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
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.
“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.
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.”
70
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
