The Schwarzschild Radius (51 page)

hat’s her,” said the female Customs officer when McKenna flashed a photo of the girl.

“We need to see any security cams that would have a view of the arrivals area.”

In the security office, the officer entered the time of the flight’s arrival.

“This is when they just started exiting the door,” said the officer.

“Is there a view of the people in the waiting area?”

“Sure.”

Multiple screens showed a three-sixty view of the passengers exiting the door.

McKenna’s eyes darted between five monitors. The guy had to identify himself to her in some way. Everyone was waving at someone. Hugging, family reunions.

“These views are all synchronized, right?”

“Right.”

Then she appeared. Achara walked out the door and scanned the crowd. On another screen, a man stepped forward and held up a sign with
OLIVIA WALLEN
on it. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then she stepped from one screen into the next as though entering another realm. He gave her a bouquet of roses and they embraced. A death embrace. Then they walked out toward the taxi stand.

“Get hold of the dispatcher. I want to know who was taking fares at that moment and where they went.”

Ten minutes later, the answer came back. “Car 876 took two people fitting that description to the long-term parking lot on Lefferts Boulevard. The girl was carrying roses.”

“You have cameras in long-term parking?”

“That’s a private parking lot, but they have surveillance.”

“Is that self-park or valet?”

“Self-park.”

“Why the hell would he go to long-term parking?” asked Marchese. “He must know they have cameras there.”

“He was already here to get Rachel. Doesn’t want to take a chance someone recognizes him or the car out in the open―my guess.”

“I need to see the surveillance video for the last hour,” he told the security guard at the parking lot.

“Which level? There are six.”

Shit. This was going to be much harder.

“All of them.”

To make matters worse, these cameras were analog, not digital, so the tapes had to be wound back, then fast forwarded. There were long stretches where they were just looking at cars sitting there. The detective looked at his watch. It took over fifty minutes before they got a hit. They were on the fourth floor, Achara carrying a bouquet, holding them to her nose. Brazos yapped away, flashing a smile, pointing to his car. The girl had no clue. He opened the back of the van and put her bag in it, then turned and slammed a fist into her stomach. She crumpled. He caught her before she hit the ground and threw her in the back. A gun appeared and he pointed it into the van, his face now tied into a grimace. He shut the doors and walked around confidently. That confidence was what got McKenna. He’d break him of that confidence.

“Can you zoom in on that plate?” They could see only four of the numbers, but the vehicle make and year would complete it. McKenna called it in and it came back. The van was registered to a Simon Zarazuela. It was reported stolen two months ago.

“Put out an APB for a white Econoline van, plate number ZYP189, and an Amber Alert. Use Olivia’s picture for the alert and make sure the media knows that this is Olivia’s twin sister to make it more newsworthy. I need a chopper out there immediately. He’s got about a two-hour head start. He won’t go for any of the bridges or tunnels. He’ll figure they’ve already been alerted. He’ll stay in Queens, Brooklyn, or the Island.”

“He could have made it to the Queensborough, that’s only a twenty minute ride,” said Marchese.

“He’d have to take the Van Wyck. If he made the bridge in twenty minutes, that’s a new world record. That would put him in Manhattan, not the fastest driving. From there, he could go for the Lincoln Tunnel or the Holland. Outbound, there’s no toll, but I just checked―there’s a thirty-minute delay and this is rush hour. Everyone on the other side has already been alerted. He’s got to know that. I say he stays local.”

Achara tore up the floor of the van and pulled at some tools to fix flats. There was a jack and a tire iron. She couldn’t pull the jack out, so she freed the tire iron and rammed it through the rear light. She screamed through it, but no one heard her through the din of traffic. Achara knew a lot of girls who were kidnapped like this. A girl at the brothel told her what to do if it ever happened to her. She destroyed the other bulb. Now when it got dark, the police might pull him over for no lights. It was broad daylight. What time did it get dark in America?

She swung the tire iron at the handle. It didn’t budge and the noise was deafening in the steel chamber. Some light now streamed in and she could see a little. She looked around for anything else she could use to escape. There wasn’t much. Jumper cables, a can of tire sealant. Then something moved on the other side of the cargo space. She caught a glimpse of it in the sliver of light that came through the broken signal. Now it made a noise.

She lifted the tire iron with one hand and advanced on her knees toward the sound. Her left hand felt in front of her. Then it touched a blanket with a body under it. She tore off the cover and a girl rolled over on her side. She’d been beaten badly.

“Achara,” whispered the other girl. “I’m Rachel. Olivia’s sister.”

A helicopter flew overhead, but kept going. The noise coming from the back of the van was going to be a problem. He should have brought a tranquilizer, but he still wasn’t thinking straight from the insulin.

Brazos had just managed to make it to his hideout in time to drink three cans of warm soda. This had kept him from passing out and his senses began to return. His hands still trembled and he felt weak, not even half his normal strength.

The helicopter made another pass. The white van might as well be sending up flares. Brazos looked at his Garmin GPS. He had to make this van disappear from view in a hurry.

He swung onto the ramp for the Verrazano Bridge. At Exit Seventeen, he veered onto the ramp for SR-27 West toward North Conduit Avenue. In seventeen minutes, he was in East New York.

The van continued up Van Sinderen Avenue and pulled into the entrance of Greenlawn Cemetery. There was a Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits and a Burger King across the street. After finding a deserted spot, he parked the van with the back toward the dead.

As soon as he opened the rear door a tire iron came at him so fast he barely had enough time to block it. He pulled Achara and her makeshift weapon out in one motion and slammed his fist into her face. She slumped to the ground and he kicked her in the ribs. Then he grabbed Rachel’s ankle and pulled her out with one yank.

“Up! You make noise, I kill you and your sister.”

He put painted sunglasses on them. The GPS glowed in front of him and he quickly found his next target.

The abandoned East New York station tunnel ran a half mile, four tracks wide and hadn’t seen service since 1924. It was only two-hundred yards away. They made their way to the tunnel entrance and he dropped them down the side of the retaining wall. They proceeded into the maw of the abandoned shaft. It ran about three-thousand feet and was originally sealed off, but junkies and homeless people had broken through. They marched on until there was no more light from the street.

Navigating with a flashlight, they stumbled over needles, condoms, mortar, dead rats. It was getting dark outside fast and the night belonged to him. The GPS said they were about half way through this tunnel.

No one could hear their screams in here, but he had to make sure. He forced rocks into their mouths, then ripped off a piece of Gorilla tape and sealed their lips. More tape bound their hands and feet.

He thought about raping them, but he wanted to conserve his strength, and he wasn’t feeling very horny after the bout with insulin.

They would stay here until dark, then move on to the final objective.

till no sign of the van,” said Marchese.

Three hours had passed since the killer had picked up Achara. Three hours, enough time to put someone through a wood chipper.
How can God allow men like Brazos to exist
, McKenna mulled to himself. Nothing meaningful had come back from the FBI―no aliases, no other addresses in the U.S., no jobs. The guy had a phony social security number, stolen off a dead kid in Jersey. Was he heading for the Mexican border? Canada? Brazil, which had no extradition treaty with the U.S.?