Bounty Read online

  A few paces ahead of Novak, a young woman from the firm’s precious metals desk had been heading for the building’s revolving doors—a Jersey girl with a good pedigree, pretty in a classical sense. But that morning, someone else had caught Novak’s attention, too: a cabbie, curbside and half a block up, assisting an elderly rider who’d suddenly pointed skyward and begun screaming. Like typical Manhattanites, almost everyone had ignored him. Novak, however, had glanced up. That’s when he’d spotted a familiar figure in a tailored khaki suit plummeting, shaved head first, from the sky.

  Malthis J. Cantonfield’s suit jacket had flapped like a superhero’s cape, his pink silk tie whipping in the downdraft. He’d kept his arms tucked rigidly at his sides, and as far as Novak recalled, the contrarian’s eyes had been closed and his lips drawn tight in a smile. Or perhaps gravity had been simply pushing his cheeks back?

  A purposeful fall.

  A nosedive.

  A suicide plunge.

  Cantonfield’s free fall—from the rooftop and down thirty-eight stories, the record would show—had followed straight along the windows that ran up from the revolving door.

  Novak had stopped dead in his tracks and screamed at Jersey Girl. But since he couldn’t remember her name (Andrea or Katie or maybe Fran?), all that had come out was “HEY! Look out!”

  Jersey Girl had stopped and turned to him. Wrong reaction. Wrong warning.

  Cantonfield had landed smack on top of her, instantly collapsing and twisting her body in every unnatural way. She’d absorbed the brunt of his torso, but his head had struck the pavement violently and exploded with the hollow popping sound of a shattered coconut.

  Novak still viscerally remembered the sickening feeling that had washed over him: that muddy veil of shock and horror that happened when some contrived scene from a movie, raw and violent, played out before one’s very eyes and spun reality like a top. He’d also been overwhelmed by the fact that even in death, Malthis J. Cantonfield had managed to take someone down with him. Greedy and selfish to the bitter end.

  The morning after the Cantonfield Event (as it became known in the Wall Street lexicon), Novak rode the subway to Federal Plaza and applied to the FBI, gladly accepting a 75 percent pay cut in lieu of a future in BASE jumping without a parachute. Now, some five years later, here he was staring at another banker’s blown-out head. The odds were uncanny. Even for Wall Street.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Novak. But you don’t strike me as the doctor type,” Agner said.

  Novak’s eyes traced the congealed mess beneath the chair to the stringy goo spattered on the demolished computer monitor. A feathery scorch pattern spread up from a quarter-sized hole where the screen’s power button should have been. A gloved tech leaned in, probed the hole with forceps, and pulled out a glinting, tapered metal slug.

  “That there’s a three-thirty-eight Lapua Magnum sniper round,” the tech said, holding it up for the lawmen. He dropped it into a clear zip-top evidence bag and set it onto a tray, next to a bag containing Lombardi’s iPhone. “One helluva shot.”

  With a bullet that big having buzzed through Lombardi’s head, thought Novak, it was no wonder the skull had popped like a melon.

  “Christ,” Agner groaned. “What a way to start the week. Happy Monday. Just what we need in this city. A goddamn sniper.” He shook his head and stared at the bagged slug. “I’ve seen what they can do plenty of times.”

  Knowing the captain had served his time in the jungles of Vietnam, Novak could only imagine that his mind was replaying images of similarly ruined Viet Cong skulls, much the way Novak vividly recalled the Cantonfield Event.

  “Not your typical homicide,” Agner said. “This guy has plenty of potential enemies. Maybe a hired gun or just some disgruntled investor whose retirement plan shit the bed.”

  Agner maneuvered around the forensic tech with the telescope, who was securing it to a tripod set between the desk and the window. Stepping up to the window, Agner pointed to a clean hole at chin level that had left only minor cracking in the thick glass. With the same finger, he traced an invisible line down to the computer monitor to connect the dots. “Sharp trajectory. Shooter must’ve been up pretty high.”

  Novak nodded. He stared out at the tall buildings stacked tight for nearly ten blocks out to the Hudson River. Plenty of possibilities.

