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“Really? Are you sure? Let me pull my car back a bit, so you can have a better look.”
“Ma’am, do not back up,” the toll officer interrupted.
“I think we’re okay,” Dan said.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I’ve been having the worst morning!”
Dan handed the toll officer his cash.
“Keep the change,” he said, getting back in his car.
The officer returned to his booth, and the bar lifted for Dan to pass through.
“Good,” Vic said. “Now get on the Cross Bronx Expressway to the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey.”
Dan accelerated and merged with the traffic, his heart hammering.
“I’m cooperating, okay? You can see I won’t make trouble. Will you please let me talk to my family again?”
Vic didn’t respond.
12 (#ulink_9d2f8aa9-fb61-506c-b210-af5e96ffeed9)
Manhattan, New York
Newslead was located in one of the city’s largest skyscrapers, a modern glass structure rising over Penn Station in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan.
Tenants in the recently renovated building included the head offices of a TV network, a cosmetics chain, a fashion house, a brokerage firm and an advertising agency.
Kate swiped her ID through one of the main floor security turnstiles and joined the flow of workers to the banks of elevators. She stepped out at Newslead’s world headquarters on the fortieth floor. Each time she walked through reception she was inspired. The walls displayed enlarged news photos captured by Newslead photographers of history’s most dramatic moments from the past half century.
Those powerful images stood as testament to the fact that even though Kate’s industry faced challenging times, Newslead remained a formidable force as one of the globe’s largest news operations.
It operated a bureau in every major US city and some one hundred fifty bureaus in one hundred countries around the world, supplying a continual flow of fast, accurate information to thousands of newspapers, radio, TV, corporate and online subscribers everywhere.
Its track record for reporting excellence had earned it countless awards, including twenty Pulitzers. It was highly regarded by its chief rivals across the country, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, the World Press Alliance and the new Signal Point Newswire. It also competed with those organizations globally, along with Agence France-Presse, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, China’s Xinhua News Agency and Russia’s Interfax News Agency.
Corporate offices took up half of the fortieth floor, and the newsroom occupied the rest with a grid of low-walled cubicles. Above them were flat-screen monitors tuned to 24/7 news networks around the world.
Kate looked fondly at the glass enclosure tucked in one corner—the scanner room, or what some called “the torture chamber.” It was where a news assistant, usually a journalism intern desperate to pay their dues, was assigned to listen to more than a dozen emergency radio scanners.
Kate, like most seasoned reporters, knew that scanners were the lifeblood of any news organization.
Students were trained on how to listen, decipher and translate the stream of coded transmissions and squawking cross talk blaring from the radios of police, fire, paramedic and other emergency services. They knew how to pluck a key piece of data that signaled a breaking story, how to detect the hint of stress in a dispatcher’s voice or the significance of a partial transmission, and how to follow it up instantly before alerting the news desk. Scanners were sacred. They alerted you to the first cries for help, pulling you into a story that could stop the heart of a city.
Or break it.
Kate had spent long hours listening to scanners. She smiled at the softened sound of chaos from the torture chamber as she walked through the newsroom, which was bordered by the glass-walled offices of senior editors. On her way to her desk she paid silent respect to those that were still empty, a cruel reminder that staff had been let go in recent years as the business struggled to stem the flow of revenue losses.
The plain truth was that people were now relying on other online sources for information. While much of it was inaccurate and lacked the quality of a credible, professional news organization, it came free, which seemed to be more important these days.
As Kate settled into her desk, she took stock of the newsroom with some apprehension. She’d sensed tension in the air. Some reporters and editors were huddled in small groups. A few people appeared concerned.
Kate did a quick survey of the suspended TVs. Nothing seemed to be breaking. Then a shadow crossed her computer monitor.
“There you are.” Reeka Beck had approached her from behind, head bowed over her phone as she typed.
“Good morning. How are you?”
“Fine.” A message popped up in Kate’s inbox—it was from Reeka. As discussed earlier, we’d like a story out of the security conference at the Grand Hyatt this afternoon. I suggest you get in touch with Professor Randall Rees-Goodman, who’s attending from Georgetown University. Reeka tapped Kate’s screen with her pen. “I just sent you his information. He’s an expert on current threats in the geopolitical context.”
“I know, but like I said before, I really think Hugh’s better for this. And besides, Chuck cleared me to enterprise. I need to put in some time following up some leads I’m working on.”
Reeka’s thumbs move furiously over her keyboard as she dispatched another text from her phone, then she lifted her head. She blinked and smiled her perfect smile at Kate.
“This is the assignment I’ve given you. Are you refusing it?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Thank you.”
Kate cursed to herself as Reeka pivoted on her heel and walked away. Reeka was a young, rising star of an editor at Newslead, but she was so curt and officious with reporters that it bordered on rudeness. Every conversation with her was nearly a confrontation.
Reeka’s boss, Chuck Laneer, the man who’d hired Kate to cover and break crime stories, was a battle-scarred veteran. Chuck was gruff but wise. He could kick your ass while showing you respect. Moreover, where Reeka pathologically adhered to filling a news budget, Chuck believed in the value of letting reporters dig for stories.
“Hey, Kate, you heard about Chuck?”
Thane Dolan, an assistant editor, had emerged at her desk.
“No, I just got in.”
“He resigned this morning.”
“No way!”
“Rumor is he’s gone to head news at Yahoo or Google.”
“I don’t believe this! That’s terrible.”
“That means young Reeka likely moves up a notch.”
Kate shut her eyes for a long moment.
“Say it ain’t so. Thane, what’re we gonna do?”
“No idea. It’s a big loss.”
“Monumental. Chuck hired me, you know.”
“Everybody loves the guy.”
