Twelve Hours - 04 Page 3

  “Oh, you haven’t met the boss yet?” said Nolan, teeth flashing white in the twilight. “Let’s see . . . you get used to him?”

  “Encouraging,” she said with a light chuckle.

  “But seriously,” said Nolan. “He’ll be sizing you up. Be straight and don’t be spooked. You’ll do fine.”

  She made her way down the darkened hallway, then knocked on the door marked CLEMENT CHAMBERS—AGENT-IN-CHARGE, COUNTERTERRORISM with three measured raps.

  “Come in!”

  She opened the door to a well-lit office cluttered with boxes of files. Behind the desk, framed by alternating bands of gray venetian blinds and the lightening sky, was Chambers, a ruddy man of medium build with blond hair and a blond moustache, familiar to her from pictures alone.

  “Ms. Frieze, I presume,” he said, shuffling papers before standing and extending his hand in greeting. He appraised her as they shook.

  “Mr. Chambers,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “It’s good to have you in the ranks,” he said, without sounding convinced. He sat down and laid an open file in front of him, on which Frieze saw her head shot. “Take a seat.” He clicked a pen in his right hand as he leafed through the file.

  “I’ve got my letters of recommendation from Agent Training and Linguistics,” she said, reaching into her briefcase.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said as he looked through the file. “I have everything I need here.” He leaned back in his chair, holding the file up like a book. “BA in Middle Eastern Studies, graduating with honors from the University of Chicago. Fluent in Arabic.”

  “And Farsi, sir.”

  He looked up at her, and continued. “Two years in Afghanistan and eighteen months in Iraq as a contractor for the US Army, working as a translator. I understand your service there was . . . not without incident.”

  She squirmed in her chair. “I’ve been—”

  “Declared fit for duty by a psychiatrist, I know.” He clicked the pen again. “I don’t take issue with that. But I know what PTSD can do to an agent. And I don’t like trouble, Ms. Frieze.”

  “You won’t have any from me,” she said, locking eyes with him.

  He looked down and closed the file. “You were a translator,” he said. “Making good money. In fact, I know you’d be making more today if you’d continued as a translator than now that you’ve undergone special agent training.”

  “Is there something wrong with that?” she asked.

  He rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “Greater risk, less reward. Which leads me to ask you—what does bring you to our doorstep, Ms. Frieze?”

  She stared at him just long enough to convey that she didn’t need to answer his question. Then she said, “To better serve my country and the Bureau, sir.”

  Chambers grinned. “Yes, I’m sure.” He picked up the pen again and sat back. His chair squeaked against his weight. “You came in on a rather unusual day,” he said. “The arrival of the Iranian president means most of our team is scattered around the city. This has been weeks in preparation. There’s not much we can use you for today. I can have you shadow one of our agents coordinating with the Diplomatic Security Service.” He stood up, and Frieze followed suit. “Let me get you acquainted with your desk.”

  As she turned to walk out, the door opened and Nolan leaned into the office. “Ramadani’s switching hotels.”

  “What the hell do you mean, he’s switching hotels?” demanded Chambers.

  “He’s not going to the Plaza,” said Nolan. “Apparently his motorcade is on its way to the Waldorf right now.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “Why the hell am I only hearing about this now?”

  “They sprung this on everyone. I only just got the call from the NYPD. They’re calling it a security measure against possible planned attacks on the Plaza.”

  “Damn it,” said Chambers. “Was anyone on our side privy to this?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” said Nolan. “Information’s still sketchy. We’re scrambling to get up to speed.”

  “Christ,” said Chambers. “Unbelievable. Get everyone up to speed, then find out whatever you can. What a goddamn nightmare. Rookie!”

  It took Frieze a moment to realize he was talking to her. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get up there.”

  “Up there, sir?”

  “To the Waldorf. I want a full roster of hotel staff and their work schedules within the hour. Do you think you can manage that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.”

  “I meant now,” he said. “Go! Get moving!”

  She walked down the short hallway ahead of Nolan.

  “Getting pushed out of the nest already, huh?”

  “Oh, please,” she said. “Asking a couple of questions of a hotel clerk. How hard could it be?”

  8:26 a.m.

  Tracie Flowers, ten years old, sat next to her mother as the train clattered along the Long Island Rail Road. The train had pulled out from Pinelawn at 7:39 A.M., a full three minutes late, she had noted with some dissatisfaction. But she had been pleased that the train had reached the other stations with no additional delays, and they were on schedule to pull into Penn Station at precisely 8:37, with a journey lasting exactly the projected fifty-eight minutes. Tracie found this pleasing.

  Being content at having fit the train’s progress into a neat pattern in her mind, Tracie counted the seats, the windows, and the slats on the luggage racks. She counted the passengers all along the way, keeping track of those who entered, those who left, and the luggage that each had stowed up on the racks. She counted the number of people wearing hats, those using headphones, and the number of people with each hair color. (She was distressed that she couldn’t quite classify one man’s hair as either red or blond. Her mother cast the deciding vote for blond, and all was well again.) She took each of the numbers and factored it, then figured out if it could be expressed as a sum of primes, and then found complex mathematical relationships among them, as well as between each one and the current day, month, and year.

