“Was a real artist?”
“So you see we have a lot in common. Kenny was a completely beautiful man. He taught me so much about life, about art, about freeing myself to experience real physical and spiritual joy. He died in Afghanistan five years ago. He . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Raymond said.
“Don’t be. He wouldn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. He lived life up to there,” she said, pointing to the ceiling. “Before I met him, I lived down here.” She made a leveling gesture with her hand, like a one-armed ump signaling “safe.”
“Now you,” she said, standing with her hands on her hips. He stood up, took his jacket off. She saw his gun. “Is it loaded, Commissioner?”
“It’s always loaded, Mila.”
“Miss Chernova. Yes, Miss Chernova.”
“Yes, Miss Chernova.”
He took off his weapon and laid it on the coffee table, next to her gun and her FBI badge that was in a leather case. He then took his wallet, his shield, and his money clip and put them next to his gun.
He was about to say something when she put one hand behind his head and the fingers of the other on his lips. “Shhh,” she said, and proceeded to slowly strip him down and led him over to the bed. “Now, as promised, I’m going to kill you . . .”
He tried not to look shocked.
She smiled. “Kill you with kindness, darling. You really need this . . .”
She put him to bed and he responded like the caged animal he was, growling and snarling to keep up with her.
They didn’t stop until almost dawn.
When Raymond finally rolled over, exhausted, Chernova got up—he figured to go to the bathroom. When she returned, he was still half asleep as she slipped one handcuff on him, the other to the vertical brass rod at the head of the bed. “Just to make sure you don’t slip away, Commissioner. You see, I’m going to make you confess. I have ways you never dreamed of.”
Confess to what, he didn’t know. It was going to be a very long morning.
CHAPTER 26
5:15 am, Wednesday, 6 December
Raymond opened his eyes when Chernova pulled open the drapes. The first thing he noticed was the terrible pounding on both sides of his head—he’d only been asleep for two hours, after that Olympian wrestling match. What was she doing already up and about? He went to roll over to his left to get out of bed, when he realized his right arm was still being held up in the air, handcuffed to the brass rod of the bed. Chernova, he could see now, was fully dressed in gym clothes and talking on the phone. When she hung up, she went over to the bed, leaned over, and kissed him good morning on his mouth. She tasted like toothpaste, he thought; not an unpleasant sensation.
“Are you going to take this handcuff off me anytime soon?” Raymond asked.
“Of course, darling. I wouldn’t want you to miss your 7 am with the mayor. Wasn’t it fun?”
“Fuck! I forgot all about that,” he said as she unlocked the cuff on his wrist and his arm dropped. He rubbed it with the fingers of his other hand.
“Listen to me, darling,” Chernova said, as she sat on the bed next to him. “No one can know about this. I mean no one. If Jones, especially, finds out, she’ll have me in some fucking warehouse counting out confiscated narcotics at JFK.” She paused and smiled at him. “We both have a shitload of work to do. I’ve got to get to the gym, and you should too. We need to build up your stamina.”
“Right.” Of course she was right. He watched her walk out the door, thinking what the fuck have I done, but after 15 seconds of thinking how bad this was, his thinking dissolved into how good this was, how good she was, and how good he felt. He bounced out of bed and headed for the shower, determined to make the meeting on time.
At 6:15 am, Archer and Shelby picked him up in front of her apartment. They drove quickly, occasionally using the siren, and with seconds to spare, Raymond walked into City Hall on time for the mayor’s cabinet meeting.
It went quickly, without incident, and as it broke, the mayor asked Raymond to stay at City Hall for a little longer. “Stop down in my office at eight. Jones from the FBI is coming over to brief me, and I think you should be there. You can grab some breakfast right here.”
“Yes sir,” he said, and as soon as he was out of sight of the mayor, he called Jones to ask her if there was anything new.
“No,” she said, “the mayor’s chief of staff called the other day asking for an update, and we scheduled this meeting last night. I called you about nine last night to tell you, but you must have been busy, because you never got back to me.”
