Page 102 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
Hadley glanced behind her. “Is it just me, or do they strike you as very different from your typical security guards?”
“Verydifferent.” Flynn opened the glass door to the tiny police station. Its narrow lobby ended in a Plexi-covered window with a secured door to its right. “Hello?” Flynn peered through the window. Empty chair, computer monitor, and behind it a half-concealed office that could have held maybe three officers. The lights were on, but nobody was home. “Hello?” Flynn pressed the buzzer beneath the window. They could hear it shrill through the small space. He stood on tiptoe and craned his neck, trying to see.
Hadley yanked the secure door handle fruitlessly. “There was someone here, right? You heard the rabbi say so.”
“Yeah.”
She gave up on the door. “Can you see anything in the office?”
“You mean through the half wall? No.” He sounded frustrated. “But unless he’s passed out behind there, there’s no way he can’t hear us.” He leaned on the buzzer. “Hey! We’re law enforcement! Hey!”
“Flynn.” She pressed her hand against his back. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to find the chief. We can check again later. Maybe he had too much fruitcake and is working it out in the bathroom.”
Flynn shot one more exasperated look into the brightly lit enclosure and nodded. “Yeah.”
The food court was dead; chairs empty, shop doors shut, roll-down grilles in place. The north concourse, stretching out ahead, was also lifeless, until two people emerged from one of the side corridors.
“Chief!” Hadley ran forward, Flynn at her heels. “Did you see anybody?”
“No. Doors to some more administrative buildings, locked, and an elevator bank that goes down to an underground parking lot.”Reverend Fergusson glanced up at her husband. “Maybe we should go back and search the lot.”
“We need more than just you and me for that.” Van Alstyne nodded toward Hadley. “What’s the situation?”
“We found a bomb inside one of the fake presents.” Hadley pointed to yet another pile of wrapped and beribboned decorations, these near the shuttered entrance to the performing arts hall known as the Egg.
“It was wired to a cell phone,” Flynn added. “The synagogue guards are telling everyone to shut down their phones.”
“We tried to use the statie’s landline, but we couldn’t raise anyone at the office.” Hadley paused. “That’s it.”
“That… seems like enough,” Clare said, faintly.
“Back to the party,” the chief ordered. “Double time.”
Hadley could tell the tenor of the gathering had changed before they actually reached the end of the concourse. People clustered in quiet groups, speaking low and keeping tight hold of their children. Only a few elderly sat. No one was eating. And it seemed as if every eye watched them approach.
The rabbi and the security guards met them near the doors they’d entered through—what, twenty minutes before? Hadley felt like she’d been in this windowless underground forever.
Rabbi Oppenheim opened her mouth. The chief held up a hand and looked around. “Where’s Terrance?”
“Here, Chief.” They twisted to see the ranger and Yíxin emerge from the custodian’s room, followed by a short Latino man in a rumpled janitor’s uniform. “Johnson and Khalil filled us in. The cleaner says a group of workers came in about a week ago and replaced pots of poinsettias with the wrapped presents. He thought they worked for a florist.”
“Oh God.” Rabbi Oppenheim sounded as if she’d been punched. “We need to get our people out of here.”
“And we need to notify the Albany PD and the staties,” Flynn added.
“Yes to both.” The chief pointed to the security guards. “You two. Your route is up the stairs and out at the street level by the museum.”He gestured toward the end of the concourse where she and Flynn had found the bomb. “Nobody brings anything, just like in the airport safety briefings. Rabbi, if you’d go with them and make sure everyone heads away from the plaza area. No phone calls, no texts until you’re at least a full block away.”
He turned toward Paul Terrance. “I’d like you to head up to the plaza to make the phone call. We need a very, very quiet response. If they’re waiting for the full hostage crisis circus to blow the IEDs, we want to make sure to keep that from happening as long as possible.”
“Roger that. I’ll take a look around and see if anything seems suspicious.”
“I’ll come with.” Paul and the chief both stared at Yíxin.
“Yeah, no.” Paul sounded like the chief, when he was trying to shut down Reverend Clare.
“You live up in the woods like a bear. You’re going to recognize something weird better than someone who works here?”
“You’re an attorney, Yíxin. Scouting for bad guys is not your job.”
