The Panic Zone Part 53

The Tellwood Regency Inn stood in the shadow of the Chrysler Building near Grand Central Station. Gannon and Emma found news photographers, Matt Ridley and Penny Uhnack, waiting at the nearest corner with their cameras tucked away in their shoulder bags.

Both were seen-it-all, shot-it-all pros.

"Matt, get everybody coming in and out of the hotel with a stroller or small kids," Gannon said. "Penny, come with us."

Inside, the gleaming four-star hotel was bustling.

"I'll wait here and do the same as Matt." Uhnack un-shouldered her bag. "But I won't be obvious, just a tourist testing my camera."

Gannon cut across the lobby to the desk where a young clerk smiled.

"Yes, can I help you?"

"Sorry, it's been a rough day. I'm a reporter with the World Press Alliance." Gannon showed her his photo ID and unfolded a sheet of paper with the names Taggart and Chenoweth. "I'm late for an interview with the people in this room, 1414. My desk didn't give me all the information. I think the people moved to another room. Can you please help me?"

The clerk looked at the note then tapped her keyboard.

"We have them, Mr. Gannon. Room 2104."

"Thank you so much."

Gannon and Emma stepped into one of six elevators and rode to the twenty-first floor. On the way up, they exchanged nervous glances. Gannon had decided he would confront Chenoweth and Taggart with the truth and try to persuade them to help.

They stepped off at the floor and headed to room 2104. Gannon knocked on the door.

No response.

Would they find a repeat of the scene in the Bahamas?

Gannon put his ear to the door. No movement inside. Emma looked in vain for cleaning staff.

"Let's go back down," Gannon said.

In the lobby, Uhnack's face was flushed as she approached them.

"I think I got something." She cued up several frames on her digital news camera. "These people just left. I barely got my camera out."

Uhnack had captured images of an Asian woman in her twenties pus.h.i.+ng a stroller with an Asian boy who looked about three or four. A Caucasian man in his twenties was with them. Gannon compared the shots to the file photos.

"That's them," Gannon said.

"Definitely," Uhnack said. "I got these pictures, too."

She showed them more images. A white couple in their thirties holding hands with two little girls, then a frame of a young African-American woman with a baby in a stroller and a frame of an older woman pus.h.i.+ng a stroller.

"Wait!" Emma drew her face to the camera's viewer. Uhnack enlarged the frame. "Oh, my G.o.d, that's Tyler!"

"Who is he with? She's familiar." Gannon recalled the woman's face from that morning's fugitive alert. "It might be Gretchen Sutsoff."

"Which way did she go?" Emma demanded. "Tell me!"

Uhnack shook her head. "I didn't see!"

Gannon's phone rang.

"Jack, it's Ridley outside. I got some stuff, but something's up. Looks like an unmarked just pulled up and two detectives are at the desk."

Gannon went to the desk and got close enough to see a badge flash and hear NYPD detectives Wolowicz and Hatcher say they were looking for a Mary Anne Conrad, traveling with a baby, William John Conrad. The clerk checked registrations, then shook her head.

"We have other names," Hatcher said as the clerk ran through them. Then Gannon heard the investigators say, "alias Gretchen Sutsoff."

"Excuse me," he interrupted. "I overheard you and I think I may have some information."

The detectives turned.

"That right? And who are you?"

Gannon produced his ID, waved Uhnack and Emma over and called Ridley in. They showed the detectives their photographs. Emma struggled with her emotions as Gannon explained everything quickly to Wolowicz and Hatcher. Their stone-faced expressions revealed nothing.

When Gannon had finished briefing them, Hatcher called his captain.

"Which way did you say she was traveling?" Hatcher asked Ridley.

Emma fought back tears, staring at Tyler's photo.

"West on Forty-second," Ridley said.

"--ASAP, that's right," Hatcher said into his phone. "Get all radio cars looking for her from the Tellwood, west on forty-second." Hatcher studied Ridley and Uhnack's photos. "Description--white female, mid-fifties, medium build. Five-seven, maybe one-twenty, one-thirty. She's wearing a red top and white shorts. She's pus.h.i.+ng a blue canvas stroller. The kid is white, about one or so, and is wearing a white 'I heart New York' T-s.h.i.+rt."

Emma wanted to scream.

"I can't stand here. I have to look for Tyler!"

"Hold it. No one goes anywhere." Wolowicz tapped the cameras. "We want those pictures, this is a police investigation."

"These are WPA property," Ridley said. "Work that out with WPA bra.s.s." He hit his speed-dial b.u.t.ton for the WPA photo editor.

"We will, pal. I'm going to hold you all until we settle this."

"I need to go now!" Emma screamed.

"No one is going anywhere, miss." Wolowicz leveled his finger at her. "There are half a dozen police cars in this area now that are looking for our subject. Stay calm. We're going to find her and the baby."

"We're wasting time!" Emma shouted.

Heads shot around as people watched the exchange. Ridley was on his phone explaining their predicament to the photo editor.

