The Intercept

by Dick Wolf

  “Everybody!” Maggie called people to attention with the ease of a woman who, as a flight attendant, had been politely but firmly instructing strangers for her entire adult life. “A toast to the nice people who have been putting up with our shit over these insane last two days. To your health.”

  “Here, here!” said Frank from the corner, his free hand rubbing Sparks’s bare knee.

  “And,” said Aldrich, standing unsteadily, “to their comrades-in-arms for blasting the sand out of that terrorist today.”

  “To heroes everywhere!” exulted Maggie.

  “Heroes,” intoned all, glasses raised.

  Jenssen caught Gersten’s eye as the others’ glasses came back down. He tipped his drink to her individually.

  Gersten nodded back, then turned toward the lobby, making another quick scan for Fisk.

  Chapter 60

  Aminah bint Mohammed’s neighbors described her in glowing terms. Conscientious and quiet. She told people she was a nurse, and indeed had been called upon to stanch a neighbor’s kitchen knife cut a few months ago, yet hadn’t seemed to work or at least keep regular hours for perhaps a year or more.

  No, they had never seen suspicious-looking men visiting her. They had never seen any men, or women, as guests.

  Fisk took the inconvenienced neighbors’ negative views of law enforcement into consideration, yet he still believed they were telling him the truth. None of them had ever heard of a woman named Kathleen Burnett.

  The photograph on her expired Massachusetts-issued driver’s license showed an unveiled American woman with brown, maybe reddish-brown, hair and a smiling, plain face. Her New York license under her Muslim name showed a flatly smiling, somewhat heavier woman with shorter hair. For obvious reasons, New York driver’s licenses forbade veils in photographs.

  He had the more recent photo sent back electronically to Intel, and was preparing an alert. He wavered on whether to call Dubin directly, and decided he probably would.

  Forensic chemists were taking the mason jars to be tested. Fisk was back inside her apartment, exhaustion and bewilderment setting in, combining to make him feel as though he were in a dream. Part of him believed she might show up at any moment and walk in the door. Another part of him wondered if there was an unassuming-appearing Caucasian woman out there acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda.

  Chapter 61

  Aldrich wisely made his way out of the lounge a little while later, smiling, patting shoulders, shaking hands, and making very little sense. DeRosier walked with him down the stairs, holding him by the arm, ready to catch the unstable senior citizen as he wove his way toward the elevators.

  Gersten noticed Jenssen stealing looks at her, using the bar mirror. She suspected he was lingering at the bar because of her. Flattering, but also a little weird. She still hadn’t heard from Fisk. When Nouvian got up to answer a phone call—“Hello, honey,” he said, passing Gersten on his way out of the lounge—Gersten made her way down toward Jenssen’s end of the bar.

  She cruised the food table, picking through the crispy french fry butts remaining on the crumb-strewn platter like cigarettes in a dirty ashtray.

  She felt Jenssen’s eyes on her. So why not play the game.

  She eased in next to him. The seat afforded her a better view of the street below, a good vantage point from which to watch for Fisk’s approach.

  “No drink?” she asked, holding up her water for the bartender to refill.

  Jenssen smiled, tinkling the ice in his glass. “Pure poison. What’s your excuse?”

  “Still technically on duty.”

  “Oh? Still keeping an eye on us?”

  “Still your camp counselor. Do they have camps in Sweden? Summer camps?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Her fresh water arrived. “So you never drink? All organic?”

  “Never say never.” He smiled. “But in general, I find alcohol to be a useless complication.”

  Gersten glanced over at the corner where Frank and Sparks were now openly making out.

  “Exactly,” she said, with a smile. “The world is complicated enough.”

  She shifted in her seat, bumping his knee accidentally. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. She moved her chair back a few inches in order to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again. In doing so, she felt a spot of wetness on her thigh, and at first thought she had spilled some of her water. But no—her leg had been beneath the bar ledge.

