Page 93 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
At the Colonie Center Russ could see two Albany PD vehicles parked in the emergency lane by the nearest entrance, and two more farther down at the next bank of doors. Just how he’d have done it; turn out in force, but quietly enough so as not to scare the civilians. Uniforms were allowing people to exit, but refusing anyone trying to come in.
“Now what?” Clare stopped a few feet away from the entrance. Shoppers were milling around, puzzled, annoyed, some hurrying away to their cars and others loudly complaining.
“Let’s ask him.” Russ worked his way through the clusters of shoppers until he was in front of the nearest officer.
“Sorry sir no entrance we don’t have any further information.” The officer took a breath to repeat his message to the people next to Russ.
“I’m Chief Van Alstyne of the MKPD,” he lied. “We’re with Commander Patten.”
“Uh… all of you?” The officer peered at Clare and Yíxin, clearly trying to connect him to the priest in a clerical collar and the Asian woman who looked like a college student. “Uh… lemme check.” He pulled his shoulder radio and addressed C and C, still spreading one hand to gesture people away from the doors. When he clicked off, he nodded to Russ. “Go right ahead, sir. They’re using the mall operations office; you can see it on the directory inside.” He waved them past, still eyeballing the two women. “Sorry folks no entrance we don’t have any further—” The door shutting behind them cut off his spiel.
“I know the place he’s talking about.” Yíxin gestured him away from the large, backlit Colonie Center directory.
“You’ve been to the operations office before?”
“No, but I’ve been to the malllotsof times. I’m from New Jersey, it’s what we do.”
Clare laughed. “Lead the way, Rudolph.”
The main shopping strip was mobbed; folks with frazzled, anxious expressions, far too many of them loaded up with carrier bags that could conceal anything. He leaned toward Clare. “The bags.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She nodded, and he followed her gaze to see a dozen brightly decorated trees around a tiny chalet. Parents and children gathered behind a velvet rope, waiting for the jolly old elf to come back from break. It should have been charming, but all Russ could see was the potential body count.
Yíxin led them into a hallway squeezed between a kids’ clothing store and a makeup place. At the end was a door that would have blended into the wall except for its sign:MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY OFFICES.
They entered into a scene of quiet chaos. Three civilians were going over a series of blueprints with a couple of bomb disposal guys; past them, mall security huddled around a table with several other cops. “Vince Patten?” Russ asked.
One of the ordnance officers pointed to an open door. “Security office.”
They found Vince inside, hovering over Kevin, who was seated in front of a bank of video screens. Other chairs were taken up by security and Albany police, everyone glued to the images from the multitude of cameras streaming throughout the huge complex. Terrance stood next to one of Patten’s men, balancing a laptop and scrolling through the faces of suspects from the ViCAP database.
“Commander Patten?”
Patten turned around at Russ’s voice. “Russ! Good.” He tugged at the sleeve of the security guard next to Kevin. “Give Mr. Van Alstyne your place; he’s the other eyewitness.” He gestured Russ into the chair.
“Who’s got eyes on Cal March? The Amber Alert?”
One of the Albany officers raised his hand. “Over here, sir. We’re pretty sure this is him.”
“Clare can ID him; she’s spent time with him. Clare?”
She crossed to the officer’s station and examined the image on the screen. “Oh, yeah. That’s him.” She leaned closer. “And that’s Rose in the stroller. What’s he been doing?”
Patten answered her. “Just walking around, apparently. So far he hasn’t done anything suspicious, but he’s been on his phone.”
“Coordinating? Scouting?”
Patten looked a little taken aback at a priest asking tactical questions. “Uh, yeah. That’s what we think.”
“What’s the plan?” Russ glanced toward the rear wall of the office, where Knox and Zhào were staying out of the way by a coffee station.
“We’re getting plainclothes into place; when we grab this guy, we want it fast and clean.” Patten thumbed toward the open door. “The state unexploded ordnance guys will be checking out any areas the militia might have stashed a bomb. And I want you and Kevin here to tell me if you spot any familiar faces.”
It wasn’t the first time Russ had done the tedious, exacting work of examining security footage. Back when he’d been an MP, it had been a regular duty shift, and there had been more than one investigation at the MKPD that had called on him to go through an entire movie’s length of recordings. But God, he had forgotten how exhausting it was, and the fact he was watching live, unable to pause and rewind, made it worse. He could feel a headache building as the minutes crawled by. None of the shoppers on his screen looked familiar.
“What about places where there aren’t cameras?” Russ asked. “Dressing rooms and bathrooms?”
“Mall security’s handling that,” Patten said. “They won’t raise an alarm if they close a space down temporarily.”
