It was dark and nasty and raining cats and dogs the next morning. The dim, dreary, churning East River beneath the Brooklyn Bridge looked about as scenic and lovely as a field of freshly poured cement as I crossed over it in my department Impala, heading to work.
Even so, my day had started at top speed. Martin Gilroy hadn’t been on time. He’d been early. All the kids seemed excited to see him, especially the older girls, who seemed particularly ready and mysteriously dolled up to go to school.
Seamus had stayed over and was on hand as well to show Martin the ropes. The lovely old codger was looking pretty good, too, I thought, after all he’d been through. Pink and healthy and cheerful. Back in form.
I was pleased. All men are mortal, and Seamus, at eighty-plus, was more mortal than most, I knew, but I doggedly refused to think he was ever going anywhere except to say Mass.
On the other side of the bridge, I found the first exit for DUMBO and took it. My trip to the hipster-paradise neighborhood of Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass wasn’t because of a burning desire for an ironic beer T-shirt but a work location shift. With all the media hoopla over the mayor’s assassination, case headquarters had been changed from the Thirty-Third Precinct to the NYPD’s discreet new Intelligence Division building in Brooklyn.
On a dark, narrow cobblestoned street just off the river, I parked in front of the large nondescript old brick building that I’d been to only twice before. I shielded my way past three armed-to-the-teeth SWAT cops manning the plain, dingy lobby and then two more stationed at a stainless steel console in the hall on the second floor.
On the other side of the security checkpoint, through a metal door, the transformation from the nineteenth-century brickwork outside to the twenty-first-century high-tech office inside became complete. There were sleek glass fishbowl offices and flat screens everywhere. Clocks on the wall gave the times of cities around the world. A lot of federal Homeland Security money was on full display.
The office was also packed with cops—dozens of detectives in polo shirts and suits. The way everyone was running around with serious expressions on their faces reminded me of an army on the muster. A tired one that just got its ass handed to it and was trying to figure out what to do next.
“Hey,” I said to Doyle as he came out of the men’s room.
“Mike, hey,” he said, leading me toward a crowded conference room at the end of the hall. “C’mon, we’re all down here about to have a briefing.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“No one told you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Brooklyn and Robertson scored some footage of what looks like the bombers from both of the bombing locations. They’re about to show it right now.”