The Grave Above the Grave

by Bernie B. Kerik

  With Tarquette at his side, Jones briefed the commissioner and Gallagher. “We’ve been up on two of these guys since we last met on Wednesday. Since then, there were three calls from the Detroit leader, and we’re sure, although they speak cryptically and in deep code, that D-day hits at 4 pm.

  As they stood talking, an agent’s voice came over the notification orders loudspeaker: “We believe that the targets may have arrived at the mosque.”

  Everybody’s attention went to one of the huge monitors, as one camera focused on two men standing outside the mosque and caught one speaking to the other for less than 15 seconds. The one spoken to then walked away, took out his cell phone, and punched in a number. There were no mikes, so no one at headquarters could hear what was being said, and the cameras couldn’t pick up the number he dialed. A report quickly came in that it was a new phone, one they had no information for.

  “Who is that guy?” Tarquette screamed, pointing at the screen. “Somebody get on that guy! Get his photo to all our surveillance teams and tell them not to let him out of their sight! We need that phone he’s on and the number he just called!”

  The target hailed a taxi. He got in, and the driver took off. NYPD detective Jeremy Myers, in plain clothes, and FBI agent Clark Coles, sitting in a parked, unmarked car three blocks away, were waiting as the taxi went by. They pulled out, and when they were five blocks from the mosque, the detective hit his rotators and flicked on the siren. “What the fuck are you doing!” the FBI agent said.

  “Follow my lead,” the detective said, as he pulled the taxi over.

  The detective got out of the car and, with gun drawn, standing to the left of the taxi’s trunk, ordered both the driver and the passenger in the back seat out of the vehicle. He then put both spread eagle, one on the side of the rear trunk, and one on the opposite side.

  “What’s going on?” the Haitian cab driver asked, his voice trembling with fright.

  “There’s been a robbery,” the detective said. He had them empty their pockets and put everything, including their phones, on the hood. He then had both sit on the curb while he went through their personal belongings and searched the car. He took the passenger’s cell phone and, with his own phone, he snapped shots of the last 10 numbers called. He then got on his radio and spoke into it softly, asking for one of the surveillance teams to put a female agent in the back of one of their cars and drive by, stop, and come up to him, saying she was the victim of the robbery. Three minutes later a car pulled up with a blond female agent in the back passenger seat. Detective Myers walked over, opened the door, asked her to step out, and pointed to the two men. “Are they the ones who robbed you?” he asked her.

  She looked at both intently, then back at the detective. She saw the very subtle head shake that told her how to answer. “No, officer,” the agent finally said, “I’ve never seen either of them before.” She looked into the detective’s eyes, searching for approval of her performance.

  “Are you sure, ma’am?”

  “I’m positive. They’re not the guys.”

  “Thank you.” Detective Myers put her back into the car, closed the door, and watched the car drive off. He then walked over to the two men and apologized, shaking their hands and saying they were cleared and free to go. Eager to get out of there, they picked up their belongings from the roof of the cab, got into the car, and the driver took off.

  The detective and FBI agent Coles got back into their car, where Myers called in the photographed numbers to their operations center. Within minutes, the FBI had the name of NYPD officer Victor Hamadi, a uniformed cop out of the Four-One, up in the Bronx. Raymond and his team quickly discovered that Friday was his last tour of duty on the 11–7 overnight shift.

  The Friday afternoon prayers ended precisely at two o’clock. The two targets were the first to come out of the mosque. Surveillance cameras followed them down to Atlantic Avenue, where they walked into a small Arab restaurant. They sat down, and quickly another man already in the restaurant joined them at their table. Because his back was facing the door, surveillance wasn’t able to make him. The Bureau sent in an Arab agent, who sat at the counter and ordered a bowl of soup. From there, he was able to get a good look at the third man’s face and take several photos from his lapel camera. He took a few spoonfuls of soup, put some money on the counter, and left. Once outside and halfway down the street, he said into his wrist mike, “The guy isn’t Hamadi.” As he continued to walk away, surveillance watched the two targets and the third man get into a minivan parked by a meter at the opposite corner.

  The agent got back into his surveillance car. On orders, he began to tail the minivan, careful to keep far enough away so as not to be spotted, but close enough to make sure he didn’t lose the targets. He was soon joined by a caravan, each relieving the one before it, to further disguise the tail. They followed the minivan over the Brooklyn Bridge and onto the FDR Drive, heading north. It exited at 42nd Street, near the United Nations, then turned up First Avenue. It made a left on 51st Street headed west. Just as the tail crossed Third Avenue, they saw a man standing in the middle of the street, 100 feet west of the 17th Precinct. One of the NYPD sergeants in surveillance made him as Hamadi, and screamed over the radio, “Target three is just west of the One-Seven! Stand by!”

