The Lost Codex (15 page)

21

T
hey arrived ten minutes later but had to stop two blocks short of the address Russo texted her because of a barricade of NYPD police vans and cruisers. A light rain had begun to fall and the sky had darkened, threatening a storm. It was not cold enough for snow, but the smell of it was in the air.

“You text Mo?” DeSantos asked as they exited their sedan.

“I did,” Vail said. “Told him we were on our way, gave him the address. He didn’t reply.”

Uzi gave DeSantos a concerned look.

“I’m sure he’s just following up on some things.” DeSantos hesitated, then said, “But it
is
very weird, I’ll give you that. Maybe his phone died.”

Vail displayed her credentials and pulled up her collar as they headed toward the north area of Times Square. They made their way through the crowd of officers at Broadway and 47th Street, where the humongous billboards flickered, changed colors, blinked, and rolled. The brightly lit Coca-Cola advertisement made Vail feel thirsty.

Ahead of them was an imposing fifteen-foot-tall statue of Father Francis Duffy and the aptly named Duffy Square, which consisted of rising stadium-style seating that canted over the roof of the TKTS discount Broadway box office. On a normal day, a video camera projected live footage of the people seated on the stands onto a large overhead LED screen.

It was not difficult to see where the focus of the crime scene was, as the camera was still transmitting.

“Shut that thing off. C’mon, dumbshit. Can’t be that hard to flip a friggin’ switch.”

It was Captain Carmine Russo, standing inside the crime scene barricade, a dozen feet forward of the imposing statue.

“Russo.”

He turned and saw Vail, then pushed past the men in his way. He gave her a hug. She made introductions and Russo shook their hands. “So you’re Uzi,” he said. “Thanks again for your help with Hades.”

“All in a day’s work.” Uzi gestured toward Duffy Plaza. “What do we got here?”

“We got us a friggin’ mess, is what we got. I’m talkin’ about the turf battle. FBI wants the scene. JTTF’s here, along with agents from the Field Intelligence Group and something called the foreign counterintelligence squad. Never knew you guys had a foreign counterintelligence squad.”

“I’ll see what I can do about the turf bullshit, but I have a feeling that’s gonna be something the commissioner and director are going to need to address.”

“I don’t see any signs of an explosion,” Vail said.

“No explosion.” Russo chuckled, then handed out booties. “Follow me. Got somethin’ for ya, Uzi.”

They walked single file past the statue toward the stairs that rose at a forty-five degree angle. Russo nodded at a couple of cops guarding the crime scene and tinned an FBI agent who seemed bothered by their presence.

Vail saw the problem immediately. About ten steps up, halfway to the top, a woman was reclining face up on the red Plexiglas and rubber surface, a wood-handled knife protruding from her chest.

DeSantos stopped a dozen feet shy of the body. “A woman’s been murdered. Why’s this relevant to our case?”

Russo glanced over his shoulder but kept moving. “Come see for yourself.”

As they gathered around the middle-aged Hispanic female, Vail gestured at a piece of paper pinned to the woman’s torso by the knife. “There’s a note.” She knelt down and kinked her neck to get a clear view. “Oh. Shit.”

For FBI agent “Shepard”: You are a liar. We know who you are Aaron Uziel and we have a debt to settle with you. First, a word of advice. There’s trouble in the first ward. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.


“First ward?” Uzi asked.

“Guy’s a friggin’ riddler,” Russo said. “No idea what he’s talking about. You?”

Uzi shook his head. “I’ll get one of my agents on it, see if there’s any place in the country that uses wards—Chicago?”

“I think there are parishes, but—”

“That’s a good start,” Uzi said as he tapped out a message to Hoshi.

“They killed a woman just to leave you a note?” Russo asked.

“They want to put people on edge,” Vail said. “And they’re trying to keep us guessing, off balance. That’s the reason for the riddle. Inject uncertainty, leave us chasing our tails. And give us a sense that we don’t know what’s coming next.”

DeSantos pivoted and looked at the distant streets, where throngs of people still moved about behind the police barricades. “How can something like this can happen in the middle of such a busy place?”

“Hey, it’s Times Square,” Russo said. “Tourist sees something weird, he figures it’s some kinda performance art and moves along. I mean, there are women parading around wearing nothing but two circles of paint the size of a baseball—”

An FBI agent adjacent to Uzi’s right shoulder slumped forward as the crackle of a sniper rifle rang out.

“Shooter!” DeSantos said, then grabbed Vail and started moving down the stairs as he craned his neck in all directions to get a read on where the shots were coming from. “See anything?”

