“Okay guys; grab a donut and coffee if you want. Then you can go to the locker room and take your vests off. We’re going to be inside most of the day for unit training. There was a collective grumble of disappointment.
Are you kidding me…more friggin training, was the first thing that came to Timothy Keegan’s mind.
Chapter 3
The eight hour flight from Frankfurt, Germany to JFK airport in New York had significantly stiffened the legs of Louis Castillo. It felt good to stretch them when he finally deboarded the plane. This was the third trip outside of the country for the veteran NYPD detective in less than four months. When Castillo was a younger man, he didn’t mind the travel as much. Not that he was old, still not yet fifty, but his bad leg had seemed to be getting notably worse as time went on.
Castillo and his counterpart on the FBI’s side of the NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force, Frank Balentine, slowly made their way to the baggage claim area to retrieve their luggage. Balentine seemed to sense the discomfort. “The leg bothering you a lot today, Louie?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s killing me to be honest with you.”
“Have you gone to a doctor in recent years to see if there’s anything they can do? Medicine’s come a long way since you were shot, you know. How many years ago was that now?”
Castillo thought back to the day in which he had been shot back in 1987. He was a rookie officer walking a foot post when he interrupted an armed robbery of a liquor store. He was shot once in the chest—thankfully the round was stopped by his bullet proof vest—and shot once in the leg, shattering his knee cap. Castillo has had to live with a lingering pain for well over two decades now. “It was twenty-seven years ago last week, Frank. How time flies, huh?”
“That was a scary day, Louie,” began Balentine as he gave his longtime friend a pat on the shoulder. “It was a time before cell phones and instant updates via the internet. I remember learning that you’d been shot from hearing about it on the radio. I had my car doing things that you only see stuntmen doing in the movies in order to get to the hospital as quick as possible.” He shook his head. “You were lucky that day, my friend.”
“Yeah, I’m so lucky that not a day goes by that my leg doesn’t ache to remind me just how lucky I am,” said Castillo offering a wry smile.
Castillo shook his head and continued. “I have to tell you Frank, I love the work that I’m doing, and to be partnered with you is more than I could’ve ever hoped for, but all of this running around isn’t getting any easier. I never thought that I’d look forward to retiring the way that I am. New Years Day can’t come soon enough for me. Five months and counting…then I guess I’ll have to go and look for another job.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to, Louie,” rebuked Balentine. “If I had your money, I’d burn mine. You have almost twenty-seven years on the job, and you’re a first grade detective—that’s Lieutenants pay right? You easily do five hundred hours a year in overtime too. On top of that, Sharon retired a few years ago with a Deputy Inspector’s pension; that’s probably close to six figures all by itself. Something tells me neither you nor your wife will need to find a second career.”
“Ah, maybe not,” Castillo conceded.
Balentine, who had become good friends with Sharon Castillo as well, decided to needle his pal a bit. “So, tell me Louie, all men know that behind closed doors their wife is the real boss, but in your case there’s no denying it. She outranked you by four grades. Now that she’s retired, does she still pull rank on you?”
Castillo took it in stride. “Only when she wants to buy a new pair of shoes,” he quipped as he lifted his bag from the luggage carousel.
As the two men exited the International Arrivals Building, they quickly spotted the department vehicle waiting to take them back to 26 Federal Plaza. Castillo let out a slight grunt in response to the throbbing pain in his leg as he eased himself into the front seat. Castillo put down the sun visor and looked into the mirror; the fact that he hadn’t shaved this morning was evident, as were the dark circles under his eyes. At least there was no grey in his tightly curled black hair, he thought. He removed his wire framed glasses and breathed hard on them. He used his blue and grey striped tie to clean them before putting them back on.
“So Frank, we never really got into it. What’d you think of the guy that the German Federal Police had in custody? Did you buy what he was saying?”
Castillo repositioned the visor so that he could see Balentine as he answered. Balentine tugged at his salt and pepper goatee, contemplating the question before he responded. He shook his head, ever so slightly. “I don’t know, Louie. A multi-city organized attack on U.S. soil? It seems farfetched, but he seemed to believe what he was saying; even if he couldn’t provide any facts to back it up.”
