“You know, anyone would have done what I did, Juanita. They would’ve gone out on their own if it meant getting their family back.”
She looked at him, at his face laced with cuts, scrapes. He looked as if he’d been at the losing end of a brawl. He was beat up physically, emotionally, but he was not defeated and she admired that about him.
“I know, Jeff.”
“I remember seeing a picture of a little girl on your desk,” he said. “You have kids?”
“Our daughter, Lucy, is six.”
“Tell me about her?”
Ortiz’s face softened into a smile.
“She’s perfect. She’s everything to us and I would die without her.”
Jeff nodded, narrowing his eyes as he searched the streets for a way out of his nightmare.
“Tell me about Cole, Jeff?”
“He’s my buddy. He has a heart of gold. When-” Jeff swallowed. “When Lee Ann was born all he wanted to do was hold her and look after her. You know what he did before we brought her home from the hospital? He took his favorite old toys, lined them up in her nursery, to welcome her and watch over her.”
Jeff shook his head, glowing at the memory, then his face slowly darkened.
“I’ve got to find them, Juanita.”
Central Park gave Jeff sanctuary from his nightmare.
Here, the boiling chaos of the city melted into the peace of the creeks, waterfalls, vast green expanses and sheltering trees.
Central Park was an island of calm.
Jeff and Ortiz found a bench near the Gapstow Bridge at the northeast end of the Pond.
“This is where Sarah and I met, really got to know each other,” Jeff said. “We went to the same high school and I sort of knew her. I liked her and thought she was nice but she was dating a farm kid on the basketball team. Then we came to New York City on a school trip, about fifty students.
“We were in the park, around here, and Sarah was off by herself crying. She looked so sad and alone. I’d learned that her boyfriend had broken up with her and all I could think was who would be dumb enough to break the heart of such an angel. So I started talking to her. I told her not to worry, that what happened was the best thing because I was going to marry her one day and we would have the greatest life and come back here with our kids and tell them about it and laugh at the day her idiot boyfriend broke her heart.”
Ortiz smiled.
Breezes fingered through the trees and Jeff looked up.
“Lee Ann’s death undid us. We came here a broken family and I wanted to smash what was left. Sarah wanted to save it. But by the time I realized she was right, she and Cole were gone.”
Jeff leaned forward and cupped his battered face in his hands.
“I can’t stop believing that this is my fault.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Ortiz said.
“It started here. I’m the one who wanted to come back here. I’m the one who let Lee Ann slip away from us. I’m the one who wanted to destroy what was left of our family. I had Sarah in my arms this morning, now she’s gone again. And I don’t know where Cole is.”
They sat without speaking for a long stretch. Jeff’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the bench and the muscles in his jaw bunched as his anguish turned to rage.
“If those fuckers harm my family, I will find them and I will kill them.”
Ortiz said nothing and they sat there watching the wind ripple the glass surface of the water.
37
The most advanced forensic laboratory in the world was located at the sprawling FBI Academy in the Virginia woods, fifty miles outside of Washington, D.C.
When the traffic was good, Special Agent Wilfred North could make it to his suburban district home in thirty minutes. He was collecting reports and contemplating the drive at the end of his day when his cell rang.
It was the deputy director.
“Glad I caught you, Will. We need an immediate assessment of a component related to a live credible threat in New York. I’ll send you the report from the preliminary work the NYPD did earlier today. We’ve just flown the device to Quantico. I’ve told Chuck I want you and your people to process it. We need to know who made it, who is using it, where it came from, everything you can tell us ASAP. You should have it in minutes.”
North set aside his reports, then emailed several ATF colleagues, as well as scientists, engineers and technicians who worked with him. He requested that they stand by to consult. Then North texted his wife he’d miss dinner.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
As one of the FBI’s top veteran forensic investigators at the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, his work often involved cases where lives were at stake.
North was six months from retiring. He and his wife were to meet a Realtor this evening to discuss purchasing a cabin near Canmore, Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies. But North shoved personal matters out of his head while he waited for the device.
Seated at his workstation, he cleaned his glasses with a soft cloth and reflected on his career. A former U.S. marine before he joined the FBI, North was a certified bomb technician and a crime scene investigator. He’d then worked in counterintelligence before he played a key role at the TEDAC.
The center was a multiagency branch where North’s team analyzed bomb fragments, components, data and intelligence from explosions, plots and investigations in the U.S. and around the world. The team alerted its domestic partners and international allies with data they needed to find those responsible for an attack, or to prevent one from happening.
Over the years, North’s work included investigations related to Oklahoma City, the USS
North’s computer chimed with an email from the deputy director; a classified copy of the NYPD’s assessment of the device. North had just enough time to read and circulate it to his colleagues when the package arrived.
He slipped on his lab coat, latex gloves and began. He kept his workstation with its multifaceted computer system and various scopes and monitors spotless.
North activated the secure encrypted online system, then connected his headset. This accelerated analysis enabled his colleagues in the TEDAC and in labs across the country to see everything he saw in real time while allowing them to simultaneously access their systems to conduct research and offer live commentary.
Because of the superb preliminary work by Lori Hall at the NYPD, they were up to speed on the item.
North placed the component on a tray and positioned it with one of his powerful microscopes, equipped with HD webcam capabilities. He brought everything into focus for his colleagues online.
“What we have,” North said, “is a wafer detonator, microscopic in scale, that was concealed by affixing it to a contact clip in the battery housing of a plastic pull-back toy jumbo jetliner. Can everyone see that?”
North waited for confirmation before resuming.
“Now the toy itself was manufactured in China’s Chenghai district and the dominant material was non- phthalate PVC. We need the signature of the component maker. The detonator is a state-of-the-art, highly sophisticated device. Let’s look at all aspects. I haven’t seen anything like this before. Time is working against us. Everyone knows the drill, so let’s get to it.”
The experts undertook a number of procedures using an array of top-secret databases, secured with layers of passwords.
They looked into bomb-tracking systems containing more than two thousand reports detailing components used in improvised explosives and incendiary devices in the U.S.
