Fear the Night

46

The Night Sniper sat back from his typewriter and checked his letter to the New York Times. In it he complimented the mayor for his wisdom and fortitude in speaking at the upcoming TBTC rally. It was a time for strong leadership and the mayor was providing it. The city couldn’t let itself be held hostage by fear, and only someone with courage could break the chains of that fear through bold and definitive action. The mayor made the letter writer proud to be a New Yorker.

The letter was unsigned.

The Night Sniper doubted the Times would print such a letter from an anonymous source, but they’d count it in their pro and con survey. It would add weight, however slight, to the mayor’s political responsibility.

It would contribute to maneuvering the mayor closer to the point of his death.

The morning before the TBTC rally, the Night Sniper made his way on foot across town toward Rockefeller Center. He’d noticed a uniformed policeman stationed near the closed subway stop that provided access to a tunnel leading downtown. The subway tunnel was the route the Night Sniper had intended taking.

He stood looking at the policeman, a young man with a seriousness and tenseness about him. As if he expected trouble and perhaps wanted it.

Not willing to take a chance, the Night Sniper walked to his secondary entry point.

No uniformed cop there, but a decidedly suspicious businessman seated on a nearby bench and pretending to read a magazine while sipping water from a plastic bottle. He looked, he felt, like an undercover cop. And if he wasn’t, what about the homeless man with the good haircut slouching near the corner?

No problem, the Night Sniper told himself.

But as he walked toward Midtown, he saw that other subway stops were staked out by the police. No mistaking it now; they must at least suspect he was using the subways for shelter and to move about, especially the deserted tunnels and stations.

This shouldn’t be a complete surprise. Repetto wasn’t a fool. That was why he’d been chosen.

The Night Sniper walked on.

He finally found a long-deserted stop his pursuers had overlooked, on East Fifty-ninth Street. The surface structure leading to the stairwell was razed, its rubble piled nearby. The entry to underground was shielded from sight by a raised plywood walkway, the access to the stairwell covered by a square steel plate. The construction walkway was flanked by four-by-eight plywood sheets propped on their sides and nailed tight to upright supports, so that only the upper bodies of passersby were visible.

When no one was on the angled walkway, the homeless man with the backpack dropped down out of sight. The steel plate was screwed down, but was easy to pry up from the weathered wood walkway. He quickly slid the plate to the side, then lowered himself into the darkness beneath. Just as quickly, but with considerably more effort, he slid the plate back into place from below so it could be walked upon. In darkness, he began descending rusty steel rungs protruding from an old concrete wall that curved to remind him of a well.

The last ten feet of the ladder was smooth steel, as the entry widened to twice its diameter. The ground below was muddy but with a firmness just below the surface.

Standing at the base of the ladder, the Night Sniper could hear the muffled roar of subway trains. He got his small mag light from his backpack and shone the thin beam about.

He knew where he was. In a tunnel with unused tracks leading to a stop near West Fifty-first Street-not far from Rockefeller Center.

This was his world. He felt safer here. Heartened, he strode confidently into darkness, playing the flashlight beam ahead of him so he wouldn’t trip over something or twist an ankle on a piece of debris. The tunnel smelled musty and faintly of something rotting. A familiar and comforting smell.

After a while, the unused tunnel veered left into the operational tunnel leading to the subway stop. Trains ran regularly along this route, so he had to stay alert.

Minutes later the Night Sniper stopped and stood with his back pressed against the tile walls of the Fifty-first Street subway stop. He was on the shadowed edge of light from above, waiting for the opportunity to emerge from the tunnel and climb onto the concrete platform. He knew he’d be seen by at least a few people, but they’d quickly looked away from his shabby clothes and threatening demeanor and put him out of their minds. It was no secret that many of the homeless spent their days in the subway stops, and perhaps he’d dropped something near the tracks, or spotted a coin, and had pocketed it and was climbing back up onto the platform. It was no concern of theirs, not in the real world where they lived their lives of relationships, appointments, and responsibilities, the world that mattered.

