Bottom line … Bradley respected and trusted Doug Brock.
He was a good cop, as good as Bradley had in the department. Nothing Bradley had seen since Doug’s injury had changed that, not even the incident at the used car lot. It was an embarrassment for Bradley personally and for the department, but he knew that Doug was acting on good, first-hand information. It just didn’t work out.
If Doug was putting his job on the line, actually willing to quit to demonstrate his seriousness, then he must consider what he had learned to be important. And at the very least, it was worth hearing.
So Bradley heard him out. He heard about the retracing of steps in the city, about the self-parking lots in each building, and about the theory that Gharsi was in one of those parking lots when he was photographed.
He heard it all without interrupting, without asking a single question until it was over. Then he had a few, the first one being, “How do you know where you went that day?”
“Doesn’t matter … I know,” Doug said. Jessie had not had the legal authority to get his cell phone records without a court order, even though he had given her permission. There was no need to throw her under this particular bus, which was why he hadn’t mentioned the dropped cell phone signals.
“Are you getting any of your memory back?”
“No.”
“Do you know why you were following Gharsi?”
“No. It’s possible he wasn’t alone; he could have been with the person I was tailing,” Doug said.
“But you don’t know that?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you have a list of the parking lots you’re talking about?”
“Of course,” Doug said, and handed him a piece of paper with the addresses on it.
“Okay, so how are you reading this?” Bradley asked. “What do you think is going on?”
“I think these buildings are targets, and I think the bull’s-eyes are the parking lots underneath them. The first attack on the World Trade Center was done that way, and it could have brought the building down if it were placed in a different position. I think Gharsi learned from that, and he’s trying to bring more vulnerable buildings down all over the city.”
“This is the same Gharsi that died in a plane crash?”
“This was before that. Maybe he has other people picking up the slack, or maybe he faked his death. We have to assume the worst.”
“And the weapon they would use to take these buildings down? Car bombs?”
Doug nodded. “Yes. The kind of cars that you find in used car lots.”
Bradley believed that Doug was wrong. He understood his concern, and thought it was absolutely correct for Doug to have come to him with it. But if he had to quantify the chances of this threat being real, he would put it at ten percent, probably less.
Of course, if he did nothing, and Doug was right, the consequences were easy to foresee. He had a quick image of the press conference he would hold after buildings came down all over New York:
“So you were warned this might happen, Captain?” the questioner would ask. Bradley would nod and say, “I was, but I figured there was a ninety percent chance it wasn’t real, so I didn’t do anything. I guess I was wrong. My condolences to the thousands of families on the loss of their loved ones. Next question.”
Bradley figured that kind of quote probably wouldn’t play too well, so there was no doubt that he would follow Doug’s advice and “assume the worst.”
“What’s your choice, Captain?” Doug asked.
“I think you’re probably misreading this, but there’s also a small chance that you’re right. So I’ll take it to Homeland Security, on a priority basis.”
“Thank you.”
“Be careful,” Bradley said. “If there’s anything behind this, let the Feds handle it.”
Doug nodded. “Works for me.”
“You’re lying and you’re full of shit.”
Another nod. “And from what I’m told, that’s pretty typical of me.”
Doug left, reclosing the door behind him and leaving Bradley to figure out the best way to do this. He would call Congers, that was for certain, and Congers would bring it to Metcalf. But just a phone call was not enough. Bradley had an excellent instinct for ass-covering, especially his own. He would call, but he’d also convey the situation in writing. If disaster struck, he would not lose a “he said-she said” confrontation.
There was a knock on Bradley’s door, and it opened. It was Jerry Bettis. “I saw Doug come out of here,” Bettis said. “What was that about?”
“Glad you came in; he had an interesting story to tell, and we’ve got to get a hold of Congers. I also need you to draft a letter for me.”
“What’s going on?” Bettis asked.
“I’ll tell you, but I promised it would stay in this room. So the only person you talk to about it is Congers.”
“I understand,” Bettis said.
The second time the explosives were delivered was very different from the first.
They arrived the initial time in large containers on a huge truck, straight from the pier, late at night. So that there was no chance of attracting attention, this time they came in three enclosed pickup trucks, hours apart, during the day. Since the lot also sold pickup trucks, no one would have any reason to think anything unusual was going on.
Gharsi had by this time moved into a house in Rutherford, supplied to him by Bennett. Gharsi was not thrilled with the idea of Bennett knowing where he was staying, but he consented to stay there because it was convenient to the used car dealership. More importantly, Gharsi knew that Bennett would never turn on him, at least not until he got his money.
It would take Gharsi two days, arriving and leaving only at night under cover of darkness, to assemble and load the materials. He had relented on his earlier demand to have Bennett present for all of it, though he stood by his insistence that Luther Castle be there.
