Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice

by Helman, Scott

  • • •

  For two days after being yanked from the Watertown boat, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lay unconscious in a hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. FBI agents trained to interrogate “high-value” detainees waited outside the room for him to wake up. When he finally did, the agents began to pepper him with questions—and they did so before reading him his Miranda rights; a public safety exception to the procedure allows investigators to conduct limited interrogations of suspects before informing them of their right to stay silent. On April 21, Dzhokhar began to talk, providing investigators with their first details straight from the mouth of one of the men who had planned the assault on the marathon.

  Dzhokhar, nursing a serious gunshot wound to the mouth and neck, provided some answers by nodding and by writing on a piece of paper. Talking was difficult. But he communicated quite a bit. He told investigators that he and his brother had considered other schemes, including mounting suicide attacks and setting off bombs at another large public celebration beloved by the city—the traditional Fourth of July concert along the Charles River, where hundreds of thousands gather every year to watch a massive fireworks show set to the music of the Boston Pops. When the brothers, working in their Cambridge apartment, assembled their bombs faster than expected, they began looking for a place to strike sooner than the summer. They had cased police stations—several in Boston and one in Cambridge—seeking law enforcement officers to target, before settling instead on the Boston Marathon. They had drawn motivation, Dzhokhar said, from the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and they had acted on their own, without any direct assistance from Al-Qaeda or another terror network. Though the date in mid-April coincided with tax day, and fell close to Adolf Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, both April 20, those events did not appear to influence their timing.

  In mining Dzhokhar’s laptop, investigators had found books and a magazine promoting radical interpretations of Islam. The books included Defense of the Muslim Lands, The First Obligation After Iman, and Jihad and the Effects of Intention Upon It, which promotes martyrdom. Dzhokhar had also downloaded one book, noteworthy less for its long title—The Slicing Sword, Against the One Who Forms Allegiances With the Disbelievers and Takes Them As Supporters Instead of Allah, His Messenger and the Believers—than for the author of its foreword, Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico–born Muslim cleric. Awlaki, whom counterterrorism officials had tracked for years, was an apparent source of inspiration for Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, who likely watched Awlaki’s influential Internet videos.

  Awlaki was once seen as a moderate Muslim voice but became infamous for his anti-Western screeds, which his followers posted on the Internet. YouTube removed clips of his sermons in 2010, after a British student said that watching them inspired her to try to assassinate a member of Parliament—he survived the attack. By then, US officials viewed Awlaki as a major source of inspiration for militants trying to strike against the United States. The 9/11 Commission found that three of the 9/11 hijackers had seen Awlaki preach and had met with him. Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army major and psychiatrist, e-mailed extensively with Awlaki before shooting and killing thirteen people and injuring more than thirty at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in November 2009. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who confessed to trying to set off explosives hidden in his underwear while on an airliner headed to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, stayed at Awlaki’s house and got Awlaki’s approval for the bombing attempt, according to prosecutors. And Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen with an MBA, said his May 2010 attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square was inspired by Awlaki’s call for holy war against the West. Thus when a US drone strike killed Awlaki in Yemen in September 2011, President Obama called his death a “major blow to Al-Qaeda’s most active operational affiliate.”

  Whether linked to Awlaki or not, these smaller, self-contained terror plots—perhaps financed or inspired by Al-Qaeda but carried out by a quiet few—had increasingly worried US homeland security officials since 9/11. These attackers didn’t necessarily have to find a way into the United States; some were already here, concealed, in effect, within ordinary-looking families. Their weapons of choice, including crude bombs and automatic weapons, could be acquired with relative ease or created using Internet recipes and widely available materials. “These extremists have no formal relationship with Al-Qaeda, but they have nonetheless adopted the Al-Qaeda ideology,” Matthew Olsen, director of the federal National Counterterrorism Center, told a high-level homeland security conference in June 2011. “And what makes them especially worrisome is that they’re really difficult for us to detect and, therefore, to disrupt.” The Tsarnaevs seemed to fit the profile—homegrown terrorists seemingly assimilated in America but harboring a latent hatred for it.

