The Intercept jf-1

by Dick Wolf

  Gersten carded in, unclipped her shield and her weapon, and set everything on the nearest countertop, then went back to double-lock the hotel door.

  She kept the lights low, unpacking her toiletries by the bathroom sink, then running water to fill the tub. She checked her phone for messages and then, finding none worth listening or responding to at that moment, shed her clothes. She tossed them onto the made bed, where they lay almost in the form of a fractured person. She pulled a plush white Hyatt robe down from the closet and put it on, and sighed. Nothing like soft, laundered cotton.

  She switched on the bathroom fan for white noise, wanting to block out everything for a while. Steam from the hot water drifted up to the dimmed ceiling lights like morning mist. She turned off the faucet when the tub was nearly full, but instead of submersing herself immediately she remained seated on the edge. She ran her hand through the surface, tracing a series of lazy figure eights. The humidity moistened her hands and face. She had been looking forward to this bath for so long, but now… now that it was here, it didn’t feel right. She made waves in the tub with her hand, hoping this was just a momentary hesitancy, trying to convince herself just to get in…

  … but it was no good. She couldn’t do it. Instead, she stood and went back into the hotel room, wandering to the windows. The twenty-sixth floor was not quite high enough for a commanding view of the city, but she could eyeball the building across the street, the people moving in its windows, and all the cars and pedestrians below.

  They were the ones keeping her from her relaxing bath, she realized. The people on the street, out and about on a hot Friday night in July. The people Gersten wanted to be.

  She went back to her phone, checking again for messages. So difficult to unplug. She hoped for something from Fisk, something to engage her restless mind. She really wanted to call him, but she would only be a bother at this point. She opened her laptop on the workstation desk, but there wasn’t anything productive she could do.

  Sometimes she hated this job she loved.

  She looked at her clothes, the empty person they described, lying atop her bed. She thought about her future with Intel, her future with Fisk. Where was she going?

  She was essentially happy, if not totally fulfilled. Just like all those people out on the streets tonight, she realized with a smile. Things felt right, both personally and professionally. Was that enough?

  She realized that these are the thoughts that occur to people stuck alone in hotel rooms on weekend nights.

  She found that she was twisting her robe belt into knots, and made herself stop. She returned to the window, like a prisoner hoping for inspiration. After this weekend, she promised herself, she would make some decisions. She would map out a plan. She would define her aspirations and act accordingly.

  But right now she was too concerned with the immediate future of those down on the street below to do much of anything.

  Out there, somewhere, was the man they were searching for.

  Part 6:

  Intercepts

  Saturday, July 3

  Chapter 27

  Bin-Hezam showered, shaved, and was dressed in his dishdasha by 6:00 A.M.

  He had consulted the prayer time website for New York City before departing Riyadh. Fajr was at 6:03. He unrolled his rug and reveled in the holy connection of Salah, which he shared at that very moment with a billion and a half of the faithful around the world.

  Yet, among those billion and a half, he felt the special light of God shining down upon him alone.

  When he was finished, Bin-Hezam rolled up his rug and dressed for the day. Stonewashed blue jeans, a short-sleeved black cotton pullover, a loose-fitting dark blue nylon Windbreaker, and black Adidas sneakers. He had stowed the pistol, ammunition, and shoulder holster in the closet safe in his hotel room. The combination was set to the month and year of the birthday of Mohammed: 04570.

  Bin-Hezam still had plenty of time to fulfill his duties before returning to his room by Dhuhr at 12:35. Too much time, almost. He wanted to act, not to think. Time had slowed down on him. Things would seem different near the end, of this he had been warned. And so he tried to submit to the strange experience, rather than resist it. But it was more important to him than ever that he not miss prayer and the moment of communion that gave him strength.

  When he was ready, he left his room, rode the elevator down to the lobby alone, and exited the hotel, turning right on Twenty-eighth Street. The heat was there early, but not the humidity — not yet.

  On that early weekend day, the flower shops were just opening, the proprietors carrying buckets of ornamentals to the sidewalk in order to exhibit their wares. The narrow crosstown street was a canyon of bright colors and fragrant aromas. His senses were wide open, almost as though filters that had been present during daily life were now removed. He was more alive than ever. He moved and the world seemed to move with him.

  Bin-Hezam stepped inside a coffee shop. He did not feel a need for food, but he knew he must eat. He pointed out a single pastry in the display under the front counter, and watched to be certain that the clerk grasped it with a wax napkin. He purchased a hot tea as well and paid cash. Bin-Hezam was aware of two surveillance cameras, one aimed at the clerk and the cash register for the purpose of theft reduction, the other on the high wall behind the counter, aimed at the customer.

  With practiced self-consciousness, Bin-Hezam was careful not to look straight at the camera. He would let it find him. He was relieved to not be wearing any disguise today.

  He found an open table near the stand containing packets of sugar and stirrers, and sat. He pushed the flaky croissant into his mouth, no butter, no jam. He did not look out the window at the passersby, because he did not want to attract the attention of those who might look in. Nor did he make eye contact with those sitting around him. Bin-Hezam imagined himself to be the focal point of the room; the rest were minor figures, like anonymous extras in a film. He was performing, in a way.

