General of the Army Ingrid Dows (Commander of all U.S. armed forces (as she appears at age 71).
20:03 (New York Time)
Tuesday, September 17, 1996 ‘C’
‘Aperossimo’ bar, East 56th Street
Midtown East District, Manhattan
New York City, U.S.A.
Toni Franchetti shook his trench coat once inside the small bistro, in order to get rid of the raindrops on it, then went to a table near the back of the long but narrow room, where a bearded man was sitting and sipping on a beer. That man was wearing a red scarf around his neck, the recognition sign agreed to on the phone with Toni. The later didn’t know the name of the man but that was customary for Toni in the case of preliminary meetings when eyeing a new contract. The bearded man also had a folded newspaper lying on his table, near him. That was another thing Toni was accustomed to: that newspaper probably hid an envelope containing details about the contract that was going to be proposed to him. Acting as if he knew the bearded man well, Toni took off his trench coat and hat before sitting facing the man and smiling to him.
‘’Nice to see you again, Peter.’’
The bearded man, a big, beefy guy in his early forties, replied to that recognition phrase with the pre-set answer.
‘’It’s been a long time, Tony. How are things with you?’’
‘’Things are okay, but business is a bit slow these days.’’
‘’Then, I may have some business for you, Tony. I have a really troublesome pest infestation in my warehouse and I need a real pro to take care of it.’’
‘’Okay! How big is your warehouse?’’ asked Toni, who wanted to know how much the man was ready to offer for the job. The bearded man took another sip of his beer before answering him nonchalantly.
‘’It’s a big warehouse and I have a lot of valuable merchandise in it that are vulnerable to mice. The place covers a good 100,000 square feet and the mice there are a really tough problem. Another company tried to get rid of them before but they failed miserably to complete the job.’’
‘So, this guy is offering 100,000 dollars to get rid of someone who has already thwarted a prior assassination attempt and who could be quite dangerous.’ thought Tony, mentally translating the coded talk.
‘’I see! And how urgent is that problem becoming for you?’’
‘’Quite urgent! Those damn mice could cost me a fortune in ruined merchandise if I don’t get rid of them quickly.’’
‘’You do realize that urgent jobs also mean more resources needed to complete them quickly, Peter.’’
‘’I understand that, Tony. I am ready to add a bonus to your normal fee in order to expedite the work. Here are the details about the location of my warehouse, plus a few photos of it outside and inside, so that you can evaluate the scale of the job to do. Take a day to look at them and then we will again meet here tomorrow evening at seven, so that we can agree on the cost of the job.’’
Tony Franchetti took the medium-sized envelope ‘Peter’ had grabbed from under his newspaper, then shook hands with the man while getting up from his chair.
‘’I will get you a cost evaluation by tomorrow afternoon, Peter. Have a good day!’’
Tony slipped the envelope inside a pocket of his trench coat, then put it back on, along with his hat, and exited the bar to go back to his car, parked some fifty meters away. The rain was still falling but was relatively light now. Walking quickly to his car, a discreet mid-sized sedan, Tony unlocked the driver’s door and sat behind the wheel, then locked back his door. While keeping an eye on the entrance of the bar, in order to see if ‘Peter’ would now come out, Tony took out the envelope he had been given and opened it, taking out of it a couple of folded paper sheets and a few photos. Tony’s blood suddenly rushed to his brain when he had his first look at the target of this contract. Not only was she well known in the United States and around the World, she was also a very powerful and very dangerous person. Tony then reminded himself of the slight accent displayed by ‘Peter’, an accent that he had heard before quite a few times while dealing with business ‘rivals’. If he was right about his sudden hunch, then Tony had a fair idea about who was trying to hire him for this job. He then looked again at the color photo of the target, staring at the beautiful young face of a woman with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. He finally put the photos and sheets of paper back in their envelope and kept watching the entrance of the ‘Aperossimo Bar’. Three minutes later, ‘Peter’ walked out of the establishment and got into a beige-colored car, sitting in the front passenger seat. A man who was already at the wheel and had apparently been waiting for him then started the engine and rolled out of the car’s parking spot. Tony, who had already started his own engine, took the time to note down the plate number, make and color of ‘Peter’s car before starting to cautiously follow the beige sedan from a respectful distance. While Tony’s real identity and occupation was known by only a very few persons, he himself liked to find out who was hiring him, in the case that his employer tried to screw him over. This time however, he had another, very different reason why he now wanted to find out who was ‘Peter’ and for whom he worked for.
