F Train Read online

  And the man on his knees, hand on a gun, head in a woman’s lap.

  At this hour, the bodies might have gone right on riding, all the way out to Coney Island.

  Unseen.

  A car alarm went off in the street, sending up a futile ringing from somewhere down the block. A recorded voice boomed, Step away from the vehicle.

  The snow was turning to icy rain, giving the asphalt road a black glitter like a firefighter’s rubber coat.

  Raymond O’Hara drew the curtains and slipped into bed beside his wife, Mary Margaret. Far too late to disturb her, but he certainly couldn’t fall asleep. The ghostly tableau on the F train wouldn’t allow it.

  His preliminary conclusion: a madman’s sick brainstorm of slaughter.

  Before he drifted off, Raymond spent the next hour mulling over the macabre scene, floating with those comatose bodies down a twisting underground river into the interior of a dark continent, a place called Fear, toward an insane city where he always hoped he’d never set foot.

  Raymond was a citizen whose loyalty and patriotism and competence were never questioned. His place wasn’t the city of scam artists or professional flag-wavers or even of God, but the city called Self-Respect and At Peace with Your Own. Nine-eleven was a one-off, and so many years ago now, Raymond believed another probably impossible. Surveillance was almost total.

  But this subway slaughter—and now he was certain it was mass murder, not some kind of freak accident—this massacre confounded him. Another attack imminent? Somehow he doubted it, but who knew? He’d been out of the picture for too many years and almost felt abandoned, left behind, because the real job, the work justifying a real existence, belonged to other people this time.

  8 A.M.

  No time for breakfast at home, and Lieutenant Florence Ott—detective, NYPD homicide division, Brooklyn—sipped her first coffee of the morning at the office.

  The office, never a cheery place—gray-green walls, strip lighting, worn linoleum, noise everywhere, from other rooms and the hall and the street outside—and this morning the office felt even grimmer than usual.

  Flo glanced questioningly at Detective Sergeant Francis X. Murphy, her colleague of long standing. Frank had been at work since four a.m. His hands—the shape, size, and weight of rocks—picked and pecked at computer keys.

  Flo said, “I got this call, Frank, from that creep at the Post. Barely take my coat off and motor mouth starts in on me.”

  “Dangler?”

  “All hot and bothered about the F train. And I’m speechless. A wolf in wolf’s clothing, that guy.”

  “Hold him off, Flo.” Frank waved a dismissive hand, a rock that would have stopped any pest of a reporter cold. “He’s only trouble.”

  “No can do. The DA’s press conference got reset for ten. And I’ll brief him before. How much more do we have for him?”

  Cecil King was the Kings County district attorney, Brooklyn, New York. Senatorial hopeful, the second African American to hold the DA job.

  Terence Dangler was a senior crime reporter for the New York Post tabloid, a pit bull of a journalist in appearance and in personality: conditioned to attack and rewarded for his persistence, delighted to dismember pols like Cecil King, with or without provocation.

  And in the opinion of many, this presumptuous DA was nothing if not provocative.

  Frank Murphy offered his bleak thoughts. “We know everything, Flo, and next to nothing. So far no one’s calling in tips. Yes, it’s early, but no one’s claiming credit either. No emails, no known motives, nada. No threats. Here you go, Flo, exactly what it looked like.”

  A rock hand hovered over a phone keyboard, a finger hit Send, and Frank emailed her an attachment with the forensics team’s photos of the crime scene.

  She opened the file on her desktop. “Any idea where the perps hit?”

  “Not exactly. Not yet. Those people there on the F train, they got gassed—and the Fire Department identifies the gas as sarin. Perps hit somewhere between Jay Street–Borough Hall and Fifteenth Street–Prospect Park.”

  “Could’ve been right under my house.”

  Flo lived in a one-family brick house on Eleventh Street between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West, a half-block from the subway tunnel, a five-minute walk to Bartel-Pritchard Square. She lived alone there these days, her husband a disabled vet in a nursing home, their daughter, Emma, away at college in Boston.

