March 13, 11.41 p.m.
The vigil was almost entirely peaceful. The NYPD Command Truck was parked across the entrance to the square on the south side. Harper and Eddie Kasper arrived back from their seventh tour around the square and went inside.
‘Update?’ called Harper to Lafayette.
Lafayette was sitting at one of the seats with headphones around his neck. ‘All are negatives. Nothing but complaints of infringements on human rights.’
‘How many searches have they done?’
‘Not got the numbers. Thousands, though.’
‘No calls or emails?’
‘Nothing. What’s the mood like?’
‘Peaceful,’ said Harper. ‘Everyone just wants to remember the dead. The park’s ablaze with candlelight. It’s moving. Really moving.’
There were four other men in the Command Truck monitoring their teams and liaising with the huge media operation. Harper stood at the door and stared across at their compound.
‘If the killer doesn’t show,’ he said, ‘they’re going to have a lot of footage about the vigil.’
‘Let’s hope that’s all they’ve got,’ said Lafayette. ‘We could do without another horror story.’
‘I hear you,’ said Eddie. ‘The city’s had enough tragedy.’
Harper nodded and made his way outside again. ‘Another tour, Eddie?’
‘Damn,’ said Eddie. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
The two cops moved back out into the darkness. The police compound took up the whole of the southern end of the park. Hundreds of police vehicles stretched out. Cops everywhere, sitting around, patrolling, and catching a bite to eat.
Harper and Eddie moved back into the park. The choppers that circled overhead were useless. This was a one-man operation. The most difficult kind of perp to catch: a man who no longer cared for his own safety. It could have been any one of the thousands of men in the park.
They walked up past the media center. The reporters were wrapped up warm, sitting on the steps of AV trucks sipping coffee from paper cups. Everyone was waiting for something to happen, but no one wanted it to. A strange mood of uncertainty pervaded the press pack. They weren’t their usual eager selves. Placards declared the need for peace and remembrance. Written messages told of someone’s deep love for a person they had lost. Flowers and tributes grew throughout the evening.
The police operation was vast, but once in the park itself it was almost invisible. There were patrol cops everywhere, but many more non-uniformed officers from the NYPD, Counter-Terrorism and the FBI. There were units at every entrance with sniffer dogs and Geiger counters, doing checks and searches. They wanted to prevent any atrocities, and individual searches were the only way.
So far, they’d confiscated drugs and nothing much else. All around the park, sitting in tight groups in the semi-darkness, were several Rapid Response Units from all parties. Counter-Terrorism’s Hercules Teams sat in blacked-out sedans at each corner of the park, waiting for orders. The NYPD’s ESU SWAT teams were stationed in big black armored Bearcats, tooled up and ready.
As they walked through the crowds of people who were singing, talking, praying and crying, it looked like whatever it was, it wasn’t going to happen.