by Ty Patterson
Awad headed to the Amtrak waiting area which had rows of seats on which passengers slumped, slept, and waited.
Botros positioned himself near the bank of ticket counters. Lines of people stood patiently waiting to buy their tickets and get away from the city.
Masood tried to keep eye contact on the other two but gave up soon. There were just too many people, the station was vast.
He looked around him carefully. There was a police booth in the station, but none of the three men were anywhere close to it. A pair of cops strolled by once. Neither of them gave Masood a second glance.
The three had agreed that if any of them were accosted by a cop, he would open up. The two others would join as soon as they heard shots.
A drunk was lying about ten feet away. A ball cap covered his face; a stained brown coat covered his body. He stank of urine and alcohol and people gave him a wide berth.
Masood flicked his eyes away. Infidel.
He saw families, couples embracing, teenagers texting furiously on their phones. Office workers, old men, and women.
Office workers – he hoped Nihad had gotten his message. He wiped the thought and focused on the task on hand.
Eight forty-five.
Deep breathing.
He went to a ticketing machine and bought a ticket to the first destination on the screen. The two others would be buying similar tickets. He held the ticket in his hand and went back to his position, looking across the crowd as if waiting for fellow travelers.
The clock crawled agonizingly slowly.
Eight fifty-three.
Nothing changed where Masood stood.
He detached his mind the way The Ghul had taught them and thought about the glory awaiting them.
His hand slid under his coat and fingered the butt of his AR-15.
It felt comfortable.
Remember. Point and shoot.
Don’t bother aiming
Just press the trigger.
Magazine change when empty.
If you aren’t dead by then.
He nodded to himself and a passing commuter nodded back.
Fool. You’ll be dead in a few minutes.
Eight fifty-nine.
He drew a deep breath, tried one last time to spot his men.
He couldn’t.
He threw off his overcoat in one practiced move.
He opened his mouth and roared in Arabic.
‘DEATH TO THE INFIDELS.’
The AR-15 filled his hands, the barrel started rising.
Gasps. The first screams. The nearest started ducking.
But suddenly the hall was transformed.
People shrugged off coats.
Guns appeared.
Brown and blue uniforms filled the hall.
Trap. It’s a trap.
Masood’s thoughts raced as he took in the sudden appearance of cops and guns.
Hundreds of guns.
All trained on him.
Another thought raced through him.
The mission should go on.
The AR-15 continued its upward move and then a blur caught at the edge of his vision.
He ignored it.
The blur became bigger.
He turned, just as his finger crept over the trigger.
The blur became the drunk.
Minus the cap, the coat. Minus the sprawl.
A lean machine flying at him.
Masood started depressing the trigger.
Then he was falling.
Zeb, the drunk, slammed into him and yelled.
‘DON’T SHOOT. NEED HIM ALIVE.’
A hand went under the gun arm, swept it up and bullets sprayed the ceiling.
More screams.
Panic. But controlled panic. The flood of cops doing their job efficiently.
Zeb swept the man’s feet from underneath them and they fell.
Masood kicked his legs up to dislodge his attacker, but Zeb dodged them.
Masood brought up the gun again, wanting to let loose shots that counted.
Zeb countered, gripped his right wrist and forced it back.
His eyes burned in the fallen man, the beast yapped and surged through him and his forehead rocketed forward.
Masood’s eye brow split.
Another blow, his nose split.
Blood ran down the extremist’s face, onto the floor.
Masood lunged up, screaming, yelling hate and venom.
Zeb broke his wrist, then dislocated his shoulder.
The screaming and yelling turned into a whimper.
A punch to the man’s throat rendered the man limp, the fight leaving him like a pricked balloon emptying.
Zeb rolled him over roughly, patted him down and cuffed him, ignoring the man’s groans.
He then looked up at the circle of guns covering him.
He rose and let the cops haul the man away.
Cops, plain-clothes policemen and women, ESU teams and dogs dotted the vast floor wherever the eye roamed. Few travelers remained and they were shepherded out quickly.
He searched for Botros and Awad.
Botros had twisted his gun up beneath his coat and planned to fire through it.
He heard Masood’s yell and opened his mouth to join the call, to rain lead and death.
The call got stifled in his throat as a massive hand clamped over his mouth. Another gripped his right hand and squeezed it in a vice.
The vice tightened and his wrist snapped.
Rough hands turned him around and his dazed eyes met the dark eyes of a black giant.
The giant rumbled, ‘In my day, terrorists were tougher.’ A fist the size of a baseball mitt headed his way and his world went dark.
Awad couldn’t even get his gun up.
The moment his hand darted under his coat, hundreds of guns emerged and trained on him. Dark round barrels pointed his way, waited for his next move.
‘Go on. Make our day,’ a voice drawled.
A good-looking man came into his vision and slapped his hands away and the cops cuffed him.
Zeb reached Bwana and Roger, silently bumped fists and turned to the ESU commander urgently,
‘Where’s The Ghul?’
The Ghul was with the Flayer.
