"Run it down for me, Lieutenant," the chief of D's said to Rita.
"Chief, I have no fucking idea where to start."
It was well past midnight, and the temperature was approaching the mid seventies, but the humidity still sucked, and so the man and the woman who had known each other for several years took the opportunity to leave their jackets in their respective cars, and stand at the mobile command center in their shirtsleeves. The streets were awash in flashing red and blue lights, but aside from emergency vehicles the streets around The Standard East Village hotel were deserted.
James Essi, three star Chief of Police for the New York Police Department, currently serving as Chief of Detectives, did not react to Rita's slip of the tongue.
"Start at the beginning. Where were you when you first got word?"
"I had just left a benefit in Hell's Kitchen, and was on my way home when one of my detectives called me. She had gotten a call from the night watch commander, and she called me before she called her partner."
"How did the job come in?"
"An anonymous call to 911 said that four people were dead in two rooms in The Standard East Village. Central dispatch notified the 15th squad."
"They gave us the room numbers?"
"Yes. Two men and two women. Two separate rooms. All four, hands bound, face down on their beds, shot once in the back of the head with a small caliber weapon."
"Professional hit."
"Yes sir," Rita said, "They were a private flight crew. Swedish passports. They had papers in their luggage that said they were contracted by Universal Studios to ferry Annelie Bodin to the states for location shooting in Chicago."
"Why did they stop in New York?"
"For a benefit at the Actor's Studio."
"A benefit."
"A benefit showing of The Chill of Winter. I was at that benefit, Chief," Rita said, "That's where I was driving home from when I got the call. She was late showing up, so the movie ended late, and then she made a speech and took questions before holding a private reception for the big donors. The call must have come in just as she was leaving."
"And she seemed fine during the benefit?"
"She seemed happy, at least what I saw of her," Rita said as she thought of the actress and the woman sitting next to her, and the way they had looked at each other, "no way she knew about it."
"Where is she now?"
"The studio also contracted local private security, and it appears that someone notified them as well because, as soon as they heard, they whisked her away to an undisclosed location."
"An undisclosed location here in the city?"
"We don't know. They said that they're making new arrangements to get her to Chicago. They're not sharing any details, and they are not letting her out of their sight."
"They know we need to talk to her? That we are not letting her leave until we do talk to her?"
"They know. They don't give a shit."
"What are we doing about it?"
We're negotiating with them to set up a meeting."
"Who do we have negotiating with them?"
"Commissioner Sewell."
The Chief of Detectives was quiet for a handful of seconds.
"They contacted the Commissioner's office."
"No, Chief. They contacted the Commissioner."
Another moment of silence followed, both of them bathed in multicolored flashing lights.
"Personally?"
"They called her cell phone."
"Fuck me."
"My exact words, Chief."
"So, when did the call come in about the plane, and the four skels?"
"It must have been at about the same time as the call about the hotel, because all the call to the 1-1-5 and the Port Authority said was four men connected to a multiple homicide in Manhattan, but central dispatch hadn't gotten the multiple homicide notice from 911 yet. The 115th squad's query to Central Dispatch beat the call from 911 to central dispatch by about thirty seconds."
The Chief was quiet for a short time, his left arm wrapped across his chest and supporting his right elbow as his chin rested in his right palm.
"And this has nothing to do with the fire alarm on Avenue C?"
"We're not sure, but they don't seem to be related. The men at the airport were all foreigners. All their weapons were Russian manufactured. All of them were dressed like a private aviation crew, two were dressed as flight officers, two as cabin stewards, all have prison tats. We'll catalog them and run them through the FBI's Tattoo Recognition Database. None of them had I.D. Everyone from the building on Avenue C, both the scientific staff and the security guards, were Americans, most of the weapons recovered were German or Swiss manufactured, all of them had I.D. Some of the security guards had tattoos, but all professional work, no prison tats; but we'll run them through The Vault as well. And all of them appear to be genuine, though we're running all their prints, guards and scientists, through BCI."
"An entire flight crew is executed, four men dressed as a flight crew with prison tattoos and Russian weapons are found beaten and hog tied near a private jet that someone had taken the time to let out the air on all the tires. That's not complicated math, it is?"
