‘Well, keep going. If he’s copying this Nazi, then there might be something that leads us to him. For example, what kind of crimes hasn’t he committed yet?’
Chapter Eighty-Five
The vigil was almost entirely peaceful. The NYPD Command Truck was parked across the entrance to the square on the south side. Harper and Eddie Kasper arrived back from their seventh tour around the square and went inside.
‘Update?’ called Harper to Lafayette.
Lafayette was sitting at one of the seats with headphones around his neck. ‘All are negatives. Nothing but complaints of infringements on human rights.’
‘How many searches have they done?’
‘Not got the numbers. Thousands, though.’
‘No calls or emails?’
‘Nothing. What’s the mood like?’
‘Peaceful,’ said Harper. ‘Everyone just wants to remember the dead. The park’s ablaze with candlelight. It’s moving. Really moving.’
There were four other men in the Command Truck monitoring their teams and liaising with the huge media operation. Harper stood at the door and stared across at their compound.
‘If the killer doesn’t show,’ he said, ‘they’re going to have a lot of footage about the vigil.’
‘Let’s hope that’s all they’ve got,’ said Lafayette. ‘We could do without another horror story.’
‘I hear you,’ said Eddie. ‘The city’s had enough tragedy.’
Harper nodded and made his way outside again. ‘Another tour, Eddie?’
‘Damn,’ said Eddie. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
The two cops moved back out into the darkness. The police compound took up the whole of the southern end of the park. Hundreds of police vehicles stretched out. Cops everywhere, sitting around, patrolling, and catching a bite to eat.
Harper and Eddie moved back into the park. The choppers that circled overhead were useless. This was a one-man operation. The most difficult kind of perp to catch: a man who no longer cared for his own safety. It could have been any one of the thousands of men in the park.
They walked up past the media center. The reporters were wrapped up warm, sitting on the steps of AV trucks sipping coffee from paper cups. Everyone was waiting for something to happen, but no one wanted it to. A strange mood of uncertainty pervaded the press pack. They weren’t their usual eager selves. Placards declared the need for peace and remembrance. Written messages told of someone’s deep love for a person they had lost. Flowers and tributes grew throughout the evening.
The police operation was vast, but once in the park itself it was almost invisible. There were patrol cops everywhere, but many more non-uniformed officers from the NYPD, Counter-Terrorism and the FBI. There were units at every entrance with sniffer dogs and Geiger counters, doing checks and searches. They wanted to prevent any atrocities, and individual searches were the only way.
So far, they’d confiscated drugs and nothing much else. All around the park, sitting in tight groups in the semi-darkness, were several Rapid Response Units from all parties. Counter-Terrorism’s Hercules Teams sat in blacked-out sedans at each corner of the park, waiting for orders. The NYPD’s ESU SWAT teams were stationed in big black armored Bearcats, tooled up and ready.
As they walked through the crowds of people who were singing, talking, praying and crying, it looked like whatever it was, it wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Crowds were still filtering in, some finding it hard to move through the streets towards the vigil. The killer stopped at the roadside and watched the people lining up and walking along with candles lit for the dead.
The crowds were different now. They were not the earlier enthusiasts or the serious mourners; these were groups of people coming out of bars and restaurants. They were probably a little drunk and looking for more excitement. And as they wandered the streets, they got caught up in the sound and mood of the all-night vigil.
The killer observed them with a sense of disgust. Revelers, unconcerned about what was happening to his city, to the country. They were mourning the loss of people who didn’t deserve to be alive, people who were part of the problem. The killer took a cigarette from a pack on the seat and lit up. His anger had lessened since he’d snatched Lucy. She was his now and he felt good about that. It gave him a strong feeling of calm to know that she was his and his alone.
He sat in his truck and watched the groups move past. He needed to find the right group. He needed to choose the right profile. It amused him to think of all the effort being expended by the cops in trying to write his profile. He could write it in two words.
A small group stopped by the side of his truck just after midnight. Jews with white and blue Israeli flags, chanting something he didn’t understand.
He watched their hesitation as they stared down the street.
‘It’s quicker this way,’ said one of them, a man.
‘I think they’ve closed the south entrance,’ said one of the girls.
‘You have to wait in line for a bag search. You need to be getting home.’
‘But it’s important,’ said the girl.
He had had enough. The killer shouted down from the cab: ‘You guys want to get a ride right to the heart of this thing? Ever been in a police truck?’
They looked up. The driver was a bright-eyed cop. He was smoking too — a lit cigarette hung from his lips. This was not like some of the hard-faced cops they’d met; this guy seemed different.
‘Where to?’ one of them asked.
‘I’m going to the police compound.’
‘I’d like a lift,’ said one of the girls.
‘I got an empty truck here and I’m going through the crowds and down to the compound. You want to get a VIP seat to the vigil?’
This group felt invulnerable, in the middle of a huge police operation. In the middle of their people. Why would a group of five fear a single cop? It was all about gaining trust.
‘I’m going now, anyway, make your minds up,’ said the killer.
‘I think we should do it,’ said one of the guys. ‘We should take the time to do this.’
‘Okay, that’s final,’ said the killer. He jumped down from the cab, opened the back of the van and let them pile in, then he shut and locked the door. There was a light in the back to prevent them from getting scared, but the moment he started to drive he would switch it off. That way, they wouldn’t be able to see where the gas was coming from and wouldn’t be able to cover the vent.
‘Ready to go?’ he shouted from the front cab. He could hear their cheers as he started the engine, drove away from the curb and into the traffic.
He had read from the Nazi reports of the use of gas vans that screaming was a problem. They had tried to stop this distraction by gagging the victims prior to putting them in the vans, but that just wasn’t possible in this case. The killer couldn’t gag them, so he had another plan.
Inside the back of the van, the group lurched left, then right, but they were laughing as they fell across each
