by Dick Wolf
She felt sickened by his blasphemy, because it touched the doubts crowding her mind. She went deeper into herself for strength.
Prayer was like a fence, expanding outward. Protecting her faith.
Obviously, this taxi driver was a test sent by God at her moment of truth. She rejoiced that Allah would strengthen her resolve in this way. So important was her mission.
“The museum,” said the driver, crossing both lanes of Fifth Avenue from East Eighty-sixth, pulling up at the curb in front of the massive temple to art.
Aminah reached into her skirt pocket. She carried no identification, only cash, as instructed. She handed a twenty over the seat. The fare was twelve dollars. “Six back,” she said to the infidel, a knowing lilt to her voice.
He nodded, perhaps aware of how abruptly she had ended their conversation. He made change, retaining his two-dollar tip. “Thank you, miss.”
She looked at him one more time via the rearview mirror, imagining she saw some evidence of the hidden God in his eyes. She nodded to him, charged by the exchange, feeling a surge of gratitude for God’s greatness. Aminah slid across the seat to the curb side of the car, the messenger bag still in her lap. She opened the door — but then hesitated, tapping on the Plexiglas that partially divided the front seat from the back.
In English, she said to the driver, “Peace be upon you.”
She exited and watched the yellow vehicle join the others, fading into the flow of traffic. Standing on the sidewalk in front of the museum, she felt her senses reawaken, following their momentary banishment by fear.
It was a beautiful evening, historic, holy. The sidewalk was full of people whose general good cheer was unmistakable. Conversations ricocheted off the stone bluff of the blocklong building as they passed her. The air was scented with the steamy hot dog and pretzel aromas from the vendors’ carts on the sidewalk — flavors of her youth. She saw God in the face of every person around her.
Aminah lifted the messenger bag onto her right shoulder like a handbag, turned right up Fifth Avenue, and started toward the entrance to Central Park just a few hundred feet away.
Chapter 48
Gersten buzzed the third-floor apartment from the stoop. It was early evening in the city’s old Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Midtown West. She was just around the corner from the firehouse at Forty-eighth and Eighth, which, of all the fire stations in New York City, had lost the most personnel on 9/11.
She had two patrolmen with her. She motioned to them to stay tight against the prewar building, so as not to be viewed from above. There was no camera in the lobby.
“Yes?” came the male voice.
“Mr. Pierrepont?” said Gersten.
“Yes. Are you from Scandinavian Airlines?”
She said, “We spoke a little while ago?”
“Yes. Come on up.”
The locked door buzzed and Gersten pulled it open, the cops following her inside. She skipped the elevator — the wait in these old buildings could be an eternity — and instead used the carpeted staircase, climbing to the third floor.
The twentysomething man waiting at the door wore a cardigan sweater over a T-shirt and dress pants, and had a brown mustache. His smile faltered when he saw the uniformed police officers coming up the stairs behind her.
“Is there a problem, miss…?”
“Gersten,” she said, showing him her Intel shield. “Krina Gersten. Mr. Pierrepont, the truth is, I’m not with Scandinavian Air, but the New York Police Department.” The two cops caught up with her. “Mind if we step inside, out of the hallway?”
After a moment of held breath, he backed inside, allowing them to enter.
The one-bedroom apartment was a little jewel, with built-in bookcases, a rehearsal corner under a skylight with a sheet music holder set upon a small, round Oriental rug, and framed New York Philharmonic posters on the walls.
“I don’t understand what this is about,” he said, short of breath, pale.
“Are you alone, Mr. Pierrepont?”
“I am, yes.”
One of the cops poked his head in the doorway to the bedroom and around the corner into the kitchen, making sure. “You were a passenger on Flight 903, the airliner that was almost hijacked on Thursday?”
“Indeed I was,” he said. “You called and said you had a gift for me, for my inconvenience.”
“I actually have some questions for you about your seatmate on the flight.”
