Michael Ledwidge - Alert

“You’re thinking of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” I said. “That was down in the Village. After the fire started, more than a hundred garment workers died. People were jumping out windows. Because the kindly owners had gated and locked the exit stairwells to keep the workers on task.

“Some good actually came out of it, though, because the public went nuts, and it led to fire safety laws and sprinkler systems and fire escapes and the forty-hour workweek.”

“You’re just a walking Ken Burns documentary, aren’t you?” she said.

“Yes, and my fee for this extended walking tour is the capture of a Russian homicidal bomber in handcuffs with a big shiny bow on his head.”

“Get in here! I think I found something,” Chuck Jordan bellowed.

We went back in. On the screen was a picture of three fat kids in an aboveground pool. It took me a couple of seconds to see Papa Yevdokimov sitting behind them on the pool ladder holding a Super Soaker water gun.

“These are Yevdokimov’s personal photographs. There are about a hundred that show him at the same seaside cottage,” Chuck said.

“It’s his dacha,” Emily said.

“His what?”

“I worked a Russian organized crime case a couple of years ago. Dachas are Russian vacation houses. All the mobsters have them back in the old country,” she said.

“So are we going to try to peg the location from the background again?” I said.

“No. These shots are JPEGs with Exif file formats, which means that they were taken with a smartphone. Smartphone cameras record GPS locations of where each picture is taken in a process known as geotagging. Give me a second,” Chuck said, clicking open some new screens.

“Here it is. The latitude and longitude,” he said a second later. “It’s Eleven Roseleah Drive, Mystic, Connecticut.”

“That’s where he’s headed — has to be,” said Emily.

“What are we waiting for, then? Let’s roll,” I said.

We were back in the dingy building’s hallway, getting a move on so we could head up to Connecticut, when the elevator opened and Chief Fabretti appeared.

“There you are, Bennett. I’ve been trying to call you,” he said with an agitated look on his face.

“Sorry, Chief,” I said, fishing my phone out of my pocket. “Oh, here’s the problem. Left it on airplane mode.”

“Stop screwing with me, Bennett,” Fabretti said, pulling me over to a corner. “I’ve been getting calls from my bosses. Their counterparts over at the Bureau saw you traipsing around their new digs this morning. They said thanks but no thanks for your help. There’s no more task force. The feds are taking over the investigation from here.”

“What do you mean?” I said, agitated myself now. “We’re right in the middle of this. We’re about to grab the only guy who knows who the real bombers are.”

“No, Bennett. They’re about to grab him. Not you. The feds want to nail the bastards who blew up their building all by themselves.”

“What about the college kids who died on the train and the mayor and the people who died in the EMP attack? They were New Yorkers, right? The people we’re supposed to protect.”

“It’s already been settled. The FBI is going to get the credit for this.”

“They can have the damn credit, and if there’s any left over, you can have it. I’ll leave before the reporters show, I swear. C’mon, Chief. We’ve got a beeline on this guy. We just need to find this bastard now before the real bombers take him out.”

“It’s over, Bennett. So stop arguing,” Fabretti said, glaring coldly at me. “You’re off the case, and that’s an order. There were about a hundred robberies during the evacuation. We have plenty of work for you to do. Now drive me back to One Police Plaza.”

“Mike?” called Emily from down the hall, where all the FBI agents were packed into the elevator.

“Go,” I said. “Get this guy. It’s up to you now. Don’t lose him!”

“That’s the spirit, Bennett,” said Fabretti as the elevator door rumbled closed.

Fabretti insisted on buying me a coffee at a Times Square Starbucks before we headed way back downtown to One Police Plaza.

“See, Mike? I’m not such a bad guy,” he said, tipping his nonfat latte at me as I chauffeured him down Broadway. “Listen, I know you’ve been neck-deep in this from the beginning, but this is coming from up high. The mayor — hell, the senior senator — is involved. We’re just small potatoes.”

“You’re right,” I said.

“Exactly. I’m doing you a favor. I heard the mayor sent her plane for you. That had to be sweet. A real ride on the gravy train. Or should I say ‘the gravy plane’? Honestly, you play your cards right, Mike, you keep playing ball, retirement is going to be smooth sailing for you.”

“Sure, definitely,” I said, checking my phone to see if there was anything from Emily.

After another excruciating twenty minutes of Fabretti’s pep talk, I dropped him off at the door of One Police Plaza. I told him I was going to park and meet him up at his office, but instead I actually squealed out of the lot and got immediately on the northbound FDR Drive.

I called Emily as I punched it.

“Where are you?” I yelled.

“We just crossed the Connecticut border, but we’re still about two hours away. Mystic is practically in Rhode Island. We have a team of agents out of New Haven almost at the house. What’s your status?”

“I’m on the highway about half an hour behind you.”

“What about Fabretti?” Emily said. “Aren’t you off the case?”

“I never heard him say that,” I said. “My ears are still ringing from that car bomb.”

“Mine, too, Mike,” Emily said with a laugh. “See you there.”

I hung up and asked Siri for directions and proceeded to put the pedal to the metal. I took the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge into the Bronx, then took the Bruckner to I-95.

It was coming on rush hour when I crossed into Connecticut and hit traffic. It was stop-and-go past Stamford when I saw the Chevy’s tank was almost empty, so I got off at the next exit and pulled into a BP gas station and filled up.

As I stood squeezing the nozzle, I looked at my phone and laughed when I saw that Fabretti had left twenty angry texts. Where the f are you? came his latest.

Taking a ride on the gravy plane, I texted back.

My phone rang a moment later.

“Hey, Robertson,” I said.

“Mike, big news!” he yelled. “We just got a bead on two Russians that might be our guys. Brooklyn and I have been going bonkers with these flight manifests, but we have two Russian immigrants who have been back and forth to Cape Verde from the States six times over the last year.

“Their names are Vladislav and Oleg Filipov. They’re father and son. Turns out they flew to Cape Verde out of Miami, not New York.”

“Miami?”

“Yes. The father, Vladislav, ran a brutal Russian prostitution and drug-dealing crew there for most of the eighties and nineties — allegedly, at least, since he never got caught for a damn thing. No fixed address.”

“What about the son?”

“We don’t have anything on him in terms of a record. He had a house in Queens up until six months ago, but since then, nothing. No address. No job. No visible means of support. I’m e-mailing you their photographs from their driver’s licenses as we speak. They could definitely be the guys on the video. One older, one younger. They’re looking good on this!”

“Sounds great,” I said. “Yevdokimov will be able to ID these guys once we catch up to him. Really good job, Robertson.”

I hung up and looked at the pictures of the two Russians. They didn’t have goatees in the pictures, but they both had lean, pale faces with sharp features and the same strong nose.