08:16 (New York Time)
Wednesday, September 18, 1996 ‘C’
New York F.B.I. offices, 23rd floor, 26 Federal Plaza
Corner of Worth Street and Broadway Avenue
Manhattan, New York City
Special Agent in Charge Marc Reading was already reading through a thick investigation report file when his telephone rang, making him quickly pick it up.
‘’Special Agent in Charge Marc Reading!’’
Reading then heard the voice of a mature man who sounded a bit muffled, as if he was speaking through a mask.
‘’Special Agent Reading, my name is not important but the information I have for you is. Don’t bother trying to trace this call: I am calling from a public telephone booth which is not in view of any camera.’’
‘’Okay, mister, I am listening.’’ said Reading, his attention fully focusing on this call: this had all the hallmarks of an anonymous tip, and one apparently made by a man who was no amateur at the game. He thus grabbed a pen and notepad at once while listening.
‘’Good! Know that I am in the professional assassination business, which is why I want to stay anonymous. Yesterday, someone offered me a job, along with a big fee to do it. I normally would have accepted the job but the identity of the target made me reconsider my response to it. I am due to see again the man who offered me the job this evening, in order to give him my answer and finalize the contract but I decided instead to call you guys rather than take that contract.’’
‘’Oh?! And who is the person targeted by that contract, mister?’’
‘’General of the Army Ingrid Dows. Know as well that my interlocutor spoke with a slight Russian accent. I may be what you would qualify as a very bad guy, but I am a patriotic American bad guy and I refuse to even try to assassinate such an American hero as General Dows.’’
While surprised, Reading believed the man: experience had shown him that not all criminals were completely devoid of scruples or principles.
‘’I certainly can appreciate your patriotism, mister. Can you tell me more about this guy with a Russian accent?’’
‘’I can tell you plenty, in fact, Special Agent Reading. First, I am due to meet with him at seven this evening at the ‘Aperossimo Bar’, on East 56th Street, in the Midtown East District. He is a big, beefy guy in his forties with a short black beard and a receding hairline and he is due to wear a red scarf around his neck as a recognition sign for our meeting. He has a short scar on his left temple and calls himself ‘Peter’. I was able to follow the car he came in when he left the bar: it was a beige Toyota COROLA sedan with the plate number NHG 862 and another man was at the wheel. I was able to trail them up to the area of Pier 36, in the Lower East Side, but lost them there.’’
‘’That is already quite a lot of information, mister. I suppose that you would not be ready to meet me, right?’’
The man on the phone laughed briefly before answering him.
‘’Definitely not, Special Agent Reading. However, you should soon receive a large padded envelope destined to you via a bicycle courier. That envelope will contain the envelope I was given by that ‘Peter’. I was wearing gloves when I was given it but that ‘Peter’ wasn’t, so you may be able to get his fingerprints on the content of the envelope. Please tell your agents not to screw up by carelessly manipulating that envelope. I will not personally go to that meeting at the ‘Aperossimo Bar’ this evening but, if you go just prior to seven, you may be able to catch that ‘Peter’. Be careful, though: he gave me the impression of being a tough, dangerous man. Be also ready to catch his driver while he is parked outside the bar. With both men in your hands, you should be able to find and neutralize the bastards who want General Dows dead. I will now hang up. Please don’t try to find me after this. Good luck and goodbye.’’
The line was then cut, leaving Marc Reading to look at his own receiver for a moment before he got up from his chair and nearly ran out of his office, emerging in the open office space where his agents had their work desks.