“Came from the east,” Uzi said as they headed toward the massive Duffy statue. “Agent was right in front of me, facing west. Entry wound was through his back.”

“Hope you’re right, Boychick.” They moved around to the side of the replica Duffy, using its breadth as a shield.

Russo squeezed in beside them on the edge, keyed his mike, and reported the sniper’s suspected location.

“All these Hercules teams and no snipers?”

“The teams make people feel safe,” Russo said. “A show of force. But no, we don’t deploy snipers unless we get a specific threat. Even if we could put a hundred sharpshooters on buildings in high profile areas of the city, no one wants to live in a police state. And the mayor—”

Another two shots, and a couple of cops, who were trying to get a better angle to locate the gunman, fell to the pavement.

“Body shots,” Uzi said, peeking around the edge. “Whoever’s up there knows what he’s doing.”

On Russo’s radio command, a number of emergency service unit officers and uniformed cops from the NYPD’s substation at the south end of Times Square headed into the surrounding buildings to lock them down and begin a search.

Vail moved to the far end of the statue and craned her neck, stealing a look around its edge, searching the buildings. Raindrops plunked into her eyes and she blinked them away.

“Gotta be a roof,” she said. “Windows don’t open.”

Uzi moved slowly around the edge and then pulled back. “There’s only one possible twenty, given the angle of the shots. Above the Sbarro, maybe nine or ten stories up. Otherwise, it’s just billboards, lights, and electronic signs—or the angle’s all wrong or the building’s too high.”

Vail and DeSantos inched around the front of the statue and looked at the area Uzi had described.

“I see him,” DeSantos said, then ducked back. “You’re right.”

“Do we have a clear shot?”

“Tough angle, but it’s possible.”

Where’s Russo?
Vail texted him the sniper’s location. But another rifle blast rang out and a cop who was attempting to cross to the other side of the street went down.
Goddamn. I’m not waiting for Russo’s guys to get this asshole.
“Let’s take a shot.”

“That’s not funny,” DeSantos said.

Russo’s text came back:

esu and hercules en route sit tight


“Hercules is coming to save the day.”

“Again, not funny.”

“No, the Hercules team. They’ve only got submachine guns so I’m guessing they’re getting rifles and double timing it over here. ESU’s coming too,” she said, referring to the NYPD’s SWAT equivalent. “We don’t have time to wait. I say we put this bastard down.”

“With handguns?” Uzi asked. “From this range? Against a sniper rifle? Soon as we clear the cover of the statue, he’ll pick us off. Just like the others.”

“I did something like this with Delta Force,” DeSantos said. “He’s sighting through his scope. If he’s not looking at us when we expose ourselves—which would be a hell of a coincidence—he won’t see us till it’s too late.”

“And if he does happen to be looking our way?”

DeSantos shrugged. “He won’t be able to hit all of us. And he may not even hit
any
of us.”

“Sounds like an awesome plan,” Uzi said, the sarcasm thick as he drew out the word “awesome.”

“This can work,” Vail said.

Another shot, this time striking a young female pedestrian a block away who had not taken adequate cover. Her torso absorbed the hit, then she fell to the ground in a heap.

Uzi turned away from the downed woman and faced Vail. “Okay. I’m in.”

“Who’s the best shot?” Vail asked.

Uzi and DeSantos simultaneously said, “Me.”

“Men.” She shook her head. “Hector, still using that canon?”

“Yep,” he said as he attached a sight to his .50-caliber Desert Eagle. “Now outfitted with a Leupold scope.”

“Sorry, Uzi. His is bigger.”

“Hey, a .50-cal with a scope? All yours, Santa.”

“Do me a favor,” Vail said, “and get him before he gets us.”

DeSantos checked the Leupold, then held his Desert Eagle in both hands between his thighs, pointed at the ground.

“On my mark.” Vail peered around the edge. A few seconds later the shooter revealed himself, sighting through his scope for another victim.

“Got him,” she said. “Mark!”

DeSantos swung out into the open and squared himself as Vail and Uzi came out firing. Before the cacophony of gunshots ended, the sniper tipped forward over the edge of the building and tumbled face first to the pavement, passing the Broadway billboard ads for
Phantom
and
Wicked
.

It did not take long for him to touch down.

22

T
hey stood over the suspect’s prone body, a stream of blood leaking into the street and joining rainwater running off into a nearby sewer. The drizzle persisted and had dampened Vail’s hair, making it frizzy. Her hands were starting to freeze.

But she hardly noticed. Rather, the image of the man free falling from the building had dominated her thoughts, bringing back memories of another high profile terror attack she was once involved in.

“Pretty clear what he was after,” Uzi said.

