Breaking Barriers Chapter 36
Kate
We were sitting having the second coffee of the morning, going over the evidence looking for other clues we might have missed, not that we expected to find anything but it's what cops do. The assassin that Liv had killed, who fingerprints identified as a Peter Banks, turned out to be known in the criminal underworld as a killer for hire; he wasn't cheap but was willing to take on the harder jobs, which going after a cop certainly qualified as, if the money was right.
Banks was ex-army, serving in Iraq he'd been infantry and cross-trained in bomb-disposal which explained the C4; his record had described a man with few friends and a 'me first' attitude which saw him shuffled out of the army during a reduction in force, apparently the army wasn't all that sorry to see him go, describing him as a loner who didn't integrate well with the rest of his squad.
We'd spoken to his usual 'associates' here in New York, the sort of people who directed potential clients his way, but they either didn't know anything or were being particularly loyal to a dead man, god knows why. Otherwise Banks was a man who'd kept to himself, if he had friends they sure weren't on our radar, leaving us with damn all to go on.
He did own a small house in North Bergen just over the river in New Jersey which we'd duly searched, by which I meant torn apart. We'd found cash and a cache of pistols in a false bottom draw of a bookcase which forensics had matched to at least three other murders, plus a PC that Tori had combed through. In amongst the porn, viruses and first person shooter games we did find log-in details to several bank accounts, one of which had a fifty thousand dollar deposit two days before the attempts on our lives, the money coming via interbank transfer from the Caymans, traced back to one of Lysenko's companies, naturally.
Unfortunately with Banks decorating one of Melinda Warner's slabs that lead had dried up as well leaving us raking over previous evidence looking for something new without much success, when Mac Taylor breezed in, looking way too chirpy for this hour of the morning.
Within minutes he'd explained his rationale, which also explained his mood; it was a long shot but he was the forensics guy and it was a hell of a lot more than we had before he walked in this morning. We pulled up a map and started cross-referencing power plants. We discounted any that were still operating, as Mac said most had been refurbished and would have had much newer paint and a lot less asbestos besides; as Liv pointed out, hiding Lysenko's operation in a working power plant wasn't going to happen; someone would see something out of place and talk.
Instead we called up the net and a bunch of other sources to make sure we found all the possible sites before contacting the relevant precincts and independent police departments and getting them to conduct a very cautious sweep of each site using unmarked cars, we didn't want to tip our hand if this long shot turned out to be something useful.
The next two hours we sat and theorised as one by one the reports came in negative, I mean it was a bit of a long shot but still…
Two hours after putting the request out though we got a call from the City of Yonkers PD, they'd sent an unmarked by the old NYC power plant in Glenwood, in their 4th district. They'd spotted a number of cars parked there, not surprising as the place was accessible and occasionally used as a film location. The Lieutenant on the other end of the line had confirmed though that nothing was scheduled and while the place had been used off and on by local gangs as an initiation site that was almost invariably at night; the place should have been empty during the day, certainly not having over half a dozen vehicles parked there. He asked if we wanted him to send in a squad but we hastily told him to sit tight, we were on our way.
Ten minutes later, having explained what we were doing to Gates, we were in my Charger and screaming up West Street with sirens blaring as we paced the Hudson, Espo and Ryan right behind us. We hit 11th Avenue and crossed over the Lincoln Tunnel onto 12th as I passed the Intrepid Museum and accelerated as we got lighter mid-morning traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway, I finally eased off a bit as we hit 90 passing under the George Washington Bridge, the scenery flashing past us, to be honest I don't get to cut loose like this often in the usual Manhattan traffic, it was kinda fun and a bit of a stress relief, none of the others were complaining though, we had a solid lead and wanted to get to it.
We slowed down as we pulled into Yonkers, turning off the Parkway we could see the disused smoke stacks of the power plant on the river's edge. The 4th Precinct House turned out to be only five blocks from the power plant; as you can imagine they were pretty surprised to have a group of NYPD and Bureau people drop on them but once we gave them the bare bones they basically gave us full cooperation. There's nothing like the phrases 'child sex slavery' and 'attempted cop killers' to get a police department's full attention.
An hour later we had confirmation something was up, a couple of the local gangers had been pulled in and basically admitted they'd been run off a few days back by armed guys, told if they came back they were dead. A pair of the gangers, braver than the rest, had tried investigating and had never been seen again, not surprisingly whoever was in there had been left alone since.
A call back to headquarters had arranged for a NYPD surveillance team to arrive and send a drone to scan through the area, they spotted nine vehicles there including a couple of vans; the kicker though was a top-end Mercedes G-Wagon that turned out to registered to the same Cayman Island's company as the rest of Lysenko's vehicles.