"No, sir, it's not. That's why we are anxious to talk to Annelie Bodin," Rita said.
"That's the Commissioner's problem now."
"Yeah, huh?" Rita said.
"But the murdered flight crew is your problem."
"And the warehouse," Rita said, "we still get that, right?"
"So far. Anything new from there?" he said after another few seconds of silence.
"The third anonymous 911 call we got told us not to go near the warehouse without EOD, HAZMAT, BIOHAZMAT. We're taking them seriously. We're evacuating the surrounding buildings, searching the nearby parking garages, and setting up a perimeter. Four NYPD Bureaus plus Port Authority are setting up a mobile command a safe distance outside the perimeter, but we had to send people in wearing PPE to rescue the security guards, most of whom were unconscious.
"Most?"
"One of the guards was delirious, screaming about something when they brought him out. Couldn't understand a word. They had to restrain him. EMT's think he might have inhaled something in one of the labs, which was where they found him. We'll interview everyone tomorrow."
"Today."
"Right."
"Jesus, what a night," Chief Essi said, "You're going to rack up quite the overtime today.
"Yesterday and today, Chief."
"Yeah," he said just as Abby and Sax walked out of the hotel, followed by the first of four gurneys.
"We'll interview the day staff tomorrow, Loo," Abby said, "we have copies of the security camera footage for the whole time they were here. We'll start in on that tomorrow too."
"Today, Detective," Chief Essi said with a small smile.
"Yes, sir." Abby said with a smile of her own.
"I'm on my way to Long Island. Keep me posted on this, and the thing on Avenue C," he said.
"Will do, Chief," Rita said.
"Have a good night," the chief said.
"Morning."
"Whatever."
Rita had thought about sleeping at the precinct, but the early morning traffic between Manhattan and Brooklyn was very light, so she made it home in good time, and was only a bit late arriving to work later that morning, but she was late enough that Joe Slovak and Ray Quinn were already at their desks.
"You two released from task force prison?" Rita asked the pair as she walked to her office.
"The task force is on holiday while we try and decide whether last night's events are task force business," Joe said as he and his partner followed Rita to her office.
"The homicides are ours and no one else's," Rita said, as she took off her jacket and sat down at her desk, "The warehouse, the secret lab, the whatever it is on Avenue C is almost certainly the task force's case. The airport is somebody's, but the Port Authority is protecting its territory right now, and we won't know about that one for a while."
"I hate to be the one to point this out..." Ray started.
"But you are going to point it out anyway," Joe said.
"None of this was on the DVD you gave the task force," Ray said.
"I've been thinking about that," Rita said, "the homicides wouldn't have been, they don't fit with the other activities that were disrupted. The assholes we grabbed up at the plane fit the profile to a T, except for their involvement in the homicides. The warehouse is definitely something that should have been on the disk. But there was nothing for yesterday or today on the disk. The next date is three days from now."
"Maybe it's on a different disk?" Ray asked, "one we haven't found yet?"
"Maybe the task force should be going back through the apartments of everyone that we got as gift wrapped presents from whoever is giving them to us," Rita said.
John Irvine stuck his head into Rita's office.
"Lieutenant, Chief of Detectives on one," John said in his calm, quiet voice.
"Chief," Rita said after picking up the handset on her phone.
"We have an agreement on interviewing Annelie Bodin and her security," Chief Essi said without any fanfare.
"She's coming in?" Rita asked.
"No. You're going to her," he replied.
Shit.
"That's really nice of me," Rita said sarcastically before remembering who she was talking to, "sorry, Chief."
"Don't worry about it. Who's working the case?"
"Archer and McGuire."
"They need to be at the Commissioner's office at 1 PP at 10 AM. The Commissioner will meet you there."
"The Commissioner? In person?"
The mention of the Commissioner got everyone's undivided attention in Rita's small office.
"Yes. It was part of the agreement. They wanted someone they know, and apparently someone knows the Commissioner personally."
Fuck me.
"Got it," Rita replied.
"Don't be late."
Rita hung up the phone.
"John, where are Abby and Sax?" Rita yelled out her office door.
"They're upstairs going through the footage from the hotel."
"I need them in my office in two minutes."
"Yes, Lieutenant," he replied before heading towards the stairs.
Jesus.