  “Do you feel something under there?” she asked, bending back to see beneath the bar. She saw Jenssen’s arm resting on top of his leg, the sleeve of his shirt buttoned over his fractured wrist. “Something leaking?”

  “I think it’s my cast,” he said, pulling it halfway out for a look. “They told me to shower with it wrapped in plastic so it doesn’t get wet. I had a drugstore shopping bag I thought would do the trick, but apparently I wound up soaking it.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good.” She tried to get a better look, but he returned his arm beneath the table, rather protectively. “Do you want me to call around, see if we can get someone here tonight, or tomorrow morning most likely, to look at it?”

  “No, it’s fine. It will hold until after the ceremony.”

  Gersten’s phone vibrated on her hip. “You’re sure?” she said. “It looks sore.” He was holding it oddly, almost hiding it beneath the bar, perhaps out of embarrassment.

  “It is tender, but once the cast dries again it will be fine. I am certain.”

  Gersten checked her display. Fisk, finally. “Excuse me,” she said, standing quickly. “I have to take this.”

  She made her way down the short flight of steps, turning left into a short corridor leading to the restrooms, seeking a quiet spot.

  “Hey,” she answered. “Where in tarnation are you?”

  “Are you sitting down?” he said.

  “No. What is it?”

  She listened while he told her about the Bay Ridge apartment raid.

  “She mixed the Bin-Hezam boom?” said Gersten.

  “Looks that way. So where is she now? And how much more does she have?”

  Gersten’s head was spinning. “Maybe his call to Saudi Air . . . was for her?”

  Fisk said, “If so, nobody came in late and paid cash for a ticket. Already checked. That flight’s already departed. She wasn’t on it.”

  Gersten blocked her open ear with her free hand in order to hear better. “You have her picture, though. We have a face.”

  “We have a face, we have two names, we have a Social Security number, an apartment full of fingerprints . . . but we don’t have a location.”

  Gersten shook her head. She turned to scan the lobby. “So now I have to watch for a Caucasian woman . . .” She thought about the exposure of the lounge, with its glass walls and floor hanging over Forty-second Street. And a woman with a backpack full of TATP standing on the sidewalk below . . .

  “I’ll try to wind up The Six, or those who are left.”

  “You’re still at the lounge?” said Fisk.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Waiting for you.”

  “Ah,” he said. “No chance now.”

  “It’s cool. You’ve got a job to do.” As she was looking back toward the lounge, Frank and Sparks walked down the short stairway together on their way to the elevators. Sparks glimpsed Gersten on the phone and shot her what could only be termed a nasty look, leaving Gersten wondering, What the hell was that all about? “I need her photograph.”

  “Alert sheet should be in your inbox now.”

  “So she’s a fundamentalist convert. Maybe a radicalized sleeper agent? An assassin?”

  “If so, then her cover here is airtight. I mean, she looks for all the world like a cat lady, only substitute jihad for cats. She’s involved, that’s all we can know for sure. How involved? That information di
ed with Bin-Hezam.”

  “So what if . . .” She let her thoughts trail away for a moment. “What if Bin-Hezam, not the hijacker, was the real distraction? What if . . . this whole weekend . . . when we thought we were tracking the real bad guy, we were chasing his decoy?”

  “A double deception? It’s . . . possible, I guess. At this point, anything’s possible.”

  “You took it to Dubin?” asked Gersten.

  “Had to. Waiting to hear back now.”

  “He’s going to go public with this one. No more secret hunt.”

  Fisk said, “He should. This has gone too far. It’s gotten out of hand. We need to find this woman.”

  She lost part of the word “woman” because he was getting another call.

  “That’s Dubin,” said Fisk. “Gotta go.”

  “Good luck. Talk tomorrow morning if you can.”

  “If I can.”

  And he was gone.

