Deb turned to Kareem.
His hands were shaking. He could barely speak. His lips twitched and quivered with emotion.
“I didn’t do it,” he said softly, desperate to get those few words out.
Deb was silent. She held his hand.
“I believe you,” she said. “I believe you because I’ve worked with you. I know you. I know you could never do something like this. But I don’t understand how you could have known about this attack before it happened.”
“Me neither,” he confessed through lips that trembled uncontrollably. It was crazy. How could he remember something that hadn’t happened? He had no explanation, only that he did.
“I couldn’t change it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I thought if I could get there, I could stop them, stop the bomb, or at least prevent so many people from dying, but I couldn’t. I can see the future, but I can’t change it.”
“How many?” she asked. Her voice broke as she spoke. Like Kareem, Deb was struggling under the emotional weight of all they were dealing with, but he knew what she was asking. What was the final body count from the museum?
“Fifteen.”
That word sounded cold, so harsh and sterile. Fifteen was just a number, and not a fair representation of those fallen lives. Fifteen didn’t do justice to the loss. Fifteen seemed to cheapen the tragedy.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, squeezing his fingers from across the table, the concern carrying in her voice. “You have to give yourself up.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. You’ve got to clear your name.”
“My father,” Kareem started. A slight ripple of bitter laughter crossed his lips at the irony. “My father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. How long do you think it will take the media to figure that out?”
Deb was silent, allowing him to go on.
“That was twenty years ago, before he brought us to America, but that won’t matter. They’ll make it sound like it was yesterday. They’ll frame me, frame my twin brother, defame our family.”
Kareem watched as Deb’s lips tightened. Her face hardened.
“How fair do you think the trial will be? How much of a defense do you think I’ll have? Do you think they’ll believe I just remembered today? Ha. I’m not sure even I believe me.”
“You can’t run,” Deb said softly. “You’ll only make things worse. You’ve got to tell them something, anything. I’ll stand by you. I’ll tell them how you’ve served this community over the past few years.”
“You really think that will make a difference in the court of public opinion?” he asked. “Look at me. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old Muslim. I’m the archetype of a terrorist. No one’s going to believe any different.”
“You have to give yourself up,” she pleaded, taking pains not to raise her voice too loud.
“I can’t,” he replied coldly. “Not while there’s another bomb out there.”
Her face seemed to drain of blood. The pupils in her eyes dilated with terror. Her cheeks, normally so rosy, looked gaunt and pale.
“There’s one more bomb to stop,” he added.
“But you can’t stop it,” Deb protested. “You said so yourself, nothing changes!”
“But I have to try.”
“Why?” she asked. “You know no one’s going to listen to you. If you’ve seen the bomb go off, you know it’s going to detonate anyway, so what’s the point?”
“I can’t stand by knowing innocent people will die,” he said, trying to hide his trembling hands. He wanted to pull them beneath the table, but that would have been too obvious. Deb was playing with his hands, subconsciously grabbing at his fingers while emphasizing her rationale.
“I have to try,” he said. “And this time, it’s different. This time, I don’t remember the bomb going off.”
“Where is it?” she asked, releasing his fingers and sitting back a little in the booth.
“Midtown Police Station, just off 66th.”
Deb raised her hand to her mouth, gasping as she cried, “Rachel! My sister Rachel works there. She’s a detective with the narcotics squad.”
Kareem was silent. He could see the realization in her eyes; she was replaying something he had said, grasping at the subtle meaning in his words.
“You don’t remember, do you? This time, you don’t remember what happens!”
Kareem pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.
“You die!” she cried, forgetting to keep her voice down. From around the diner, customers and waiters looked over at them, hearing the rising swell of voices from their corner booth. “You die, don’t you? That’s why you don’t remember the bomb exploding.”
Kareem felt his downturned lips trembling, quivering as he nodded. He couldn’t make eye contact. His eyes cast down at his empty plate with a smear of chocolate icing on one side. Crumbs rested on the porcelain. They seemed so normal, so innocuous. They were the remnants of the last bite of food he’d ever taste, and he knew it.
“Why you? Why do you have to try? If you’ve seen or remembered or whatever, why do you have to be the one to risk your life? Why can’t you just tell the police what you know? I could tell Rachel. She’d believe me!”
“She’d think you were crazy,” he muttered under his breath, glancing sideways to see if anyone was watching them. No one was; they’d all returned to their own sideshow dramas, he figured.
“But why you?” she pleaded.
Kareem held her hand, squeezing her fingers gently, running his fingers over her soft white hand as he replied, “Because there’s no one else. Because tens of thousands of people will die.”
“I... I don’t understand,” she said.
“All this,” he replied, gesturing around him. “Battery Park, the museum. This isn’t the attack they’ve been planning. The real attack is still to come. Everything we’ve seen so far, all that is just a diversion, a distraction, something to get the police chasing their tail while the real attack comes as a knockout blow.