  In August 2011, the White House warned in a policy paper of a growing number of American citizens and residents just like the brothers who were moved to act by the ideology of extremists abroad. “The number of individuals remains limited, but the fact that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents are openly and specifically inciting Americans to support or commit acts of violence—through videos, magazines, and online forums—poses an ongoing and real threat,” the paper said. President Obama, in the paper’s introduction, called on Muslims to help root out these threats. “Communities—especially Muslim-American communities whose children, families, and neighbors are being targeted for recruitment by Al-Qaeda—are often best positioned to take the lead because they know their communities best,” he said. Another necessary step, according to Olsen and the White House, is that federal, state, and local authorities communicate and share what they know—exactly what Ed Davis and others said should have happened before the Tsarnaevs brought deadly explosives to Boylston Street. Tamerlan, after all, had set off alarms years before, and there were troubling intimations about his intentions. The lack of knowledge of any specific intentions, however, meant they failed to attract more than a piecemeal response from law enforcement.

  • • •

  While back on the campus at UMass–Dartmouth the Wednesday after the bombing, Dzhokhar hung out, federal prosecutors said, with two friends he had entered college with in 2011: Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, nineteen-year-olds who were born in Kazakhstan to well-off families. The three friends were among the few Russian speakers on campus. Classmates said they often spent time together, and with other international students. Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov shared a black BMW, which Dzhokhar would sometimes borrow. The car had a fake license plate on the front, a gift from Spanish friends, that read TERRORISTA #1. Tazhayakov’s father would explain later that the plate was supposed to be a joke, a nod to a lyric from “Harlem Shake,” a popular dance track. “Terrorista #1 doesn’t mean Osama bin Laden, doesn’t mean ‘terrorist,’” Tazhayakov’s father told a Kazakh television station. “In their slang, it means ‘happy-go-lucky,’ ‘a leader of the pack,’ that sort of thing.”

  On that Wednesday, two days after the bombing, Kadyrbayev drove over to Dzhokhar’s dorm. The two chatted outside as Kadyrbayev smoked a cigarette. Kadyrbayev noticed that Dzhokhar’s hair had been trimmed. Later on, Dzhokhar drove to the apartment Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov shared in New Bedford and stayed until around midnight. The next day, Thursday, April 18, Dzhokhar gave Tazhayakov a ride home after class. It was just another week at college. Until suddenly it wasn’t.

  On Thursday evening, after the FBI images of the bombing suspects led every news report in the country, a third friend, former UMass–Dartmouth classmate Robel Phillipos, who had gone to Cambridge Rindge & Latin with Dzhokhar, allegedly called Kadyrbayev as Kadyrbayev drove back to the New Bedford apartment. Phillipos was nervous. He told his friend, “Turn on the TV when you get home.” The face of one of the suspects was a little too familiar. Here, in grainy pixels on the screen, was a man who looked an awful lot like Dzhokhar, a man now being described as one of the most wanted criminals alive.r />
  The three men’s accounts of what happened next diverged somewhat, but not long after the FBI put out the pictures, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov, and Phillipos went to Dzhokhar’s dorm room. His roommate told them Dzhokhar had left an hour or two before. So the three friends put on a movie. As they watched, they noticed a backpack full of hollowed-out fireworks, the powder gone. At one point, Kadyrbayev texted Dzhokhar, saying he looked like one of the suspects, Kadyrbayev told investigators.

  lol, Dzhokhar replied—“laughing out loud” in text-speak. You better not text me.

  Kadyrbayev got another text from Dzhokhar that he showed to Tazhayakov. It included a bizarre invitation plus a traditional Muslim greeting: If yu want yu can go to my room and take what’s there :) but ight bro Salam aleikum.

  In Dzhokhar’s dorm room that night, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov, and Phillipos allegedly picked up Dzhokhar’s laptop and his backpack, which contained, among other things, fireworks and a jar of Vaseline. They brought the items back to the New Bedford apartment. As they watched the continuing news coverage, Phillipos would tell investigators, the friends began to “freak out.” Kadyrbayev wondered aloud whether they should get rid of the stuff they’d taken from Dzhokhar’s room.

