Vail also called her buddy Carmine Russo and asked him to track down the detective who handled the bank robbery case. Since it was a shared jurisdiction with the FBI, she also attempted to reach the special agent who spearheaded the investigation, but he had not returned her call.
The detective, Steven Johnson, agreed to meet them over a beer at Reade Street Pub & Kitchen, a favorite watering hole of Feds — and some cops.
As Uzi navigated the streets and drove along the West Side Highway, Vail tensed — a visceral reaction.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Vail looked away. “I lost a partner near here a long time ago.” She coiled in the front seat, bringing her knees up and grabbing them with her hands.
“Care to talk about it?”
“Car accident. Ironically, we were chasing a van filled with explosives. Sedan came out of nowhere.”
Uzi nodded, checking his mirrors before glancing back over at Vail. “All worked out, though, right?”
“My partner died.”
“Right. Except for that.”
Except for that.
“Then there was 9/11. I was in a high-rise not far from here. A few blocks.”
“On 9/11? You never told me that. You were there?”
Vail drew her legs onto the seat, close to her chest. “Not something I want to talk about.”
“No shit. Your body language says all I need to know.”
Vail mentally appraised herself — and released her grip on her shins, let her feet fall to the floor.
“We’re close,” DeSantos said.
“And who is this guy we’re meeting?” Fahad asked, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in his seat.
“Have a nice beauty nap?” DeSantos asked.
He yawned widely and groaned loudly. “Oh, man. Sorry. Haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately. You take it when you can get it.”
“We’re meeting with Detective Steven Johnson,” Vail said, “out of the 6–6 precinct. He and Special Agent Patrick Tarkenton handled the bank robbery. Haven’t been able to reach Tarkenton. We’ll see what Johnson can give us.”
Fahad ruffled his black hair and rubbed his cheeks with both hands, trying to wake himself up. “I need a coffee.”
They found curb space half a block from the Reade Street Pub & Kitchen, then passed under the green awning and entered the restaurant. The place was comfortable and homey, with a model train running on an oval track suspended from the ceiling.
They saw a man meeting the description of Detective Johnson — chocolate brown head shaved bald — and still dressed in a dark suit from his workday. He had taken a table near the bar with his back to the brick wall, which featured a large green and yellow neon sign that read “Reade Street Pub.” The place had an unfinished ceiling with exposed ventilation pipes — built decades before such a style was in vogue.
Johnson had taken it upon himself to get a pitcher of Reade Street dark ale for his visitors, which Vail noted almost before she reached the table. Fahad ordered a black coffee.
They all shook hands, Vail and Uzi leading the introductions — with DeSantos and Fahad foregoing mention of their employers. The idea was to give the impression that all of them were with the Bureau. Say CIA or Department of Defense, and some detectives clammed up. As it was, they were not keen on cooperating with Feds. But if an FBI task force had been set up for the robbery, the agreement governing it would have prevented Steve Johnson from even talking to them. One detective famously refused to give his own chief details of a case — and the chief was so pissed off that he tried to have the man transferred to a different precinct for refusing his request.
“You know,” Vail said, “I gotta ask, because I see the resemblance. You wouldn’t be one of Leslie Johnson’s relatives — brother, maybe?”
“Older brother, yeah. You know Lee?”
“We partnered together. I’m ex-NYPD. Haven’t talked to her in a year, year and a half. How’s she doing?”
“Just passed the sergeant’s exam.”
“Good for her. Give her a hug for me. And my congrats.”
“Thanks for meeting with us,” Uzi said. “We’re up against the clock.”
“You know we’re talking about a bank robbery here, right? Nothing too sexy. Or really that important. No one was killed. They came in at night.”
“We’re looking at the perp for something else.” And that’s really all we can say.
Johnson lifted his brow and harumphed. “You know there was a Fed who worked it too. Guy by the name of Tarkenton, or something like that.”
“Patrick Tarkenton. Yeah, I left a message. Anything you can tell us about the robbery?”
“I brought you a copy of our file. You obviously got some juice up top with the brass.”
Vail had to keep herself from laughing. If it’s juice, it’d be poisoned. “I still have a friend or two.” Gotta remember to thank Russo. That’s probably why this guy’s here, helping out a bunch of Feds after a long shift. She took the file, splayed it open, and shared it with DeSantos.
“How sophisticated was it?” Uzi asked.
Johnson swallowed a mouthful of beer. “They got a lot of stuff, so I’d say it was successful. In my book, that’s what matters, not how sophisticated it was.”
Fahad dumped a packet of sugar into his coffee. “I’d normally agree with you. But that’s not the case here.”
“They used bombs.” Vail looked up from the file. “They blew the vault mechanism with C4.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Johnson said. “We looked at that pretty hard because not everyone can get C4. But your lab didn’t find anything that could help us trace it. Oh, and they used something else I’d never heard of.”
DeSantos pointed to a paragraph of the report. “Triacetone triperoxide. TATP.”
Johnson snapped his fingers. “Give that man a cigar.”
Vail wiped at her glass with a finger, making a line in the condensation. That confirms it for me. There’s a connection here. But it’s not adding up.
“Our EOD guys said something about TATP being easy to get, but really dangerous to work with. Funny, because I remember thinking, if they can get C4, why use that other stuff?”
“Did you ever figure it out?”
Johnson drained his glass, then set it down and poured another. “They thought they needed the C4 to blow the locking mechanism and the TATP to give it extra power behind the blast. C4’s hard to get. Maybe they could only get a small amount.”
“What’d they take?”
“Some jewelry, some bonds, some cash. Usual stuff. I mean, the kind of shit people usually put in safe deposit boxes. Nothing stood out, to be honest with you.”
“And you never caught ’em?” Uzi asked as his phone vibrated. He stole a look at the display and then pushed his chair back to take the call.
“No. And we got nothing off the security cameras.”
“How many were there?” Fahad asked.
“Three inside, one spotter outside. Wore ski masks. Never did any other jobs, least not that we could tell.”
Johnson leaned back from the table. “Ah … gotta go use the head.” He glanced at his watch, then stood up. “Give me a minute, will ya?”
DeSantos watched Johnson move off toward the front of the bar, then turned to Vail. “You look like you’re onto something.”
Uzi finished his call and swiveled back toward the table.
Vail cocked her head, considering DeSantos’s comment. “Maybe. Just trying to reason it out. Think this through with me: they went after the vault, not the safe. There’s a lot more cash in the safe. I don’t know what the local thrift keeps on hand these days, but it’s gotta be a sizable figure. Tens of thousands?”