The time came and the Night Sniper moved smoothly to the steel maintenance ladder near the end of the platform and began climbing it. He was noticed by another of the homeless, a large African-American man preparing to panhandle on the next train, and an older white couple who looked like tourists. The woman had a camera slung around her neck. The Night Sniper hoped she wouldn’t attempt to use it. He’d been photographed before, as part of the flora and fauna of the city, and he’d gone to some trouble to steal the camera, a digital one, so he could destroy the image. Cameras could see deeply, beyond flesh and posture and into the real self.

Everyone who noticed the ragged figure climbing onto the platform quickly turned away with the same curiously wooden features that routinely rejected him as a fellow human. Only a blond girl about ten, standing behind the tourist couple, continued staring curiously at the Sniper.

She stared until a train rolled in and she boarded with a man who was probably her father.

The Night Sniper joined the throng of passengers who left the train and made their way toward the Fifty-first Street exit.

A few minutes later he was in sunlight on the surface, sure he’d drawn no undue attention. He’d scouted the neighborhood and knew where he was going, to a private spot behind a Dumpster where he could quickly change clothes and his homeless persona.

For now, though, he was one of the untouchable and unseen. He felt safest this way. The police knew the various rifles he used were expensive, so they were searching for a man of wealth. That deliberate misdirection was part of the game. The Sniper hardly appeared wealthy now, shuffling along the sidewalk with his thirty-thousand-dollar J.G. Anschutz target rifle-once owned by a member of Saddam Hussein’s cabinet-broken down and fitted into his worn backpack.

He was only blocks from Rockefeller Center.

Deputy Mayor Marcus Pelegrimas stood watching the mayor stand erectly to his full height before the mirror in the room adjacent to his office, where he often rehearsed his speeches.

“Night must not be synonymous with fright!” the mayor proclaimed, raising a finger.

He turned to Pelegrimas, a much taller man with a shaved head and a studied expression of impartiality. “Should I do that, Marcus? With the finger?”

“Never wise to give the voters the finger,” Pelegrimas said, deadpan.

Hector Chavez, the mayor’s on-duty bodyguard, glanced at him and smiled. He was a medium-height, blocky man with impeccably combed black hair that matched his impeccably tailored suit. He had about him the air of a man who didn’t move around much, but when he did move, it was fast and with purpose.

There was a slight noise from the office on the other side of the door. Chavez immediately locked the door between the office and the room they were in, then slipped out an opposite door.

Pelegrimas and the mayor stood silently. Then there was a soft knock on the office door and it opened just far enough so that Chavez could squeeze back in.

“It’s the people from the Committee to Revive the Southern Tip,” the bodyguard said.

Pelegrimas nodded to the mayor. “I’ll deal with them, sir.”

“Fine, Marcus. Tell them I can give them ten minutes, starting in a few.”

“Yes, sir.” Chavez stayed with the mayor as Pelegrimas opened the door to the office.

“Do I smell smoke?” the mayor asked. “Is someone smoking out there, Marcus?”

“No, sir,” Pelegrimas said, and closed the door behind him.

When he returned, the mayor was back before the mirror, trying the “Night must not be synonymous with fright” line again, only without the raised forefinger.

“You’re really going to do this, sir?” he asked.

“I didn’t point the finger that time, Marcus,” the mayor said.

“I mean the speech itself. You’re going to take the risk?”

“I didn’t get elected to sit in my office in a flak jacket,” the mayor said.

“Ready for tomorrow?” Melbourne asked Repetto.

They were in Melbourne’s office, along with Lou Murchison. Melbourne was seated behind his big desk, making a tent of his fingers and barely turning this way, then that in his swivel chair. Repetto and Murchison were in the leather chairs angled toward the desk. The swivel chair squeaked. The office smelled faintly of cigar smoke, making Repetto wish he had a cigar. Not one of the ropes Melbourne smoked, though.

“There’s no being all the way ready for something like this,” Murchison said.

Melbourne stopped swiveling and gave him a cautioning look over his tented fingers.

