The Intercept jf-1

by Dick Wolf

  Fisk looked around the cellist’s room. He had gone through each of the heroes’ rooms, but quickly, searching just for clues to Gersten’s disappearance — not for indications of the presence of a terrorist.

  He went back through them now, tearing through each room, looking for something — anything — that could support if not confirm his theory.

  Security guard Bascomb followed at a distance, as Fisk went rifling through rooms without explanation. Overturning mattresses, emptying out luggage. Ordering that each room safe be opened.

  Bascomb said, “We’re not allowed to do that without a specific search warrant.”

  One hard look from Fisk persuaded him otherwise.

  Only a few were locked. Fisk was standing next to Bascomb in one of The Six’s rooms, watching him key in a master code on yet another empty safe, when Fisk noticed a stain on the top of the table he was leaning against.

  Closer inspection revealed that it was more like a burn in the veneer. He ran his fingers over it, feeling the roughness. He bent down and sniffed the oblong mark.

  It smelled vaguely chemical.

  “Whose room is this?” Fisk asked.

  Bascomb did not know. While he called into his shoulder microphone to find out, Fisk went into the bathroom, checking it again, but more closely this time.

  In the corner of the floor underneath the ledge of the vanity, he found a dusting of blue-colored flecks, accumulated there as though brushed away by hand.

  He touched them with his fingertip. They felt hard, almost plastic.

  He knew whose room it was even before Bascomb reported the answer. Fisk remembered the Swede’s blue wrist cast.

  “Magnus Jenssen,” said Bascomb.

  Blond, blue-eyed Scandinavian. Schoolteacher, was it? Fisk couldn’t remember anything more specifically about Jenssen. He knew that none of the passengers had self-declared themselves as Muslim. He also knew that the Islamic population of Sweden stood at a little more than half a million, approximately 7 percent of the population — up from nearly zero just thirty years ago. The trend was similar throughout Scandinavia and Europe.

  Still, religion was only an indicator. Rarely was it the sole factor in profiles of terrorists.

  His mind raced. Had the Swede truly fractured his wrist during the attempted hijacking? Or earlier, before he even boarded the aircraft?

  With care, he could have hidden such an injury. The backscatter scanner at airport security would not have revealed it. The terahertz photons used in those machines were just below infrared on the frequency spectrum, and well below true X-rays.

  There was no time to pursue this theory now. Fisk had to work with what he had in front of him.

  A chemical in Jenssen’s hotel room, staining the furniture. What could it be? Had he hidden it inside his cast?

  TATP. More boom.

  He wondered what sort of scrutiny the heroes would face inside the Ground Zero security bubble. The answer was: once they were inside, very little, if at all.

  And, by his clock, they were already inside.

  Fisk had to get down there. He had to leave this place, even with Gersten still missing.

  He went to Bascomb. “Give me your phone.”

  The guard started to ask why, then instead simply pulled it from his belt. He turned it on and thumbed in his pass code, then handed it to Fisk.

  Fisk quickly went to his contacts and punched in his own cell phone number, and his last name in all caps. So that there would be no mistakes. He thrust the phone back at Bascomb.

  “I could give this to the cop, but I’m giving it to you. If they find anything about the missing detective, you call me right away. It’s critical, understand?”

  Bascomb responded with a trembling nod.

  Fisk ran to the elevator.

  * * *

  Fisk had left his car at the cabstand with his grille lights flashing. He realized he didn’t have DeRosier’s number, so he first tried Dubin.

  Immediate voice mail. Fisk dialed Intel directly.

  They told him that Dubin was down at Ground Zero. Cell phone service within the bubble had been jammed in order to prevent any remote control bombs being detonated using cellular technology, a favorite tactic of terrorists and insurgents.

  Fisk informed them about Gersten’s apparent disappearance. He said that The Six had to be sequestered for their own safety — phrasing it that way because, without Fisk there personally, if they tried to collapse on the heroes with force, Jenssen could detonate immediately, killing everybody within range.

