The Terrorist, page 14
“It’s too late for that, sir. I don’t know how he did it…”
“Jesus,” said Peter.
“Sir?” said Dimitrius.
“Just stay with him,” said Peter. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
XV
After a particularly unpleasant interrogation, Zaharia was taken to an office where he had never been before. He was allowed to sit on a chair. An American army officer stood in front of him. He stood with his arms crossed and studied Zaharia. Zaharia met his gaze without actually seeing him. The officer pulled a tissue from a box. He withdrew several more and handed them to Zaharia. He touched his upper lip, to signal where Zaharia should use the tissue. Zaharia dabbed at his lip, which was swollen and oozing blood.
“You’re being transferred,” the man said. “All you have to do is sign these papers.” Zaharia tried to read the paper, but he could not focus on the words. “It’s not a confession or anything,” said the officer. “It just says that you were appropriately treated and that you waive all…” Zaharia stopped listening. The man pressed a pen into his hand and Zaharia signed. Zaharia’s arms and legs were shackled. This had become routine. When they were not, he tried to harm himself.
A hood was placed over his head. Zaharia was escorted from the prison. He walked between two guards. Because of the shackles, he could only walk with a slow shuffle. But the guards were patient. Zaharia could see the ground from the bottom of the hood. He could smell the winter air and feel the cold on his skin. He was outside. The last time he had been outside it had been warm.
The guards walked him up three stairs onto a bus. One sat beside him; the other sat behind him. The bus drove for a long time. Zaharia fell asleep. He woke up when the bus stopped. His lip was throbbing. The two guards walked him down the stairs of the bus. They walked him up a long ramp. He could tell he was getting on an airplane. He was placed on a seat. Someone was sitting next to him but he did not think it was a guard. When he had to go to the bathroom a guard took him. After they had been flying for many hours he was given a cheese sandwich and a box of fruit juice. He sucked on the straw until the box collapsed. He kept sucking on the straw long after there was no more fruit juice, and they took the box away from him. Someone gave him another box of fruit juice. He drank it all. He slept.
He woke up as the hood was being removed from his head. He could see that he was one of only a few men riding as passengers in the large airplane. At least half of them were in uniform. He fell asleep again and slept until they landed.
Zaharia was put in a van. He saw an American flag waving as they left the airport. They drove on a highway beside a large body of water. The highway signs were in English. 55 mph. new jersey turnpike. In the distance across the water he glimpsed tall buildings. It was New York. They left New York behind and drove south. More signs. Zaharia read them aloud without knowing he was doing so. “IKEA. Elizabeth. Port facilities next exit.” They drove past shipping docks with enormous stacks of shipping containers. They left the turnpike and drove on a series of side roads.
They drove past a guard house. A guard in civilian clothes and wearing dark glasses stepped out of a second small guard house and checked the papers the driver handed him. He waved them onto the base. The van stopped. A guard took Zaharia into a concrete building. He was put in a room. Zaharia knew it was a cell because there were bars on the window. But there were curtains he could pull closed to hide the bars. The bed was normal with clean sheets and a blanket and a pillow. The chair was normal. There was a small table with a normal lamp on it and some old American magazines. There was a toilet in the corner of the room. It was clean and it looked like it worked.
“Don’t try to hurt yourself,” said the guard, and removed the shackles. Zaharia rubbed his wrists and his ankles. “We’ll be watching, so don’t try to hurt yourself. All right?”
After a while a doctor came into the cell. He examined Zaharia’s lip. He washed it off and put some salve on it. It burned a little. “Take off your shirt,” he said. Zaharia did as he was told. The doctor touched and prodded Zaharia here and there wherever he saw bruises and some places he didn’t. “Does this hurt? How about this?
“Stand up,” said the doctor. “Raise your arms shoulder high.” The doctor made a few notes. Then he did an extraordinary thing. He put his hand on Zaharia’s shoulder and gave it a little rub, a small friendly gesture.
