by Paul Batista
And then as he read the e-mails, Gabriel came to their abrupt stop. That’s when the pudgy colonel had informed him that his longing notes to Tom Lathem—his fellow intern and lover at Mount Sinai long before he met Cam—had been discovered. Gabriel had been taken out of Afghanistan immediately and his military e-mail account suspended. During the two weeks it took to process his discharge at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, he did not have access to his personal e-mail. When he did retrieve his personal e-mail, it was easy for him to remember Mohammad’s e-mail address.
Weeks later, it was Mohammad who first wrote about wanting to leave Afghanistan for the United States. He was worried, he said, for his safety. Too many of his neighbors knew that he had friends who were American officers. Those watchful, suspicious neighbors believed he was a translator for United States soldiers, or a nurse who treated only wounded American soldiers and contractors, or an informant.
Gabriel also saw, to his embarrassment, that his own e-mails to Mohammad were self-aggrandizing. There were suggestions that he had the power to bring him and his family to the United States. Gabriel knew he had no such power. Any semblance had been stripped from him with the patches that gave his major’s rank, that ancient status between captain and lieutenant colonel. Some of the e-mails included as attachments the futile letters Gabriel, in fact, wrote to the secretary of defense, the president, and the two senators from New York. In college Gabriel had read Saul Bellow’s Herzog, in which Moses Herzog, the lead character, obsessively wrote eloquent and pointless letters to the famous living and dead. Herzog’s letters were pointless. So, Gabriel knew, were his.
Gabriel could see in Mohammad’s final e-mails a more strident, pleading tone for help in getting out of Afghanistan. Some of the e-mails attached pictures of his attractive wife and children. He even wrote that he would leave them behind.
Suddenly Gabriel discovered e-mails that were addressed to him by Mohammad and had date and time stamps. But Gabriel was certain he had never seen them before. There was a chain of e-mails from Mohammad that asked Gabriel if he could find several men. Gabriel recognized only one of the eight names. Silas Nasar. There were e-mails from Gabriel to Mohammad in which Gabriel asked for information about Silas Nasar, a name he had never seen or heard and other men with Arabic names whom Gabriel had met in Afghanistan and who were friends of Mohammad and Silas, who, Mohammad wrote, were now living in all the boroughs of New York City except Manhattan.
Gabriel had never seen Mohammad’s last chain of e-mails. And he had never seen, and certainly had never written, the e-mails that bore his address: [email protected].
And then Mohammad’s e-mails vanished two months earlier. Gabriel’s last, pleading, almost hysterical e-mails to Mohammad asked, Where are you? Can you call? I’m worried. It was, he recognized, the same sense of bewildered loss he’d experienced years earlier when Jerome Fletcher, just weeks before he was stabbed to death, had simply stopped communicating with him.
When he finished his hours of reading, Gabriel restacked the papers neatly on the coffee table and fell back more deeply into the sofa. He realized that anyone reading all these e-mails would know that he had been in love and, while living with Cam, he had operated in secrecy to bring Mohammad Hussein to the United States so that they could be together. For the first time, the collective weight of these e-mails led Gabriel, too, to acknowledge to himself the depth of this attachment to Mohammad, this now-obvious love for him.
***
He desperately needed to find Cam. There was no doubt that he also loved Cam and needed to explain, if he could, the emotional betrayal the e-mails laid bare. Using his iPhone’s contact list, he called the ten or so friends they knew most well. He reached five of them, three women and two men, and they didn’t know where Cam was and hadn’t heard from him. He left urgent voice mail messages for the others. He called Cam’s office. A recording said the office was closed for the day but that the caller could leave a message in the firm’s general voice mail box.
Cam Dewar was a man who always made himself available. He was in public relations. He had an iPhone, a Galaxy, and an iPad with him at all times. During the course of each day he sent a steady stream of text messages to Gabriel. They were love notes, reminders of things to do or places to go, gentle jokes. Gabriel had not received a text message from Cam in four hours.
Cam was lost in the world, Gabriel thought. His mind raced through the possible wreckage. Cam could be dead, he could have been arrested, he could have decided to sleep in the park along with the thousands of stranded out-of-towners. No matter what else, Cam was certainly hurt in his heart, at that deep emotional level of love betrayed.
Raj Gandhi answered on the first pulse of his cell phone. “Dr. Hauser?” he asked.
“Where are you?”
“Where am I? In my newsroom.” He waited. “How can I help you?”
“I need to see you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Why?”
“Silas Nasar.”
“I know that name.”
“I know the name, Mr. Gandhi, and I know that person, too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GINA CARBONE WAS standing at Roland Fortune’s left side. Three senior officers, in full dress uniforms, were at his right. In front of them was a table with weapons, such as grenade launchers and M-16s and other assault weapons that Roland had never seen or smelled before. They had the distinct odor of grease and cordite. On a video screen behind them were oversize images in high definition of the three men arrested in the Olympic Tower. Unlike the secret prisoners at Pier 37, these men were now, as Gina had intended, public figures.