Pierrepont was slow to react, thinking it through. He shook his head, too casually. “I think I’ve answered every question about the flight already.”
“This is about Mr. Alain Nouvian. He was seated to your immediate left. He was one of the five passengers who intervened to stop the hijacker.”
Pierrepont swallowed. “Yes?” he said.
Gersten motioned to his rehearsal space. “I see you are a violinist yourself?”
“A violist. I play the viola. Bigger than a violin, smaller than a cello.”
“You play professionally?”
“Yes and no. I do, but not full time. I want to play full time.”
Gersten nodded. “And is Mr. Nouvian assisting you in that respect?”
Pierrepont began to answer, then stopped himself. “I’m not clear on what rights I have.”
“He tried to contact you earlier this afternoon. He left you a message, which you may even still have on your voice mail.”
She was wearing him down, but he did not yet give up on playing at incomprehension.
Gersten backed off a bit. “Would you please read Mr. Pierrepont his rights, officer?” she said.
It was painful watching the musician try to maintain his composure while the cop rattled off his Miranda rights.
“Yes,” he said, answering the question of whether he understood his rights. He said it in an exasperated why-me? tone.
Gersten said, “Mr. Pierrepont, I don’t want to arrest you.” In truth, she had nothing to arrest him for, just yet. “I don’t want to subject you to any unnecessary public scrutiny. I don’t even want to take up too much of your time. But I do want you to answer my questions.”
“This is exactly what he said he didn’t want,” said Pierrepont suddenly. “Exactly what he was afraid of.”
“Okay,” said Gersten. “Maybe you have heard about what happened to another of your fellow passengers? Less than an hour ago, down in the flower district?”
Pierrepont’s shocked expression told her that he had. “You mean, that man… he was on our flight too?”
“A second terrorist. I need answers, Mr. Pierrepont. I need to know what you two and Mr. Nouvian were talking about.”
Chapter 49
Dubin had his feet up on his desk, tilted back in his big leather judge’s chair. He was the picture of relief. Stopping the Saudi took heat off him from about eight different directions.
“So what do you want, Fisk? A bigger office?”
Fisk smiled, playing along. “This one is nice.”
Dubin shook his finger no-no-no. “Maybe if you had caught the bastard alive.”
“I know it,” Fisk said.
“He fired on officers. This kamikaze shit is the toughest nut of all. Now I’ve got to put a tac team cop on leave, pending the shooting inquest. No way to keep this quiet, Fisk. This is going out over the news as a big win.”
Fisk nodded, though it didn’t feel that way to him.
Dubin continued. “Won’t know for sure until they test it, but looks like a half pound of TATP in the shoulder bag. The stuff they call ‘Mother of Satan.’ Remember that Shah attempt in Times Square? Same thing. They love that shit. Mixing it makes them feel like fucking mad scientists.”
“But where’d he get it? Traces in his hotel room, but he didn’t make it there. Hasn’t been in town long enough to mix and cool it.”
“The penthouse suite, hmm? Not very Muslim of him.” Dubin pulled his feet off his desk, sitting forward. “It was given to him, I’d say.”
F
isk said, “A half pound of homemade boom is not much either. Where was he headed with it? And a loaded weapon?”
“All compelling questions.”
“And with no detonator.”
“Yeah. I don’t like that part either. Maybe that was his next stop, where he was headed. Or — you can detonate with a gun, can’t you? Even impact. Looked at that way, he did have a detonator tucked inside his shoulder holster. We got the rocket body from beneath his bed. I think he was zeroed in on the fireworks. Forty thousand fireworks for America, one exploding rocket from Al-Qaeda.”
“All they need for impact.”
“It only takes one. Presumably he was going to do some damage — we don’t yet know where — then try to make a late flight back to Saudi Arabia.”
“We didn’t find the igniter,” Fisk reminded him. “For forty-eight hours now we’ve been straight out, trying to find this guy without any hard evidence he was up to no good. Now we have that evidence — and we still don’t really know what’s going on.”