Zaharia sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the floor. He did not dare think what he wanted to think. He tried not to think anything. But somewhere in his mind he heard the silly voice of hope. It seemed to get louder and louder. Suddenly he could not see the floor anymore because his eyes had filled with tears. He lay facedown on the bed and wrapped the pillow around his face as though he wanted to smother himself. But he only wanted to smother the sobs.
Bobby was not eager to get involved in the drama Louis was planning. Neither was Jamal. He was a policeman after all, and he had already so overstepped the bounds of what was proper and legal for a Newark police officer, that if anyone on the force ever found out what he had done and, worse, what he was contemplating, he would go to jail for a very long time. The Greek chorus was even less eager than Bobby and Jamal. Who was this crazy old man anyway? They just stared at Louis hard-eyed as he talked and talked.
Finally the young man with eek on his gold chain spoke. “Are you crazy, motherfucker?”
“Probably,” said Louis.
EEK and his friends were on the verge of leaving. They had owed Jamal, but EEK figured now they were even. “Jamal, this isn’t going to work. This goes way beyond making sense.” What did Jamal need them for, EEK wondered. All there was, was to protect Fareed from one dopey CIA man. Jamal could do that by himself. Even over-the-hill Bobby could do it.
“He won’t come alone,” said Louis. “The CIA man. He’ll say he’s alone. But he won’t be.”
“So how many will there be?” said EEK.
“However many they think are enough,” said Louis. That was the wrong answer.
“If they think you’re alone, then one half man is enough,” said EEK, and the rest of the Greek chorus snickered. “You be in touch, Jamal,” said EEK. “When the time comes. Maybe we’ll be there. To watch it happen.” There would be guns. That was one thing. That was for sure. The CIA guys would have guns. Maybe EEK and his boys would take the CIA guns. That would be interesting. Louis was fairly certain it was all too strange and wild for them to resist.
* * *
Louis and Pauline had eaten dinner at La Colline next door to the Metropolitan Hotel. Louis had picked it to make it easy for Dimitrius to keep an eye on them. The place—a steak house—was pretentious, expensive, and ordinary, one of those establishments that favors fussy waiters, buttery sauces, and overcooked food. It didn’t matter since neither he nor Pauline had much of an appetite.
Now they sat in their hotel room. The lights were off, but they had left the curtains of the big window open, and the room was lit up by the city. The buildings on the other side of the park twinkled and glimmered. The park itself lay in darkness, like a lagoon.
As Louis explained it to Pauline, his plan wasn’t really much of a plan. If Peter Sanchez showed up with Zaharia, then Louis would allow Sanchez to debrief Fareed. Sanchez would want something he could check out right away, while they waited. It would have to prove Fareed’s al Qaeda connection. Louis had yet to figure out what that would be. If the information checked out, Sanchez would then have to be persuaded to let Fareed leave with Louis. That was the tricky part.
“Persuaded,” said Pauline.
“That’s my preference,” said Louis.
“Persuaded how?” said Pauline.
“He doesn’t really need Fareed,” said Louis. He shrugged. “I know that’s not very persuasive. They always like having someone to show off to the media, someone to lock up and punish. So I’m not hopeful. That’s why it’s important that we have Jamal along, and especially his friends. They’re liable to be good at persuasion.”
“You mean intimidation.” Pauline tried to study Louis’s face, but it was hidden in shadow. “Sometimes you’re different than I thought you were,” she said.
“Do I frighten you?” said Louis.
“No,” said Pauline. “Of course not. But I think you must frighten yourself.”
Louis gazed from the hotel window. “I don’t know what came first,” he said. “My secret self or my secret career.”
“Your secret self?” said Pauline.
“The part I keep hidden,” said Louis.
“The part you imagine you keep hidden,” said Pauline. “I don’t think you keep very much hidden. But you try. You’re lonelier than you need to be.” She reached into the shadows and touched his cheek.
“You’re different too,” said Louis. He turned and looked at Pauline. Her face was lit up by the city.
“Different how?” said Pauline. “Different from what?”
