Edge of Apocalypse (42 page)

"Put this in your right ear, Mr. Jordan," he whispered. "We're police; we're here to help."

Then the man and woman smiled, laughed, and thanked Joshua loudly for the directions and walked away.

Joshua discreetly inserted the small earpiece deeply in his ear.

He waited. Nothing.

Then a voice.

"Mr. Jordan, this is Lou Cramer, detective with the NYPD. We're going to be assisting you today. Let's work together to rescue your son."

"How'd you know..."

"Don't worry about that now, sir."

"What do I do?"

"Go through with the meeting. We'll be watching you."

"What if he picks up this conversation?"

"No chance. This is a special frequency. If he tries to scan us electronically all he'll get is white noise."

"You should know that I'm still waiting for his next contact with me."

"Fine. Good. You need to speak out loud, audibly if you get any leads or tips on where your son might be. We'll pick it up from here."

"This guy is smart. I don't think he's going to be telling me where Cal is."

"No, that's true. At least not directly."

"Then what?"

Inside the van, Gallagher scratched a note for the detective to read. After looking at it Detective Cramer nodded and then said to Joshua, "We've got some other resources available. Ways of trying to help you. And Cal. Just relax, and go with the flow. We're going to be with you every step of the way, sir."

Then the detective turned the microphone off at his end.

Gallagher asked, "You've got sharpshooters?"

"Right. All of our crisis team guys. And the bomb squad just in case, standing by. Don't worry, John, we've got this covered."

"You don't know his guy. Atta Zimler's the best. He can smell a trap. Almost impossible to catch. I ought to know. I've been tracking him for years."

"Even the best bad guys have a bad day. Let's hope this'll be his."

"So Lou," Gallagher added, "as far as my involvement in this deal is concerned..."

"Yeah, I know the drill. We called you. You didn't call us. Got it. You're here only at our request. And only as a consultant."

"Exactly," Gallagher said. "As you can see, I'm not carrying...," indicating he hadn't brought his favorite 357 Smith & Wesson with him.

"I understand. Now relax, John."

But Gallagher couldn't. His chest and esophagus had the feeling of being crushed in a burning hot industrial press.

Gallagher pulled a small bottle of milk out of his suit-coat pocket, screwed off the cap, and took a gulp.

"Ulcer?" the detective said.

"What are you, my doctor now, Lou?"

Then Gallagher glanced down at his watch. He muttered, "Come on, you freak, we're waiting for you. Everything's ready. Come on in. Into the trap. Do it...do it..."

SIXTY-FOUR

A tidal flood of human traffic was flowing in and out of Grand Central Station, oblivious to the catastrophe that was waiting within.

Inside the main concourse, on a bench in a corner, a man who appeared to be an Amtrak officer, with a well-trimmed beard and tinted glasses, was working on a small laptop. Atta Zimler took pride in his disguises. This would be one he'd have to use for this particular assignment.

The screen on his laptop had side-view protection. Only he could read it. On the screen was a diagram of the interior of the terminal. Along the sidebar were several boxes. One said "E-Com Scan." He touched his index finger to the box and hit a keystroke. The screen revealed two blinking dots. One of them was less than seventy-five feet from his position. He touched his finger to the screen where the dot was blinking.

Then he inserted the earpiece in his ear. And started listening. A man was talking about an electrical wiring problem.

Zimler glanced over toward the position on the diagram where his computer screen had located the source of the electronic communication. Through the crowd of travelers he spotted a man dressed in a green maintenance uniform, crouching by an electric outlet with a toolbox next to him.

Then Zimler touched the other blinking dot; this indicated a location in another part of the building, much farther away. His wireless transmission scanner was picking up a police radio. He listened in. An officer was making a routine call-in of his position as he strolled through the concourse.

As an extra precaution Zimler clicked on the second box on his screen that read "PublicVideoFeed." In the lower corner of the screen a small box appeared. It was blank. He tapped the second blinking dot with his finger, and the box lit up with a grainy black-and-white picture that was capturing the feed from a terminal surveillance camera in that part of the terminal.

