“Anything new from intel?” Fiske asked Larry Kennedy, his assistant.
Intelligence was charged with monitoring any leads from the CIA, FBI, DIA, or any credible law-enforcement agency pertaining to any and all possible threats. Anything from a concerted terrorist action to a lone gunman. For two hours tomorrow, the front steps of the Capitol would be the world’s biggest bull’s-eye. It would also be the world’s hardest target.
“Negative,” said Kennedy.
“Mr. Donohue,” barked Fiske.
“Yes sir.”
“Do you have another podium ready for us?”
“Yes, Mr. Fiske. It’s being prepped at the warehouse in McClean right now. Should be here at four o’clock. They’re just applying the presidential seal.”
“Get it here by two.” Fiske stomped away from the podium. “And be sure you test it first. I want to make sure the thing is working before we install it. Call me when it arrives.”
Fiske stared up at the sky. Policing three hundred thousand people in a pouring rain would make things decidedly more difficult. If the podium was his only problem, he’d get away easy. A sudden burst of rain drenched his face. “Where’s the canopy?” he asked no one in particular. “The first female President of the United States is going to be sworn in within twenty-four hours and she will not have a lousy hairdo. That woman is going to look good.”
30
Whenever John Franciscus entered the shimmering, bustling, Plexiglas world of 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department in downtown Manhattan, he whispered the same moldy adage to himself: “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, man a desk at One PP.” To his way of thinking, cops policed. Which meant they knocked heads and solved crimes. The suits down here… well, they were just that… suits. Men who viewed police work as a ladder to the exalted lofts of city power. Who ordered their day according to the clock, not according to the cases open on their desks. Who took no pride in the wearing of a blue uniform. He’d seen them squirming in their dress blues on St. Patty’s Day, yanking at their high collars, adjusting their watch caps, and generally looking three shades of embarrassed.
Franciscus felt his cheeks flush. It wasn’t right, he cursed silently, keeping his eyes down so no one would think he was crying. It just wasn’t right. But when the anger waned, he couldn’t explain what it was, exactly, that wasn’t right, or why it had bothered him so much.
Records had changed floors, but the lights were still too bright and the ceilings too low. A chubby Hispanic man with thinning hair and a push broom mustache sat behind the long chest-high counter, reading a magazine.
“Matty L.,” said Franciscus as he passed through the door. “Can’t get rid of you either?”
“Gentleman Johnny Fran! What brings you to this fluorescent shithole?”
The two shook hands, and Franciscus found himself not wanting to let go. Lopes had occupied the desk next to him at Manhattan North for twenty years before catching a bullet in the spine during a botched arrest. A year in rehab and a Purple Shield medal awarded by the mayor himself in a ceremony at Gracie Mansion had landed him on this swiveling stool supervising Records. Behind his back, everyone called Lopes “Sticky Fingers.” Word was he’d dropped his piece going in for the bust that fateful day.
“I’m checking up on a cold case,” said Franciscus. “Goes way back. Nineteen-eighty.”
“Nineteen-eighty? That’s the Ice Age.”
“Double homicide up in Albany. You may know it.”
“Got the victims’ names?”
“Brendan O’Neill and Samuel Shepherd.”
“Guardian Bombing,” said Lopes, not missing a beat. “Who doesn’t remember it? Whole state was in an uproar.”
Lopes was right about that. It had been an electrifying crime. At the time, though, Franciscus was out of state, interviewing a suspect in a multiple homicide and hadn’t caught the climax on live TV like twenty million other New Yorkers. Before coming downtown, he’d read a few articles about the case that had appeared in the Times and the local Albany Times Union. These were the facts, as reported:
At 11:36 P.M., July 26, 1980, a powerful bomb blew up the headquarters of Guardian Microsystems, a maker of computer chips and software in Albany. Bomb experts estimated that over two hundred pounds of TNT packed inside two Samsonite suitcases were placed next to the first-floor R and D laboratory and detonated by remote control. Police tracked the explosives to a theft the week earlier from a nearby construction site. Two witnesses were found who reported seeing a suspicious U-Haul rental truck circling Guardian’s headquarters the day before the explosion. A check of the local U-Haul agency led police to the residence of David Bernstein, a respected law professor, better known as Manu Q, self-styled revolutionary and spokesman for the radical Free Society.
As officers O’Neill and Shepherd approached the house to question Bernstein, gunfire erupted. O’Neill and Shepherd were shot and died at the scene. A SWAT team was called in, and when Bernstein refused to surrender, the house was stormed.
News of a fugitive suspect surfaced a few weeks afterward, when a second set of fingerprints was discovered on the handgun used to kill O’Neill and Shepherd. The prints reportedly belonged to Bobby Stillman, a.k.a. Sunshine Awakening, a known member of the Free Society, and Bernstein’s common-law wife. Her involvement in the bombing was corroborated by witnesses who reported seeing her near the construction site where the dynamite used in the bombing had been stolen.
But Franciscus wasn’t interested in what the newspapers had to report. He wanted to learn what the homicide dicks had to say about the case. The good stuff never made it to the paper.
“Why you calling it a cold case?” asked Lopes. “They nailed the guy who offed the cops. His name was Bernstein. Guy was bananas. Called himself Manu Q. I remember like it was yesterday. Shot him like forty times. They posted his picture in the Gazette.”
Franciscus recalled the picture. The corpse had looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. Cop killers didn’t deserve any better. “There was a second suspect,” he said. “A woman who got away.”
“I don’t remember that. And she’s still running?” Lopes’s eyes narrowed in disgust. “All this time and no one’s nailed her? Shame on us. What’s her name?”
“Bobby Stillman, but she’s got more aliases than Joe Bananas.”
“Give me five minutes.” Lopes walked the length of the counter, tapping his fingers as he went. “I’ll pull the file. Original’s in Albany, but we’ll have an abstract.”
Franciscus sat down in the corner of the little waiting area they’d set up. A coffee table offered a few magazines. He skimmed through a month-old Newsweek, then checked what was on TV. A television in the corner was broacasting The View. Five broads yakking about why they never got laid. The guys at the squad room watched it every day. Kinda made sense, Franciscus decided, giving himself over to the show. It wasn’t exactly like cops wanted to sit around watching reruns of NYPD Blue. They had enough of that shit parked in front of them.
After a few minutes, he checked his watch, wondering what was taking so long. The watch was a gold-plated Bulova with a fake alligator strap, a gift to recognize thirty years on the job. The dial was embossed with the symbol of the New York City Police Department. He tapped the crystal with his thumb, as if to make sure the watch was keeping proper time. Once, he’d calculated that he’d spent over two thousand hours on stakeouts.
It seemed like only yesterday that he’d graduated from the academy and gone to his first posting with the tactical squad, busting up riots, demonstrations, sit-ins, and the like. It was 1969, and the world was going apeshit. Vietnam. Women’s lib. Free sex. Everyone shouting, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” The last thing anyone wanted to be was a monster in a blue uniform donning full riot gear, but Franciscus had signed on, and that’s what he did. No questions. No complaints. He’d always thought it was an honor to serve.