Castillo felt the same way. “I got the vibe from him that he was telling the truth as well. Maybe he just wasn’t high enough up on the food chain to know too many of the details.”
Castillo observed Balentine nervously run a hand through his meticulously groomed dark hair. “It’s scary, Louie. We have to be right all of the time and these dirtbags need to get lucky only once. There hasn’t been an organized attack the way that guy was describing in the United States since 9/11.”
“And there’s never been suicide bombers here either,” Castillo interjected. “If this guy is telling us the truth, we need to find out more information and fast.”
“Well that’s certainly not going to be easy. The guy didn’t even have a time table for the attacks. It was just a rumor that he’d heard in Afghanistan—he couldn’t even give us one name to look into. The only thing that he told us was that Sheykh Muhammad Hajjar was behind the plot.” After a brief silence, Balentine continued, “I hope he’s full of shit Louie, but either way, I’m happy the German Federal Police took the time to notify us. I just hope they update us if they find out any more about who he was involved with, or even if they can just tell us who he was in contact with while he was in their country. Anything like that would be useful too.”
Castillo firmly believed that the man was telling the truth, yet he had such little information to offer. The fact that the man was on a United States watch list as a potential Al-Qaeda member lent a bit of credibility to his story. “I wish he could’ve been a bit more specific other than saying suicide bombers are going to strike in New York and California. He may not realize it, but those are two pretty big states.”
“You know what bothered me even more than the obscurity of where the attacks would be was what did he mean when he said the attack would be a two-phased attack? Were the two phases of the attack the two locations of New York and California, or did he mean something else?”
Castillo shrugged his shoulders. “So I think that we’re both on the same page here. While he lacked any significant details; he did seem to be telling the truth. At least he didn’t seem to be intentionally lying to us.”
“I think that sums it up pretty well, Louie. We definitely have to run this up the chain of command and see if the CIA picks up any chatter about it overseas.”
“I guess that’s about all we can do for now, Frank.” Castillo flipped up the visor and crossed his legs. A barely audible groan escaped his mouth as he repositioned his body. He closed his eyes and sat back in the chair as he massaged his aching knee with both hands. The ride into Manhattan wouldn’t take too long, and Castillo would take the opportunity to relax. No sooner did he close his eyes than did his cell phone sound.
Castillo reached to his belt and retrieved the phone. He examined the caller id before he answered. “Hey, Sharon, we just landed a little while ago. We’re on our way back to the office now. I have some notifications to make, but I figure that I’ll be home in a couple of hours.” After a brief pause, “Okay love. I love you too.”
As soon as Castillo signed off, Balentine was quick to chime in. “I guess the boss is checking up on you, huh Louie.”
Both men shared a laugh.
*
Timothy Keegan’s career in the NYPD hadn’t gotten off to the start he’d hoped it would. For the second straight day, under Sergeant Galvin’s direction, the police van loaded with ten eager rookies parked on East 49th Street. They sat there once they had finally got out of the station house yesterday afternoon and sat in the exact same spot today. Galvin had offered no explanation as to why they were there.
They were not enforcing any laws, serving the public, or being a deterrent to crime; they just sat there. During the final three hours of their tour yesterday, none of the rookies had mustered up enough guts to question their supervisor, but after two hours today, the rookies’ collective patience had began to wear thin. The officers had asked in a number of manners why they were at this location. Galvin would offer no explanation, other than to say that they would remain here until they figured out the reason for themselves.
Some of the guesses were good guesses; one officer suggested that this had been the block of Galvin’s first foot post, another that this was the site of his first arrest. Other guesses were not so good; was Galvin parked here to stalk an old girlfriend that lives in the buildings? One went as so far as to challenge if Galvin preferred to do nothing unless the radio assigned him a job. It didn’t take a seasoned cop to know that the last guess was absurd; the sheer amount of medals which Galvin wore spoke for themselves. While rookies, such as Timothy Keegan, may not have known the significance of the medals worn by his sergeant, just the amount alone suggested Sergeant Galvin to be a very active cop.
