Enton nodded his head. “I appreciate your concerns Bill, but this is coming from downtown. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be on the desk if Inspections came in and there wasn’t somebody on post at both doors.”
Enton stood up as Galvin and the other supervisors gathered their belongings and headed towards the door. Galvin heard his boss call out to him. “Tommy, can I speak with you in my office?”
“Of course, Inspector.”
I wonder what this is about.
With this being the first time having been called into his commanding officer’s office since the day he arrived at the precinct, Tommy Galvin was a bit apprehensive. He couldn’t think of any way in which he had screwed up, yet it wasn’t like Inspector Enton to call people into his office unless there was a problem.
Enton hung his summer uniformed jacket over the back of his chair. He removed a piece of lint from the shoulder of the summer blouse, adjusted the nine millimeter handgun strapped to his left hip and sat down. He motioned for Galvin to sit as well. Enton took a sip from the bottle of water on his desk before he began. “First off, Tommy, I can’t thank you enough for how well the rookies are doing. It just illustrates my point that good cops are bred from good leaders.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
“I think it’s funny that your rookies have made more gun and robbery arrests over the last two months than both of my Anti-Crime teams did combined. And as a man who takes note of every detail, I noticed that almost every gun collar came when they were assigned to drive you. Your reputation preceded you, and I have to say, it was dead on. You’re a hell of a cop.”
Galvin was humbled. A pins and needles type feeling came over his body as he accepted the compliment. “Thanks again boss, but not every gun collar came when they were driving me; don’t forget about Keegan’s collar the first night out there.”
“No, I’m certainly not forgetting about that one. Did I tell you that once the ballistics report came back from the gun, it was linked to a homicide in Queens?”
Galvin nodded his head being cautious not to sound smug. “Actually, the homicide was from my old command. My ex-partner called me when they got the hit, so yes, I was aware.”
Galvin noted how Enton’s eyebrows raised. He hoped that Enton was impressed by how he had been following up on the case. “Speaking of Keegan, I see he made another gun collar last week—that time he was with you. What do you think of the kid? Is he the real deal of did he just get lucky on his first night out there?”
“He seems like he’s going to be a real sharp cop, Inspector. Maybe in a few years he’ll be on your Anti-Crime team.” Galvin hoped the hint was subtle and might shift the conversation.
Enton smiled and Galvin was unsure if his hint had been too obvious. “Maybe so, Tommy. Speaking of Anti-Crime, the rumor is that only thirty lieutenants are being promoted for the Thanksgiving promotions. That means Sergeant Gomez will be with us for a few more months. But I wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about our conversation. Keep doing what you’re doing with the rookies and the spot will be yours once Gomez is promoted.”
Galvin sat up straight in his chair. Those had been the words he’d wanted to hear. “Thank you, Inspector. You won’t be disappointed.”
“I know I won’t, but that’s not why I called you in here.”
Enton took another sip of the water as Galvin waited patiently. “There are a couple of administrative issues that I wanted to discuss with you. From what I understand from the administrative lieutenant, all of your cops were not allowed to take days off while they were in the police academy. They can’t carry all of those days over until next year; they can only carry ten. So what we’re going to do is give the entire team off from December 26 through December 30. That will burn the five extra days so we don’t have to worry about the union filling a grievance. Obviously as rookies, they should know that they weren’t getting Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or New Year’s Eve off.”
Galvin offered a smile, “I’m pretty sure that they are all clear on that boss…and as a rookie sergeant the same could be said for myself.”
Enton nodded in agreement. “You can work it out with the admin lieutenant where you’re needed on those days. You’ll probably backfill patrol so some of the senior sergeants can take the day. As far as the rest of that week, that’s up to you. If we have enough bosses, you can take off since none of your rookies will be here.”
“Fair enough boss; is there anything else?”
“Just one more thing; I want to reward you and your guys for what a great job that they’re doing. The assignments just came down for the Thanksgiving Day parade. I’m sure that you’ve worked it before and know what an easy day it is. You’re usually dismissed by two o’clock and get to make it home in plenty of time for Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to know if you would like to work the parade with your rookies, or if I should send some four to twelve guys and you and your guys would backfill patrol.”
A broad smile came across Galvin’s face. “If you’re giving me the choice, we’ll go to the parade. My mother is actually coming up from Florida that weekend. She’d be thrilled if I was able to have Thanksgiving dinner with the family.”
“Great, it’s settled then. You and your guys will work the parade. I just got off the phone with the Boro command. They told me that our borough will be covering Sixth Avenue from Thirty-Fourth Street to Forty-Second.”
“It doesn’t make a difference in the world, what posts we have, Inspector. I’m just happy that I’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Thank you.”
The two men rose as Enton offered his hand. As they shook, Enton went on, “No, thank you and your guys Tommy for all of their hard work. I hope you guys enjoy the parade. It was always one of my favorite details—it’s a family event, and there are never any problems.”
*
Nazeem al-Haq walked up the stairs at the Bryant Park subway station at Sixth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. Taking the subway was not a new experience for al-Haq, but admittedly, since he had his own car now, it was less desirable. The ride on the B train into Manhattan had only taken about twenty-five minutes—far less time than it would have taken to drive through the traffic at this time of day.
