“So, you went yellow at the last minute, huh?”
This time, when the young man stopped praying, he glared at Sandor.
Sandor stepped forward and grabbed him by the neck. “Where’d he go?”
The young man did not answer, but Sandor caught the nervous sideward glance in the direction of the staircase below.
Sandor turned to Ferriello. “See if you can get anything from him,” he said, “I’m going after the last of these scumbags.” Without awaiting a response he handed the policeman the radio. Then he drove his elbow into the side of the terrorist’s head, not waiting to watch the would-be assassin crumple to the ground in a whimpering heap as he took off down the stairs.
————
A few floors below, Sandor reached the metal doors that served as emergency exits for the movie house. He checked the first one, then continued down another flight. The door on that next landing showed signs of what he was looking for. It had been jimmied open, likely with a knife.
The last terrorist was going to make his way out to the street from the theater.
Pulling out his switchblade Sandor easily managed to trip the lock and made his way inside.
It was a huge theater and, at this late hour, the seats in this upper section were empty. His eyes adjusting to the darkness, Sandor stayed in a crouch as he made his way toward the back row, almost tripping over a uniformed security guard who was sprawled across the carpeted steps, clutching at his side, blood spread across his white shirt.
“Got a warning call on my radio,” the guard said in a raspy voice. “I tried to stop him,”
“Hang in there pal, help is coming,” Sandor said. Then he spotted the sixth terrorist making his way across the aisle, one case in each hand, hurrying toward the emergency exit on the far side of the building that led to fire stairs exiting onto the street.
Sandor did not hesitate. Staying low, his gun drawn, he sprinted through a row of seats until he closed in, just as the man reached the door. Sandor stood tall and called out to him. “You make one more move and you’re a dead man.”
Abdullah turned, his expression calm, a look more of curiosity than alarm. “I can make these explode any time I want,” he said.
Sandor knew that the man was at a disadvantage, holding a case in each hand. From what he had seen from the cases recovered in the elevators upstairs, he knew the terrorist would have to drop one of them to get to the detonator. That was the only edge Sandor needed. “You have a choice,” he said as he moved nearer.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Okay.” Sandor stopped, quickly doing the calculations on angle, timing and—most critical of all—the man’s access to the triggering device at the bottom of the case. “I’m Sandor. What’s your name?”
The young man responded as if the question came as a complete surprise. “Abdullah. My adopted name is Abdullah.”
“You have any idea what you have in that case, Abdullah?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Want to tell me?”
Abdullah thought about it, then said, “It is retribution for the acts of all the infidels.”
“The infidels?”
“Yes.”
Sandor nodded. “You grew up here in New York City?”
“The Bronx.”
“Uh huh. So the infidels, they include all of those people you went to school with who aren’t Muslims?”
“Don’t play word games with me.”
“I’m not playing games. I just want to understand who you expect to kill and why.”
“I want to punish all of those who do not adopt the word of Allah.”
“And you think Allah would want you to randomly murder a lot of people, including yourself? Including a lot of other good Muslims?”
He responded with another look of confusion.
“What you have in that case is going to kill everyone in its path, not just infidels. You give any thought to the innocent Muslims you’re going to slaughter?”
Abdullah paused, then said, “They will die for the good of Allah.”
“What about the people who haven’t adopted the word of Islam yet? They’ll die before they have the opportunity to choose your faith.”
He shook his head. “There is no choice, there is only Allah.”
“You’re wrong Abdullah, you have a choice. You can put those cases aside and walk away to follow whatever path you want in life.”
“That is not a choice, and I do not want to talk with you anymore. I only want to leave here and reach the moment and place of my destiny.”
“You meeting with one of those cars? Is that the place of your destiny?”
Abdullah responded with a look of disgust. “I have nothing to do with the cars. The cars are for cowards, those who feel the need to survive, who are not willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their faith.”
“Do they really expect to survive the attack?” Sandor still had no idea what the cars had to do with the anthrax, but it seemed the right question, especially when Abdullah responded with a bitter laugh.
“They won’t be anywhere near the place of my destiny,” he proudly declared, then realized he had said too much. “I told you I don’t want to speak with you anymore. Go away,” he demanded, his voice rising as he held up the two plastic cases.
“All right, take it easy,” Sandor said. “But before I go . . . ,” he continued, then was done talking. He fired a shot that caught Abdullah in the chest, causing the young man to stumble backward and drop one of the cases. From there Sandor would have been pleased to aim at his legs, then rush forward and grab the bags. But Abdullah managed to hang on to the second case and was already reaching for the detonator at the bottom. Sandor had no choice but to fire twice into the young man’s forehead.
Abdullah jerked back and hit the wall. Then he slid to the floor, dead before the second lethal case fell harmlessly to the ground in front of him.
The few late-night patrons in the main section of the theater below reacted to the sound of the gunshots by screaming for help and running frantically toward the exits. Sandor grabbed the two cases and hustled back to the fallen security guard. There he found Ferriello already kneeling beside the man, applying first aid.