  This occupied her mind for most of the forty-five minutes of the ride so far. At 8:32, right on schedule, the train’s brakes began to whine as it pulled into Woodside. She heard the familiar hiss and opening of doors, and Tracie mouthed the announcement of the station along with the recording. Things became disordered as people got up and others came in, and it took a moment for everything to settle down and Tracie not to become overwhelmed. The train started moving again, and she got busy with the task of mentally recording those who had gotten off the train and those who had gotten on. The person wearing a patterned knitted cap was gone, as was the one with short-cropped black curly hair and the one with the red-and-white striped beanie. Among the newcomers were a bald man and a younger guy whose hair was long and greasy.

  Tracie counted them up and tried to work out what, from her previous counts and calculations, had changed. Except that when she tried, not everything added up. Something was off about the new numbers, about the scene in that train car. Sometimes she just had the feeling that something was wrong, and it took a lot of thinking to figure out what it was. Anxiety welled up in her. They were nearing Penn Station. She only had six minutes, by her calculations, to figure out the puzzle, or else, in her mind, something very bad would happen. Her mom would say that it was only her OCD, that nothing really was going to happen. But to Tracie, it was real. If she didn’t find out what was wrong, she had the inescapable feeling that someone was going to die.

  She closed her eyes and went through the numbers in her head, number of passengers and hats and hair color, until she noticed that it was something about the baggage. She looked at each luggage item stowed on the rack above the seats, straining to see each piece, making a mental connection between each piece of luggage and its owner.

  There was one piece of luggage that didn’t belong to anyone on the train. It was a blue backpack th
at had belonged to the man with curly hair—the one who had gotten off at Pinelawn. He had forgotten it! The thought was distressing to Tracie, but she knew how to fix it. She pictured a line, like the ones she imagined connecting each piece of luggage to each passenger, stretching from the backpack, through a tiny crack in the doors, and all the way back to Pinelawn, to a faceless, curly-haired figure standing on the platform. The backpack now was connected to its rightful owner in her mind, and everything seemed fine again. Nobody was going to die because of her carelessness.

  She could feel the pull of the train’s deceleration, and then she heard the announcement over the PA—which she again mouthed as the conductor spoke—that they were pulling into Penn Station. The train came to a stop, and people gathered their things. A few of the more hurried ones lined up at the train door. Her mother tugged at her sleeve and stood up. The doors opened and they moved forward with tiny steps, Tracie counting each one. They walked a few feet, and Tracie looked up to see that they were right next to the blue backpack on its rack. She once more imagined it to be connected to its distant owner.

  Tracie Flowers never made it out of the train. Her mind cut to black before she could even feel the blast that killed her.

  8:48 a.m.

  Alex put her tablet into her black Targus backpack to the familiar whine of the brakes as the train rolled into Grand Central Terminal. Passengers around her shuffled, at least three quarters of them getting to their feet before the train came to a complete halt. This wasn’t the normal commuter crowd, but rather the Black Friday shoppers whose moods ranged from antsy to bloodthirsty.

  The doors slid open and cool air streamed in. Alex waited while people elbowed each other to get off. Clark hung back, waiting for her to make the first move. Once the aisle had cleared, they followed the slow-moving crowd onto the platform, walking a few paces behind the crowd to avoid the tumult. It also gave her room to look around as she emerged into the elegant marble concourse. No matter how many times she walked into it, Alex always had to stop and wonder at its beauty. The sun’s rays filtered in from the stories-high east windows, casting pools of light that reached the information booth with its four-faced brass clock.

  “It’s really something, isn’t it?” she said, turning to Clark to see that his attention was immersed in his cell phone. She scoffed under her breath and surveyed the crowd, opting to take the main exit and leading her distracted friend across the concourse.

  Alex’s instincts told her that something was wrong before she was aware of it. At first, it was an unconscious uptick in the number of ringing cell phones, and then in the buzzing of several people in the crowd. Something about it was disconcerting, even if she couldn’t put her finger on what. And then, as they were passing the clock in the center of the concourse, Clark spoke, playing out a conversation that was happening in minor variations throughout Grand Central terminal.

  “Alex,” he said. “There’s been an attack.”

  “Where?” she asked. Clark had his eyes glued to his smartphone.

  “It’s all over Twitter,” he said, holding up his phone so she could see the screen. The same message appeared in the familiar telegraphic style, shared by several people, celebrities alongside Clark’s personal friends. Bombs in Penn Station. She pulled out her own phone and checked the news, but only one of the news outlets had reported on it, and all it did was refer to the now-viral tweet.

  “We need to find my dad,” she said. Policemen, she now saw, were fanning out, and she saw two K9 units walking out onto the concourse.

  “Was he staying near there?” Clark asked.

  “No, he—”

  She was cut off by a man’s voice on the PA. “This is an emergency. We are beginning immediate evacuation. Please remain calm and make your way to the exits in an orderly fashion.”

  Jesus, Alex thought as people began swarming to the exits. A terrorist looking for maximum damage couldn’t hope for a better situation than this funneling of the crowds. Alex pulled Clark by the arm. “Come on!”

