They Disappeared

58

Tremont, the Bronx, New York City

“He’s in a warehouse in Purgatory Point,” Cordelli told Brewer.

Brewer was driving.

“That’s five miles from here, we’ll take Major Deegan.” Brewer checked his mirrors, then rolled his unmarked Crown Victoria west out of Tremont, a section of the Bronx once known as a neighborhood of lost causes.

Brewer and Cordelli had come to Tremont to follow Brewer’s lead that a foreign crew was making a film without permits in the Bronx. Brewer’s source, the film location manager, was able to narrow his information to a factory in Tremont but the detectives had found nothing, even after a call to the Forty-sixth Precinct for help. Nothing had surfaced.

Their frustration underscored Brewer’s simmering resentment.

As he knifed through traffic on the expressway, he could not stop considering it punishment that he had been ordered to partner with Cordelli for the rest of this investigation.

Klaver had been assigned to work with Ortiz to help teams completing the canvass of restaurants and various outlets based on Jeff’s recalled details from the van.

Nothing had come out of that aspect of the investigation, either.

Until now, with Jeff’s call, no major breaks had surfaced for anyone, not the Joint Terrorism Task Force, NYPD, Homeland, FBI, Secret Service and the thirty agencies that were going full tilt on the case.

With a threat looming, the fear of being powerless to stop it intensified.

Brewer had to get his anger off of his chest.

“I don’t understand how you could just lose Griffin,” he said. “The last time that happened he made contact with the suspects.”

“The FBI had him. Nobody ‘lost’ him, Larry. He was never in custody.”

“Did they triangulate his phone?”

“They had him leaving Battery Park, then northbound near the Queensborough Bridge. Then they lost his roaming signal.”

“I would have never let him out of my sight.”

“No one can hold a candle to your police work, Larry. Look, we’ve got him again so why don’t you push this ‘my way’ crap aside so we can take Griffin’s lead and work this thing through.”

Brewer swallowed the remnants of his bitterness.

“Call the Fortieth,” Brewer said. “Request some help to meet us at this Vaketa Kitchen, or whatever it’s called, so we can find the warehouse. Better get ESU on standby.”

Cordelli was staring at his phone. Something had come in.

“It’s a text from Griffin,” Cordelli said. “Give me your phone, I’ve got to make a call.”

“What’s he saying?” Brewer passed Cordelli his cell phone and, while reading Jeff’s message, Cordelli called the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center. His call was answered on the second ring.

“This is Detective Cordelli with an urgent request. Is this Renee?”

“That’s right, Renee Abbott, Detective. How can I help?”

“You’re going to get a call from Jeff Griffin. He will leave his phone on for a one-way transmission of critical information, originating from the suspects. Do not respond. Mute your line and patch it through to the task force for processing. Alert them now. Are you ready for Griffin’s number?”

“Ten-four.”

“Okay, it’s 646–555…”