“FBI has the punk upstairs. He should give us some answers,” the narcotics detective said. “Told me his pal was heading for this theater.”
“Okay. I’ll get these bags to the bomb squad, then I’ve got to make a call.”
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
CRAIG RAABE WAS standing in a situation room located on a sub-basement level in Langley. Before him were a collection of murky images on several clear video monitors, known as transparent OLEDs. It was still a couple of hours before dawn, but he, a team of technicians, and three NCS agents were watching satellite photos of cars, SUVs, and vans pouring out of a garage on Payson Avenue in the upper reaches of Manhattan. A number of FBI and NYPD vehicles were closing in, but it was too late to stop any but the last few of the vehicles.
The door to the room opened and Deputy Director Byrnes walked in. “What have we got?”
“The tip on the location of this garage was right on the money,” Raabe told him. “We’re just a little late, and we still can’t make any sense of it.”
“Hold the thought,” the DD said, “I’ve got Sandor on the line.” He walked to one of the workstations, arranged a call transfer, then flipped Sandor onto speakerphone. “Go,” he ordered.
“All six cases have been recovered and none of the toxin was released, that’s the main thing,” Sandor responded. “The FBI bomb squad has already secured the anthrax. It was messy, but we got it done.”
“How messy?”
“Five couriers down. I also had to take out two of Adina’s men. They brought the goods to town and were on their way home.”
“You get anything from either of them?”
“One was DOA. The other survived just long eno
ugh to say some nasty things about my mother. Otherwise not much. I asked him about the cars and he laughed at me. All he said was that we would know in a few hours.”
“That seems right,” Raabe told him. “We just watched them leave an indoor garage in Washington Heights.”
“They all look like they’re heading to the same place?”
“Don’t seem to be, that’s part of the problem. They’re moving in all different directions.”
The DD interrupted. “Let’s get back to what happened in Times Square.”
Sandor’s voice came over the loudspeaker again. “There were six couriers from that mosque DHS identified in the Bronx. They arrived at the hotel, met with Adina’s goons and picked up the cases. It looks like they brought the detonators, attached them to the base of each bag with an adhesive strip, and they were ready to go when we arrived. Four were terminated by the FBI, NYPD and me. A fifth gave up when the shooting started. Then I went after the last one.”
“So five are dead?” Byrnes asked.
“Affirmative.”
“And both of Adina’s men.”
“Completely.”
“Doesn’t anyone take a live prisoner anymore?”
“Ferriello took the sixth man into custody. Wasn’t as loyal to Allah as he thought he would be when the moment of truth arrived.”
“And?”
“He had some assigned location for igniting the case. Won’t say where, and doesn’t seem to know anything about the cars. The bomb squad says the devices were rigged with timers, but none had been set. The detonators also had panic buttons, they could have blown them whenever they wanted.”
“Hence the decision not to try and take them alive.”
“That’s how I saw it, sir. Odd thing about the last guy, he spoke like he intended to be a martyr. He didn’t seem to have any intention of setting the timer, he was going down with the ship. Said the men driving the cars are a bunch of cowards, not willing to die for Allah.”
“So he mentioned the cars.”
“I asked him, but that was all he would say.”
Byrnes turned to Raabe. “What do these vehicles look like they’re up to?”
Raabe shook his head. “No clue. If Adina’s plan was to have those six men explode anthrax all over town, why would he need the cars?”
“A diversion,” Sandor suggested. “Maybe the cars are supposed to do something before the anthrax is released. The drivers couldn’t know that these six lunatics have been stopped, not yet. The hotel here is in a state of panic, but it’s also in lockdown.”
Byrnes had a chilling thought. “We saw Adina work his bait-and-switch in Baton Rouge. What if those cases aren’t holding the anthrax?”
“I had the same thought,” Sandor reported. “We already had one opened and tested by experts from the Bureau. These are the real goods. The anthrax was packaged at the center of the case, surrounded by a plastic foam. The case was hermetically sealed, totally airtight. The lab techs had a tough time getting it open, but they say the stuff is pure.”
“And deadly,” Raabe said. “I also got the word on that, sir.”
“What if there’s more anthrax than we thought?” Sandor asked. “What if Adina has a contingency plan?”
“Maybe we should let the media know a terrorist plot to release anthrax has been terminated,” Byrnes suggested. “Maybe if the drivers hear that on the radio they’ll pull back. The last of those six men told you the drivers are cowards, they’re not out there to die for a cause.”
“Any word about terrorism to the media right now is going to increase the panic here, which is already growing. Remember, we’ve had multiple shootings and a huge law enforcement presence right in the middle of Times Square.”
“I understand.”
“Not to mention that we still want Adina. We need to delay any report of his plot failing for as long as possible.”
“Wait a minute,” Byrnes said, “if these drivers are not doing this for a cause then they must be doing it for money. What if the cars have nothing to do with anthrax? What if it’s all about the narcotics being shipped in?”
