Bobby shook hands and smiled uncertainly.
Edward Astor looked into his son’s eyes. “You’ll want to remember him, Henry. The boy’s a genius. One day he’s either going to be richer than any of us or broke and in the poorhouse.”
Sloan Thomasson was waiting in the antechamber. “Leaving already?”
“I’ve got what I needed,” said Astor. “Can you help me find my way out of here? I’ll never get back to the elevator. You’re right. It’s like a maze.”
“No need to go back. There’s an express elevator that goes down to the ground floor. Normally it’s just for the CEO and his guests. If you don’t mind exiting on Broadway, we can take that.”
“That would be fine,” said Astor. The agenda cut a crease into his lower back. It was difficult to walk without wincing.
Thomasson showed him to the elevator. “Exit at one,” he said.
Astor shook hands and thanked him. The ride to the ground floor required less than ten seconds. He rushed out the door and onto the pavement beyond.
The felon was happy to escape the building.
12
Each day before beginning work, Supervisory Special Agent Alex Forza bowed her head and prayed.
“Dear Father, I ask your blessing that I meet today’s challenges with intelligence, courage, and fortitude, that I give no quarter, now or ever, to enemies of this country, and that I perform my duties to your highest standards and in a manner that will bring credit to the Bureau.”
She kept her eyes closed a moment longer, allowing the words to resonate, then lifted her head and gazed at the photograph behind her desk. It was a portrait of a ruthless, cynical, manipulative middle-aged man. At fifty, he looked seventy. His hairline was receding, his jowls flabby, his eyes bulging, and he was well along the way to acquiring the toadlike stare of his later years. He was not an attractive man. Yet there was no mistaking the purpose in his forthright gaze, the single-minded and holy commitment to duty that was the cornerstone of his life and that, God-like, he had transferred to the Bureau.
“And Father,” Alex added in closing, whispering because this was a private matter between the two of them, “no matter what, do not let me fuck up.”
J. Edgar Hoover stared back mutely.
Alex took a seat at her desk and began sifting through the incident reports that had come in the night before. The stack was thicker than usual for a weekend, and she suspected that many of the calls were false alarms, or what she called “Al Qaeda alarms.” The first report validated her suspicion. A passenger riding in a taxi complained that the cabdriver had made derogatory comments about the United States and was, in his estimation, “a friggin’ terrorist.” The time of the call was 1:30 a.m. The caller left his name as well as the cabbie’s and the taxi medallion number. Alex classified the report as “nonurgent” and started a pile to the right. When time allowed, one of her investigators would call and interview the complainant. She felt confident that the city would be safe until then.
Alex headed CT-26, the Bureau’s threat assessment squad tasked with investigating claims of suspicious activities pertaining to acts of terror on United States soil. “See something, say something” was the watchword of the day, and the citizens of New York had taken it to heart. The hotline received north of fifty calls a day, and it was up to Alex and her team of twenty-six investigators to separate the chaff from the grain.
Alex had been given command six months earlier in an effort to provide the squad with a more aggressive stance. She’d made a name for herself in the bank robbery squad and child crimes before joining the CT pool five years back. There were agents who had more arrests, but none could match her take-no-prisoners attitude. No one gave the Bureau more than Alex Forza.
One glance at her office testified to that commitment. There was no couch, no coffee table, and no chairs for visitors to sit in while they were shooting the shit. Meetings were conducted standing up and face-to-face. Other than the photograph of J. Edgar Hoover, the walls were bare. The only furniture was her desk, her chair, and a bookcase, all standard issue. She was not, however, without a flair for decoration. A handheld battering ram lay against one wall. Her prized Benelli twelve-gauge assault shotgun stood in a corner next to it, along with her Kevlar vest. The office was everything she’d ever wanted.
Alex powered through a dozen incident reports, finding none to be urgent. An hour had passed when Jim Malloy popped his head in the door. “Hey, Alex, you already here? Thought you’d sleep in and get some rest.”
“I’m the boss,” she answered. “I ask those questions. Why aren’t you grabbing forty winks?”