They Disappeared

“Like this.” Karen Lee showed the detectives a box containing a souvenir of the Empire State Building.

“Is that it?” Brewer and Cordelli sensed they were not being told everything. “You know, this case is very serious. We need the truth or anyone connected in any way could be in a lot of trouble.”

Feldman removed his glasses, ran a hand over his moist brow.

“Earlier this morning, a man came in and paid cash for a prepaid phone, like this one.” The man pointed to a packaged phone. “The man set it up and said Jeff would be in to pick it up. That’s it.”

Brewer took the package of the phone. He took a photo of it. “Are you sure it was just like this one?” Brewer pressed the man.

“Yes.”

Brewer emailed the photo from his phone, then made a call to request analysts contact the cell phone company to see if any phones of this model had been recently activated in their location. Brewer provided the bar code and other information.

Cordelli continued questioning the couple.

“Do you know the man who bought the phone for Jeff? Is he a regular? Has he ever paid for anything with a credit card?” Cordelli then glanced at the security camera above them.

“No. We’ve never seen him before,” the man said.

“Will you volunteer your surveillance tapes?”

“Of course, we want to cooperate, right, Karen?”

“For sure we will help police, for sure.”

At that moment in downtown Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge and city hall, detectives and analysts assigned to the case were going all-out at the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center.

In a softly lit, windowless room on a midlevel floor of One Police Plaza, they were using every high-tech resource they had to pinpoint Jeff Griffin’s location. They worked at rows of computer stations and screens before a massive two-story array of flat video panels, known as the data wall.

One displayed enlarged recent photos of Jeff Griffin so everyone at the RTCC and police on the street could identify him.

It was here at the center that they were also monitoring all calls on Jeff Griffin’s personal cell phone. They could not yet locate the origin of the kidnapper’s calls because they were coming from a prepaid phone without any personal information. So far they had nothing specific on the phone being used by the suspects to contact Jeff.

One detective was processing the information Brewer had just relayed from the package of a phone identical to the one left for Jeff at the gift store.

At the same time, Renee Abbott, one of the RTCC’s top analysts, was welded to her work on Jeff Griffin’s personal phone. Thank God Jeff had left it on. The roaming signal was good.

As long as you keep it on, I can find you.

Renee, tracking Jeff’s roaming signal using satellite mapping, was able to narrow the signal location down to the block he was on. She could also determine the direction Jeff was moving. Renee could then tap into more detailed city maps to display nearby landmarks, then employ the surveillance cameras.

We’re one step behind you.

The challenge was to not let Jeff or the kidnappers know how close they were behind them. The NYPD could not use marked units with lights and sirens to block streets, not with two hostages, one a child, at risk. And Renee knew Jeff’s trail would die if Jeff switched off his personal cell phone and removed the battery.

She concentrated on the latest signal flash on her computer screen, then the data wall and geocode maps.

All right.

Her keyboard clicked.

This is it.

Renee dispatched an update to the lead detectives and plainclothes units on the street.

“Heads up. We have a new location.”

23

Manhattan, New York City

The caller’s machinelike voice gave Jeff detailed orders.

“Go to the Thirty-fourth Street subway station. Take the Seventh Avenue express line south to Fourteenth Street. You will get further instructions there.”

As Jeff took notes on a hotel message pad, the hotel pen kept slipping through his sweating fingers. He stopped and used the top of a city trash bin to steady his writing.

The call had come through the new phone, the one they’d said police could not track. As he resumed jostling through the city’s busy streets, new fears gnawed at him.

New York was overwhelming.

He didn’t know the city, let alone the subway system.

What if I can’t find the right train, or get on the wrong one?

He drew the back of his hand across his mouth, fumbling with his maps, trusting he was moving in the right direction as another fear bit at him.

The plane.

God, did I make a mistake? Without the plane I have nothing. I should go back and get it. No, the plane is critical. It’s all I have to bargain for Sarah’s and Cole’s lives.

Jeff ran along Seventh Avenue by Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. The Seventh Avenue subway line was also known as the Broadway Line. The subway stop at Thirty-fourth Street and Penn Station extended over Thirty-second, Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth streets, according to Jeff’s map.

Which one do I take?

He stopped in front of the Thirty-second Street entrance to Penn Station, one of the busiest train stations in the world. Rivers of passengers flowed in and out of the building under the neon sign promoting a rock concert at Madison Square Garden. Jeff was unsure of the best way to go. Before descending the stairs into the concourse, he asked for help from a gray-stubbled man giving away commuter newspapers.

“I have to get on a train going south on the Seventh Avenue Broadway Line, is this the fastest way?”

“Naw, take the Thirty-fourth Street station.” He nodded to the stop a few blocks from where they stood. “See, that’s the best one for the Broadway Line.”

Jeff set out for the station. As he threaded through the pedestrian traffic his personal cell phone rang.

The number was blocked.

What if the killers were calling to check that he’d tossed the phone; or Cordelli had news; or it was Sarah or Cole? It rang again. He couldn’t let it go. He answered without speaking.

“Mr. Griffin?” a familiar voice asked. “Hello, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Russ Powell at the Times. We were talking earlier.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Mr. Griffin, I just need a moment.”

“I can’t talk to you now.”

“Sir, I get the sense you’ve just had contact with your abducted wife, Sarah. Can you confirm that?”

“I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Jeff ended the call, shut off his phone, knowing he may have shut off his lifeline to Sarah and Cole. Just for a few moments, he told himself as he entered the station at Thirty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue. The stairway shuddered as humid air with a trace of sewer smell carried the clamor of trains. Inside, he found a station booth, thankful there were only seven people ahead of him. His turn came fast.

“Next.” The agent’s voice sounded like it came from a tin can.

“I’m a first-time user of the subway-”