by Dick Wolf
Two adjoining rooms had been opened up and converted into a hospitality suite for the floor. A small buffet table was set to the left with coffee, croissants, soda, and mini designer cupcakes from the shop downstairs. A wall television was on, pundits talking over footage of The Six’s press conference.
“My god, I look like absolute shit!”
Fisk recognized flight attendant Maggie’s voice from the adjoining room. Then laughter from her fellow heroes. Fisk looked in and saw that they were watching a second television, either sitting or standing, drinking Diet Cokes, stirring tea, snacking on coffee cake.
Fisk got Gersten’s attention and she cut in front of the television, joining him in the first room. DeRosier and Patton lurked within earshot. She was indeed wearing the tan pants, her badge clipped to the belt loop.
“How we doing?” he asked.
She looked back through the door. “Unwinding,” she said. “Awaiting our next move.” She looked back to Fisk. “How you want to do this?”
He looked around. “This setup is fine as is. I’ll just speak to each one at a time. Keep it casual, relaxed. In and out.”
Patton said, “Ah, the old in-and-out.”
Gersten said, “You’re lucky you’re here now. I think once the fame bomb hits them, it’s full-on diva time. This thing is exploding. That press conference?”
Fisk said, “Caught some of it.”
“If it played half as big as it did in the room, we’re in for a busy weekend.”
Fisk pulled over two chairs. “I want to work on them in terms of no specifics, keeping everything general.”
“And,” she added, “I would be careful not to raise too many questions in their minds either, if you can help it. I know the mayor’s office is setting up some things, TV things, and they’re not pros. Last thing anybody wants is one of us stepping into the middle of an interview to cut them off.”
Fisk agreed. “One question each,” he said.
Patton’s phone rang. He stepped away, and DeRosier seized the opportunity to go off in search of Danish pastry.
Alone for the moment, Fisk said quietly, “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “Momentary breakdown. I’m good. Whatever.” She nodded through the door. “Their excitement is a little contagious, I have to say.”
“Good. Oh — and Starsky and Hutch really like your choice of pants today.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Ass monkeys.”
Fisk shrugged. “They’re not wrong.”
She turned then and walked away into the adjoining suite, leaving him watching. He forced the smile from his face and switched off the television in the room so there would be no distractions.
Gersten brought him Maggie first. Fisk reintroduced himself and offered her the empty chair, himself remaining standing before the drawn window shade.
“One quick follow-up question,” he said. “We’re tying up loose ends and I’m wondering if you remember a Saudi Arabian businessman on the flight. He was seated in eight-H, window seat?” He watched her thinking. “Coffee-brown suit. Large, flat mole on the left edge of his jawbone.”
Maggie closed her eyes, visualizing the airplane’s interior. “I do… vaguely.” Her eyes opened. “Why, what do you want to know?”
Fisk shook his head. “Anything you got.”
“I didn’t serve him. For meal service, I worked economy.” She thought hard, struggling to give him something. “He was quiet…”
Fisk nodded. The last thing he wanted was for her to overreach, to invent something just so that she felt she was contributing. Just the facts, ma’am. “That’s fine. Great. Thank you.”
“Really?” Surprised, she stood. “That was easy.”
Fisk said, “I think, given what you went through yesterday, everything is going to seem easy for quite some time to come.”
Maggie liked the sound of that, and with a wink at Fisk, she returned to the adjoining room.
IKEA manager Sparks, retired auto parts dealer Aldrich, and cellist Nouvian all failed to remember the slim Arab in 8H. Reporter Frank believed he had stood behind him in line at the gate entrance, but could not give Fisk anything more than that the man carried his own neck pillow.
Fisk pushed it with the journalist. “I’m wondering if you saw him with or near the hijacker at any time prior to boarding.”
Frank looked at the ceiling. Fisk had the feeling Frank wanted badly to be part of the investigation, out of professional curiosity. “No,” he said, disappointed with himself. “Sorry.”
“In fact I think I did.” Jenssen, the wounded Swede, answered that same question, while looking pensively at a long-armed floor lamp.
Fisk said, “At the gate?”
“In the business-class lounge at Arlanda Airport. To be honest, I don’t remember seeing him at all on the plane… but definitely in the lounge.” Jenssen swirled the tea in his nearly empty porcelain cup. “I remember I was waiting for hot water. Now that I think about it, I believe they spoke briefly at the courtesy counter.”
“They who?”
“The man in question and the hijacker.”
Fisk studied Jenssen. He liked the schoolteacher’s matter-of-factness. He could see that this man would not tolerate a hijacker taking control of his airplane any more than he would allow somebody to muscle in front of him in a line.
But this was important. Fisk wanted to give him a chance to varnish the story, just in case. He had to be sure. “Mr. Jenssen, are you positive?”
“I am, yes. I presume you are asking for a reason?”
Fisk nodded, allowing that, but did not elaborate. “Can you remember any other details? Try.”
Jenssen focused his eyes on the unlit lamp as though constructing an image and examining it. It was another thirty seconds before he spoke.
