held almost all of his press conferences in the ECC, a state-of-the-art facility that held an impressive display of the latest high-tech equipment. The electronics made for terrific photo opportunities—and more important, as Mariana said, helped give the public a sure sense of confidence that the police department had the best tools to safeguard its citizens.
During a crisis, the ECC’s main objective was to collect, assimilate, and analyze during a crisis a mind-boggling amount of wide-ranging raw information—people and places and events and more—in a highly efficient manner.
And then to act on it—instantly, if not sooner.
“And that’s exactly what the hell we’re doing this morning,” Carlucci had bluntly told Mariana when he’d asked for everyone to gather in the ECC. “If this goddamn situation escalates, it has the potential to turn the city into something out of the Wild West.”
The bulk of the ECC was given over to a massive pair of T-shaped conference tables. Each dark gray Formica-topped table seated twenty-six. And each of these fifty-two seats had its own multiline telephone, outlets for laptop computers, and access to secure networks for on-demand communications with other law-enforcement agencies—from local to federal to the international police agency, Interpol—as necessary.
Along the back walls were more chairs to accommodate another forty staff members.
The focal point of the room, however, were three banks of sixty-inch, high-definition LCD flat-screen TVs. There were nine TVs per bank on the ten-foot-high walls. Mounted edge to edge, the frameless TVs could create a single supersize image, or could display individual pictures—each TV could even be used in split-screen mode.
Usually, when the screens were not showing live feeds from cameras mounted in emergency vehicles at the scene of an accident or crime, they showed continuously cycling images from closed-circuit TV cameras that were mounted all over the city—in subways, public buildings, and main and secondary roadways—and the broadcasts from local and cable TV news stations. Images could be pulled from almost any source, even a cell phone camera, as long as the signals were digitized.
The ECC fell under the purview of the Science & Technology arm of the Philadelphia Police Department, which included the Forensic Sciences, Information Systems, and Communications Divisions. Its two-star commander, Deputy Police Commissioner Howard Walker, reported to Denny Coughlin.
Acting on an order issued that morning by the mayor, Walker had alerted the local news media that a live feed of Mayor Carlucci would begin at precisely 12:05 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. The timing gave the TV news programs the opportunity to start their noon newscasts with the announcement that an important statement by the mayor of Philadelphia concerning the rash of recent murders was coming up in five minutes.
“Stay tuned. We’re back with that breaking news right after this commercial break.”
“Thirty seconds, gentlemen . . . ,” Corporal Rapier said.
Four hours earlier, when Coughlin had led his group into the Executive Command Center, he’d found the mayor and the police commissioner already seated at Conference Table One. They had heavy china mugs steaming with fresh coffee before them on the table. Mariana’s mug read SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE COMMAND CENTER. The mayor’s mug read GENO’S STEAKS SOUTH PHILLY, PENNA.
Everyone in the ECC was casually dressed. Even the usually stiffly buttoned-down Carlucci wasn’t wearing a necktie, and he had his shirt collar open. And Matt Payne and Tony Harris still looked rumpled and messy, the result of having been up most of the night running down leads in the death of Reggie Jones.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Carlucci said in a solemn tone suggesting he meant that it was anything but a good morning. He did not move from his chair except to grab his coffee mug handle.
There was a chorus of “good morning”s in reply.
Mariana added, “Fresh coffee in there.” He waved with his mug across the room, indicating a door that led to a kitchenette.
Carlucci then said, “Sergeant Payne, no offense, but you and Detective Harris look like hell.”
“Considering what we’ve been through, Mr. Mayor,” Payne said dryly, “hell sounds like an absolute utopian paradise. I enjoy the thrill of the chase as much as the next guy, but this one’s a real challenge. Right now we don’t know if we’re dealing with a single shooter-slash-strangler, or if there are others—that is, as someone put it earlier, Halloween Homicide Copycats.”
Ordinarily, a lowly police sergeant speaking so bluntly to the highest elected official of a major city would be cause for disciplinary—if not more drastic—measures.
But Carlucci’s relationship with Payne, and most everyone else in the group,