  “Yeah,” said Frank. “Not impossible, maybe somewhere near you, Flo. Carroll Street is where the last passengers got on, far as we know from looking at platform tapes. And then Fifteenth is where the bodies got spotted. Guy named Raymond O’Hara, ex-Bureau retired, an old guy but he’s got good eyes, he saw them first. Marty talked to him.”

  “His name public?”

  “Not from us. And he’s not calling anyone. He’s our kind, one of us. There you go.” Frank Murphy nodded and poked a rock fist at Flo’s computer screen. “There’s what he saw. Our first live witness…”

  Flo whistled through her teeth. “That’s how they open in court, Frank, exactly like this, the perps in chains at the defense table and this silent shot goes straight to the jury. It’s so ghostly.”

  Flo examined the first photos, the same eerie visions through water-streaked windows that retired FBI special agent Raymond O’Hara first saw.

  “Only thing missing here, Flo, is a plastic bucket. It held the sarin. Fire Department took it out in a sealed box. DNA all a mess now.”

  In the pictures, the bodies on the F train lay untouched.

  Flo zoomed in, face after face. “It’s like everyone’s sleeping. And when you know they’re not asleep, that makes it even worse. The DA will own the jury.”

  She scrolled through the photos.

  A face, a blurred white patch, pressed against window glass.

  A bald-headed man, spread-eagled across his seat, nose down, half his body nearly on the floor.

  Two men, maybe three, leaning against each other.

  Flo’s stomach muscles knotted. “Will they hit again? How soon?”

  “Best guess? If they’re not totally insane, they won’t now, it’s too soon. We’re all over the subway, the whole system, every station, every train. A wall of blue uniforms and plainclothes. Only if they want to get caught do they hit again now. I think we got some time, Flo. We’ll nail them first.”

  Flo wasn’t totally reassured. The knots in her stomach didn’t loosen. Every step was a land mine in waiting. Find the perps, arrest them, keep them alive for that day in court. Success was arresting all the killers and getting them in front of a jury, and she wanted every member of that jury to experience the same revulsion she felt now looking at these pictures. Every action she and Frank and the rest of Brooklyn homicide took had to aim at the day the People of New York presented the prosecution’s opening statement. The evidence of the case for the killers’ conviction had to be undeniable. No slipups, no holes, no opportunity for defense counsel to pull the prosecution’s case apart. No sloppy work from the police could ever be blamed for failure to convict.

  Together you will consider this evidence…the opening statement to the jury won’t be a seat-of-the-pants diatribe, and the jury will see exactly these photos.

  This man is accused…or…These defendants are accused…and the prosecutor will point at the monsters who did it, the felons she and Frank would find and arrest and hand over to the DA. And then picture after picture, the members of the jury will see the horrors the defendants committed, and in disgust they’ll turn their gaze from the dead to the accused and back again to the dead.

  And the pictures will talk, the silent accusations of the victims far more powerful than any prosecutor’s opening statement. Under those cold bright lights in the F train car, in the glare of camera flashes, the images of the dead possessed the unnerving specificity of sharply etched drawings. Seven ashen-faced corpses, fallen and immobile, a specter arousing utter revulsion.

  “And they’re all i
dentified, Flo. We’ll have a whole library of personal histories.”

  “Links, Frank, somewhere in all these histories we get, we got to have links. I’m certain of it—find the links to the killers and we nail the monsters.”

  Every move we make, every step we’ll take…that eventual jury, defense counsel, a judge and the DA, the media and the public, they were all watching now. Looking over every cop’s shoulders. No screwups unpunished.

  Still, Flo’s face betrayed no disquiet. She stayed at her computer and split the screen, opening a new document, recording notes alongside each picture.

  The last of the through-the-window shots brought her to a halt. A quick intake of breath. “And them?”

  “Right, Flo, them. She’s Marie Priester, the one female victim. And the guy on his knees, that’s John James Reilly. And hang on…He’s from the Bureau, too.”

  “O’Hara know him?”

  “No. He had no idea. But he thought he recognized the gun under the guy’s hand there, it’s kind of blurry in this picture, but there’s actually a gun under Reilly’s right hand on that seat. And our witness nailed it. Reilly’s service weapon issued by the Bureau.”

