The Grave Above the Grave

by Bernie B. Kerik

  Dolores took a few steps forward, positioning herself at an angle where she could see both Raymond and the jurors. “Have you ever been involved in a police action where you killed a suspect?”

  The air in the room got even hotter. He felt the collar of his white shirt get wet and tighten against his throat. He wanted to loosen his tie and open the top button, but didn’t. “Yes, I have,” he said, deliberately.

  “More than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you use your weapon?”

  “On two separate occasions. Both times with battle-seasoned veterans with me. Once in 1989 and once in 1991. Both events involved narcotics. Both suspects had weapons. Both fired their weapons at me, and when I returned fire I killed them. I had to make a split-second decision and felt that deadly force was needed. I did what I thought I had to do. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on out on the street, and we are your best and last protection in that war.”

  Dolores took a beat, then said evenly, “Just answer my questions, please.” She then walked back to her desk, turned a few pages of her sheaf, took a pen out just to hold in her hand, looked up, and began firing questions at Raymond that effectively laid out the story of how Bakheer was killed:

  “Commissioner Raymond, were you in an NYPD Suburban with Detectives Archer and Shelby in the early morning hours of October 4, 2017?”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Did there come a time that you heard a radio message by dispatch saying that there was a running gun battle in the area of 125th Street and Broadway?”

  “Yes ma’am, I did.”

  “And what if anything did you tell Detective Shelby when you heard that transmission?”

  “I ordered him to exit the Westside Highway at 125th Street and head toward the suspect, and he did. As we came off 125th and were heading toward Broadway, we saw a number of police officers on foot in pursuit of the suspect, whom I personally witnessed turn and fire on the pursuing officers.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Detective Shelby hit the suspect, as did a second responding unmarked police unit.”

  “Commissioner, did you order Detective Shelby to hit the suspect with the vehicle he was driving?”

  Raymond hesitated a minute, wondering if it were a trick question, and then answered, “Yes I did. I felt that our lives and the lives of the responding cops were in danger, so I gave the order to hit the suspect.” As Raymond finished the sentence, he looked at the grand jurors, all 18 of whom were staring at him with their mouths open, appearing shell-shocked.

  Quickly glancing at the jurors, Dolores didn’t miss a beat. She continued, “So you ordered Shelby to hit the suspect, which resulted in Bakheer’s death?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “And you believe, given the circumstances, that the use of deadly force, the vehicle, was justified?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Thank you, Commissioner. Let’s take a five-minute break,” Dolores said. The jurors filed out to their private area, several of them desperate for a cigarette. When the jury reconvened, Dolores asked if anyone had any questions for Raymond, normal procedure in a grand jury.

  One juror stood up. He was tall, salt-and-pepper hair, dressed like a lawyer in an I’m-a-tough-litigator suit. “I think we would all like to know why the district attorney is not handling this case?”

  Dolores turned to Raymond, like she was looking for an answer, and then turned back to the juror. “That is not an appropriate question for this witness. I am representing the district attorney and conducting this investigation. Commissioner Raymond cannot speak for the DA or our office.”

  Dolores turned to Raymond and said. “You are excused, Mr. Raymond. You are instructed not to discuss your testimony with anybody.” Raymond stood and was escorted by the clerk to the door. He left the courtroom, past the other witnesses waiting to be called, without saying a word or looking directly at them, and headed outside, knowing he was walking into a lion’s den of media. He took a deep breath and steeled himself against what would be a cacophony of shouted questions, shoved microphones, overzealous reporters.

  “Mr. Commissioner, are you dating the district attorney?” No answer.

  He spotted Breshill in the crowd and deliberately walked right in front of him. “How often do you stay in uptown hotels, Mr. Commissioner?” Breshill shouted. Raymond stared long and hard at the reporter, but said nothing.

  There was a distinct chill in the fall air. He buttoned two buttons on his coat and decided to walk back to headquarters.

  Only then did he realize his entire shirt was soaking wet, all the way down to his jockeys.