The Flayer had picked him up at a red light on East Fordham Road in the Bronx at 7 a.m. He peered outside as the HOF killer slid inside and seated himself.
‘So this is where you hang out, huh?’
The Ghul ignored him and looked silently ahead.
‘Big day for you, dude!’
He gunned his car forward and reached out to turn on the radio. The Ghul slapped his hands away.
‘Don’t.’
‘Dude, let’s hear what’s going on. Whatever your men have been up to. Aren’t you interested?’
‘No.’ The brown eyes blazed at the Flayer. ‘They will succeed or they will fail. Either way it no longer matters. Now it’s my turn.’
The Flayer chuckled softly. ‘I like your attitude, man. Focus. Mission. That kind of shit is sweet to hear. Just pray that your men don’t fail. All that planning would be such a waste.’
‘They won’t.’ The Ghul’s voice was low and fierce.
The Flayer lifted his shoulders in a have-it-your-way shrug and drove in silence. They had initially planned to be at the station where the Flayer would grab Sarah Howell and The Ghul another victim. They changed the plan once the first set of attacks failed.
The Flayer told The Ghul about his new plan and got an approving nod.
It was simpler, less risky.
Was less theatrical for sure, but the video of the double killing would suck in all the eyeballs on the planet.
The Flayer watched his passenger from the corner of his eyes a few times. The Ghul remained silent, looked out the window, a pair of shades covering his face.
‘You got some balls, buddy.’ He broke the silence finally. ‘The whole city is looking for your men and yet you sent them bold as brass to the shoot
ing. I dunno where they were holed up, but surely you ran the risk of someone detecting them.’
The Ghul looked at him in disbelief. ‘I have been planning this for years. The risk was very low. The photos these guys had out there were old, about eight years old. They have changed since then. On top of that, I made them wear cheek pads and contacts. It doesn’t take much to fool people. Surely you know that. No one’s spotted you!’
The Flayer chuckled; the chuckle became a rich laugh. ‘Yeah. People are dumb aren’t they! You know the majority of those wanted photos the cops circulate – hardly anyone recognizes them.’
The Ghul turned to watching the city flash past.
He had carefully chosen the apartments for the five men. All of them were in blocks that saw transient population, short term rentals. Students, traveling businessmen, company apartments. They were in neighborhoods where people minded their own business. Friendships weren’t struck.
That was a reason why he had gone along with the Flayer. Why he had latched on to the killer’s basement as the kill site.
The Flayer didn’t have immediate neighbors. The distant ones were never seen.
He had boasted that he went months without seeing his nearest neighbor and didn’t remember what the man looked like. The Ghul believed him when he saw the layout of the row houses on the street.
The car slowed and The Ghul came back to the present.
A cruiser flashed past, and then another, three more, lights flashing, sirens ringing.
The Flayer drove without change in speed, overtook cars and in each of them The Ghul saw the same expressions.
Shock.
Drivers with mouths open. Reaching out to turn the volume up.
‘Looks like whatever you planned, went down well, buddy.’ The Flayer said in satisfaction. ‘You sure you don’t want to hear?’
‘No.’
Traffic bunched and far ahead they could see diversions, turning the snake like lines away from routes that would have led to Penn. The Flayer flashed his blinker, hung a right, and swung away.
Fifteen minutes of driving, more urgency now, focused on the present.
They entered Greenwich Village.
‘She might cancel her trip?’
‘She won’t. The Flayer was confident. ‘She takes the bus from the Port Authority Terminal if the trains aren’t running. She never cancels. Her business is her life. She never drives. She can work on the train or the bus.’
He idled two houses away, their eyes on Howell’s door. It swung open at eight thirty promptly and Sarah Howell rushed out, her daughter behind her. She locked the door, spoke something to her daughter, walked to street level and looked around.
For a cab.
The Flayer slid out smoothly as if he had been driving along, slowed when he saw the pair of women and rolled down his windows.
‘Hiya, Ms. Howell. How’re you doing?’
She paused for a split second to process his face and her face brightened. ‘Hey, Trent. Fancy seeing you here. How have you been?’
Her eyes flicked to The Ghul.
‘He works with me, ma’am. I was in the neighborhood. Thought I spotted you. Hi, Kirsten.’
The teenager flashed a brief smile at them and went back to her texting.
Howell exchanged a few more pleasantries, looked distract as she ran her eyes either side of the street.
‘You’re looking for a cab?’
‘Yeah. You heard what’s happened, didn’t you? Cabs are in short supply. The trains aren’t running from Penn either. I’ll have to take a bus to Trenton.’
‘Hop in, ma’am. I’ll be happy to drop you off. You too, Kirsten, I’ll let you off at the subway.’
Sarah Howell’s face brightened, the warmth deepened in her voice.
‘You sure, Trent? I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.’
‘It’s nothing, ma’am. It would be my pleasure.
The Ghul got out, held the door open for them and when they were seated, the Flayer moved off.
It’s as easy as that when people trust you.
Sarah Howell met his eyes in the mirror.