Al-Haq looked around at the people as they rushed though the city streets. Many were well dressed business people bustling from one location to another. Wanting to do his best to blend in, al-Haq wore a pair of black dress pants with a beige button down shirt open at the collar and a black blazer.
Crossing the street, al-Haq went into a coffee shop on the corner and ordered a large dark roast. To his luck, a mother and her child were just finishing up and vacating a table facing the corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. After nodding politely to the mother, al-Haq sat down staring on to the busy intersection.
He studied the block carefully—trying to commit every inch to memory. He wouldn’t make the same mistake he had made over twenty years ago. Taking pictures of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse—his intended target back then—led directly to his first interaction with the NYPD and Lieutenant James Keegan.
From his trial, al-Haq had learned that the taking of the pictures is what first put him on Keegan’s radar. According to Keegan’s testimony, there had been some non specific threat regarding a terrorist attack against a symbol of justice in New York City in response to the sentencing of those responsible for the first attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993. It had been at Keegan’s direction that every courthouse (among other locations) in the confines of New York City had surveillance cameras installed. It was on one such camera, that al-Haq’s image was captured as he took the pictures.
His second mistake was that he drove to the courthouse in his own car in the middle of the night. His license plate was also captured and Keegan began surveillance of al-Haq and eventually all of those he was in contact with as well. When all was said and done, al-Haq and two others were arrested and over three hundred pounds of e
xplosives were recovered. Twenty years in prison was the price al-Haq had paid to learn discretion.
He was certain that he wouldn’t make any more careless mistakes such as those. He would not do anything out of the ordinary from now until Thanksgiving Day; except of course picking up the explosives the week before.
Al-Haq drained the rest of his coffee and deposited the empty cup in the trash as he left. He crossed Forty-Second Street and walked to the entrance of Bryant Park. Although it was a cool November day, there were still a few dozen people seated outdoors of the grill located inside the park. A light jacket was all that was required today. Al-Haq hoped the weather would turn much colder over the next few weeks so a heavier jacket would not look out of place on Thanksgiving Day.
He sat down on a dark green park bench just as a police officer was walking by. “Good day, Officer.”
The officer kept walking with little more than an insincere smile. Al-Haq felt good as he looked onto Sixth Avenue. The next time he would be in this very spot, he would feel even better. He was sure of that.
Chapter 8
With only one week to go before Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday season, sleep had become a challenge for Louis Castillo. In his gut, he knew that the threats were real, but he couldn’t seem to make any headway into the investigation. Castillo had already been awake when his phone rang at a quarter before five in the morning to inform him of the emergency meeting at 26 Federal Plaza.
A weary Louis Castillo walked into the conference room a little after six-thirty and was surprised to see that Frank Balentine had arrived before him; Balentine usually arrived just before a meeting began. Castillo poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffee machine set up in the corner of the room and had a seat next to Balentine in the otherwise empty room. Then Castillo realized that Balentine hadn’t arrived before him; he was wearing the same suit—albeit slightly wrinkled—that he’d been wearing the previous night. A look in his reddened eyes and it was apparent that Balentine had been up all night.
Castillo was nervous, as the implications of such an urgent meeting were almost never good. He had both of his hands clasped around his coffee cup when he first addressed Balentine. “You look like shit. What’s the meeting about, Frank?”
Castillo could see the look on Balentine’s face and instinctually knew it was bad. “Last night just after you left, Director Wolf called the office. An Iranian showed up at the US Embassy in Tel-Aviv yesterday seeking asylum. In return, he started talking about his role in smuggling an al-Qaeda member into the United States. He said it was less than a year ago and that he, along with two other men, met a cargo truck on the Iran-Afghanistan border. He was directed to bring the al-Qaeda member to a mosque in Shandiz where the man was to meet with a contact to provide him with a fake passport and a way into the United States. Supposedly, he was going to go to Canada and cross into the US from there.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“There’s more. As soon as we were notified, Wolf sent one of our agents to Tel-Aviv. The CIA was also sending someone to debrief the man. They had me running background on the guy all night. From everything I can tell, the guy is truly an Iranian national. There’s nothing to suggest that he’s lying.”
“Did he take a lie detector test?”
Balentine nodded. “He did”
“And!?”
“And he passed. It all looks real, Louie.”
As others began to enter the room and fill in the seats around the conference table, Castillo inched closer to Balentine—his sleep deprivation no longer an issue. “Is there anything else?”
Balentine looked Castillo directly in the eyes and deliberately nodded. “Yeah, the man who he drove to Shandiz told him that he was going to New York City where he would be part of a sleeper cell getting ready to launch an attack on America. It’s all too coincidental for it not to be part of what that guy in Germany was warning us about.”
No sooner did Balentine finish than did Castillo’s supervisor walk into the room and sat down next to him. Inspector John Talbot put an arm around Castillo’s shoulder and whispered, “Has Frank caught you up on everything?”
