So very far.
Ivan skates after it over smooth-as-glass ice, so clear he can see the muddied bottom with undulating grass, even fish, it’s like he’s flying until the air cracks and the ice collapses under him and instantly he’s in the water, so cold it punches his breath from him as he plunges to the bottom where he drives his skates into the mud and pushes up, breaking the surface, body stabbed numb, ears ringing with hysteria.
“Clay! Help me, Clay!”
In his thrashing panic Ivan sees his little brother skating…AWAY! OH, GOD, HE’S SKATING AWAY! NO!
“Clay, don’t leave me! C-C-Cla—Clay—HELP ME!”
At eight years old, Clay’s heart is nearly bursting, skating so hard to old man Corbin’s dock, and the post that has that white old-fashioned lifesaver with the rope. Snow covers the ice and now Clay’s running on his skates, snot tears tightening on his face as he yanks and jerks and pulls the rope and trips and runs then skates while crying choking sobs, hearing Ivan’s screams, praying he’s still thrashing in the water. Clay skates, but it’s so far and the rope’s uncoiling behind him, but Clay skates and skates and like Dad showed them drops to his belly on the ice near Ivan and slides the lifesaver to Ivan who gets it over his arms yelling, “Pull, Clay!” Clay slides to the end of the rope, digs in his blades, feeling the weight of his big brother’s life at the end and Ivan feels the strength of Clay’s will dragging him from the icy jaws of death, wrapping his jacket around him and practically carrying him to old man Corbin’s door where there’s a hot stove going inside pounding on that stinking cracked door hearing his old mutt yapping the old man’s eyes JESUS! Ivan’s covered in ice his lips are blue heat spills from the house and Clay’s begging help my brother please! Oh please help him…
Felk turned from the window to his computer and replayed the last video from the insurgents, his rage building as he watches the sword rise over his brother’s head as Clay’s cries echo with his own from the pond.
“Don’t let me die! Ivan, please! Don’t let me die!”
Hang on, I’m coming, Clay.
Felk swallowed and turned back to the bag of items collected by Rytter from the service center. What’s this? There was something else that got swept up with the cash Rytter had recovered.
It was a plastic photo-ID employee card for Good Buy Supermart.
Felk looked at the woman on the card.
Her face was familiar: She was the woman next to the cop.
Was she the eyewitness? Was she the threat, the one thing that could stop them? No. No way. She didn’t see anything.
Right?
She didn’t see anything. There’s no goddamn way a supermarket clerk can stop this operation. Who is she?
He studied the ID
Lisa Palmer.
Felk stared at Lisa’s face for a very long time.
21
New York City
Tense from a troubled sleep, Jack Gannon woke early.
In the predawn light he saw his files blanketing him, fished out his splayed notebook and paged through his late-night thoughts on his tipster.
Mr. Anonymous could be linked to the heist.
In the wake of the murders, the caller’s cryptic information now rang too many alarm bells. Gannon had to steal time to chase this lead down, but couldn’t tell anyone what he was doing.
If it dead-ended, then no one would know.
If it turned out to be something, he’d alert Lisker.
Following a hunch never sat well with editors and, unlike some reporters, Gannon never oversold a story.
He started a pot of coffee then climbed into the shower.
After a breakfast of microwaved bacon on a cold bagel with lettuce, tomato and mayo, and orange juice, he fired up his laptop and got to work. He downed his coffee while checking the major news websites to see if his competition had advanced the story.
Nobody had hard news, mostly rehash. All was good until he read the lead item from the New York Daily News.
$6.3M Armored Car Heist Killers Fled Upstate The ice-cold killers who vanished with $6.3M after gunning down three guards and an FBI agent may be in Upstate New York near the Canadian border, sources told the Daily News.
Gannon cursed. The Daily News reported that locals near Alexandria Bay, New York, told police they’d spotted sport bikes that fit the general description of those in nationally broadcast security video. The exclusive gave the tabloid the jump. Expecting Lisker to call soon and scream at him, Gannon turned to his work.
He would devote as much time as he could get away with to pursuing his instincts on the caller. Then he’d turn to another angle: New York State police trooper Brad West, his friend who’d helped him at the scene.
Later he would press Brad to get his wife, the Ramapo cop, to help him find out more on the eyewitness. There had to be a way to get to the woman who saw the FBI agent’s murder up close.
For now, Gannon laid out every note he had on his tipster.
Judging from his voice, Gannon placed the guy in his late twenties. He was plain-speaking, maybe a blue-collar background, sounded concerned, troubled. He kept calling Gannon sir.
Military?
There wasn’t a whole lot of solid information. Gannon was mindful of the caller’s tone and his genuine fear, as again he scrutinized the key aspects of the content of his calls.
“This is big! I swear to God what I’m telling you is true!”
“It involves an operation, a mission, an attack on America.”
Then Gannon told him there was nothing he could do with vague, groundless information, that he needed something solid to support it, like documents or some sort of evidence. Gannon thought that would scare him off, as it did with most calls of this nature, but his tipster surprised him by agreeing to meet.
“I’ll bring the confirmation you need.”
They’d agreed to meet at a diner near Times Square. Gannon waited there, but was stood up and never heard from the guy again.
That’s how it ended.
Gannon checked the timeline.
That was three days before the heist.
Damn, he needed to find this guy, to determine if his tip was valid.
What if it was somehow connected to the murders? What happened?
Gannon went online, panning the social chatter on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks for anything related to the heist that might be a lead. Nothing useful surfaced.
He went back to his notes, recalling how his tipster had called him five times over ten days. Caller ID showed that all the calls came from pay phones in New York City. At the time, Gannon figured there was no use following up the numbers, but now he realized the pay-phone numbers were his only connection to the caller.
Gannon had noted the dates and times of the calls. Two came from two different phones in Manhattan, but three of the calls came from the same number. The guy could’ve been calling near where he lived or worked.
The number started with 914–969.
That was a prefix primarily used in Yonkers.