by Mike Lawson
‘So?’
‘Well – and this is the classified part – this particular mosque funnels money to al-Qaeda and the FBI follows the money. But they don’t want any mention of this mosque in the papers because this will tell the bad guys what the Bureau’s doing in case they haven’t figured it out already.’
‘And they think because Zarif got a thank-you note from a mosque that he has al-Qaeda connections?’
‘Possible connections, just like they told the press.’
‘Did the Bureau find any evidence that Zarif actually sent these folks money?’
‘They didn’t find a canceled check or an electronic transfer, anything like that. But he could have mailed them cash.’
‘Not exactly a smoking gun,’ DeMarco said.
‘Hey, you don’t need a smoking gun when you find what’s left of the guy’s body in the plane you shot down.’
DeMarco had to concede that point.
‘Another thing I was kinda curious about,’ DeMarco said. ‘Was there any evidence that Zarif was under psychiatric care or taking antidepressants? You know, Valium, Prozac, anything like that?’
‘Why would you be curious about that?’ Hansen said.
‘Well, according to the Bureau, the guy just went nuts. I’m wonderin’ if there was any prior indication of mental instability.’
Hansen laughed. ‘Did you see Zarif on Meet the Press?’
‘No, but I read about it.’
‘Well, you oughta watch a tape of the show. You talk about a guy that was wrapped too tight, that was Reza Zarif. The guy acted like such a maniac when he went off on Broderick, you don’t have to be Sigmund-fucking-Freud to know he had some problems. And then, of course, you got the small issue that he wasted his entire family before he decided to take on two F-Sixteens in a Cessna.’
DeMarco had to concede that point too.
‘Going back to the al-Qaeda link,’ DeMarco said, ‘was there any evidence that he had accomplices?’
‘The Bureau’s still looking into that,’ Hansen said. ‘Half the people Zarif represented were on the FBI’s watch list, but so far there’s no evidence that anybody helped him. He didn’t need any help to fly that plane, and as for somebody other than family being in his house, there’s no indication that there was. The neighbors didn’t see anybody around that morning, and there were no strange cars parked in the neighborhood. The only thing is, the Zarif house is right on Sixty-six and one of those noise-suppression walls runs along his backyard line. Theoretically, somebody could have parked on the highway, ninja’d over the wall, and gotten into his house that way, but that’s pretty unlikely.’
‘There were no unidentified fingerprints found in the house?’ DeMarco said.
‘There was a shitload of unidentified prints,’ Hansen said. ‘The Bureau matched about eighty percent of them to Zarif’s family and their friends and his clients, but they still have a bunch they can’t tie to anybody. So far they haven’t found a print for anybody that’s some kinda radical Muslim al-Qaeda wing nut.’
‘But they still have twenty percent of the prints unidentified?’
‘Yeah, but it’s early.’
‘How ’bout the gun Reza used to kill his family. I heard’ – DeMarco couldn’t tell Hansen that his source was Reza Zarif’s brother – ‘that Reza Zarif never owned a gun in his life.’
‘According to one of his friends,’ Hansen said, ‘Zarif had talked about buying a gun a couple months ago. There’d been some vandalism at his place, somebody spray-painting anti-Muslim shit on his door, and when those yahoos tried to blow up the Harbor Tunnel, his family started getting threatening phone calls. And that really got Zarif upset. So anyway, Zarif’s flying buddy said Reza had been thinking about getting a gun.’
‘Was the gun registered in Reza’s name?’ DeMarco asked.
‘No, but the Bureau has a pretty good idea where he got it from: a punk named Donny Cray.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Bureau found a fingerprint on a box of bullets in Reza’s house. They found a partial thumbprint on the little flap thing that you use to close the box, and they matched the print to Cray. He’s a small-time punk who’s into a lot of stuff, mostly gun and drug related. DEA and ATF both have him in their files. Anyway, one of the things Cray has been known to do is steal guns – or buy stolen guns from his friends – and sell ’em at swap meets. So the Bureau thinks there’s a good chance Reza got his gun from him. The FBI figured a guy like Reza, an Arab-looking guy, wouldn’t try to buy a gun legally because he’d be worried that after he filled out the paperwork some redneck gun-shop owner would report him as a potential terrorist.’
