Perhaps one day very far into the future, she could've made a Lassie joke about it.
Though, ultimately, the way things played out, that, of course, would not happen. It could never become anything to joke about.
Nevertheless it was the dogs that found them.
Bomb sniffers bursting into the room only lacking heroic red capes, dragging helmeted and armored FBI behind them.
An agent ran over to unlock the handcuffs, as two others pounced on the device requiring immediate expertise, as yet another hustled them out of the room.
"They've got another one somewhere!" Goren shouted as he scooped his arm around her waist, "There's another bomb!"
It would be difficult to remember the details of what followed in years to come. Except in the horrific Dali-esque dreams that happened often enough.
They ran down staircase after staircase, always more to descend, as they rounded a landing. She wasn't aware of her high heels, or her ribs. Bobby half-dragging her, the agent yelling instructions. At some point, she must have realized that the bomb in their little utility room had been diffused. Surely the five minutes had passed...
At last they tore through the lobby, skirting the digestive system sculpture that was supposed to make her think, and burst out onto the wide plaza with the fountain under the stars.
Her first impression there was of the sea. The sea at nighttime when only the white foam of the waves is set aglow by moonlight. All else being dark.
She puckered her brow and saw then that the white foam was only the men from the Gala standing in their white tuxedo shirtsleeves, and the dark sea the women beside them wearing their gallantly forfeited dinner jackets.
"Goren! Eames!"
They focused to see Deakins gesturing toward them and hurried over.
"Are you all right?"
"We're fine." Alex wasn't sure if it were she or Bobby who had spoken.
"Blakely was at the dinner—that FBI agent who took Arano." They nodded their remembrance. "He came and found me. Said you two had been taken and then ordered an evacuation. What the hell is going on? They've got Emergency Services and Red Cross on the way, and have dog teams sweeping all the nearby buildings..."
"Arano got plans for the opera house from Christine Larkins. She must have stolen them for him..." Goren explained.
"So this whole thing was terrorist organized?" checked the Captain. "Jesus, no wonder they won't let Carver have Arano. How the hell did that guy talk Larkins into that?"
Goren shrugged, "She was depressed. Had been reading her father's political work. Rebelling against her life as she knew it. She was... susceptible. Love does strange things to people. Can make them go against everything they thought they wanted..."
He looked over at Alex then. She stood frozen staring up at the building they'd just fled.
"I can't believe it made her want to blow people up..." doubted Deakins.
Bobby removed his jacket and walked over to Alex and wrapped it gently around her shoulders.
"Perhaps he convinced her it was just a facility target. That people wouldn't be hurt."
"Well, he and his guys couldn't have picked a better night to wipe out New York's elite."
"Do you think they found the other bomb?" asked Alex then.
And in a flash, she had her answer.
She heard,'Oh my God!'shouted in a male voice first... And then the explosion.
Screams must have erupted from many. Not that they could be heard as the entire Southwest corner of the magnificent opera house began to collapse upon itself
The night darkened further then as dust, smoke, and debris sealed them from the moonlight and caked over the glass globes of the streetlights. Some fell to their knees or worse, as the vibrations of the impact rolled onto the plaza. Others with greater presence of mind began running in the opposite direction.
Her only memory later of that was of the echo. The imitative mock of the blast as it rimmed around the steel and glass canyon formed by the surrounding buildings.
And then silence.
And then sirens.
Bobby began yelling about debris. About how it would start to fall soon. They had to get as far away as they could.
Alex moved as quickly as she could among the shaken people, taking an arm here, helping someone up there, urging movement, barking harshly when needed.
Eventually they all were moving as a herd with predators at their heels. Running toward the northeastern corner of the plaza, it being the furthest point they could visually identify. Once there, they all huddled under an overhang, each wondering in their turn if it might be next to come down.
And then the pelting debris. Like hail first, then drums. Followed by suffocating black dust and cinders, glass, pebbled concrete, and God only knew what else.
She found her way to Bobby then and he wrapped his arms around her and turned his face into her hair. She buried her head in his chest and listened then to grown men and women cry as the black wave crashed over them.
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Dawn did not break brightly.
A persistent lightening of the thick gray dusty fog was the only sign that night had passed.
He walked among desks and chairs handing out bottles of water brought by Emergency Relief. The Red Cross was establishing themselves, interviewing and collecting information from the party attendees onto clipboards. Blankets had been dispensed. They had taken refuge through a broken window of The Metropolitan Temporary Employment Agency across from the end of the plaza.
Cold air streamed through the broken glass. People huddled closely for warmth. He looked up then, spotting a lone erect figure standing before a shattered window staring up at the opera house. His eyes followed her fixed stare.
The building had not collapsed entirely. The dogs and bomb squad had reached the utility room bomb, their bomb, in time. But a good fifth of the building was down.