  “What does the Bureau say?”

  “Reilly was off-duty and on leave, and by now they’ve already told his wife. Up to us to question her. The Bureau isn’t pleased with us doing this. Still, that’s how it is, it’s our jurisdiction. And they have no jurisdiction, not yet anyway. Reilly was a special agent, that’s right, except he wasn’t on the job last night. Very delicate situation…and there’s two little kids at home. We don’t know yet who this Marie Priester is. Here’s a diagram.”

  Rock-handed Frank Murphy pecked and poked at a keyboard, and from a computer projector he arranged on the office wall enlarged photos of the car’s interior, all seven bodies positioned as they were first seen, each body now labeled with a name.

  Hakim Jamal. Panesh Moussari. Sprawled on the floor, beside each other.

  Sidney R. Davidov. Stretched across a seat, head suspended over the end.

  Samuel J. Charters, Lorenzo Sangiamo. Slumped together on the same seat. Sangiamo, an obese man (white) leaned against the window. Charters (African American) was toppled over against Sangiamo.

  Marie Priester.

  John James Reilly.

  Frank Murphy placed the photo enlargements together to form a running diagram of the subway car, and as he shifted the crime scene’s pictures into place, he recited what was known so far about each of the victims. He stood, and while he spoke he twisted his hand back and forth slowly across the length of the office wall, reciting over each picture details of the victims’ basic data.

  At first, Flo concentrated more on Frank’s rock of a moving hand than on the photos, as his hand seemed to almost impart life to the bodies. When his hand stopped and he made circles, delineating facts, his hand conjured up entire lives for her.

  “Jamal,” he said. “A legal immigrant, a Pakistani. Runs a fish store on Church Avenue. Moussari is undocumented, also Pakistani, he has a hardware store right across the street. They got on that F train together at Borough Hall, according to the platform tapes.”

  He moved to the next picture.

  “Sidney R. Davidov—R stands for nothing—Russian American, naturalized citizen, one felony conviction, insurance fraud, he did eighteen months in Dannemora. He got on the train two stops later at Carroll.”

  And the next picture.

  “Charters, African American, and Sangiamo, white, both postal clerks, on their way home from GPO night shift, downtown here. They got on at Borough Hall, too.”

  And then the big gut-grabber, already the heart of the matter for Flo.

  “Marie Priester, African American. All we really know about her so far is her name. And then there’s special agent John James Reilly, age thirty-four, down on his knees, his head in her lap. They got on the train arm in arm—you can see it all on the platform tapes—at Carroll.”

  And finally, the fatal weapon.

  “Now right back here, Flo, near the end of car where the taped X is on the floor, that’s where the plastic bucket was…with the chemicals for the gas.”

  Aside from autopsies on their bodies, yielding mostly causes and circumstances of death, the investigation would probe into records of the dead, not into their flesh, digging up old facts, the lives of the formerly living: once dead, victims ceased generating much new data.

  Flo felt galvanized by the pictures of the dead on the subway train she took to work every day. “We’ll put up this photo diagram at the DA’s presser. Do handouts, copies of some pictures. Cecil will be on steroids.”

  “For sure,” said Frank. “Still, even with this little, soon as the press gets it, they’ll go bananas and turn on us. You got bodies. You got pictures, names, pocket contents. But that’s it, that’s all? And they’re right, no killers. We got no one in custody. And not a single suspect.”

  “Frank, you could write the headline in this afternoon’s Post: F TRAIN MASSACRE, KILLERS LOOSE, COPS FLOP.”

  10 A.M.

  The press auditorium at Brooklyn police headquarters appeared under siege.

  The space was just about big enough for the crowd pushing and shoving to squeeze in past security checks, the room airless, noisy, electric with tension, reeking of overheated bodies, slush-wet shoes, damp clothes.

  Outside, another snowstorm smothered the city.