Raymond felt better that she had called. Although he got along well with Jones and trusted her, he was always leery about her, for reasons he wasn’t really aware of. He told her he would meet her in the mayor’s office in 15 minutes, and then sat in the outer office, chatting up the secretaries who got in early, as he drained his fourth cup of coffee. Just before eight, Jones cheerfully swung through the door, followed by Chernova. When he saw her, he nearly spit his coffee all over himself. Two hours ago, she had him chained to a fucking bed, and here she was in the office, Miss FBI.
Shelly, the mayor’s admin assistant, looked at Raymond and said, “Are we all here?”
“It’s just the three of us.”
“That’s fine. You can all go in. He’s waiting for you.”
Raymond, Jones, and Chernova entered the mayor’s private study. It felt like an icebox in there, Raymond thought to himself. And it stank from the stench of a half-smoked cigar. The two rear windows to the office were opened. “You know it’s against the law to smoke in a city building, Mr. Mayor?” Raymond joked.
“I didn’t,” the mayor responded, “smoke inside. I hung my head out the window, wise ass.” Everyone laughed. “Sorry, ladies,” he said, looking at Jones and Chernova. Then he got down to business. “So Ms. Jones, what’s the latest?”
She stood and recapped what everyone, except the mayor, already knew, that the Bureau and the police were confident Samadi was the cell team leader from Detroit, and was now in New York City, but that they had not exactly located him yet. They were aware he had six or seven others on the ground here as well, but they, too, were not ID’d or pinpointed. She explained how the Bureau found them by encouraging Hamadi to give them up, and how the cell was using sophisticated technology and cryptic codes to circumvent detection, and how the people at the Bureau were confident they would break the cell.
A silence fell on the room and hung like a low cloud. The mayor, who had relit his cigar, now carefully rested it on the edge of his ashtray, intending to let it go out. He stood up, with panic in his eyes.
“Great work, people.” He paused, went to the fireplace, put one hand up on the mantel, then turned around, his tone conciliatory. “Look, I can’t afford another attack on the city during this election year,” and no sooner than those words had come out of his mouth, he realized how he sounded, and he tried to clean it up. “Look,” he said, “no one wants any bloodshed in this city, and not just because of the election, of course. I don’t want you people to think I only give a fuck about getting reelected.”
Still in his seat, Raymond said, softly and evenly, “Mr. Mayor, we’re doing everything in our power to make sure we get to them before they get to us.”
“We’re on it,” Jones said, as reassuringly she could make it sound, as she and Chernova stood, sensing the meeting was over. Raymond stood as well.
“Thanks, people,” Brown said. “Keep me updated.”
Raymond, Jones, and Chernova left the mayor’s office, walked down the large tomb-like granite hallway, and, as soon as they cleared the security checkpoint, Chernova said, under her breath, “I hate fucking politicians. Reelect me, even if there’s no one left alive for me to govern.” Jones and Chernova got in Jones’s car and headed back to FBI headquarters, and Raymond got in his car for the fi
ve-minute drive to One Police Plaza.
Once he was up in the office, he called Chernova to ask if she wanted to stay with him that night in Midtown, but he didn’t feel a good vibe back, and wasn’t sure why. Maybe she forgot her handcuffs. Maybe she was having her period. Maybe he was having his. Maybe she felt sorry for Hamadi, or, of all things, maybe she actually felt sorry for him. “Next time,” he said and hung up.
He needed to put her out of his head for now, and started shuffling papers on his desk, trying to find his daily schedule. He called in Gallagher and rattled off the names of five different chiefs and four deputy commissioners he wanted to see. Then he began bitching about the unions and the press, and just as he did, his cell phone rang. His stomach knotted. It was Breshill.
“What’s up?” he said as he answered it.
“Commissioner! How’s it going? Anything new? I heard you guys went over to see Hamadi. Anything?”
“How the fuck do you know we went to see Hamadi?”