Zimler watched as the officer, on routine patrol, bent his head slightly to the side toward the little walkie-talkie on his collar, signing-off. Zimler had his eyes glued on the image in the corner of his computer screen as he saw the officer then stroll slowly out of the building to finish his shift for the day. Then he minimized the image and went back to the main screen with the diagram of the terminal.

Putting his finger to the part of the diagram that showed a small storage room, he selected it by tapping it with his finger. The image box on this screen was empty. Then he went to a third box on the side of his screen. This one read "PrivateVideoFeed." He clicked it on. Then he tapped the storage-room location again.

Now the image lit up in the little video box in the lower corner. Zimler hit the Zoom function so he could get a closer look. Then he tapped it again for an even closer image. Now he was able to read the yellow LCD screen connected to the bomb he had carefully constructed. He had fitted it with high-grade plastic explosives and armed it with the blasting caps he had purchased at the little mining supply shop in West Virginia. There was a small digital clock in the corner of the bomb's LCD screen. It was blinking with the words "Set--Ready."

Zimler took out a digital detonator control that looked like a tiny television remote. He was ready to press the Clock function. Then he looked back at the video image on his laptop computer screen that showed the inside of the storage room, with the close-up of the LCD screen on the bomb.

He pressed down on the Clock button. The LCD screen clock on the bomb now lit up and started counting down: 30:00...29:59...29:58...29:57...Zimler put the remote detonator in his pocket and pulled out two Allfones.

Everything was in place. Now all he had to do was locate his delivery man.

Outside the terminal by the main entrance doors Joshua was starting to worry. The time had already come and gone when he was to receive some contact from the kidnapper. He checked his own Allfone to make sure it was working and the battery was good. It was.

Then he also checked the other Allfone, the one belonging to Rocky. There were no messages. His brain was racing.
Come on. Come On. Where are you? Let's go.

That was when he suddenly became aware that someone was approaching him.

The guy had a long, dirty coat, a scraggly beard, and he was wearing a bandana on his head. He looked like a homeless guy.

Joshua took him to be a panhandler looking for a couple of bucks. He reached in his pocket to pull some money out to send the guy on his way. But when the homeless man was only a few feet away, Joshua noticed that he already had money in his hand. He came right up to Joshua and stopped. Looking at his hand, Joshua thought to himself,
The guy's holding a hundred dollar bill.

Then the homeless man reached his other hand out to Joshua. In his hand was a small paper bag.

Joshua took it. He could feel something inside the bag, something hard and square. For a moment Joshua's brain was telling him not to open it. It could be anything. The whole scene was painfully bizarre.

But just as quickly he knew that he had to play along. The detective had told him to "go with the flow." He didn't have any choice. Joshua Jordan, the man who was accustomed to calling the shots, making the key decisions, controlling the scenario, now knew this was all bigger than him and was ultimately out of his control.

At least for right now.

Joshua reached into the bag and pulled something out. It was an Allfone.

At that point the homeless guy stuffed the hundred dollar bill in his pocket, gave a quick worried look back toward the terminal, as if someone was watching him, and then hurried aimlessly down the sidewalk.

Now Joshua read the message on the screen of the Allfone.

It read: "Click on Video."

Joshua took his index finger and pressed it down on the video key of the Allfone.

The little screen on the handheld lit up with an image. And when Joshua saw it the ground seemed to sway underneath his feet. Like the beginning tremor of an earthquake. He told himself to focus, but his heart was breaking.

Steady, Josh. Steady.

What was he seeing? Was he really watching this?

It was a live video image of Cal. He was tied up. His mouth was covered with tape. There was something around his neck. Like a bulky electronic collar of some kind. There was a series of small packs, each about the size of a deck of cards linked together in the collar. Joshua had seen this before. His military experience told him what it was.

Dear God...

The collar contained several blocks of plastic explosives, maybe Semtex.

Then the image automatically zoomed in. Joshua was able to see now the digital clock attached to the bomb around his son's neck. It was ticking. It read: 25:14...25:13...25:12...

