushed the button on the key ring. A half a block away, a Cadillac Seville beeped and its lights flashed. Three minutes later, the NCIC sent a flag to Homeland Security. As a major member of government, all Bill’s friends and family were on a watch list. The inquiry tripped an alarm and the Secret Service detail assigned to Bill was signaled. They were embarrassed and professionally crushed that Bill had eluded them and wasn’t in his suite. Furthermore, the one agent assigned to Janice and the Hiccocks almost gave his mom a heart attack when they rushed to the row in the theater and ascertained that the dead man on the street in Jersey City wasn’t the registered owner of the Caddy, the senior Hiccock.
Bill’s encrypted phone started to oscillate, the signal that indicated flash traffic. At the risk of exposing their location, he had to answer it.
“Mr. Hiccock, Brooke Burrell, sir. We’ve got a dead John Doe who had the keys to your father’s car on him. Do you know why your father’s car would be in Jersey City?”
“Oh, dear god. How did he die?”
“Gunshot to the head, sir. Not pretty and the body had no I.D., sir.”
“Agent, that man was an investigator for the White House operating under special orders from the President of the United States.”
Bridgestone’s hands gripped the wheel tighter as he overheard this end of the conversation. His partner and friend for the last four years was dead.
“Was a man named Rashid apprehended?”
“No sir. There was a shootout with Jersey City P.D. but the man who they killed was an R. Nadal. Who is this Rashid?”
“Rashid is a suspected terrorist on the loose with a suitcase device of some kind. He was the one stopped at the subway last week, so get an A.P.B. form NYPD. Ross was on his tail when he was… shot.”
Number 8 started warming up the helicopter. The technicians and camera people started turning on lights and rolling the dolly up and down the specially made track that insured a smooth ride of the lens. The two stars, a little miffed that the first day of shooting was the big end scene, did the best they could to fill in the blanks in the less than helpful rehearsals they had been suffering through with some third A.D. They felt snubbed by the director, who only seemed interested in the logistics and effects.
The new floor construction assured that no one would discover him or what he was doing. There were still two weeks to go before the new Radiology Center was to be opened and the floor was empty. In its own room, the brand new nuclear medicine machine sat, partially crated, awaiting critical wiring to bring high voltage to its working parts. Slowly, Number 10 turned the knurled screws that held the expansion power supply access panel in place on the large, Israeli built, machine.
Later, no one at NYU Medical Center questioned the orderly pushing the clothes hamper into the elevator. Only the most astute observer would have questioned his pushing the button for the top floor when the laundry room was in the basement.
Bill jumped into crisis management mode. He had the White House switchboard conference his cell phone call with Agent Burrell with the DHS and the NSA. His orders were simple. Find Rodney, aka Ali Rashid, and find the case he was carrying. Get the N.Y.P.D. to release his mug shot from the subway arrest. Shut down all means of egress from the scene of the shooting. Widen the circle and stop and search everything that moves. Report to him immediately with any developments.
He hung up, breathed out, and started ticking off his mental checklist as Bridgestone took the exit to Citi Field. He was starting to second-guess his decision not to have added finding and securing his wife and parents in the call. He could order them into a basement or bunker of some kind. But where? New York City took down all the black-and-yellow-diamonded public shelter signs years ago. Maybe a public school? Maybe they still had stored water and food in the bomb shelter area. Wait, didn’t Gracie Mansion have a bombproof safe room? How the hell could he get them up there? Why the hell didn’t he check that before all this?
He then caught himself. Everybody believed the bomb was no longer a threat. That was the main reason to bring Janice along on this trip to hang with his parents. Except he brought them right to what was looking more and more like Ground Zero 2.
Bill then looked across at Bridgestone and his list dissolved. “Sergeant, I am sorry about Ross, he was…”
“Thank you, sir. Ross was good. The only way they could have got him was from up high and away.”
“Sergeant, call me Bill from here on in.”
“Thanks, Bill.”
“How should we play this?”
“Question is, is the cat out of the bag?”
“If we play it like it isn’t, we could be walking into a trap.”
“If we come in guns blazing, we may force them to detonate.”
“So what do you think, Sergeant?”
“They have to know that Ross is dead. They also have to know we got their shooter. That alone could move up their timeframe.”
“So it’s back to ‘bomb, bomb, who’s got the bomb.’”
“I’ll just need 10 seconds to get a radiation reading on the chopper.”
NJ Transit had a hit. A railroad cop lost a guy in the crowd who could be Rashid. The train had already pulled into Pennsylvania Station.
Number 1 used a disposable cell phone for the one and only time it would ever be used. “Number 4, don’t miss your curtain.”