“The real attack is in the form of a dirty bomb, something that will shower New York with radioactive debris.”
“So tell the police,” she replied, looking deep into his eyes. “Tell them about the bombers!”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I’ve only ever seen one of the bombers,” he replied. “And he’s a police officer!”
Chapter 04: Police
Kareem sat on a park bench across from the police station. Birds flittered in the trees. A cool breeze stirred the autumn leaves, blowing them across the ground. Fiery red and yellow leaves piled up against the various low-lying fences lining the walkways, blown up by the prevailing wind.
A squirrel darted across the grass and up the side of an old oak tree. A young girl played on a swing in the playground. Her mother sat to one side, looking at something on her smartphone.
Kareem watched as people came and went from the police station, climbing the concrete steps. A couple of police officers leaned on a patrol car, sipping coffee to ward off the cold. He wondered what they were talking about. Even from where he was, he could catch their laughter floating on the breeze.
Kareem couldn’t remember. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember how he got into the police station; he only knew he did. Whether it was lost keys, a wallet, his phone, or a pair of scissors, he’d never been able to remember where he left things, and trying only made it worse. The police station was the same. No amount of stress or strain was recalling that fragile memory to his mind. Time was running out. Maybe Deb was right. Maybe he was trying too hard, demanding too much. Maybe he had to stop trying to do this alone and just approach the police. Give himself up.
“Do you think he’s hungry?” a soft voice asked.
Kareem hadn’t even noticed the young girl standing in front of him with her fluffy red jacket. She’d wandered over from the swings. It took him a second
to realize who she was talking about.
“The squirrel?” he asked, pointing at the tiny creature halfway up the trunk of the tree. Its tail shook and puffed with each skittery motion, as though the bushy fur had a mind of its own, being dragged along by the squirrel as it clawed at the bark.
She was holding a squashed sandwich.
“Do you think he’ll take it out of my hand?”
Kareem smiled.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said. “You have to try.”
“Denise!” the woman cried, getting up from her park bench and rushing over to her daughter. The young girl looked back at her mother, surprised by her muted sense of panic. “You know you’re not supposed to speak to strangers.”
“But he’s a nice man,” Denise replied as her mother grabbed her briskly by the arm. The mother faked a smile for Kareem, raising her eyebrows as if to convey something like “You understand.” Kareem raised one hand, trying to smile back and appear friendly. The truth was, he’d caught his reflection in various shop windows while walking down to the police station. He was a mess. His hair was tousled. One side had been shaved close to the scalp. Patches of dirt stained his face. He must have looked like a bum to her with his ripped jacket and filthy jeans.
Kareem couldn’t blame her for wanting to protect her daughter. He wanted to yell out something after her, to tell her to get as far away from here as she could, but the idea of instilling fear in someone felt wrong. How far was far enough? She wouldn’t believe him. She’d think he was crazy, and she was leaving anyway, so he let her leave in peace. Young Denise looked back. Kareem waved and smiled.
He watched as Denise and her mother disappeared through the trees, following a concrete path to the far side of the park.
“Go,” he said quietly, wishing they would get as far away from here as they could.
Memories drifted by like clouds in the sky. The more he tried, the less he remembered. But Denise had been a distraction, allowing his mind to process those thoughts and memories of events that hadn’t transpired yet. In the quiet, glimpses of the next few minutes swelled within his mind. Kareem had a growing awareness of what was about to happen.
A police officer walked past, glancing at him, and Kareem expected the worst, but the officer walked on, cutting through the park to get to the police station. He stopped and chatted with the two officers leaning against their patrol car.
Kareem got up and walked out of the park. Without looking for traffic, he jogged across the road and up the steps, determined not to delay any longer. If he didn’t act now, he knew he never would. Time was running out.
The inside of the police station was sparse. Worn linoleum lined the floor, curling half a foot up the walls like it would in a hospital. Posters adorned the walls. Wanted by the FBI, wanted by the police, or missing and wanted by families.
The foyer ended with a counter, protected by bulletproof glass roughly an inch and a half thick. To one side, a door made from a quarter-inch steel plate barred access to the rest of the station, with a coded keypad for a lock.
There was no one at reception.
Kareem looked around before pushing the call button, trying to see if there was someone off to one side in the adjacent office behind the bulletproof glass, but he was alone in the reception area.
It took the best part of a minute before a police officer walked casually into the tiny office on the other side of the bulletproof glass.
“Can I help you?” the young woman said. Her uniform was smart, crisp and neatly ironed. Her blond hair had been pulled back into a bun, without a single strand out of place. The thick black belt on her hips looked absurdly large on her small frame. A gun rested on one side, a Taser on the other. She looked at him with disdain. Given her appearance, and the stark contrast to his own scruffy clothing, he could understand why.
“Kareem Hadee Rafid,” he said.
