Puzzle by Nora Phoenix
14
Milan had been tasked with assisting the FBI agents who were once again pouring over the footage of the site of the Pride Bombing as well as all traffic cams and video recordings the FBI had painstakingly cataloged back in 2015. They were hoping to find more clues now that they better knew what to look for. Coulson had suggested that Milan, as a native New Yorker and an NYPD detective, might be able to offer valuable insights, and Milan had agreed.
Besides, it offered a welcome distraction from the whole shitstorm his relationship with Asher and Denali had caused. The serious press had long since stopped caring, having moved on to the next scandal, but the tabloids loved it. They’d had to resort to staying in the White House rather than in Asher’s apartment, and the White House staff had proven to be incredibly loyal. They hadn’t leaked the relationship in the first place. That had been one of Asher’s neighbors who had recognized Milan and had tipped the press off. Asshat.
Del had fired him as an advisor to the president, but when Milan had called his NYPD captain, the man had made it crystal clear he didn’t give two shits about Milan’s sex life…or love life. “Legal and consensual, that’s where I draw the line. Other than that, I don’t even want to know what kinky shit you’re up to, Bradbury,” he’d said, and Milan had never loved the blunt, grumpy guy more.
Even better, NYPD had loaned him out to the FBI as a special consultant—something he knew Coulson had made happen. The man had valued Milan’s contribution, and Milan had to admit it felt good to be appreciated. And so he sat down with the team that focused on the bombing, led by Supervisory Special Agent Ashley Foerster, who possessed a sharp mind that had impressed Milan from the moment he’d met her.
The upside of Manhattan being an island was that there were only so many ways someone could get something big in like, say, a bomb. And still they had no hard evidence of how the bombs used in the Pride Bombing had been transported into the city. All they knew was that one of the three bombers had rented a storage space close to the site of the bombing—under a fake name, but one that had been easy to discover—but the camera covering the hallway where his storage unit was located had been tampered with, so the owners hadn’t been able to hand over any CCTV footage. Same for the cameras around the storage facility, which had all suggested a highly skilled bomber.
“Detective Bradbury, how would you approach this?” she asked him.
The use of his title was much more formal than Milan would have preferred, but he knew enough about the FBI culture by now to know that trying to change that was futile. “What do we know about the bomb maker?”
“The ATF has traced the blasting caps and other elements used in the bombs back to Jon Brooks, so we’re certain he either made the bomb or supervised someone making it. He was flagged a few years ago for missing materials, but the case was never picked up because he didn’t trigger any suspicion otherwise,” Ashley said.
“Before the Pride Bombing?”
Ashley nodded, a frown creasing her forehead. “Six weeks before. But no priors, no warning signs, nothing.”
“Shit. That’s gonna look bad when it leaks…and you know it will.”
“It’s 9/11 all over again. But it’s so easy to see it in hindsight. The man owns a construction company, no record, and he’s an American. How does that trigger suspicion?”
“Terrorists don’t look like they used to, that’s for sure.” Milan took a deep breath, shoving his anger down. “Okay, so Brooks made the bombs, which means they had to be brought in from Oklahoma. Who do we think transported them to New York?”
“Based on the profile we have now, we’re assuming they kept the number of people in the know limited. That would mean that the bombers, the bomb maker, or someone from Kingmakers transported the bombs into the city,” Ashley said.
Milan shook his head. “Not the bombers. They’re brown, which draws more suspicion than a white driver. Regardless of how you feel about it, racial profiling is still very much a thing with the NYPD. Kingmakers would’ve known that, so they would’ve picked a white driver.”
Ashley wrote that down on the gigantic whiteboard she used for their brainstorm session. “So either the bomb maker or someone from Kingmakers.”
“Kingmakers is located in DC,” Brandi, one of the agents on the team, said. “If one of the Kingmakers men drove, that meant they either had to pick it up in Oklahoma or meet Brooks somewhere. DC isn’t on the way unless Brooks made a massive detour.”
Ashley added it to the list.
“Considering the weight and size, we’re looking for a van, a pickup truck, or even a dump truck or something similar,” Xander, another agent, said.
“Driving a dump truck on Manhattan is difficult,” Milan pointed out. “Especially if you’re not familiar with the area.”
“Sure, but Jon Brooks would be used to them, considering he owns a construction company,” Xander replied.
“Yeah, but would he drive one all the way from Oklahoma? Those things can’t be comfortable for such a long distance.”
Another note on the whiteboard.
“Let’s leave the identity of the driver for now. The question is, would he have used one of the high traffic routes, like the Lincoln Tunnel, or a more obscure route to get to the storage facility?” Ashley looked around the table. “Both have arguments pro and con.”
“Were any of them familiar in New York?” Brandi asked. “Do we have any evidence of them ever spending time in the city?”
“Oh, great question. As far as I know, not, but let me double-check,” Ashley said. “But what are you thinking?”
“Look, traffic on Manhattan is a nightmare, even for those of us who live there and are used to it. Everyone knows this. Hell, every tourist guide about the city mentions this. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s ten times worse. So if the driver didn’t know the area well, my guess is he took the easiest route.”
