“Did you know,” Leppo said after the server left, “there is more trace amount of human feces on menus than anywhere else inside a restaurant?”

Odessa brought a tiny tube of hand sanitizer out of her bag, setting it upon the table as though she were attacking on a chessboard.

Leppo liked her, she could tell. He had a grown daughter of his own, so he projected and understood. He liked taking her under his wing. There were no assigned partners in the FBI. He wanted to show her the ropes, teach her “the right way” to do things. And she wanted to learn.

“My pop sold kitchen supplies everywhere in the five boroughs for thirty years until his pump gave out,” he said. “And he always said—and this might be the most important lesson I can teach you as a third-year agent—that the hallmark of a clean restaurant is its bathroom. If the bathroom is hygienic, orderly, and well maintained, you can be assured the food prep area is safe, too. Know why?”

She had a guess, but it was better to let him pontificate.

“Because the same underpaid Chilean or Salvadoran immigrant who cleans the restrooms also cleans the kitchen. The entire food service industry—and you could make an argument for civilization itself—hinges on the performance of these frontline workers.”

Odessa said, “Immigrants, they get the job done.”

“Heroes,” said Leppo, proposing a toast with his coffee mug. “Now if only they could do a better job cleaning menus.”

Odessa smiled, then tasted onion in her salad and made a disappointed face.

The first emergency call came from Teterboro, saying a private jet had taken off without tower authorization. The aircraft had banked due east, over Moonachie and across Interstate 95 toward the Hudson River. The aircraft was assumed stolen and flying in an erratic pattern, rising and falling a few thousand feet in altitude, occasionally disappearing below the range of the radar.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued an emergency alert. Teterboro was shut down in accordance with FAA regulations, suspending all pending flights and redirecting inbound air traffic to Linden Municipal Airport, a small airfield in southern New Jersey used primarily for sightseeing tours and helicopters.

The first citizen 911 call came from the operator of a tugboat in the Hudson River, less than a mile south of the George Washington Bridge. He claimed that an airplane with no lights had flown very low between the tug and the bridge, making “popping noises” in the rain. The operator said it sounded like the pilot was throwing firecrackers at his boat, and feared it was the start of “another Nine Eleven.”

The second 911 call came from a fashion executive driving home to Fort Lee on the George Washington Bridge who reported seeing “a large drone” headed toward the Upper West Side of Manhattan.