We were pretty certain that we'd hit pay dirt so we were standing in the precinct houses briefing room, drinking the local coffee and discussing what might be happening in the power plant when my cell rang; it was Tori with some bad news. The same Cayman Island's company that Lysenko had set up to buy airfares had just booked a single first class ticket to Dubai on Emirates, with a connection on to Moscow, departing tomorrow morning. I thanked her and hung up before turning to the others and sharing the bad news
"Looks like Lysenko's getting ready to bug out, a one way air fare from New York to Dubai and on to Russia's been booked for tomorrow morning" Jordan looked up and scowled at that news, then explained her reaction.
"Obviously we don't have an extradition treaty with Russia, but it might surprise you that we don't have one with the United Arab Emirates either" Liv turned to look at her with a frown.
"Really, I mean I can understand Russia but the Emirate's is kind of an ally aren't they?" At Jordan's head shake her frown deepened to a scowl. "So if he gets on that plane and it lifts off he's in the wind right?" Jordan nodded again before Mac spoke.
"We can pick him up when he shows up at JFK, take him into custody" I shook my head; noting Liv doing the same as I spoke.
"If he turns up, for all we know this is a diversion, he may not show and instead bug out some other way" Liv chimed in on that.
"Yeah, he has to have some idea we're onto him, after all we were waiting on those four kids from Russia, so you have to figure he knows we know about his ticketing company" Jordan nodded as she spoke.
"I agree, for all we know Lysenko could pay cash to fly somewhere else domestic and then take a plane out of the country on a completely unknown passport" She shrugged. "If he doesn't want to fly domestic he could drive to Boston and take a flight out of Logan, or even drive down to Washington and fly out from there"
"If we're going to take him, it's gotta be here, before he can slip away again" Liv shrugged then pressed on. "Besides, we can't risk him bolting, we still have a bunch of missing kids and no antidote" I glanced round the table seeing agreement on everyone's faces. Before I could speak however I was interrupted by a Yonkers PD cop who had stuck his head in.
"Sorry to interrupt but your drone guys have something" We looked at him and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "They want to see you ASAP" We followed him out of the back of the building and into the car park where the drone control van had been set up; climbing in the Sergeant in charge looked up and nodded.
"Got a few items" He tapped the screen. "We've got the licence plates of every vehicle there, checking DMV records it turns out with the exception of the G-Wagon they're all rentals" We exchanged glances as he continued. "The kicker though is this" He turned back to the screen and called up another still image, taken from a decent height and distance away, the view showed the plant's southern side, overlooking the Glenwood railway station. I didn't see anything at first, before he zoomed in and pointed at a figure dimly visible in an upper floor window. It started to pixilate before it became clear. "Thought it looked familiar so I tasked a different drone with a much higher resolution telephoto lens to image that spot" I saw Liv and Jordan nod as he called up another image.
"Whoa" It was Mac. The image clearly showed a man in a leather jacket, jeans and boots standing partly in shadow, but the AR-15 assault rifle with a telescopic sight held in his hands was easily recognised as he looked out over the area from his upper floor perch.
"Shit" I didn't realise I'd spoken until I heard my own voice. I looked round and saw a bunch of faces as grim as I was feeling. Before I could speak the Sergeant continued speaking.
"Seeing him there got me wondering" He looked up and round at us. "That guy's got a clear line of fire across the entire south and south-eastern approaches so I got to thinking that maybe there was somebody doing the same thing to the other side" He turned round and started typing. "It's a good thing we're so close, I can get good endurance on the drones" He flipped through some images as he spoke. "Where is it…ah…here we are" Another, similar image appeared, a guy wearing a thick cable-knit jumper, black cargo pants and boots, like the other guy he was carrying a scoped AR-15. I felt my jaw tighten, while this was looking more and more like the right place given the level of security, it was going to be a nightmare to access.
"That's not going to be fun to get in" It was Liv. Before we could reply the Sergeant, Telford, broke in again.
"You don't know the half of it ma'am" He started shuffling images on the screen. "I thought that if the north and south approaches are covered and the west is the river what about the east?" Jordan spoke, resignation in her voice.
"Don't tell me, another one?" The Sergeant looked up, nodding and grinned crookedly as he replied.
"Got it in one Ma'am" He turned back and pulled up another image on the screen, yet another man with an AR-15. Telford looked up at us. "Fortunately he's not high enough for a direct line of sight to this building, but between them they've got good visibility across all three approaches to the power plant". He called up Google Earth on another tab, already queued up; he'd gone 3D view and had zoomed in so it was like he was on the power plan's roof. He moved the camera round, showing the view over the area surrounding the plant; it was mostly open spaces, parks and the like.
"It's a damned killing ground there" It was Mac. Telford nodded.
"It's the tactical guys call Lieutenant, but from what I've seen getting in there is going to be impossible in daylight without being seen" He shrugged. "Given the ambient light from the city, it's not gonna be all that dark at night so you gotta figure they'll spot movement even at night" We exchanged a look around the group; seeing the expressions on Mac, Liv and Jordan's faces I knew they were thinking the same as I was.
'Well fuck'