Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

Sarah smashed her foot on his hand before he could complete the call.

Ortiz, Klaver and several other NYPD officers arrived. They subdued and arrested Tatayev and the paramedics.

Jeff and Klaver rushed to the ambulance, coming first to the rear and opening its doors. There was no trace of Cole. Instead, Jeff and Klaver saw the wires and the driver begin to press numbers on the mounted cell phone keypad.

Klaver drew his weapon.

“NYPD! Freeze!”

The driver continued pressing keys and Klaver fired two bullets into his head, killing him instantly. More people screamed at the sound of gunfire as police battled to take control and clear the park.

“Everyone get the hell away from the ambulance! Get out of the park!” officers yelled as people ran in all directions. Security details moved instantly to evacuate the delegation.

As Tatayev, his hands cuffed behind his back, was taken by police from the park, Jeff and Sarah confronted him.

In the mayhem in front of news cameras, they implored the warlord to tell them where Cole was.

“We will exchange his life for the lives of the Russian criminals.”

Sarah slapped his face.

“Where’s my son, you bastard?”

“On his way to heaven.”

Ozone Park, Queens, New York City

About ninety minutes after the Bryant Park plot was thwarted, police had followed a tip that led them to a home in a blue-collar section of Queens, a three-bedroom stucco bungalow south of Liberty Avenue on Eighty-sixth Street near the Bayside Cemetery.

Through binoculars, Cordelli, Brewer and several other investigators watched the house from down the street.

The people inside had no inkling of what was coming for them.

Patrol units from the One Hundred and Sixth Precinct had taken the outer perimeter. They’d stopped all traffic for several blocks around the hot zone while officers had swiftly and quietly escorted residents from homes that were in the line of fire. They’d moved them to safety near the cemetery while members of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit took the inner perimeter and were setting up on the house.

The shades were pulled on all the main floor windows; sun-faded orange curtains covered those in the basement. The neighbors had told police that a man and woman lived in the home and “kept to themselves.” An older neighbor, a woman holding a cat, said that earlier that morning the couple had been visited by strangers who’d backed a panel van into their driveway. A small Nissan, registered to the address, was parked out front. None of the neighbors could confirm if there were guns in the house. None were registered to the address.

The unit was braced for any outcome.

“Stand by,” the ESU squad commander said to his team through his throat microphone. Given the magnitude of what had happened in Bryant Park, its ties to the murders and abduction, the squad, one of the NYPD’s best, was preparing to make a no-knock forced rapid entry.

The team was positioned and ready.

The area fell silent.

After one last round of radio checks, the commander said, “Go!”

Glass in the main floor windows shattered as stun grenades were fired into the house with a series of deafening bangs and blinding flashes. Heavily armed ESU members wearing body armor smashed through the back and front doors to find a man and a woman in the living room watching TV news.

“New York Police Department! Get on the floor now!”

Disoriented and confused, the couple offered no resistance as they were handcuffed. While ESU members continued searching the house, others took the suspects to the command-post bus. Inside, FBI and NYPD investigators from the Joint Terrorism Task Force read them their rights and, after separating them, began questioning them independently.

“Is there anyone else inside?” Brewer asked.

The property owner was Natasha Barlinsky, a thirty-six-year-old American teacher of Mykrekistani descent. Five years earlier she’d taught English in Mykrekistan where she’d met Andrei Propov, a thirty-three-year-old ex-Russian soldier, who was sympathetic to the independence movement.

They married and Propov moved with Barlinsky to the U.S.

Barlinsky’s name surfaced while Cordelli and Brewer were at the factory in the Bronx. It arose from a detective investigating the case of Aleena Visser.

The detective had informed Cordelli and Brewer that Visser, a Dutch national, had been critically injured after she’d been struck by a dump truck near Grand Central. From her hospital bed, Visser had told the detective that the number 718-555-7685 was connected to a terror plot, that she believed she’d smuggled a key item into New York. She’d delivered it to a Russian-looking stranger for Joost Smit of Amsterdam, a former Russian security agent, who’d died the previous day.

Through an immediate and combined effort of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the CIA and the NSA, investigators confirmed much of Aleena Visser’s information. They’d managed to track the 718-555-7685 number to a cell phone, a prepaid model. It was purchased several weeks earlier at a drugstore along with toothpaste, shampoo, vitamins and several other items. It was a cash purchase. However, a customer points card was also used; the card was traced to Barlinsky. Barlinsky’s husband, the CIA had learned from sources in Europe, was said to be part of a U.S.-based support cell for Mykrekistani insurgents.

Propov refused to utter a word to investigators after he was arrested.

Barlinsky requested a lawyer.

Inside the house, ESU officers scoured every room, checking furniture, the shower, closets, walls and ceilings for signs of other people. One member moved through the basement, careful to inspect the washer and dryer. On another assignment he’d found a female suspect curled up in a dryer. He looked under a workbench. Nothing. Then he checked large storage bins, unrolled a carpet. Again nothing .

All clear here.

Turning to go, he noticed that a section of the room’s wall paneling seemed ever-so-slightly out of line. He tapped the wall. The board was loose. He used his knife to pry it a little and the entire section gave way, revealing a large hidden room.

In his time on the job, the officer had come upon many heart-stopping moments, but this one took his breath away.

“Jesus Christ!”

Across New York City, in midtown, police had diverted traffic around the incident, and then launched the evacuation of the surrounding streets exposed to Bryant Park while they worked on the ambulance.

The vehicle had been implanted with enough explosive material to make it one of the largest bombs the NYPD had ever faced.

At a command post two blocks away, Jeff watched paramedics assess Sarah as she agonized over Cole.

“Where is he, Jeff?” she pleaded from the back of ambulance. “Why won’t they tell us anything?”

He looked to Ortiz and Klaver nearby, among the group of NYPD and FBI investigators talking at a cluster of emergency vehicles. The two detectives nodded to the supervisors while shooting glances at Sarah and Jeff before approaching them. Their grim faces and body language deepened Jeff and Sarah’s fears and she squeezed his arm so tight it hurt.

“We found Cole,” Ortiz said.

“Oh, God, is he hurt?” Sarah asked.

Ortiz exchanged a subtle glance with Klaver.

“Is he alive?” Jeff said.

“Yes.”

“Where is he? We want to see him,” Sarah said.

“He’s in a house in Queens,” Klaver said.

“Take us there now,” Jeff said.

“It’s better if you wait here,” Klaver said.

Jeff glared at both detectives.

“Tell us what’s going on-is he hurt? Tell us.”