Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

It was filled with equipment and an array of small monitors. While Jeff talked with King and Lustig, another crew member was working remotely, communicating through a headset to their cameraman, who was providing images of the Bryant Park ceremony as it got under way.

“Let me get this straight,” Lustig said to Jeff. “You think your wife and son are here somewhere with the terrorists?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re part of that thing going on in the Bronx right now, in Purgatory? We’ve got a crew there, right, Joyce?” King was on a cell phone to their desk, and nodded to Lustig. “Christ, this is a helluva thing,” Lustig said. “Okay, tell us what we need to do to help you?”

“Can you search the crowd with your camera? I know it’s a long shot but everything tells me they’re here.”

Lustig tapped the shoulder of the technician.

“Tell Sonny to take a lot of long cutaways and pan the crowd, get faces and anything unusual.” Then to Jeff, Lustig said, “You’ll see what the camera sees on the monitors. If we need to zero in on something, tell me.”

Sarah was terrified.

Standing in front of the platform, gripping her notepad, she wanted to scream out to the real police who were nearby.

She didn’t. She couldn’t because of Cole.

The threat they’d made against Cole prevented her from doing anything that would put her son’s life in further danger.

God, please help us get through this. Please, I’m begging You.

The event commenced with a few opening words, then a performance by a Russian dance group. As it ended with applause, Tatayev spoke into Sarah’s ear.

“We want you to faint and not move!”

Sarah didn’t respond.

“You will go down in five seconds if you want to see your son!”

Sarah took a deep breath and started counting. When she reached five she collapsed. Tatayev and his partner feigned an attempt to catch her as she fell on her back.

People near her gasped.

A woman knelt down and took Sarah’s hand.

“I’m calling 9-1-1….” A man reached for his phone.

“We’ve got it.” Tatayev stepped into their view, raised his radio and called for medical help. “We’re right here.”

Two paramedics from the white EMS ambulance responded quickly, bringing a stretcher and bag to the front of the platform where they began working on Sarah. The TV cameras in front of the platform turned to the medical emergency. The incident caused some confusion among the other emergency crews at the event.

They radioed to each other.

“Who are those guys? What’s going on? Did we miss something? Somebody should check this out.”

After tending to Sarah, the paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher, then one made a radio call for his ambulance.

“We’re going to need our rig in here,” he said.

“Wave it in!” Tatayev nodded.

People shuffled aside as the white EMS ambulance began inching through the crowd to where Sarah was in front of the platform.

Medical crews and security officials were puzzled as to why the paramedics were disrupting the event. Why not transport their patient to their ambulance, why waste time moving it to the platform? As the vehicle crept forward, a befuddled official knocked on the driver’s window.

“Hey, hotshot, what’re you doing?”

The driver ignored him and continued inching the ambulance forward. Inside, the driver checked a cell phone keypad. It was secured on the overhead console in a motherboard that was linked to a detonation system and a nest of wires, duct-taped to the ceiling, as they flowed throughout the interior.

The ambulance was equipped with reinforced suspension because it weighed nearly three times more than a standard EMS ambulance.

The rotating emergency light mounted on the dash of Detective Juanita Ortiz’s unmarked Impala painted her face red.

The car’s siren died when she braked on the Fortieth Street side of Bryant Park and got out with Detective Klaver.

They’d been ordered to locate Jeff Griffin, who was not answering their calls. Upon discovering that he’d left the scene at the factory in the Bronx, Ortiz got the name of the cab company Jeff had used from a cop at the scene. Klaver had reached the driver through his dispatcher for the location where he’d dropped Jeff.

Investigators were concerned that Jeff may again have had contact with the suspects, or come upon new information.

“This guy.” Klaver held up his phone showing Jeff’s photo to several uniformed officers at one of the entrances.

“That’s the Montana guy whose wife and kid were abducted,” said one of the young cops.

“That’s correct,” Klaver said. “We’ve got to blast this photo to everyone working the park now. He’s here somewhere. We need to find him now!”

“Hold on,” said one of the officers, checking his phone. “We just got an arrest-on-sight alert for this guy, Bulat Tatayev.”

Officers had been provided color front and profile photos of a bald white man with a wild black beard that emphasized the fierce intensity of his dark eyes.

Inside the 99 NewsLine van, Jeff studied the TV monitors and the images of the crowds before the camera cut to the woman on the stretcher who was being treated by paramedics.

He didn’t recognize her.

Then the camera pulled back and Jeff’s breathing stopped.

“Hold it!”

“What is it?” Lustig asked.

“Tell your cameraman to zoom in on the woman on the stretcher, her shoes.”

“Tell Sonny to get tight on her feet,” Lustig said.

The woman’s sneakers filled the monitors.

“How’s that? Is there something there?” Lustig turned to Jeff but saw only his ball cap and sunglasses on the chair.

Jeff had left the van to charge into the crowd toward the stretcher.

As the dance group took bows on the platform, the library official hosting the event was mindful of the apparent medical incident a few feet below them.

The VIPs seated on stage behind her were still whispering small talk about the Battery Park incident. The Russian delegation was anxious, something underscored by the ambulance inching forward.

The library official was about to announce a pause in the program but became distracted by a disruption at the periphery of the terrace.

“Sarah!”

Jeff called for her, consumed with one thought.

I can’t lose her again!

“Sarah!”

Pushing through the crowd Jeff’s entire being had become a driving force bent on saving his family. He didn’t think of getting help or alerting police, not even when he slammed into the back of the NYPD officer who was talking to Ortiz and Klaver.

The detectives turned.

“Hey, Jeff!” Klaver yelled. “That’s our guy!”

Ortiz and Klaver pursued him as the uniformed officer shouted alerts into his radio.

Jeff advanced far ahead of them and fought his way to the stretcher.

“Sarah!”

Hearing her husband’s voice, Sarah opened her eyes.

“Jeff! Oh, God! Jeff!” Sarah’s voice broke. “They still have Cole!” She pointed to Tatayev, dressed as an NYPD officer. “Stop him!” Then she pointed at the two paramedics. “Them, too, they’re the killers! There’s a bomb in the ambulance!”

In an instant Tatayev reached into his breast pocket for a cell phone and began entering the call code to activate the detonator. Before he could complete the call, Jeff tackled him, knocking his cell phone from his hand. Tatayev, Jeff and the paramedics struggled for it as onlookers, thinking Jeff was dangerously disturbed, debated intervening while yelling for more police to back up the cop and paramedics.

Others screamed about a bomb. Terror, panic and confusion spread through the park. Jeff was overpowered and Tatayev recovered the phone. Without getting up he resumed entering the code.