“Commissioner, the assistant director of the New York FBI office, the New York City police commissioner, and the hottest FBI agent in the country walk into MCC, and you don’t think my phone wasn’t ringing off the hook?”
“I can’t get into it right now.”
“I’m not asking, but if something comes up, I trust you’ll keep me in mind.”
“I’ll do that.” As soon as Raymond hung up, he started giving Gallagher more assignments. At one point, he jumped up and said, “I’ve got to go get my shoes shined.”
Gallagher looked at him for a minute and then said, “Okay, what’s up? Did you drink a pot of espresso or have you been eating a bunch of those chocolate coins from Peter Luger’s?
“What?”
“Don’t what me. You haven’t had this much energy in weeks, and all of a sudden, it’s like somebody stuck a jet fuel pipe up your ass.”
Raymond stood there for a second, broke into a smile. Gallagher winced.
“Oh no. what? What did you do?”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Commissioner . . .”
“Jerry, I haven’t done anything you need to know about. Now leave me the fuck alone.” Raymond couldn’t help chuckle as he walked out the door of his office and headed to the elevator, with Archer, as always, in tow. “Jon, let’s go get a shine!”
CHAPTER 27
9:57 am, Thursday, 7 December
It was on.
With all the wiretaps approved by the Justice Department and a federal judge, Agent Jones, operating out of her private office on the 28th floor, designated an entire section of the FBI’s 26th floor Tech Room as the plant—the wire room—for this investigation. They were up now on eight different cell phones by the authority of the FISA court that gave them the legal authority to follow the voice. If the caller told the person he was speaking with to call him at another number, the Feds would be able to hit a switch and get up on that phone without having to go through a three-day warrant approval process.
Phones were normally monitored from 8 am to midnight, unless special circumstances led the authorities to believe the callers might engage in criminal activity outside those hours. Because of that, Jones expanded the plant’s operation to run 24 hours a day, in the event that Samadi and his goons jumped on their phones in the middle of the night. Two dozen civilian translators, eight FBI agents and cops, and a few supervisors were assigned to the plant, and another eighteen JTTF members were put on as stand-by surveillance teams if these guys could be identified.
Chernova was there as well, along with a number of other agents assigned as support staff, tasked with gathering intelligence and following up on any leads. Raymond was attending a community breakfast in the 79th Precinct, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
At 9:57, a call came in to Samadi. The plant hushed as the translator switched on his speaker key to allow a portion of the room to hear the Arabic conversation. As the voice spoke, it was immediately translated into English and posted on all the plant’s screens: “The chariot is ready, and with it, the lightning bolts will come from the eyes of Allah to strike down the infidels.”
There was a pause, and then Samadi’s voice responded: “Good, my son. Stay prepared and stay ready. The time is coming soon when Allah will call you to him.”
Chernova was sending the translated text to both Jones and Raymond. Several of the translators began speaking in Arabic, and one of the supervisors grabbed Chernova’s arm and pulled her close. He whispered in her ear: “That’s the voice of the man who decapitated the district attorney.” He knew what he was talking about. They had listened to those voices on the video made in Dannis’s apartment a hundred times already.
Chernova felt nauseous as she continued to study the screens, typing into her phone without even looking. She sent a separate text to Raymond: “The caller is one of the men that killed Sheilah.” A chill went through him as he read it.
Another call came a few minutes later: “In the name of Allah the Merciful. My brothers and I need two more days. We have eyes on the insects, hundreds of them all in one place at the same time. It will be a glorious victory and Allah will reward us greatly. Stay safe, my brother. As-Salaam-Alaikum.”
“As-Salaam-Alaikum.” The line went dead.
And another call: “My brothers have been walking between the parking garage and the money factory.” Then the line went dead.
Ten minutes after, Jones stormed into the plant, followed by two suits, and huddled with Chernova in a cubicle. On a big screen in the middle of the room, the typewritten translation of this latest exchange began appearing, and next to each line, in red, question marks appeared next to words. The chariot? The insects? Hundreds of them? The parking garage? The money factory?
