Fear City

by F. Paul Wilson

  Everything happened very quickly then. The man from the pickup smashed Nasser’s window as the side door of the van slid open and released another bruiser. A hand reached through the window, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. The second man carried a dagger that cut through Nasser’s seat belt like tissue paper. With frightening efficiency he was pulled from the Volvo and hurled into the van. Nasser resisted but he was outweighed and overpowered. The two men pinned him to the van floor by kneeling on his back as they expertly bound his wrists and ankles with plastic ties. One of the men exited and slammed the door closed. Immediately the van began moving.

  All within fifteen seconds at most.

  Had he fallen victim to some sort of paramilitary organization?

  “Who are you?” Nasser said, hiding his fear. “What is the meaning of this?”

  He realized he sounded contemptibly trite, but those were the words that sprang to his lips.

  “Mister Nasser al-Thani, I presume,” said a Scottish-accented voice from somewhere behind him. “We have some questions for you.”

  Still on his belly, Nasser couldn’t see who had spoken.

  “I’m happy to answer questions. You didn’t have to abduct me.”

  “Well, we want straight answers.”

  “What about?”

  “A young woman. Known originally as Cristin Ott. Then later as simply Danaë, and later still as the Ditmars Dahlia.”

  Nasser’s saliva evaporated. How had they connected him with Danaë? Oh, wait. Klarić and Reggie were gone, and now this. Obvious. Klarić would never break. But Reggie … Reggie would spill his guts. But how much had he known?

  Stall …

  “I’ve read about her, of course. But I know only what was in the papers.”

  A fist slammed into his right kidney.

  “Wrong answer.”

  The pain left him breathless and unable to speak.

  When he managed to regain his voice, he said, “Why are you asking me? And why are you interested? The papers said she was a call girl, a nobody.”

  Another blow, this time to the left kidney.

  “She was a somebody,” said another voice from another direction. “Very much a somebody.”

  Nasser lifted his head to see. The driver had spoken. He turned and glanced over his shoulder at Nasser and the look on his face was enough to freeze the blood. Good thing he was driving or he might be tearing at Nasser’s face right now.

  And then Nasser realized he’d seen that face before. In a photograph.

  Lonnie.

  3

  Jack ground his teeth in rage. This al-Thani was the second slimeball to call Cristin a nobody. Where did they get off? They were the nobodies, and they’d soon see how little they were worth.

  Jack had expected to return to the city but Burkes instead directed him to the turnpike via Tonnelle Avenue. They traveled north to route 17 and took that farther north into the wooded hills of Bergen County. At the end of a winding, sloping driveway in Mahwah they came to a long, low ranch house in the woods.

  “Whose place is this?” he said as he pulled the van to a halt beside a black sedan parked by the front door. Rob parked Bertel’s pickup a few feet away.

  “Ours,” Burkes said.

  “As in the UK mission’s?”

  He nodded. “A little woodsy getaway for the diplomats. None of whom are here now.”

  “This where you took Reggie?”

  “He’s cuffed up inside.”

  Rob and Gerald carried the bound but still struggling al-Thani out of the van. Burkes walked ahead and unlocked the front door while Jack brought up the rear. They trooped inside where al-Thani was dropped on a couch.

  “I’ll check on the other one,” Rob said.

  Jack followed him to a rear bedroom where Reggie lay cuffed to a bed. He didn’t look so hot—pale, sweaty, with the arrow protruding full length from his throat.

  Some of the glaze burned off his eyes when he saw Jack.

  “Fuck you!” he rasped, still unable to speak above a harsh whisper.

  “Well,” Jack said, “just let me say, ‘Thank you’ for your help in tracking down your pal al-Thani. He’s in the next room. Want to say hello?”

  Reggie said no more, simply closed his eyes.

  Rob checked his manacles to make sure they were secure, then led Jack back out to the main room.

  “You’re leaving the arrow in his throat?” he said when he saw Burkes.

  “Don’t have much choice. We’d have to wriggle the head to get it out and who knows what that would do? Might sever one of his carotid arteries. If that happens he’d be dead in less than a minute and not a damn thing we could do to save him. Same risks from trying to saw off the shaft to shorten it.”

  “So he’s sort of a human weather vane.”

  Burkes smiled. “You could say that.”

  “You really worried about him dying?”

  “For the nonce.” He gestured to al-Thani. “As I told you, once this tosser opens up, Reggie becomes redundant.”

  Burkes opened a door that revealed stairs going down.

  “All right. Let’s get started.”

  He held the door for his two men and their captive but stepped in front of Jack as he tried to follow.

  “Here’s where you go for a drive, Jack.”

  “What? Again? Forget about it.”

  He blocked Jack’s way as he tried to pass. “We’ve had this discussion already.”

  “Yeah, and it was for nothing. You didn’t have to do anything to Reggie to make him fold like wet cardboard, so—”

  Burkes shook his head. “This one will be different. I can tell already he’s going to be a tough break.”

  “He called Cristin a nobody.”