  “I’m sure I can pinpoint the spot,” the tech said. She clicked a button on the scoping device and two crisp threads of red light snapped out from opposite ends of a slim tube mounted on top of the barrel. “Watch your eyes, okay?”

  Novak and Agner stepped back so she could adjust the tripod upward and sideways until the lasers perfectly speared the two bullet holes. She plugged a USB cable into the telescope and connected it to a laptop sitting on the floor. “Just need to tune the optics,” she said, scrunching her eyes and working the laptop’s mouse. On command, the telephoto lens casings on the front of the device spun slowly outward, then retracted slightly. “Ta-da. Look here.”

  Novak and Agner stepped in to have a look.

  The image on the screen centered on a gap between two large air handlers along the top edge of a roofline, gray sky above it. “That’s a rooftop a few blocks from here. Just takes a few seconds for the GPS coordinates to match up.”

  Seven seconds later, a text box popped up on the screen.

  “All right, fellas. There’s your address.”

  The New York Times @nytimes • 2h

  Investment banker Chase Lombardi found dead in Wall Street office.

  nyti.ms/1sJOL543h

  AxManAl @axmanal • 22m

  Just CRUSHED my audition for @MeatPopBand but can’t leave cuz @NYPD have the building on lockdown. Something to do with a #deadbanker. WTF?

  # 03.01

  The muscle-bound patrolman at the wheel slalomed the cruiser, sirens blaring, through the afternoon traffic chugging up Church Street. In the front passenger seat, Agner craned his head around the mounted shotgun and peered through the wire-mesh safety partition to address Novak. “It’s gonna be a big show over there,” he yelled. “But if you ask me, there ain’t a chance in hell the guy’s still there.”

  In the back, Novak sat dead center, eyes forward, hands braced on the seat. The interior’s stale aroma of cigarettes, coffee, cheap perfume, and sweat was downright nauseating. “Do we know what time Lombardi was shot?”

  “Coroner hasn’t officially called it yet,” yelled Agner. “We know his secretary didn’t find him till lunchtime. Imagine that? Young girl walking in on that horror show?”

  The driver cut a hard left onto Barclay Street that slid Novak along the slick vinyl upholstery. He could taste breakfast in the back of his throat.

  “She says he was still alive when his attorney came out of the office around ten-fifteen. Unofficially, we can assume he was dead sometime between then and eleven.” Agner checked his watch. “It’s almost one-thirty now. Unless we’re dealing with a brilliant marksman with no common sense, this guy’s long gone. That’s why I told SWAT to sit tight. No use bringing in the commandos just yet.”

  The driver angled north across the wide lanes of West Street, tires chirping, and swung a tight U-turn at Murray Street.

  Agner pointed to the right through the windshield and told the driver, “That’s it there.”

  Novak scooted over to the side window. The GPS coordinates for the sniper’s roost overlaid a 1930s commercial building opposite the highway from Ground Zero. Fifty-something floors stacked in three fat tiers with alternating horizontals of turquoise-glazed terra-cotta tiles and copper-trimmed casement windows that predated air-conditioning.

  Near the building’s front entrance, Muscle Guy slewed the cruiser to the right and screeched to a hard stop that practically vaulted Novak against the mesh partition.

  Liberated from the car, Novak leaned against an unmarked silver Tahoe parked askew along the yellow curb and took a moment to steady his sea legs. The chilly October air felt heaven-sent.
The Tahoe was an identical triplet to two other SUVs parked sloppily in front of it. Half a dozen NYPD patrol cars formed a semicircle around them.

  “You all right?” Agner asked.

  “Yeah. I’m good.”

  “Okay.” Agner put on his cap and gazed skyward. “Let’s get up there and see what we’ve got.”

  # 03.02

  The jalopy of an elevator was a far cry from the one that had gently swept Novak to Lombardi’s office. It struggled to make the lift, jerking and bobbing along creaking rails, and the buttons on the control panel were so worn that the floor numbers had been painted beside them. Given the number of law enforcement personnel now crammed into the cab, Novak thought there was an even chance that its ancient cables would snap and send them all plunging to their deaths.