‘So how does the Bureau know Cray wasn’t involved in some way?’
‘For a couple of reasons,’ Hansen said. ‘First, the only fingerprint from Cray found in the house was the one partial print on the bullet box, while Reza’s prints were all over the gun, on all the bullets in the clip, and on the casings of the bullets that had been fired. It was obvious that Reza had loaded the gun himself.
‘The second reason why the Bureau’s sure that Cray wasn’t involved,’ Hansen said, ‘is motive. Or, in this case, lack of a motive. Donny Cray was into dope and guns, not radical Muslim causes, and there’s no logical reason why some Virginia peckerhead like him would help Zarif try to fly a plane into the White House.’
‘Has Cray admitted to selling Reza the gun?’ DeMarco said.
‘Not yet. The Bureau can’t find him.’
‘Can’t find him?’
‘The guy lives in a trailer, and every once in a while he hooks it up to his truck and takes off, especially in the winter. He likes going to Florida; he’s got friends down there. The Feebs’ll run him down eventually.’
‘So why wasn’t this in the papers? I mean about Cray’s fingerprint on the bullet box.’
‘Because the Bureau doesn’t want to give rise to a bunch of conspiracy theory nonsense when all they have is one partial print from a guy who’s known to sell guns. And the kind of dumb questions you’re asking proves they’re right.’
9
He couldn’t find a position where he was comfortable. Before the woman had sat down next to him, he’d been able to stretch his right leg out, but with her sitting there he was forced to sit with both knees pressed against the seat in front of him. The woman, a heavyset Hispanic, nodded and smiled at him before she sat down, but at the same time it was clear she expected him to move his leg and make room for her. In his country, she would have stood in the aisle of the bus until he permitted her to sit.
And she wasn’t even a real American, yet like all women in this country – all women exposed to this country – she had an air of confidence about her that infuriated him. The men here were weak and undeservedly arrogant, and the culture as a whole was decadent and wasteful, but the women were the worst. They went about with their heads uncovered and their faces unveiled, the young ones dressing like painted whores, but their lack of modesty was not as infuriating as their presumption – no, not a presumption, their conviction – that they were equal to men. And it wasn’t even the rich highborn ones who acted this way. This woman, who probably cleaned toilets for a living, had no doubt that she had a right to speak to him, to sit next to him, to intrude into his space and his thoughts as if she were his equal.
He had crossed into the United States from Mexico, and on his way to the East Coast he had stopped at a restaurant in Texas. He ordered coffee and the waitress brought him a cup that was tepid and weak, as if it had been made with yesterday’s grounds. He told her this and said, ‘Bring me another cup,’ and she had said, ‘You mean, Bring me another cup please, now, don’t you, honey?’ She was smiling when she said this, but at the same time she was serious, correcting his manners. He looked at her and said, ‘I meant what I said. Make me a decent cup of hot coffee.’ And she had said, ‘You know what, sugar? You can just go fuck yourself.’ And then she’d walked away and started talkin
g to another waitress, laughing as she gestured at him with her head. He’d left the restaurant a few minutes later, his face burning with embarrassment. He’d thought about waiting until she left work and cutting off her lips, but of course he didn’t. He was too disciplined to permit himself such an indulgence.
He saw a sign on the highway. The bus was still a hundred miles from Cleveland, a hundred more miles of sitting in this cramped seat next to this woman, his right leg on fire. It would have been so much better if he could have flown from Philadelphia to Cleveland, but he could no longer take the risk. So now he traveled by bus and by train and by car, but usually by bus. Security on trains had become tighter since London and Madrid, and he was always worried that in a car he would be pulled over by some country sheriff because of his race.