“Something about the way they stood together made me think they were related in some way. Or acquaintances at the very least. A lack of acknowledgment, I think. Like they were familiar. They had a shorthand.” He closed his eyes. “I believe the man in the brown suit showed the hijacker something in a magazine he was reading. Our flight was called right after that.” He opened his eyes and looked at Fisk with an expression that said, Anything else?
Fisk said, “How certain are you of what you just told me? Would you say fifty percent? Seventy-five percent? A hundred percent?”
“How certain I am of seeing those two men together in the departure lounge?” Jenssen said. “One hundred percent.”
Fisk nodded. “One last question. How’s the wrist?”
Jenssen smiled, looking down at his cast. “I’ll know in three to four weeks.”
Chapter 21
Baada Bin-Hezam had been to New York often enough to know that the quickest way into the city from Newark Airport was the New Jersey Transit train into Penn Station.
He had threaded his way through hundreds of people waiting outside customs for the passengers of SAS Flight 903. Some of them had carried cameras and microphones, which they had thrust at any of the exhausted people who gave the slightest indication that they would tolerate the intrusion. Bin-Hezam had not ducked their glare, but instead had strode through it like a busy professional whose plane had landed long overdue. No one was interested in a man of Arab descent.
One of the greeters had had a clutch of red Mylar balloons, each in the shape of a heart. He had been a conservatively dressed man, trying to hand them to the rescued passengers. Other celebrants had held signs, many under the mistaken belief that the flight attendant and five passengers who had overpowered the hijacker were still on Flight 903. They were there to give them a hero’s welcome.
NEVER FORGET!! 9/11/01
WE LOVE YOU!!!
THANK YOU, HEROES
USA USA USA
Bin-Hezam had avoided direct eye contact, making his way to the end of the crowd, while his peripheral vision had been carefully tuned to the telltale signals of police surveillance. A glance linger
ing too long… an ear bud… a sudden move as he had made his way to the escalator…
He had ridden the steep flight of mechanical stairs, up out of the melee to the arrivals hall. He had stepped off and proceeded to the tram that would shuttle him to the train station.
No one had been with him.
There had been a twenty-minute wait until the next scheduled train. He had found the lodging kiosk, a tilted bank of lighted square advertisements listing dozens of hotel selections. He had determined it best not to make lodging arrangements in advance. He wanted to shrink his electronic footprint down as small as possible. His only requirement had been that he sleep that night far from any established Muslim neighborhood.
He had selected the Hotel Indigo on West Twenty-eighth Street in Manhattan, a small boutique hotel tucked away in the middle of a block known as the center of the flower district.
Again, he had been unobtrusively vigilant during the train ride. He had disembarked at Penn Station, pausing for some minutes in a bookstore in order to allow his fellow passengers to filter through, then had headed for the street.
The summer heat had been instantly discomforting. He was unused to the humidity. To him, water and moisture symbolized relief, but on the island of Manhattan it was oppressive and a bit disorienting.
The hotel was just a three-block walk from Penn Station, but Bin-Hezam had traveled a roundabout way just in case. His luggage was not heavy, but anything that restricted mobility in the heat was a burden. When he was confident he had not been shadowed, he had headed for the hotel.
On Twenty-eighth Street, he had passed many open shop gates and idling flower trucks, the sweaty vendors working busily on the last day of the work week.
As well they should, Bin-Hezam had thought. Many memorial flowers would be needed before the end of this weekend.
Past a young Hispanic bellman inside the hotel’s chrome-and-glass doors, the clerk at the reception desk had been a young woman with dark ringlets and a false brightness that Bin-Hezam had found grating. A Jewess, of course. The neighborhood abutted the garment district, an old Zionist stronghold now flowing into Asian.
Bin-Hezam had masked his distaste, wiping his brow with a handkerchief and presenting himself for check-in. “I would like a suite for two nights, please,” he had said, in his refined British art dealer voice.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“I do not.”
“Because we are nearly full this weekend for the Fourth of July festivities.” She had smiled with nonsensical enthusiasm and clicked her computer keyboard in search of accommodations. “We have a junior penthouse suite available on the top floor,” she had said.
“That will be fine.”
“Wonderful,” she had enthused, as though by accepting her recommendation he had accomplished some great feat. “May I have a credit card and a driver’s license or other form of picture identification?”
“I will pay cash,” Bin-Hezam had said.
The girl had hesitated, having been thrown off her routine.
“Unless that is a problem?” Bin-Hezam had asked.
“No, of course not.” She had recaptured her smile, resuming her singsong voice. “The rate for the junior penthouse suite is eight hundred dollars. If you do not wish to leave a credit card, we do require a two-hundred-dollar cash deposit, which will be refunded — minus incidentals — to you upon your departure.”
Bin-Hezam had reached into the breast pocket of his rumpled but expensive brown suit jacket, retrieving a slim black leather billfold. He had selected sixteen crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and slid them inside his pale green Saudi Arabian passport, handing both to her.
She had smiled and counted the bills in front of him. In Manhattan, a foreign traveler bearing high denominations of U.S. currency was not at all unusual. “And the deposit?” she had asked, her voice inflecting the question mark.
“There will be no incidentals,” Bin-Hezam had said, offering her a tight smile that communicated his insistence.