  Only one thing pierced the haze of his solipsism. It was a television screen mounted at a downward angle from the ceiling. The sound was low, and only occasionally audible.

  Following another weather update addressing the weekend heat wave, they showed more footage of the airplane Bin-Hezam had flown aboard. Then video of the five passengers and the flight attendant who stopped the hijacking, standing before cameras like patients undergoing a painless yet intimate radiological medical procedure. They showed the jet again, this time on the ground at Newark. They showed passengers disembarking.

  Bin-Hezam watched in apprehension, half expecting to see his own passport photograph on the screen… but then the report ended and they did not show him.

  He deduced from the graphics that what he was watching was in fact a teaser for a forthcoming in-studio appearance by the group of heroes the media were calling The Six.

  Bin-Hezam showed no outward expression. But inwardly he was smiling at the news coverage. He could not understand the entire scenario, but he had intuited enough to know that, as of right now, everything was proceeding exactly as it should.

  * * *

  The tea was oversteeped, foul. He drank only as much as he could tolerate, then rose and disposed of the cup and his wax wrapper. He exited the shop, walking a wide loop of city blocks before cutting back across Eighth Avenue to Ninth, setting his mind to the familiar Street View from Google Maps. This part was like walking through the landscape of a first-person video game in which he was the player.

  Bin-Hezam had been taught that each moment was the sum of one’s life. That was never more true than each step he took this day.

  From viewing its website, Bin-Hezam knew that the photography and video equipment store was owned and staffed by Jews. Still, upon entering he was shocked by how many there were. Dozens of them, it seemed to him. Patrolling the aisles, backing the glass counters, sitting on high stools at the payment windows. A nest of Hebrews.

  Bin-Hezam worked hard to contain his revul
sion. A wave of deep tribal mistrust washed over him. These people were The Others. They were less than human. Only by believing that his own God could conquer theirs, and in doing so unite all under Islam, was he able to recover his bearings and continue forth into this foul gauntlet.

  He walked carefully around the vast store, locating the photo bags and luggage over to his right. He found just what he wanted, two black messenger bags that were common enough in New York to be invisible.

  The desk clerk accepted the bags without a word. The Jew typed the bar code into his register rather than scanning it. The price amount came up on the display and he pointed at it with his finger, too rude to speak.

  Bin-Hezam wanted to believe that the slight was an ethnic one, but he was nearly certain that the clerk had not even raised his eyes. Bin-Hezam pushed the cash to him and the man made change and bagged the items. He slid the bag back across the counter and immediately rose from his stool to attend to some other matter.

  Bin-Hezam was heartily disappointed. He wanted to see his own deep hatred reflected back at him. He wanted to find some fault with the man. He wanted to feel the Jew’s suspicion. He wanted satisfaction.

  He wanted anything other than to be ignored. He wanted the man to look into the eyes of one who was blessed against him.

  * * *

  Back out on the sidewalk, he felt like a spider who had just emerged unrecognized from a nest of flies. He imparted their nonchalance to cultural cowardice and a smug self-satisfaction peculiar to their race. All of which would work to Bin-Hezam’s benefit this weekend.

  His next stop was around the corner on Thirtieth Street. A hobby shop. No Jews here. A big man wearing a gray work shirt with a railroad engineer’s cap atop his unruly white hair sat behind a cash register. From a raised promontory behind a glass display counter, he presided alone over a roomful of model trains, remote-control airplanes and helicopters, and kits for building aircraft, boats, and cars. A small fan with rippling blue ribbons blew warm air on him from behind.

  Suspended from the pipes and ducting under the high ceiling of the narrow store were completed scale models of jets, helicopters, war planes, and a new item, military drones. On the back wall, Bin-Hezam spotted a selection of kits and supplies for model rocketeering. The man at the counter saw Bin-Hezam’s eyes fix on this section.

  “Rockets?” he said, raising his eyebrows as though he were about to admit Bin-Hezam into a secret club.

  “Yes. I want to buy one for my son. He will be nine years old next week. His life revolves around dinosaurs and rocket ships.”

  “How big?”

  “My son?”

  “The rocket.”

  “How big do they make them?”

  The man smiled. “They make them pretty big.”

  Bin-Hezam hid his contempt for this unwashed man and his unclean odor. “How big would you consider a D engine?”

  “Big enough. Have a look for yourself,” the man said, pleased by Bin-Hezam’s interest, yet still reluctant to move from his perch. “We got just about everything. Give me a shout if you need help.”

  Bin-Hezam made his way past the glues and the rubber cement tubes to the back. The wall rack was immense, and yet he had little trouble finding what he wanted.

  An Estes electron beam rocket engine igniter. A launch controller.

  On a rack to one side, he found cartons of potassium nitrate fuel pellets. To stay within the legend, he selected an expensive, multipart $350 kit. It included both components, plus a launch stand and the rocket itself, a white cardboard tube a yard long with triangular tail fins and a red plastic nose cone.

  The man on the stool brightened when Bin-Hezam returned. A quick sale with almost no effort. “That’ll be three hundred and fifty. Plus the government tax.”