Brandi was from New York. Brooklyn, judging by her accent, and while she made a good point, something about it niggled Milan, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Ashley pulled up a map and plotted a course from Oklahoma City to the Stonewall Inn. “In that case, he would’ve come in through the Holland Tunnel.”
Milan clicked his tongue. “That’s debatable. First of all, if he drove anything else but a van or a normal pickup truck, he wouldn’t have been able to use it. That tunnel has strict limitations on size and weight. Depending on whether he was transporting all bombs at the same time or just one, he’d have been over the weight limit as well. But more importantly, you can’t transport explosives or any hazardous materials through the tunnel.”
Xander frowned. “Do they check that?”
“They do random checks, especially when they see a vehicle that’s overweight. I don’t think he’d take that risk. Everything we’ve seen so far confirms that Kingmakers plans things into detail. My guess is the driver took either the Lincoln Tunnel or a bridge.”
Brandi narrowed her eyes, and Milan could practically see her brain spinning. “If he’d kept on driving on the 95…”
“He would’ve taken the George Washington Bridge,” Milan said.
“Then south on the Harlem River Drive and the FDR Drive.”
“Houston would’ve been the easiest, then north on Sixth Avenue.”
Ashley highlighted the route Milan and Brandi had suggested on a detailed map of Manhattan. “OK, let’s start here. Pull all footage from traffic cams from this route and mark any vans and trucks. Don’t rely on previous analysis. Fresh eyes, people.”
Milan leaned back, staring at the map while the others got up. The route they’d come up with made sense, and yet something didn’t sit right with him. If Brooks or one of the Kingmakers guys had transported the bombs, where would he have dropped those off? At the storage facility? But how did you carry something that big into a building and not draw attention, especially when it included three young brown men? Someone would’ve remembered, and no one had. The FBI had asked everyone, and no one had noticed anything around the storage facility.
“Wait,” he said. The others, who were already at the door, turned around.
“What’s up?” Ashley asked.
“What if we’ve been wrong about the storage facility?”
Ashley cocked her head. “I’m listening.”
“The storage facility showed no traces of explosives when forensics processed it, correct?”
Everyone walked back again and retook their seats.
“Yes, but more than a week had passed since the bombing, which explains the lack of physical evidence,” Xander said.
“The fake name that was used was too easy to find. What if the whole thing was a decoy? What if they wanted us to focus there, knowing we’d run into a dead end, and they stored the bomb somewhere else?” The more Milan thought about it, the more he was convinced he was right.
The room grew quiet. “If Brooks transported the bomb close to the storage facility, we’re talking about a rough-looking, middle-aged, white male…who met up with three young, brown students,” Brandi said slowly. “That would stand out on Manhattan. In the other boroughs, not so much, but in the area around Stonewall? It would. And even if it had been one of the Kingmakers guys, like Basil King, Kurt Barrows, or Steve Duron, we’re still talking about three people, including two brown men, carrying something big and heavy from a van into a building.”
Milan nodded. “Exactly. Someone would’ve noticed, and if they didn’t call the cops at that time, they would’ve at least come forward after the bombing. The faces of the three bombers were plastered all over the news. No one confirmed seeing them here with the bombs. Canvassing the area, yes, but never with the bombs. So how did those get there?”
They all looked at each other.
“Let’s assume for a moment the bombs weren’t stored at that storage facility. That means they somehow had to be brought to the area. How and by whom?” Ashley asked. Milan loved that she kept trying to see the entire picture rather than focus on one minor aspect at the risk of missing connections.
“Go through the placement of the bombs again,” Milan said.
Ashley gestured at Brandi, who connected her laptop to the projector and pulled up a map. “The first bomb was hidden in a trash can close to the Stonewall Inn. We have partial camera footage of someone matching the physical description of one of the three bombers placing it. It was the smallest of the three bombs, carried in a suitcase.”
Milan nodded. “What about the other two?”
“Both were hidden on a float. The second bomb was on the float from the Rainbow Pride Foundation, a nonprofit that helps homeless LGBT+ kids in New York. And the third bomb, the biggest, was on Club 69’s float. Both floats were held at the same location on Washington Street, along with two more floats.”
She marked the locations on the map with a red circle. The floats had been built only a couple of blocks away from the Stonewall Inn. Close enough to walk—but not with a bomb that size.
“How did they get into that building?”
“We still don’t know. There was no sign of forced entry. The building was locked and had no security cameras. In the week before the parade, people constantly walked in and out, from what we’ve gathered. We questioned every single person who worked on those floats or even at that location, and none of them saw any of the three bombers inside. We showed their pictures everywhere.”
Milan leaned back, mentally organizing the information. “How long would they have needed to place the bombs?”
“At least fifteen minutes. They would’ve had to cover them up well enough so no one would discover them.”
“Show me the footage from the parade.”
For an hour, they watched and rewatched, then went back to the map and puzzled, still not getting anywhere, though everyone kept coming up with ideas and suggestions that Ashley wrote down. Milan looked at the images of Seth chasing the suspect. “I know he still died, but if Seth hadn’t chased him, the blast would’ve taken him out,” Brandi said.
Milan froze. “Wait. Was he expecting to die?”
