The Lion's Game (26 page)

Asad Khalil tore the Jabbar family photograph in four pieces and let it fly out the window, followed by the wallet, then the plastic bottle, and finally the shell casing. All the evidence was now strewn over many miles of the highway and would attract no attention.

Khalil reached over, opened the glove box, and pulled out a stack of papers—rental forms, maps, some advertisements and other papers that had little purpose. The Americans, he saw, like the Europeans, loved useless papers.

He glanced through the rental agreement and confirmed that the name on the agreement matched his passport.

He turned his attention back to the road. There were many bad drivers on the road here. He saw very young people driving, and very old people driving, and many women were driving. No one seemed to drive well. They drove better in Europe, except for Italy. The drivers in Tripoli were like Italian drivers. Khalil realized he could drive badly here and not be noticed.

He looked at his gas gauge and saw that it read FULL.

A police car came into view in his side mirror and stayed behind him for a while. Khalil maintained his speed and did not change lanes. He resisted glancing too often in the sideview or rearview mirrors. That would make the policeman suspicious. Khalil put on his bifocal glasses.

After a full five minutes, the police car pulled into the outside lane and came alongside of him. Khalil noticed that the policeman didn’t even give him a glance. Soon, the police car was ahead of him.

Khalil settled back and paid attention to the traffic. They had told him in Tripoli that there would be much traffic on a Saturday night, many people visited or went to restaurants or movie theaters or shopping malls. This was not too different from Europe, except for the shopping malls.

In Tripoli they also told him that in the more rural areas, the police were looking at cars that might be driven by dealers of drugs. This could be a problem, they warned him, as the police sometimes looked for drivers who were of the black or Spanish race, and they might stop an Arab man by mistake or even on purpose. But at night, it was difficult to see who was driving, and now the sun was setting.

Asad Khalil thought for a minute about Gamal Jabbar. He took no pleasure in killing a fellow Muslim, but each believer in Islam was expected to fight, or to sacrifice, or to be martyred in the Jihad against the West. Too many Muslims, such as Gamal Jabbar, did nothing except send money back to their homelands. Jabbar did not actually deserve death, Khalil thought, but death became the only possibility. Asad Khalil was on a holy mission, and others had to sacrifice so that he could do what they couldn’t do—kill the infidel. His only other thought about Gamal Jabbar was a passing concern that the man could have survived the single bullet. But Khalil had seen that twitching before, and heard that gurgling. The man was dead. “May Allah take him into Paradise this very night.”

The sun was setting, but it was not practical to stop to perform the Salat. He had been given dispensation from the mullah for the time he was engaged in the Jihad. But he would not fail to say his prayers. In his mind, he prostrated himself on his prayer rug and faced Mecca. He recited, “God is most great! I bear witness that there is no God but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Hasten to Salat! Hasten to success! God is most great. There is no God but Allah!”

He recited random passages from the Koran, “Kill the aggressors wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you ... Fight them until Allah’s religion is supreme ... Fight for the cause of Allah with the devotion due to him ... Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked ... Allah has the power to grant them victory ... Believers, fear Allah as you rightly should, and when death comes, die true Muslims ... If you have suffered a defeat, so did the enemy. We alternate these victories among mankind so that Allah may know true believers and choose martyrs from among you, and that he may test the faithful and annihilate the infidels. Allah is the supreme Plotter.”

Satisfied that he had fulfilled his obligations, he felt at peace as he drove through the strange land, surrounded by enemies and infidels.

Then, he recalled the ancient Arab war song, and he sang the song called “The Death Feud.” “Terrible he rode alone with his Yemen sword for aid; ornament, it carried none but the notches on the blade.”

Jack Koenig returned with some papers in his hand that looked like faxes. We all sat and he said to us, “I spoke to the crime lab supervisor at JFK. They have a preliminary report—” he tapped the papers on the coffee table “—of the scenes of the aircraft and the Conquistador Club.” He added, “I also spoke to George, who has offered to transfer out of the ATTF and out of New York.”

He let that hang there for a few seconds, then asked Kate, “Yes? No?”

“No.”

Koenig addressed Kate and me and said, “Can you two speculate or guess as to what happened on the aircraft before it landed?”

Kate said, “John is the detective.”

Koenig said to me, “You’re on, Detective.”

I should point out here that the FBI uses the term “investigator” to describe what amounts to a detective—so I didn’t know if I was being honored or patronized. In any case, this is partly what I was hired for, of course, and I’m good at this stuff. But Koenig made no secret of the fact that he just got some answers to the questions he was asking. So, rather than make an idiot of myself, I asked Koenig, “I assume they found those two oxygen bottles in the dome coat closet.”

