Fear City (39 page)

 

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.

“Stop it!” Yousef said, pinching her nose. “Lie still or I shall squeeze this until you stop moving—forever!”

She couldn't breathe through her mouth and now her nose was cut off. Her face reddened and her eyes widened with panic as she began to suffocate. Death was the best solution to her meddling, but she was his sister. He was about to tell Yousef to cease when she stopped her struggles.

He released her nose and air whistled through her nostrils as she struggled to regain her breath.

“There,” Yousef said. “Now cooperate or next time I will not let go.”

Hadya lay still as Kadir finished binding her arms and legs. By the time he ran out of tape she was virtually mummified. She half sat, half lay against the wall, mute and immobile. All she could do was glare up at him.

“You are a very foolish girl, Hadya. You should have minded your own business and not tried to interfere with Allah's will.”

She shook her head and mumbled something incomprehensible behind the tape.

“Today we strike a blow for jihad that will shake the world to its roots. All Islam shall praise us and the world will stand in awe of what we have done in the name of Allah. The world will recognize the greatness that is Allah.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head again as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“You worry now. You have doubts. That is because you lack true faith in Allah. But consider: Why do you think you fell as you were sneaking around out there? It was Allah. He foiled your treachery. He guides us, and later today all your doubts will vanish when you learn what we have done.”

“She is in the way here,” Yousef said. “We need to move her.”

“What about the kitchen?”

Ayyad waved his hands. “No-no! The nitroglycerin is in there. Use the bathroom.”

Perfect. It had no window and they could close the door on her. He and Salameh dragged her in and left her on the floor. Once the door was closed, Kadir turned to the others.

“Let's finish loading so we can find something to eat before sunrise.”

The four of them bent to the task of moving the boxes. The urea nitrate in many of them was still a stinky paste, but it didn't need to be dry to explode. The loading was hard work, considering that the weight of the nitrate alone totaled a ton and a half. Since the Econoline vans were each designed to transport a ton of cargo, this was no problem. With the nitrate divided evenly between them, they were burdened with fifteen hundred pounds each.

Next came the nitroglycerin. The handling of that was left to Yousef. He carried the eight bottles one at a time from the refrigerator to the front room.

“I still don't know why we need so many,” Salameh said.

Kadir noticed Yousef roll his eyes and understood: How many times had he explained this?

“In theory, we need only one. When one bottle of nitroglycerin detonates, it will explode the other three. And they in turn will set off the urea compound and the hydrogen. All within the blink of an eye.”

Salameh frowned. “So, by your own admission we need but one—”

“Things can go wrong, even with Allah's guidance. We will set four fuses in each truck, each leading to a different bottle. All we need is for one to reach its detonator. We can be sure that, with four fuses, no matter how bad our luck, one of them will succeed. Think of it as a race. The fuse that wins has a glorious victory because it renders the existence of the other three unnecessary.”

Yousef had fashioned lead-nitrate detonators which he was now attaching to the nitroglycerin bottles. When he was finished he carried the bottles—again, one at a time—to the trucks, where he securely positioned them among the nitrate boxes, four to a truck.

“Now the fuses,” Yousef said when he was done. “Make sure they are the right length.”

 

3

As soon as Kadir closed the bathroom door, leaving her in the musty dark, Hadya began working at the tape that bound her. He'd tied her wrists in front of her and, although her arms were bound to her sides, by flexing her spine to the limit she was able to force her hands to her lips. She hooked two fingers onto the edge of the tape binding her head and wriggled them beneath. When she had enough purchase, she worked the edge of the tape down over her upper lip.

She gulped air, greedy for oxygen. Her nose had clogged from walking through the cold and she'd barely been able to breathe through it. Once she had her wind again, she worked the tape down to her chin. Straining against the bonds encircling her torso, she forced her wrists to her teeth and began gnawing at the tape. Soon she'd chewed a small tear.

She clenched the edge of the tear between her front teeth and pulled. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, the tape began to part. Her neck muscles were cramping but she kept at it until she'd torn through that strip. She flopped back, prone, letting her muscles recoup, but only for a moment. Then she was hunched up again, using her teeth to unravel the tape from her wrists. Slow work because she could raise her wrists only so far.

Finally her wrists came free and she flopped back again, momentarily exhausted. Her muscles weren't used to such prolonged straining contractions.

Her wrists might be free but were of little value with her arms still pinned to her sides. She forced her right arm up until her fingers found the nearest loop of tape. She began picking and pulling at it. She kept her nails short for her work in the bakery; if only they were just a little bit longer …

As she worked she could hear them talking. She had approached the garage in a state of fear. Now, after listening to them talk of their plans, she became terrified.

She had to get away … had to stop them.

 

4

“I wish we had remote detonators,” Kadir said as he remeasured a length of fuse.

“I have used garage-door openers for bombs in Israel,” Yousef said. “But those were smaller. With bombs this size, the blast radius is wider than the range of the remote—especially with all the interference in a crowded city like New York. If you are close enough to set it off, you will die. You might as well stay behind the wheel and press the button. I am willing to be a martyr for jihad, but not yet. Is anyone here anxious for martyrdom?”

Kadir shook his head and noticed Salameh and Ayyad doing the same.

“Good,” Yousef said. “We shall all survive to dance on the rubble of the United Nations, on the smoking graves of Rabin and D'Amato and Boutros-Ghali.”

The fuses were housed in clear plastic surgical tubing to reduce the smoke of their burning. Kadir and Ayyad had measured them and were remeasuring them to make sure that each was twenty feet long. They burned at a rate of an inch every two and a half seconds. A twenty-foot fuse gave them ten minutes to put themselves far enough away to escape the blast. Kadir had been raised in the metric system and, despite years in the U.S., he still had trouble thinking in terms of inches and feet.