Gannon called Lancer.

"Lancer."

"It's Gannon in New York. She's here. Sutsoff is here."

"Where?"

"Our photographers saw her leaving the Tellwood on Forty-second heading west about fifteen minutes ago. She has Emma Lane's baby with her."

"Are you sure?"

"We've got photos and two NYPD detectives are here."

"Give us the photos."

"It's being sorted out now. Where would Sutsoff go?"

Lancer hesitated.

"Come on, Lancer!"

"She'll likely go to Central Park for the conference."

71.

Gretchen Sutsoff heard an old melody on Fifth Avenue.

She stopped the stroller in front of a coffee shop. Its open door was leaking music, a song that her little brother had cherished.

Will.

The memories flooded back. Will was such a good boy.

To hear his song on this day pleased her until she was jerked from her reverie.

"Lady, would you get outta my freakin' way?"

A sweating, grunting delivery man balancing a steel handcart loaded with soda nearly grazed her, forcing her to move. Sutsoff came to another storefront and saw a TV inside broadcasting the fugitive alert.

The report showed the older photos that bore no resemblance to her.

As a precaution, she entered a Fifth Avenue shop, bought a summer dress, a sun hat and dark gla.s.ses. She took the baby with her and changed in the washroom of a fast-food restaurant. She also put on a new wig that was a different color and length. She tested her laptop. The signal was strong, she had full battery power and she had spares.

Good.

Finally, she checked the baby. His signs were fine. He's in perfect health, she thought, taking a couple more pills to help her contend with the crowds before wheeling the stroller back to the street.

They resumed their long walk on Fifth Avenue.

Sirens wailed and helicopters whomped overhead as they neared Central Park. The traffic and crowds increased and charter buses crawled along, diesels chugging, brakes hissing. Mounted patrols stood by as, even at this hour, vendors hawked pretzels, ice cream, nuts, soda and Human World T-s.h.i.+rts to people streaming toward the park. All were wearing the required orange wrist bands that came with the tickets.

As Sutsoff and the baby disappeared into the crowds, she saw him playfully touching people who brushed against them. She smiled as she watched the people he touched touch others.

Thirty minutes to go and Robert Lancer's stomach knotted.

The size of the crowd was sobering.

The number of people gathering on the Great Lawn, the huge midpark expanse where Pope John Paul II had celebrated Ma.s.s, was estimated at 1.3 million.

Is Sutsoff out there? Lancer wondered as he looked through his binoculars from the police command post on West Drive, at the Eighty-third Street level. Other command posts were located around the park.

The air crackled with sound checks from the huge stage flanked by ma.s.sive video screens. Other giant screens and speaker towers ascended from the tranquil sea of humanity.

Squadrons of emergency vans, ambulances and police trucks were strategically parked in and around the park. NYPD Communications trucks monitored the crowd via video cameras on speaker towers.

So much was in play; there were metal detectors and X-ray machines, K-9 explosives teams and chemical sensors to a.n.a.lyze the air for gases and toxins. The stage and VIP areas had been swept, then triple-checked by the Secret Service. Lancer exhaled. So far paramedics and first-aid stations had reported no unusual or alarming medical problems.

Organizers refused to consider shutting the event down at this stage.

All officials agreed that to make any sort of announcement of a potential threat would create chaos. The White House was clear: the president would attend. The first lady and vice president would remain in Was.h.i.+ngton. Oval Office staff told the Secret Service that the president would not cower. No group would dictate his agenda through threats. The president's stance was firm: he would be with the people at this major event. Facing threats was part of his job.

The pleas for cancellation by Lancer and other security officials were in vain. That left them few options. Yes, events like these were often subject to threats, but this one had a horrific blood trail that led straight to it.

Teams of undercover police and cadets were threading through the crowd, looking for anyone who matched Sutsoff's photo, the new one obtained by police in the Bahamas.

As the MC took to the stage to start the day's program, Lancer looked hard at the images filling the nearest big screen.

He had an idea.

The show started.

Gannon was with Emma on the east side, near the obelisk behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They were patrolling the edges of the crowd, scrutinizing every person they saw who had a child in a stroller. Emma's heart raced each time she spotted someone who looked like Sutsoff or Tyler.

Gannon called the WPA and learned that the WPA's lawyers and NYPD were urgently finalizing use of the WPA's photos. TV news helicopters circled overhead. The Times, Daily News and Post had reported online that security was heightened at the event because of the president's visit, amid rumors of an increased threat level.

So far, no news organization knew what Gannon and the WPA knew. The wire service had a.s.signed eight reporters and six photographers to the event. As music filled the air, Gannon and Emma scanned the ocean of faces. The size of the crowd was overwhelming.

It was futile.

"I feel so helpless," Emma said. "Did they find them?"

Again, Gannon called the WPA newsroom where Mike Kemp, a seasoned crime reporter, was monitoring emergency scanners.

"Anything happening, Mike?" Gannon asked Kemp, hearing the clatter of the scanners in the background.