Targets of Revenge (48 page)

Sandor and Ferriello shared a concerned look.

“We’re dealing with an incredibly toxic substance,” Sandor told them. “You remember when someone sent a gift of anthrax to that
newspaper building in Florida about ten years ago?” The others nodded. “That place is still contaminated. You can’t even go inside to this day without wearing a hazmat suit.”

“Understood,” said the senior FBI agent.

“And that was a whole lot less of the powder than they have here tonight.”

No one said anything for a few moments.

“Our two friends have any visitors yet?” Sandor asked.

“I was just getting to that,” the FBI agent said. “The six men from that mosque in the Bronx arrived together, two African-American, four Arab-American. Our men tailed them directly to this hotel. Got here about twenty minutes ago and began doing a lousy job of trying to look like they weren’t together. They walked through the lobby and outside again, circled around the front, then they all came back and one of them used a house phone. From there they stopped at the hotel security station in front of the entrance to the bank of elevators. One of the guards made a call, got an okay from the men in the suite upstairs so he let them pass.”

“The suite on forty-five?”

“That’s right.”

“They all still in there?”

“Far as we know,” one of the police officers said. “We have men posted on each end of the floor.”

“Good. These six guys from the mosque, were they carrying anything?”

“Not in their hands,” the FBI agent told them. “They were all wearing coats or jackets, but we were told not to approach them. No idea what they might have underneath or in their pockets.”

Just then the radios on the belts of both NYPD officers buzzed. One of them grabbed it and hit a button. “Go,” he said.

The voice that came through was a whisper, barely audible over a stream of static, the message one word. “Movement.”

They all took off at a run toward the hotel entrance.

————

The two plainclothes policemen who had been dispatched to the forty-fifth floor did not have much time to prepare. One of them rode the elevator to forty-six, got off, raced down the stairs, and remained in position, hiding in the stairwell at the end of the long hallway. The other officer was given a busboy uniform and a food cart. He made the quick change, took the elevator to forty-five, and was now doing his best to look busy, staying away from the peephole of the suite from which he might be spotted, but remaining in the corridor.

They were ordered not to engage the suspects, advised that they were extremely dangerous and might be armed with explosive devices.

When the door to the suite opened and Alejandro and Jorge emerged, the officer posing as a waiter turned his back to the Venezuelans and gave the one-word report into the mic beneath his lapel.

“Movement.”

Then, looking back in their direction, he offered a pleasant, “Good evening gentlemen.”

But neither of Adina’s men was buying the act. Why had a busboy suddenly turned away from his cart as soon as they entered the corridor? Why was he just standing there in the hallway? And something about his pants and shoes were off.

In response to the greeting, Alejandro showed off a broad smile and strolled toward the elevators. As he passed the undercover policeman he caught a glimpse of the bulge under his jacket, likely a weapon, and he was taking no chances. In one lightning-quick move he produced the razor-sharp knife he was concealing inside the loose cuff of his jacket, spun and grabbed the officer by the hair from behind, then yanked his head back and drew the blade hard and deep across the front of the man’s throat.

The officer slid to the floor, blood pouring down his neck and onto his chest as the life flowed out of him.

Jorge was reaching inside the busboy jacket for the officer’s gun when another man emerged from the stairway entrance at the far end of the hall. The second policeman had witnessed the attack and now instinctively stepped out, automatic in hand, and took aim. But battles involving life and death do not allow for indecision. Whereas a trained law enforcement officer is hindered by the rules he has learned
about the use of deadly force, a cold-blooded killer such as Jorge had no reason to hesitate. He fired twice, and the second policeman was dead before he was able to get off a shot.

The sound of the gunfire reverberated along the corridor. When someone opened a door and began to ask what was going on Jorge cut him off.

“NYPD,” he hollered out in an authoritative voice. “Everyone stay in their rooms with the door locked. Someone call nine-one-one, we have an officer down.”

