The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  Zeb focused on his lips.

  ‘Most?’

  ‘An elderly man got one in his shoulder. A woman was hit in the legs by a ricochet. Just two injuries.’

  ‘Just two?’

  ‘Yeah. Lucky.’

  Zeb looked for them and found just an expanse of marble gleaming in the light.

  Malouf, what remained of him, lay a few feet away.

  ‘Hadad?’

  ‘Your men reached him before he could even remove his AR-15. It caught in the sack, gave us extra time.’

  He turned back as one of his men approached and had a brief conversation.

  ‘Concourse is secure. Terminal is shut down. People are being evacuated. So far no signs of anyone else.’

  Zeb’s eyes sharpened.

  ‘Media?’

  ‘Locked down. They’re outside. They are being dealt with.’

  ‘How many people know about Hadad?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That he’s alive?’

  ‘You, I, a few others.’

  ‘How many exactly?’

  The commander counted. ‘Five.’

  ‘Why not more? The place is flooded with cops and emergency responders.’

  The commander pointed to the East side. Bwana and Roger were no longer present.

  ‘Your men had them there a few minutes ago and then they hustled him away. I have no idea where. Most of my men don’t even know there was a second shooter. You tell me where he is!’

  Pizaka and Chang came up. Zeb stepped back to have all three in his vision.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  Chapter 28

  February 12th-18th

  The injured toll was higher than initially stated by the ESU commander.

  Fifteen, of which one was serious, a woman, a mother of two who caught a bullet in her neck. She was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital where she was operated on and while her condition was still critical, doctors were cautiously optimistic about a full recovery.

  The terminal was locked down for the better part of the day, every nook and crevice was examined for more shooters and bombs. The commissioner and the mayor held news conferences almost every couple of hours, feeding the twenty-four hour news cycle that had gone berserk.

  ‘Terrorists strike city again.’

  ‘Death comes visiting.’

  ‘After Boston, it’s New York again.’

  ‘Home-grown extremists unleash terror.’

  Headlines ran on screens all day, several newspapers brought out special editions. Talk show hosts analyzed the causes of home-grown radicalism; experts came on air and gave their comments.

  Hadad and Malouf’s families in New Jersey received death threats.

  The President convened an emergency meeting of the Homeland Security Council and listened grimly to reports from the Director of the FBI, the Secretary of Homeland Security. He followed it up with meetings of the National Security Council and sat in on a meeting of the Intelligence Community.

  He met Clare last and listened to her.

  ‘You are still advising that we don’t advertise we know of The Ghul’s presence?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Let them think that.’

  He ran his fingers on the Resolute desk, made from the timbers of the British vessel, HMS Resolute. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford Hayes, the nineteenth President.

  ‘How confident are you that we’ll find him?’

  ‘Very.’ Her voice was strong; her gaze was clear as she met his eyes.

  She didn’t elaborate.

  He requested her to wait and went to address the nation in a live broadcast that was watched the world over.

  She rose when he returned an hour later, and sat down at a gesture from him. The President was in his second term and was riding a popularity wave on the back of strong economic growth, jobs creation.

  He had put in appropriate controls over the intelligence agencies so that they didn’t turn rogue, but at the same time had given Clare a free hand.

  All he asked in return was that she deliver.

  The President and she went a long way back. She was the first female director of the Agency, an appointment made on merit and not out of a nod to token symbolism.

  She had never let him down.

  ‘Both killers are dead?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Hadad wasn’t.

  The thought had struck Zeb the moment the ESU Commander told him that just a handful knew that he was still alive.

  Roger and Bwana seemed to anticipate his thoughts and had bundled the captured man away through the fleeing crowd, to an anonymous van that had turned up outside the terminal. The van had driven to a safe house owned by the team, one that not even Clare knew of, the man led out and secured.

  Zeb told the commissioner about the location only much later, to contain the circle of knowledge, and an elite interrogation team from the NYPD swooped down on the house.

  ‘We should have interrogated the ratshit,’ Roger growled.

  ‘We don’t own the mission, bro.’ Bwana slapped his shoulder. ‘Multi-agency mission and all that crap.’

  Much later when they reminisced about the events, Bwana would boast that he had broken Usain Bolt’s record as he flew across the marbled floor toward the second gunman.

  Hadad held out for a day. And then he broke. As a martyr, his name would have been sung by the believers. As a prisoner of the U.S. Justice system, all that he had to look forward to was years and years of prison time. He was likely to die in prison.

  An interrogator said they would not request the death penalty, thus preventing his martyrdom.

  That broke him. He told everything that he knew.

  He corroborated all that Zeb and the twins had found and deduced.

  About them working in Masood Deeb’s cabling company. About the previous ‘world tour.’ About the six months of fighting in Iraq. He gave them valuable intel on how extremists went from the United States, Britain, and other Western countries and joined the HOF. The various channels, the access points.

  He gave them names and places.

  He confirmed The Ghul’s presence in New York. He identified The Ghul from the photograph found on the Clementon shooter’s phone. The atmosphere in the room went electric.

