Fear City

by F. Paul Wilson

  As tears streamed down her cheeks, he reached across the table and took her hand. She squeezed his like she was trying to break his fingers.

  “I’ve been asking myself that question all week.”

  The waitress appeared then, pad and pencil held at ready, and Jack realized he wasn’t hungry. An unusual state for him.

  He looked at Karina’s blotchy face. “You hungry?”

  Karina could only shake her head.

  He apologized to the waitress and they went back outside. The snow had turned to rain and they got wet during a prolonged last hug.

  Watching her drive away he felt like he’d just lived through a Dan Fogelberg song.

  15

  “What’s good here?”

  Hadya looked up and saw a vaguely familiar face smiling over the top of the display case. She tensed when she recognized the young man who had been watching the mosque.

  She glanced around. Only two other customers, Muslim women buying treats for tonight’s fast-breaking iftar. Jala was handling them.

  “Hello,” she said softly. “Where have you been?”

  “Unexpected events kept me busy elsewhere.”

  “Have you learned anything?”

  He shook his head. “Just got here. You?”

  “Yes. I found an address where my brother and his friends go. Something…” What was the word? “Something not normal is happening there.”

  “You mean strange?”

  “Yes. Strange. Very strange.”

  His mild brown eyes narrowed. “Strange is always interesting, even if it’s just … strange. Where we talking about?”

  She pulled a pencil from her pocket and wrote Pamrapo Avenue on a paper napkin.

  “It is down Kennedy, almost to Bayonne,” she said, pointing as she slid the napkin across the top of the display case. “There is empty land with a path that…” Again the word eluded her. She made an arcing movement with her hand.

  “Curves?” he said.

  “Yes. It curves behind a house. They are in an old … place for cars.”

  “Garage?”

  “Yes. It is there but you cannot see it from the street. Kadir and his friends do not live there. Just work there.”

  He smiled. “Where did you learn your English?”

  Was he going to make fun of her?

  “I teach myself.”

  His eyebrows rose. “How long?”

  “Two years now. I listen to tapes. I am not very good.”

  “You kidding?” he said with a smile as he waved the napkin. “And you write it too. Considering we don’t even have the same alphabet, you’re amazing.”

  She felt her face flush. When was the last time she had heard a compliment? About anything. She couldn’t remember. She blinked back tears.

  “Thank you.”

  “I can only imagine what my Arabic would sound like after two years of self-study.” He tucked the napkin away. “I’ll give the place a look.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Careful is becoming my middle name.” He stepped back from the display case and studied the contents. “Now … what’s good here?”

  She smiled. “Everything. What do you like? We have kanafeh, halawa, baklava…”

  “It’s not for me. For a friend.”

  A girlfriend?

  “Very well. What does she like?”

  “It’s a he and he’s got a sweet tooth the size of Brooklyn.”

  What?

  “I don’t under—”

  “The sweeter the better.”

  “Ah, then you want baklava—the one on the second shelf with the pistachios.”

  “Heard of that.” He bent for a closer look at the glistening lumps of flaky dough. “That’s the one with all the honey, right?”

  “Full of honey.”

  He straightened and smiled. “Sounds like a winner. Pack me up a pound.”

  She placed a sheet of wax paper on the scale, weighed out a pound of the bias-cut pieces, then tied them all into a white pie box. She put an extra piece on some paper and handed it to the young man.

  “This is for you.”

  “Really? Thanks.”

  He followed her to the cash register where he paid for the pound.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  She felt another flush coming. “Hadya. Yours?”

  “Jack. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Don’t let them see you.”

  “If there’s anyone there I’ll go back tomorrow.”

  He waved and walked out.

  What a nice man. He wasn’t for her, but still … she hoped he came back.

  16

  “Pamrapo … Pamrapo…” Jack muttered as he steered Ralph along Kennedy Boulevard, studying the street signs.

  Weird name. Probably Indian—or Native American, as the PC police wanted them called. Jack wasn’t much for political correctness, but “Native American” made sense and simplified the confusion: Indians were native to India and Native Americans were native to, well, America. Made sense.

  Anyway, New Jerseyans loved to give their places Native American names. Like Hackensack, Hoboken, and Ho-Ho-Kus, and even Mahwah, where Burkes had his safe house. Pamrapo sounded like an anagram of Ramapo, another aboriginal name.

  His stomach rumbled. He should have eaten when he had the chance at Olga’s, even if he wasn’t hungry at the time. But that hadn’t been in the cards. He’d had time on the drive back from Jersey to think about his tête-à-tête with Karina. If nothing else, it had made it clear that whatever they’d once had as a couple was gone. He would always have a warm spot in his heart for his first love, but they were two different people now. Too much had happened to him. He was over her just as she was over him. No going back. No reason to.

  He bit into the piece of baklava Hadya had given him. Sweet. Too sweet by half for him, but hunger demanded he gobble the rest. Oh, man. Abe was gonna plotz when he tasted this.

  He stopped at a light and there it was: Pamrapo Avenue. But left or right? She hadn’t said. He swung right and eased down the short block. Dark had fallen and the streetlights hadn’t come on yet, but he drove all the way to its end without seeing any “empty land,” as Hadya had put it.