“Our SWAT snipers know their stations and have their instructions,” Murchison said. “The Rockefeller Center area’s flooded with NYPD, in uniform and undercover. We’ve synchronized with the mayor’s security and know the schedule, but you know how these rallies can get out of hand.”

“I don’t care how out of hand this one gets, as long as the mayor survives,” Melbourne said.

“Two of his security men have that special responsibility,” Murchison said.

At first Repetto didn’t know what he meant. By the time he’d caught on, Murchison was explaining.

“One on each side of the mayor is assigned to take the bullet.”

“Jesus!” Melbourne said.

“They’re gung ho,” Murchison said.

“Mostly gung,” Repetto said. “By the time they can react, the bullet’ll be in the mayor.”

“Guts, though,” Melbourne said.

Probably all over the podium, Repetto thought, but knew better than to say.

“Ten minutes before the mayor speaks, we go on high alert,” Murchison said. “We stay that way until he gets his political tail away from the podium.”

“Will he be wearing a protective vest?” Repetto asked.

“No. Says it’d be noticeable under his suit coat and ruin the effect of what he’s trying to do, which is to show the Sniper the city can’t be scared into shutting down.”

“More guts,” Melbourne said.

“Votes,” Murchison said.

“You’re a cynic.”

“I’m a cynic. Maybe it’s the job.”

Melbourne turned to Repetto. “How about the subway system?”

“It’s been staked out the last couple of days, especially the closed stops. If our sniper does travel by abandoned train tunnels, he probably enters and leaves them at closed stops.”

“Are there that many abandoned or temporarily closed subway tunnels?” Melbourne asked.

“Miles of them.”

“And all we’ve got suggesting the Sniper’s using them is that match with the mud.”

“All we’ve got so far. Are any of the names on the disgruntled employee list transit workers?”

“Some. But they’ve been ruled out. And the list goes back ten years.” Melbourne rooted through a file on his desk and leaned forward to hand a copy of the list of names to Repetto.

Repetto’s gaze played down the column of thirty-seven names, complete with last-known addresses. Thirty of them had been lined out. The name Joel Vanya did not appear.

“Why only ten years back?” Repetto asked.

Melbourne made a dismissive motion with both hands, as if flicking away something that was closing in on him from all directions. “Long time to hold a grudge. You gotta figure, more than ten years, the Sniper would’ve struck back at the city a long time ago.”

Repetto didn’t answer. He saw that Alex Reyals’s name hadn’t been lined out. The former cop. Meg had been assigned to that one; Repetto would have to ask her about him.

“Here’s something else both of you should see,” Melbourne said. “An anonymous letter written to the Times. A journalist there with sharp eyes and a curious mind saw that the note was typed rather than done on a computer printer. The newspaper doesn’t get many of those these days. He also noticed the similarity in the typeface with the previous Sniper notes. The lab confirmed the same typewriter was used. Times doesn’t know that yet.”

“Our killer’s actually urging the mayor to speak at the rally,” Murchison said disbelievingly, handing the note back to Melbourne. “The bastard has some gall.”

“Either that or he’s a great admirer of the mayor,” Repetto said.

Melbourne looked at him, doing the tent thing again with his stubby, powerful fingers. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s gonna be there tomorrow,” Repetto said. “He might even have wanted us to figure out this letter’s from him. And if he didn’t want it, he sure as hell doesn’t care about it, or he wouldn’t have sent it.”

“He could be daring us,” Murchison said.

“Oh, with every breath.”

“We gonna be ready for him?” Melbourne asked, looking from one man to the other, and sounding too much like a desperate football coach exhorting his team to overcome a lopsided score.

Murchison nodded and held up crossed fingers on each hand.

Repetto said, “If he shows, we act. He won’t get away via the subway system.”

“And how we gonna know if he shows?” Melbourne asked.

Repetto and Murchison exchanged glances. It was Murchison who said it:

“The only plan with a reasonable chance of getting our man is one that concentrates on what happens after the mayor is shot.”

Not what the coach wanted to hear.