“In their defense, there had been a shooting just a week before where six officers got shot when approaching an armed guy in his home. It shakes them up and makes them anxious.”
“That’s what they keep telling me,” Liam said, breathing heavily. “They were only doing their job.”
“But, of course, your son wasn’t armed, am I right?”
“No! He’s never owned a gun.”
“But do you?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure. We have a gun in the house. I have a permit.”
“If there is a gun registered to the address, it will have made the officers even more anxious, thinking the boy got ahold of your gun and shot his parents. That’s any uniformed man’s worst nightmare right there. They’re tense and scared even before they get there, and, of course, they’ll shoot if they have the slightest fear that he is carrying a weapon, and for all they know, he is, and he will shoot because that’s what he told them on the phone.”
“So, now it’s my fault?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Okay, I’m not getting anywhere here,” Liam said, shaking his head violently. “I know you’re a cop or used to be, or whatever, so, of course, you’ll defend them, I kind of expected that. But what I came here to ask you is how you knew. How did you know something would happen to Tim? You said someone wanted him killed? Who and how did you know?”
I grabbed my cup and sipped more of the spiked coffee, then looked at him intently. “All right. But I’m going to need you to keep an open mind here.”
“I am as open as I can be,” he said. “Full-blown open.”
“And you’re sure you want to know? It’s not going to be pleasant.”
He nodded. “Yes. Absolutely certain.”
Chapter 16
Amal Bukhari looked at her phone as she boarded flight 456 from Atlanta to New York. She rechecked her email for the fifth time in the past ten minutes—still nothing.
Amal was waiting for an email from her agent. NBC wanted her for a big new live talk show, and she was awaiting the final confirmation. It was down to her and another famous YouTuber who had seventeen million followers, whereas Amal or IWondergirl, had eighteen million. According to her agent, she was in the lead and best suited for this job. But he was supposed to say that, wasn’t he? It was his job to make her feel confident and cheer her on.
Come on. Just say, yes.
Amal sat down in her seat and placed her bag with her computer under the seat in front of her. She was going to work on her bits during the plane ride. She was doing a stand-up show tomorrow night.
Amal checked her email again. Still nothing.
The road to success had been long for Amal, but it had been her own. Her Pakistani background didn’t make it easier, especially not when her family didn’t approve of what she did. They had cut all their ties to her except for her brother, Samir, who still called now and then when he wasn’t near any other family member.
Come on. I need that email before I have to shut off my phone.
The guy who was going to sit in the seat next to her arrived, and she got up to make room for him to get into the window seat. Amal had asked for a window seat because she hated sitting on the aisle, but apparently, there had been none available.
Amal checked her email again as the plane filled up around her. Her stomach was lurching, and it didn’t feel good. Shouldn’t they have decided by now? What was taking them so long?
I’m not getting it, am I? It’s because of my skin color; I just know it is.
The door was closed, and the flight attendant checked that their seatbelts were fastened. Amal stared at the phone, touching the screen lightly with her finger. The flight attendant came to her seat and spoke from behind a toothy smile.
“Please, turn off your cellphone now.”
Amal felt like making a snappy joke about phones and planes and why people had to shut them off, but she refrained. She didn’t feel like it. Instead, she nodded and returned the smile, then pretended to be shutting off the phone as the plane slowly rolled out on the runway.
As the flight attendant moved away, she checked her email once again, frantically tapping on the screen.
And there it was.
Heart in her throat, Amal opened the email and read through it, skimming it as fast as she could.
I got it. I can’t believe it. I actually got it!
Smiling widely, Amal shut off the phone and leaned back in her seat, just as the plane accelerated down the runway and, seconds later, soared into the air. Amal couldn’t help comparing the feeling to her career literally taking off, and she broke into cheerful laughter as they reached their cruising altitude.
Chapter 17
“It’s called swatting.”
I looked up at Liam’s face. I had poured us a second cup of coffee, and he was holding his between his hands.
“Swatting?”
I nodded. “It’s a criminal act in which the perpetrators call or message a target’s local nine-one-one operators, claiming a fake hostage situation or a bomb threat in progress with the expectation that the local police may respond to the target’s address or whereabouts with deadly force, more than often sending in a SWAT team, hence the name.”
Liam blinked. He stared at me for several seconds before sipping his coffee. “You mean to tell me that’s what happened to us? To my…to Tim? Someone called in and told them to go to my address…deliberately?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so. It’s something that has been going on for the past year or so. I’ve been trying to tell the local police about this; in your case, I even telephoned all the departments in Philadelphia and warned them that this would happen, that someone would call in a false incident. But…” I paused and shook my head.
Liam leaned back in his chair, rubbing his forehead. I could tell he was fighting his tears. He started biting his nails vigorously.
“So, you mean to tell me that my…my Tim…died because of some…prank?” he asked, his eyes gleaming in anger.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure I’d call it that exactly. I think this guy is very serious and extremely brilliant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I believe what we’re facing is a serial swatter…someone who’s responsible for a series of these calls and many of them with deaths to follow. I believe this guy is responsible for eleven deaths so far all over the country. Not all are fatal, and I have traced him to other swatting attempts where no one died. But so far, eleven have. And those are just the ones I’ve detected. But there could be more.”
Liam looked at me, puzzled. “How do you know it’s the same guy who’s behind all those calls?”
“There’s a pattern that I have detected. First of all, many of them are called in at the same time of day. At exactly 8:56 p.m. is when dispatch usually receives the call. That’s the case in most of the incidents I’ve found. Second, I’ve found that he leaves clues as to who he’ll strike next. He seems to be choosing rich and famous people, YouTubers, gamers, or in your case, a famous cook’s sons. My guess is that he chooses celebrities to gain attention. He wants to make sure the story gets on the news. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it makes him feel proud like when some killers take a trophy from their victims, or maybe he feels stronger when the world knows what he’s doing and fears him. That’s one of the characteristics in his pattern that I still need to establish.”