Page 24 of Cross Down
I go with him to a door that leads to a stairwell. Ned makes a point of gently closing the door behind us, and we walk down two flights. He stops at a landing, peers over the banister, then looks up. Apparently satisfied, he says, “Okay, this should work.”
“A touch suspicious?” I ask.
He leans against the wall. “You should be suspicious too, John, after this morning.”
“Because it wasn’t a random terrorist attack but a straight hit?” I ask.
He says, “What makes you think that?”
“Alex and I had planned to meet each other outside of headquarters this morning at eight thirty. That’s when the dummy Amazon delivery van pulled up and started blasting.”
“Could be—”
“A coincidence? No, not a chance. It wasn’t a random spray-and-run-away. They were coming straight at us. I guess you guys have taken the lead on this one?”
He sighs. “We have, but we’re running out of resources pretty quick, given all the previous attacks. But this one is personal for me, and for the Bureau.”
“Well, same here, Ned. And I took it personally when I dropped one of the assholes. What have you been able to find out about him?”
“Nothing. Blank slate. Fingerprints didn’t come back with anything. We’re running DNA analyses and facial recognition on the guy. Nothing from his clothes or body armor.”
“His weapon?”
“Blank, just like the shooter.”
“But even with the serial number removed by acid or grinding, there’s still a way to recover the info, right?”
Ned shakes his head. “You don’t get it, John. There was never any serial numberon the weapon. You know who has weapons like that?”
A chill tickled the back of my neck. “Special-ops forces from around the world who have secret contracts with Heckler and Koch because they need weapons that are untraceable.”
“Yeah,” Ned says. “And you know that Amazon van?”
“Stolen plates?”
Another shake of the head. “No. Which is even scarier. From surveillance video and witness accounts, we got that license plate number. Ran it through the DMV in Virginia, and the plates came back belonging to Amazon and its logistics center in Springfield. We contacted Amazon. They said it wasn’t theirs. We sent an agent to the DMV and got a report an hour ago.”
I think for a moment. “The plate was salted into the Virginia DMV’s database. If a cop had pulled the van over on the way to the hit, its plates would have checked out.”
Ned steps forward and again looks up and down the stairwell. “That takes a high level of sophistication, John. Plus we heard from witnesses that the van had been up-armored. No return fire was going to hit the driver or engine or take out the tires.”
“I saw that as well,” I say. “High level indeed. How did the principals’ meeting go?”
“A cluster you-know-what. Lots of finger-pointing, blame game going full force, and a couple of shouting matches. General Grissom did his best to rein them in, but Secretary Landsdale from Homeland Security kept needling him. Big disagreement as to the breadth and depth of the attack coming our way. President Kent just sat there looking depressed. Congress is still sitting on its hands regarding his legislative program. Poor guy.”
I rub the back of my head. “Who represented Metro PD?”
“Some captain I didn’t know.”
“Figures,” I say. I look around—paranoia can spread easily—and say, “Alex told me something just before he was shot, something he’d figured out and planned to bring up at the meeting. He said we were looking at the terrorist attacks in the wrong way. The patterns are too random, like they’ve been carefully planned out to look random and unconnected.”
“Interesting. Then what?”
“Then the bullets started flying.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, would’ve loved to knowmore about what he was thinking.”