‘You heard what happened, Trent? These evil people will stop at nothing.’
He flashed an easy grin.
‘There are some folks like that, ma’am.’
You’re with two of them.
Beatty wasn’t at Penn. Neither was The Ghul.
The NYPD searched the terminal thoroughly and when Chang and Pizaka returned, Zeb read the news in their faces.
‘Not here,’ Pizaka said grimly.
Masood’s mail to his sister had been sent from a payphone, several blocks from Penn.
Werner had detected the incoming packet of data, had read it and had flagged Zeb and his team. It alerted the task force. Patrol cars surrounded the booth but found it empty. They searched a few blocks but found no Masood or no groups of men.
Plans were put in place swiftly and within two hours of the mail, ESU units and counter terrorism teams approached the terminal discreetly. Plainclothes police men and women, disguised themselves as commuters, flooded the inside.
Zeb, Bwana, and Roger joined them, Zeb as a drunk.
The security cameras spotted Masood, Botros, Awad, and Werner took a few minutes to run the algorithms. When it was sure, it sent an alert and tracked the three men with the available cameras.
Zeb convinced the Pizaka and Chang to hold off taking down the men till the last possible minute. He wanted to see if The Ghul and Beatty would show up.
They were the key.
Zeb squeezed the sick feeling inside and shoved it back inside.
His mind began racing.
If The Ghul’s missing, will he be with the Flayer?
Are they planning something else?
‘Nothing on the men?’
‘No. Clean. Other than the tickets they bought and some change. They never intended to travel. Those destinations were the first on the machine. Explosives teams are going through the terminal.’
‘Interrogation?’
‘They have clammed up. They’re talking about rights, lawyers, that kind of shit.’ He didn’t keep the disgust out of his voice. ‘It’ll take a while to get anything worthwhile out of them.’
Zeb nodded. He would have questioned them his way, but this time they didn’t have the element of surprise.
‘Can you run the recognition program on all the cameras? Maybe The Ghul dropped them off. Maybe we can get a plate for their ride.’
Chang made calls. The Commissioner came and with that the media juggernaut came into its own.
Zeb drifted away thinking furiously. He could sense The Ghul in the city, the way a predator sensed danger, felt the presence of another hunter.
He didn’t register Bwana’s words till he tapped him on his shoulder.
‘Your phone. Meghan’s calling you.’
He stuck his earpiece and thumbed it. ‘Yeah?’
‘Zeb!’
He was running before more words came out of her. Her tone, the urgency in it was enough for the beast in him to unleash and power him out.
‘We have a woman missing.’
Chapter 31
February 19th -25th
He raced past Chang, heard him yell something, and ignored it. Two pairs of footsteps pounded behind him.
Roger, Bwana.
They hustled outside, the black SUV roared to life and rubber burned. He punched buttons and took the call over the SUV’s speakers.
‘Who?’
‘Remember I said we had made contact with the gym’s female clientele. All but one? We tried contacting the last one today. She’s missing.’
Her voice became a staccato burst of facts.
Sarah Howell. On her way to Trenton. Normally took the train from Penn, but messaged her co-workers and said she would take a bus.
‘She uses a Blackberry and the last message from her was at eight fifty. Last location was just outside her home.’
Ten thirty now.
He breathed deeply, once, twice, the beast went back to the dark corner. It paced.
Her voice came back again. More urgent.
‘Her teenage daughter is missing too. She catches the subway and meets friends. Her buddies tried mom’s phone and when they got no reply, they called Howell’s office.’
‘Zeb?’ She asked when he made no reply.
‘I’m here.’
‘Where are you heading?’
‘The Bronx.’
‘You think Beatty got her?’
‘Sure of it. Her daughter too. This is what The Ghul and he were leading to. This was what he meant in that last video message. Check the internet sites.’
‘We are. Nothing on it.’
Her voice was fearful. ‘We don’t have an address. We might be too late.’
‘What have you done so far?’
Roger reached out and punched coordinates in the satnav, asked the system to choose the quickest route. Zeb inclined his head in thanks and listened to Meghan.
Bills, taxes, employers, driving licenses, medical records, internet history.
‘We have even called the homes directly. There’s a team doing that even now. We are down to about twenty addresses in the Bronx.’
‘Check Howell’s phone, calendar, computer. Did she have an appointment with Beatty?’
‘No,’ she replied promptly. ‘That was the first thing I checked. Neither did she exchange any messages or mails from anyone remotely suspicious.’
He caught Bwana’s look in the mirror, grim, foreboding as he typed something on his phone. The phone angled toward Zeb and a search engine’s page came up.
‘Bro?’
Zeb looked up.
‘What if he’s not in the Bronx?’
‘We are screwed then.’
Tension ratcheted in the vehicle at that, a feeling that went through the air and to Meghan back in their office.
‘Zeb,’ her voice was desperate.
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s had them for more than ninety minutes.’
‘I know.’
Ten forty-five.
Forty-five minutes to an hour to get to Bronx in traffic. Traffic’s really bad today.
Half an hour to set something up.