Meanwhile, Alejandro let himself back into the suite, where the six young men were all standing, frightened looks on their faces. “Nothing to be concerned about,” he told them, “but you cannot stay here as planned. You must get out of the hotel and find somewhere else to wait. It should not be a problem.”

The group leader, in a calm but firm tone, said, “They have found you, which means they will find us.”

“No, Jorge and I will lead them away from here. They have no way of knowing about you. We will cause as much confusion as possible to give you the chance to get away.”

“But . . .”

“Listen to me. We’ll take the stairs to the right, it will buy time and give you the opportunity to escape. Split up, take the elevators or the other stairs, go to different floors, then begin to leave, one at a time. Don’t go to the lobby yet, and don’t all move together.”

The young Arab shook his head. “The cases will give us away and our mission will be ruined.”

“No,” Alejandro insisted, then hesitated. “If any of you are stopped, you know what to do.” He pointed at the bags containing the anthrax.

Now the young man nodded.

“Good luck,” Alejandro said, then ran back into the corridor to find Jorge, who had hustled down the corridor and was removing the automatic from the second dead policeman.

“Here,” he said, tossing Alejandro the weapon as he also took the officer’s radio and extra ammunition. “Let’s go.”

B
Y THE TIME
Sandor and Ferriello reached the hotel lobby there had been no further word from either officer stationed on the forty-fifth floor. Sandor knew they could not take the chance of initiating contact—there was no telling if either officer might be near the hostiles and, in a building this large with its dense metal infrastructure, even the best radio system was likely to generate static. The risk of the communication being overheard was simply too great.

Still, it had been too long since they got word that the suspects were on the move. Sandor crossed the lobby to have a look at the digital screen alongside the large bank of elevators. The NYPD officer who was monitoring that area confirmed that none of the elevators had stopped on the forty-fifth floor since they received their radio call.

As Sandor worried over the delay, the FBI agent in charge and the NYPD antiterrorism liaison approached.

“Report of a shooting on forty-five was just called in to nine-one-one by a hotel guest, said he saw two men on the ground before someone ordered him to close his door and call in the emergency.”

“No one’s heard from either officer?”

The head of the antiterrorism unit shook his head. “We have to assume they’re the ones in trouble.”

Ferriello, who had positioned himself across this cavernous entry hall, joined them. “Bad news?”

“The worst,” Sandor said, then told him.

“What now?” the NYPD liaison asked.

Sandor looked around, as if there might be an answer somewhere within this forty-foot-high lobby. “We’ve been watching the elevators, none have stopped at forty-five since we got word they were on the move. This is a huge hotel with stairs on both ends of the building and all sorts of exits.”

“You think they’re all coming down forty-five flights of stairs?”

“Maybe,” Sandor said. “They might split up, stop on different floors, try to force their way into another room and wait us out. Or try to get into one of the theaters on either side of the building and leave from there. We need to keep a strong presence in the lobby, with men at both stairwell exits. And the elevators of course. But we can’t all just sit here and wait for them to show up.”

“I’m calling in my entire unit,” the man from the FBI said. “This is no longer an undercover op, Sandor. Whatever the joint task force thinks is going on here, we now have credible information of a terrorist threat, with the likelihood two police officers are down.”

“Damn right,” the man from NYPD agreed.

Two uniformed police officers standing near the reception desk came up to find out what was going on, just as Sandor was saying, “We’ve got to try and avoid causing a panic here. This mess could pour right out into the middle of Times Square.”

“Nothing to be done about that now. We’ve got to respond with every available resource, and with all due respect for what you’ve done up to this point, this is an FBI matter now, with support from the NYPD and DHS.”

“Okay,” Sandor said, “but remember that in addition to the two shooters, you’ve got six hostiles likely carrying anthrax that may be rigged to explode anytime and anyplace.”

“Understood.”

Now Sandor stared the man down as he said, “I’m still going to do my thing, you all right with that?”