“I don’t know for sure, but we don’t think so. Why?” Ashley asked.
“If he placed the bomb himself, he would’ve known how powerful the thing was. He would’ve been a hell of a lot farther away from it when it went off. Instead, he was standing there, waiting for it to go boom.”
“He had to be close to detonate it. They had remote detonators.”
“But he ran away. When did he set it off?”
Brandi rewound, then paused the frame. “Here. See? He has the remote in his hand, and he’s looking over his shoulder as he’s pressing it. That was Seth’s signal to warn everyone.”
“It doesn’t make sense, not if he expected to walk away from the blast. He only set it off there because Seth chased him. Otherwise, he would’ve been on that sidewalk when he pressed the button, and it would’ve killed him. Unless he didn’t know its power and wasn’t even sure what he was setting off.”
Brandi frowned. “How’s that possible? He placed it on the float.”
“Did he? Or do we assume he did?”
“We have surveillance footage of him the week before, canvassing the area, both around Washington Street and along the route of the Pride Parade. Same for the other two. They hired a storage facility. We have them on camera when the bombs go off, and we know they set them off,” Ashley said.
“The one element that’s missing, at least for bombs two and three, is how they got them into the building and onto the floats. Think about it. Three Indian-looking students. Or maybe two. Around a building where floats are being built for a Pride parade. They would’ve stood out like a sore thumb. The queer community is hella diverse, but we don’t have many Indian-looking members…”
“What are you saying?”
“What if they didn’t place the bombs? They set them off and took the fall, but what if they never placed them on the floats because they would’ve drawn too much attention? What if they had no idea what they were doing, how much damage they would inflict?”
Brandi swallowed. “But if they didn’t place them, who did?”
Things clicked into place for Milan. “We’re talking about three guys from an impoverished area in India with no confirmed prior knowledge of explosives or any terrorist training. Would Kingmakers really have trusted them to set up the bombs, knowing they might make a mistake? Or that the very color of their skin would arouse suspicion? No, they used one of their own. They placed the bombs themselves.”
“Shit.” Ashley slapped her fist on the table. “I think you’re right. And of course when we did the interviews, we only knew about the three bombers. We had no idea of Kingmakers’ involvement, so we never thought to ask about anyone else. In general terms, yes, but these guys are good. I’m sure they found a way to infiltrate that building without arousing anyone’s suspicion.”
“Start over, ask questions all over again,” Milan said. “Only now show pictures of Barrow, King, Duron, and even Wesley Quirk. My money is on one of them.”
Ashley nodded, furiously scribbling on the whiteboard.
“If they placed the bombs themselves, where did they store them?” Xander brought up their previous dilemma again.
“After 9/11, people on Manhattan are suspicious.” Milan steepled his fingers. “I think it would be impossible to carry something that big into a storage unit and not have someone ask questions.” An idea struck. “How long did they work on the floats?”
“Two weeks,” Ashley said.
“If I had to do it, I’d volunteer for one of the crews. Show up every day, be nice, and work hard so no one would ever suspect me. I’d be white, present myself as queer, and make sure I’d fit in. Bring in the bomb the day before when everyone is used to you being there and won’t ask questions.”
“Yes.” Ashley tapped the marker against her chin. “That’s the smart way. But they still would’ve had to store it somewhere. And I doubt they did it in that storage facility.”
“No, nowhere close. Too many questions and risks. South Bronx,” Milan said. “That’s where I would do it. People know better than to ask questions there. And for the right money, you don’t need a storage facility. You use an empty building and pay off whoever controls it. It’s one of the few areas left that still could be called a ghetto. A simple Google search for the worst neighborhoods in New York would’ve turned that up.”
“And if they were smart, they smuggled the bomb in long before the parade, so we’d look for it in the wrong time period,” Brandi brought up.
“What are our chances of finding surveillance footage from that area from six years ago?” Xander asked.
“About zero,” Milan said. “Cameras don't survive for long in the South Bronx. But…if you send the right agents to ask around, showing pictures of all the suspects, asking if they recognize any of them, and offer certain benefits, you may hit gold.”
Ashley, who he knew was from rural Pennsylvania, looked at him questioningly. “How?”
“Tell them flat out it’s about the Pride Bombing, pay them cold hard cash, and send local agents or cops, plainclothes people who speak the language. These guys are wary of outsiders, but one of their own who can appeal to the common ground of being pissed as fuck someone set off bombs in their city again may get lucky.”
“Let me run this by Coulson, but it’s worth a shot,” Ashley said.
“If you need volunteers for this, let me know,” Milan said. “I know a couple of guys who’ve done undercover work in criminal organizations, and this would be right up their alley.”
“Let me check that with Coulson as well, but I may take you up on that. I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, but the FBI can be bureaucratic…and slow.”
“Slow? A sloth would get a speeding ticket here.” Milan winked at her.
That earned him some chuckles.
Ashley straightened her shoulders. “In the meantime, let’s review all traffic cam footage again, now going back two months. Flag any vans, trucks, any vehicles large enough to transport the materials. And we’ll start with the George Washington Bridge because even in the South Bronx scenario, that would still be our best bet.”
