They Disappeared Page 28

  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.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Ozone Park, Queens, New York City

  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 of what had happened in Bryant Park, its ties to the murders and abduction, the squad, one of the NYPD’s best, was preparing to make a no-knock forced rapid entry.

  The team was positioned and ready.

  The area fell silent.

  After one last round of radio checks, the commander said, “Go!”

  Glass in the main floor windows shattered as stun grenades were fired into the house with a series of deafening bangs and blinding flashes. Heavily armed ESU members wearing body armor smashed through the back and front doors to find a man and a woman in the living room watching TV news.

  “New York Police Department! Get on the floor now!”

  Disoriented and confused, the couple offered no resistance as they were handcuffed. While ESU members continued searching the house, others took the suspects to the command-post bus. Inside, FBI and NYPD investigators from the Joint Terrorism Task Force read them their rights and, after separating them, began questioning them independently.

  “Is there anyone else inside?” Brewer asked.

  The property owner was Natasha Barlinsky, a thirty-six-year-old American teacher of Mykrekistani descent. Five years earlier she’d taught English in Mykrekistan where she’d met Andrei Propov, a thirty-three-year-old ex-Russian soldier, who was sympathetic to the independence movement.

  They married and Propov moved with Barlinsky to the U.S.

  Barlinsky’s name surfaced while Cordelli and Brewer were at the factory in the Bronx. It arose from a detective investigating the case of Aleena Visser.

  The detective had informed Cordelli and Brewer that Visser, a Dutch national, had been critically injured after she’d been struck by a dump truck near Grand Central. From her hospital bed, Visser had told the detective that the number 718-555-7685 was connected to a terror plot, that she believed she’d smuggled a key item into New York. She’d delivered it to a Russian-looking stranger for Joost Smit of Amsterdam, a former Russian security agent, who’d died the previous day.

  Through an immediate and combined effort of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the CIA and the NSA, investigators confirmed much of Aleena Visser’s information. They’d managed to track the 718-555-7685 number to a cell phone, a prepaid model. It was purchased several weeks earlier at a drugstore along with toothpaste, shampoo, vitamins and several other items. It was a cash purchase. However, a customer points card was also used; the card was traced to Barlinsky. Barlinsky’s husband, the CIA had learned from sources in Europe, was said to be part of a U.S.-based support cell for Mykrekistani insurgents.

  Propov refused to utter a word to investigators after he was arrested.

  Barlinsky requested a lawyer.

  Inside the house, ESU officers scoured every room, checking furniture, the shower, closets, walls and ceilings for signs of other people. One member moved through the basement, careful to inspect the washer and dryer. On another assignment he’d found a female suspect curled up in a dryer. He looked under a workbench. Nothing. Then he checked large storage bins, unrolled a carpet. Again nothing.

  All clear here.

  Turning to go, he noticed that a section of the room’s wall paneling seemed ever-so-slightly out of line. He tapped the wall. The board was loose. He used his knife to pry it a little and the entire section gave way, revealing a large hidden room.

  In his time on the job, the officer had come upon many heart-stopping moments, but this one took his breath away.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  * * *

  Across New York City, in midtown, police had diverted traffic around the incident, and then launched the evacuation of the surrounding streets exposed to Bryant Park while they worked on the ambulance.

  The vehicle had been implanted with enough explosive material to make it one of the largest bombs the NYPD had ever faced.

  At a command post two blocks away, Jeff watched paramedics assess Sarah as she agonized over Cole.

  “Where is he, Jeff?” she pleaded from the back of ambulance. “Why won’t they tell us anything?”

  He looked to Ortiz and Klaver nearby, among the group of NYPD and FBI investigators talking at a cluster of emergency vehicles. The two detectives nodded to the supervisors while shooting glances at Sarah and Jeff before approaching them. Their grim faces and body language deepened Jeff and Sarah’s fears and she squeezed his arm so tight it hurt.

  “We found Cole,” Ortiz said.

 
“Oh, God, is he hurt?” Sarah asked.

  Ortiz exchanged a subtle glance with Klaver.