  If, like Bin-Hezam, he had a half pound of TATP on him, the death toll would be incredible.

  He told them to do everything they could to get the message out, then asked to be patched through to DeRosier’s cell phone. That call also went immediately to voice mail — confirming that The Six were already inside the security bubble, and Jenssen with them.

  Fisk leaned on his horn, grille lights flashing, willing the traffic to move. He was now in a race against time and gridlock to get from midtown down as close to Ground Zero as he could.

  Chapter 70

  Holy shit!”

  Flight attendant Maggie Sullivan came bursting into the hospitality trailer where the rest of the group, as well as their minders, Detectives DeRosier and Patton and Secret Service agent Harrelson, were waiting with some other VIPs.

  Maggie held up her hands as though about to burst into song. “Paul Simon just shook my hand on my way back from the Porta-Potty.”

  A woman from the mayor’s office said, “He’s here to sing ‘The Sound of Silence’ at Mayor Bloomberg’s request.”

  “He recognized me,” said Maggie, amazed. “Me! He said, ‘Great job.’ Great job! I was tongue-tied.”

  Sparks said, “I hope he washed his hands.”

  Jenssen sat deeply at the end of a suede-covered couch. A flat-screen television played on the opposite wall, above a small buffet with chafing dishes of Vermont maple bacon, a strata with sausage and egg-soaked bread, hash brown potatoes, and French toast. Carafes of coffee and orange juice were set before trays of cardboard cups.

  The pain in his arm was intense. He had neglected to take any ibuprofen, and now the swelling beneath his bomb-laden cast was radiating pain into his fingertips. Droplets of blood appeared from the seam of his palm, which he was discreetly swiping onto the suede fabric beneath the sofa.

  The pain was a significant distraction, forcing him to retreat into prayer. It was his sole consolation, yet it isolated him from the rest. He felt their scrutiny and wondered how much of it was mere paranoia on his part.

  He focused also on the television images. The Americans had memorialized their own defeat with two giant holes in the ground at the foundations of the destroyed Twin Towers. The inside of each was sheathed in black stone, the names of the dead etched into panels at waist level along their perimeters. Water ran down all four sides of each hole, emptying into reflecting pools at their bottoms.

  The view shifted to show the new tower, rising into the sky. Jenssen, for his part, saw it as a headstone.

  The camera panned a surrounding garden of oak trees and pathways to the ceremony dais. Tiers of platforms were flanked by a pair of giant broadcast screens like those seen in sporting arenas. Panels of bulletproof glass walled the speaker’s podium at the center. A choir of singers attired in long blue robes stood in ranks to the left and right of the podium.

  Jenssen shivered once, due to both the pain and the profundity of the moment. The spirit of hundreds of millions of American viewers would be shattered forever after the live television assassination of their former leader. Obama and the rest were in play as collateral damage, but not necessary. Jenssen had shaken the man’s hand yesterday. He had looked into his eyes and smiled. He had done all this with murder in his heart.

  He did not have to assassinate Obama. In the days and weeks and months to come, the photograph of the sitting U.S. president shaking the hand of an Al-Qaeda terrorist would be his
undoing.

  All he cared about was the infidel Bush. He was somewhere near Jenssen right now — perhaps already within blast range.

  A new streak of pain up to his shoulder shook him, Jenssen going rigid and briefly leaning forward in compensation. He wished to leave the cramped trailer for fresh air, but he remained inside the trailer where it was safe.

  Explosive-sniffing dogs concerned him. He needed to remain sheltered until the last possible minute.

  There had been contingency plans. If Jenssen and other passengers on the plane had for some reason not achieved the celebrity status anticipated to get him onto this stage, then Jenssen’s orders were to get as close to the ceremony as he could and detonate. If, today, he had attracted too much scrutiny at the security checkpoint, he would have detonated immediately. Even if he had failed to get Bush, the explosion would have led to many casualties and reminded the United States that it was not invulnerable.

