Early Warning by Michael Walsh Read Free Book Online

Roosevelt’s birthplace and across Fifth Avenue. It was as if he knew something was up, was responding to some unarticulated urgency, and it was all Lannie could do to keep up with the old man…on any level.
    They had crossed Seventh Avenue, into Chelsea, and were heading north when Lannie felt his cell phone buzz again. Involuntarily, he stopped and pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was one of those shitty departmental phones, standard-issue, not his BlackBerry, which he had left back at his desk in case something really important happened.
    “What is it?” asked Byrne. If it were really important, whoever was on the other end of the line would have called him. On the other hand, if it had anything to do with computers, Lannie would be the go-to guy. And that was, after all, the reason Byrne had hired him. Certainly not for his marksmanship.
    Lannie glanced at the display: URGENT. He picked up the pace. They didn’t have to say anything. Byrne got it. That was one of the things that made him such a good chief.
    They hit the intersection of 20th and Eighth, nearly running now, and headed north.
    They rounded the corner. Up ahead was an old, nondescript warehouse, one of the few buildings that hadn’t been converted into artists’ lofts or art galleries. Actually, that was not quite true: most of it had in fact been converted, but there was still a big chunk of the giant building, which occupied a full city block in two dimensions and rose five stories into the air, that had been given over to the CTU. Not that any of the other tenants knew about it.
    That was one of the things that still made New York New York, thought Byrne as he spied the building: not making eye contact with neighbors was still considered a virtue.
    They pulled up in front of the building. “Mother Cabrini—Frances Xavier Cabrini—is the patron saint of immigrants,” said Byrne. His cell phone was buzzing now, too.
    Lannie beat him to the punch. “We’re here, right in front of the building,” he said softly.
    Byrne watched his younger colleague’s face fall. “What is it?” he asked, but Lannie was already sprinting through the front door.

C HAPTER F OUR

    New Orleans

    “Archibald Grant” had a choice: to finish his speech or to react to the urgent message now coming across the face of his wristwatch.
    This was no ordinary watch he wore, but then nothing about Mr. Grant was ordinary. As one of the RAND Corporation’s leading experts on international terrorism, he was in great demand, not only back at the home office in Santa Monica, California, but worldwide. RAND maintained divisions in Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Jackson, Mississippi; Cambridge, England; Brussels; and Doha, Qatar.
    His attention from the message was distracted by the blonde in the front row. She was a reporter, one of the few the RAND Corporation allowed into policy addresses such as this. Most of the time, RAND hid its global activities behind its anonymous name, Research ANd Development.
    This was a special occasion: a conference organized by RAND’s Gulf States Policy Institute, which had been formed post-Katrina to aid three of the most benighted states in the union, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The topic of his lecture was: “Terrorist Opportunities in a Devastated Environment: Some Thoughts on Media Responsibility,” but the reporter seemed more interested in him than in the subject of his remarks. Even in his guise of “Mr. Grant,” he hated inquisitive people, and blonde network reporters were right up there with the worst of them.
    It wasn’t that Grant was so good-looking: balding, over-weight, slightly buck-toothed, he was no woman’s idea of a prize. But he was brilliant, and a compelling speaker, which in his experience was more than enough to interest a certain class of women. Luckily for men, brains often counted more than looks when it came to the fair sex.
    “…and so, ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude with this