The explosives were called C-130, and they were of the plastic variety. Their power was awesome: on a pound for pound basis, their detonation force was more powerful than anything that did not result in a mushroom cloud. When well positioned in a building, as these would be, there were very few structures that would remain standing. And even those would sustain massive damage.
Once Gharsi arrived for the first session, the room with the twelve cars in it was locked, with him and Castle inside. The regular employees of the dealership were kept in the dark; they had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Castle was uncomfortable with being locked in with a devastating amount of explosives, but he respected Gharsi’s obvious confidence and expertise. Still, he would be glad when this was over, and the loaded cars were out of there.
In two days, the men would be brought in, and they would be given their instructions. Then they would be on their way, and Castle would be a rich and powerful man.
And the world would never be the same.
I had a golden retriever mix named Ripley. She died when I was twenty-seven.
She was a great dog; I rescued her from a shelter when she was a puppy, and I had her for thirteen years. We’d go everywhere together; she made coming home to an empty house infinitely more bearable.
The day she died was one of the most upsetting of my life; she lay in my arms as the vet gave her an injection to end her suffering. But as devastating as that day was, it has taken on a new importance today, because of one simple fact.
I remember it.
I am on the way to Jessie’s house, and I just saw a dog on the street that looked like Ripley. It triggered memories, including the day that she died. That was in 2007, the first thing I have remembered about the last ten years.
It is such an exciting moment that I almost crash into the car in front of me, slamming on my brakes to avoid rear-ending the woman, who stares daggers at me in the mirror.
I try to force myself to remember more, starting with other things about Ripley. I come up with some, but none aft
er 2005. I feel desperate, trying to will memories into my head, but I get nowhere. I need to calm myself, to just let things happen, to let more memories flow naturally into my mind.
Nothing happens; I draw a blank.
When I get to Jessie’s, she obviously can tell there is something important going on, but she naturally thinks it is about the case. “What happened? What did Bradley say?”
“He didn’t believe me, but he realizes he can’t take a chance on being wrong. So he’s going to call Congers and let Homeland Security deal with it.”
“And he won’t tell Bettis?”
“I didn’t mention Bettis; I told him not to tell anyone, and he agreed.”
She stares at my face, her intuitive instincts raging. “What is it, Doug? There’s something else going on.”
“I remembered the day my dog died … in 2007.”
“Doug, that’s … are you sure of the date?”
“I’m positive.”
“Is there anything else you can remember?” she asks.
“Not yet. I’m trying, believe me, I’m trying.”
“Don’t try too hard,” she says, “let it come to you. You want something to drink? Maybe a beer? To relax you a little?”
She turns away and opens the refrigerator, standing there for a few moments without apparently getting anything out of it. Now it’s my turn to trust my instincts. I go over to her and hug her gently from behind. “Unless I remember that you’re a serial killer, there is no chance I am going to be that stupid again.”
She doesn’t turn around. “You weren’t stupid; you did what you felt you needed to do. When Johnnie died, you felt like you couldn’t deal with it. You wanted to cut off from the world, from everything and everyone you knew and cared about.”
“Things have changed.”
She shakes her head; she’s not buying it, at least not yet. “When you remember everything, when you have all the facts and feelings in front of you, you’ll make another decision one way or the other. But when it comes to me, when it comes to us, I can’t promise I’ll give you that power again. You need to understand that.”
I gently turn her around, and she lets me. “The only good thing about this whole experience is that it gave me a second chance with you,” I say. “I am not going to blow it, believe me.”
“As your doctor kept saying in the hospital, ‘We won’t know until we know.’”
That’s as much as she’ll give me on this, and that’s okay. I’m going to have to prove myself as we go along, regardless of my progress in getting my memory back.
We finally get back to talking about the case again, and what we might do next. We’ve done our job in turning over what we’ve learned, complete with our theory. Now it’s time to sit back and wait to let others handle it. That’s their job.
“Sitting back and waiting has never been your style,” she says.
“I’m starting to understand that. It’s frustrating not to be in the loop. For all we know, Congers and Metcalf could have told Bradley that I’m nuts, and disregarded what he had to say. That’s if he’s talked to them at all.”
“We need to give them a little time,” she says.
I nod. “Very little.”
“So what now?” she asks, smiling. “Television? A walk? Maybe a nap?”
“I was thinking we could go to a motel.”
The Peter Pan Motel is on Route 4 in Teaneck.
It’s about forty years old, and while it must have been a shiny new addition to the neighborhood back then, it’s fair to say that its best days are behind it.
It’s not convenient enough to stay in for someone wanting to escape high city prices; nicer and newer hotels have opened that are closer. Most of its customers now are people visiting family or friends in the North Jersey area, or salesmen here for a quick attempt to do some business.
I’ve passed the motel many, many times, but I’ve never gone inside, or even been on the grounds.