  But everything had gone close enough to plan. All he had to do now was remain alert and focused in the face of increasing agony from his improperly cast arm — and he would succeed with glory.

  “Magnus?” Maggie Sullivan sat next to him, on the edge of the couch in her uniform and blue cap and flag wings. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he said, a terribly incompetent response. “Overwhelmed.”

  “Sure,” she said, understandingly. “You look ill, though.”

  “Tired.” Go away, you heathen bitch.

  She touched his knee gently. “Before things get too crazy and we go our separate ways, I just wanted to take the opportunity again to thank you for saving my life — for being the first to act. I really… I think you are an amazing person. Your courage, I’m in awe of it. And… as to what happened between us, two nights ago… I don’t regret it, I just… I don’t know if it’s complicated things, or what. But I want you to know that it hasn’t changed my opinion of what you did. I was feeling… well, I don’t know what I was feeling. It’s a little embarrassing, but I’m okay with it — I just hope you are too.”

  He swallowed with difficulty, the throbbing of his arm accompanied by a kind of screaming in his head. “Yes, yes,” he said abruptly.

  She nodded, waiting for more. “Are you sure you’re…?”

  He nodded quickly.

  “Okay,” she said, offended — but done. “I’ll leave you alone then,” she said, and stood, stepping away from the sofa.

  He resisted an urge to howl. He checked his left palm, and smeared a bit more blood on the underside of the sofa.

  On television they were showing a child pointing up at the new monument of America. Jenssen had been the child of a pariah, a refugee woman who never ascended from the trappings of poverty, despised in a country where poverty was nothing less than a sin. Magnus grew up in the brick hives of immigrant ghettos, where every race hated every other race. His growth spurt came late, after years of childhood bullying. He knew what it was to live in constant fear. To escape further bias and beatings, he and his mother worshipped as Muslims in secret, alone in a largely Christian ghetto. After two years in a manual trade school, studying highway surveying and engineering, he instead pursued schoolteaching as his profession. It was a way to live quietly and at the same time pursue his own self-education — his true avocation — in solitude.

  Removing this evil from the earth — Bush, the radical Christian leader of the American crusade against Islam, the unprincipled thug — was the greatest victory a martyr could claim. Taking Obama at the same time — were it to be God’s plan — was an added glory. The sitting president was a man who had heard Islam’s voice and turned from it. Curse both of them to hell.

  Jenssen again trembled in pain. He had reviewed their approach on the way in. They would follow a pathway through the tree garden, over which a pipe scaffolding covered with blue tarpaulin had been constructed. This was so that during their walk to the stage, the president, former president, and fellow dignitaries would be shielded from potential snipers in any of the thousands of windows overlooking the Ground Zero construction site.

  Jenssen reached into his jacket pocket, having transferred the trigger mechanism there. He fondled the small plastic rectangle, running his thumb over its simple switch.

  The components were virtually foolproof. The trigger was a simple inertial generator, sending a single pulse of electricity to the wire antennae of the twin igniters. Only one of the igniters had to work. There would be a gap of about a half second between the trigger and the flash: a blue blast from his arm, then a rush of flame consuming all oxygen in the air.

  In that split second, all would die.

  His thumb pressed against the trigger, toying with it. The fire in his arm was such that he could not wait to detonate and be free of pain. His vision of becoming the most glorious religious martyr in the history of the world was the only thing that allowed him to rise above the weakness of his flesh.

  The mayor’s office’s liaison entered. She was going over arrangements after the building dedication. Jenssen smiled grimly before tuning her out. There was nothing to arrange after the ceremony. Jenssen would take care of all that.

  Chapter 71

  Fisk was still in the car four blocks from Chambers Street when his phone rang.

  “Uh, hi. Detective Fisk?”

  Fisk’s heart sunk. “Bascomb. What do you got?”

  “We, uh… somebody, a guest, reported seeing a woman’s shoe out on the lower-level roof in back of the hotel.”

  A chill ran up Fisk’s spine. “You found a shoe?”