She had hesitated again, looking into his tea-colored eyes — a greedy Jew, of course — then had set aside the alleged hotel policy without further complaint. “All right, Mr. Bin-Hezam. That will be fine.” She had counted out the sixteen hundred dollars again before depositing them into her under-counter tray. “Would you like to join our rewards program?”
“I decline.”
She had smiled and nodded. “No problem.” Another flourish of keystrokes and she had printed a receipt, returning Bin-Hezam’s passport to him. “Would you like one room key or two?” she asked.
“Just one.”
She had made the key and had slid it into a small folder, writing the room number on the outside. “Please enjoy your stay.”
* * *
Bin-Hezam had slept, something he had not counted on doing. He had budgeted his time for a lengthier detention in Bangor or at Newark. More questions. More computer checks. He was immune to any form of scrutiny.
He had been hours ahead of schedule. The sleep would sharpen him for the next day’s work. Insha’Allah it would all go this smoothly.
His room was so garish as to be painful to his soul, haute decor of a sort that reeked of competition among designers to prove who could combine the most outrageous colors in the most off-putting patterns. In this case, shades of purple with red counterpoints and aqua-blue details. He had looked out his window before drawing the shade, the lights of the city peaceful, unsuspecting.
Bin-Hezam had set his wheeled carry-on upon the luggage stand. He had drawn back the zipper but had not unpacked. He had gone into the bathroom, another assault of form versus function, and quickly had shed his clothes. He had hung the suit on a towel rod while he had showered, hoping to steam out the wrinkles and some of the perspiration.
Afterward, he had put on a light cotton dishdasha from his luggage and knelt to pray, seeking God’s blessing that he remain calm within this den of chaos. That he perform his duty with grace and cunning. And that he be brave at the end.
He had climbed into the bed. There, beneath the covers, Bin-Hezam had given himself over to a remembrance of the night he had been called to be. This had been his nightly routine while waiting for sleep to take him.
Like many before him, Bin-Hezam had once been visited by Mohammed in a dream. The prophet had shown him that hell was as real as Earth, and that the boy would be sent there when he died if he ever dared disobey his father.
He had shown Bin-Hezam fire that was a hundred times hotter than the noontime sun. It had burned off his skin, which grew back darkened only to be roasted off again and again. The burning had been agony. He had held his own innards in his hands while slung from a ceiling by chains of razor, the calluses of his feet just barely off the surface of the floor, near enough to it to be bitten by laughing scorpions.
His dry mouth had begged for sweet water, but the only drink he had been given was his own blood that never stopped flowing.
The following morning, young Bin-Hezam had reasoned that, because hell was real, not only must he believe that there is no god but one god and Mohammed is his prophet… but he could not tolerate anyone else who believed otherwise. To do so would be a sin. He had determined that he must do everything within his power to banish nonbelievers from the world, for the good of all mankind and the love of Mohammed.
Some years later, he had had the dream again, prompted, he had been convinced, by the hideous photographic evidence of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Young men like himself in that terrible prison, raped and defiled, tortured by the American Crusaders, including American women.
It had been a sign. Their pain became his pain, their chains his chains.
The Americans had tried to bring hell into this Earth. The jihadists at his mosque in Harad had taught him that the Crusaders and their Jewish masters would not rest until they had killed every last Muslim and unleashed the fire of hell.
Finally, his thoughts had turned to his dear parents, recalling his mother�
�s delight every time she found perfect dates in the market, his father’s firm instruction of Baada and his five siblings. His mother a goddess of kindness, baker of the best fatir he had ever eaten — and his father, a cobbler, a devout man but one never called to be a soldier of jihad.
Bin-Hezam had prayed for them. Secure in his purpose, saved from hell, he had drifted into a dreamless sleep mumbling his parents’ names.
Chapter 22
Okay, Fisk,” said Dubin, coming to the door, motioning him into the office. “I think you know the commissioner?”
Fisk shook the hand of the compact, buzz-cut ex-marine who ran the entire New York City Police Department. Commissioner Kelly made a point of meeting every one of his thirty-six thousand sworn officers, and Fisk had shaken his hand three or four times previously. But this was the first time he had ever seen the commissioner at the Brooklyn headquarters of the Intelligence Division.
The commissioner said, “Good to see you again, Fisk,” and abruptly sat back down in his chair, legs crossed, ready for business.
Fisk took a seat. Dubin remained on the edge of his desk.
“I wanted you to brief the commissioner personally as to this Flight 903 thing,” said Dubin. “With everything going on this weekend, we can’t take any chances.”
Fisk nodded, unable to determine whether Dubin was kicking this upstairs or simply passing the buck. Was he covering his own ass, or did he truly believe there was enough evidence to warrant getting behind Fisk?
“Tell him what you told me,” said Dubin. “Your theory. The long form.”
Fisk turned to the commissioner. “It’s not reached the level of theory yet. But I’ll lay out the dots for you and I think you’ll agree that they might connect.”
The commissioner said, “Be precise. Tell me why you think what happened on that airplane might be the beginning of something instead of the end of it.”
Fisk collected his thoughts before speaking. He knew he had but one chance to sell the commissioner on his fears.