And the problem with air travel wasn’t just that he was an Arab, it was his right leg. Below the knee it was made of metal and plastic and it set off the detectors in airports. Thanks to the two fools in Baltimore, the American security forces knew about his leg, and any foreigner with an artificial leg would be detained until his identity could be confirmed. It wouldn’t matter if he shaved his head or put padding in his cheeks or wore a wig and contact lenses; it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t look anything like the poor picture they had of him in which he wore a beard. They would detain him until the FBI examined him, and the FBI would confirm his identity.
So now he traveled on buses with cleaning women, taking seven hours to make a journey that should have taken an hour and a half. But that was all right. He had a lifetime in which to complete his mission.
10
Mahoney was pissed.
That morning in The Washington Post there had been an article saying that he’d been visited by Hassan Zarif, brother of the terrorist Reza Zarif. And the reporter had, of course, discovered that Mahoney and Reza’s father had been boyhood friends in Boston. The guy had even found a high school yearbook picture of Mahoney and Ali Zarif dressed in baseball uniforms, Mahoney’s thick arm around Ali’s thin neck.
‘How’d the press even know he was here?’ Mahoney said to DeMarco. ‘I didn’t have him down on the damn list as comin’ to see me.’
DeMarco was fairly sure he knew the answer to that question: McGuire, the U.S. Capitol cop. When DeMarco had threatened McGuire with an outdoor cold-weather posting for hassling Hassan Zarif, he’d made the mistake of saying that Hassan was expected by the speaker. So McGuire, probably recognizing the Zarif name, decided to exercise a little anonymous payback and informed the Post that Mahoney had been paid a visit by a man with the same last name as a terrorist. And the Post took it from there.
‘Geez, I can’t imagine,’ DeMarco said.
‘The bastards – TV guys too – they’ve been calling all morning,’ Mahoney said, ‘asking what Hassie was doing here.’
‘What’d you tell them?’
‘The truth, sort of.’
That was Mahoney: a man who told the truth – sort of.
‘I told them,’ Mahoney said, ‘that I had known Reza when he was a kid and had known his dad all my life. I said Hassan had stopped by because he was here in town for somethin’, I didn’t know what, but since he was here and he knew I’d want to know how his dad was doin’ after his heart attack, he stopped by to tell me. I also told them that Hassan and his family had gotten a pretty good grilling from the cops, this maybe being understandable, but that we had to watch out we didn’t ruin their lives because of what his brother did.’
‘But you didn’t tell them Hassan thought the FBI’s story had a bunch of holes in it and he wanted you to get him some answers.’
‘No. Hell, no!’
Mahoney brooded for a moment over the political liability of having his picture in the paper with the father of a dead terrorist.
‘So what’d you find out?’ he said to DeMarco.
DeMarco told him.
‘You think it means anything, this yahoo’s fingerprint on the bullet box?’
DeMarco shrugged. ‘If I was placing a bet, I’d put my money on the Bureau’s explanation. Reza probably bought the gun from this Cray character like they think, and when the FBI finds Cray he’ll admit it.’
‘So you think Reza just woke up one day and decided to kill his family and crash a plane into the White House?’
‘I guess,’ DeMarco said. ‘There wasn’t anything I learned from Homeland Security that would make me think different.’
‘Well, I don’t buy it,’ Mahoney said, his big stubborn chin jutting outward. ‘I’ve been thinkin’ about this a whole lot since his brother was here, and I think Hassan’s right. There has to be something more goin’ on than what the Bureau thinks. In fact, I’m sure there is.’
But DeMarco knew that Mahoney wasn’t so sure that he’d say what he’d just said to the press – or the Bureau.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ DeMarco said. ‘I’m going on vacation next week.’
‘For now, just keep your ear to the ground. Stay in touch with Homeland Security and make sure the FBI’s really looking for this Cray guy.’
DeMarco didn’t have the authority to make the FBI do anything, so all he did was nod his head. He wasn’t worried about the FBI diligently searching for Donny Cray; he knew that with a case of this magnitude they probably had a couple hundred agents out looking for the man. No, he wasn’t worried about any lack of effort on the Bureau’s part. What he was worried about was that he wouldn’t be able to take the vacation he had scheduled three months ago.