  Bin-Hezam counted out four one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them on the glass countertop. Wind from the fan behind the man on the stool rippled the bills.

  “You a Saudi?” asked the proprietor, with an interested smile.

  “You can tell this how?” asked Bin-Hezam, assuming that the man was going by his large-denomination bills.

  “I worked for Chevron for more than twenty years. Spent a lot of time over there. Took me a while getting used to things, because, man, you all looked the same to me for years. That oil money, it can’t be beat. People say they were lucky to be born here in America! I usually just chuckle at that. Luck is one thing. Want to win the lottery? Be born in Saudi Arabia, am I right?”

  The man’s observation pleased him very much, and he chortled heartily.

  “Very nice,” Bin-Hezam said, awaiting his change.

  The proprietor pulled out a tall bag. “You want to make sure you’re the one supervising this thing now. Nine is a little young to be playing with this. Main thing is, you want to come away with all ten fingers. You know how the safety works?”

  Bin-Hezam allowed the man in the railroad cap to explain the use of the safety key, a small metal rod inserted into the controller to complete the circuit that provided the current that heated up the igniter and launched the engine. He also showed him the fail-safe, wherein the key had to be inserted and held down.

  “Thank you,” said Bin-Hezam.

  “Anytime, come again,” said the man. “And stay cool out there.”

  He would remember Bin-Hezam, of that there was little doubt.

  * * *

  One final stop that morning. At a medical supply store on West Twenty-fifth Street — not a Duane Reade, but an actual supply store for nurses and home health care workers — he purchased white gauze impregnated with fast-drying calcined gypsum, also known as plaster of paris. He also picked up a box of rolled cotton batting and a sheet of light fiberglass roving rolled into a tube about a foot long. His total purchase came to thirty-eight dollars.

  * * *

  Bin-Hezam returned to his hotel room. It had already been cleaned by the maid; everything appeared to be in order.

  He hung the do not disturb sign on the doorknob and quickly shed his light jacket and sneakers, sitting with the television tuned loudly to some nonsense hotel entertainment channel. His purchases were laid out atop the bed, the loaded pistol removed from the safe and set upon the pillow.

  Holy articles. Sacred totems. He had plucked these commonly available items from obscurity, just as God had selected him. Soon he would make them sacred by association.

  His greatest duty was yet to come.

  He muted the television and performed Dhuhr right on time. Full of gratitude for the flow of this day, he beseeched God’s blessing for the rest of it. So far, everything had gone perfectly, as Bin-Hezam traveled in God’s own footsteps. With the gift of grace, it would continue, and soon their paths truly would be one.

  Chapter 28

  By midmorning on Saturday, July 3, Fisk was no closer to finding the Saudi from Flight 903 than he had been the day before. Baada Bin-Hezam had vanished into — or from — New York.

  At seven o’clock that morning, Fisk scrambled an interdiction team to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. An Arab man matching Bin-Hezam’s physical description had been spotted parked in a loading zone and entering a building carrying a satchel. Fisk captained the sweep from Intel headquarters, listening as crash units sealed off the block. The man was taken down without incident upon exiting the building. He claimed to be a jeweler checking on his aging mother before catching an early bus to Atlantic City to play in a five-thousand-dollar minimum buy-in poker tournament.

  Verifying his story took nearly two hours. During that time, the man’s distraught mother phoned a family friend whose daughter was a lawyer with the Brooklyn office of the ACLU. So piled on top of Fisk’s disappointment in the case of mistaken identity, he then had to spend precious minutes on the phone with the ACLU lawyer. He tried sweet talk first, then a straight-up apology, but she would have none of it. An admittedly clumsy appeal to her patriotism was similarly rebuffed. Only dropping the name of her boss, with whom Fisk had dealt some mont
hs before in an ongoing surveillance case, prevented her from taking her client’s case straight to the media.

  At least — he hoped it had. Fisk’s only real success so far, in the midst of one of the largest manhunts in the history of the city, was that it was still operating under the media’s, and therefore the public’s, radar.

  He was getting nothing from his people on the street. Ten o’clock came and went, and the swarm of hourly contact reports from his rakers in the Muslim neighborhoods all turned up negative. Nothing. Not for the first time did Fisk wonder if he had launched a career-killing goose chase.

  Maybe the hijacker Abdulraheem really had been just another jihadist looking for a moment of glory in a world that memorialized evil more often than good. Maybe this Saudi Bin-Hezam really was an art dealer.

  Of course they had looked into his past. Early hours still, but they found deals he had brokered. Bin-Hezam’s name was on a number of transactions, none of them major, none in six or even high five figures. His past travel synced up with the sales and festivals. The few clients he maintained checked out as legitimate sculptors and painters, along with a handful of galleries.

  So on paper, he was legit. The question was, was this just a shadow career, meant to pacify exactly such scrutiny into his background? Or was Bin-Hezam simply another of life’s minor players, like the vast majority of us, with his own shortcomings, hang-ups, and foibles?

  This was a big part of Fisk’s job. Being a viewfinder, locating an individual within the vast sea of humanity and bringing him into focus as quickly as possible in an attempt to determine whether he truly was one of the peaceable ones.