Takedown, page 8
“Agghhh!” Hoban’s legs instantly felt like cooked pasta. He wanted to run but couldn’t. He fell, the laughter growing louder. He turned his face to the floor and covered his head with his giant hands. The room’s icy temperature seemed to penetrate his eyes until they were burning, burning cold. Pain. He continued to scream. The coldness spread from his eyes to his brain. The laughter grew louder and louder, drowning out his own scream until… his own scream became the laughter.
He rolled onto his back, his mouth wide open, laughing, laughing, laughing. He could not stop. His brain was frozen, his thoughts unable to control his body. His mind was screaming and his mouth was laughing when, unexpectedly, his fear vanished as if it had never been there.
Strength returned to his legs and arms. The ice water in his veins warmed. He stopped laughing and rose to his feet. He stretched out his arms and expanded his barrel chest, breathing deeply.
“Finally,” he said confidently, not completely knowing why he said it, but feeling as though he had just woken up from a long, refreshing sleep. He felt good. Great, in fact. He looked at his reflection. His expression was smug, as if he had just accomplished something to be proud of, but he did not know what it was. He looked at the bottle of tequila, and before he realized what he was doing, the bottle was empty and breaking on the floor.
“Hey!” came a voice at the door, followed by a knock. “What’s going on in there?” It was Benny again. “Hoban… you okay? Open the door.”
Hoban ignored the noise at the door; his gaze fell on the script lying on the table. He picked it up and read no further than the first sentence before throwing it aside. A moment later he opened the dressing room door and emerged, new heavy-metal music greeting him along with Benny. The medium-height fat man with thin, greasy black hair, dressed in green slacks and brown sports jacket, was talking, but Hoban was not listening to him. Instead, he looked at the surrounding area as if seeing it for the first time. As if seeing for the first time.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy? You were supposed to be out there already. This is your intro, moron,” Benny said. “This is it, Hoban. After tonight, we’re through. You’re a loser, pal. Who needs you?”
Hoban frowned, annoyed, then slowly looked down at Benny. He grabbed the fat man by the neck and lifted him eye to eye. “Don’t speak to me—ever,” he said before tossing Benny aside like a Styrofoam cup. He then turned and walked in the direction of the pounding music.
11
Gavin was waist-deep in murky Nassau Pond, backing up the steep incline to the shore, feet slipping, struggling to hold a limp, well-dressed man from behind, as if doing a Heimlich maneuver on him, when two firemen rushed to his side and relieved him of his burden.
“Is he alive, Detective?” one of the firemen asked.
“Maybe. I… don’t know,” Gavin said, looking back at the train wreck, four double-decker passenger cars twisted, half crushed, folded upon each other like sausage links in a shallow pan of water, the locomotive completely submerged. Most of the screams had eerily quieted to whispers and groans. Emergency workers were frantically trying to run a crane cable through the windows.
He hadn’t seen so much activity on the North Shore of Nassau County since Avianca flight 052 ran out of gas and crashed in the woods of Cove Neck, leaving seventy-three dead. By some miracle, most of the passengers here were alive, but the injury list was not light.
With no water or road access, hospital, police, National Guard, and Coast Guard helicopters were flying in and out of the dim sunset over the large pond like bees from a hive. Firemen and rescue workers traveled through the narrow bird sanctuary trails. Long Island Railroad flatbed utility trucks served as makeshift ambulances on one track, while the other track had been used to bring in a crane and massive road construction lights, making the immediate area look like a Hollywood shoot.
“Well, so much for an undisturbed scene,” said a familiar voice from behind.
“Huh?” Gavin turned.
“You believe this?” Chris said, stepping into the water to help Gavin out.
“No.”
“See any Feds yet?” Chris reached out his hand for Gavin to grab.
“Haven’t seen any, but they’ll be here.” Gavin motioned in the direction of the wreck. “Probably want to know why we don’t have the black box yet.”
“Black box?”
“Yeah… like planes. Trains have ’em, too.”
“Hmm, I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I. Railroad guy told me.”
“Just as long as the Feds didn’t tell you. They’d never let you forget it.”
“Ah, they never tell us anything.”
Just then the crane engine throttled up, and the cable started tightening through the passenger-car window. Slowly—squeaking, scraping—the silver mass inched upward, then stopped.
Gavin shook his head. “Gonna be a long night.”
Chris sighed. “And just what this area needs.”
“What’s that?”
“Another taste of terrorism.”
“Tastes domestic to me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The choice of target, for one. A train leaving Oyster Bay is not exactly a national symbol, like the Trade Center.”
“Neither are jet airliners, but they’ve been targets often enough.”
“True, but the absence of an explosion makes me think we’re dealing with one, maybe two guys. Terrorist groups, both foreign and domestic, prefer bombs. They have access to the stuff, don’t have to get their hands too dirty, the results are more predictable, and explosions seem to strike more terror… And then there’s that glove.”
“What about it?”
“Domestic. When was the last time you saw someone who was calling for a jihad against the great Satan give the finger? That wouldn’t be ‘holy.’”
Chris nodded. “Honest, yes. Holy, no. Maybe we’ll find some prints inside.”