Still, Keegan was just as frustrated as the rest of the cops to be sitting in a van while they could be out there doing police work—something which they had been training a very long time to do. Keegan, who was seated in the third row of seats in the marked police van, took out his cell phone from his pocket. He opened the internet browser and typed in the words ‘NYPD 67th precinct’ along with the address of the building that they were parked in front of. Keegan scrolled through the matches provided by the internet and suddenly he knew why they were there.
*
Tommy Galvin was probably just as bored and eager to do police work as his rookies were, but he felt this was an important lesson for them to learn; even if it cost them a few days of their training to learn it. Galvin turned up the volume on the radio and tuned to a classic rock station when Officer Keegan asserted that he knew the reason that they were parked here, interrupting Eric Clapton’s classic—Layla.
Galvin swung an arm over the top of the seat and turned around to look at Keegan. After lowering the radio so Keegan’s response could be heard, “Okay, Keegan, why do you think that we’re parked here?” With a smile, Galvin added “And please don’t tell me that you think I’m the building superintendant.”
Galvin silently hoped that Keegan had in fact figured it out. He seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and seemed eager to learn how to become a good cop.
Keegan pointed out of the van window to the building. “This is the location where the last member of the sixty-seventh precinct who lost his life in the line of duty was shot and killed.”
Galvin didn’t immediately respond. There was no need to. Each and every cop in the van knew Keegan’s answer had to be correct. It simply made sense.
Galvin remained silent, letting this fact, as well as their own mortality, sink in. Galvin then slowly nodded his head. “You’re right, Keegan. We lost a brother officer right here because he was doing his job. It could’ve been any cop who was killed that day for no other reason than because he was a police officer. You’re all guaranteed a pension on this job if you live long enough to see it. The most important thing is that we all go home at the end of our tours to our families. Everything else is just paperwork.”
Galvin was sure to meet every set of eyes in the van with his own. He needed them to see the seriousness and potentially grave nature of the job that they had signed up for. After a couple of minutes, Galvin finally broke the silence. “Okay, now who’s ready to take your posts?”
“Finally.”
“Thank God!”
“Me, Sarge.”
Galvin was happy with the response. “Okay, one more thing. Who’s looking for a collar today?” Again to Galvin’s delight, every single hand went up.
“Wow, it’s nice to see so many collar guys in my squad. I have a fun idea…but only if everyone is willing to participate. You each throw in ten dollars a man. Whoever makes the first collar wins the pot, with the caveat that they buy the first round of drinks when we go out after work on a Friday or Saturday night.”
The responses of “I’m in,” couldn’t have been said any quicker. With the entire squad in agreement, the bet was on. Galvin reached into his wallet, removing a twenty dollar bill. “Obviously, I can’t win, but I’ll contribute twenty dollars to the pot. Let’s get you guys out to post.”
*
Sergeant Galvin gave his rookies strict orders to remain in groups of two and to handle any radio runs on their foot posts. Keegan was excited as he and Andre Williams were the last two cops to be dropped off on post. For some reason, it didn’t come as much of a surprise to Keegan that Sergeant Galvin had selected Cathy Quinn to drive him. The rumors in the academy were that the bosses often selected the prettiest girls to drive them. Keegan watched as the van disappeared down Linden Boulevard after dropping him and his partner off on their posts for the night. Keegan placed his memo book in the back pocket of his duty pants and adjusted his hat. It was a scorching hot summer evening, but the temperatures didn’t bother Timothy Keegan in the slightest. Keegan was finally out on his own as a New York City Police Officer.
*
Louis Castillo’s night was not to be as quick as he had hoped it would’ve been. Upon his return to 26 Federal Plaza, he and Frank Balentine were met by their respective supervisors at the headquarters of the Joint Terrorist Task Force. Castillo knew that he was in for a long night as soon as he saw his supervisor, Inspector Talbot, this late on a Friday evening. If there was one thing that Louis Castillo could bank on in the NYPD’s end of the task force, it was that if Talbot was there after five o’clock on a Friday night, something serious was going on.
