There were electronic maps, intense-looking cops at glass desks, and more flat-screen TVs than in the new Yankee Stadium. Walking through the center behind my boss, I felt disappointed that we hadn't been able to enter through a trick manhole and down a slide, like James Bond or Perry the Platypus.
I began to realize why there was so much heat on the library threat. The last thing the commissioner wanted was to have his big, new, expensive initiative to protect the city fail in some capacity.
The meeting was held in a glass fishbowl conference room next to something called the Global Intelligence Room. I immediately spotted the assistant commissioner and the Counterterrorism chief. Though they wore similar golfing attire, their physical contrast was pretty comical. Flaum was tall and thin, while Ciardi was short and stocky. Rocky and Bullwinkle, I thought. Laurel and Hardy.
Unfortunately, I also spotted Miriam's boss, McGirth, who, with his puffy, pasty face, looked like a not-so-cute reincarnation of Tammany Hall's Boss Tweed. Beside him were Cell from the Bomb Squad and the two superfit Feds who had been at the library the day before. Intelligence briefings about the most recent terrorist bombings across the globe were stacked at the center of the long table. I took one as I found a seat.
"Why don't you start with what you've got, Mike?" Miriam said the second my ass hit the cushion.
"Uh, sure," I said, giving her a dirty look as I stood back up. "Basically, sometime yesterday afternoon, a bomb was left in the main reading room at the main branch of the New York City Public Library. It looked like a Macintosh laptop wired to plastic explosives. It was a sophisticated device, capable of killing dozens of people. A cryptic electronic note left on the laptop stated that the device wasn't intended to go off, but the next one would, sworn 'on poor Lawrence's eyes,' whatever that means. There were no witnesses, as far as we can tell at this point."
"Jesus Christ. On whose eyes? Lawrence of Arabia's?" said Chief McGinnis, making a spectacle of himself as usual.
"Who found the device?" asked Flaum, the tall, professorial-looking Intel head.
"An NYU student pointed out the unattended laptop to a security guard," Cell said, jumping in. "The guard opened it, saw the message, ordered an evac, and called us."
"Don't they have a security check there?" Ciardi said.
"Yeah, some summer kid checks bags," I said, looking at my notes. "But that's just so people don't steal books. Patrons can take laptops in. He said that white Apple laptops are all he sees every day."
"What about security cameras?" said the stocky Counterterrorism chief.
"Deactivated due to a huge ongoing reno," I said.
"Any threats from your end that might be relevant to this, Ted?" Assistant Commissioner Sander Flaum asked the senior FBI rep.
The taller of the two Feds shook his head.
"Chatter hasn't increased," he said. "Though Hezbollah likes to use plastique."
Hezbollah? I thought. That was crazy. Or was it?
"You always seem to be in the middle of this kind of crap, Bennett," the chops-busting chief of detectives, McGinnis, said. "What's your professional opinion?"
"Actually, my gut says it's a lone nut," I said. "If it were Hezbollah, why not just set it off? An attention-seeking nut with some particularly dangerous mechanical skills seems to be a better fit."
There was a lot of grumbling. The idea that the bomb might not be terrorism wasn't a particularly popular one. After all, if it was just a lone, sick freak, then why were we all here?
"What about the explosive?" the Intel chief said. "It's from overseas. Maybe the whole nutcase note thing is just window dressing in order to get us off balance. Are nuts usually this organized?"
"You'd be surprised," Miriam said.
"If there aren't any objections, I say we keep it in Major Case until further notice," said the Counterterrorism head as he glanced impatiently around the table.
I was thinking about voicing an objection of my own about how I was supposed to be on vacation, until Miriam gave me a look.
"And try to keep your face from appearing on TV, huh, Bennett? This is a confidential case," McGirth said as I was leaving. "I know how hard you find that at times."
I was opening my mouth to return a pithy comment when Miriam appeared at my back and ushered me out.
Chapter 12
WITH THAT BUREAUCRATIC HURDLE painfully tripped over, we headed back to Manhattan. Sunday or no Sunday, we needed to go to our squad room on the eleventh floor of One Police Plaza in order to put together a Major Case Squad task force on the Lawrence Bomber Case, as we were now calling it.
I followed Miriam's Honda through Queens and over the 59th Street Bridge. Beyond the windshield, Manhattan's countless windows seemed to stare at me through the bridge's rusty girders. The thought that somebody behind one of them might be right now meticulously plotting to blow up his fellow human beings was not a comforting one. Especially as I hurried across the rattletrap bridge.
I received a text on my smartphone as we arrived downtown and snuck in through the back door of HQ.
It was from Emily Parker, an FBI agent I'd worked with on my last case. We'd stayed close since the investigation, so I knew Emily worked a desk at the Bureau's VICAP, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which dealt with cheerful things like homicides, sexual assaults, and unidentified human remains.
Just heard about ur performance at NYCT Blue. Don't u love working weekends? U the primary on the Library Bomb thing?
Talk about a security leak, I thought. How the hell had she found out about our secret meeting this fast on a Sunday? One of her fellow FBI agents at the meeting must have told her, I surmised. She wouldn't actually go out with one of those organic-food-eating geeks, would she?
The fact was, Emily was an attractive lady to whom I'd become quite attached. Not quite firmly enough for my liking, but I did get to sample her lipstick in the back of a taxi after the case's conclusion. I remembered its taste fondly. Very fondly, in fact.
Thinking about it, I suddenly remembered the kiss I'd shared with Mary Catherine on the moonlit beach the night before. That was pretty good, too, come to think of it. Being single was fun, though confusing at times.
Affirmative, I thumbed.Mike Bennett, Chief of the Library Cops.
LOL, she hit me back as I was getting into the elevator. I heard ur leaning toward a single actor. U need something to bounce, don't forget ur cousins down here at Quantico.
Kissing cousins, I thought.
"You coming or what, text boy?" my boss, Miriam, said as the elevator door opened on eleven. "You're worse than my twelve-year-old."
"Coming, Mother," I said, tucking away my phone before it got confiscated.
Chapter 13
BERGER'S HAIR WAS STILL wet from his shower as he drove his blue Mercedes eastbound out of Manhattan on the Cross Bronx Expressway. Spotting a seagull on the top rail of an exhaust-blackened overpass, he consulted the satellite navigation system screen on the convertible's polished wood dash. Not yet noon and he was almost there. He was running just the way he liked to, ahead of schedule.
He sipped at a container of black coffee and then slid it back into the cup holder before putting on his turn indicator and easing onto the exit ramp for I-95 North. Minutes later, he pulled off at exit eleven in the northbound lane toward the Pelham section of the Bronx. He drove around for ten minutes before he stopped on a deserted strip of Baychester Avenue.
He sat and stared out at the vista of urban blight. Massive weeds known as ghetto palm trees commanded the cracks in the stained cement sidewalk beside him. In the distance beyond them were buildings, block upon block of massive, ugly brick apartment buildings.