Gavin shook his head. “Not likely. Fingers are flat, stuck together. Looks like there’s some kind of greasy substance inside.”
“Why didn’t he just bring a third glove and leave that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he watches too much TV.”
“You get a chance to see the rest of the stuff up there?”
“Not really. Is it taped off yet?” Gavin remembered the orders he’d given to an Officer John Kelly.
“Yeah, but we’d better get up there. There’s enough manpower now for this end.”
Gavin heard what Chris was trying to tell him, but it was hard to leave. He took another look at the pond and then at the pileup. His first duty as a policeman, not to mention his first instincts as a person, was to people and property. But now help was everywhere, and he figured he should best set his sights on the hunt.
Gavin—his clothes heavy from pond water, wondering if tadpoles were in his shoes, glad of his decision to leave his sport jacket and wallet in the car—fought the brush and sliding gravel to the top of the tracks where the rail had been cut and spread apart. The train had destroyed the track beyond the point of derailment, but from the separation backward, the track was in perfect condition. For the first time since he had arrived, Gavin felt the liberty to leave the rescuing to the designated personnel and enter detective mode.
He looked in the direction the train would have come from. Nearby were dozens of occupied stretchers lying perpendicular on the rails, some with sheets drawn completely over the bodies, some with survivors being worked on by paramedics. There was also a priest, kneeling, holding a hand. The sight of the cleric with short white hair momentarily hijacked Gavin’s thoughts. Made him think about Buck. He quickly shook it off.
A hundred feet away two firemen rushed up the embankment with a semiconscious woman, yelling for paramedics to help, one of them shouting, “She’s pregnant!”
Gavin didn’t remember getting there, but he suddenly found himself at their side. Her summer dress was shredded. He didn’t see any obvious bleeding or compound fractures, but her bruised arms cradled her belly as she moaned painfully, gasping out occasionally in Spanish. Her tangled black hair, scraped and dirty dark skin, and slight figure despite advanced pregnancy stirred Gavin’s imagination enough to scare his racing heart. But for the grace of God there be Amy, he heard his mind say. He couldn’t remember where or how many times he’d heard those weirdly familiar words, but his mind seized upon them and inserted Amy’s name, and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Where is the grace of God for this one? he countered to himself.
Two paramedics swooped in, one of them stepping between Gavin and the woman as if he weren’t there. He barely noticed them, his mind still having a hard time placing Amy and his own unborn child at home, safe.
“What’s happening?” Chris asked, arriving at his side.
Gavin refocused, shook it off. “It’s under control,” he said, then started back, probably leaving Chris a little confused. This really wasn’t his job. The woman was getting plenty of attention, and he was needed elsewhere.
“Freaked ya out, huh?” said Chris, walking the track just behind him.
“What?”
“Made you think of Amy, didn’t she?” Chris went on, surprising Gavin that he’d put it together.
“Who?”
Chris snorted. “I read you like a book, Pierce.”
“Who are you, Doctor Grella?”
“Like—a—book.”
“Shut up and focus on this,” Gavin said, approaching the place where the rail was cut.
Gavin stepped into a small corral created by the yellow police tape. Chris passed him, murmuring something about a conversation Gavin was no longer having. He needed to empty his mind of the tragedy around him and objectively zone in on what could have happened here a few hours ago. He turned, looking beyond the immediate activity of emergency workers, stretchers, and artificial lights. His eye followed the track until it disappeared around a bend. According to one of the survivors, the train’s horn had been blaring before the derailment. Apparently the engineer had seen something or someone on the track. He tried to envision the train’s approach. He followed the track through the many stretchers until he was looking down at his feet, then turned and continued, his eyes on the rail.
“Who do you think this finger’s for?” Chris said.
“Huh?”
“The glove.”
“Oh… probably you.”
“Me?”
“To whom it may concern,” Gavin said, slipping on his own pair of latex gloves. He crouched down and picked up what looked like half a C-clamp cut clean through—by a train wheel, Gavin figured. He noticed the clamp’s other half a few feet away, a short piece of cut cable welded to it.
“What do you make of that?” Chris said.
“Someone did their homework. The rail carries a safe signal to the cab of any approaching train. A break in the signal, whether the engineer is alert enough to realize it or not, will automatically cause the train to slow to a safe speed. This little cable kept that signal alive with the rail cut. We’ll probably find the other half in the drink attached to a similar clamp,” Gavin said, putting the severed clamp back exactly where he’d found it. He looked carefully at what appeared to be two modified hydraulic jacks.
“I get the creepy feeling we’re dealing with someone who enjoys his work,” Chris said.
Gavin nodded. “Craft might be more like it. This wasn’t spur of the moment. Someone had to get the jacks, maybe at more than one location, maybe ordered, since not every hardware store is going to carry a large supply of sixteen-ton jacks. The pipes are cut smoothly… to exact lengths… no shims. Welds look clean, possibly professional.”
Chris crouched and examined what appeared to be two attached fire extinguishers, each tank about a foot and a half long and four inches around. “Cute. A mini torch kit.”