He approached her quietly.
"Would you like a bottle of water, Dr. Shendrick?"
She did not break her gaze to look at him.
"Do we know about the men inside?" she asked.
"Not yet," he admitted.
"How many were in there?" she asked.
"Ten agents and two dogs. They've got teams over there now checking the structure and looking."
"How could anyone with a conscience do this?" she asked quietly.
"Anyone with a conscience couldn't."
"And yet people justify many things, awful things, to serve their consciences."
"True."
"You must see a lot of that in your work."
"As you must in yours."
"Such a waste..."she went on. "Horrible things have been done, horrible, and all for nothing. Those men could be dead. And she's dead too... we can't even blame her now... I'm sure those men have wives and children too..."
"We haven't given up hope."
"All for nothing... you can't live with something like this... you can't... all for nothing..."
"Dr. Shendrick, I think you need to sit down and have some water."
A struggling caught his attention then. He turned to see an older man on his knees gripping his arm. A woman, presumably his wife, leaning over him.
"Asa! Oh, my God! I think he's having a heart attack!"
Eames was by their side, "Everyone, quick! Search the desk drawers for aspirin!" she yelled. "Someone get an EMT over here!"
He hurried over as Eames popped aspirin someone had found into the man's mouth. An EMT team was there behind him then, loading the elderly gentleman onto a gurney and rolling him out.
"That was Asa Levitt," said a voice beside him. He turned to see Cynthia Gillum-Carver at his side, her elegance now faded, fear and shock etched into the fine lines around her eyes.
"He is the head of the finest publishing house in the city. How could this have happened?"
He watched then as her tears began to fall and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's going to be all right," he told her.
"They won't let me call my children yet," she sobbed.
"They will soon. The word has been released that everyone at the Gala survived," he looked around then, and spotting Carver called him over to minister to his wife, "Councillor!"
He turned to Alex then, "Have you had any water yet?" he asked.
She cocked her brow, "Have you?"
He sighed and reached for a couple of bottles and handed her one. They unscrewed the caps and began to drink as they surveyed the situation around them.
There were the expected injuries. Cuts, lacerations. Triage was taking place to prioritize. Those with broken bones or worse being taken out first.
Sylvia approached them then.
"Still no word on the agents inside," she reported in an undertone. "But it doesn't look good."
And as if in response to this they turned to watch then as new search teams entered the plaza with different dogs straining on their leads.
"The cadaver dogs," said Alex softly.
"Listen up, folks," they heard Agent Blakely address the crowd of survivors then. "We understand how shaken up you are and that you want to get home to your families. If you have already made your statement to a relief worker, could you please come forward for a final medical check over. We will be taking some home and some to area hospitals, depending on your status. Also, you may go ahead and use your cell phones now, or the phones on the desks to call loved ones."
"What's the word on the agents inside?" someone called out from the crowd.
"We don't know anything yet," replied the stoic agent.
And then the shuffle of the worn, injured, and dusty people began.
Bobby and Alex dropped to the back of the room then and found chairs at desks to sit down. A knowledgeable observer would have noticed that they'd automatically elected to sit as they always did at their own desks at One Police Plaza, facing one another.
Neither one was aware of this in the moment, however.
"You should call your folks," he said absently.
She nodded but made no move to do so.
He looked down at her clasped hands on the desk before her, taking note of the dried blood at her wrists peeking out from under the rolled cuffs of his jacket.
"You should have someone look at your wrists."
She nodded, "Not really a priority right now."
He nodded his agreement.
"How long do you think?" she repeated her question from the utility room earlier but to a different purpose.
"To search that ruin safely? Could be days."
She nodded this time.
"I guess this gives Arano a motive for the murder," she mused. "Once he got the plans, he had no more use for her."
"Maybe," allowed Bobby. "If only I'd been able to put it together sooner... If only we..."
"Bobby, there's no point in blaming yourself..." Alex reproved.
And Bobby's eyes narrowed.
"What?" asked Alex.
"Eames..."
She did not answer, knowing that he required silence at this stage. And simply watched as his eyes darted about, unknowable scenarios playing through his head. She tried to tune in as she sometimes could but she needed more, which, of course, he then offered...
"Shendrick... she did nine eleven counselling..."
Alex nodded, "She probably knew better than anyone the impact an event like this could have on people's lives..."
"Blame... and now we can't even blame her, she's dead... And, conscience...that's what she just said..." he lifted his eyes to her's then.
Alex felt her heartbeat accelerate as they connected—a live wire invisibly extended between them.
"If she'd been able to figure out any part of what Christine had been involving herself with..."
"She said no one could live with conscience... that it had been for nothing..."added Bobby.
"You don't think...?"