  “Do what you have to do,” Phillipos said he replied.

  Kadyrbayev then allegedly put the backpack with the fireworks into a black garbage bag and deposited it in a trash bin outside the apartment. The next day, Friday, April 19, after Dzhokhar had been identified by name as one of the bombing suspects, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov watched as a garbage truck took the contents of the trash bin away.

  Investigators soon interviewed and then arrested the three friends, accusing them of trying to help Dzhokhar cover up the bomb plot. Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were each charged on two counts of obstruction of justice. Both pleaded not guilty. Kadyrbayev’s lawyer contended that he had not, in fact, recognized Dzhokhar on the news and thus didn’t know his friend was a bombing suspect; Tazhayakov’s lawyer said his client was shocked Dzhokhar could have committed an act of terrorism. Phillipos faced two counts of making false statements in a terrorism case, following misleading accounts he allegedly provided to investigators. Phillipos’s lawyers said that he had nothing to do with removing the backpack or destroying potential evidence. Less than two weeks after the marathon attack, more than thirty federal agents combed through a New Bedford landfill looking for the discarded items. After hours of searching, they finally came upon Dzhokhar’s backpack. Inside were fireworks, Vaseline, a thumb drive, and something that spoke to Dzhokhar’s more mundane concerns before April 15, 2013: a homework sheet from the university.

  • • •

  The more the media drilled into the Tsarnaevs’ background, the more their relatives came under the spotlight. On the Friday morning after Tamerlan was killed, with police still hunting for Dzhokhar, investigators and reporters found their uncle Ruslan Tsarni, a corporate lawyer living outside Washington, DC. Tsarni first spoke with FBI agents inside his home. When he emerged, he walked up to the television cameras and reporters gathered outside looking for the latest in what had become the biggest story in the world. In an impromptu press conference, aired live on network television, Tsarni offered condolences to the bombing victims, denounced his nephews, and ordered Dzhokhar to turn himself in. Asked to explain what provoked the brothers to attack, Tsarni said: “Being losers. Hatred to those who were able to settle themselves. These are the only reasons I can imagine of. Anything else—anything else to do with religion, with Islam—that’s a fraud. It’s a fake.” He was asked how he felt about the United States. “I respect this country, I love this country,” said Tsarni, who moved to the United States in 1995 and became a US citizen. “This country, which gives [a] chance to everybody else to be treated as a human being and to just be a human being.”

  An opinion writer for the Washington Post called his words “inspiring” and said his press conference was “a moment we all needed.” The New Yorker said he “looked like he might hunt his nephew down himself.” Two aunts of the Tsarnaev brothers, Maret Tsarnaeva and Patimat Suleimanova, had a very different view of things. Both expressed disbelief that their nephews could have set off the bombs. “I’m suspicious that this was staged,” Maret Tsarnaeva told reporters in Toronto. “I just do not believe our boys would do that.” Suleimanova, living in Dagestan, said that Tamerlan may have been religious, but he wasn’t an extremist. “A man who takes Islam cannot do this,” she said. “They are not terrorists. I have no doubt that they were set up.”

  Tamerlan and Dzhokhar’s mother, Zubeidat, was the most insistent that her two sons had been framed, claiming, the week after the bombing, that it was all “lies and hypocrisy.” Her defiance was hardly surprising—US officials had her on a terrorist watch list, too. “They already want me, him, and all of us to look [like] terrorists,” she said at an April news conference in Dagestan with Anzor, her ex-husband and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar’s father. This was the family that had once come to the United States seeking a better life, settling in Cambridge, raising two boys whose lives became flecked with American influences. This was the family who had chosen this place, who had wanted it. Now, as they stood dismissing the overwhelming evidence of their sons’ horrendous crimes, they seemed as distant from American soil as they could possibly get.

  CHAPTER 18

  RUNNING AGAIN

  The marathon man finishes the race

  He had to run. No question. Dave McGillivray had made the commitment forty years ago in honor of his late grandfather: He would complete the Boston Marathon every spring, until his body wouldn’t let him. He’d kept the promise, one way or another, all these years. Nowadays that meant heading out to the starting line later on Marathon Day, once he had satisfied his race-director duties. This year, the bombing had complicated things. The phone call had come as he was about to start down the course. His personal mission was suddenly the last thing on his mind.