  Chapter 62

  Jenssen sat rigidly at the end of the lounge. He could no longer see Detective Gersten, who had disappeared around the back of the bar and down some stairs. He had to fight the urge to stand and observe her.

  He was certain she was talking to Fisk, the other one she arrived with in Maine. The detective with dark hair and eyes, whom she seemed closer to than the others. Whom Jenssen had misled by linking Abdulraheem to Bin-Hezam in the airport lounge in Sweden.

  He was the lead investigator. What was she telling him?

  The Swede has changed his cast?

  She had played it cool, but Jenssen could not be too careful now. His background was impeccably respectable—but if they harbored too many suspicions, they would exclude him from tomorrow’s ceremony simply as a matter of precaution.

  His arm ached, as with every throb against the hardening cast, the pain increased. The only reason for coming down to this gathering was to avoid suspicion caused by his absence. Now he was certain he had drawn suspicion and imperiled his mission by attending.

  The shirtsleeve over his cast felt damp now. Given the pain, he imagined it was bright red with his blood, but a peek beneath the bar showed him it was clear. A combination of moisture from the setting gauze and perspiration. The faint chemical smell was masked by the musk and social desire of the lounge setting.

  The flight attendant, Maggie, was the last of the group to leave, avoiding Jenssen either out of embarrassment or shame. She left with Detective Patton, chatting as casual companions. The IKEA manager, Sparks, was the more dangerous woman of the two. Clingy, prying, predatory. Taking the flight attendant back to his room had been a most effective way to neutralize the manager’s smothering desire.

  And it had worked. God would forgive Jenssen for taking the flight attendant. Jenssen had been forgiven many times in the past.

  So the rest of them had retired to their dreams of great fortune and fame—all to be dashed tomorrow morning. They had wasted their last night on Earth with drink and self-congratulation.

  Jenssen scowled again at the old man’s toast to Bin-Hezam’s murder.

  A few moments later Detective Gersten returned, walking the length of the bar—slowing a bit when she saw they were the last ones there. It looked like she was still distracted by her phone call.

  “Late, huh?” she said.

  “You look troubled.”

  “Do I?” She was disappointed that her expression had given her away. “Just tired. Got to get up early. So do you.”

  “Indeed,” he said, putting forth his best smile. “Still, I hate to see a Saturday night in the city come to an end. I am thinking I will make an exception on this fine night.”

  Her eyebrows rose over a grin. “An exception to what?”

  “I think I might order a nightcap after all. If you will join me.”

  Her grin spread into a smile. She looked away, only inches, out the window behind him. Then back to him. “Magnus?” she said.

  “Yes, Detective?”

  “I’d like to. I really would. I’m flattered. But—I just can’t.”

  “Can’t we both make an exception tonight?” he said, smiling, pushing. He laid his good hand gently on top of hers.

  She smiled at the gesture, and he saw that she was teetering on the edge of yes. But just at that moment, the clocks over the entrance to Grand Central began to chime. The twelve notes of midnight. These tones decided the matter for her, and she slid her hand out from underneath his.

  “Good night, Magnus,” she said.

  She turned to go away, but Jenssen could not read her thoughts. What had her look said to him? That she knew? Was she toying with him? Keeping him close to her—and yet at arm’s length?

  He decided he could not let her go without knowing.

  When he offered himself for recruitment in Malmö, they had promised him that the honor of martyrdom would be his. Jenssen, having had time to think deeply about the afterworld, wasn’t convinced about the details. But dying in an act of vengeance against the Western powers that had corrupted and destroyed the lives of his family was the best way to end his own life. A desire for blood revenge ran deep in Jenssen. He embraced the dawning of the day of his own death, as he believed he’d soon be reunited with his mother and father.

  When he accepted the mission, they made him memorize the martyr’s prayer, which he repeated in his head as he rose from his bar chair.

  Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead . . . I would love to be martyred in Allah’s cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred, and then get resurrected again and then get martyred and then get resurrected again and then get martyred . . .