  Cute girl. Cute face, at least, because that was all she left visible. Could be bald for all he could tell. Couldn’t tell much about the rest of her either because she was swathed like a nun.

  She was right to suspect her brother, but no way she could know about the Rabin visit and where and when they planned to set off their bomb unless he told her. Jack hadn’t seen any reason to tell her that tomorrow was her brother’s big day.

  He crossed back over Kennedy. On the other side he found a vacant lot—he guessed that qualified as “empty land”—with a rutted path curving into the bushes, just as she’d described. He stayed on the street and rolled by for about a hundred yards, then killed the headlights as he turned around. He parked across the street and walked to the lot. He followed the ruts for a couple of dozen feet before he spotted the converted garage. Lights glowed from within and he recognized the Chevy Nova parked out front. Too risky to approach much closer.

  He returned to Ralph and headed back toward Kennedy.

  If they were building a bomb, that would be the place. But Burkes had said they’d need a truckload of explosive to do any real damage from outside the UN. No van in sight at the moment.

  But if they planned to hit the UN tomorrow before noon, they’d load up the truck in the morning. Jack didn’t know a damn thing about bombs, but if he saw anything like that going down, he’d call Burkes immediately and let him handle it from there.

  He’d return early tomorrow—real early—for a look inside.

  17

  Hadya composed herself as she waited for Kadir to answer her knock. She still had her key from when she lived here—before he’d shaved her head—and could have used it to open his apartment door, but that would only provoke him, which was the last th
ing she wanted tonight.

  Jack’s visit to the bakery had given her an idea. He’d bought sweets for a friend and it occurred to her that she might use halawah and baklava as a fake peace offering to Kadir—fake because she could not find it within herself to forgive what he’d done to her. The Qur’an said that the best deed before Allah was to pardon a person who has wronged you. Perhaps someday she would be able to forgive Kadir, but the humiliation still burned. And if he planned to hurt innocent people, she had to stop him.

  The door opened just wide enough to expose a brown eye. It widened in surprise and then the door opened enough to reveal Kadir’s scraggly bearded face.

  “Hadya?”

  The air wafting from within the apartment carried a milder form of the acrid stench she’d smelled at the converted garage. It must have permeated Kadir’s clothes.

  She held up the bag of sweets. “I brought you halawah and baklava for your iftar.”

  And now he frowned, his expression puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because it is Ramadan and good deeds are twice blessed.”

  He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her hijab.

  “I am glad to see that you are dressed like a righteous Muslim woman. You learned your lesson well.”

  Hadya went cold inside. She wanted to rake her nails across his smug face. Instead she pushed the bag toward him.

  “Here. For you.”

  “This is unexpected,” he said, taking it.

  “May I come in?”

  He shook his head. “I have guests. We are discussing important matters.”

  She craned her neck to see around him and spotted three tense faces watching the door. She had no names for them but had seen them all with Kadir at one time or another.

  “Oh … sorry.”

  “Yes. Good night.”

  He closed the door in her face.

  Anger blazed, urging her to kick the door again and again until he opened it. She had braved this not-so-safe neighborhood on Kensington Avenue to bring him a gift of sweets, and now she faced a walk home of over a mile in the cold and dark. And what had he done? Taken it and snubbed her without so much as a thank-you.

  But the flare died quickly. Venting her anger would accomplish nothing. Sadness and dismay took hold instead.

  How terribly you’ve changed, my brother.

  Kadir was a different person. All gentleness had fled. Had an evil spirit taken over his body? No, not a spirit, an influence. The influence of Sheikh Omar.

  In her pocket she carried a short steel bar she’d taken from the oven area of the bakery. Early tomorrow morning, while Kadir and his friends were having their pre-fast meal, she would be at the garage, prying the front door open. And if she found what she didn’t want to find, what she prayed she would not find, she would have to act. To save others and to save Kadir from himself, she would not hesitate to report her own brother to the police.

  18

  Tony was in a spitting rage. Like real spit, tiny drops, all over the blotter on his desk.

  No surprise there.

  “These fuckers are into me for ten G’s and you can’t find them?” he screamed.

  Tommy said nothing. He’d decided that was the way he’d play it tonight. Just stare at Tony and wait for him to give himself a heart attack. Or cough up a lung. Whichever came first.

  The lack of response pushed Tony closer to the edge.

  “Ain’t you got nothin’ to say?”

  Tommy shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  Tony’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “Are you fucking stoned?”

  Even Vinny was looking at him.

  Stoned? Tommy thought. Why yes, I believe I am. Very.

  He’d been tooting all afternoon and night. Had a little Valpolicella mixed in there too. Make that a lot of Valpolicella. Liquid and powdered courage for what he was about to do.

  So simple: Pull his gun and shoot Vinny three times in the chest. Grab Vinny’s gun as he goes down and shoot Tony before he can pull the Dirty Harry .44 Magnum that got him his nickname. Wipe off Vinny’s gun and put it in his hand.

