Chapter 8
Flynn stared. “Jeeesus…” Then he shook his head. “It can’t be. It’s too obvious.”
“It’s not obvious at all. This time of year there are decorations everywhere. We clock them and forget them.” He lurched forward as if to sprint to the nearest pile. She caught his sleeve. “Be cool. We don’t want to scare anyone.”
Together, they strolled toward the faux presents.
Hadley stood, back toward the party, while Flynn squatted in front of the trio.
He gently picked one up. “There’s something in it.
” He set it down and lifted another. “Crap! This has got something, too!” He looked up at her.
“They couldn’t be, like, real, could they? ”
She bent over and picked up the third. It had weight—not as much as she would have thought, but it definitely wasn’t filled with crumpled tissue, which would have been her guess. She slid her fingernail along a seam where the wrapping paper folded over itself, then tore a handful off.
Flynn bolted upright. “What are you doing? What if it’s engineered to go off when it’s unwrapped?”
“Why would it be?” She tugged at the ribbon. “Do you have a Swiss Army knife, Boy Scout?”
“Eagle Scout.” He jammed his hand in his front pocket and pulled out a knife. “This is stupid.” He pried the blade open and sliced through the ribbon. “Give it to me.”
He held it while she peeled the rest of the paper off. It was a plain white box, flapped on the top. She carefully opened the flaps to find wadded newspaper. She lifted the pieces out. “False alarm.”
The weight was just that, four of the same washer-shaped things she had seen available at the dollar store balloon counter, meant to keep your birthday greeting from floating away.
Clear postage tape fastened them to the inside bottom of the box.
“It makes sense. The florist or whoever put these together doesn’t want them to go flying off in every direction if a pedestrian bumps into them.
” She set it back down. “Did the other two weigh about the same?”
“Yeah.” Flynn squatted and helped her restack the boxes, sort-of-maybe hiding the now plain one from sight. “But it was a good idea. We should check the others just in case.”
The food was being served in earnest now, and people were abandoning the exhibit cases to line up at the carts and serving tables. The smell of brisket wafted through the air, and Hadley’s stomach growled again.
“Really?” Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Now?”
“Shut up.” She strode toward the other small pile of boxes. “Block me from view, okay?” She hunkered down and picked up the topmost “present.” Same as those on the other side. She set it on the floor and reached for the next one. She froze. “Flynn.”
His back was toward her. “What?” He turned around.
“This one is heavier. A lot heavier.” She stood up, legs suddenly shaky.
Flynn held out his hands. “Give it to me.”
She passed the box to him with the same care she would have used handing over a newborn. He lifted and lowered it an inch or two, feeling the heft. “Oh God.” He looked into her eyes. “We’ve got to open it. We’ve got to make sure.”
“I know.” Three minutes ago, she’d blithely assured him unwrapping the box wouldn’t trigger an explosion; now her hands trembled as she tore the paper.
“Knife in my right front pocket.”
As she slid her hand into his jeans, she had a flash of how the same gesture might have been so different, a playful touch, a whispered suggestion. “If this goes off—”
“It won’t go off,” he assured her.
“Because we’re just so lucky?”
He smiled at her. “I think we’re pretty damn lucky, yeah.”
She blew out a laugh, then opened the knife. “Ready?”
“Go on.”
She sliced the ribbon. It spooled in shining loops on the tile floor. She pocketed the knife and delicately tugged the white flaps open.
No newspaper in this one. Instead, an ugly contraption of wires and metal, flanked by jars of nails and screws. She had known what she was going to find, but it still shocked her silent, as if she’d opened a gift to find a live cockroach hissing inside.
A cheap cell phone was wired into place on the front. “Okay.” Flynn sounded as if he were trying to calm himself. “It’s meant to go off by a signal, not a timer.” He took a breath. “I’m going to set it down. Move the other boxes in front of it when I do.”
Hadley did so. They stared at the awful thing for a second. Then Hadley fished out her phone.
Flynn grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“Calling nine-one-one!”
“Not here. Your signal might set it off.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” She scanned the crowd gathered around the tables. “Everybody’s got a cell phone, Flynn.”
“And we don’t want them to use theirs, either. It’s not likely, Hadley, but it is possible.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Let’s come up with a plan. What’s the first thing we should do?”
“Tell the chief.”
“Okay. Wait! The state police office. The one the chief mentioned? They’ll have a landline. We can loop in the officer on duty and call for backup.”
“Perfect.”
They headed past the exhibit case, past the diners and the musicians, through the small clumps of people chatting and laughing.
Hadley thought she and Flynn were giving a convincing impression of casual, but apparently not.
The synagogue security guards fell into step on either side of them.
“What’s going on?” Khalil’s voice was very polite.
“We’re going to the state police office.” Flynn kept walking, so she did as well. “Where is it?”
The guards stayed flanking them. “Just before you get to the food court, on the right side.” Johnson gestured with her chin. “Mind telling us why?”
“Let’s wait until we have a chance to brief Chief Van Alstyne,” Hadley said.
Khalil barked a laugh. “I’ve seen people fleeing live fire who are less tense than you two. What’s going on? What did you find out?”
Hadley looked at Flynn. “Keep walking and we’ll tell you.”
Johnson rumbled disapprovingly, but the foursome continued down the concourse, Flynn and Hadley boxed in by the security guards.
“You realize we look like we’re being escorted off the premises,” Flynn said.
Khalil smiled. “That’s not going to set off any alarm bells with the civilians, my friend. Unlike your dash away, dash away.”
“Spill it,” Johnson ordered.
“We found an IED. It was hidden inside one of the fake boxes of presents. Like those.” Hadley gestured unobtrusively toward another decorative cluster set against a wall. “It’s wired with a cell phone. Flynn said we shouldn’t use our phones near it, so we’re going for the state police landline.”