“Different from … what I thought I wanted.”
Pauline smiled. “And what did you think you wanted?”
“I thought I wanted to be alone.”
Later, they lay in bed. Pauline lay with her head on Louis’s arm. Both were lost in their thoughts. Finally Louis spoke. “There’s still our wild card to figure out.”
“Our wild card?”
“Phillip Dimitrius. What’s he up to? How will he figure in at the end? He’s clumsy, but I don’t think he’s stupid. Although in his business it comes down to the same thing. Still, I think he must know something of where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to.”
“How?” said Pauline.
“He probably followed us. We lost him the first day. But I’m sure he didn’t let that happen again.”
“Does that mean that Sanchez knows what you’re up to?”
“That’s a good question,” said Louis.
At that very moment, Phillip Dimitrius was sitting in the bar in La Colline peering at the world through a crystal snifter of cognac. Each time he took a sip, the room turned golden. Phillip had a slightly goofy smile that he never displayed. But just now, he allowed himself a brief congratulatory grin. The curtain was about to rise on the next act. His long pursuit of Louis Morgon was about to bear fruit, and plenty of it.
Phillip believed in the war on terror, in the conflict between good and evil, all those things, in a way Peter Sanchez, for instance, did not. Peter’s understanding of things was clouded by his ambition and what he probably would have called his nuanced sense of things. Lord knew what Louis Morgon believed in his addled, sick brain.
But Phillip Dimitrius, the child of hard-working immigrants who had been welcomed by the great United States, knew about the heart and soul of America. He had a clearer sense of things than Sanchez or his ilk. His understanding was hard and unwavering. It was, put succinctly, that the United States was a force for good, a beacon that everyone in the world should follow, must follow if the world was going to survive. And if only everyone would get behind that vision, then order would ensue and everything would finally fall into its rightful place. Phillip was not a fool. He knew that he had little power. His talents were limited. He was neither brilliant nor astute. But he was dogged and intrepid. He was a worker in the America factory, a tiller of the soil of freedom. And that was all he needed to be sure of, in order to forge ahead in his intrepid way. He closed his eyes and took another sip of the brandy.
Now Phillip thought he knew several things for certain. For one, Louis Morgon was a terrorist. If he wasn’t actually al Qaeda himself, then he damn sure was an al Qaeda handmaiden. Phillip had followed his trail through Algeria and Cairo and Paris where Morgon had made one Qaeda linkup after another. Now, thanks in large part to Phillip, one prospective terrorist—Zaharia Lefort—was in prison. And another—Fareed Terzani—was cornered in Newark and about to meet the full righteous fury of the American justice system.
And the biggest prize of all—Louis Morgon—had come to Newark. He was finally on American soil where they could take him. The only conclusion Phillip could draw was that they—Fareed, Louis, the rest of them, whoever they were—were planning an event on American soil. Another 9/11 maybe. There were enough people involved for Phillip to conclude with a fair degree of certitude—as he had told his FBI contacts—something spectacular was planned. Phillip had worked the whole thing out and lined up his quarry in his sights while Peter Sanchez was off dithering around Cairo.
Phillip Dimitrius had come to the CIA from the FBI. Phillip had always believed—just like the president and the homeland security director—that there was too little communication between security agencies. After all, they were fighting the same enemies, weren’t they? Talking to one another, sharing intelligence, cooperating on raids and prosecutions could only enhance what the FBI director liked to call “the security landscape.”
Phillip had coordinated carefully with his FBI contacts, and, when the moment was right, they had picked up Zaharia Lefort. It had been done neatly and with a minimum of fuss. And, according to all reports, the interrogation of Lefort had borne fruit. Fareed Terzani and Louis Morgon were next. “They’re going down,” was how Phillip Dimitrius put it. “All of them.”
Special agents were convening in the Manhattan office of the FBI. Fax machines were humming into the night as intelligence reports, mug shots, maps, and diagrams went whizzing about. Computers were busily uploading and downloading warrants, indictments, and any other piece of paper deemed, by one agent or another, to be essential to the operation. Blue protective vests, with FBI printed in enormous yellow block letters on the back, hung at the ready. Automatic weapons were cleaned and oiled and resting in their racks.