  He told them about Harriman Park. He told them about killing the other men. One of his interrogators left the room to chase that down.

  He told them about the apartment he was staying in. He didn’t know where the others stayed. He explained the blindfolding and cuffing. He gave them his phone number. His phone was with The Ghul.

  No, Hadad didn’t know where The Ghul was holed up.

  He confirmed a second attack was imminent. He didn’t know when. He didn’t know where.

  All he had been tasked with was to find possible sites.

  He listed the sites he had surveyed – they were the ones the task force had already identified as possible targets.

  He told them where they had bought guns. He gave names about HOF commanders, those he knew of. He gave details of various cells in the U.S. that he knew of. They squeezed him like a sponge and when they had finished, he looked like a limp rag.

  They asked him one final question.

  Why?

  His head lifted.

  I fight for the cause. My shame is that I didn’t kill more people.

  You didn’t kill a single one. Not one person died.

  They left him with his shame.

  They had no pity for him, no sympathy, and many of the cops secretly thought it would be good if he just disappeared.

  But he would stand trial and get a fair one at that. That was what separated them from the animal they had just interrogated.

  Zeb got the entire download from Chang and Pizaka a couple of days later, in a meeting organized by the commissioner.

  The city was on the highest alert; people looked warily at those who carried bulky backpacks or bags. Several Muslims were assaul
ted in different parts of the country. Almost simultaneously peace rallies broke out supporting minority ethnic groups. Many of them bore We are American First placards.

  The mayor appealed for calm, Rolando reassured the city’s residents. The President addressed the country again.

  Media vans prowled through the city looking for stories, interviewing people, getting Joe Public’s reaction to what the NYPD’s investigation thus far had revealed. It was anger that this could happen in their city. Rage that people born in America could turn guns on their own people.

  Several vans camped outside Zeb’s Columbus Avenue office and lenses trained on the glass doors whenever someone exited. Zeb used a concealed exit to give them the slip and drove his team to One PP. Present in the meeting were just his crew, and Luis Murphy, his deputy for Counterterrorism.

  ‘The intel has gone to all other agencies and they are cracking down on various cells.’

  Zeb nodded. He knew that from Clare and his own network.

  ‘A team went to Harriman Park and found the kill site. They recovered the bodies and the families have been notified. All families are being questioned, including those of the three missing men.’

  Masood Deeb, Ayoob Awad, and Nasib Botros, who were still at large.

  The media ran its own investigation and had discovered the cabling company the two men worked with. It also found that Masood Deeb, the owner, was traveling.

  A smart reporter spotted Malouf and Hadad’s profiles and noticed that they too were supposed to be traveling. The story broke that the cabling company was a hive of extremism and that several of its employees were missing.

  Rolando handled the questions with skillful ease, not wishing to fuel speculation nor wanting to crimp the investigation.

  Pizaka continued. ‘We tracked where Hadad and Malouf were holed up – their apartments. The two apartments were rented in advance, paid in cash, for six months. We are checking out all other apartments in the Bronx as well as in the other boroughs, but it’s not easy.’

  ‘This was a taste,’ Zeb said, ‘the main event is yet to come. It will be better coordinated, better planned. I think Hadad and Malouf were the weakest members of the team. The Ghul used them not just to execute this first mission, but also to see how ready his cell was.’

  ‘He got his answer,’ Murphy replied. ‘These guys are ready to die.’

  ‘Their cell phones. Someone’s checking to see when they were last active, where calls were made from and received?’

  ‘He didn’t have anything on him. He had just enough fare to come to the terminal,’ Pizaka interjected.

  ‘Yeah, I know. But these days most phones are smart phones. They have GPS locators in them. Did he reveal his phone number during the interrogation?’

  Chang and Pizaka looked at each other. Zeb read the glance, the two had missed that. But maybe one of the intelligence agencies was pursuing that avenue. Chang left the room to find out.

  Rolando dismissed Murphy once they had finished discussing the terrorists.

  He reached out for a folder and smiled thinly at the twins.

  ‘Good work.’

  They knew what the Flayer looked like.

  Despite the Grand Central attack taking most of the task force’s resources, the twins had ploughed away.

  Switzerland had come back and said Matt Rouse hadn’t been operated in their country, however another message had come to Meghan.

  A clinic in California had apologized and admitted that it had operated on Matt Rouse all those years back. An administrative tangle was why it had not discovered this in the first instance.

  ‘It wasn’t us. Zeb leaned on all of them again a few days back. Threatened them. Hell fire and brimstone. His version of those kinds of things.’

  ‘Zeb’s version of persuasion always works,’ Rolando hid a smile and pulled out the photograph.

  Matt Rouse’s chin had been thinned down, his nose flattened and his lips were fuller. A scar on his left cheek eliminated and another on his forehead reduced, almost invisible.

  Rolando placed before and after photographs and it was easy to tell why no one would have recognized Rouse now. The changes were small, but together with the absence of the scars, gave the man a different visage. Even those who knew him well before the accident would be hesitant about naming him as Matt Rouse.