The image disappeared and a message flashed on the screen of the Allfone in Joshua's hand. It read:

Want to save him? Bring the RTS package to the grand staircase on the west side of the terminal. Come alone or you will see your son explode.

Joshua held onto the Allfone. With his other hand he gripped the metal briefcase. He stepped toward the doors, got bumped by business travelers and tourists going in and out of the railroad station. All of them except Joshua oblivious to the potential disaster that was ticking away, second by second.

As he entered the terminal he kept thinking one thing, repeating it silently, over and over in his head.

The ram in the thicket. The ram in the thicket. The ram in the thicket.

SIXTY-FIVE

"My son's got a bomb rigged around his neck." Joshua was talking out loud so Gallagher could pick it up through the earpiece-microphone in his ear. He was making his way through the crowd to the great hall of the terminal.

"Any clue where he is?" John Gallagher snapped back.

"Looks like some room somewhere...not sure where..."

"What are you doing now?"

"He wants me at the grand staircase at the west end of the terminal."

Gallagher grabbed his personal Allfone so fast he almost dropped it. He had Pack McHenry on speed dial.

"All right. You patriot guys think you're geniuses. Time to pony up. Atta Zimler's got to be inside the building, very near the west-end grand staircase. The guy always works alone so the hand-off will be to him. You've got the photos of Zimler. I'm sure he'll be in disguise. Have your remote camera people video scan the suspects in that area to our computer screen here. I'll confirm which one is Zimler."

At that moment, two of Pack McHenry's associates started strolling through the crowds in the great hall heading to the west end, each with micro-video cameras on their lapels. Each time they saw a suspect they pressed the remote in their pockets and took a snapshot.

The pictures started flooding onto the screen in the van.

"So, who are these guys taking the pictures?" detective Cramer asked Gallagher.

"Uh, private contractors...," Gallagher said, trying to keep a straight face as he said it.

Cramer gave him a funny look. But Gallagher was too busy to notice. He was frantically pressing the delete function for each of the pictures on the screen as he viewed and then rejected them.

"None of these people are even close to being Zimler," Gallagher growled.

Then he saw one that piqued his attention.

He hit the zoom.

On the screen was an Amtrak officer with tinted glasses and a beard, sitting in a corner, hunched over a tiny laptop. Gallagher zoomed in closer. Then even closer.

"Good disguise," Gallagher said, pointing to the image.

"That him?"

"I bet it is," Gallagher said.

"Let's go in, then, right?"

"Wrong. My guess is he's got Cal Jordan wearing that Semtex necklace at a position in the terminal very close by. We've got to find out where."

"Close by? How'd you know that?"

"Zimler employs multiple backup plans. Having Cal close to the action as a hostage gives him leverage if things go wrong."

Then Gallagher picked up his Allfone again. "Okay," he said to Pack McHenry, "the Amtrak guy with the computer, on photo marked jpg14b, is our guy."

McHenry said, "Fine. The next voice you hear is our cyber-intelligence chief."

"Agent Gallagher," the voice said. "I am positioned right outside the terminal in an ice-cream truck. I've dispatched a contact to get in close to Zimler to make a nonintrusive surveillance of Mr. Zimler's computer. As I understand it, you have reason to believe he may have data on it revealing the location of the hostage?"

"Yeah. The guy's a cyber-nut. Probably has it in his computer. But he's going to have it all encrypted. Don't know how you can break through. We've only got minutes here..."

"We don't invade the digital signal," the voice said. "We go asymmetrical. If it's on his computer screen, we'll get it."

"You've got to be sure of this," Gallagher shot back.

"Agent Gallagher," the voice said. "Mr. Zimler's laptop screen, like any monitor, emits digital signals. It refreshes itself almost a hundred times a second. We scan those signals, run them through our own computer, and decipher them; if you exclude the standard monitor emissions, what's left are the pixels that form the image on his screen. Very soon we'll be seeing exactly what he's seeing." Then the voice said, "Wait...okay, we're inputting now. We just need his laptop to stay open and the screen loaded with his images for just another minute or two to produce the image. We've got to keep his laptop live."