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Oh, he’s angry at her, but seeing her smile—and her eagerness at being with Daddy—douses his anger. As Uncle John’s pickup slides back into the westbound Fulton Street traffic, Tom takes Denise’s backpack in one hand and her hand in the other and says, “Hon, you should have stayed home with Uncle John.”
“But you promised me!” she says, words angry but face still smiling. “Today is that day everyone is supposed to bring his or her daughter to work…and you promised. I wanted to see where you worked…”
He hugs Denise and thinks,What am I going to tell her: “Daddy doesn’t work here anymore”?
There are shouts.
Yells.
Even screams.
From the nearby doors, people are running out of the Fulton Street entrance to One World Trade Center.
Denise notices the people running out of Tom’s old workplace.
“Daddy,” she says, voice suddenly scared. “What’s wrong?”
Chapter105
THERE.
Mike Patel smiles with satisfaction, picks up the M4, and pulls back the action, putting a .223 cartridge into the chamber.
The sudden increase in the number of people pouring out of the office building—most of them running—tells him everything he needs to know: in one-third of the floors within One World Trade Center, his carefully placed smoke bombs have gone off. There’s no fire, no explosives, nothing save choking clouds of smoke.
Meaning that within minutes, tens of thousands of people are going to be streaming out, jamming the side streets.
Panic,his sponsor Rashad Hussain had told him.What I want is panic on that day, and crowds of people running to safety toward the Hudson River.
Mike tugs at the rope at his side and the left-hand rear window slides up, revealing the crowds of people moving and standing on the sidewalk.
Picks up his M4, sights in, wondering which target he will choose first.
Panic,Rashad had told him.Just shoot into the crowds, move them like the cattle they are, head them to the west.
There.
That man standing on the sidewalk, hugging a blond-haired girl, colorful backpack at their feet.
“You’re first,” he whispers.
And squeezes the trigger.
Chapter106
THIS DAYis blessed indeed, for standing at the west side of the roof of his hotel, the Nansen Arms, it’s sunny with a steady breeze coming in from the banks of nearby New Jersey, there on the other side of the Hudson River. There are antennas up here, bulky air-conditioning and air-handling units, and he confidently strides over to a huge square apparatus with a splash of orange paint on one corner, hard by the edge of the roof.
He puts down his two cases, kneels on the crushed stone of the roof, and reaches under the square. He drags out a larger, bulkier case, placed here two days ago by his most trusted local associate, Mike Patel.
With all three cases in hand, he opens up the lids and gets to work.
He has practiced this many times before, so it’s quick work indeed.
Rashad stands up, examines what is before him: aheavy metal tripod made by Meade, built for binoculars scaled for astronomical viewing. He sets up the tripod, making sure each leg is firmly planted in the crushed stone. A set of what looks like bulky black binoculars comes up next, and is securely screwed into the tripod’s mount. The binoculars, however, are a classified Zeiss viewing system built under contract for the German army. Once they’ve been secured, Rashad toggles a tiny switch that powers up the system.
There.
The little lightbulb comes on red.