Kareem hadn’t thought about how he should surrender or what he should say. He’d never done anything like this before and wasn’t sure what was appropriate. Should he say, I surrender? He certainly didn’t want to suggest he was one of the bombers, as he wasn’t. Could the act of giving himself up be misconstrued as guilt?
“Do you have information relating to the whereabouts of Kareem Hadee Rafid?” the officer asked, pulling out a pad and pen. Her eyes glanced down at the pad as she filled in the date and time.
“I am Kareem Hadee Rafid,” Kareem replied softly, smiling weakly.
She jumped. Her neck snapped back and her eyes opened wide. With one hand, the officer pushed a button hidden just out of sight beneath the bench. In a swift motion, she drew her gun, pointing it at him. That she was on the other side of a sheet of bulletproof glass apparently hadn’t registered in her thinking.
Kareem raised his hands, saying, “I’m here to surrender.”
The officer stepped back away from the counter, keeping her gun trained on him. She spoke into a microphone slung over her shoulder.
There were cameras in both corners of the foyer, their lenses obscured by black, glassy domes.
Kareem stepped back, keeping his hands raised, looking up at one of the cameras, knowing he was being watched. He could hear boots pounding down a hallway somewhere beyond the steel door and the bulletproof glass.
A male police officer ran into the room with the woman. The heavy metal door was flung open, slamming into the wall. Three police officers burst through into the foyer with their guns drawn, shouting at him.
Kareem was already on his knees, trying to make himself look as small and unthreatening as possible. He locked his fingers together behind his head.
“Get down on the ground!” one of the officers cried.
“Show me your hands,” another yelled.
“What’s under your coat?” the third cried.
Kareem wasn’t sure whom he should respond to so he remained still, not daring to breathe.
One of the officers darted around behind him and out of his peripheral vision, but Kareem knew he was still there, probably with a gun trained on the back of his head.
“Search him,” the officer in the doorway cried.
The third officer stepped in front of Kareem. With his gun pointed square at Kareem’s chest, he stabbed at Kareem’s jacket with his free hand, tentatively patting him down.
If he had thought about it, Kareem would have made sure to have his jacket undone, or better yet, have taken it off before entering the station, but it was too late now. Satisfied there was nothing bulky beneath the jacket, the officer pulled roughly at the zipper, yanking it down and exposing Kareem’s T-shirt beneath. Again, the officer frisked with one hand. The gun in his other hand was perilously close to Kareem. The slightest twitch and it would go off, Kareem was sure of it. The officer slapped around beneath Kareem’s coat, up under his armpits and down his side, checking his hips and the insides of his thighs.
“Clear,” he called. “No bomb. No gun. No knife.”
“On the ground,” came the cry from behind him.
Before Kareem could respond, a boot struck him in the center of his back, knocking him forward onto his face. He broke his fall with his hands only to have one of his arms jerked violently behind him and up into the small of his back. A handcuff closed around his wrist, the cold steel pressed hard against his skin. Seconds later, his other hand was wrenched back and into the handcuffs.
“Kareem Hadee Rafid,” the voice behind him cried, speaking rapidly, reciting his Miranda rights by rote. “You are under arrest for the terrorist incident at Battery Park and the bombing of the Museum of Natural History. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to police, and to have an attorney present during questioning, both now and in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the court. If you decide to answer any questions now, without an attorney present, you will still have the
right to stop answering at any time until you have consulted with an attorney. Do you understand what I have told you?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing and understanding these rights, as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you come here?” the officer asked. The pitch and rhythm of his speech had changed. For the first time, he sounded real rather than like a recording.
“To warn you about a bomb,” Kareem said.
“Where is the bomb?” one of the other officers asked. Kareem’s head had twisted to one side. He could see the female police officer he’d originally talked to behind the bulletproof glass. She had come through the door and had her gun trained on him as he lay there. Radios squawked and chattered in the background.
“Please,” Kareem cried. “You’ve got to believe me. There is a bomb in the building.”
“This building?” the male officer behind him asked. “In the police station?”
“Yes.”
“What does it look like?” the woman asked. “When is it set to go off?”
“I don’t know,” Kareem replied. “I didn’t see the time.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t—”
“Get him the fuck out of here,” another police officer yelled, interrupting the first officer. “Harrison is on his way. He doesn’t want anyone muddying testimony. Throw him in an interrogation room.”
Kareem felt himself being dragged off the ground with a surprising amount of brute force. It took a second before he realized he was being lifted by two officers, one grabbing each arm and shoulder.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” he yelled as they manhandled him through the door. “Evacuate the building! Clear the block! There’s a bomb, a dirty bomb!”
His feet shuffled as he was thrust forward. Dozens of police officers stood or sat at desks throughout the open floor beyond the door. They watched with a surprising degree of indifference, he thought.
From the Indie Side Page 28