The comment drew Vail from her reverie. “What?”

Russo joined them, three Hercules teams alongside him. They fanned out and brought their rifles up, searching the surrounding rooftops through their scopes.

Russo craned his neck to the spot where the sniper had been perched. “Nice shot.”

“
Lucky
shot,” DeSantos said.

“Shoulda waited.”

“Couldn’t,” Vail said. “Seconds counted. He wasn’t stopping till we stopped him.”

“You think this was all about me?” Uzi asked.

DeSantos knelt down and carefully moved the shooter’s jacket with the back of his hand, searching his pockets. Russo pulled out a glove and handed it to him.

“Maybe,” Vail said, “given what’s written on that note. But I think there’s more to it than that. Like why they didn’t set off a bomb. And why they used the murder of that woman to send you a message. And why they chose to do it here.”

“Which is?”

“Times Square isn’t just a public place, it’s high profile.”

“High profile doesn’t quite cut it,” Russo said. “We had a discussion about this in our counterterrorism briefing last month. Based solely on tourists, Times Square is the number
two
attraction in the world behind the Las Vegas Strip. It gets over 130 million visitors a year, a bit more than Disneyland and Disney World. It don’t get more high profile than this.”

“We got security footage?” DeSantos asked.

“Oh, yeah, plenty a cameras. I’m sure we’ll have this goon on film on at least one a them. I’ll see what we got.” Russo pulled his phone and walked off to make his call.

“You okay?” Vail asked.

“Hmm?” Uzi was staring at the body, then pulled his gaze away. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m—whenever someone takes a shot at you and kills someone else instead, you feel kind of guilty. Responsible.”

“I don’t have to tell you that’s ridiculous.”

“We can’t know for sure the sniper was there just for you,” DeSantos said. “They had no way of knowing you were even in New York.”

Uzi seemed distracted. “Yeah.”

“And the message on that note would’ve been delivered to you whether you were here or not.”

“I agree,” Vail said. “The sniper was there to pick people off. I don’t think they necessarily cared who. Cops, FBI, women, children. You, if you were here. But whether you were here or not, the shooter was going to take his shots. It fits the purpose behind all these attacks: induce terror and fear in the general population, leave them wondering what’s coming next. Each one of their attacks has been different in some way or other.”

Uzi was silent a moment, then walked up the steps and knelt at the murdered woman’s side. “Amsterdam.”

Vail and DeSantos, who had followed, looked at each other.

“There a reason why you just said ‘Amsterdam,’ Boychick?”

“Amsterdam, 2004. Guy by the name of van Gogh was shot in the middle of a crowded square, then a knife was driven through a note into his chest.” He gestured at DeSantos. “You’ve got gloves—check to see if she was shot before she was stabbed.”

Russo walked over while DeSantos examined the body.

“Any witnesses?” Vail asked.

“I’m sure there were plenty, but we only managed to get a couple. Conflicting descriptions of the perp, which—”

“Not surprising in stressful times. People don’t see what they think they see.”

“Exactly. The cameras will give us a better look.”

“Either of them say anything about the woman being shot before she was stabbed?”

“No.”

“Yes.” DeSantos looked up at Russo, shielding his eyes from the rain. “GSW to the chest, just above the stab wound.”

Uzi nodded. “So it fits. But what does it mean?”

“It means the sniper may’ve had an accomplice. He took the shot, woman goes down, his buddy stabs the note to her chest.”

“Who was the doer in the Amsterdam case?” Russo asked.

“An Amsterdam native of Moroccan descent, Mohammed Bouyeri. MO was very similar: high profile location, in the middle of a lot of people, dramatically staged with the knife and the note.”

“So what’s the connection?” Russo asked.

DeSantos rose from his crouch as the medical examiner’s vehicle pulled up to the edge of the plaza, in front of the George M. Cohan statue at the southern end of the square.

“Wanna give me that canon for evidence?” Russo asked, gesturing toward the Desert Eagle.

“Nope,” DeSantos said as he went about detaching the scope.

“I think we should just let it go,” Vail said, looking hard at Russo.

“Tell you what,” DeSantos said. “Take it up with Director Knox. He tells me you should get the gun, I'll hand deliver it.”

“Knox.”

DeSantos shrugged. “All I can say.”

“We’ve gotta follow up on something,” Vail said. “Keep us posted on what you find here?”

Russo’s brow bunched as he studied her face. “Anything you’d like to tell me? You know, share resources?”

“I’m sure the NYPD will be plugged into everything that’s going on,” DeSantos said.

Russo gave him a dubious look. “Yeah, right.”