Castillo could sense the urgency on Talbot’s face as he quickly exited his office to meet Castillo and Balentine as soon as they entered. The Assistant Director in Charge of the Eastern District invited the rest of the men to join him in the conference room. Robert Wolf, a forty-two year veteran of the FBI, sat at the head of the large gray conference table. As often as Castillo had been inside this particular conference room, he was still impressed by it. From the full sized American flags standing in each corner, to the miniature flags serving as a centerpiece to the table, everything about the room invoked a patriotic aura. There was even a large screen television monitor mounted on the wall with the symbol of the FBI cast on the backdrop of a waving American flag.
As Castillo sat in one of the black leather chairs, a quick study of Wolf’s blue eyes revealed to Castillo that they were disturbed. Wolf stroked his neatly groomed, salt and pepper beard (more salt than pepper) before beginning. “Everything that I’m about to tell you guys stays in this room. Is that understood?”
Once all parties agreed to the stipulation, Wolf continued. “The situation is precarious at best. Frank, Louie, the information which you guys attained from debriefing the prisoner in Germany has apparently corroborated independent information obtained by CIA operatives in Pakistan.”
Castillo pointed at Balentine. “I knew it, Frank. I knew this guy wasn’t bullshitting us.”
Wolf reached into his pocket, retrieving a bottle of antacids. After taking one, “the thing about it is that all the CIA had was general chatter; nothing specific or tangible to go on. You guys had an actual source giving you the information. The CIA seems to believe that not only will New York and California be targets, but so will somewhere in the central states, possibly the mid-west. We need you both to prepare your reports right n
ow and don’t leave anything out. Every minor detail that this guy told you two is of the utmost importance.”
“Of course,” responded Castillo as he removed an MP3 player from his suit jacket. “Frank and I audio taped the entire interview. I’ll transcribe it, word for word, in my report.” Castillo looked up at Wolf. “When we left for the airport in Frankfurt, the German police were looking into any known associates that the man may have had in Germany, or anywhere in Europe for that matter. Do you know if they’ve had any success?”
Wolf shook his head and tossed another antacid into his mouth. “If they have, they haven’t shared it with us. The CIA has a field team looking into the man as well. I believe they plan on contacting any of their assets in the area to see what they can come up with.”
“Do you think that they’ll be forthcoming if they do come across some information?” queried Frank Balentine. “In the past, the CIA has seemed to stone wall some of our investigations to take them on for themselves.”
Wolf shook his head vehemently, waving a hand as he did. “I’ve been assured from the top that this is a total information sharing investigation. If this is anything near what it sounds like, this could be another 9/11 in the making. We all need to work together to make sure that if it is a real plot, it never materializes. There’s way too much at stake for everyone.”
There was a pause before he continued. “There’s one more thing. This information is top secret, and I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but if it’s true, I think it may be related. Two weeks ago, six hundred pounds of military grade C-4 explosives were stolen in Texas.”
Castillo immediately had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Holy shit…six hundred pounds. How does that even happen?”
Wolf loosened his tie. “Do you remember the report on the news where six of our men died in a helicopter crash during a training exercise?”
Castillo, nor did anyone else, verbally respond. Castillo shook his head slowly in disbelief as Robert Wolf continued. “Well, there was no training exercise, nor was there a helicopter crash. We had a team of eight soldiers moving a shipment of C-4 from the White Sands Missile base in New Mexico to Fort Bliss in Texas. Apparently, two of our men either had been recruited by Al-Qaeda, or were very deep sleepers who got past our background checks when they enlisted. As the team drove along a stretch of desert road in the Chihuahuan Dessert, the two opened fire and killed the others. The truck was discovered hours later with the six dead soldiers; the C-4 and the two other soldiers were nowhere to be found. At first, we thought maybe they were domestic terrorists…but now…after hearing everything else that is going on, we believe they were Al-Qaeda or even possibly ISIS. The helicopter crash was the story told to the families and the media. Between what you were told and this incident…well, let’s just say I’m not a very big believer in coincidence.”
Legacy and Redemption Page 4