‘’LISTEN UP, PEOPLE! THIS IS IMPORTANT! WE SHOULD BE RECEIVING AN ENVELOPE BY BIKE COURIER THIS MORNING. WHOEVER TAKES RECEIPT OF IT WILL HAVE TO MAKE SURE TO MANIPULATE IT WITH GLOVES AND TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO ERASE ANY FINGERPRINTS WHICH COULD BE ON IT. I WANT TO BE WARNED THE MOMENT THAT THIS ENVELOPE ARRIVES. AGENT SCHAEFFER, GO DOWN TO THE LOBBY OF THE BUILDING RIGHT AWAY AND INTERCEPT ANY BIKE COURIER WHO WILL SHOW UP WITH AN ENVELOPE ADDRESSED TO US. MAKE SURE YOU WEAR GLOVES.’’
‘’Uh, yes sir!’’ replied his most junior agent, a young man barely out of the F.B.I. Academy, before nearly running out of the office. That left Reading fervently wishing that this whole thing was not some kind of hoax or bad prank.
His fears were negated some twenty minutes later, when Agent Schaeffer came back and put down a large padded brown envelope on Reading’s desk.
‘’Here is the envelope you were waiting for, sir. It has no return address on it.’’
‘’I kind of expected that, Schaeffer. Thanks! Tell Agent Browning to come here on the double with a fingerprint kit.’’
‘’Right away, sir!’’
In turn, the specialist in crime scene processing showed up within three minutes and, putting latex gloves on first, then cautiously examined and dusted off the outside of the brown envelope. He found a few fingerprint marks on the outside but gave a cautious look at Reading while starting to record them.
‘’Those fingerprints are probably those of the bike courier, sir. What will be inside may however be of more interest to us.’’
‘’I concur! Just make sure to record all the prints you will find, so that we could run them afterwards through our database.’’
‘’Understood, sir.’’
Reading then let his specialist work, simply watching as he recorded the prints found on the outside of the brown envelope, then opened it cautiously and emptied its content on the desk. Reading’s eyes opened wide on seeing a color picture of a young woman as part of the content.
‘’General Dows! My caller was telling me the truth after all. Browning, make sure that you record and list all the prints you will find on these photos and those sheets of paper: this may concern a planned assassination attempt against General Dows, our highest military commander.’’
‘’Shit! This could disturb a lot of highly-placed people, including at the White House.’’
‘’It certainly could! Continue your work here while I gather my assistants.’’
Leaving Browning to his work, Reading quickly walked out of his office and went to one of the cubicles in the open office space which were made with mobile partitions. There, he pointed an index at the man and woman whose desks occupied the cubicle.
‘’Michael, Anna, I need you to come to my office: we may have a case of attempted assassination involving possible Russian agents.’’
On hearing that, Michael Bogdanov and Anna Decker, Reading’s two counter-espionage specialists, immediately dropped what they were doing and got up from their chairs as their superior walked to another cubicle occupied by two male agents. Reading then addressed one of the two men, a small and unassuming agent who was his top surveillance and tailing specialist, Thomas Krasner.
‘’Tom, alert your team to be ready for an operation this evening, then come to my office: we have something on our hands that may prove to be an important case.’’
‘’Yes, sir!’’ simply said Krasner, who then grabbed his telephone and composed a number. Reading did not wait for him to do his phone call, returning instead to his office, where Bogdanov and Decker were already sitting in chairs facing his desk and watching Browning as he was dusting off fingerprints on the content of the brown envelope. In turn, Reading did not ask questions to the crime scene specialist and sat behind his desk. A couple minutes later, Krasner and his three assistants entered the office and closed the door behind them. Reading nodded to them before starting to speak.
‘’Thank you for coming quickly. Bob is presently looking for fingerprints on the content of an envelope just delivered by bike courier. That envelope in turn arrived after I received an anonymous phone call at eight fifteen this morning, warning me about a planned assassination attempt against General of the Army Ingrid Dows. That planned attempt may in turn be engineered by possible Russian agents. While that last point is still only a supposition, this case may well become our most important one this year and I intend us to do our maximum to arrest the responsible ones. As you may well know, our diplomatic relations with Russia are still cut, following the Russians’ attempt at colluding with the Caucasus Islamic Republic in order to attack one of our warships in the Black Sea a few months ago. There are thus no Russians, either diplomats, businessmen or tourists, left in the U.S.A. If we catch some Russians tonight, then we will treat them as illegal foreign agents.’’
