Fear City (7 page)

And there it was: a thrown gauntlet.
Prove yourself.

Well, he would do just that. He'd drive over to Jersey City and meet with Kadir immediately. He'd set him and the rest of his gamaii straight … somehow.

“If you don't succeed,” Drexler added, “I might have to call on Reggie to practice his archery skills on your jihadists.”

… your jihadists …

They used to be
our
jihadists, he thought. When did they become
mine
?

 

4

“Might as well work for fucking UPS,” Reggie muttered as he stalked into the big stone building. His gaze was drawn, as usual, to the seal of the Septimus Order carved high into the rear wall of the central hall.

He gave it the finger and continued upstairs to his quarters on the sec
ond floor.

His life sucked. He still had this free room from the Order, and he got a weekly cash envelope. In return he was expected to be at their beck and call for all sorts of piddly shit. Mostly deliveries. Like just now: Take a cab to a downtown office, pick up an envelope and cab it uptown. Save the receipts and get reimbursed.

Shit, man, he had more talents than that. He could be useful in so many ways if they'd just give him a shot.

Yeah, he knew he'd lost a lot of credibility with that Tony thing. But goddamn it, he
had
seen him in the back of that cab. Trouble was, he could never find him again. The only explanation was that Tony must have been on his way out of town and never came back.

Reggie went to the closet and pulled out his small, lightweight compound bow and a quiver of arrows. He carried them to the long hallway outside his room. The Order owned this old stone building off Allen Street on the Lower East Side. It had been built to house a bunch of people back in the old days but he was the only one who lived here now.

Last year he'd made a man-sized target—really just an orange, one-piece coverall stuffed with rags—and tacked it to the wall at the far end of the hall. He nocked an arrow. The wheels and cams at either end of the bow did their job as he pulled the string back to his chin and took aim along the shaft. No wind or elevation to take into account, just a straight shot.

He imagined it was Lonnie. Not his real name, Reggie was sure, but that was all he had to go on. The guy had gone all crazy on him when Reggie suggested sinking the truck with the girls in it. Drive it into the harbor and have done with it. No one left to point fingers. Shit, it made perfect sense to ditch the evidence, but Lonnie had sucker punched him, then busted his fucking knees.

He remembered the agony of those knees. The Order had paid for their repair but he still walked with a limp and not a single day went by that they didn't hurt. And on cold damp days like this one they ached through and through from morning on and all through the night.

He loosed the arrow and it struck the jumpsuit in the knee.

Someday, Lonnie. Someday we're gonna meet up again, and then we'll see who walks away. You gotta know I'm looking for you, Lonnie. It's a big city, but I spotted Tony, didn't I. And if you're still here, one day I'll spot you too. I don't forget, and I never forgive.

He put another arrow into the other knee.

Where are you, Lonnie?

 

5

“Struck out again,” Jack said as he arrived at the rear counter of the Isher Sports Shop.

Abe lowered his copy of the
Times
and glanced over the top. “Baseball already?”

“No.”

“A woman then?”

“Well, yes and no.”

“Yes and no a woman? This is possible? You're not sure?
She's
not sure? A hermaphrodite?”

“My latest prospective customer was an older woman.”

“Nu. Your saying ‘prospective' and ‘was' in that sentence tells me what you meant by ‘struck out.' Let me guess: She wanted you to kill her husband.”

“No. This one was totally out of left field.”

“Another baseball metaphor already.”

“Listen: I walk into Julio's and she's already there, waiting at my table. Late fifties, maybe sixty, very well dressed, very much out of place in those surroundings.”

“She wants you to torture her husband maybe?”

“She tells me she wants me to right a wrong.”

Abe shrugs. “They all want that, don't they. What did her husband do?”

“So I ask her who committed this wrong, fully expecting her to say—as you keep insisting with your interruptions—that it was her husband. But no. She says, ‘I did,' and proceeds to tell me how she torpedoed her daughter's wedding years ago because she didn't approve of the guy, and the girl has been miserable ever since.”

“So she wants
you
to marry her? How much is she offering to pay?”

Jack ignored him—he was coming to see that sometimes selective deafness was the only way to deal with Abe.

“Her daughter remained single and the man she never married turned out to be an all-right guy whose wife just died. She wanted me to get them back together.”

Abe did something then that Jack had never witnessed: He burst out laughing. “Matchmaker Jack! Oh, my brain! A
shray
in my brain! It cries
oy gevalt
at the thought!”

“It's not
that
ridiculous,” Jack said, feeling a little miffed despite agreeing with him.

After regaining control, Abe said, “So you turned her down, I hope. A
shadchan
you're not.”

“Of course I turned her down. What the hell do I know about playing Cupid? Jeez, why do the wrong people keep showing up on my doorstep? What am I doing wrong?”

“You need better marketing.”

“I've got word of mouth and that's it.”

“It's not enough. You should take out ads already. I see it now:
Got a problem? Call Repairman Jack.
”

“‘Repairman Jack'? Where did you come up with that?”

“Off the top of my head just now. You like?”

“I hate.”

He searched for a sign that Abe might be offended but saw no trace.

“What's to hate? It's brilliant, a thing of beauty.”

“Sounds like an appliance repairman.”

“To you maybe. But remember, I didn't say, ‘Got a problem with your toaster?' I said, ‘Got a problem?' Keep it vague and open-ended. Let the person fill in the blanks.”

