Page 14 of The Accomplice
‘He left his bag in the room ?’
‘No, he left it with the manager.’
‘Is it him ? Is it Miller ?’ asked Delaney, a sick feeling in her stomach. The last thing they needed was someone to steal Miller’s credit cards. It had to be him, the Sandman.
‘It’s him.’
‘Is there security footage ?’
‘Their security cameras work off of a VCR which broke down five years ago and they haven’t been able to find someone to fix it and they can’t afford a new system. There’s no video. The manager gave a rough description and it’s the right age and right height.’
‘Did you show him a photograph of Miller ?’
‘I did. He said he could’ve been the guy. He was wearing a cap. We don’t know how Miller might have altered his appearance in the past year. But don’t worry. It’s him.’
‘How do you know for sure it’s the Sandman ?’
‘He used his American Express and he left us a note. Come on, we’ve got to clear the perimeter,’ he said, handing Delaney a clear plastic evidence bag with a guest registration slip inside. Then he took her arm, and gently turned her around and led her away from the building.
She looked at the guest registration form.
He’d signed itD Miller. Used the Meadow Road address in Old Westbury. She turned the slip over.
Written on the back were two words.
Tick – Tock.
As she thought about the significance of those words, Delaney glanced over her shoulder at the hotel, then back to the parking lot, filled with police vehicles.
‘We need to put some men in the hotel, hide these cars and set up a perimeter with unmarked vehicles. He could be back any second,’ she said.
‘He’s not coming back,’ said Bill. ‘I went into the storage room, then turned and walked straight back out when I heard it.’
‘When you heard what ?’
‘Miller’s bag. It’s ticking. The bomb disposal team will be here in five.’
Delaney’s shoulders slumped.
‘He didn’t run out of cash. He didn’t make a mistake,’ she said.
Bill nodded, called out to the force in the lot to move back, clear the area.
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Bill. ‘He wanted us to go straight to the bag and then –boom.’
‘Why now ?’ asked Delaney, more to herself than Bill.
‘Maybe because his wife goes on trial in a couple of days.’
The bomb disposal unit rolled into the lot as the police vehicles started to move out and form a wide perimeter. Grady’s Inn enjoyed a lot of grounds around it. Mostly badly kept lawn and trees that went all the way back to another four-lane highway. The closest building happened to be a Baptist church, and it was well out of range of any device that could be hidden in a backpack. Still, the police made sure no one else drove into the lot and they got the only two members of staff to a safe distance. Even with all that legwork, there were still too many cops around and Bill sent a third of them to go patrol the area, and another third to go find whatever road cameras covered the approaches to the hotel and secure the footage for the hour around his arrival and departure. If they were lucky, they might be able to pick up a license plate. They suspected he was regularly changing the truck plates if he was still driving it.
All of this was discussed at the mobile NYPD command vehicle, set fifty feet from a row of blast screens that were rapidly being erected in front of the hotel. Nothing they could do about saving the building if the device went off, the screens were there to catch debris and glass from the explosion.
The unit sent in their robot, and Delaney set in for the wait. These things take a long time, and they feel even longer. It’s a strange sensation, waiting for an explosion. Something like a bored tension. Delaney had experienced it a few times in her life. She had joined the feds after she mustered out of the US Army. Tours in Iraq and Afghanistan were enough to make her realize a career change was in order. Sitting in a base, in the supposed downtimes between missions, gave her that unusual, apathic strain. There was no downtime – not really. At a half-hour’s notice she could be back in the shit and even in the base there remained the ever-present threat of a mortar attack, or a suicide bomber rolling into the compound in a Semi filled with ordinance. It was during those periods of agonized waiting that she began to appreciate how her mother felt. That was also part of the reason for quitting the military. During Delaney’s tours, Colleen would visit the little parish church in Dorchester, daily, light a candle and pray to Saint Mary for her safe return. When Delaney came home from her tour, the priest told her Colleen almost burned the place to the ground with those candles.
This waiting was similar, but it didn’t make her sweat so much. Not like Fallujah. And it wasn’t the heat back then. It was the pressure cramping her shoulders and creeping up the back of her neck to boil her brain. She stood with Bill, leaning on the hood of his Range Rover while she ground her teeth. Not much happened for forty minutes or more. A team of forensic techs arrived with coffee to wait it out until they got the all-clear. A bomb technician suited up in heavy, blast-proof armor and slid through the gap in the blast shield, headed for the hotel. Another half hour passed before Bill got word over the comms.
‘All clear. It’s a false alarm. There’s no device in the bag,’ said the technician.