“The picture will become clearer over the next twenty-four hours, once we unravel this thing. Point is, we got him. We did our job. This is a huge boost to Intel, and ought to silence the naysayers — at least for a couple of news cycles.”
* * *
Fisk left Dubin with his victory. He flopped into his office chair and awakened his laptop, closing his eyes for a few moments to ruminate on what had happened.
A Yemeni had tried to take over an airliner bound for New York. A flight attendant and some passengers stopped him. Under interrogation, the Yemeni confessed that he intended to crash the plane into midtown Manhattan at rush hour ahead of the July Fourth holiday weekend. Then he clammed up.
Before departure from Stockholm, at least one passenger witnessed the Yemeni talking to a well-dressed Saudi Arabian businessman booked into the business-class cabin. When the Saudi arrived in New York, he avoided the city’s Muslim neighborhoods, hiding out instead in Chelsea. He murdered a contact in Harlem on Friday night, shopped for a rocket and a messenger bag on Saturday morning. The rocket body was discovered beneath the hotel bed. The Saudi had explosives on him when he was killed, though not enough for a major attack.
But they still had no idea how or where he procured them. Or where the rocket igniter was.
Fisk opened his eyes and reached for his phone. He needed to update Gersten, but more than that, he needed someone to help him untangle this mess.
Chapter 50
Gersten ignored her buzzing phone, standing with The Six watching the news update on the hospitality suite television.
The anchorwoman spoke over footage shot from the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Seventh Avenue, showing investigators and members of the coroner’s office — all in white Tyvek suits — going over the sidewalk in front of the Hotel Indigo. Gersten thought she recognized Fisk to the left, talking with someone from the hotel.
“New York City police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s office has confirmed that a terrorist plot has been thwarted. A Saudi Arabian male carrying a loaded handgun and a bag of explosives was shot and killed by police snipers outside a Chelsea hotel a short while ago. Police say the shooting came after an intensive search for the man by New York police. One unconfirmed report states that the dead man was a passenger on Scandinavian Airlines Flight 903, the plane aboard which on Thursday an attempted hijacking was thwarted by hero passengers. We will continue to bring you breaking developments as they come in.”
DeRosier muted the television with the remote control.
The group was shocked.
Flight attendant Maggie said, “What the hell does that mean?”
Colin Frank’s eyes sparked with excitement. “Means there was an even bigger plot at play here.”
Gersten held up a hand to settle them down. “We still don’t know for sure, but one theory is that this man was a backup plan in case the hijacking was foiled. I will say that, for a while today, there was some concern that this man’s target might be you six.”
“Us?” said Maggie, looking at the others.
“Speculation,” said Gersten, “but it made sense. Terrorists don’t need to demolish office buildings anymore. They want to strike at symbols. This is psychological warfare as much as anything else. And you people are the human equivalents of the tower being dedicated tomorrow. Icons of the new post-nine-eleven America.”
Aldrich, the retired auto parts dealer, said, “Jumping Jesus Christ. These animals.”
Nouvian also looked shocked. Jenssen, on the other hand, seemed doubtful about the whole thing.
Sparks said, “So what does this mean for us?”
Gersten said, “For you it means very little. Tonight we have the fireworks at nine P.M. Some of you have expressed interest in attending. We have the One World Trade Center building dedication tomorrow morning at eight — but otherwise, and this is direct from the mayor’s office, the night is yours. If you want to get a bite to eat, if you want to meet with your family if they are local — great. We request — and by request I mean that we strongly urge — that you allow one of us to accompany you if you do decide to head out tonight. Only because it is our job to deliver you to the Ground Zero ceremony safe and sound — and you wouldn’t want us to lose our jobs, would you?”
“And then?” asked Jenssen.
“After the ceremony tomorrow morning? Then you’re on your own. Cut loose. Released into the wild.”