  “Is he alive?” Jeff said.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he? We want to see him,” Sarah said.

  “He’s in a house in Queens,” Klaver said.

  “Take us there now,” Jeff said.

  “It’s better if you wait here,” Klaver said.

  Jeff glared at both detectives.

  “Tell us what’s going on—is he hurt? Tell us.”

  Ortiz swallowed. Her eyes softened and in that instant she was more mother than detective when she touched Sarah’s shoulder.

  “He’s wired to explosives.”

  “Oh, God!” Sarah screamed. Jeff cupped his hands to his face as Ortiz and Klaver tried to console them.

  “We’ve got people working on it, good people,” Ortiz said.

  “Where in Queens? We want to go there now!” Jeff said.

  “We need to be there,” Sarah said. “No matter what happens, Cole has to know we’re there with him, near him. Please.”

  Ortiz absorbed Sarah’s anguish before taking the request to Gabe Kreston, one of the task force commanders. Kreston listened as Ortiz explained. When one of Kreston’s FBI counterparts saw that he was considering the request, he said, “You don’t want the parents at the scene if this thing goes bad, Gabe.”

  Knowing she was out of line, Ortiz said, “Sir, I think they deserve to be there. We can keep them back.” Ortiz nodded to some news trucks. “Those guys already have cameras on the house. One way or another they’ll see the outcome.”

  Kreston rubbed his chin, then nodded.

  “Take them to the command post in Queens. Let Cordelli and Brewer know.”

  * * *

  In Ozone Park, in the basement of the house, Cole sat on a swivel office chair, crying softly under the tape sealing his mouth.

  Four white bricks of C-4 were duct-taped to his chest, as if he were wearing a bizarre vest made of butter sticks. His arms and legs were taped to the chair. Tears and sweat dampened Cole’s face, but the lone ESU officer sitting with him was instructed not to touch him.

  All he could do was try to keep Cole calm.

  “It’s gonna be okay, son. Our best guy will be down here.”

  After the officer had flagged the situation to his squad members, all radio and cell phone communication in the area had been cut, in case the bomb was remotely triggered by a wireless device. A shadow, then a small tap on a basement window, signaled that help had arrived.

  The floor above creaked from a colossal weight as an alien being in a hulking green canvas suit, resembling a mix between an astronaut and deep-sea diver, descended the stairs with the speed of Frankenstein’s monster.

  Detective Bill Grant was inside the suit and he was pissed off. Upon arriving, he’d lost an argument with his boss. Grant did not want to wear the suit for this case.

  “The boy has no protection and when he sees that I do, it tells him that I’m prepared to fail and he could die.”

  Grant’s boss had to think about policy, liability and potentially losing Grant. It sickened him, because he agreed with Grant, but he could not allow his man to be unprotected.

  In the end, it wouldn’t help anybody.

  Once he made his way to Cole, Grant gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Hey, there, Cole. My name’s Bill and I’ll get you out of this thing just as soon as I can, okay?”

  Cole nodded.

  The ESU officer smiled at Cole. He wanted to stay but had been ordered to leave.

  Grant knelt before Cole and in the quiet began surveying the setup. He made no assumptions. The best bomb builders could be deceptive, lead you to think that the architecture was basic, simple, a walk in the park to defuse—then it was over. Grant estimated that this bomb had enough velocity to take out most of the house.

  He set to work.

  * * *

  Half a block away at the command post, Jeff and Sarah waited next to Cordelli and Brewer. With power, communication, traffic and all activity halted, the street had fallen eerily quiet.

  Like the church after Lee Ann’s funeral, Jeff thought as the minutes passed.

  * * *

  In Manhattan, Aleena Visser was floating in and out of consciousness in her bed in the hospital’s intensive care unit. Through her morphine-induced fog she woke, urging the nurse to let her know, needing to know.

  “…help, did the number help police…did I help them?”

  The nurse keeping vigil turned to the detective in the room who nodded. The nurse soothed Aleena’s brow and spoke softly into her ear.

  “They said you helped them save lives.”

  It took a few seconds before it registered with Aleena.

  Then she let go.

