City of Shadows

Chapter 27

12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, Branford, Connecticut

‘We’re going to have to pull in a lot of favours to keep the lid on this, Agent Cooper.’

‘That’s what favours are for, aren’t they? Rainy days like this.’ Cooper looked around the entrance foyer of the shopping mall. It looked like a thousand other malls, all pastel plastic fascias and plastic plants. Faux Greco-Roman columns and Doric archways. Only this one was decorated with icing-sugar granules of glass scattered across the fake marble floor, shopping bags discarded in the stampede to exit. Several drops and smears of dried blood dotted here and there.

‘What cover story are we putting out?’

‘Armed robbery that went wrong.’

‘Good.’ Cooper nodded. Keeping it simple. If there’d been a whiff of ‘terrorist’ to it, the press would be all over this story. That had been his first instinct, a ‘terrorist’ cover story that some conspirators involved with the Twin Towers incident — some of the press were calling it 9/11 now… a catchy term for it — had been identified and put under surveillance: the men had been a terrorist cell attempting to lie low for a while, until things settled down and vigilance levels dropped once more and they could have a go at slipping past immigration and out of the country, but they’d been followed and caught as they headed upstate from New York.

If Cooper had gone with that cover story, this car park would have been crawling with news-station broadcast vans and reporters doing pieces to camera. Instead, a simple ‘armed robbery gone wrong’ story didn’t have the same pulling power right now. They had the mall to themselves for a day or two. A crime scene: every entrance taped off and guarded by a uniformed officer.

‘We got CCTV coverage of most of the incident.’

‘That’s all been confiscated?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cooper had already seen some of it. Digitally copied and enhanced to make it a little clearer. There was no mistaking the fact that the two armed people, one man and one woman, had been hit several times in the opening crossfire. And yet they’d walked on as if nothing had happened, leaving an easy-to-follow trail of blood droplets in their wake.

Cooper looked up at the escalator, one glass side of it shattered. Then at the railing running round the horseshoe-shaped balcony of the floor above. A twenty-foot drop down to where they were now standing.

Incredible.

‘The female really jumped down from up there?’

‘That’s what the eyewitnesses said.’

‘They’ll need to be informed they were mistaken, or that the woman shattered her legs and spine on impact.’

‘They saw her get up and take several steps.’

Cooper looked at Agent Mallard, one of the few FBI agents his limited budget allowed him to deputize into The Department. Mallard was young, eager to impress. Ready to do as he was told. ‘That’s what they thought they saw, Mallard. Do you understand? What they thought they saw in the heat of the moment. The mind plays tricks on what you think you’ve seen in a situation like this.’

‘Right, yes… sir.’

‘The male one?’

‘Preliminary autopsy’s already been done.’

‘And?’

Mallard hesitated. ‘The report says he sustained thirty-seven separate gunshot wounds.’

‘Thirty-seven?’

‘Yes, sir. The police officers who were interviewed said they only managed to bring him down after four or five successful head shots.’

Cooper kept his face impassive, his response measured. This wasn’t the place for outbursts of incredulity. He also needed to be sure his new recruit fully understood the situation. ‘Mallard?’

‘Sir?’

‘You’re going to see some things, learn things that — I’ll be frank with you — most Presidents don’t even get to know about. You understand, once you’re in The Department, you’re in it for good?’

‘That was made clear to me, sir.’

‘Good. Now… take me to where they’re holding the other one, the female. I want to talk with her directly.’