  Inside, District Attorney Cecil King, flanked by homicide detective Lieutenant Florence Ott, approached the lectern in front of the wall-long photographic projection of the F train subway car’s interior and the seven sprawled corpses, all labeled with names and ages, but some key features like a handgun intentionally blurred. Six pictures, and no photo of the end of the subway car with the yellow X on the floor.

  From the media mob, a cacophonous barrage erupted.

  CECIL KING: Please, we can answer one question at a time, from my right and going across row by row.

  TERENCE DANGLER: The Post over here. When were these bodies found? You got nobody arrested yet, what’s going on?

  CK: The bodies were discovered just before three this morning. We’ve been working flat out ever since, Mr. Dangler. Check any subway station. The police are out everywhere.

  TD: So you—

  CK: Next.

  Q: Who found the bodies?

  CK: A retiree.

  Q: Name?

  CK: He’s still being questioned.

  Q: How many people on the train?

  CK: Eighteen, plus the motorman.

  Q: These other passengers, the ones still alive, are they suspects?

  CK: The police are interviewing them.

  Q: How did the victims die?

  CK: We’re waiting for autopsy results.

  Q: We don’t see any blood in these pictures. Was it gas?

  CK: It could have been.

  Q: And it’s clear everyone was murdered? This wasn’t some kind of accident?

  CK: It appears intentional, that’s our belief.

  Q: What was the weapon?

  CK: Like I said, the police are examining all the evidence.

  Q: Lieutenant, any arrests?

  FLORENCE OTT: So far no suspects, but we’re out there. No one gets away with this massacre. Count on it.

  Q: You think it’s one killer or more?

  FO: That’s still unclear. We’re drawing no conclusions.

  Q: The motive?

  FO: They’re cowardly killers, and we don’t know why yet. But we will.

  Q: Anyone claim responsibility? Any group? Any known terrorists?

  FO: No claims. We’re following every lead. We can’t reveal anything now that might help these killers evade capture. Every subway station has a police patrol on it, the whole city is covered, we don’t expect this to happen again, but we’re prepared. We’re out to get the killers and we’re going to bring them to justice.

  Q: Is this like that gas attack years ago on the Tokyo subway
? You think it’s some kind of a copycat group?

  CK: Tokyo was much bigger, many more deaths.

  Q: Did anyone on the F train try to resist the killers?

  FO: We’re looking into that right now, it’s still early.

  Q: Exactly where did it happen?

  FO: We believe the killers struck somewhere between the Borough Hall and Fifteenth Street stations.

  Q: This have any connection to some kind of Al-Qaeda cell? Any organized terror group?

  CK: So far we’ve no reason to believe so. No claims have been made. And like I said, Lieutenant Ott and her colleagues are looking into every possible explanation.

  Q: Could it have been a lone maniac?

  FO: Not impossible.

  TERENCE DANGLER (agitated): This is absolutely unbelievable. Seven bodies in one place. And you don’t have the slightest idea yet who did this? You got nobody in custody? What about those foreign names up there? Hakim? Panesh? Who are those guys? Who else besides foreign terrorists would commit an outrage like this?

  FO: Mr. Dangler, these people have been dead only a few hours. The outrage, as you correctly call it, is being investigated with every available law enforcement resource our city has. The subway system is on full alert with police everywhere. New York transit is safe and it’s working. As soon as we have more developments to report, we’ll let you all know. Immediately. Thank you.

  TD: The victims, tell us more about the victims—

  CK: You have all the names. Out of consideration for the families, and the police investigation, no further details are available at this moment.

  FO: In the back on your way out, you can pick up CD-ROMs with these pictures.

  The press conference ended. The crowd began pushing and shouting for press kits, reporters emailing dispatches, attaching files with pictures of the victims.

  Television crews wrapped up their live coverage, the commentaries breathless, authoritative, distressed.

  And under cover of this maelstrom, District Attorney Cecil King and homicide detective Lieutenant Florence Ott slipped out a side exit and headed back to their offices.

  11:30 A.M.

  Of the five people seated around the table in Flo Ott’s homicide investigations office, only her intern assistant, Krish Krishnaswami, Brooklyn Law School night student, hadn’t seen all the photographs of the dead.