Within just a few minutes, the restaurant was empty. Once the overfed men and their beautiful women were gone, the place appeared somehow hollow and gloomy, almost like an abandoned movie set, the quiet majesty of the place having vanished the moment its glamorous occupants did.
CHAPTER 43
Ten minutes later, Dukes, along with a member of the Secret Service’s Technical Security Division, began his presentation, which continued for nearly an hour without a break. That the venue had already been cleared by the Technical Security Division hardly mattered, now that a new and substantial potential threat had been identified. Dog teams would sweep the restaurant at least three times in the next twenty-four hours, sniffing for explosives. Dukes went over fire safety inside the establishment, discussed where the various chemical, biological, and radiological sensors would be placed, and discussed how a layer of bulletproof glass and blast webbing would be constructed over the front windows.
He noted where the jump teams would be hidden across the street, where the counterassault team would be stationed, addressed roof security and air cover of the entire block in the West Village. Approximately ninety minutes before the dinner, the entire four-block radius would be put on “POTUS freeze.” An agent in the presidential protective detail then stepped forward to briefly discuss his goals and duties. The “package” was what he called the protective detail, whether in or out of the motorcade, as in, “Nobody moves to the package unless they want to get shot in the heart. The package will move to you.”
Dukes resumed, pointing out choke points on a map, talking transitions and shift changes, none of which interested Fisk. He stole a glance at Garza a few times, found her staring off, somewhere else mentally. Fisk’s ears perked back up when Dukes addressed obscure but persistent threats: poison gas, mortar attack, suicide bombers. It was no wonder that the Secret Service was regarded as a clan of hard-nosed paranoiacs. The job rewarded incredibly hardworking, detail-oriented, humorless people, who expected the worst from humanity and took no shit from anyone.
Accordingly, Dukes did not take questions.
“I will say—not for the record, but just so that you will understand the level of extra effort that will need to be exerted here—that this location was chosen against the very strenuous objection of my agency. Let me explain what the Secret Service likes in a venue. We like large steel-framed, low-rise buildings on high ground, with underground ingress and egress, substantial interior walls that can be used as defensive fallback and rally points, multiple elevators and multiple stairs, concrete or stone exterior walls, land buffering the building from the street, separate and easily controllable mechanical rooms with backup generators, modern fire suppression and security systems, fully redundant and high-bandwidth communication connections, exterior walls which are not shared with adjoining properties, and ten thousand square feet of controllable floor space on the event floor. Rural is good. A perimeter fence is super nice. A twelve-foot blast wall with razor wire . . . even better.”
Dukes smiled tightly.
“As you can see, this Mexican seafood restaurant has precisely zero of these features. None. It’s a relatively small restaurant in a row of typical four-story, wood-frame commercial buildings constructed over a century ago. Charming windows looking out on a pleasant view of a heavily traveled street. Unrestricted sight lines extending to higher buildings along Seventh Avenue and several blocks down Waverly. A minimally competent sniper could engage the front of the building with effective aimed fire from any of over three hundred different vantage points. An RPG could pass from the front of the restaurant to virtually any interior point of the restaurant. A truck bomb could level the place.”
Dukes folded his hands at his waist.
“Also, while not publicly part of either president’s schedule, the event is known, and we are monitoring chatter on the Internet. As such, you can only imagine my level of enthusiasm for this venue. But the choice has been made above my pay level, and so we are going to make it work. We in the Secret Service never, ever question the wisdom of our superiors, or second-guess the political choices of those we protect. We just shut up and do our job.
“So what’s our strategy? All traffic functions en route will be conducted on a need-to-know basis. NYPD will prepare for a rolling street blockage with minimal notice. We will have intersection control for both presidents’ motorcades, and will have two lanes of setback—that is, space between the motorcade and other traffic—whenever possible. We will bring our principals in through the alley in the back, and we’ll close and barricade the street between Greenwich and West Tenth. The upper floors of the restaurant’s building include residential space, and will be evacuated and occupied by counterattack agents starting three hours before the event is to start.”
He surveyed the room, hands on his hips.
“There’s your site prep. If I failed to cover anything . . . well, it was not an oversight. You know as much as you need to know, and more than enough to assist without getting in our way.”
His last remarks seemed aimed at the Mexican security contingent.
“Good day.”
CHAPTER 44
Fisk stopped Dukes before he left.
“I notice the owner is not here.”
“Guess not,” said Dukes.
“C’mon,” said Fisk.
Dukes just shook his head.
“You vetted this guy? I don’t like the caginess.”
Dukes sighed. “I know you’re not presuming to tell me how to do my job, Fisk,” he said, giving Fisk a borderline hard stare. “Here’s the thing, Fisk. Your job is all about the Why. Lot of gray areas—why a guy kills somebody, does this, does that. Lot of questions to be answered. But for us, for me . . . it’s all black and white. The principal lives or the principal dies. Why is just a distraction. Why kills.”
Fisk grumbled, “So President Vargas just loves a good fish taco then.”
“That must be it,” said Dukes. “Look, when you start telling me everything you know about your job, I’ll start telling you everything I know about mine.”
“Point taken.”
“Point made.”
Dukes went off out of the restaurant. That was when Fisk saw a deputy U.S. marshal standing near the door. A short woman with squat hips and straight brown hair, wearing a dark-jacketed suit. He went over to her. “Graben, is it?”
“Detective Fisk.”
She did not offer to shake his hand.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
“Heard you were out of action. Put up on the shelf.”
“They pulled me back down. Can I ask you a question?”
“No,” she said.
“What is a deputy U.S. marshal doing here?”
Graben shrugged. “I’m not here.”
“Really,” said Fisk. “That old thing.”
“That old thing.”
The U.S. Marshals Service is charged with protecting and supporting U.S. federal courts, as well as conducting fugitive investigations. Another thing they are known for is the Witness Security Program, protecting, relocating, and assigning new identities to witnesses and other high-threat individuals.
“Good to see you back in the game, Fisk,” she said, turning and following Dukes out the door.
Fisk stood there a moment, processing the interaction, then followed her out.
He watched her get into the vehicle behind Dukes’s sedan and follow him away, heading uptown.