  “Be that as it may, we’ve got a nice windowless room down there. I’ll be asking the questions while Rob and Gerald—who’ve been trained in advanced interrogation techniques—get down to the rough stuff.”

  “I’m staying.”

  Burkes sighed. “You’re going. Take the pickup.”

  “Shit, Burkes. That’s the guy who ordered the other scumbags to torture and kill Cristin!”

  “So Reggie says. We’ll find out. And we’ll also find out if someone higher up ordered her death. I don’t think it ends with al-Thani. And we’ll find out why. We’ll find out why D’Amato was so important and—”

  Jack heard his voice rising. “I don’t give a shit about D’Amato! I want this bastard’s ass!”

  “Don’t make me call the lads.”

  After his conversation with Abe last night, Jack knew he needed to respect the physical prowess of anyone who’d gone through SAS training. He’d read what SEALs went through, and if theirs was anything like that, he knew that if they wanted him out the door, he’d be out the door no matter how he resisted.

  “This sucks,” he said, although a secret part of him was glad that he wasn’t being given a choice.

  “That’s what you think now. Someday you’ll thank me.”

  Would he? Maybe. Despite the rage boiling within him, and as much as these fuckers deserved to die in agony, he wasn’t sure how much he could inflict. He’d have to be cool and methodical to do it right. He didn’t think he could be cool and methodical about something like that.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Buck up, lad. We’ll have him broken in time for a leisurely lunch.”

  4

  Kadir had borrowed Salameh’s car for an hour or so to drive into the city. This was a reconnaissance mission. Last night he and Ayyad had pored over maps of Manhattan’s Midtown East and the UN Plaza. Ayyad had decided that the most effective place for an explosion in the FDR underpass would be five hundred feet from the end—the spot closest to the base of the towering Secretariat building.

  Kadir entered through the Lincoln Tunnel and crossed to the East Side where he entered the FDR Drive. The expressway had few off-ramps and seemingly fewer on-ramps. The closest entrance uptown from the UN co
mplex was at East 63rd Street.

  Traffic was moving well as he drove under the Queensboro Bridge, then into the Sutton Place underpass. As he emerged from that, he saw the glass-sided domino of the Secretariat Building looming less than half a mile ahead, almost edge on.

  He had been practicing measuring five hundred feet by eye, and so he kept careful watch on the ledged inner wall of the UN underpass. He could see daylight ahead and slowed as he marked the spot in his mind.

  Here he would have to stop the van and immediately light the fuses. Then he would put on his emergency flashers, get out, and open the front hood to make it look like he was having engine trouble. As soon as that was done he would climb onto the ledge and run the five hundred feet to the end of the underpass where he would duck around the corner. Once there he would be protected from the direct force of the blast, but he wouldn’t stop moving.

  The explosion would demolish everything in the underpass, expending most of its force upward and outward. The underpass would collapse and, with Allah’s help, the blast would undermine the Secretariat Building, tumbling it into the East River. That was why Kadir would keep running—rounding the big playground and moving up 41st Street—because no one had any idea how much debris would be in the air and where it would land. By that time Yousef’s bomb in the front of the UN would have detonated and Kadir could walk up First Avenue and pretend to be just another shell-shocked survivor as he gloried in the destruction and chaos he had helped create.

  He came out into the sunlight again and took the first off-ramp. He made his way to First Avenue and headed back uptown. As he passed the UN, he noticed yellow-vested policemen waving the traffic on, keeping it moving, not allowing any vehicles except buses to stop.

  Alarm jolted through him. How would Yousef be able to position his van and light the fuses if he wasn’t allowed to stop?

  Unless they found a way to bring the traffic to a halt.

  He continued uptown and made another trip through the UN underpass.

  Yes, ten minutes seemed like plenty of time to clear the blast area—if everything went as planned. A slip or a trip resulting in a sprained ankle or knee could slow him considerably.

  He sighed. Well, if the blast caught him, he would find a martyr’s reward waiting for him in the next life.

  But before all that, he needed a way to stop traffic on First Avenue.

  As he headed back to Jersey City, an idea began to form.

  5

  After ending her shift at three, Hadya had posted herself at the intersection of Virginia Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard, waiting for Kadir to pass. But two hours on watch yielded no sign of him or the green car. She was sure if she quit now that the car would pass as soon as she turned her back. Not only was she weak from hunger and thirst after her day-long fast, but her fingers and toes were numb with cold.

  She needed food and water. Jala had been home for hours now and would have a plate of dates ready to start iftar, the fast-breaking meal, at 5:40, right after sunset. Her mouth watered at the thought.

  But instead of heading back toward the tiny apartment they called home, she walked north toward the Al-Salam Mosque. Perhaps she would see Kadir there.

  Instead she spotted a familiar pickup truck parked at a corner just off Kennedy but with a view of the mosque. However, instead of the bearded older man she’d seen before, a clean-shaven young man now sat behind the wheel. As she watched, he exited the truck and walked to the pay phone a few steps away. After a brief conversation that seemed more like an argument, he hung up—none too gently—and stalked back to the truck.

  She hesitated, then overcame her customary inhibitions. Taking a deep breath, she strode toward the passenger door.