  CHAPTER 8

  1:05 pm, Wednesday, 11 October

  Back in his office, Raymond changed into a clean white shirt, poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, kissed the air as he took the first hot sip, then poured himself a glass of water to cool off his mouth. He believed he had done well, except for that last asshole juror who thought it was his moral duty to drill down on why Sheilah wasn’t handling the case for the city. Must be a lawyer, Raymond thought to himself. Anyway, he was glad it was over, and the sooner Dolores finished with the rest of the witnesses, most of whom were cops, the sooner this thing would be over and past him. Dolores, he thought, was no slouch; she had done a masterful job, even had him going for a while, but the way she finished, he had to be in the clear.

  He glanced down at the neatly stacked pink message slips on his desk. He riffled through them, the way a teller does stacks of dollar bills. One from Sheilah, of course, but probably not the best idea to call her back before the GJ decision comes down. Then, he thought, Jesus, they’re making me act like I’m guilty!

  And one from Breshill. Breshill! That prick! A real ballbuster, looking to bust mine and elevate himself by instigating bad chatter about me and Sheilah. I’d like to call him in here and slap him around, even if it meant another grand jury. It’d be worth it, he chuckled softly to himself. But not necessary. He knew how to handle flies like Breshill without him even knowing he was being handled. When all of this dies down . . .

  The desk phone rang, cutting into his thoughts. He picked it up. “Chelsea Jones from the FBI on line 1,” Janey said. Janey was his assistant/receptionist/coffeemaker/call screener/confidant. His work wife. She had started as an intern in Raymond’s office 10 years earlier when he was an inspector, to earn extra credit, and after graduation from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, accepted Raymond’s offer to stay on full-time. Recently she got a bug up her ass to become a lawyer, so now she was a first-year law student, attending NYU at night.

  Raymond clicked on line 1. “Chelsea, how are you?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Getting along.”

  “We have a problem,” Jones said. Raymond’s first thought was that it had something to do with the grand jury.

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t talk about it on the phone.” Raymond’s stomach did a somersault. Jones continued, “I’ll be there in 15 minutes” and hung up.

  Raymond sat in his chair and stared at the big wall clock until he heard the door to the outer office open.

  On Janey’s instructions, Jones went directly into Raymond’s office, pushing open the door and entering with her FBI-confident stride. She had on a dark-blue FBI windbreaker with the zipper open, a white shirt, tan belt with a silver buckle, tan khakis, dark-blue knit socks, and orthopedic shoes. Out of sight behind her jacket, her holstered Glock 23 was hooked to her belt. Raymond got up and came around the desk to shake hands with her. “Coffee? Water?”

  “No,” Jones said. Raymond gestured for her to sit down in one of the big beige leather chairs. He sat in the other.

  Jones asked, “Heard anything from your sister’s kid these days?”

  “Jimmy? He’s doing great. Matter of fa
ct, I just sent him and a team of our guys down to Fayetteville, North Carolina, on an investigation, something we believe is related to the Times Square shooting.”

  Jimmy Kerrigan was the son of Raymond’s sister Linda. He was an NYPD detective, assigned to the New York FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Whenever an investigation starts in the Southern District of New York, no matter where it leads, these detectives follow, because they know all the background on the original case. There were New York City police detectives all over the country, and in a dozen foreign countries. Jimmy had been pulled to Fayetteville to work with the Feds there, in case anything turned up that had a connection back to Times Square.

  “He’s a fine boy,” Jones said.

  “Yes. I hear the guys in North Carolina really like him, even if he is from New York,” Raymond joked.

  Jones laughed politely. “Keep me posted.” Then she changed the subject: “Any word yet about your GJ?”

  Raymond’s chest tightened. “I’m waiting now. I think it went well.”

  “Good.” Jones paused, then gestured with her right hand as she spoke, as if drawing a picture of what she was saying. “Okay, listen up. You’re going to hear about this shortly from your people, but I want it to come from me first. I think we’re back up on the cell leader for Bakheer. We now believe, while in Paterson, Bakheer received his orders from one guy out of Detroit; we also believe we have the head guy’s phone number and the four other phones still calling in to him. The reason I’m telling you all this is because one of those phones is in Brooklyn, and it seems like whoever it is, he’s planning something here. He could also lead us back to the cell leader in Detroit. We want him.”