One of the other agents in the room, from NCS, said to Byrnes, “We may be about to get an answer, sir.” He was holding out a phone to the DD. “I have Assistant Director Bebon from the FBI on the line for you.”
Bebon was patched in and placed on the speakerphone.
“My men got to the garage in Washington Heights in time to stop a few of the cars,” he said.
“We saw some of the action via satellite,” Byrnes reported.
“We have those drivers in custody. More important, they grabbed a man inside the building who appears to be in charge. Name of Miguel Lasco. We’ve already brought up the dossier on him. Venezuelan dissident. Anti-American rabble-rouser. Arrests for narcotics trafficking but no convictions. The critical part is that he’s willing to talk.”
————
Lasco’s willingness to talk was due in part to the fact that he saw no way out and in part to his fear of Adina. His agreement to cooperate also came with the usual demands for immunity and protection. Since the situation in New York was at code red and most of the vehicles were already gone, the lead agent on the ground had little choice but to get permission from D.C. to promise Lasco whatever he wanted—provided the information was in time to prevent a disaster.
NCTC linked in and quickly verified through voice recognition that Lasco was on several of the early calls they had recorded between Washington Heights and the area near Barranquitas, Venezuela. He was a key player in whatever Adina had orchestrated for all these vehicles and admitted that a large shipment of cocaine was expected in New York in the next few days. More crucial than that, he claimed to know where the cars were going and what they would do when they got there.
But, if he was to be believed, he knew nothing about an anthrax attack.
The interview was being conducted in Lasco’s office on the ground floor of the garage. By the time he finished explaining what was about to happen, the two agents interrogating him and the third who was recording the exchange were all speechless. The senior man had rushed from the room, phoned Bebon, and hastily arranged this conference call, which included everyone on the task force who could be found at this hour of the morning.
“With so many of us on the line,” Bebon told them, “this will go much better if no one interrupts my agent. I’ll ask the questions as needed. Now go ahead,” he ordered.
“There are over a hundred cars involved,” the agent began. “Most have already left from this parking garage, the rest are coming from an outdoor lot in the South Bronx, near the mosque we discussed earlier. The drivers have all been assigned bridges and tunnels, covering every means of entering and leaving Manhattan. The earliest departures are heading to New Jersey, Brooklyn and so forth. They’ll be turning around and coming back to the city at the appointed time.”
“What is the appointed time?” Bebon asked.
“Oh-seven-hundred today, sir. The plan is to obstruct every means of ingress and egress on Manhattan Island. At the arranged time the drivers will maneuver themselves into positions in each tunnel and on each bridge so they are side by side, covering all lanes, three deep. As they reach the three-quarter point on each bridge or inside each tunnel they will slow their vehicles, then the trailing cars and vans will intentionally turn and collide with each other. The second row of drivers will do the same. This will form an impassable roadblock, with hundreds of rush-hour vehicles brought to a stop behind them on each bridge and inside every tunnel. Then the drivers of those disabled vehicles will get out, light preset fuses, and jump into the lead vehicles, which will have stopped to pick them up and drive them away.”
“The fuses. What are they intended to ignite?”
“The vehicles that will intentionally crash into the others at slow speeds have their trunks and cargo bays filled with gasoline and some other explosive materials, all pretty much garden-variety stuff. I’m not
sure what that will do on the bridges except to make clearing the wreckage more difficult and possibly impact the cars stopped just behind them. But the air drafts and ventilation systems in the four tunnels are another matter.” He paused. “It could turn them into raging infernos for all the people stuck behind them.”
“And they’re planning to do this on every bridge and every tunnel, in both directions?” Bebon asked.
“Yes sir, every one.”
For several seconds no one spoke. Then Bebon said, “We need as many boots on the ground as we can organize, and I mean right now. We’re looking for more than a hundred cars and vans with no special markings mixed up in what will become a typical rush-hour morning in New York City. I’ll get out an APB. We need to stop them.”
————
When Bebon opened the call to questions everyone began speaking at once. Craig Raabe picked up the phone that had connected Sandor, cutting him off from the chaos.
“You get all that?”
“I did. I’ll report all that information to the team here, but there’s nothing I can do on my end to make a difference. I need to get out of here, and I’ll need your help.”
“You going north?”
“I am, and in a few minutes every helicopter in Manhattan is going to be spoken for. I need a ride, and I need it now.”
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
EN ROUTE TO STEWART AIRPORT
AS BOBBY FERRIELLO sped Sandor crosstown to the Twenty-third Street heliport, Craig Raabe made the necessary calls to commandeer a chopper. It was after 6 A.M.
“FBI is already on their way to Stewart,” Sandor said as he loaded the magazine for his Walther. “I want to be there too.”
“Understood,” Ferriello said. “You want company?”
Sandor looked up at the police detective. “Thanks, but you’re going to have your hands full here.”
Ferriello nodded.
“And you’ve already done plenty.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
When they reached the landing port the helicopter was waiting, the rotors already spinning in the predawn darkness.
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