Bobby stood up, "Where is she? She was here awhile ago?" he vainly scoured the room with his eyes.
Alex hopped up as well and they separated to physically search for Dr. Shendrick.
Meeting finally at the front organization desk, Alex told him, "No sign of her."
"Agent Blakely," demanded Bobby then, "Has Dr. Shendrick been released yet?"
Blakely referred to his clipboard, "Yes. Just awhile ago. She had no injuries. Is there a problem?"
Goren turned to Alex then, "Where's Deakins?"
"I don't know, should I go look?"
"No time! Come on!"
And they hurried out onto the street.
Throngs of city vehicles crowded the area. A rope had been set up to corral multitudes of press. Bobby and Alex ran up to a blue and white.
"We need to get to fifth avenue now!" he ordered the uniform.
"Excuse me?" queried the officer, "Who the hell are you?"
"Badge. I need my fucking badge... Alex!"
She nodded and dug into the breast pocket of his coat, withdrew it, and tossed it to him.
They hopped in and were on their way in a moment then, the siren blaring...
"Would it have been premeditated?" she wondered aloud.
"Probably not. She might've assumed she could talk Larkins out of something and then things escalated."
"She would have arrived at the apartment after Arano left then."
"We'll check the security tape from across the road, maybe it'll show something," he suggested.
She nodded, "Then she moved her to the park, wrapped in the comforter. To make it look like a mugging. She must have been too rattled to take the blanket away afterwards."
He nodded.
Once arrived at Shendrick's building, and after issuing an order for back up, they hurried in to the elevator.
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The elevator was slow and silent.
The air within incredibly clean-seeming after the dust at Lincoln Center.
She looked up at Bobby at her side. His body was tense, his mind clearly whirling. She had an impulse then to take his hand.
She resisted.
She mulled then their time in the utility room just hours before, though it felt like an age now, and looked up at him again, wondering if his great mind had ever been able to solve the simple mystery that was between them. And had been for a long time.
It was a funny absurd sort of thought, that she'd easily, quietly, figured it out long ago when he clearly had not.
But supposed there were things even his astute mind could shelve away and ignore in the interest of self-preservation.
And then the elevator doors opened.
They walked quietly in Shendrick's deserted office then, and then passed through the open door to her inner sanctum.
Alex looked about curiously. It was elegant and modern. Crystal pieces abounded.
And then the lady herself, leaning against the front edge of her desk staring down at pink-hearted lilies bursting from a large crystal pitcher.
She looked up at them.
"Well done, Detectives," she said though there was no bitterness in her voice.
"Tell us what happened, Dr. Shendrick," commanded Bobby softly.
The lady, though covered in dust, still conveyed a fineness in her person.
She sighed...
"You began to suspect what Christine Larkins planned to do for her boyfriend..." Bobby began.
"I had no proof," the psychiatrist shrugged, "Just the instinct born of thirty-five years of practice."
"Did you confront her?" asked Alex.
"No. She called me late that night, early that morning really. I knew from our last session that she was conflicted, having reservations... something was clearly building up. She called upset. Wanted me to come over..."
"We have no record of that call on her cell or her apartment phone..." frowned Alex.
"I do not know what to say about that, Detective. I went over. It was late. I had a gun in my purse. It's registered... I was robbed once..."
"What happened when you got there?" asked Bobby.
Dr. Shendrick turned her eyes to his then and rose to her full height.
"She was manic... One moment in despair over what she'd done..."
"She told you about the plans?" asked Alex.
"That she'd stolen them, yes. Not that Arano had them. I wasn't sure about that. One moment she was wracked with guilt and the next proud and defiant about what she'd done... I told her we must go to the police. That thousands of lives could be destroyed..."
"What did Christine say to that?" asked Bobby.
"She laughed, actually... Said that all Americans were responsible for far more deaths than that... That she herself was guilty too... I begged and pleaded, but it was no use."
"So you shot her?"
"Yes. As she lay dying she told me that Arano already had the plans. I was foolishly naive when you apprehended him. I thought it had ended there. That if nothing else, the bomb hadn't been placed. I didn't think of accomplices. I am an old fool..."
"People do horrible things in the name of conscience, you said," Bobby reminded her.
"Yes."
And they paused a moment over the extraordinary irony of it all, and to wonder what definitions of guilt and conscience might apply to such a situation as this.
Alex stepped forward. "Dr. Shendrick, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Christine Larkins...
But she wasn't fast enough.
Bobby watched then, from where he stood behind her, as the crystal pitcher suddenly whipped out like a streak in the air and impacted his partner in the side. He instinctively reached out to catch her and watched as Shendrick turned and ran into what must have been a washroom behind her.
He looked up from his place on the floor then as he held Alex in his arms...
And heard two shots ring out.