Jack's turn for a laugh. A small one. “You're joking, right?”

“Not a
biseleh
. Get a separate phone line, get an answering machine, and put classified ads in the papers.”

“Under what?
Business Services?
”

“Under
Personal Services
, of course. The kinds of problems you service tend to be very personal. Trust me, a flood of calls you'll see.”

“Mostly about broken toasters, I'll bet.”

“Of course. From nutcases you'll hear as well.”

“I already do.”

“Just because they're nuts doesn't mean they don't have problems—other than being nuts, that is. But amid the flood of responses you may find gold in your pan.”

“I doubt it.”

“I'm missing something maybe? Your current situation is just the way you like it?”

“No…”

“And you've got how many more prospects lined up at the moment?”

“Um, none.”

“Oh, well then don't listen to me. You've got everything under control.”

“Repairman Jack? Seriously?”

“Excuse me. I should have said Repairman Shmuck.”

Okay …
now
Abe was annoyed.

“You're really serious about this, aren't you.”

“You want my advice, there it is. For free already.”

He was serious. Jack thought it was a terrible idea but sensed he might have already bruised his feelings.

“Well … I'll … I'll have to think about it.”

But he knew he wouldn't.

 

6

A moving car seemed the safest place to discuss terrorism, so Nasser had directed his driver to keep moving through the back streets of Jersey City.

“Is there a problem?” Kadir said in Arabic from the rear, where he sat sandwiched between Mahmoud Abouhalima and the horse-faced newcomer, Ramzi Yousef.

Nasser turned in the front passenger seat and replied in Arabic as he faced them.

“Why do you ask?”

Kadir glanced at the back of the driver's head. “Are you certain he does not speak Arabic?”

Nasser smiled. Brajko Klari
ć
was another of Drexler's Eastern Europeans—a Croat who barely spoke English, let alone Arabic.

“Not a word. Go on.”

“There must be a problem. All you had to do was give us the money, but we are going for a ride.”

“Yes, there's a problem. My people have rejected the idea of funding a Trade Center bomb.”

Three sets of dark eyes widened as one. A wave of protests arose. Mahmoud's voice cut through the babble.

“Your ‘people'? We believed this to be
your
money. We believed you were in charge of it!”

Nasser gave a helpless shrug. “We all answer to a higher power. My higher power does not believe the fall of the towers will have the desired impact.”

“That is insane!” Yousef said in Pakistani-accented Arabic. “It will shock the world!”

“No argument that it will shock America, but my people do not believe it will have sufficient international impact.”

More babble.

“The towers are the symbol of capitalism!” Yousef said. “America embraces capitalism and ignores Allah.”

Personally Nasser was rather fond of capitalism. It worshipped markets rather than the local deity. Markets were reliable. Deities not so much.

Kadir raised a fist. “By destroying the symbols of capitalism, we strike a blow for jihad, for Allah himself!”

More babble, through which Nasser said, “But the rest of the capitalist world will remain untouched. Do you want that?”

Wary silence followed.

Nasser added, “Remember, you will get only one chance to shock the world. After the first bomb, security will clamp down like a vise, and placing a second bomb will be next to impossible. So you must think of the first bomb as the
only
bomb. And as such, you must choose the target that will offer the most wide-reaching impact.”

He thought he was making a reasonable argument. Personally he agreed that knocking down the towers would be more shocking, but plausible alternatives remained and he had to push them. He only wished he knew why.

“And what would that be?” Mahmoud said in a sour tone.

“The UN.” He raised a hand to head off any premature objections. “Think about it. Picture the Secretariat reduced to rubble. At forty stories it's nowhere near the height of the towers, but it dominates the East Side waterfront. In destroying it you bring down more than a mere building, you attack more than one country, you strike a blow at
all
the member nations.” He pointed to Kadir. “And those member nations do
not
include Palestine, because the UN doesn't recognize Palestine, does it.”

Kadir's lips tightened to a thin, grim line.

Nasser continued. “You will be striking a blow at the international body, controlled by infidels, the same infidels who sanctioned the invasion of Iraq. You will strike at
all
nations, and you will do it in midtown Manhattan, which is spitting in the eye of America at the same time. What more can you ask for?”

He could sense Kadir and Mahmoud wavering, but Yousef was shaking his head.

“No. It must be the towers. My uncle sent me here to make the towers fall and that is what we must do. That is what we
will
do.”

“Your uncle? Who is your uncle?”

Kadir looked ready to respond but Yousef jumped ahead of him.

“That is not your concern.”

Nasser already knew. After their first meeting this morning he'd made a few quick calls back home and learned Ramzi Yousef was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a high-up in an unsung jihadist group that called itself al-Qaeda.

“Well, then, let your uncle pay for the bomb.”

“He would, but the money can't get through.”

“The FBI,” Mahmoud said through a snarl.

The Bureau had finally managed to do something useful. The Order had influence there. He'd notify the High Council to instruct the members within the Bureau to put extra effort into blocking money transfers from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Kadir gave him a plaintive look. “That is why we came to you.”

Nasser shrugged. “My hands are tied as far as the towers are concerned. But we will gladly fund the destruction of the UN.”

Kadir and Mahmoud both looked at Yousef, who resolutely shook his head.