  Story: Vinny got into an argument with his capo and shot him. Tommy, fearing he was next—hey, everybody knew there was bad blood between the two of them—shot Vinny in self-defense.

  Trouble was, they was both looking at him now. Had to get their eyes pointed elsewhere, just for a second, just long enough for him to pull his gun.

  He pointed at the door to the alley behind Tony. “Hey, who’s that?”

  Like total jerks they looked and Tommy reached for his pistol—

  Shit! His fucking holster was empty. What the—?

  His gun—he’d lost it in the scuffle with the ragheads over in Jersey. He’d been so fucking stoned all day he hadn’t realized it was gone.

  Shit-shit-SHIT!

  Tony turned back to him. “Now you’re seeing things! Get outta here! You and Vinny are bringing Aldo along tomorrow. And I don’t want to see your face again unless you’re bringing me my vig!”

  With nothing else to say, and nothing else he could do, Tommy slunk away.

  FRIDAY

  FEBRUARY 26, 1993

  1

  Sunrise was still two hours away as Hadya stepped off the bus near Pamrapo Avenue. She had been afraid to walk the two and a half miles from her apartment at four thirty in the morning. A woman out alone at this hour in the cold and dark … not only unwise, but dangerously foolish. But traveling at this hour was necessary if she was to have the garage to herself. Kadir and his fellow conspirators—for she had no doubt they were involved in a conspiracy of some sort—would not have even started their suhoor yet, so that would give her plenty of time.

  As she hurried down Pamrapo, it began to snow. Light, swirling flakes floating from heaven. It snowed in Jordan, but rarely, and she had neither time nor temperament to appreciate it now. Perhaps later, after she’d seen what was in that garage.

  She found the vacant lot and started a careful walk along one of the ruts. She didn’t own a flashlight but was sure if she moved slowly enough—

  She stopped. Voices echoed from up ahead around the bend.

  Kadir? At this hour? Could it be?

  She edged forward and saw four vehicles. Two of them were vans backed up to the door of the converted garage. Four men were carrying cardboard boxes from inside and loading them into the vans. Box after box after box. They looked harmless enough. What could be in them?

  As she crouched and moved forward for a better look, her foot caught on something and she fell forward.

  2

  “What was that?” Yousef said, freezing and looking around as Kadir carried another box of the urea nitrate from inside.

  “What?”

  “I thought I heard someone on the driveway.”

  Kadir hadn’t heard anything, but then he hadn’t been out here. Probably nothing—he’d seen a raccoon or two in the yard over the past week. Still, at this point they couldn’t take anything for granted.

  They’d arrived extra early so they could load the vans in the dark. The boxes of urea nitrate paste looked innocent, but the long fuses and canisters of compressed hydrogen might raise alarms should anyone accidentally get a peek.

  He quickly stacked the box in the van and picked up the flashlight from the truck bed. He trained its beam on the rank grass running along the ruts that passed for a driveway and—

  Movement in the grass.

  “Someone’s here!”

  He kept his beam trained on the prone figure as he and Yousef ran forward together. A woman? She looked up and his heart sank as he recognized his sister.

  “Hadya?”

  “Your sister?” Yousef cried in a voice hoarse with shock. “Your sister?”

  Kadir couldn’t believe this was happening. “What are you doing here, Hadya?”

  “I am asking you the same question, brother,” she replied in Arabic, brushing off her clothes as she rose. “What are you doing here?”

/>   “None of your concern. Now you just turn around and—”

  Yousef gripped his arm. “No! We cannot let her go!”

  Kadir knew he was right. Fuming with anger that she would betray him and jeopardize all his plans like this, he grabbed Hadya’s arm and dragged her toward the apartment.

  “No!” she said, struggling against him and trying to pull away. She raised her voice. “Let me go!”

  His anger exploded. In a burst of rage he slammed the flashlight against the side of her head.

  “Silence! Do as you’re told!”

  The blow staggered her. As her knees wobbled and she began to sink toward the ground, he and Yousef each took an arm and dragged her inside.

  Ayyad and Salameh, each with a box of nitrate in their arms, stared in frozen shock.

  “What…?” Ayyad said, wide-eyed.

  Yousef spoke through his teeth. “Kadir’s nosy sister.”

  “How did she know?”

  “Obviously she’d been spying on us.”

  They dropped her in a corner against the wall where she stared up at him with dazed eyes, rubbing the side of her face.

  “Kadir…”

  “Silence!”

  What was he going to do with her?

  “Who have you told about this?” he said, keeping his voice low. “Have you told the police?”

  “No…”

  “The FBI?”

  “No. Please, Kadir. I don’t know what you’re doing but you mustn’t—”

  She cringed as he raised the flashlight for another blow. He looked around and spotted a roll of silver duct tape. He traded the flashlight for that and nodded to Yousef.

  “Hold her.”

  Hadya began kicking and screaming as Yousef pinned her arms. Kadir quickly silenced her by wrapping a length of tape across her mouth and then winding it around her head, hijab and all—once, twice, three times. Her struggles increased as he began to wind it around her body, trapping her arms.