Except, I’m told, for the time I was shot and fell from a second-story railing onto my head.
I’m playing amateur psychiatrist here, in a desperate attempt to retrieve my memory. My thought is if seeing a dog that looked like Ripley helped me to remember the traumatic day of her death, then maybe coming to this scene will enable me to remember the devastating events that happened here.
Since Jessie was here that day, she’s my guide down memory lane. “It’s around the back,” she says, so that’s where we go.
We take the stairs up to the second floor and walk along the outside corridor, until we stop in front of one of the rooms. She looks around, trying to get her bearings. “I wasn’t actually up here,” she says. “Nate met me down below.”
I look over the railing. The height is not that significant, but the chance of injury is somewhat increased when the person falling lands on his head, rather than his feet.
“Here we are,” she says, walking a few more yards. “I’m pretty sure this is the room.” She then goes to the railing. “This is where you fell; you landed down there. I think the bodies of the two people that were murdered were over there.”
I try to take it all in. I look into the room, and the adjacent ones. I walk to the railing where I was shot. I assume I must have left some blood behind, but it has been cleaned up.
I look over the railing and down, trying to imagine the feeling of falling. I walk back down to where I landed, trying to re-create the feeling of lying there, even though I am certain I must have been unconscious then.
I’m increasingly desperate; I won’t say that panic is setting in, but it’s getting close. Every instinct in my body tells me that something terrible is about to happen, simply because I can’t get my goddamn mind to work. I envision a day, maybe a week or month after the disaster, when it all finally comes to me. I don’t know how I will be able to handle that.
“Try and relax, Doug,” Jessie says, once again successfully reading my mind. I just wish she could read it well enough to tell me what the hell happened that day.
I repeat the process, looking in the rooms, over the rail, forcing myself to relive that day, screaming at my brain to start functioning.
But it won’t.
I can’t remember anything.
I need to find out what is going on.
Just sitting around and hoping that Congers and Homeland Security are taking me seriously is not getting it done. I need to know what is happening, in real time.
I drop Jessie off and head back down to the barracks to talk to Bradley. If he can’t update me I’ll go to Congers, then Metcalf, and eventually work my way up to the president if necessary.
When I get to Bradley’s office, he says, “Please tell me you’re just here for a visit.”
“I’m just here for a visit. What did Congers say?”
“That they would look into it.”
“That’s it?” I ask.
“What did you expect him to say?”
“So did they look into it?”
“I don’t know; I haven’t heard anything back. Check with Bettis.”
I find it hard to believe that he just said what I think he said. “Why would I check with Bettis?”
“I told him to follow up with Congers.”
“Our agreement was that you would tell no one other than Congers and Metcalf.”
Bradley looks genuinely surprised. “Bettis is running the investigation, Doug. Why would you want me not to tell him?”
“He’s running what investigation?”
“The shooting at the motel.”
I am furious, trying to control myself. “Yeah? How the hell is that working out?”
“What is your problem?” he asks, not backing down.
I don’t want to tell him what I suspect about Bettis, because he’s not going to believe me. The word will get back to Bettis, and any advantage we have will get wiped out.
“My problem is that your promises don’t mean shit,” I say.
Bradley says som
ething in response, but I’m not sure what it is, because I’m already out the door, slamming it behind me.
Going to Bradley in the first place was a mistake; I know that now. I’m the one who thinks I have the answer, and I’m the only one who can convey it in a way that has any chance of it getting treated with the importance it deserves.
I should have gone to Congers myself, which is what I am going to do now.
Congers is out when I get to his office, so I ask to speak to Metcalf. I’m told that he is in meetings and can’t be interrupted, so I’m about to set fire to the damn place when Congers finally shows up. He brings me into his office and asks, “This about Jerry Bettis again?”
“Much bigger.”
“This the parking lot theory?”
Well, at least I now know that Bradley actually talked to him about it. “You need to take this seriously,” I say.
“Doug, we take everything seriously. Homeland Security is all about taking everything seriously. There should be a sign above the damn door that says ‘We take everything seriously.’”
“So what are you doing about it?”
“We’re running it down.”
I’m rapidly finding this conversation to be almost as frustrating as the one I just had with Bradley. “What does that mean?”
“You know how many tips we get into this department, Doug? Every day? Hundreds. Every week? Thousands. And we run down every one that has even an iota of credibility. Because the one we don’t treat as important, that’s the one that’s going to bite us in the ass. We can’t afford to be wrong, not even once. Unlike you—being wrong doesn’t seem to bother you at all.”
“So this is on a list somewhere?”
“It is.”
“Do you prioritize?”
“Of course.”
“Then this should be on top of the list.”
“The last time, when we searched the used car place, that was on the top of the list. You were number one with a bullet. This time you didn’t quite make it that high. In case you don’t remember, we found nothing.”
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