‘’Uh, how did we learn about this, sir?’’ asked Anna Decker, a blonde in her mid-thirties who was well worth at least a look. In response, Reading pointed at the picture of Ingrid Dows still laying flat on his desk, careful not to touch it.
‘’The someone who called me this morning claimed to be a professional hitman who had been offered a job to kill General Dows. That hitman told me that he was due to meet again this evening with his would-be employer at a bar on East 56th Street, in order to finalize his contract with him. That hitman will not show up for that meeting, but we will! We also may have to take into account an accomplice who drove that would-be employer around.’’
‘’And what pushed that hitman into warning us, sir?’’
‘’That hitman, who wants to stay anonymous, claims to be a patriotic American, despite his present occupation, and said that he was not ready to kill a national hero like General Dows. Maybe that hitman served in the military before, possibly under the command of General Dows, and worships her. While rare, I have seen before cases of professional assassins who held some moral principles. Besides, the content of the envelope he sent us quite convinced me that his story was legitimate.’’
‘’Just out of curiosity, sir,’’ asked Ronaldo Reyes, who originated from Puerto Rico, ‘’how much money was that hitman offered to kill General Dows?’’
‘’A hundred thousand dollars.’’ answered Reading, making many of his agents open their eyes wide.
‘’A hundred thousand dollars? And that hitman is ready to spit on that, sir?’’
‘’Apparently. Now, here is how we will operate this evening…’’
18:52 (New York Time)
F.B.I. car, parked along the East 56th Street, near the ‘Aperossimo Bar’
‘’Heads up, people: the target car is in sight and approaching the Aperossimo Bar… It is now parking some twenty yards short of the bar… The lead suspect is now coming out of that car and heading towards the entrance of the bar.’’
Mark Reading then watched and listened as the big bearded man entered the Aperossimo Bar, while the man driving the beige Toyota stayed at the wheel. Next, he heard the voice of Michael Bogdanov, who was already inside the bar with Anna Decker.
‘’The suspect is now inside the bar and heading to one of the tables near the rear of the lounge… He is now sitting at the last table and is close to where the emergency exit door and the restrooms are.’’
‘’Understood, C.I.! Back Door Team, be ready to block that exit if the suspect tries to flee.’’
‘’We are ready, Big Cheese.’’
The use of that codename to address Reading made young Donald Schaeffer giggle a bit.
‘’Big Cheese… You really chose that nickname for you on this operation, sir?’’
‘’Hey, some humor can only help keeping our agents alert and awake. Hopefully, our suspect has brought some incriminating evidence with him.’’
‘’Well, Robert Browning did lift up some clear fingerprints from the content of the envelope we got this morning, sir. If our suspect’s fingerprints prove to concord, then we will have a serious case against him, sir.’’
‘’True! However, I never sell the bear’s fur before I have killed the animal, Schaeffer. Overconfidence has sunk many F.B.I. operations in the past.’’
‘’Uh, understood, sir.’’
A few more minutes passed in silence as Reading looked repeatedly at his watch while keeping an eye on the beige Toyota and the entrance to the bar. At precisely seven, he spoke again in his radio microphone.
‘’C.I. Team, move in and arrest the suspect! All agents, be ready for action!’’
‘’C.I. Team moving now!’’
Inside the bar, Anna Decker was the first to get up from her bench seat, then headed towards the rear of the lounge and the restrooms, her handbag suspended from her left shoulder. She walked past the suspect, who only gave her a cursory look, and stopped just short of the entrance to the narrow hallway leading to the restrooms and the rear exit, then grabbed her revolver from inside her handbag and pivoted around. Michael Bogdanov, who had waited a few seconds before getting up from his seat, then approached the suspect’s table. Stopping two paces short of it, Bogdanov then produced both his F.B.I. badge and his pistol, pointing the latter at the bearded man.
‘’F.B.I.! You are under arrest! Keep both of your hands on the table, where I can see them.’’