  “So do I, yesterday. These guys are dangerous.”

  “You have no idea. Listen, Rick, our analysts believe they’re up to something big, right here in the city.”

  Raymond didn’t know what to say.

  Jones continued, “We just got word from one of our sources that there is a shitload of chatter that says that a major attack is coming. Our cyber guys are picking up bits and pieces on the dark web. We believe there are two, maybe three suicide bombers involved. We have two under surveillance, but aren’t sure of their real identities yet, and we’re missing the third guy.”

  “Holy shit . . .”

  “It gets worse. I’m waiting for word from our people, but the guy up on the wires, the wiretaps, believes the third player is one of yours. We believe the third player is one of yours.”

  Raymond stared at Jones for a long time before speaking in measured tones. “What are you talking about?”

  Jones continued, still mapping out her story with her hands, like a conductor doing Mozart. “We were on a wire on the guy from Detroit, and these two guys begin calling in from Brooklyn. Of course, we’re now on their phones. Yesterday they spoke about ‘an Osama-size spectacular event.’ They said someone living in Brooklyn, who lives near one of their other contacts in Brooklyn and attends the same mosque, is holding their stash of weapons and explosives. The guy in Detroit asked them how they’re going to get their arsenal to the site, and he said ‘Brooklyn’ had clearance and no one would stop him.”

  “Reliable?”

  “It’s them talking; that’s pretty reliable. Besides being up on their phones, we have two different informants in the Brooklyn mosque, and both independently advised us that there are four or five New York City cops that pray there. Both of them told us, separately, that they’ve seen one cop, specifically, hanging out with a few new characters that recently started attending the mosque, but they don’t know the cop’s name or identity, and we don’t want to raise up the imam at the mosque by asking questions.”

  “When are they planning to hit?”

  “They said, ‘The heavens will open up at 4 pm on Friday.’”

  “This Friday?”

  “Correct.”

  “Jesus, there’s no time; this is Wednesday,” Raymond said, leaning forward.

  “No,” Jones said, “there’s not enough time to stop them unless we find out who the dirty cop is. We will stay close through Friday’s afternoon prayer. They’re supposed to meet for lunch after, which should be around 2 pm. We figure the three are going to meet the fourth, the cop, at lunch, and that’s when he’ll give them their equipment. He may take part in the actual attack, or he may just send them off to do the dirty work and stay back to wait for a new contact from another cell. Either way, he’s the key to stopping the attack. We’ve got to find him before this thing goes down.”

  The commissioner felt like his head was about to explode. Even if they caught the bastard, the implications of a cop being in on it would be devastating to the department, the city, and the country. There were dozens of honest Muslim employees in the NYPD, hardworking dedicated public servants whose lives would surely be in danger. There could be mobs demanding their heads on silver platters made in America. Raymond knew he had to find out who the cop was and stop the attack before any of the conspiracy reached the public.

  Jones told Raymond that the FBI operations center would be live at eight the next morning, with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and members of the NYPD’s major case squad involved as well. Everyone who could breathe would be called in on this. Jones continued, explaining how the process would work. “Every private-sector camera will feed into the police and FBI joint operations center, and there will be a dozen surveillance teams, four to six agents each, a counterassault team, or CAT, on standby, and a full load of the NYPD’s ESUs—emergency service units. I’ll see you bright and early in the morning. We will do all we can and leave the rest in God’s hands.”

  Raymond nodded. “I’ll be there,” he said. They stood and shook hands before Jones left the office. Raymond immediately called the mayor’s direct line.

  “Yes?”

  “Mayor, I’ve got to see you. It’s urgent. I’m on my way.”

  The mayor could hear something in Raymond’s voice he didn’t like. “Okay, I’m here.”

  Raymond put on his jacket and opened the door to his office; four bodyguards and Gallagher were hanging around in reception. Janey was at her desk, where one of the four had been bending over to talk to her. He couldn’t help trying to glance at the front of her blouse. They all jumped to attention. Raymond frowned, looked at Gallagher, and nodded for him to follow. Gallagher snapped to Shelby to get to the car, and Archer ran ahead to get the commissioner’s private elevator. “I need to see the mayor,” Raymond said, as Gallagher held open the elevator door.

