Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

Lines moved with glacial speed.

Finally, the U.S. immigration inspector waved Aleena to his desk and received her passport. Coming from the Netherlands she did not require a visitor’s visa or any other documentation. She was photographed and fingerprinted on a scanner, then the inspector studied her passport and then her face, ensuring it matched her photograph.

“Where were you born?”

“Amsterdam.”

“And what do you do there?”

“I work for a travel magazine.”

“As what?”

“A travel writer.”

“I see you’ve been to many places, the last one you visited was Yemen.”

Aleena had forgotten how that might not sit well with U.S. authorities for a foreigner about to enter America.

“What did you write about in Yemen?”

“The city of Shibam.”

“Shibam?”

“It’s about two thousand years old and has skyscrapers made of mud. And I went to Socotra Island to see the strange vegetation and snow-white sand dunes.”

“What’s the purpose of your visit to the U.S.?”

“I’m writing features on New York City.”

“What sort of features?”

“About Times Square, Ground Zero.”

The inspector’s eyebrow arched and he looked again through Aleena’s passport. It had been a long time since he’d seen one where an individual had been to so many countries. Yemen. Yemen was a red flag.

“All right, we’re going to need to have a look in your bags.” He raised his arm to summon another agent. “Go with this guy coming over.”

The U.S. customs officer was grim-faced.

“May I see your passport and ticket, please?” he said, then inspected Aleena’s papers. “You have no checked bags to claim?”

“No.” She pushed her hair back.

Aleena swallowed hard.

She’d traveled the world. She’d encountered security hassles in Libya, Syria, Colombia, Mexico, Hong Kong and Kuwait City, but her instincts were screaming that today, of all days, something was wrong.

This is bad.

At that moment, she heard the yelp of a dog as the officer led her to an inspection zone with body scanners, X-ray machines, sniffer dogs. At an array of tables people were being searched, wanded, patted down, their belongings emptied from their luggage, sifted, scrutinized, swabbed.

“Put your bags on the table, please,” the officer said.

An inspector, an older man with blue latex gloves, sent Aleena’s bags through an X-ray machine while she endured a full-body scan. Then a female inspector patted her down and swabbed her hands for any trace of explosives.

With her belongings exposed the older officer examined every item-Aleena’s toiletries, her underwear. They opened her laptop, turned it on, swabbed it. Then the man held up the music box.

“Is this yours?”

“A gift for my girlfriend in New York. I plan to wrap it here.”

He opened it and it played. He closed it, then sent it through the X-ray machine again.

All the saliva in Aleena’s mouth evaporated.

God, what’s in that music box? What did Joost give me?

When it came through, he opened it and carefully began to take it apart, examining the cylinder and gear mechanism. The officer called into his shoulder microphone.

“Art, bring your partner over here, would ya?”

A dog yelped, a chain jingled and an officer with a German shepherd on a leash arrived, sniffing everything belonging to Aleena. The dog’s wet snout sniffed and snorted the music box’s mechanism.

Aleena’s stomach twisted at the fear her life could stop right here. If they found something, she’d be arrested, charged and end up in a U.S. prison.

Please. She blinked. Please.

“It’s good,” the dog handler said.

The inspector then swabbed it and submitted the sample to the machine for analysis.

“Okay, thank you.” The older officer returned all Aleena’s papers. “Get your things together, fill out an entry card and have a nice day.”

Aleena’s pulse was pounding as she repacked, shoving the music box deep into her bag as if it were an unwanted companion who’d misbehaved.

Exiting the airport she got a cab.

“The Grand Hyatt in Manhattan, near Grand Central Terminal,” she told the driver.

As they pulled away from the curb her heart was racing. It would be a long time before relief began to seep into Aleena’s veins. The first thing she would do at her hotel was take a long hot shower. Again she tested her memory on the emergency contact number: 718–555… As they glided along the freeway the flames of doubt began burning again. As the span of the magnificent George Washington Bridge rose in the distance Aleena struggled. She gazed across the Hudson at Manhattan’s glorious skyline.

She looked in her lap.

She was clutching the music box.

She pushed the button to lower her window and New Jersey’s industrial air rushed in tugging at her hair as she turned the music box over and over.

Maybe I should just throw it out the window?

Will I have blood on my hands?

Manhattan, New York City

Jeff was rising, surfacing from a sleep too deep for dreams.

Despairing cries clanged in the darkest reaches of his mind.

Lee Ann, Sarah, Cole .

Images whirled.

Grotesque ghost masks, Sarah’s face, Cole’s smile. Shoes. Take-out cups. News cameras. Motorcades. Toy airplanes. Planes hitting the towers. Lee Ann’s grave.

We fear the things we can’t control and grapple with the things we can.

Jeff woke, unable to move. His body ached. The aftereffects of stress had fused his bones to the bed.

Where am I? What’s happening?

As he struggled through his dazed numbness, his synapses fired and hurtled him with crystalline force back to his living nightmare.

He hefted himself and sat up at the side of his bed.

He was alone.

He inventoried the room. Morning after an intense battle: the two desks, chairs, were askew. Cordelli, Ortiz, Cassidy and Chu had taken away the crumpled notepaper, cables and other equipment. All that was left in the aftermath were empty soda cans, coffee cups, napkins, wrappers and the food trolley. Jeff was haunted by mental pictures of Cole, Sarah, and felt overcome with waves of helplessness.

Don’t wallow, do something, Griffin, haul ass!

He shaved and showered, making the water as cold as he could stand it, letting icy needles prick him until he was alert. He dressed, gulped cold coffee, then picked the most decent-looking food: a wrapped ham-and-cheese sandwich, an apple and a bottle of water.

That was breakfast.

He switched on the TV, keeping the volume low. It didn’t take long before he found a local New York news channel.

“…yes, and sources say that fears of a terrorist attack during the UN General Assembly have been heightened in the wake of two murders connected with the abductions of…”

Sarah and Cole stared back at him from the screen. Then Jeff saw himself at the podium, making his plea at the press conference. The faces of Donald Dalfini and Omarr Aimes surfaced before the news story cut to the UN building, motorcades, footage of world leaders coming and going in New York.

I’m wasting time. Come on. Do something.

There was a soft knock on the door to the adjoining room.

“Let us know when you’re ready, Mr. Griffin.”

Ready for what? To twiddle my thumbs while you babysit?

The FBI had placed two agents in the adjoining room “to assist you and for your protection, sir.”

Right.

Truth was, the investigators-Brewer, Cordelli, the FBI, all of them-did not want him left alone. They expected him to sit here in this room and do nothing.