“Did the job,” Gavin said as he picked up a blue tube the same color as the two jacks between the rails, black rubber handle at one end.
“The lever?” Chris asked.
“Yeah,” Gavin replied, studying the lever. Like most, its bottom was shaped to match the male release screw on the jack. Looking back at the jacks, he noticed that one of them was loose. At first he thought the loosening of the jack had been caused by the derailment, but considering the pressure needed to split open the rail, he fit the lever onto the relief valve and turned. Nothing. The pressure had already been released. He stared, frowning at the jack for a long moment. Confused, he fitted the lever to the other jack and turned. The jack decompressed and the train rail followed, halving the distance it had been widened from its original alignment. Why did one jack have pressure and the other none?
“Two more jacks over here, Gav,” Chris called from a few yards away. “They seem to be in good shape. Maybe they were extras.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if the train threw them, I would think there would be some damage to them, bent or gashed. But they’re perfectly straight. Then again, if they are extras, why aren’t they together? Why is one here and the other there? He takes all this care and leaves his hard work scattered?”
Gavin frowned, joining Chris with the lever in hand. He checked the relief valves of the third and fourth jacks. Nothing. Each had been decompressed.
“Detective!” called a voice from below, a little farther down the track. Officer Kelly was standing just outside the treeline of the bird sanctuary motioning a flashlight. “Down here.”
Gavin returned the lever to where he had found it, then set off after Chris, already near the bottom of the hill. The officer waited for Chris, then led him into the trees. When Gavin caught up, Chris and the officer were standing still, looking down, silent.
“Looks like we have a witness,” Chris finally said as Gavin stepped by his side. “How do you explain… so many… ?”
Gavin said nothing.
“I don’t know,” Kelly said as if he’d been asked. “Looks like he was fighting some Ninjas with swords. Or was attacked by some kind of wild—”
“Stop,” Chris ordered Kelly, which was much nicer than what Gavin was about to say.
“Anyone have a wet rag?” Gavin asked.
“A wet rag?” Kelly repeated.
“No,” Chris said.
Gavin thought of using one of his wet socks, but almost immediately decided it would somehow screw up the forensics. “Let’s see that flashlight, Kelly.”
Gavin took the handoff and moved in for a closer look. Chris followed.
“This is an A,” Gavin said, drawing with his finger, inches above the man’s chest.
“Is this a T?” Chris asked, pointing to what appeared to be another letter.
Gavin said nothing, wishing he could wipe the blood off to see more clearly. Any thought that the Feds might take over and run away with the investigation was now seriously challenged. This was a clear homicide. A man—big, athletic, late twenties, early thirties—leaning back on an old tree stump as if napping, six evenly spaced punctures across his neck. His gray workout shirt torn open, and what first appeared to be random slashing and dripping red lines across his bare chest were letters with numbers etched underneath.
“Another message?” Chris asked.
Gavin just stared, trying to differentiate between blood and gash.
“I don’t get it,” Kelly said. “Act! Two thousand, seven hundred, and forty-two.”
Gavin nodded. “Not bad, Kelly.”
“Is that act as in a call to action or act as in theater segments?” Chris wondered aloud.
“Kelly, let’s get this area taped before anyone else tramples down here,” Gavin ordered, getting down on one knee for a different angle.
“Right,” Kelly said. But still transfixed on the sight before him, he didn’t move until Gavin glanced up at him. The officer nodded and disappeared.
“Kelly,” Gavin yelled over his shoulder.
The officer reappeared.
“There’s a priest up by the stretchers.”
“Right, I saw him.”
“Get him. Tell him to bring his Bible.”
“Did you say Bible?” Kelly said, frowning.
12
Yes, Bible,” Gavin said, not wanting to explain, fixated on the victim. The deep, clean slices in the man’s skin spoke of a razor-sharp blade, and the neck punctures brought an image to mind of a knife that looked a lot more like a weapon than a tool— probably sharpened religiously, he thought. The lack of blood dripping from the message meant the victim had been dead when the letters were carved. At least that’s what he hoped the medical examiner would tell him.
Chris said, “Talk to me,” or something like that.
“This is a Scripture, Chris. That’s not an exclamation point after act, it’s an s.”
“And the two thousand, sev—”
“Is twenty-seven, forty-two. Acts twenty-seven, forty-two.”
“What Scripture is that?”
Gavin gave Chris a look. “Do I look like a priest?”
“Uhhh… no.”
“Here, take this light and shine it down here.” Gavin pointed to one of the man’s pockets. Chris took the light and Gavin patted the pocket, reached in, and pulled out a jingling set of keys with a remote attached to the ring.
“Maybe he’s sitting on a wallet,” Chris suggested.
Gavin reached around and found there were no rear pockets. “Nothing. Somewhere there’s a… let’s see,” he said, looking at the ignition key. “There’s a Toyota parked and it’s probably got his wallet in it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find with this remote.”
“He looks like a jogger, but those aren’t running shoes.”
Gavin frowned at the dirty white sneakers and socks, then felt the socks between his fingers. “Wet… like mine.”
“Maybe he was bird-watching and saw the guy working on the tracks… ran through some water to get to him?”
