Collateral Damage - Marc Cerasini [10]
"Come on," the black man said, retrieving his steel boxes. "The access shaft to the roof is over here."
The newcomer in the CTU uniform took over the security booth. He watched through the Plexiglas while his partners used electric screwdrivers to open a steel hatch in the wall. The blond man waited while his smaller partner crawled inside.
A moment later, the smaller man stuck his head out. "The cameras might not be working, but everything else is."
"Can we get to the roof?" the blond man demanded.
"The ladder goes to the top, but there are security systems and laser eyes on every floor. I'll have to disable them one at a time, all the way to the roof."
The blond man sneered. "Then you better get started."
"It's a bitch, man," his partner griped. "We could be here all morning. It's gonna take us forever just to get to the roof."
The blond glanced at his oversized watch. "You don't have forever. The job has to be done in the next two hours. I suggest you get started."
Both men climbed through the hatch, and the blond pulled it shut behind them, leaving the screws in a pile on the concrete floor.
* * *
8:50:03 A.M. EDT
Central Ward
Newark, New Jersey
"Foy, you still on them?"
"I got 'em," replied Judith Foy, Deputy Director of CTU New York. Behind the wheel of her silver Lexus, she'd been tailing the shiny black Hummer since it exited the airport's short-term parking garage.
On the other end of the comm was FBI Special Agent Jason Emmerick. He and his partner were now tailing the second Hummer. Each vehicle carried a part of a "package" that had arrived that morning on a flight from Montreal. The "package" had turned out to be two Middle Eastern men.
"I know the man I'm tailing," Emmerick informed her.
"He's an Afghani, goes by the name Hawk. I've got no ID on the man you're tailing. Contact us when your mark arrives at his destination."
"Roger." Judy continued following her black Hummer to a blighted area of downtown Newark. In University Heights, the vehicle circled a sprawling Federal housing project — a breeding ground for the type of crime that had made the name Newark synonymous with urban violence since the 1967 riots.
Despite her experience, Agent Foy felt uncomfortable cruising these mean streets. A thirty-eight-year-old Caucasian woman behind the wheel of a Lexus was not a common sight in the Central Ward, where police cars were scarce, graffiti and gang markings everywhere. Even with the car's tinted windows, young men in gang colors, hanging out on every other block, watched her car with predatory eyes. Judith Foy recalled a DEA assessment that came across her desk last year which claimed this section of Newark was the crack cocaine capital of the Northeast.
Foy was a Jersey girl, too, though she hailed from affluent Bricktown on the state's southern shore. That safe, cozy little community was nothing like this blasted strip of urban blight.
She'd gone into the CIA right after graduate school. Her first assignment with the Agency had been in the Middle East. After eight years, she'd come back to the United States. Then the Agency had sent her to New York, to work with Brice Holman.
For the past three years, while red tape was being cut to allocate a fully staffed threat center, she and Brice had been the CIA's entire counterterrorist operation in New York.
She'd come to know and trust Brice. He had twenty years with the Agency, ten in the field. He had good instincts, and he'd always had her back. So when he came to her with this rogue operation, she didn't hesitate to back him. If Holman thought something bad was going down today, then it was. Violation of protocol was a small price to pay for stopping what could be another WTC bombing.
As Agent Foy rounded a corner, deftly avoiding a bunch of kids playing in the middle of the street, she saw the Hummer speed up as it raced down the block. She applied the gas, too, and easily kept them in sight.
"Yeah, I'm following you, genius," she muttered. "What are you going to do about it?"
The Hummer left the