  The after photograph came nowhere near the computer simulations that the NYPD had come up with.

  ‘He’s no doubt sporting a different hair style now.’ Rolando slid the photographs in the folder and handed it back to Beth.

  ‘You said he was a personal trainer?’

  She nodded. Once they had his new look, she and Meghan had re-visited all the victims’ families. Todd Stark vaguely remembered having seen the man but could not remember in which context.

  No other family remembered him till they visited Gramma. Regina Hunnicker thought she had seen him, but it was Liz McCallum who placed him.

  ‘That’s Trent Beatty,’ she yelled, jabbing her finger and denting the photograph. ‘I remember him. He used to wink at us whenever he came and always gave us an Oreo. He used to come to the house a couple of times a year and give Mommy massages.’

  The thought transmitted between the sisters in a flash.

  That writing Cleary detected, age 945. A massage appointment!

  Beatty had been Mary McCallum’s trainer for two years, but she had stopped using him for several years before the killing. Liz scrunched her face as she tried to remember why. ‘I think she changed her gym. No, that’s not it. Her office built a gym in their basement and since then she stopped using him.’

  The sisters went back to the families with the new found information and made more progress. Guilt etched deeply on Todd Stark’s face when he finally placed Beatty. He swore as he wiped his eyes.

  ‘You folks asked me to list down all her associates, contacts... Beatty just slipped my mind. He wasn’t her current trainer. She used his services several years back.’

  All the victims had used Beatty’s services in the past. Diaz’s husband thought he owned a gym she used to frequent years back, which was how she knew him. The twins dug deeper, worked with the task force, made calls, and when that didn’t turn anything, they resorted to the harder way.

  They, along with the task force, sectioned the city and visited gyms – those whose clientele fit the demographic profile of the victims. They finally struck gold at a downtown gym frequented by Wall Street bankers, lawyers, and advertising professionals.

  Lena Diaz had been a member.

  Beatty had worked there.

  The other victims had used its facilities too. Infrequently, but regularly enough for Beatty to strike a rapport with them. Its location had made it ideal for all of them.

  ‘Beatty developed a professional relationship with all the victims and ended up as their personal trainer,’ Beth explained.

  ‘He worked there for three years, presumably making contacts and then bought a majority stake in the gym. He then dropped out of the gym and let the former owner manage it. However he continued his personal trainer services.’

  The twins and the task force team went hard on the manager.

  Why didn’t he remember when Meghan first called?

  Beatty wasn’t the name he used. He went by Joel Moore, had documents to prove his identity.

  Nope, Beatty never visited the gym. It was a well-run business, growing, the manager ran it efficiently and Beatty received his share of the profits.

  He didn’t see this as strange?

  He shrugged.

  This was New York. Home of strange. Maybe now that he was boss, he didn’t want to mingle with clients.

  Calls? Sure they spoke maybe once or twice a month. He had a number for Beatty.

  The number turned out to be an answering service. One of those that could be set up anonymously.

  The task force questioned him for a long while, but the man was clean.

  They ran Joel Moor
e’s address. It didn’t exist. Beatty’s driver’s license was fake.

  ‘So we know who he is, but not where he is?’

  ‘We know he was in the café when that message was sent to the HOF,’ Pizaka replied. ‘A couple of baristas recognized him when he showed them the photograph. They remembered him from that small scar on his forehead.’

  He saw the question in the Commissioner’s eyes. ‘He paid in cash. Of the three stores which stocked the kind of carpet Kohler was wrapped in – one of them think it was Beatty who bought the carpet. Again, paid in cash.’

  A knock on the door interrupted them. An aide thrust his head and reminded the commissioner about a press conference. Along with the mayor.

  Rolando sighed and rose.

  ‘Got to feed the press.’

  Omar was exultant.

  He devoured the news broadcasts, listened to the talk show heads and laughed loudly when they said the threat was neutralized.

  The Ghul and he did not make contact. They had agreed that as soon as the first killing happened, The Ghul would go quiet.

  Security came first.

  He called a meeting of the commanders and preened in front of them.

  ‘The Ghul had struck in the Great Satan’s heartland.’

  He savored the amazement on the men’s’ faces.

  ‘That was The Ghul’s doing?’ Razaq didn’t hide the incredulity in his voice.

  Omar didn’t restrain the pride in his voice. ‘None other. He has been planning this attack for a long time.’

  ‘Why haven’t we taken credit then?’

  Fire flashed in Omar’s eyes. ‘And get everyone hunting for him? Make it even more dangerous for him?’

  ‘When is he coming back?’ Tayyib asked, attempting to calm the two men down.’

  ‘His job is not yet done. You will see him when he’s back.’

  ‘What’s the point if we cannot take credit for this attack? And no one died! Just a few infidels injured. This does nothing to help our cause.’ Razaq couldn’t resist the snide jab.

  Omar clamped down on the urge to lash out at the man. To tell him that the next attack next week would have so many dead infidels that the Great Satan would never laugh again.