The big, bearded man stiffened at once and his eyes narrowed while fixing the federal agent. His left hand, which was holding a nearly full glass of beer, then moved at lightning speed, throwing beer in the face of Bogdanov. Blinded for a second, the F.B.I. agent quickly wiped the beer off his eyes and face and pointed back his pistol, but that delay had been enough to allow the suspect to get up and start running towards the rear exit. The poor Anna Decker was bowled over by the much bigger and heavier man before she could say something like ‘freeze’ or ‘stop’ and was then literally trampled by the suspect, who continued his mad rush to the rear emergency exit. That exit door was equipped with a ‘panic bar’ system, so he pushed it while ramming the door, which opened violently on impact. ‘Peter’ was starting to grab his own pistol from his shoulder holster rig as he ran out of the bar but never had a chance to pull it out. Special Agent Anthony Borletti, who was watching the rear exit with Ronaldo Reyes, swung the baseball bat he had brought for the occasion and hit hard the suspect in his belly as he was about to run past him. ‘Peter’ let out an audible ‘Oof!’ and tripped on Borletti’s extended leg, crashing on his belly and badly scratching his face as he slid for a short distance on the dirty pavement of the back alley. His breath cut and half knocked out, the bearded man did not have a chance to get up or even turn on his back before Reyes jumped on his back with both knees, taking out the little air left in his lungs. Fighting for air and hurting, the suspect was then cuffed by Reyes and turned on his back, allowing Borletti to take away his still holstered pistol and then search him. Borletti was still going through the man’s pockets when Michael Bogdanov belatedly got out of the bar via the emergency exit, his pistol at the ready. Seeing that the suspect was under control, Bogdanov spoke quickly in his hidden lapel radio microphone.
‘’SUSPECT APPREHENDED AT THE REAR DOOR OF THE BAR!’’
On hearing that, Reading spoke in turn into his microphone.
‘’FRONT TEAM, BLOCK THE SUSPECT VEHICLE AND ARREST THE DRIVER!’’
Special Agents Krasner and Taylor, who had been waiting in their car nearby, then quickly drove their car level with the suspect’s car and braked, blocking it from rolling out of its parking spot. Thomas Krasner then jumped out of the F.B.I. car and pointed his pistol at the driver of the beige Toyota, his weapon’s muzzle pressed against the driver’s window.
‘’F.B.I.! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE WHEEL AND KEEP THEM UP!’’
The Toyota’s driver, who had let his engine run at idle, reacted in a way that surprised Krasner: he put his car in reverse and turned his steering wheel to the right while flooring the accelerator. The Toyota jumped backward while its front pivoted to the left, sandwiching the unfortunate Krasner between it and the F.B.I. car as it violently impacted its rear bumper against the car parked behind it. Putting his car on ‘drive’, the driver of the Toyota rammed the front right side of the federal car in an attempt to evade the police trap. Seeing that Krasner was in very real danger of being run over by the Toyota, Marc Reading jumped out of his car while swearing and pulled out his service pistol, a.45 caliber Smith & Wesson. Pointing it at the driver of the Toyota, Reading then shot four times in quick succession, shattering the rear window of the car and making the driver jerk before falling limp over the steering wheel. With the suspect driver now unmoving, Reading hurried to the badly shaken Krasner, who was having difficulty in getting back on his feet.
‘’KRASNER, ARE YOU OKAY?’’
‘’Uh, yes sir! I… OUCH! Shit! My left knee is all banged up. That asshole sure reacted quickly. He took me by surprise.’’
‘’He acted like a pro, that’s for sure. Will you be alright?’’
‘’I can stand by myself, but my left knee is really painful, sir.’’
Reading nodded his head at that, then looked at Agent Schaeffer, who had stepped out of his car.
‘’CALL AN AMBULANCE FOR OUR AGENT!’’
‘’RIGHT AWAY, SIR!’’
Reading then went to check on the driver of the Toyota, finding him dead, with three bullet wounds in his back. Searching him quickly after opening with some difficulty the driver’s door, he found a 9mm pistol worn in a shoulder rig, along with a miniature radio transceiver. He was in the process of searching the inside of the Toyota when his rear team walked out of the bar’s front entrance with the main suspect and with the C.I. team. Reading noticed at once the large bruise on one side of Anna’s face.
‘’You’re okay, Agent Decker? What happened to you?’’
‘’That asshole literally bumped me and trampled me while running for the rear exit, sir. He could qualify as a football linebacker in the Major Leagues, sir.’’