  Finally the upper floor numbers started scrolling on the half-lit control panel, starting with 40. The cab jostled as it gained speed, then came to a rough stop. When the doors rattled open, bodies spilled out into the dark central corridor on the fifty-second floor.

  The building’s portly security guard, commandeered from the front desk to escort the team topside, fished in his tight pocket to produce a key ring and cranked a key in the wall switch. The fluorescent ceiling lights pulsed to life. Then he set a sluggish pace to the emergency exit door at the end of the corridor, Tim Knight and Captain Agner close behind him.

  Trailing the pack, Novak peeked through an open doorway leading off the corridor, into an empty room easily fifty years beyond its heyday. Peeling radiators, stained ceiling panels, rippled and torn gray carpeting, stray wires leading nowhere. He quickened his pace to catch up to the procession. Over the stampede of feet tromping along the linoleum floor tiles, he heard Knight ask the guard if there were any tenants on this floor. The escort shook his head.

  “No cameras up here?” Knight asked, looking along the water-stained ceiling.

  “No need for cameras,” the security guard replied wheezily. “No one’s ever up here. Rooms are all empty.”

  Novak hadn’t seen a camera in the death-trap elevator, either. Even the fire extinguishers mounted next to the vintage patina-coated mail chutes looked to be original.

  The guard pushed through the exit door, which was marked, CAUTION: DO NOT OPEN—ALARM WILL SOUND. No alarm sounded.

  The procession continued into the dank stairwell. A switchback metal staircase led up to the rooftop-access door, where the guard stopped, panting. The FBI agents and police officers waited impatiently on the steps, Novak down at the landing.

  Agner eyed the warning sticker on the door: ROOFTOP ACCESS PROHIBITED. SEE ATTENDANT FOR KEY. His gaze shifted to the guard, still fumbling for the right one. Agner gave the door bar a hard shove, and it screeched open a third of the way on gritty hinges before jamming on the gravel coating the roof.

  The guard looked up, stricken.

  Novak was amazed by the tally of code violations the building had racked up thus far.

  “Thanks, pal,” Agner told the security guard. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Their escort shrugged, then stepped back against the wall.

  “Weapons, fellas,” Knight said, reaching beneath his FBI windbreaker and unclipping his Glock from its underarm holster. “And ladies,” he added, glancing at the two female agents gazing impassively at him.

  A chorus of clicks echoed off the shaft’s cinder-block walls as the agents and officers took up arms, flipped off safeties.

  Agner’s driver threw his shoulder twice into the door to force it fully open. Dull sunlight and a swirl of fresh air spilled down the stairwell.

  At Agner’s signal, the posse poured outside and fanned out across the rooftop.

  # 03.03

  Along the roof’s low east-facing wall, Novak approached the spot the forensic tech had spied with her nifty telescope—the narrow gap sandwiched by two boxy air handlers, point to point, likely just shy of a half mile to Lombardi’s burst head.

  “Just as I suspected,” Agner said, coming up behind him and sliding his sidearm back into its holster. “No shooter. Not even a spent casing. Be careful there. Might still be hair samples or something we might need later on.”

  Novak looked down at all the old cigarette butts and trash littering the rooftop, then up at Agner incredulously. Agner shrugged. Novak stepped into the gap, crouched low, and found easy cover from any prying eyes that might be looking down from the Freedom Tower’s upper floors. A perfect hide. He gazed diagonally across Ground Zero and through a haphazard canyon of tall buildings, to the windows of Lombardi’s executive suite. He wondered what rare talent was required for a man to take a life so casually, with such precision.

  “He had a perfect sight line,” Novak said. “That’s for sure.”

  “Even used the weather to his advantage,” Agner added, looking up at the overcast sky. “Cloudy, so there wouldn’t have been much glare. Barely a breeze, even up here.”

  “Still, that was one incredible shot. Have a look.” Novak stood and backed out of the gap so Agner could take a turn at it.