  Archer lifted his wrist so that he could speak into the small black microphone attached to his sleeve. “Eagle One to Eagle Three, the commissioner is leaving the nest, headed to City Hall. We’re 10 minutes out.”

  The doors closed behind them and opened again in the garage. Raymond’s new Suburban was running, with both rear doors opened. Raymond jumped in behind Archer, and Gallagher behind Shelby. When all the doors closed, Shelby gunned it toward the up ramp into the bustling city that Raymond was now desperately trying to save from being blown to hell, and he had zero minus 48 to do it.

  CHAPTER 9

  3:10 pm, Wednesday, 11 October

  Raymond and Gallagher arrived just after three at the mayor’s office. Brown was waiting for them. Raymond told Gallagher to wait in reception, then sat down and filled the mayor in on what was going down.

  “Jesus,” Brown said. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to stop it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m going to go along with FBI agent Jones tomorrow and see what we can do. There’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “We think there could be a dirty cop in on this.”

  Brown dropped his head, then looked up. “Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? Rick, get the bastard!”

  “I’m going to give it my best.”
>
  CHAPTER 10

  7:35 am, Thursday, 12 October

  Raymond arrived at the FBI headquarters, 26 Federal Plaza, in Downtown Manhattan. He and Gallagher were escorted by two agents, who took them in a keyed elevator to the eighth floor. “You stay with me,” the commissioner said to Gallagher. The doors opened to a warehouse-sized operations center, dark, with wall lights continually blinking on and off and three dozen desk computers monitored by agents. Each of their screens corresponded to giant ones hung around the walls of the center. An FBI agent walked Raymond and Gallagher over to Jones, who was huddled with a dozen FBI executives and NYPD Deputy Inspector Mickie Tarquette, the commander of the JTTF for the NYPD. Jones turned and introduced the two newcomers to the others.

  Raymond shook hands with everyone, and gave a quick shoulder-grip hug to Tarquette, one of the rising stars of the NYPD. They had known each other a long time, going all the way back to when they were both doing patrol. Raymond was a lieutenant when they first met, and they had hit it off from the get-go. With his bushy mop of blond hair, Tarquette looked at least 10 years younger than his 40, and still had the body of an athlete in his prime. Because of his long record of achievement, Raymond had transferred Tarquette to JTTF 10 months earlier, where he was quickly promoted to deputy inspector, one rank above captain. The commanding officer of JTTF was one of the most coveted positions in the NYPD, and Tarquette had sent his request for the assignment directly to Raymond, who was happy to give his approval. It was not only great for the force; it also reflected well on Raymond.

  It was about 4:45 pm, just about seven hours since the first plane hit the North Tower. By now, both towers had come down. Four hours earlier, I had confirmed that the plane carrying my wife, Mary, had crashed in Shanksville, PA. The senior brass on the job came to see me personally, to tell me and allow me to leave, but I couldn’t. I needed something to occupy my mind, and there was nothing I could do to bring Mary back. As I stood in the rubble wondering what the hell had happened, I felt like my entire world was collapsing. Then, I got a call to report to the auditorium at headquarters. When I arrived, I saw dozens of families of police officers gathered there. At the same time, the police commissioner, the first deputy, and the chief of department entered the room. The police commissioner sat with the family members and spoke with them, and then spoke to everyone, informing them that as of this moment 23 members of the department were missing, and the entire force was going to do everything in its power to find them. The police commissioner looked at me and told the families in the room that my wife had been killed on one of the planes, yet I chose to be there with them. I could see he was trying to be optimistic for the group of family members, but having just come from what was now known as Ground Zero, I knew that the chances of finding them alive at this point were slim to none. Everything and anything not made of steel had been either crushed beyond recognition or vaporized. At that point, I was inspired and motivated to be there for those families. There was nothing I could do for myself and my own loss, but I felt obligated to be there for them.