  The machines monitoring her began sounding alarms and although the medical team tried to resuscitate her, Aleena Visser, the former newspaper reporter from Rotterdam, died.

  * * *

  At that moment, in Ozone Park, NYPD bomb technician Bill Grant was taking meticulous care with the explosives attached to Cole. Again and again he examined the detonation system, the wiring to a cell phone and the insertion points of the blasting caps.

  The heat in the suit was unbearable, making Grant sweat profusely. He continued studying everything, scrutinizing the arrangement, double-checking and triple-checking for any decoys until he was satisfied the device was built to be triggered by a call to the cell phone. It could be detonated by one call from any phone anywhere in the world.

  With all the care and precision of a surgeon, Grant deactivated the detonation system.

  He swallowed, allowing relief to wash over him.

  He had defused the bomb.

  “That does it.” Grant winked at Cole. “Now hold still while I take care of a few little things.”

  Grant cautiously detached the explosives from Cole, then helped free him from his bindings and told him to get out and go to the police vehicles.

  Cole raced up the stairs, ran out of the house to the street, looking to the left and to the right before he’d spotted the police line. He cut a small, vulnerable figure in the empty street, then heard his parents’ call.

  “Cole!”

  He ran toward them, faster than he’d ever run in his life.

  Jeff and Sarah had broken through the line. Cole flung himself into his mother’s arms. Jeff took both of them into his, engulfing them as it all burst open inside him—all of his anger, guilt, confusion and fear, giving way to the flood of love and thanks for the gift he had been given.

  EPILOGUE

  Laurel, Montana

  Late Friday afternoon. Sunlight streamed through the open bay doors at Clay Platt’s Auto Service where Jeff finished repairing a clutch on a Chev.

  He went to his bench and reviewed the sheets of all the work he’d completed today. It included two brake jobs, a timing chain, a leaky radiator and three oil changes. Not bad. Everything’s in order.

  Time to clock out.

  Jeff changed out of his coveralls, washed up, then stuck his head into the small office. Old Man Platt looked up at him from the books.

  “Heading out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give any more thought to my offer to sell the shop?”

  “I did.”

  “Could work out nice for you, what with a new baby on the way.”

  “I know. I’ve been talking it over with Sarah. We’ll give you an answer Monday.”

  “All right, you have a good weekend, Jeff.”

  It was now nearly four months since they’d returned from New York City. Guiding his pickup through Laurel’s quiet streets, Jeff reflected on its small-town heritage, from the d
ays of the settlers to its evolution as a railway hub and a God-fearing community outside of Billings. To the west he glimpsed the Beartooth Mountains, never tiring of the view and what it meant. Life out here, where the earth meets the sky on even terms, where your sense of self-importance is either exaggerated or diminished, suited him.

  Now more than ever.

  He was not as shaky as he first was on everything that had happened in New York. On some nights, during the first month, Sarah woke in tears and he’d hold her until she stopped trembling. Other nights they’d hear Cole crying out in his sleep and they’d both go to him.

  And there were times early in those first weeks when Jeff was jarred awake, adrenaline pumping, heart hammering with overwhelming terror, forcing him to check on Sarah and Cole to prove that they were still there.

  Since then, parts of it remained crystalline. Others were a blur, like the days of the immediate aftermath. The questioning by the NYPD and the FBI, the press conference that was carried live around the globe and later the endless network interviews.

  “Joining us now in our Manhattan studio, Jeff, Sarah and Cole Griffin. They’re going to recount their terrifying experience, which has captured the world’s attention….”

  In those early stages, talking about it seemed to help. It meant they were alive, that they’d survived. They told their story over and over, then again when they returned to Laurel.

  Friends embraced them, supported them.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to face,” Old Man Platt had said. “Especially after all you’ve been through, Jeff, a hell of thing.”

  In the time that followed, Jeff grappled with questions.

  Why did these things happen to my family? Why us?

  There were no answers.

  The way to surmount it all was to feel whatever they were feeling, hang on and help one another.

  “Take every day as it comes, and as an act of faith believe that it will get better,” Kransky told them in their counseling sessions.