He didn’t have to tell Bishop that what they were doing here was for all the Lauras of the nation. He could see in the man’s resolute expression that he grasped that.
Kealey gave the agent a supportive clap on the shoulder as he turned and went back in the direction of Centre Street.
Police were moving everywhere to try and clear the massive tangle that reached from the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway and city hall. More people were standing still than moving; they didn’t know where to go. Many were shouting into cell phones, trying to hear above the sirens and choppers and the endless honking of horns. Other people were texting. Some were just sitting on benches or steps, alone or in pairs, talking, sobbing, or just resting with their head on their knees. A few were praying. People were asking the police if the subways were running, the PATH trains, the buses on Church Street. Some were trying to find out if the shootings at Penn Station had shut down the commuter lines. The officers, showing remarkable patience, did not know the answers as they tried to direct all foot traffic north. They just wanted to clear the area so vehicles could be moved. The FDR Drive and South Street were also at a standstill heading downtown. Bishop realized the best way to get back to Battery Park was to walk the mile or so. He knew he had to pick his way southwest and decided that once he left the on-ramp of the bridge, he’d turn down Park Row.
Brooklyn-bound pedestrians were still making for the bridge, dodging police who were trying to preserve the multiple crime scenes and rubbernecking as they passed. They were the most orderly group, like metal filings being drawn by a magnet. They obviously felt it was safe enough to cross now that the shooting was over and the sniper had apparently fled. Bishop had to weave his way through the mob. In spite of everything that had happened, he found himself smiling when he remembered being with his wife and daughter at Disney World on a holiday about eight years ago. It was packed solid, as these streets were, and he was holding both of their hands as he spearheaded an exit from the park. His hands closed beside him, and he could almost feel their soft, loving, trusting grip.
I miss you both, he thought.
He shouldered his way through people, twisted his way through cars, even climbed over fenders that were nearly touching. And then he froze. Among the stopped cars was a cab. Getting out less than 20 feet from him was someone he knew. It seemed surreal seeing her here, but when their eyes met, there was no question who it was, because she recognized him, too.
It was Jessica Muloni.
CHAPTER 23
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Trask Industries AMRAD Division-advanced munitions research and development-was located beneath a boxy white warehouse in the Atlanta Industrial Park. Sitting at the dead end of Atlanta Industrial Drive NW, the four-thousand-square-foot, two-story structure was completely rebuilt in 2011. It generally resembled the others in the park. What set it apart was that the grounds were entirely surrounded by a fence. The thin iron bars were ten feet high, were painted white, and resembled spears on top. One would have to touch them to discover that there were ten thousand volts of electricity running through every bar. That was the maximum allowed by international law, as likely to kill as to render unconscious. There were signs warning of the danger, though it was unlikely anyone would get close enough to read them. The surveillance cameras that lined the barricade every 10 feet-backed by a guard station on the roof, staffed 24/7-alerted a corps of security personnel to any individual who made the turn off Atlanta Industrial Way NW, which was the only way in. The day’s scheduled arrivals had already been logged by their license numbers. If the cameras and computers didn’t match a vehicle with its license number, security converged at the gate and a spike plate rotated points up from the road. The plate did not just deflate the tires; it pierced the rims and stopped even a speeding car bomb.
After the attacks in Baltimore and New York, the chief of security at the facility received preliminary reports from the FBI on the type of weapons used. He and his team reviewed the estimated yield from the explosives at the convention center, studied photographs of the damage, and saw no reason to expand the existing protection of the facility. They were an unlikely target. Few people outside the industrial park knew Trask had a facility here, and no one beyond the staff knew it was the AMRAD Division. Still, the unlikely targets were the ones that were usually caught with their shorts around their ankles. So the team met, did its review, and was satisfied that nothing needed to be done.
Even if all the systems failed, even if a hijacker crashed an Airbus into the facility, the cost would be in human life and property, but not ordnance. The aboveground structure was comprised entirely of executive offices. The real research facilities-the labs, the molding shops, the low-yield ordnance ranges, the storage facilities-were all located on four belowground levels, each of them protected on the top, bottom, and sides by steel-lined concrete 10 inches thick. The steel was ribbed with wires that created an electronic web: in the milliseconds after an explosion, a strong electromagnetic force would be generated to disburse the concussive wave, minimizing the impact in any one spot. If something exploded upstairs, it was unlikely to penetrate the ceiling of the first sublevel. If something exploded down here, it was unlikely anyone upstairs would hear it.
Within this system was another series of protections designed to circumvent industrial espionage. Every vial of nitroglycerin, every packet of gunpowder, every bar of steel or silver used by the molding shops, every tin filled with. 3mm screws had to be logged out from the OCQ-the Office of the Central Quartermaster. When he had established his company, Trask had realized that to sell to the military, he had to appeal to the military mentality. Using an army term to describe what was simply a disbursement center gave him an advantage over a rival with a purely functional “stockpile” or “repository” or “distribution center,” which made them sound like Wal-Mart or Best Buy, and not an arms developer.
Within the OCQ were the MCs-the munitions caches. These small, guarded warehouses were located side by side on sublevel four and were numbered from one to eleven, from small-caliber armaments to long-range missiles. There were also two lettered divisions: A and Z, as they were unofficially known. These were in a separate, isolated section of the basement. Officially, they were Division Alpha and Division Omega. Division Alpha experimented with high-yield bunker-busting devices, like the air-to-ground, laser-guided Enhanced Paveway III bombs, which were used by NATO to pummel Gadhafi in the Libyan uprising.
Division Omega was different. It created weapons that had never been used in combat. To date, only a handful had even been tested at the military’s White Sands range in south-central New Mexico. Division Omega designed EPWs-earth-penetrating weapons. These were all nuclear in nature. Unlike atom or hydrogen bombs, which had to be dropped from airplanes, or the much-feared but unwieldy and impractical “suitcase nukes,” these weapons were designed to be portable and precise.
And two of them were missing.
They had been checked out legitimately two days before. Tom Brehm remembered that clearly. Trask Earth Penetrator 1 and 2 were the only crates that had left the room in nearly a month. According to the manifest, they were bound to Site Green at White Sands via road, Absalom Bell, driver. They were due to arrive today. Except there was a problem-an alert Brehm had received that morning from the Department of Defense. It was directed to everyone involved with weapons testing:
EYES ONLY
DoD Command Center Dispatch A894D
SENT: 5:20:13-8:22 a.m.