  The van slowed a few feet in front of Hamadi. The tail pulled over in front of a hydrant, a half block behind. They watched as Hamadi went over to his own car, parked less than 100 feet from the One-Seven, opened his trunk, and pulled out two large duffel bags. The side door of the minivan slid open, and Hamadi shoved the bags in. Just before the minivan’s door slid closed, he reached into his waistband, pulled out what looked like a semiautomatic handgun, and handed it to one of the two targets. Hamadi then reached behind his back, under his coat, pulled out another handgun, and handed that over as well. The door slid shut, and the minivan took off. Hamadi then got back to his car and sat in it, to make sure there was no tail.

  Another surveillance car picked up the van as it continued west on 51st Street and then made a left onto Fifth Avenue, a one-way headed south. The van pulled over to the left lane and came to a stop in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. One female surveillance agent posted at the 50th Street side of the church entered through that door, then stuck her head out one of the doors of the main Fifth Avenue entrance. She saw the van, stepped back in, and reported what she had observed. Over her radio, she said, “Driver is staying put in the front seat. Targets one and two remain in the back of the van. They’re wearing some kind of vests; I couldn’t see clearly enough; could be a bulletproof vest or bomb vest.” She paused, and another voice, from a surveillance vehicle parked on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, picked it up. “They’re definitely putting something under long black coats they’re now wearing. I see a gun. Repeat, I see a long gun . . . The van is moving; repeat, the van is moving . . .”

  The minivan went to the corner and turned left, toward Madison Avenue. Seven surveillance cars followed as the van next turned left onto Madison, headed north, and made another left at 51st Street, this time driving straight across to Fifth Avenue and stopping adjacent to Rockefeller Center, which was packed with tourists. The van pulled to the left and came to a halt. Two cars from the surveillance caravan had no choice but to pass the van, and then pulled over about 200 feet west of the van toward the Avenue of the Americas. The rest of the caravan turned left on Fifth, pulled over to the right, and the cops and agents jumped out of the cars, scurrying through the Channel Gardens area of Rockefeller Center, disappearing in the crowds.

  FBI and NYPD snipers and spotters had been dispatched to the surrounding buildings in Rockefeller Center earlier that morning. The shooters lay flat, the barrels of their sniper rifles invisible as they peeked out from their positions and aimed directly at the van.

  The driver of the van just sat there, looking around, while in the back seat, targets two and three adjusted
their black coats. The minivan door suddenly swung open, and the two men jumped out into the middle of the street. One of the targets had an AK-47 visible alongside his leg.

  Every radio suddenly screamed with an FBI agent’s voice: “Target in possession of an AK-47. I repeat, target in possession of an AK-47!”

  Jones’s voice came on the radio: “Do not, I repeat, do not let them get inside Rock Center.” A loudspeaker from a black van parked 20 yards ahead of the minivan blared, “This is the police. Do not move. Drop your weapons and do not move!”

  Targets one and two froze momentarily, enough time for what appeared to be an FBI SWAT team and members of the NYPD emergency service unit to materialize out of what seemed like nowhere, machine guns up and ready. An agent screamed for the two to drop their weapons. In response, target one yelled, “Allahu Akbar!” and raised his AK-47. Both targets were torn nearly in two by a hail of bullets, their body parts shredded from their torsos. Before their bodies hit the ground, a massive, earsplitting explosion went off, fracturing the minivan into millions of pieces of metal and shrapnel that flew like high-powered bullets everywhere, blowing windows out of buildings. People everywhere began screaming, and the dozens of cops and agents closing in were dropped. The eyes of the lead agent, the one who had yelled for the targets to drop their weapons, were blown out of his head, and smoke poured from the sockets of the skull that had rolled into the street. A few seconds later, there was another bigger and louder explosion.

  The rest of the cops and FBI poured out of their vehicles and ran toward what was left of targets one and two.

  Raymond and Jones had been watching all of it from headquarters. As Midtown turned into a war zone, Raymond suddenly screamed to no one in particular, “Where the fuck is Hamadi?”

  CHAPTER 11

  5:30 pm, Friday, 13 October

  Raymond, Jones, and Gallagher arrived at the mayor’s office along with a number of senior NYPD and FBI executives for the press conference, ahead of the start of the local and national news cycles that were about to dominate the airwaves. Local programming had already been suspended in favor of full coverage, and all the cable news networks were in overdrive. The mayor poured them all coffee, tea, or water, whatever their preference, and they sat.

  “Okay, what do we have?” the mayor asked Raymond.

  “This was a terrorist attack,” Raymond began, “thwarted by the NYPD and FBI. Three terrorist were killed, one FBI agent was killed, and two FBI agents and three police officers were injured by debris from the blast and, as it stands now, are still hospitalized. We think this may have been related to the Times Square cop killing, and it could have been much worse had it not been for the men and women of the FBI and NYPD.”

  “Good. That will begin it. Any news on the dirty cop?”

  “We have a team looking for him, and we hope to have him today.”

  “Have you seen this?” Brown picked up a copy of the afternoon extra edition of the New York Herald. The banner read:

  TERRORIST ATTACK HITS MIDTOWN

  MAYOR AND COMMISSIONER CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED

  Story by Sammy Breshill starts on page 3

  And the headline beneath was:

  COMMISSIONER AND DA

  HAVING SECRET RENDEZVOUS?