  He couldn’t just walk away from his promise, though. Especially not now. It was a question of timing—when would it be appropriate to get back out to Hopkinton, to keep his streak alive? In the days immediately following the attack, there was far too much to do—helping the Boston Athletic Association contend with the fallout, ensuring that runners were accounted for, supporting crestfallen volunteers. He was conscious, too, of appearing respectful, of not wanting to seem self-absorbed. So he waited for the funerals to pass, for the crush of care at the hospitals to ease, and for the city to reopen Boylston Street; he felt like he shouldn’t be the only person with access to the finish line. And yet he was anxious to get going. The demands of overseeing the marathon made it difficult to train adequately. Year to year he was never sure he could go the distance. “Emotionally and physically, I wanted to get it done,” he said. “It was on my nerves.”

  He settled on a Friday, eleven days after Marathon Monday. He contacted his running partner Josh Nemzer, who was the course director for the race, and asked if he was available. Nemzer was. They made plans to go to Hopkinton early that morning, but they kept their intentions quiet. They didn’t tell the media, didn’t alert the cops, didn’t inform any race executives except Tom Grilk, the head of the BAA, who understood their desire for discretion. Nemzer’s son Aaron drove them out to the starting line. McGillivray’s son Ryan met them out on the course. There was something special about the small group—just McGillivray and Nemzer running the course and their sons trailing in cars. It would be a moment for them alone.

  Around 8:30 A.M., they prepared to set off. They tied on their running shoes. Nemzer’s son took a picture. They had done this so many times together that their prerace routine was automatic. “It’s almost like two people who don’t have to speak,” Nemzer said. Then they were gone, heading east down the sidewalks and the sides of roads—unlike on Marathon Monday, the streets this day were not closed to traffic. Aaron, driving his dad’s Honda CR-V, and Ryan, driving his pick
up truck, shadowed them, stopping every once in a while to offer the dads water, Gatorade, bagels, and pretzels. “It felt good to take these first steps back toward Boston,” Nemzer said.

  About halfway down the route, McGillivray’s cell phone rang. It was Ed Jacobs, the technical producer for the marathon, whose company, Interstate Rental Service, held the contract to build the bleachers and other finish-line infrastructure. McGillivray was breathing heavily—breathing like he was running. Jacobs picked up on it.

  “Where are you?” Jacobs asked.

  “I’m in Wellesley,” McGillivray responded.

  “You’re not doing your run, are you?” Jacobs asked.

  “Well . . . well,” McGillivray stammered, not wanting to divulge the secret. He didn’t want to lie, either.

  “You are, aren’t you?” Jacobs said. He told McGillivray he would meet him at the finish line.

  What McGillivray didn’t know was that Jacobs would alert a Boston police officer that McGillivray was out on the route and would soon enter the city. The officer got on his radio and made the announcement. McGillivray’s annual running of the course was part of marathon legend. It wasn’t something police would let go unnoticed. When McGillivray reached Hereford Street, the final road before the route curves around to Boylston, he saw a Boston police cruiser. An officer got out. “Are you McGillivray?” the officer asked. And with that, McGillivray’s plan to quietly run the marathon came apart.

  A police officer on Boylston flipped on his sirens and began moving cars to the side of the road. Other officers began cheering him on—“Go Dave, Go!” The commotion drew people out of the stores. The news had also broken on Twitter. The media, which had often covered McGillivray’s postmarathon runs and were now hungry for fresh stories, converged. A news helicopter appeared overhead. I’m in deep trouble, McGillivray thought to himself. The attention, the fanfare, the spectacle—this was exactly what he had hoped to avoid. The last thing he wanted was to be the guy who brought sirens to Boylston Street so soon after the bombing. Who is this clown? he imagined people in their cars thinking. At the same time, he didn’t want to appear ungrateful. He knew that everyone’s intentions were good. So he went with it.