Castillo acknowledged that he had and finally took his first sip of his coffee—not that he needed it any longer to help clear away the drowsiness. Once the room had filled with the usual mix of mostly FBI agents and a few NYPD detectives, Robert Wolf entered with a man Castillo had never seen before. The two men stood at the head of the table with Wolf beginning, “Gentlemen, this is Warren Oliver from the Department of Homeland Security. He’s going to give you as much information as we have up to the second.”
Each of the dozen of law enforcement officers in the room could feel the urgency. There was complete silence in anticipation of whatever Oliver was to say. Castillo studied the man as Wolf introduced him. He was about fifty years old, wearing black Dockers and a white buttoned down shirt with maroon pinstripes. The shirt was unbuttoned at the collar and wrinkled—clearly Balentine was not the only one who had been working all night.
Oliver continued to bring everyone up to speed, occasionally glancing at his clipboard which he’d set down on the conference table in front of him. He grabbed a remote control from the table; turning sideways, Castillo saw his belly hanging slightly over his belt. A man’s picture was projected onto the television behind Oliver. Oliver adjusted the glasses which hung low on his nose as he read the man’s name. “As some of you may have heard, this man is currently in custody in Israel. The information he has supplied so far seems to corroborate the threat that we’ve been hearing about for some time now.”
Oliver picked up the clipboard, reading his handwritten notes. “The source has stated that from what he was told, Al-Qaeda is planning an attack on American soil during the holiday season. Under interrogation, the source also told us that he repeated the transport two weeks after bringing the first man to the mosque. He returned to the same rendezvous point and transported a second Al-Qaeda member to the same mosque in Shandiz. Furthermore, he stated that while these were the only two times that he had taken part in such a transport, he believes it’s been going on for close to a year, so there’s no telling how many people have tried to make their way into the US via this network.”
Oliver ran his hand through a thick head of dark hair—a nervous habit Castillo was guessing. He then clicked the remote to bring up the next image. “This is Muhammad Hajjar; also known as Sheykh Hajjar. We believe him to be the mastermind of the plot.”
Hajjar was known already to almost everyone in the room. He was an Al-Qaeda leader and had once before been on the FBI’s most wanted list nearly a decade earlier. His role in Al-Qaeda seemed to have elevated significantly after the death of Osama bin Laden.
Castillo stared at the image on the screen. There were dark eyes, filled with hatred. As evil a pair of eyes as Castillo had ever seen. He then refocused his attention back to Oliver. “Gentlemen, we are treating this as a very credible threat. As a matter of fact, you’ll hear later on today that the Department of Homeland Security is issuing an alert through the NTAS of elevated. So that you all understand the seriousness of this, had we been under the old system this would be either an orange or red alert. We’re also not ruling out upgrading the threat to imminent in the upcoming weeks.”
Castillo had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He recognized that if the National Terrorism Alert System issued an alert, the threat must be genuine. Since the implementation of the system, an alert of elevated has never before been issued. Castillo’s mouth went instantly dry. He was familiar with Hajjar from prior briefings and reports, but didn’t know that he was that high up on the terrorist groups hierarchy.
“We are also adding Hajjar to the FBI’s ten most wanted list with a two million dollar bounty on his head,” Oliver further explained.
Robert Wolf wanted to make sure that each of his investigators had as much facts at their disposal as possible. “What about the other two men? Do we k
now anything about them?”
Oliver advanced to the next frame. On the screen appeared a composite sketch drawn by an Israeli sketch artist. “Not very much; the second man didn’t really interact with our source. He sat in the back seat and slept during the drive. The source said he barely remembered him. The drawing you see here is the first man. He’s believed to be in his mid to late forties with a slender build. He sat in the front with him for the entire ride and spoke freely about going back to America for a second chance to fulfill his destiny. The source said he went by the name of Nas or Naz, he couldn’t remember for sure. He’d also told him that he had been deported from the US and that the US military had killed his son.”
Castillo considered everything that the Department of Homeland Security was sharing with them. Clearly the threat was real. Castillo studied the sketch on the screen as Robert Wolf handed out copies to each person at the table. Castillo did his best to commit the image to his memory. He had to make sure that he would recognize the person if they ever did come face to face, or even turned up in a surveillance video.
Oliver’s voice broke Castillo’s concentration. “One more thing guys; I want all of you to stay in the building for the next few hours. Our men are still debriefing this guy in Tel-Aviv. If there are any further developments, I want to make sure you guys get it immediately.”
Castillo picked up the sketch which Wolf had placed down in front of him and stared at it. It was an identical match for Nazeem al-Haq; a man Castillo had never met.
*
The restaurant was empty at this time of the morning which was most likely why the man wanted al-Haq to get there this early. Ahmed Hatif sat by himself in the far corner. Al-Haq nodded and joined him. “As-salamu-alaykum, my brother.”
Hatif returned the salutation as another man entered the store and locked the door behind him. The man stood at the doorway as Hatif stood up and led al-Haq into the kitchen area where he grabbed a backpack laying on the counter. Hatif reached inside and handed al-Haq what could best be described as a rectangular lump of molding clay.
Legacy and Redemption Page 9
