Джеймс Паттерсон - Killer Instinct

Tonight was a reminder, though. Embrace the future but never fully let go of the past. We needed the old-school dogs as much as, if not more than, the Vapor Wakes. Wherever that backpack was, it wasn’t moving.

“Looks like the same tactics they used before Times Square,” said Pritchard, staring at a schematic provided by the MTA’s head of security, who introduced himself as Mac. “They methodically find all the blind spots before planting the bombs.”

Mac was sporting some serious bedhead and a couple of missed belt loops, but other than that he was on the ball. He’d already highlighted the areas the security cameras in the station didn’t cover.

But where there could be one backpack, there could easily be a half dozen. Just like in Times Square. While Pritchard was right about the blind spots, we needed to check every spot there was in Penn Station.

“Where’s the bomb squad?” asked Foxx.

“They take longer than the dogs,” said the police captain on duty for the Midtown South Precinct. He squinted at Foxx. “I’m sorry. Who are you again?”

“He’s with me,” said Pritchard, without looking up from the schematics.

“And you two?” the captain asked, pointing at me and my father. “Who are you?”

“They’re also with me,” said Pritchard, who finally looked up from the schematics to give the captain a death stare. “Any more fucking questions?”

And just like that, the captain suddenly had something else to attend to.

I turned to Elizabeth, fully expecting to see her fighting back a smile. Her new boss certainly had a way with words. Isn’t that right?

Elizabeth? Wait. Where are you? Where did you—?

She was gone.

Chapter 83

ELIZABETH HAD walked away from the group. She turned to me the exact moment I spotted her. It was as if she could tell I was searching for her.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The look in her eyes, even from fifty feet away, told me everything I needed to know.

I turned back to the group. “Hey, guys?”

My father had moved over to Foxx and Pritchard, who were staring at a tablet screen they’d just been given by an IT guy with MTA security that showed a live feed from every security camera in the vicinity. We could now identify every blind spot in the station simply by looking at the tablet and checking if we could see ourselves as we walked.

“What is it?” asked Pritchard.

“This way,” I said, pointing.

I led them over to Elizabeth, who was standing in front of a large trash bin, the square kind with a door on one side so the actual bin could be removed to empty it.

Pritchard tilted his head. “What are you looking at, Needham?”

“Basic geometry,” said Elizabeth.

It was all she had to say. The bin was a circle within a square, which created four hiding places, all about the size of a backpack. Pritchard glanced down at the tablet before holding it up for all of us.

Does everyone see what I’m not seeing?

We weren’t in any of the security camera feeds. We were standing smack-dab in the middle of a blind spot.

“Dog!” yelled Pritchard. “DOG!”

His voice echoed throughout the concourse as the nearest handler came over with his German shepherd. Elizabeth pointed. We all pointed at the garbage bin. The handler never broke stride.

Within seconds, though, he was turning back to us and shaking his head. We could already tell. His dog wasn’t picking up anything.

“Maybe it’s the metal?” asked Pritchard, referring to the bin. “Is it trapping the scent?”

“Not at all,” said the handler, pointing to the gaps along the side panels. “Plenty of places where air is getting through.”

“And the smell of the garbage itself?” asked Foxx. “It wouldn’t mask the scent?”

The handler thought for a second, which was clearly one second too long for Pritchard. “Dog!” he yelled again. “ALL OF THEM!”

It was shades of Westminster as a parade of canines made its way past the bin. Mostly German shepherds, a few rottweilers, and one Belgian Malinois. I knew for sure what my father was thinking, especially since there was no vizsla in the pack. He was wishing Diamond were here.

We all kept waiting for at least one of the dogs to sit—what they’re trained to do when they smell an explosive. If there’d been any C-4, they would’ve all sat immediately. Of all bomb components, C-4 gives off the strongest scent. After that comes dynamite and Tovex. No dog could ever miss any of those.

But not a single dog sat.

“Screw it,” said Pritchard, stepping forward. “Everyone clear the area.”

Chapter 84

THE DOG handlers were as well trained as their dogs. They immediately pulled back, as told.

Foxx turned on his heel to Pritchard, staring at him sideways. “What do you think you’re doing, Evan?”

“I’m seeing if the damn backpack is in there or not,” said Pritchard.

“The hell you are. EOD will be here any minute.”

It was typical of Foxx that he would choose explosive ordinance disposal over bomb squad . But it didn’t matter either way what Foxx had said. Pritchard didn’t care. “I don’t feel like waiting,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” said Foxx. “I’m also sure you don’t feel like dying.”

We listened to them go back and forth a few more times. This wasn’t the argument I’d been thinking about with Pritchard. That argument I knew was still coming—the kind of moral dilemma that haunts all law enforcement in the war on terror. The sooner we got to it the better.

Tick-tock, I kept hearing in my head. But not from any backpack.

“There’s no bomb,” I announced. Apparently not loud enough, though. Everyone was still tuned into the Foxx versus Pritchard jabberfest. I tried again. “THERE’S NO BOMB!”

That did the trick. Everyone turned to me. Huh?

“How do you know there’s no backpack in there?” asked Pritchard.

“Yeah,” said Foxx. “How do you know?”

“I didn’t say there was no backpack. I said there’s no bomb.” That didn’t clear anything up. Nor did this. “In fact, I’ll bet the backpack is actually in there.”

Foxx shook his head in disgust at me. I’d seen it before. Heard it, too. “You give your instincts way too much credit, Reinhart.”

“Then you’re really not going to like this,” I said, walking up to the trash bin. “Ten seconds for anyone who feels like running.”

The only one who didn’t flinch was my father. I was sure he’d already worked it out in his head, probably a split second before I did.

It wasn’t just that the dogs didn’t smell anything. Or that the guy originally carrying the backpack would somehow think to hit up an ATM before depositing a bomb. It was that he allowed himself to be in front of the station’s security cameras without making any attempt to conceal the backpack. That would’ve been the same foolish mistake those Al-Qaeda wannabe kids made with the Boston Marathon. They were smart enough to wait until the bomb-sniffing dogs had swept the area around the finish line but too stupid to realize there would be footage of them before and after they placed their backpacks.

Only we weren’t dealing with kids here.

As sure as Sadira Yavari did reconnaissance at the hotel without using Halo, this guy with the pointed beard never thought anyone would be watching him after the fact. Why? Because this was only a dress rehearsal. A dry run. A way to see if the backpack would stay unnoticed until all of the backpacks were planted. Just as they did in Times Square.

“What do you think they’ll ultimately use, Dad? A duffel or a carry-on?” I asked. In other words, how would they transport the backpacks with the actual bombs?