  “We went out and got the shoe… and we found a woman’s body.”

  Fisk blanked out. He was still driving but he wasn’t seeing anything and he could not speak. He had to remind himself to breathe.

  “I said… we found a woman’s body. On the roof. It looked like a suicide, until we saw her throat. Really badly bruised.”

  “Are you sure it’s…?”

  “We found an empty gun nearby. A Beretta. Somebody said a service piece. I… I took a picture and just sent it to this number as a text. I hope that was okay. If you want to…”

  “Hold on,” said Fisk, nearly a whisper.

  He worked his phone to his messaging queue. He opened the one from Bascomb.

  It showed Krina Gersten lying against a bed of roof gravel. Her eyes were open, her upper neck purpled with deep contusions.

  Fisk stared at the image for a long time. Somehow when he looked up, he was still driving, and hadn’t crashed.

  He brought the phone back to his ear. “What are they doing for her?” he asked.

  “They’re… it’s a crime scene. I’m sorry to be—”

  Fisk waited. Someone or something had cut him off. Fisk was in shock. When Bascomb didn’t continue, Fisk looked at his phone display.

  Dropped the call. No bars. No reception.

  Because he was now inside the security cell blackout.

  The traffic came to a dead stop ahead. It was a virtual parking lot in the street. With nobody honking, it only added to the unreality of the situation as Fisk sat there staring straight ahead — stricken by heartbreak.

  Fisk put the car in park. He got out with his phone and walked on, abandoning the car where it was.

  Despair gave way to rage, and soon he was running. She was dead. Krina was dead. She had found out something. Her murder was connected to the fucking Islamic terrorist decoy asshole motherfuckers he had been chasing all weekend.

  That trail ended with The Six. Magnus Jenssen. A human bomb who was ready to detonate himself outside One World Trade Center.

  Fisk reached the lines of people waiting to be screened for entry. So many people wanted to be near the new building, despite the heat. They wanted to be a part of the healing.

  He had to find a way to the front. He started pushing his way through.

  “Sorry, sorry.” He said it in that New York way, where he didn’t really mean it, but was just letting others know that he had a good
reason for being rude.

  He reached the front. A few grumbles but no real complaints yet. He faced dozens of police cadets wanding for weapons. Fisk picked out the youngest and approached him with his badge wallet held at shoulder level, right in the cadet’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” said the kid. “Nobody armed gets inside this morning. That’s right down from the commissioner. Even your shield won’t get you in with a piece.”

  “Your lieutenant. I need him. Now.” Fisk was breathing heavily, not from the exertion of running but from hyperventilating with emotion.

  Now people started to get on Fisk for holding up the line. “Hey, what is this?” “Who the hell is this guy?” “Commmmoonnnnnnnnn.”

  A patrol lieutenant in dress blues walked up, expecting trouble. Fisk read him in a glance. Old school, not terribly bright, honest. A cop’s cop. Showed up every day, made no waves, took all the tests and made lieutenant. The guy looked at Fisk’s credentials and repeated what the cadet said.

  “Not getting in with a piece,” he said. “Nobody enters with a weapon after seven A.M. No exceptions.”

  Fisk felt himself getting shrill, and pulled back, keeping in control. Asking these guys to let him pass with his firearm was asking them to put their careers in his hands, something that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I gotta get in there,” said Fisk. He showed the lieutenant his open hand. “Lou. Look at me. I’m reaching.”

  The lieutenant looked suspicious. “Okay. Slow.”

  Fisk went into his jacket and pulled out his Glock 19. He turned it butt-first, slid out the magazine, kicked out the round in the chamber. He handed it all to the lieutenant.

  “Good?” said Fisk.

  The lieutenant still wasn’t sure. “St. Clair,” he said. “Wand him.”

  St. Clair did. Fisk was clean for metal.

  “Okay?” said Fisk.

  The lieutenant took the wand from St. Clair. “You accompany Detective Fisk wherever he is going. When you get him there, you report back to me on the double. Clear?”