They Disappeared

51

Manhattan, New York City

Grand Central Terminal.

From her balcony table in Michael Jordan’s restaurant Aleena Visser looked out over the Grand Central’s main concourse and took in its cathedral splendor while finishing her tea.

She set her cup in the saucer with a nervous rattle as the knot in her stomach tightened.

The time was drawing near. She could still pull out, toss the music box and walk away. But I would pay a heavy price. She could go to police. But there’s no guarantee I won’t be charged and sent to prison. Aleena had no options.

She’d go through with it.

But this would be the last time. When she returned to Amsterdam, she’d go into Joost’s office and she would tell him that it was over, she was done. She’d quit the magazine and go back to newspaper reporting in Rotterdam, back to a normal life.

After today’s job, her life as a smuggler was over.

It was nearly 11:00 a.m.

Time to go.

In keeping with Joost’s instructions, she took an orange scarf from her bag, tied it to her shoulder strap so it hung prominently, making it easy to identify her in a crowd.

She went to the information booth in the main concourse and waited for her contact. They were to arrive precisely at 11:00 a.m. according to the big brass clock above the booth.

At 11:00 a.m. no one had approached her.

By 11:15 a.m. no one had shown.

Aleena grew anxious.

She started to walk slowly around the booth area amid the gentle rush and hum of thousands of people going about their business.

I want to be done with this.

Maybe she had confused her instructions from Joost?

She reviewed them again.

“Go to the Grand Central Terminal the morning you arrive, tie an orange scarf to your bag and at precisely 11:00 a.m., New York time, stand near the information booth with the brass clock in the main concourse. Your contact will approach you and say something about your flight and ask about a gift.”

Aleena had followed Joost’s instructions to the letter.

She glanced at faces in the crowd to determine who among them might be her contact, even though she had no idea what her contact looked like. She knew she was being watched on Grand Central’s closed-circuit security camera system. She’d seen the radiation detectors and motion sensors placed throughout the terminal. And there was no shortage of police officers. Everyone knew that Grand Central was considered a terror target, but how could you tell by looking at the thousands of travelers who passed through it every day what their intentions were, Aleena thought.

She searched the sea of faces again.

Maybe my contact is out there watching me?

It was now 11:32 a.m.

Or maybe the contact was not coming at all? Maybe the delivery had been canceled, called off, abandoned? The possibility gave rise to hope. Before considering it further Aleena was interrupted. Her phone vibrated in her pocket with a text message from Alice, her coworker at the magazine in Amsterdam.

I’m sorry to tell you that Joost has died.

Aleena caught her breath and responded.

No! What happened?

We don’t know. Police are asking questions. They think it was a heart attack at his desk.

This is terrible. What are police asking?

About the two men who visited him before he died.

Who were the two men?

Marta in reception said they were KLPD.

What did the KLPD want with Joost?

It’s a mystery.

This is horrible. Prayers to everyone. Will call later.

Joost was dead.

Why had the KLPD visited him? Could this be connected to her delivery? Aleena covered her mouth with her hand and thought of the emergency contact number: 718-555-76-

“Excuse me, miss, you look lost. Can we help?”

Two uniformed NYPD officers had approached Aleena. Both men looked to be her age. They surveyed her jeans, short-sleeved top, tattoos and blond hair.

“Oh, no, thank you.” Aleena flashed her beautiful smile. “I’m waiting to meet a friend, who is a little late.”

“That’s a nice accent you got there, is it German?”

“Dutch.”

“What brings you to New York?”

“I’m a travel writer for a magazine in Amsterdam.”

“That so?” The cops gave her another subtle head-to-toe look. “Well, enjoy your visit. Hope you write nice things about the town.”

The officers strolled away and about a minute later she bit her bottom lip and thought of leaving.

“Aleena?”

She turned to a tall man in his early thirties with a medium build. He wore a navy T-shirt, faded jeans, a ball cap and sunglasses. His face was dark from several days’ growth. He carried a construction worker’s lunch box and looked like any other tradesman in the city.

“Yes,” she said.

“How was your flight?”

“It was good.”

“And you have brought a gift?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell the police officers?”

“They asked if I was lost. I said I was waiting for a friend who was late.”

“Is that all?”

“They asked about my accent. I told them I was a travel writer from Amsterdam. That’s all.”

After considering her answers, he glanced around. “Walk this way.” He nodded across the concourse.

At that time, two men, who had been provided security camera footage of Aleena in the preboarding area of Schiphol Airport, arrived out of breath and started searching the terminal for her.