Roland Fortune spoke to a press room with at least thirty reporters seated on folding chairs. “I’m pleased to announce that, just two hours ago, elements of the New York City Police Department’s counterterrorism unit thwarted at its final stages an attack by rocket launchers and high explosives on one of the most sacred places on the planet, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the heart of Manhattan. This impending assault was not, we believe, a random plot by rogue opportunists. Our best assessment is that the individuals who were on the brink of destroying the cathedral are linked to the despicable assaults on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 9/11 Memorial, the brutal assassinations of our brave police, the bombing of the historic intersection of Wall and Broad Streets, and the war at the George Washington Carver Houses.”
Briefly turning to the video screen behind him—incongruously, the men were dressed in Western clothes, including one who looked like the young Omar Sharif in a well-tailored blue blazer—Roland said, “The men pictured here were all arraigned before a New York State judge fifteen minutes ago. They are Amir Butt, Ravi Al-Haq, and Alan Richards. All of them are United States citizens. Butt and Al-Haq are native-born citizens, Butt was born and raised in Chicago, Al-Haq in Providence, Rhode Island. Richards, whose real name we might not know, was born in Saudi Arabia but is a naturalized U.S. citizen.”
Roland resisted the temptation to drink water. He thought doing so would show a lack of resolve, a sense of anxiety, weakness, or fatigue. “Our best information is that a common link joins them to the earlier attacks. They have each spent two to three months in Sudan and ISIS-controlled areas of Syria, although at different times. Al-Haq, we believe, is an accountant. Butt has worked as a manager of a car and limousine service. Richards has said he is a New York lawyer, a claim we need to verify since there are five lawyers in New York named Alan Richards.”
Although Irv Rothstein had told the reporters in the room that they should not ask questions until after Roland had finished, three people started urgently waving upraised hands. Roland ignored the hands. “Al-Haq, Butt, and Richards have been removed from New York. They are now in separate, secure facilities. They have each been charged with attempted murder and conspiracy for mass destruction.”
Irv Rothstein gave Roland an almost imperceptible signal to wind up the prepared part of his state
ment. “From the outset of these awful events, Commissioner Carbone and I have committed ourselves to truth telling in describing only what we know. And truth about what we don’t know. We do know, as a result of the events two hours ago at St. Patrick’s, and the events earlier today at the George Washington Carver Houses, that we are closing in on the people responsible for these vicious acts. And, more important, that we are shutting these people down and preventing further devastating attacks. The fact is that we are now on the hunt. We are the hunter, not the victim.”
Gina Carbone knew that Roland’s prepared statement was over. She shifted slightly in the direction of the microphones into which the mayor had spoken. They had done many joint press conferences in the last few years. They worked very well as a team. Gina said, “We will take questions. But as you’ll all understand, there are probably going to be many questions we will not be able to answer for security and law enforcement reasons. But Mayor Fortune and I will do our best to give you all the facts that we can.”
They had decided that Roland would select the reporters who wanted to ask questions. He started by pointing at Beth Connor of CNN, a competent reporter who had interviewed him several times. She was not friendly or unfriendly; she was straightforward. “How was this plot to destroy St. Patrick’s uncovered?”
Gina took the initiative. “We can’t comment on that specifically. But suffice it to say that we have, among many other sources, confidential informants. Some of them are useful. Others not.”
“Was this informant under arrest?” Connor asked.
“I can’t comment on that,” Gina said.
“Is that informant being protected?”
“I can’t comment on that either,” Gina said.
Other hands waved like small flags in the wind. Roland pointed to Jack Kramer of WNBC seated in one of the folding chairs in the middle of the press room. “How many people have been arrested since the bombing at the Met?” Kramer asked.
Gina lied. “Forty-five.” This answer did not include the eighteen men on Pier 37. Or Silas Nasar.
“How many more arrests will there be?” Kramer asked.
“As many,” Gina said, “as are needed. We will arrest them all or we will disable them all.”
Roland nodded at Jackie Lin of NPR. She asked, “Why were no prisoners taken at the George Washington Carver projects?”
Gina answered, “It was in reality a combat situation. There were ten terrorists on the fifth floor in the Carver Towers. Our information was that they were about to mount a major operation. We had to act decisively. Our counterterrorism officers were all combat veterans from Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They confronted men who obviously had also been in combat, somewhere in the world. As Mayor Fortune mentioned just a few hours ago, if you have been in combat yourself, you understand that your overriding task is to defend yourself and the other members of your team. And to carry out your mission.”
“Was it the mission to kill every person in that apartment?” Jackie Lin asked.
“No.” Gina’s voice and tone never varied. She was cool and powerful and attractive. The question was, Roland recognized, meant to provoke her. Gina said, “The mission was to prevent these terrorists from inflicting damage on the people of this city. It’s important to remember that the men in that apartment elected to be there. Our information is that they had rented the apartment three months ago and gradually built up an arsenal. And, as we can tell in the inventory of the weapons seized there, they had reached a point of complete readiness to mount other assaults. These were professional killers who were themselves prepared to die.”
