SUV with dark windows pulled up and flashed its headlights. The NYPD officers who had been briefed by the federal agents only minutes before gave the all clear for the car to continue through.
The FBI agents followed on foot behind the car until it reached the building. Two men of average height and strong builds emerged. They wore black ski masks, sunglasses, and brown leather bomber jackets. They scanned around as if they were expecting the possibility a sniper would split their heads in two any second now. When that didn ’ t happen, the driver popped open the trunk with a remote control, removed two large courier satchels, and strapped them across his shoulders. The other guy retrieved two plump duffel bags, and the two men strode inside the tower until the spying eye of the FBI could no longer see them.
ELEVEN
Saturday, November 5, 2011—9:35 p.m.
Manhattan, NY
T hree platters that had been piled with sushi rolls, subs, and cut-up vegetables lay empty on the conference table. The team had devoured every last morsel of food and all the coffee, juice, and diet soda in mere minutes after a catering agent had delivered them.
But Blackwell was still punching coffee pods in the Nespresso machine like candy and pacing around the room waiting for the next ten minutes before he would speak to Seth again.
Nishimura sat at the conference table and texted with feverish determination on both his iPhone and BlackBerry, and occasionally reaching out for his laptop as well.
Monica ’ s elbows were on the table, her hands supporting her head which probably had a million scenarios playing out in it.
Slant, Shaker and Grove had left the room to regroup with their respective departments for urgent counseling on the intel they ’ d gathered.
Blackwell sat down to write some more notes. He hated waiting around for the guy at the other end of the phone to make the next move.
“A few months after I moved to Italy, a local case caught my attention.” Vlasic was about to launch into a monologue. “A bank clerk a few weeks shy of retiring walked into the annual board meeting of his company in Milan, wearing nothing but explosives. He threatened to blow himself up and take everybody with him.”
She stopped and sipped on a cup of Earl Grey tea which she had sweetened earlier with Agave. Blackwell dropped his pencil and looked up. This wasn ’ t a monologue, this was a story. Monica was doing her famous time-out right before the shit hit the fan. Nishimura continued to text, his eyes sporadically fixing on Monica, which suggested he too was game for a bit of lore from the field. There was only so much analysis and strategizing a tired brain could endure before it ceased to operate effectively. The FBI ’ s time-out was loosely plagiarized from the medical profession, but it worked.
“He held the top executives of his company hostage for three days in the boardroom, making one outlandish request after the other, but not one demand. Italian police ran around in circles to keep him happy but no one could figure out what he wanted. The weirder his requests were, the more dangerous they believed him to be. Then on the third day, he walked out of the building and shot himself in the head in broad daylight.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Nothing, Alex. And the explosives on his body were the real deal. Expensive, too. The negotiator and the lead investigator were left scratching their heads for months after the incident as they tried to decipher his motives. Organized crime? Political terrorism? Maybe even Al Qaeda? But he was clean, not even a traffic ticket.”
Nishimura stopped texting. “Hey, I ’ ve been to Italy. A dude with no traffic violations there should have been flagged as odd much earlier.”
Blackwell glanced away from Nishimura and fixed on Monica. He needed to know more. “And the conclusion?”
“After they ’ d exhausted all possible grand plots and complex motives, they went back to the simplest
The FBI agents followed on foot behind the car until it reached the building. Two men of average height and strong builds emerged. They wore black ski masks, sunglasses, and brown leather bomber jackets. They scanned around as if they were expecting the possibility a sniper would split their heads in two any second now. When that didn ’ t happen, the driver popped open the trunk with a remote control, removed two large courier satchels, and strapped them across his shoulders. The other guy retrieved two plump duffel bags, and the two men strode inside the tower until the spying eye of the FBI could no longer see them.
ELEVEN
Saturday, November 5, 2011—9:35 p.m.
Manhattan, NY
T hree platters that had been piled with sushi rolls, subs, and cut-up vegetables lay empty on the conference table. The team had devoured every last morsel of food and all the coffee, juice, and diet soda in mere minutes after a catering agent had delivered them.
But Blackwell was still punching coffee pods in the Nespresso machine like candy and pacing around the room waiting for the next ten minutes before he would speak to Seth again.
Nishimura sat at the conference table and texted with feverish determination on both his iPhone and BlackBerry, and occasionally reaching out for his laptop as well.
Monica ’ s elbows were on the table, her hands supporting her head which probably had a million scenarios playing out in it.
Slant, Shaker and Grove had left the room to regroup with their respective departments for urgent counseling on the intel they ’ d gathered.
Blackwell sat down to write some more notes. He hated waiting around for the guy at the other end of the phone to make the next move.
“A few months after I moved to Italy, a local case caught my attention.” Vlasic was about to launch into a monologue. “A bank clerk a few weeks shy of retiring walked into the annual board meeting of his company in Milan, wearing nothing but explosives. He threatened to blow himself up and take everybody with him.”
She stopped and sipped on a cup of Earl Grey tea which she had sweetened earlier with Agave. Blackwell dropped his pencil and looked up. This wasn ’ t a monologue, this was a story. Monica was doing her famous time-out right before the shit hit the fan. Nishimura continued to text, his eyes sporadically fixing on Monica, which suggested he too was game for a bit of lore from the field. There was only so much analysis and strategizing a tired brain could endure before it ceased to operate effectively. The FBI ’ s time-out was loosely plagiarized from the medical profession, but it worked.
“He held the top executives of his company hostage for three days in the boardroom, making one outlandish request after the other, but not one demand. Italian police ran around in circles to keep him happy but no one could figure out what he wanted. The weirder his requests were, the more dangerous they believed him to be. Then on the third day, he walked out of the building and shot himself in the head in broad daylight.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Nothing, Alex. And the explosives on his body were the real deal. Expensive, too. The negotiator and the lead investigator were left scratching their heads for months after the incident as they tried to decipher his motives. Organized crime? Political terrorism? Maybe even Al Qaeda? But he was clean, not even a traffic ticket.”
Nishimura stopped texting. “Hey, I ’ ve been to Italy. A dude with no traffic violations there should have been flagged as odd much earlier.”
Blackwell glanced away from Nishimura and fixed on Monica. He needed to know more. “And the conclusion?”
“After they ’ d exhausted all possible grand plots and complex motives, they went back to the simplest
Similar Books