  Story by Sammy Breshill starts on page 5

  Raymond looked at it and threw the paper on the sofa directly across from him. “Why don’t they just call it the New York Herald-Breshill?”

  “Rick, I’m up for reelection next year.”

  “Look, the guy hates you, and he uses me to hurt you. This whole thing about Sheilah and me is nothing more than tabloid gossip. We’re both single and can see anyone we want, and the whole impropriety thing with the grand jury is bullshit.”

  “I know that, and you know that,” said the mayor, “but the general public doesn’t know that, and that’s the problem. The faster the grand jury is concluded, the better. It’s less for him to focus on!” Raymond nodded his head as if to say, I understand.

  The mayor asked, “Are we ready for the press conference? There must be 200 reporters out there.”

  “I’m ready,” Raymond said.

  “Okay,” the mayor said. “Let’s do this.”

  The press room was packed with so many reporters, a second anteroom had to be set up, with monitors feeding live what went on in the main room. As the mayor and Raymond walked to the podium, followed by Jones and several other officials, the low rumble in the room quieted.

  The mayor, as always, spoke first. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, this has been a terrible day in our great city, but not a completely tragic one. This is not another 9/11, thanks mostly to the men and women of the NYPD and our federal partners, primarily the FBI, which is represented here today by agent Chelsea Jones. They have been working tirelessly on this case, ever since the murders of our good police in Times Square, and the subsequent apprehension of the shooter. We will continue to do everything necessary to protect our great city.” There was a round of mild applause that brought a stiff smile to Brown’s face. “I’d like to introduce the police commissioner, who will fill you in on the latest events.”

  The mayor stepped away and gestured for Raymond to step in front of the bank of mikes. “Thank you, everybody. Today’s attack, as horrible as it was, was not as bad as it could have been. We are sad to report that an FBI agent was killed in today’s attack, two agents and three police officers were injured by the blast, and three civilians were slightly hurt, but other than that, the greatest damage was done to the minivan, its driver who was instantly killed, and the two terrorists who came out shooting. We believe they intended to drive their van into the heart of Rockefeller Center, entering on 51st Street, just beyond the skating rink, to do the most damage. I want to congratulate my NYPD for the superlative job they did, and the FBI, who helped coordinate this operation. I’ll take a few questions now.”

  He saw Breshill’s hand shoot up. He called on him.

  “Commissioner,” Breshill said, “is this the end of the attack? Have all the players been caught now?”

  Raymond weighed his words carefully. He didn’t want to say anything that would alert Hamadi that they were onto him. “This is an ongoing investigation.”

  He was about to move to another question when Breshill continued to speak. “What about the grand jury? Why was DA Dannis not in charge of it?”

  “We’re here to discuss the tragic events of today. Next question, please,” Raymond said. After taking two more, both directed to agent Jones, that were essentially reiterations of what had already been said, Raymond gave the podium back to the mayor, who ended the press conference by calling up the city’s chaplain to say a prayer for the people of New York City and its brave police force and citizenry.

  Back in his office, Raymond was filled in by Gallagher. Surveillance teams were out looking for Hamadi, and three teams were at the 41st Precinct waiting for him to show up. His phone had gone dead since the attack.

  Raymond and Gallagher went over to FBI headquarters, and there they met with Jones. “We’re thinking that Hamadi’s car may have live explosives in it,” she said. “We want to make sure he can’t set them off when we take him. We have bomb techs standing by in the event that he shows up at the precinct for work, although we’re not sure if he’ll show. He may try to take off. His apartment is under surveillance, his girlfriend’s house, and the mosque as well. We’ll see.”

  No sooner than Jones finished the sentence, her cell phone rang and she answered it, hung up, smiled, and said, “It’s on.”

  Hamadi had driven to the Bronx to report for his 11 pm tour of duty at the 41st Precinct, unaware that he had been made, and was looking to do nothing to draw attention to himself. “Let’s go up to the Four-One,” Jones said. “You jump in my car and your guys can follow us in the Suburban.”

  Raymond
nodded to Gallagher, who called Archer to tell him they were moving. Sitting next to Jones in the back seat of the unmarked FBI vehicle, Raymond made a call on his cell phone. He speed-dialed Sammy Breshill’s number, and the reporter picked up on the first ring. “What can I do for you, Commissioner?”

  “Get your ass up to the 41st Precinct and wait down the block until I call you. Don’t go inside; wait in your car. I think I’ve got something for you.”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah,” Raymond said. “It is.” He hung up.

  He next called his chief of department, Joe Allegra, and told him to head to the Bronx as well, instructing him whom to look for and what to do with him when he got there. Allegra arrived ahead of the others, and when he walked into the Four-One, every cop—the desk sergeant, the desk lieutenant, and all 24 patrol officers present—snapped to attention. After a second or two, the desk officer resumed calling out who had what car and what the daily assignments were. When he finished, Allegra went up to the front desk.