“Do what you need to do,” the lead agent from the Bureau told him.

“Appreciate that,” Sandor replied, then reached out and unclipped the radio from the belt of one of the uniformed officers. “I’ll need
to borrow this. We’ve got to assume they took the radios from your two men, so get word to everyone that you’re using a secondary frequency.”

The policeman looked to his superior, who nodded. He then took the radio from Sandor, switched it to an emergency setting, and handed it back.

“Thanks,” Sandor said. “I’m going up the north set of stairs.” He pointed to the rear of the lobby, then turned the radio off. “Don’t want this squawking once I’m inside.”

“Understood.”

“Your men can cover the other side, but I’ll take that one alone.”

“The hell you will,” Ferriello said.

Sandor shot him a glance that said this was something he had better think over. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”

Ferriello returned the serious look. “I almost never do.”

“Almost never is a pretty good track record. Let’s go.”

————

Forty-five flights was going to be a lot of stairs to climb, but Sandor took off at a run across the lobby. Ferriello drew a deep breath and followed him to the stairwell entrance. Sandor opened the door, held it as they passed through, then shut it behind them as silently as he could. From there he led their ascent.

Each of the first eight landings had metal doors with no handles. They were marked
NO RE-ENTRY
, emergency exits for the theater on the other side. On the first landing Sandor had a quick look at the door, confirming it would be easy enough to force open if the terrorists chose this way out of the hotel.

Ferriello nodded his understanding, then the two men moved as quickly and as quietly as they could, guns drawn, taking two steps at a time. Sandor stopped and held out his hand when they reached the tenth floor. Ferriello nodded gratefully, leaning forward with his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

They listened, but there was nothing to hear except the detective’s wheezing.

“You need to get to the gym more often,” Sandor whispered.

“Tell me about it.”

Without another word, Sandor took off again.

When they stopped after ten more flights they were both winded, but this time they heard something other than their own panting. It was only a faint noise, coming from ten or more floors above them, but the sound was unmistakable. Footsteps. Moving toward them.

Sandor held a forefinger to his lips, then pointed to the corner of the landing, beside the hinged side of the fire door. Ferriello nodded and took that position. Then Sandor slowly and silently climbed up the next set of stairs.

The floors were separated by two flights, each consisting of fourteen steps, each running in the opposite direction of the one before. That created a small landing at the midlevel turn, the spot where Sandor chose to wait. He crouched in the corner beneath the dim light, his Walther in hand. However many of the eight men were coming, his plan was to draw their fire, take out as many as he could, then hope that the backup from Ferriello would be enough to finish the job.

He realized a prolonged shoot-out might give one of the hostiles a chance to release anthrax from one of the cases, but there was no choice now. He figured it would be better to have it explode in a stairwell than in the middle of the hotel lobby.

Then he looked above him at the air vent in the ceiling.

Damn!
If the toxins got loose in here there was no telling how the circulation system might spread the deadly powder throughout the building.

He didn’t need to just kill these bastards, he needed to kill them before they had that chance.

With the sounds of the men from above growing louder, Sandor stood and quietly descended the flight of stairs where Ferriello was crouching. He got as close as he could and whispered his concerns. “Don’t hesitate and don’t worry about hitting me. We need to take them all out before they can release any of the anthrax.”

Ferriello nodded and Sandor hurried back to his position, just fourteen steps above.

————

Alejandro and Jorge decided that the theater below provided their best chance of escape.

They had studied the layout of the building when they arrived, comparing it to the information Adina had provided. They reviewed various contingency plans, just in case the couriers from the Bronx were somehow compromised or the two of them were otherwise discovered while still in the hotel. Making their way into the theater and then out to the street was clearly their best option.

They hurried down the stairs, each holding the Glock automatics taken from the dead policemen. They also had the radio, but thus far there were no communications coming through on the officer’s two-way.