  Knight and one of Agner’s lieutenants broke through the human chain of NYPD officers scouring the rooftop for physical clues and strode over to them.

  “Cap, we’ve got one security camera in the whole damn place,” the lieutenant said to Agner in a Brooklyn accent. “Down in the lobby. Records a day’s worth of footage on VHS tapes.”

  “Better than nothing, I suppose,” Agner replied, coming up off his knee and out of the gap.

  “No doubt the picture quality will be stellar,” Knight muttered. “Damn place is a dump.” He paced between the air handlers with his hands on his hips, sizing up the sniper’s roost.

  Agner’s talkie squawked, and he unclipped it from his belt. “Excuse me a sec.” He broke away and paced a small circle as he listened to the update.

  “Lotsa unlocked doors,” the lieutenant said to Novak and Knight. “And the service bays and emergency exits are wide open, too. Unbelievable. And down on the thirty-eighth floor, there’s this rehearsal studio. You know, soundproofed rooms, recording equipment, and such. Seems this morning, a heavy metal band named Meat Pop was holding auditions for a new guitarist. Guard says there were dozens of musicians in and out of the building all day. Lots of tattoos and long hair. He says they pretty much all came in carrying guitar cases.”

  “A guitar case is big enough to hold a sniper rifle,” Novak said.

  “Maybe they at least caught the guy on tape,” Knight added.

  “Assuming he came in through the lobby,” the lieutenant replied. “Not like security is tight around here.”

  Agner came back, clipping his talkie to his belt while saying, “Seems one of Lombardi’s computer people has some useful information for us. My detectives have her waiting in the conference room. Something about email threats Lombardi had been getting for the past week or so. They asked if you guys want to listen in on what she’s gotta tell us,” he said, looking at Knight, then Novak.

  Wall Street Journal @WSJ • 48m

  Breaking: Investment banker Chase Lombardi murdered by sniper in lower Manhattan.

  on.wsj.com/1trBZG3trex

  # 04.01

  Novak hitched a smooth ride with a rookie agent who stuck to the speed limit, used his turn signals, and kept the behemoth Tahoe to the slow lane. Twelve minutes later, he was back at the doorstep of Lombardi Capital Management, where the circus out front had only amplified: news vans and police cruisers lined the street; onlookers were corralled behind police barricades; cameramen were busy framing shots of field correspondents. The medics had just finished loading a gurney carrying Lombardi’s body bag into an ambulance; behind it they stowed a large cooler, which Novak assumed contained the rest of the banker’s head.

  He muscled through the crowd, flashed his creds and badge to the unfamiliar cops manning the lobby, then rode in luxury up to sixteen.

  The Giants fans had dispersed. The forensics team was camped at the end of the hall.
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br />   He walked past the reception desk to the big fish tank on the left. Two detectives remained inside, one male, the other female, both middle-aged and eerily reminiscent of the duo from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Lombardi’s IT person sat across the table from them, facing the windows, hands folded protectively over a closed laptop.

  Novak entered through the glass door, immediately catching the lingering aroma of too many agitated bodies occupying the same space for too long. After a round robin of introductions and pleasantries, he slipped out of his FBI windbreaker and claimed a chair beside the subject, Ms. Vickie Dill. Unlike the front office staff, the twenty-something IT wonk was dressed in a sensible off-the-rack pantsuit a tad snug for her plus-sized figure. Her brown bob was coiffed in a style that drew attention away from her hair’s thinning. Plenty of eye makeup and bright lipstick added to the diversion. So did a diamond-stud nose piercing.

  “Figured we’d wait for you before we started,” said the female detective, Nancy Mileto.

  “I appreciate that, thanks,” Novak said.

  The male detective, Jerry Rooney, spread his hands and looked at the subject. “We’re all yours, Ms. Dill. Tell us what you’ve got.”

  “Well, I feel just terrible,” she began, her voice tremulous, her eyes sorrowful. “I mean, maybe if I’d said something earlier…” Dill cleared her throat. “You see, like I told the police, there were these threats Mr. Lombardi had been getting for the past week or so. In his email. And texts, too.”