Roland now recognized that the clamor of questions had reached the point that always caused concern to Irv Rothstein. Irv had often urged Roland to exert control by pointing to reporters Roland knew were friendly or noncombative. But now it was at the stage when the quickest or loudest or most distinctive voice took over the event. Despite Irv’s seasoned advice, Roland, always surefooted, often let these more active and intense conferences take their own course. He enjoyed the give and take. Since he’d had many press conferences with Gina over the last three years, most often after gang killings in which innocent children were bystander victims or the murders of cops, Roland had complete confidence that she, too, was a master of the freewheeling news conference.
A woman’s voice rang out from the near center of the active crowd, “Were the dead in that apartment part of the group that bombed the Met and the memorial?”
“Obviously there’s every indication they were,” Gina said. “It’s clear that these were organized cadres.”
The same voice: “Was it an ISIS affiliate?”
“It’s natural to think that, but at this stage we don’t know.”
“Can you explain the chaos at the approaches to the Triboro Bridge?”
“First,” Roland intervened, “let me say it shouldn’t be characterized as chaos. Even in extraordinarily troubled times like this, it’s important to keep perspective and not get swept away in overcharged words. Yes, there are several hundred cars that, as their drivers must have known, would not be permitted to leave the city. At least not yet. But almost one million men, women, and children live in Manhattan. There have been no organized disturbances. We have seen cooperation, steadiness, and the legendary resolve of those who live in this great city. The fact that one or two hundred motorists are expressing frustration only underscores the discipline and resolution of hundreds of thousands of others. In the final analysis, the issue at the Triboro Bridge is a traffic problem, and not a significant one.”
The next sharp voice, this one from the rear of the crowd: “Mayor, Manhattan has been locked down for more than thirty hours. When do you plan to end the lockdown?”
“The easy answer,” Roland said, “is when the conditions warrant it. But the real answer is that the end of the lockdown is in sight. It was never intended that the lockdown be open-ended. Its purpose was to contain and confine. It may have outlasted its purpose. That’s under evaluation.”
A voice with a strident, skeptical tone sounded through the others, distinctly audible to Roland, everyone else in the room, and the audience around the world: “There are reports of confrontation and nasty words between members of your police department and Army soldiers attached to the 101st Airborne Division on the bridge.”
Roland said, “We have no such reports. The coordination among federal, state, and city agencies has been remarkable.”
Another voice, a baritone, recognizable as one of NPR’s radio broadcasters but impossible for Roland to name because of the anonymity of radio: “Do you have a timetable for President Carter’s arrival?”
“Certainly the president is the best source of that information. I don’t have it. I can tell you that he is in touch with me continuously. Everything I do, everything we do, is with his knowledge and approval and with the coordination and support of the exceptional professionals who serve him.”
“There are reliable reports,” the NPR reporter said, “that the president’s security people view Manhattan now as a city in chaos and under siege, a kind of Baghdad or Kabul on the Hudson, and that the reason the president is not here rests on profound concerns about his safety.”
“Again I believe it’s crucial not to exaggerate. New York is not Kabul or Baghdad or Damascus. There are not terrorist armies on the outskirts about to invade. There have been terrible events committed by cadres of sick people. Those people are now, through the heroic efforts of Commissioner Carbone, either dead or captured or in disarray.”
The same voice continued, “But what about the president’s arrival? What do you expect if he arrives?”
“Commissioner Carbone, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service, and the other top-notch federal agencies involved with us, can protect the president.”
“When is he arriving?”
Gina leaned toward the microphone: “For security reasons, we can’t make a comment on tha
t.”
And then slender, soft-spoken Raj Gandhi spoke up. “Who is Silas Nasar?”
“We have no idea who that is,” Gina Carbone answered.
“Where is he? Is he in detention?” Raj asked.
“That, too,” Gina said, “is not something we can answer. It’s difficult to detain a person we don’t know.”
In reality, Gina Carbone wanted to find some way to confine, silence, or eliminate Raj Gandhi. None of that, she knew, was easy to do to a reporter for the New York Times.
Irv Rothstein then stepped directly in front of the microphone. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is all the time we have for now. Thank you for your attention.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
RAJ GANDHI MET Gabriel Hauser on the stone bench at the front of the Church of the Heavenly Rest at the corner of 90th Street and Fifth Avenue. Directly across the avenue, at the Engineers’ Gate to Central Park, dozens of runners moved north and south on the internal roadway that encircled the park for six miles. Bicyclists on five-thousand-dollar sleek machines and wearing colorful skintight clothes raced by. Just beyond the runners and bikers the leaves of an immense ancient tree shimmered in the clear light. And the acres of water in the reservoir glowed so much that the air above it seemed to have an incandescent brightness. A cluster of three fountains embedded in the reservoir sprayed tall columns of white water above the reservoir’s surface, just as they did on normal days.
Raj removed his iPhone from the rumpled seersucker jacket he always wore. “Dr. Hauser, are you sure I can record this?”
“I said so twice, haven’t I?”
Raj pressed the icon that converted the miraculous object to a voice and video recorder. “Let me start,” Raj said, “by telling you that I believe Silas Nasar was one of the masterminds, one of the key planners, of these attacks.”