“What the hell are they talking about?” Jones said to Chernova, but before she could answer, her cell phone rang. It was Raymond.
“I’m here with Jones,” she said. “I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Hey guys,” Raymond said, his voice crackling and amplified. “I’m just leaving Brooklyn. How’s it going?”
Chernova answered, “We’re waiting for our guys to tell us what cell sites these calls were coming from, and then we’ll have a better idea what they’re talking about.”
“I’m free after four o’clock. I’ll stop by,” Raymond said.
“See you then,” Chernova said and disconnected.
As Jones and Chernova continued to stare at the wall monitors, Chernova started speaking, analyzing out loud.
“The chariot could be some kind of large vehicle they’re planning to use, like they did in Nice, London, and Barcelona. It’s right out of the ISIS playbook. Insects are probably people, hundreds of them, maybe Rock Center again . . money factory could be a bank.” She paused and looked directly at Jones. “The insects—that call is coming from the Upper East Side, diagonally across from a Jewish day school, where children ages six through fourteen attend. Two or three hundred kids every day.”
“The money factory?” Jones asked.
“Maybe the New York Stock Exchange. That phone is pinging off a cell tower at Water Street and Wall. It’s got to be a bank, or the stock exchange itself. These could be the two targets, the school and the stock exchange. The chariot—I don’t know yet. Maybe a vehicle with explosives.”
Jones nodded. “Good work, Mila.” She then turned to the people in the room and called them to attention. “Listen up, everyone. We are going on high alert to track these killers. It’s going to be impossible to rely just on their phones, because they don’t use them often enough. You will scour all local mosques, and wherever Arabs hang out in the city. And get your sources out there. Don’t tell them what we’re looking for; just let them know we’ll pay well for good information. Find out if there are any new members who may have joined in the last few weeks. Let’s get on it, people. Let’s get on
it!”
CHAPTER 28
5:55 pm, Friday, 8 December
At dawn, every available member of the joint FBI and the NYPD terrorism task force in New York and New Jersey were put on high alert, to look for who Raymond and Jones now believed were eight terrorists and their Detroit-based leader, Samadi. All available intelligence assets were put on active duty and assigned to work in teams. Throughout the day, they were sent to scour local mosques and known Arab hangouts, running checks on imams, and the like. After an exhaustive number of searches, they were unable to turn up anything that might lead them to the attackers.
It wasn’t until shortly after five that afternoon that the FBI command center at Federal Plaza picked up a single new call to Samadi’s cell phone, just the kind of slip-up they were hoping for. Within minutes, Mila had the translation up on her screen, with Jones and Raymond huddled behind her: “You will see our chariot at the end of the block by the red house and chocolate factory. We are up the street.”
“Where?” Jones asked.
“I can’t tell yet,” Chernova said.
“Get on AT&T,” Jones told her tech specialists, who were able to locate the source of the call inside a relatively small perimeter in the vicinity of Houston and Church Streets. Jones immediately dispatched two surveillance teams to the area, looking for anything that could be linked in any way to the color red and chocolate.
An hour later, one of the agents noticed a candy store on MacDougal and Houston and a firehouse nearby on Church. He relayed what he found to Jones, who asked if any of the teams saw anything nearby those possibles that could be defined as a chariot. Two of the Feds in one of the surveillance teams, of Arab descent, got out of their vehicle and walked along Houston, pretending to be deep in a spirited discussion about the New York Yankees. Houston, a main thoroughfare, had several bars that catered to nearby NYU students and the SoHo crowd. The agents stopped in each, continuing to talk as they looked around, alternating going to the men’s room. They came up with nothing. As they were leaving the last bar, a young Irish waitress came over and asked if she could help them. One of the agents, Azi, smiled and said, “We were supposed to meet a bunch of guys here. Did anyone ask for Azi?”
The Grave Above the Grave Page 14