That drew a few smiles.
Frank spoke up. “We definitely need to huddle at some point before we go our separate ways so we have a general game plan. I just want to point out that our bargaining position is much stronger if we stay together, as a team, as opposed to six smaller books on the same topic racing to be the first one out. Some of us have already made plans to get together later for drinks down in the lobby after the fireworks — that seems like a great time to toast the future and get on the same page. If not, then tomorrow morning before the big show.”
Gersten nodded. “Those of you who are planning to head over to the West Side to see the fireworks need to be ready to go in a little while. We have a surprise viewing spot we think you’ll like.”
* * *
Gersten stopped outside Nouvian’s room in the middle of the twenty-sixth-floor hallway. She was surprised to hear nothing, no cello practicing. She rapped a knuckle against the door.
Nouvian opened. He was wearing a white Hyatt robe, his hair wet.
“No practicing?” she said.
“Soon. I’ve been asked to perform at the ceremony tomorrow. Maggie’s suggestion. On top of everything else. But how could I say no?”
Gersten nodded amiably. “Mind if I come in for just a minute?”
“Certainly,” he said, surprised, stepping back. She moved into the room. The sheers were drawn but not the heavier curtains, allowing a gauzy view of the skyline at sundown. The entranceway was humid from Nouvian’s recent shower, the bathroom smelling of aftershave. She moved farther inside.
“Go ahead and have a seat,” she suggested.
He did, plopping down on the corner of his bed. His cello case stood against the wall near him. He looked a little puzzled.
Gersten said, “Here’s the thing. You probably know you’ve been acting in a suspicious manner.”
His interested expression immediately flattened out.
“You went missing earlier today, and when I found you, you didn’t seem like yourself,” she continued. “This raised red flags, and I checked into what you might have been doing and discovered some pay phones down behind the elevator bank.”
He did not know how to react, and so kept quiet.
“I followed up on it, because that is my job. I visited Mr. Pierrepont less than an hour ago at his apartment, and interviewed him.”
Nouvian did not know which way to go with this. “I don’t know what you’re…” he started to say, which then gave way to “This is an outrage.”
She tipped her head to one side,
trying to defuse the situation. “He told me everything.”
Nouvian looked down, coming to grips with this. Then he searched her face, perhaps for signs of disapproval, of which there were none. “If he did, then what do you want me to say?”
“You have your own phone.” She pointed to it, charging on the nightstand. “Why not call him from here?”
Nouvian shrugged, his eyes misty. “I assumed you had bugged them or tapped them or whatever you do.”
Gersten smiled understandingly, shaking her head. “We are truly here to keep an eye on you. But when you start acting—”
“He was panicking that someone would find out.”
“He was? Funny. He said you were the one panicking.”
Nouvian sighed, looked away. “Well, I am the one with a wife and family. I am the one under a microscope now.” He rubbed his hands together. “The Secret Service check. All the questions up in Bangor. I thought, if I can just hang in there… if we can just ride this out…”
“Those background checks were just looking for red flags. This is a situation where you always want to be scrupulously honest. Trust me. Otherwise — as happened here — the machine turns around on you.”
He shook his head. “Easy for you to say.”
She moved closer to reassure him. “I don’t have any need to go any further with this. I thought you would like to hear this from me. And it is none of anybody’s business, about you and Mr. Pierrepont. Except your wife and children.”
Nouvian sighed, nodding. “I am at a crossroads, Officer Gersten.”
“Detective Gersten,” she said. “But you can call me Krina.”
“Krina. I know what you are thinking, and believe me, it is what I have been thinking about for… it’s been almost a year now. I was very unprepared for what happened with… him. This affair. That’s what it is. I know I don’t need to explain anything to you, but I love my children, nothing has changed there. And nothing will ever change.”
He looked away, across the room. As difficult as this was for him — and for Gersten — he seemed to want to air it with somebody impartial.