“Another Courvoisier, sir?” said the bartender.
“Better not,” said Phillip. “Big day tomorrow.”
XVI
Zaharia was taken from his cell, put in a van, and driven across the city of Newark. He did not think he had ever heard of Newark before, unless it was in a geography class. He had not been told where he was going. But as they drove across the city’s ruined industrial quarter, along canals with oily junk floating in them, past collapsed buildings and other assorted ruination—houses without windows or doors, piles of garbage, junked cars and appliances, burnt-out tractor trailers, and a few wrecked people too—Zaharia thought, This is a deadly place. It was true that they had just treated him humanely for the first time since he had been arrested. It did not seem possible they would choose to kill him now. But he could not let go of the thought. This is where they take you to kill you, said the voice of despair.
The van stopped inside the remains of a concrete garage, a great, gray space with a low ceiling. The only light came from the door they had come through and from a jagged opening at the far end of the building where a ramp to the next level had crumbled away and taken a section of wall with it. Chunks of concrete dangled from twisted, rusting bars of iron.
Zaharia and the guard escorting him got out of the van and walked toward the ruined ramp. Some men were standing there in the shadows. For a moment Zaharia did not recognize Louis Morgon. But then he did recognize him. Zaharia’s wrist was shackled to a guard’s, so he could not rush forward. “Take off the shackles,” said Louis. Another man signaled to the guard, who removed the shackles from his wrists. Louis walked up to Zaharia and the two embraced. Louis felt a sob rise in the boy’s body.
“Are you all right?” said Louis.
“Yes,” said Zaharia.
“Zaharia,” said Louis, “this is Bobby. He’s going to take you home with him. I will see you there later. You’ll be safe.”
Bobby nodded. “You’ll be safe at my house,” he said. Zaharia and Bobby left the ruined garage. They drove back to Keyser Street. “Here we are,” said Bobby. “That door sticks. You have to kick it.” Zaharia gave the Cadillac door a mighty kick and the door jumped open. “Damn!” said Bobby.
Zaharia laughed. He almost couldn’t stop laughing.
“Come on in,” said Bobby. He held the gate. Junior rushed out to greet them. “Get down, Junior,” said Bobby.
Lillian was waiting inside. “I’m Lillian,” she said. “This is Pauline. And this is Natalie. Louis will be back soon. Come have something to eat. You like pizza?”
“Yes,” said Zaharia. “I love pizza.”
Louis presented Fareed to Peter Sanchez. Peter looked Fareed up and down. Then he looked at Jamal. “Who’s this?”
“He’s a Newark police officer,” said Louis.
“You were supposed to come alone,” said Peter. “The arrangement was just you and Fareed.”
“And you were supposed to come alone,” said Louis.
“This is my driver and one other agent,” said Peter. “I can’t take Fareed into custody by myself.”
“And who are the men hidden outside?” said Louis. He pointed in various directions.
Peter gave Louis a long look. He turned back to Fareed. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” he said finally. “Give me something I can check.”
“Did you bring your computer like I said?” said Louis.
Peter Sanchez held up a small instrument the size of a calculator. Louis looked at Fareed, and Fareed nodded. “It’s a BlackBerry,” said Fareed, and Louis shrugged. The world had passed him by.
Louis opened the small plastic portfolio he was carrying and withdrew a page, which he handed to Peter. “It’s a Web address,” said Fareed. “A log-in and a series of passwords. Try them and see what you get.” Peter handed the BlackBerry to one of the agents, who poked at the tiny keyboard with his thumbs, waited, poked some more, waited, poked some more, and waited again. When the screen finally came to life he passed the BlackBerry to Peter Sanchez. “What is it?” said Peter.
“I don’t know exactly,” said the agent. “Numbers. Arabic numerals.”
“What is it?” Peter Sanchez said to Fareed.