Scanning the crowd, one glimpsed a bright orange scarf-the telltale identifier from central intelligence in Moscow. The two men began making their way through the forest of commuters to catch up to their target.

When Aleena and her contact cleared the concourse area, the man said, “May I have the gift, please?”

Aleena reached into her bag and handed him the music box. He stopped and immediately examined specific points. He was meticulous until he’d confirmed the item as being the one he needed. He placed it in his lunch box, then, as quickly as he’d emerged, he disappeared, leaving Aleena alone.

The delivery took less than thirty seconds.

Aleena decided to return to the concourse and leave from that level. As she walked, she took stock of the thousands of innocent people going about their lives in Grand Central, then thought of the millions busy with their lives across New York City, and recalled the headline in the newspaper on the plane about murders, abductions, fears of terror attacks at the UN meeting.

Is any of this connected to me?

Tears stung her eyes.

Struggling to comprehend, she put her hand to her face.

Joost was dead.

Why were the KLPD talking to him? What did they know? Nothing made sense.

Icy threads of fear webbed up her back.

I am done with smuggling. I need to get home as quickly as possible. I’ll call my friend Harm Bergen at the newspaper in Rotterdam and ask about a job. First things first-I’ll get back to the hotel. I’ll change my ticket to get on the next flight to Amsterdam.

Her mind was racing.

Which way out of Grand Central will take me to the hotel?

She searched the main concourse for a landmark, a sign. Was it west, or east? She’d go back to the information booth and get directions to the hotel there. She headed toward the booth when suddenly two men materialized, walking on either side of her. They were big men in sport jackets.

“Aleena Visser?”

“Yes.”

One flashed an official police ID.

“FBI, come with us, you’re under arrest.”

“Arrest? For what? May I see your ID again?”

One of the men gripped her upper left arm. The other man had her right.

“Don’t resist.”

They escorted her through the terminal, to the nearest ramp down to the trains. Something about the look of the men, the cut of their hair, their facial features, told her that they were not Americans.

They were Eastern European, Russian.

Aleena’s pulse quickened-her thoughts swirled.

Joost was rumored to have many enemies in Russian security. Who are these men? What will they do to me?

Amid the throngs of commuters, the men practically lifted Aleena as they hurried her down the stairway, closer to the trains. A rush of hot air thundered toward them, the grind of steel on steel.

Oh, God, they’re going to kill me!

Aleena’s primal instinct to survive took over.

She had taken self-defense courses and with cobra speed succeeded in breaking free and gripping the groin of one of the men, squeezing, crushing with every iota of strength until he doubled over, stopping them dead on the stairs. At the same time commuters bumped and shoved them, enabling her to shake herself loose from the second man, rush down the stairs and up another flight to the main concourse.

Aleena moved fast.

The men pursued her, frightening her with their speed.

On the main concourse she ran for the first door, fearing there might be others with the two strangers. She shifted around people on Manhattan’s busy streets with one thought propelling her.

Run. Run. Run.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the men were gaining. Oh, God, they’re fast, too fast. Aleena had to get away, far enough ahead to jump in a cab. She’d try around the next two blocks to get out of sight.

Aleena darted through traffic as fast as her feet could go.

* * *

Two blocks away, the dual stacks of a Peterbilt triaxle dump truck belched black smoke as Tony Grabeltinni grinded the gears of his eighteen-speed transmission. Tony, the owner-operator from Newark, was pissed off. Traffic was costing him money.

The lights were right; he had the chance to advance three blocks if he could cut around the idiot double-parked Mercedes. Tony upshifted and pushed the big Cat engine, getting his rig up to forty, fifty, fifty-five when-Jesus Christ-something blazed directly in front of him.

Tony knew his reflex to brake was too late-the blur of a hand, a foot, a bag was hurled and an orange scarf landed on his windshield flapping like the flag of surrender.

Aleena Visser had been bounced some thirty feet.

A crowd gathered. A halo of blood grew around her head.

“I never saw her! Christ, she ran into me!” Tony said as people called for help on cell phones. A woman was holding Aleena’s hand, touching her neck for a pulse.

Among the bystanders were the two men in sport jackets.

They gazed down at the scene until they heard the approaching sirens, then they walked away.

One of them reached for his cell phone and spoke quietly in Russian.

“Yes, we’re certain that she was never out of our sight,” he lied, preferring not to mention they’d lost sight of her for nearly a minute because he was confident she’d had no contact during that time.

“Yes, we maintained surveillance and confirm that she never made contact. Yes, she’s been removed. The threat has been removed, struck by a truck. It is clear that she may not survive her injuries.”