‘’He also had this on him, sir.’’ added Anthony Borletti, showing a compact 9mm pistol. Reading looked for a moment at the weapon before looking at the big bearded man.
‘’Do you have a permit for that gun, mister?’’
Getting no answer apart from a black look, Reading nodded his head once.
‘’Alright, you want to play that kind of game? Then, be ready to pay the price for it. Agent Browning, you will stay here with Agents Taylor and Schaeffer, in order to thoroughly search this Toyota and document the crime scene. The rest of us will go back to the office with the suspect.’’
The group then split, with Reading replacing Schaeffer at the wheel of his car, in which the suspect and Agents Borletti and Bogdanov also took place. Driving back to the F.B.I. office took some fifteen minutes, with the suspect then solidly escorted to the 23rd floor of the Federal Plaza Building, where he was thoroughly searched before being put in a temporary holding cell while Reading’s team went through what had been found on the suspect. Some twenty minutes later, they were able as well to examine what had been found in the beige Toyota and on its dead driver. While not exactly a gold mine of information, that evidence quickly made a few things clearer to the F.B.I. agents, with Reading giving a few orders to his agents as a result.
‘’Michael, Anna and James, you go to the suspect’s residence and search it thoroughly. Don’t be afraid to pierce holes in the walls if need be. Ronaldo, Anthony and Donald, you will do the same at the dead driver’s home. If anyone is found at those addresses, then bring them in for interrogation. Each team will also be accompanied by a four-man security team, in case you face any opposition. I didn’t like the way those two suspects reacted violently to us. Be careful and expect anything. As for the suspect in our hands, I will let him stew in his juice until I get the results of your home searches. Let’s get to it, people!’’
20:58 (New York Time)
Unit 34, Madison Street Condominium
Two Bridges District, Manhattan
A woman in her mid-thirties answered the door when Special Agent Michael Bogdanov knocked on it as a formality, surprising him as he was not expecting anyone to live in that condo unit except for the suspect presently being held at the F.B.I. offices. In turn, the woman, a pretty blonde with an athletic body, eyed suspiciously the two men and one woman standing in the hallway in front of her door.
‘’Yes?’’
In response, Bogdanov showed her his F.B.I. badge while watching carefully the woman’s expression.
‘’Special Agent Michael Bogdanov, F.B.I.! Do you live here, miss?’’
‘’Of course I do!’’ replied the woman. ‘’Why do you ask such a question?’’
‘’Because a man named Peter Kirchner and who was arrested by us this evening is supposed to live here. Are you his wife?’’
‘’Yes, I am! This must be a mistake. Why did you arrest my husband?’’
‘’Because he is accused of conspiracy to murder, resisting arrest and assaulting a federal agent. Here is the search warrant authorizing us to search this residence.’’
‘’This is ridiculous! My husband owns a warehouse in the Seaport District. He couldn’t have done what you just said.’’ protested the woman. ‘’You must have the wrong man!’’
‘’I don’t think so, madam. The man we arrested carried a driver’s permit bearing the name of Peter Kirchner and listing this condo as his home address. Now, please let us in, or do you prefer to be charged with obstruction?’’
The woman stiffened at those last words, then opened the door wide and stepped out of the way, allowing the three F.B.I. agents to enter the dwelling. She was further shocked when four more agents, who were openly carrying either submachine guns or shotguns, also entered, with one of them telling her to go sit on a sofa in the living room of the condo unit, then stood next to her to watch her. Alexandra Kirchner thus couldn’t do much as the F.B.I. agents started searching methodically every room of the suite.
The agent watching Alexandra Kirchner was also checking her for any change in facial expression or body attitude as the other agents searched the condo. He thus spoke up when he saw her stiffen a bit as Anna Decker was starting to examine a large combination radio-CD player-record player housed in a wooden cabinet.
‘’Agent Decker, I believe that you are getting warmer.’’
Anna Decker threw a hard look at Alexandra Kirchner before concentrating on the wooden cabinet and examining it closely from all angles. Pulling the cabinet away from the wall, she took out a small screwdriver set with multiple heads and started removing the screws holding the rear metallic plate of the radio-CD player in place. With the plate removed, she then u