Khalil’s mobile face became very still. “Flynn is right.”
Johnson made a noise. “Chances there’s only one?”
“Absolutely none.” Flynn was definitive. “This is it. This is what the militia’s been planning for. Honestly, I’m not sure why they haven’t gone off yet.”
“Publicity.” Johnson sounded as sure as Flynn had been. “Wait until the place is surrounded by law enforcement and lots of camera crews.”
They had already gone past the bank of glass doors leading to the outside.
“You need to make sure the response comes in dark and silent.” Khalil pointed down the concourse, toward the blue sign marking the state police office.
“No lighting up the whole plaza, nothing the media’s going to get wind of.
Johnson and I will get our people to turn their phones off.
Keep us in the loop.” The two security guards peeled away, headed back toward the Hanukkah celebrations.
Hadley glanced behind her. “Is it just me, or do they strike you as very different from your typical security guards?”
“Very different.” Flynn opened the glass door to the tiny police station.
Its narrow lobby ended in a Plexi-covered window with a secured door to its right.
“Hello?” Flynn peered through the window.
Empty chair, computer monitor, and behind it a half-concealed office that could have held maybe three officers.
The lights were on, but nobody was home.
“Hello?” Flynn pressed the buzzer beneath the window.
They could hear it shrill through the small space.
He stood on tiptoe and craned his neck, trying to see.
Hadley yanked the secure door handle fruitlessly. “There was someone here, right? You heard the rabbi say so.”
“Yeah.”
She gave up on the door. “Can you see anything in the office?”
“You mean through the half wall? No.” He sounded frustrated. “But unless he’s passed out behind there, there’s no way he can’t hear us.” He leaned on the buzzer. “Hey! We’re law enforcement! Hey!”
“Flynn.” She pressed her hand against his back. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to find the chief. We can check again later. Maybe he had too much fruitcake and is working it out in the bathroom.”
Flynn shot one more exasperated look into the brightly lit enclosure and nodded. “Yeah.”
The food court was dead; chairs empty, shop doors shut, roll-down grilles in place. The north concourse, stretching out ahead, was also lifeless, until two people emerged from one of the side corridors.
“Chief!” Hadley ran forward, Flynn at her heels. “Did you see anybody?”
“No. Doors to some more administrative buildings, locked, and an elevator bank that goes down to an underground parking lot.” Reverend Fergusson glanced up at her husband. “Maybe we should go back and search the lot.”
“We need more than just you and me for that.” Van Alstyne nodded toward Hadley. “What’s the situation?”
“We found a bomb inside one of the fake presents.” Hadley pointed to yet another pile of wrapped and beribboned decorations, these near the shuttered entrance to the performing arts hall known as the Egg.
“It was wired to a cell phone,” Flynn added. “The synagogue guards are telling everyone to shut down their phones.”
“We tried to use the statie’s landline, but we couldn’t raise anyone at the office.” Hadley paused. “That’s it.”
“That … seems like enough,” Clare said, faintly.
“Back to the party,” the chief ordered. “Double time.”
Hadley could tell the tenor of the gathering had changed before they actually reached the end of the concourse. People clustered in quiet groups, speaking low and keeping tight hold of their children. Only a few elderly sat. No one was eating. And it seemed as if every eye watched them approach.
The rabbi and the security guards met them near the doors they’d entered through—what, twenty minutes before? Hadley felt like she’d been in this windowless underground forever.
Rabbi Oppenheim opened her mouth. The chief held up a hand and looked around. “Where’s Terrance?”
“Here, Chief.” They twisted to see the ranger and Yíxīn emerge from the custodian’s room, followed by a short Latino man in a rumpled janitor’s uniform.
“Johnson and Khalil filled us in. The cleaner says a group of workers came in about a week ago and replaced pots of poinsettias with the wrapped presents. He thought they worked for a florist.”
“Oh God.” Rabbi Oppenheim sounded as if she’d been punched. “We need to get our people out of here.”
“And we need to notify the Albany PD and the staties,” Flynn added.
“Yes to both.” The chief pointed to the security guards.
“You two. Your route is up the stairs and out at the street level by the museum.” He gestured toward the end of the concourse where she and Flynn had found the bomb.
“Nobody brings anything, just like in the airport safety briefings. Rabbi, if you’d go with them and make sure everyone heads away from the plaza area.
No phone calls, no texts until you’re at least a full block away. ”
He turned toward Paul Terrance. “I’d like you to head up to the plaza to make the phone call. We need a very, very quiet response. If they’re waiting for the full hostage crisis circus to blow the IEDs, we want to make sure to keep that from happening as long as possible.”
“Roger that. I’ll take a look around and see if anything seems suspicious.”
“I’ll come with.” Paul and the chief both stared at Yíxīn.
“Yeah, no.” Paul sounded like the chief, when he was trying to shut down Reverend Clare.
“You live up in the woods like a bear. You’re going to recognize something weird better than someone who works here?”
“You’re an attorney, Yíxīn. Scouting for bad guys is not your job.”
“And hanging around the Albany State Plaza isn’t yours, Tewatsirókwas.”
As tense as she was, Hadley couldn’t help but admire the way the lawyer had whipped out Paul’s Iroquois name.
“Enough.” The chief jerked his thumb toward the stairs.
“You both go. Yíxīn, he’s got the training.
Do whatever he says when he says it.” He turned to her and Flynn.
“Knox, Kevin, you help move the crowd out. Keep things calm and quiet. Clare, with me. We’re going to see what’s going on at that state police office.
” He brought his hands together, exactly the same gesture he always made when concluding the morning briefing at the station. “Off we go. Don’t try to be a hero.”