  Chapter 63

  Upstairs Gersten laid her Beretta 84FS Cheetah on her bedside table. She slipped her cell phone from its pouch inside her suit jacket and checked it for messages. Nothing more from Fisk.

  She opened the scramble alert for the woman known as Aminah bint Mohammed, just to look at the convert’s face. Not the face of evil. The woman’s eyes said nothing. That was the scary thing, the thing that kept people like her up at night: the limitations of profiling. Not every terrorist fit the bill.

  She darkened the screen to show just the clock and the date. Just a few minutes into Sunday, July 4. After Christmas, this was probably her favorite holiday. Cookouts and parades and Popsicles. It took her right back to childhood. She had a sudden craving for orange soda.

  Later that day, there would be a ceremony marking the opening of One World Trade Center, the new tallest landmark in New York City. Taking the place of the ones that fell on that day that changed everything. That gave her the job she had now.

  She turned and caught a look in the mirror. She pushed away a rogue strand of hair and wondered what exactly had so entranced the tall, blond, and blue-eyed schoolteacher from Sweden. Tempting, that one. Something about his face and the inflection of his translation of his own words from Swedish to English, giving them a formal politeness that contrasted with the diffidence of his personality. Perhaps, she realized, she ought to play hard to get more often.

  Then she heard a knock at her door. She frowned, assuming it was either DeRosier or Patton—and if so, it meant something else was up, and bedtime was that much further away.

  Or was it Fisk? A long shot, but . . .

  She looked through the eyehole. None of the above.

  It was Jenssen. So tall, the top of his head was not quite visible.

  Christ. Apparently she hadn’t been firm enough downstairs. He had crossed the line from flattery to boorishness. Time to drop the hammer on this frisky pup, and send him back to his room.

  Chapter 64

  The bolt was thrown, and the door opened. Jenssen saw her stern expression and, below it, her uncovered neck.

  He was on her immediately, before she had a chance to speak or cry out. He used the element of surprise to take her down fas
t. Even one-handed, his six-foot-four-inch, 210-pound frame was too much for her. He threw all his weight on her as the door closed behind him.

  The momentary shock passed and Detective Gersten realized what was happening. She fought him, though Jenssen already had the advantage. He had her on the floor and forced his good forearm against her windpipe, up hard into her jaw. She gripped his arm with one hand, but was not strong enough to pull it away.

  With her other, she balled her fist and aimed for his groin first. Then his throat.

  Jenssen pushed back mightily against the top of her throat, feeling her thrashing beneath him. She kicked his legs but not with much force. He only worried about an impact to his cast, which could ignite the explosive prematurely.

  She tried to call out, but her voice was caught beneath his forearm. Her eyes bulged, moving within her incapacitated head as she searched for a weapon, anything.

  Jenssen put all his weight into her throat, grinding the top of her skull into the carpet.

  She struck him against his ear. The pain was sharp, and knocked him off balance. She squirmed out from beneath him, one hand to her throat. She was trying to scream, but only a whisper came out.

  He reached for her neck again. She kicked him in the side, and he struck her temple, knocking her head into a low cabinet.

  She was crawling, dragging herself around her bed toward her nightstand. And her handgun.

  Jenssen gripped her leg and yanked hard, pulling her away. He climbed up her back, forcing her against the carpet. She kicked at the floor—eager to make any noise, raise any alarm. With his explosive cast held out at his side, he jammed his good arm beneath her neck, feeling the architecture of her throat as he squeezed, whispering the martyr’s prayer into her ear.

  Part 8

  Moment of Silence

  Sunday, July 4

  Chapter 65

  Fisk received a call around 6:00 A.M. from an overnight captain who had a call from one of his detectives. He had just come off a homicide in the park, near the Met. “He came in and got a look at your alert. The decedent resembles this bint Mohammed lady. Said the resemblance was strong enough that I should call.”