It was difficult for DeMarco to plan vacations, and not because Mahoney always had something urgent for him to do. It was because Mahoney didn’t care whether DeMarco had made plans or not. DeMarco would ask for permission to take time off, he’d tell Mahoney the days he intended to be gone, and Mahoney would almost always nod his big head in agreement. But Mahoney never bothered to write down the dates when DeMarco would be absent, because from his perspective the dates were unimportant. Then, after having given his permission, after DeMarco had purchased airline tickets and booked hotels and made promises to friends and lovers, Mahoney would force him to cancel his vacation, believing sincerely that whatever problem John Mahoney had far outweighed any problems that he might cause his subordinate.
DeMarco bought travel insurance every time he made reservations.
This year DeMarco was planning to spend a week in Key West, sitting in the sun, drinking rum, and ogling women in small bikinis. Now his trip might be in jeopardy. On the other hand, Mahoney had not specifically instructed him to cancel his vacation. He’d just said for DeMarco to keep his ear to the ground, an activity DeMarco figured he could do by phone from a Florida beach, unless otherwise directed.
To change the subject, he asked Mahoney, ‘How’s Broderick’s bill looking?’
Mahoney shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s still in committee, but with this thing that Reza did, there’s a good chance it’ll make it to the floor for a vote. I’m gettin’ a lot of mail saying that Broderick’s got the right idea, and I’ll betcha everybody on that Senate committee is too.’
On occasion, when Mahoney would talk to high school kids, he’d ask them if they knew how laws were made. The education system being what it is, the answer was usually no, and Mahoney would give the high schoolers the kindergarten version of the lawmaking process.
A bill could be initiated in either body of Congress, the House or the Senate, or in both bodies simultan eously. Suppose a senator – say, William Broderick – decided that the nation needed a new law. He would draft his proposal in the form of a bill, and the bill would go to the appropriate standing committee in the Senate. Here the bill would be reviewed and discussed and modified and then, if approved by the committee, it would go to the floor of the Senate to be voted upon. If the bill passed by simple majority in the Senate, it would then go to the House, and if the House voted to approve the bill, it would go to the president for his signature, and the bill would become law, unless the president ve
toed it, which he rarely did.
That was the kiddy-class version of how a bill became a law.
The actual process was much more complicated. It involved backslapping and backstabbing, compromises and trades. Think tanks would crank out position papers, twisting facts as needed to support or undercut the legislation, depending on who was paying their fee. Lobbyists would take lawmakers on golfing trips and ply them with booze and broads and bucks. Party leaders would bend back arms, making it clear that the partisan way was the only way, and special-interest groups would dance around their bonfires and flood the legislature with threatening mail. The politicians would take all these factors into account, add to the mix the proximity of the next election, listen to a reading of the bones cast by various blind pollsters, and, most important of all, decide how a yea or nay vote could affect their chances of being reelected – and then the politicians would vote.
Laws are a lot like hot dogs: You don’t really want to know how they’re made.
‘What are you going to do if it’s approved in the Senate?’ DeMarco asked.
‘It’ll never happen,’ Mahoney said.
The speaker was almost always right when he made predictions about how Congress would behave, but he hadn’t factored Youseff Ibrahim Khalid into his thinking.
11
Youseff Ibrahim Khalid was so frightened he could hardly walk. He’d already vomited once since arriving at LaGuardia. He would have vomited again, but he had nothing left in his stomach. As he approached the security checkpoint, he could feel the sweat soaking into his shirt and pouring down his forehead. He knew he had to try to appear calm, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop the trembling in his legs. He couldn’t stop the sweat rolling down his face.
He was certain the TSA agents at the checkpoint would stop him because of the way he was acting. However, as fate would have it, a snowstorm had hit the Midwest and this had caused a number of flights to be delayed or canceled – although Youseff’s flight was not one of them. So it was unusually busy at the airport that morning, there were long lines of upset, impatient people everywhere, and the agents were rushing their inspections to avoid further delays. It was God’s will.
