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.
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.”
Ortiz swallowed. Her eyes softened and in that instant she was more mother than detective when she touched Sarah’s shoulder.
“He’s wired to explosives.”
“Oh, God!” Sarah screamed. Jeff cupped his hands to his face as Ortiz and Klaver tried to console them.
“We’ve got people working on it, good people,” Ortiz said.
“Where in Queens? We want to go there now!” Jeff said.
“We need to be there,” Sarah said. “No matter what happens, Cole has to know we’re there with him, near him. Please.”
Ortiz absorbed Sarah’s anguish before taking the request to Gabe Kreston, one of the task force commanders. Kreston listened as Ortiz explained. When one of Kreston’s FBI counterparts saw that he was considering the request, he said, “You don’t want the parents at the scene if this thing goes bad, Gabe.”
Knowing she was out of line, Ortiz said, “Sir, I think they deserve to be there. We can keep them back.” Ortiz nodded to some news trucks. “Those guys already have cameras on the house. One way or another they’ll see the outcome.”
Kreston rubbed his chin, then nodded.
“Take them to the command post in Queens. Let Cordelli and Brewer know.”
In Ozone Park, in the basement of the house, Cole sat on a swivel office chair, crying softly under the tape sealing his mouth.
Four white bricks of C-4 were duct-taped to his chest, as if he were wearing a bizarre vest made of butter sticks. His arms and legs were taped to the chair. Tears and sweat dampened Cole’s face, but the lone ESU officer sitting with him was instructed not to touch him.
All he could do was try to keep Cole calm.
“It’s gonna be okay, son. Our best guy will be down here.”
After the officer had flagged the situation to his squad members, all radio and cell phone communication in the area had been cut, in case the bomb was remotely triggered by a wireless device. A shadow, then a small tap on a basement window, signaled that help had arrived.
The floor above creaked from a colossal weight as an alien being in a hulking green canvas suit, resembling a mix between an astronaut and deep-sea diver, descended the stairs with the speed of Frankenstein’s monster.
Detective Bill Grant was inside the suit and he was pissed off. Upon arriving, he’d lost an argument with his boss. Grant did not want to wear the suit for this case.
“The boy has no protection and when he sees that I do, it tells him that I’m prepared to fail and he could