  6

  We’ll have him broken in time for a leisurely lunch …

  Bullshit.

  Not wanting to waste his period of banishment from the Mahwah house, Jack had decided to devote the time to pursuing the Arab connection to Cristin. He couldn’t imagine what it might be, but since he was already in north Jersey, and since Bertel was no longer on the job, he assigned himself the task of watching the mosque.

  He’d anticipated a brief stakeout, so he’d parked near some phones, allowing hassle-free call-ins. But each call had been the same: Sorry, no, they hadn’t broken him yet.

  Jack’s watch had been equally fruitless. Lots of Muslims going in and out the doorway next to the toy store. Bertel had mentioned that today started their holy month of Ramadan and so Jack guessed that was why. He’d learned nothing and had been zoned out—eyes in a half-dazed stare at the mosque but mind somewhere else—

  A knock-knock on the passenger-side window jolted him to full alertness.

  His hand was automatically reaching for the Glock under the seat when he saw the young woman with some scarflike thing around her head—similar to all the Muslim women he’d watched entering and leaving the mosque. What he could see of her face was kind of pretty. With her wary dark eyes she looked harmless enough, so he rolled down the passenger window.

  She spoke as soon as the upper edge cleared her lips.

  “You are government? Police?” she said in heavily accented English.

  He hadn’t been prepared for that level of directness.

  “Not even close.”

  “Why you are watching the mosque?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Where is the old man who once drive this truck?”

  So much for the clandestine part of Bertel’s surveillance.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You are watching my brother?”

  “Lady, I don’t know you, I don’t know your brother, and I’m not watching anyone.”

  “His name is Kadir Allawi. I want you to arrest him.”

  Holy crap. He knew that son of a bitch. And here was his sister looking to get him arrested. Talk about surreal.

  He forced a laugh. “Like I told you, I’m not police. Have you called the cops?”

  “I have called FBI.”

  “No kidding? What did they say?”

  “They say they are ‘aware’ of Sheikh Omar and that is all.”

  Sounded like a brush-off. Bertel had said the Bureau was no longer watching the mosque. Maybe they didn’t want any reminders.

  “Not much help. But just out of curiosity, why would you want your own brother arrested?”

  “He is planning something bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “Very bad.”

  Jack stiffened. Just what Bertel had been saying. Maybe his rants about those clowns bringing jihad to America weren’t so far out after all.

  He noticed her shivering.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “If you are not police, you cannot help.”

  “I might know some people who can.” He leaned over and unlocked the door. “Come in out of the cold,” he said as he cleared off the passenger seat.

  She shook her head. She looked scared. “No. I cannot.”

  “Don’t be afraid. I’ve no wish to harm you.” He gestured at the traffic on Kennedy Boulevard. “Besides, there’s too many people around for me to try.”

  A gust of cold wind ruffled her scarf and she seemed to waver. He pulled the keys from the ignition, placed them in the ashtray in the center of the dashboard, and pushed it closed.

  “Look. Now I can’t drive away with you either. You have nothing to fear.”

  Setting her lips in a tight line, she pulled the door open and stepped up to the passenger seat. She slammed the door behind her and immediately rolled up the window. He noticed a paper bag labeled “Ramallah Bakery” in her lap.

  “So … what is your brother planning?”

  “I do not know,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

  He pointed to the ashtray. “If you let me start the engine, I can put on the heater.”

  She shook her head. “No. That is all right. I fear Kadir will hurt people.”

  Tha
t didn’t sound good.

  “Hurt how?”

  She shook her head and he could sense her frustration. “I do not know. I see him driving up and down the boulevard—”

  “In a Chevy Nova?”

  A shrug. “I do not know cars. It is old and green.”

  “I know it.”

  A sharp look. “Then you have been watching him.”

  “I’ve seen that car pull up in front of the mosque quite a few times with different men inside.”

  “Yes … his friends.” That last word was laced with acid.

  Jack decided to take the plunge and see how much she knew.

  “Are they interested in jihad?”

  Her light brown skin paled as she looked at him in shock. “How do you know of jihad?”

  He shrugged. “I know nothing for sure. I’ve been told by the older man you saw in this truck that the preacher in there”—he pointed to the mosque building—“hates America and that he has followers who feel the same way.”

  “He is called an ‘imam.’ Yes, he hates America, but I have listened to him and I know that he also hates many Muslims who do not agree with him. He says he speaks for Allah and my brother believes him, but Allah does not hate.”

  Jack remembered something Bertel had told him.

  “But doesn’t Allah reward those who die for jihad?”

  The girl looked away. “It is … what is English word for not simple?”

  “Complicated?”

  “I do not know this word.”

  “Yeah, well, religion is always complicated. But all that aside, I haven’t seen—” He stopped himself from saying your brother. He wasn’t supposed to know Kadir. “—that car all day.”

  “I wish to know where he goes, but I have no car.” She looked at Jack. “If you see him, will you please follow him and find out?”

  That might not be a bad idea.

  “Time permitting, I’ll try. And if I do find out what he’s up to, how do I tell you?”