  People were streaming out of the heavy wooden doors, so many that the sidewalks couldn’t hold them all and they were spilling into Forty-second Street under the Park Avenue overpass. Alex was knocked side to side by the crowd and lost touch with Clark. The heat and crush of the mass of people knocked the wind out of her.

  “Clark!” she called out, but there was no hope he’d hear in all the commotion.

  Then, the first bullet hit.

  8:53 a.m.

  Adele picked through what was left of the silver platter of fresh fruit and plates of patés, smoked salmon, and caviar delivered by room service. Morgan rolled his eyes as she popped a grape into her mouth, grinning at him as she chewed. Looking out the window, Morgan saw that the motorcade had come in through the garage, leaving only curious onlookers and the police cordon outside.

  He heard a beep in his earpiece. Conley.

  “Did you get the news?” Conley asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t heard?” asked Conley. “Bombs in Penn Station.”

  “When?”

  “A few minutes ago,” said Conley. “It’s all over Twitter. No way I’m getting inside the hotel now. They’re taking extra precautions because of the Iranian president. Doors are locked and security’s turning everyone away.”

  Morgan shot a glance at Adele, who was looking at him as she bit into a pear. “What do you know about the attack?”

  “Nothing yet. I’ve made contact with Bloch at headquarters, but it’s going to be bedlam for at least a couple of hours.”

  “Bomb in New York City, on the day of the Iranian President’s visit.”

  “It’s a hell of a coincidence,” said Conley.

  “I don’t like coincidences,” said Morgan. “I’m going downstairs to see what I can find out.”

  8:54 a.m.

  Alex didn’t hear the shot, just the screaming some ten feet ahead of her, its source and cause concealed by the throng of people. A movement like a riptide dragged her backward toward the station doors.

  The next bullet came seconds later, a stream of bloody mist erupting from the back of a freckled-faced woman right in front of her. The woman slumped back, and Alex nearly fell onto the asphalt of East Forty-second Street in an attempt to hold her up. The woman tumbled onto the pavement, blood gushing out right at the bottom of her ribcage, near her spinal column.

  The crowd opened up around the fallen woman, giving Alex a refreshing breath of cool air. She saw the entry wound at the woman’s chest and made an instinctive calculation that the bullets were approaching from a high angle.

  Sniper.

  She looked up at the buildings that surrounded them, but there were too many windows to even count, let alone find a single shooter. She cast her gaze down at the woman, who stared up at the sky in wide-eyed, uncomprehending terror. Alex moved toward her to administer first aid or at least offer her a measure of solace. But the crowd closed in again as people scrambled for cover, and Alex was swept along with it. It was no use trying to get back to her.

  Cover, she thought. I need cover. But it was useless—she was now moving with the mass of people around her, whether she wanted to or not, toward the doors to Grand Central Terminal. She was tossed and squeezed and her mind grew foggy with panic. Focus, she told herself. But the crowd heaved, and her knees couldn’t keep up. She stumbled and fell.

  She curled up into a ball as feet hit her back, her shins, her head. She heard another surge of screaming, she didn’t know where from. A shoe scraped her ear, and it seared with pain, feeling like it was half torn off. I’m going to get trampled. I’m going to die. She screamed.

  “Alex! Alex!” Her name was reaching her as if from a distance. “Alex, get up!” A hand on her shoulder. “Come on!”

  Clark Duffy pulled her to her feet, with the help of a beefy man with a scraggly black beard who was holding back the crowd as much as he could to give her space. She staggered to her feet and move
d, led by Clark, toward the door. The rest of the way was a blur of movement and shoves until she was panting inside the main concourse, surrounded by marble and under the green-painted ceiling. Around her, families and friends drew close to each other, looking around in alarm. She turned to Clark.

  “Thanks,” she said, giving him a hug. “And thank you,” she told the bearded man who had followed them inside. She wrapped her arms around him.

  “It’s, uh, no problem,” he said, flustered. “Bud,” he said, awkwardly extending a hand. “Bud Hooper.”

  “Alex.”

  “Are you okay?” asked Clark.

  She touched her ear, half-expecting to find it dangling from a thin strip of skin. It was wet with blood, but otherwise seemed intact. “Yeah, I’m fine.” So far, she said. But now, they were trapped inside Grand Central Terminal. Whatever was going on, she had a feeling it was just beginning.

  9:01 a.m.

  Lisa Frieze pounded the pavement in her uncomfortable dress flats. She hit redial on her phone for the fourth time as she wove around a yellow cab on Park Avenue. Traffic was at a standstill and angry drivers leaned on their horns. She heard the plastic click of the receiver being picked up off its cradle.

  “Chambers.”

  “This is Frieze.” She stayed on the street, avoiding the hordes that were plugging up the sidewalks.

  “Frieze who?” came the brusque response, then, before she had time to respond, “The rookie. Right. Take it you’ve heard the news.”

  “I just caught wind of it on the radio, sir,” she said, reaching the small crowd that had gathered around the Waldorf, drawn by the arrival of the motorcade. She tried to plunge in through the outer layer and failed. “I need to know if there’s something I should be doing. I’ve studied the emergency response procedures, I can—”