Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [96]
"Then we're out of luck. We'll never catch the ring-leader," said Ryan.
"I have one more lead," Jack replied. "The man who contacted me claiming he was Agent Ferrer was a phony, I'm certain of it. I didn't let on I figured him out. I went ahead and set up a rendezvous. I'm going there now, with Caitlin for bait. Maybe if I capture this impostor I can make him talk, force him to reveal the leader's identity and location."
"That's your plan?" Ryan said, incredulous.
"I'm playing this by ear," Jack confessed. "I have no other choice."
Bauer checked his watch. "I wanted the rendezvous to happen somewhere nice and public, where the impostor would have a hard time making a move against me and escaping. The busiest place in New York City is Grand Central Station at rush hour, so that's where I'm going..."
* * *
5:29:52 P.M. EDT
Astoria, Queens
Griffin Lynch had driven from LaGuardia's freight terminal directly to his final destination. Taking the last exit on Grand Central Parkway, the unmarked van bounced along a multi-laned avenue of battered concrete. Directly ahead was the slowly rising entrance ramp to the Triboro Bridge. But Griff wasn't heading for that elevated toll plaza. Bearing right, he followed a branching road that angled down, all the way to the river's edge.
Before reaching the water, Griff came to Astoria Park, a sixty-five-acre stretch of greenery in the borough of Queens that bordered the East River. Griff turned right and followed a narrow street along the park. On his right was an unending line of modest row houses, on his left a wide lawn covered with trees and peppered with benches.
Near the middle of the park, Griff drove past a sprawling brick structure that served as the bath house for Astoria Pool, an Olympic-sized facility built by the WPA and the city's public works commission during the depths of the Great Depression. The pool attracted large crowds in the summer, but it wouldn't be opening for the season until the end of June. A good bit of luck, because crowds would not have been productive. At the moment, the park hosted no more than a handful of dog walkers, pick-up soccer players, and teenagers.
The grass sloped downward, toward the boulder-strewn shore. Across the river, the Manhattan skyline glimmered in the cloudless afternoon. Near the center of the park, the tall oak, elm, and beech trees — some of them more than a century old — were dwarfed by a mammoth structure built of beige granite blocks. Rising at the river's edge, the three-hundred-foot tower with its crowning parapets resembling a medieval fortress, served as the base for a high, arched railroad bridge that spanned the East River between Queens and the Bronx.
Constructed in 1916, Hell Gate Bridge took its name from the unusually turbulent area of water beneath the span — and the many men who'd plunged to their deaths in those waters while trying to erect it.
Griff continued to drive along the narrow road until he came to a break in the row houses. A chain-link fence stood unlocked. Inside, next to a massive supporting column for the Hell Gate Bridge above, a kelly-green New York City Parks Department truck was parked. Griff pulled his unmarked van next to the green truck and cut his engine.
Taj waited on the flatbed of the battered Parks Department vehicle, along with two other members of his cell. All wore Parks Department overalls, all carried valid IDs. More than two hundred feet above their heads, on the bridge's span of faded red steel, others waited beside a makeshift block and tackle. When Griff arrived, they lowered a rope. The light, saltwater breeze from the river knocked the rope back and forth against the massive support column until it reached the vehicles on the ground.
Griff hopped out of his van, opened the rear doors. Taj climbed down to join him, and they both dragged the heavy box out of the cargo bay.
"One launcher with memory stick. Three missiles. You can't miss," said Griff.
Taj grabbed the lowered rope and secured the box to a steel hook, then stepped away. High above, the