The Prince of Risk

12

Each day before beginning work, Supervisory Special Agent Alex Forza bowed her head and prayed.

“Dear Father, I ask your blessing that I meet today’s challenges with intelligence, courage, and fortitude, that I give no quarter, now or ever, to enemies of this country, and that I perform my duties to your highest standards and in a manner that will bring credit to the Bureau.”

She kept her eyes closed a moment longer, allowing the words to resonate, then lifted her head and gazed at the photograph behind her desk. It was a portrait of a ruthless, cynical, manipulative middle-aged man. At fifty, he looked seventy. His hairline was receding, his jowls flabby, his eyes bulging, and he was well along the way to acquiring the toadlike stare of his later years. He was not an attractive man. Yet there was no mistaking the purpose in his forthright gaze, the single-minded and holy commitment to duty that was the cornerstone of his life and that, God-like, he had transferred to the Bureau.

“And Father,” Alex added in closing, whispering because this was a private matter between the two of them, “no matter what, do not let me fuck up.”

J. Edgar Hoover stared back mutely.

Alex took a seat at her desk and began sifting through the incident reports that had come in the night before. The stack was thicker than usual for a weekend, and she suspected that many of the calls were false alarms, or what she called “Al Qaeda alarms.” The first report validated her suspicion. A passenger riding in a taxi complained that the cabdriver had made derogatory comments about the United States and was, in his estimation, “a friggin’ terrorist.” The time of the call was 1:30 a.m. The caller left his name as well as the cabbie’s and the taxi medallion number. Alex classified the report as “nonurgent” and started a pile to the right. When time allowed, one of her investigators would call and interview the complainant. She felt confident that the city would be safe until then.

Alex headed CT-26, the Bureau’s threat assessment squad tasked with investigating claims of suspicious activities pertaining to acts of terror on United States soil. “See something, say something” was the watchword of the day, and the citizens of New York had taken it to heart. The hotline received north of fifty calls a day, and it was up to Alex and her team of twenty-six investigators to separate the chaff from the grain.

Alex had been given command six months earlier in an effort to provide the squad with a more aggressive stance. She’d made a name for herself in the bank robbery squad and child crimes before joining the CT pool five years back. There were agents who had more arrests, but none could match her take-no-prisoners attitude. No one gave the Bureau more than Alex Forza.

One glance at her office testified to that commitment. There was no couch, no coffee table, and no chairs for visitors to sit in while they were shooting the shit. Meetings were conducted standing up and face-to-face. Other than the photograph of J. Edgar Hoover, the walls were bare. The only furniture was her desk, her chair, and a bookcase, all standard issue. She was not, however, without a flair for decoration. A handheld battering ram lay against one wall. Her prized Benelli twelve-gauge assault shotgun stood in a corner next to it, along with her Kevlar vest. The office was everything she’d ever wanted.

Alex powered through a dozen incident reports, finding none to be urgent. An hour had passed when Jim Malloy popped his head in the door. “Hey, Alex, you already here? Thought you’d sleep in and get some rest.”

“I’m the boss,” she answered. “I ask those questions. Why aren’t you grabbing forty winks?”

Malloy stifled a yawn as he entered the office. “Me? You kidding? I got home just in time to wake up my little cherubs. Guess who gave them breakfast and looked after them while his wife slept an extra hour?”

Alex frowned. “So you show up at work tired and your wife is fresh as a daisy. Bad decision.”

Malloy’s disposition soured. “I’ll remember that.”

Alex pointed to the photo of Hoover. “You think he came to work tired so he could let his wife sleep?”

“He wasn’t married.”

“Not officially, at least.” Alex cracked a smile to show that the boss was human.

Malloy wandered over to the corner and picked up the battering ram. “This the thirty-five-pounder?”

“Little Bess.” Little Bess weighed thirty-five pounds. Big Bess weighed fifty. As the first woman to make the FBI’s SWAT team, Alex had been rewarded by being allowed to carry Little Bess up five flights of stairs every other Saturday when the team met to train. She didn’t mind one bit.

Malloy dropped the battering ram. “We get the warrant for Windermere yet?”

“Not enough to go on. No way to tell if the picture is real or fake. Plus no imminent threat. We wait another day. If our guy doesn’t show, I’ll call the judge.”

“Fair enough. Still, I wonder what-”

Alex’s phone rang and she raised a hand to interrupt Malloy. “Yeah?”

It was Jason Mara, one of her squad members, calling from Inwood. “Our guy just came home.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” said Alex, but she was already snatching her blazer off her chair, burying an arm in one sleeve and lunging for her vest. “When did he show?”

“A minute ago,” said Mara.

“What took you so long to call?”

“You serious?”

“Shut up and listen. Get that place locked down. He is not to leave the premises under any conditions. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s out there with you?”

“DiRienzo.”

“Good. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

Alex hung up and looked at Malloy. “Let’s go earn a beer.”