Kate and Thane were soon joined by Craig Kryzer, the newsroom intern assigned to monitor the scanners.
“Excuse me...” He was gripping a notebook. “Um, something’s happening on the scanners, and I’m not sure who to tell. I can’t find Chuck.”
“Go ahead, Craig,” Kate said.
“There was a lot of chatter, and I confirmed much of this with 111th Precinct in Queens.”
“Get to it,” Thane said.
“They’re sending ESU—you know, the SWAT team—to a bank manager’s home in Queens. They think there’s a hostage situation.”
“What, like a domestic?” Kate asked.
“No, there was talk that this guy robbed his own bank this morning, a SkyNational Trust branch.”
“Holy crap! You got an address?” Kate said.
“Yep. It’s 3222 Forest Trail Drive in Roseoak Park.”
“Gabe!” Thane shouted to a news photographer, then pointed to Kate, who was struggling with her bag and jacket and trotting out of the newsroom. “Go with Kate! We’ve got a story breaking in Queens!”
13 (#ulink_dccaeb77-8b61-5a6d-b34f-f4344300eb7b)
Queens, New York
Sergeant Paul Roman put two crumpled dollar bills on the counter at Spiro’s Café, took his take-out coffee outside, lifted the lid and blew gently on the surface.
Today was his last shift before his vacation. Once he punched out, he and his wife would fly to Miami for a one-week Caribbean cruise. He’d hoped to spend most of his day finishing off paperwork at the office.
So far, so good, he thought. Then his phone rang.
“Paulie, its Walsh. We got one in Roseoak Park. Bank manager just robbed his own branch—his family’s being held hostage at their home. We need you to get there.”
Roman took a second to absorb what his lieutenant had said.
“Where’re they setting up?”
“Forest Trail Drive and Maple. I’m sending you details now.”
“On my way.”
“One thing you should know—the family’s possibly rigged with explosives.”
Roman’s eyes widened.
Explosives.
A hostage negotiator with the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit, Roman was assigned to ESU Squad 10. It covered the territory known as Queens North, out of the 109th Precinct in Flushing. Squad 10 would be rolling to the scene now, he knew. The bomb squad would be on its way, as well. As Roman cut across the borough he took several hits of coffee and began a mental review of his situation checklist.
You only get one shot to do things right.
* * *
Some forty-five minutes after the call, Squad 10’s big white equipment truck creaked to a halt at a small park at Maple Street and Forest Trail Drive, joining the cluster of other emergency vehicles.
The location was nine doors down the curved street from the Fultons’ address. Just out of sight of the house, it served as the tactical command post. A dozen ESU SWAT team members, each wearing helmets, armor, headset walkie-talkies, and equipped with rifles and handguns, huddled at the command post, checking and rechecking gear.
As the commanders developed a strategy, marked units established the outer perimeter. Officers choked off traffic at all access points to Forest Trail Drive. They consulted driver’s license photos of Dan and Lori Fulton, recorded plates and checked vehicles leaving, or attempting to enter the hot zone.
Other officers began quietly evacuating neighbors, taking them behind the yellow taped lines, ensuring they were clear of the blast radius and line of fire. Everything was done through back doors and side entrances to ensure nothing was visible from the Fultons’ windows.
Without making a sound, four SWAT team members scouted the area surrounding the house and garage. The stillness held an eerie quiet, conveying a false sense of calm. They deployed an extension mirror to peer into the house and they used a stethoscope device placed carefully against the walls and window to pick up voices or activity.
They detected no movement.
They did the same for the garage and detected no activity.
The scouts were ordered to pull back.
* * *
Inside the command post truck, hostage negotiator Paul Roman watched Wilfred Walsh, the tactical commander, study a floor plan of the Fultons’ home, hastily sketched from memory by a shaken next door neighbor.
“Okay, so here’s what we know,” Walsh said to the other investigators, huddled in the truck. “Dan Fulton, manager of the SkyNational Trust Branch 487, takes a bag of cash from his bank and drives away after leaving a note that reads, ‘Family held hostage at home! Strapped bombs on us!’
“That’s all we have, so far. We’ve been unable to locate Dan Fulton. His wife, Lori Fulton, has not shown up for work. Billy Fulton’s not at school. We’ve been unable to contact anyone in the house. We’ve got no movement or visuals of people in the house. But that does not mean we don’t have people inside. Until we clear the property, we will regard it as still hot.”
“Absolutely,” Mac Hirsch, lieutenant for the bomb squad, said. “We regard everything as an explosive, unless my people confirm otherwise.”
They reviewed options. Using selective sniper fire was ruled out, for the time being. There were no clear targets. Other options: a blitz assault with flash bangs, or unleashing chemicals into the house.
SWAT commander Kevin Haggerty objected.
“I’m not sending my people in there until we know it’s clear of bombs.”
“All right, there’s one alternative—Kevin, you get your people to breach the door, and we’ll send in the robot to search the house and drop a phone, so Roman, here, can start negotiations with whoever’s in there. We’ve got to try to resolve this peacefully.”
* * *
The bomb squad’s robot was controlled remotely and equipped with a camera to transmit live feed to the technician manipulating it. It moved with the speed of a tortoise, its tracks humming and whizzing as it took its position at the front door, waiting like a mechanized alien visitor.
The SWAT team surrounded the entrance, weapons at the ready, as one member used a crowbar to pry the door open. The cracking of the frame echoed in the deserted neighborhood. The robot hummed over the debris, toddled inside and the SWAT team retreated.
The video pictures were sharp and clear.
The detective operating the robot used its speaker system, calling on anyone inside to surrender to the NYPD. Roman watched the video feed over the detective’s shoulder and prepared himself.
