I had never been afraid of heights.
Even as a boy, twelve years old, I would drive my mother crazy by jumping from our apartment building to the next. My father had never encouraged this, but he had never discouraged it either. In a way, he knew that this was part of my training. Eventually he would have to tell me all I would need to know, so why not allow me to start figuring it out on my own? Then, during Vietnam, I parachuted a half-dozen times. Twice I ended up in trees and had to cut myself out of the straps, one time falling nearly fifty feet to the ground.
There was only one time I had been nervous of heights. It had been August 7, 1974. I had only been Temple for a year by then, my father packing his things and heading west.
At that time, I was still just a beat cop. It would be several years before I became a detective, and a few more years before I started working with Sanchez. News had quickly spread across the city about a man walking on a wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Later the world would learn that this man was Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, but all that had been known at the time was that there was a crazy man up there.
Naturally, I hurried over to the Towers, changing into my Temple outfit in the elevator as it lifted me over 1,000 feet. It was clear once I made it to the roof that Philippe Petit was not crazy. Well, he was certainly crazy, but he was a special kind of crazy. This was clearly a stunt. He knew exactly what he was doing. He even recognized me and waved, shouted that he was a fan and hoped to shake my hand once he was done.
There was nothing for me or the cops up on the roofs to do but wait and watch.
And as I stood there on the edge, I stared down at the street below. Some may have considered me a superhero, but there was no way I would survive a fall that distance. My body would splat on the street just like anyone else’s. Before, I had always known that I wasn’t immortal and that many things could kill me, but right then I realized that, with just one misstep, I would die. It was terrifying. Meanwhile, Petit continued to cross back and forth on the wire, showing no fear whatsoever.
I thought about that now as I stood on the roof of the Freedom Tower. Roger stood beside me, staring off toward Liberty Island. The snow had let up some but was still coming down, and we were bundled in jackets, our hands in our pockets, our hoods up.
A helicopter circled the tower, a gunner positioned out the open side in case of another attack.
Roger spoke just loud enough to be heard over the helicopter.
“Look at it. Even from this distance she looks tiny, but she’s beautiful nonetheless. When people think of America, they think of her.”
The Statue of Liberty did not look majestic from this high up in the air. Especially with the snow, she looked tiny and cold and alone.
“What if someone attacks her? Which Sentry is closest?”
“Here, actually.”
Roger motioned toward the center of the roof.
“Sentry Number Fourteen was the last one installed. It protects this end of Manhattan. And the Statue of Liberty. And Ellis Island, though I can’t imagine that would ever be a target. But we can never be too careful.”
The helicopter circled again, the gunner staring at us from behind his sunglasses.
Behind us, Agent Njeim spoke.
“We’re ready.”
We turned around. Along with Agent Njeim, there were four agents bundled up in jackets. Two of them were crouched over the body near the center of the roof. Here, because of the scaffolding above us, not as much snow had piled up as it had down on the street. Still there was at least a foot, and the agents had needed to dust that snow off the body.
My son’s body.
I recognized him even after all these years. A father always knows his son, no matter how much time has passed and how much his son has changed. And James had indeed changed, though it hadn’t been any of his doing.
He was a husk. All the blood and fluids had been drained from his body until he was literally nothing more than skin and bones. His eyes were gone. They hadn’t taken his head—no doubt for me to confirm his body—but they had opened up the back of his head to extract his brain.
Roger said, “Let’s get him back to base. What have you found on surveillance?”
Agent Njeim said, “Nothing so far, but Nate is still working on it and we’re searching nearby cameras. Something had to have caught them placing him here.”
Roger thought about this for a moment, then shook his head.
“No. These people know exactly where every camera is. They know how to avoid them, and if they can’t avoid them, they can override them. You can keep looking, but nothing is going to come of it.”
Behind Agent Njeim, the other agents had opened a body bag. They were going to place my son’s body—his husk—in the bag and take him back to the Vault, where they were going to wait until he thawed and then perform an autopsy. But they wouldn’t find anything. I was almost certain about this. The people doing this were playing games. They were leading us on a wild goose chase. The question was, why? Why did they bring his body up here?
Roger turned to me.
“What do you think?”
He was waiting. They were all waiting, but there was nothing much to see. Not with all the snow. They would need to eliminate the snow, shovel it aside, though there was no telling just how long James’s body had been here. If there was any trace evidence, it was long gone, and if there was some still here, just how were we supposed to find it?
An hour ago, an alarm had gone off in the building, notifying security that the door to the roof was open. When a guard checked, he saw my son’s naked body. He had alerted the head of security, and the head of security had dialed 911, but the call had been intercepted by the analysts at the Vault, who’d been monitoring all communication throughout the city. That was how Roger and his people were able to get here so quickly.
The people who did this wanted my son’s body found.
I stared past Agent Njeim for a long moment. I tried to focus on my son. I thought about this rooftop and how there may be trace evidence. I thought about the body being placed here for a reason and how we had been meant to find it, and it suddenly gave me an idea.
“Agent Njeim, once we leave here, can you take me back to my daughter’s?”
She looked to Roger for permission, and when he gave her a slight nod, she said yes.
“Great. No need for an escort.”
Roger cleared his throat.
“Mr. Shepherd, I would—”
“We’ll be fine.”
Roger said nothing, clearly not happy about it.
The helicopter kept circling us. The snow kept falling. And the agents, now with the body bag open, had no trouble at all lifting James from the ground and placing him in the bag and enclosing him in the plastic shroud.