“Yes, they did. But as you discovered, both had their valves open, so all that’s left are the residual amounts after the pressures equalized. That should be enough for the lab to get a good reading on what was in each, but even before that happens we can assume that one was oxygen and the other wasn’t.” He said to me, “Proceed.”

“Okay ... about two hours outside of New York, Air Traffic Control lost contact with Trans-Continental One-Seven-Five. So, it was then that the guy with the medical oxygen bottles, probably sitting in Business Class in the dome—”

“Correct,” said Mr. Koenig. “His name was Yusef Haddad. Seat Two A.”

“Okay, this guy—what’s his name?”

“Yusef Haddad. Means Joe Smith. He’s on the manifest with a Jordanian passport and medical oxygen required for emphysema. The passport’s probably a fake, so was the emphysema, and so was one of the oxygen bottles.”

“Right. Okay, Joe Smith, Business Class Jordanian in Seat Two A. This guy is breathing the real oxygen, then he reaches down and opens the valve of the second bottle. A gas escapes and gets into the closed air-conditioning system of the aircraft.”

“Correct. What kind of gas?”

“Well, it was something nasty like cyanide.”

“Very good. It was most probably a hemotoxin, maybe a military form of cyanide. The victims basically suffocated. Like I said, the lab is analyzing the remnants in each cylinder, plus the blood and tissue of the victims. They should be able to identify the particular gas pretty soon. Not that it really matters. But that’s the way they work. Anyway, within ten minutes, all the air on board is recirculated. So everyone got a dose of this gas except Yusef Haddad, who was still breathing pure oxygen.” He looked at me and said, “Tell me how Khalil escaped death.”

“Well, I’m not sure of the sequence of events, but ... I’m thinking that Khalil was in the lav when the gas escaped. The lavatory might be less toxic than the cabin air.”

“In fact,” Koenig said, “it is not. But the exhaust flow of air from the lav is vented directly out of the aircraft, which is why everyone in the cabins can’t smell it when someone sits on the potty.”

Interesting. I mean, I once took an AeroMexico flight to Cancun where they served a lunch consisting of twenty-two different bean dishes, and I was surprised the plane didn’t explode in midair. I said, “So the lav is toxic, and Khalil is breathing as little as possible and maybe has a wet paper towel over his face. Haddad has to make his move very quickly and get to Khalil, either with his own oxygen or one of those small oxygen bottles that are carried on board for medical emergencies.”

Koenig nodded, but said nothing.

Kate said, “What I don’t understand is how Haddad and Asad Khalil knew that the aircraft was pre-programmed to land itself.”

Koenig replied, “I’m not sure either. We’re checking that out.” He looked at me and said, “Continue.”

“Okay, so within ten minutes, there are only two people alive on board the aircraft—Asad Khalil and his accomplice, Yusef Haddad. Haddad finds the handcuff keys on Peter Gorman and uncuffs Khalil in the lav. The poison gas is eventually vented, and after they’re certain that the air is safe to breathe, maybe fifteen minutes, they get off the oxygen. Kate and I didn’t see the aircraft’s emergency oxygen bottle lying around, so I assume that Haddad or Khalil put it back where it’s usually stored. Then they put Haddad’s medical oxygen in the dome coat closet where we found it.”

“Yes,” Koenig replied, “they wanted everything to look fairly normal when the aircraft was first boarded at JFK. Assuming Peter or Phil had died near the lav, they also put that person’s body back in his seat. Continue, Mr. Corey.”

I continued, “Okay, Khalil must not have killed Haddad immediately because Haddad’s body was warmer than everyone else’s. So these two guys tidy up things, maybe go through Phil’s and Peter’s belongings, take their guns, then probably go down to First and Coach and make sure everyone is dead. At some point, Khalil doesn’t need any more company, and he breaks Haddad’s neck, as Kate discovered. He puts Haddad next to Phil, cuffs him, and puts the sleeping mask on him.” I added, “Somewhere along the line, Khalil took the thumbs.”

“Correct,” Koenig said. “The lab found a knife in the dome galley with traces of wiped blood, and they found the napkin used to wipe the knife hidden in the galley trash. Had anyone who first boarded seen a bloody knife, that would have gotten some attention. Had you or Kate seen it, you’d have come to the conclusion you came to even sooner.”

“Right.” What you first see when you arrive at a crime scene is often what the perpetrator wants you to see. Further investigation, however, turns up the ropes and pulleys behind the scenery.

Koenig looked at us and said, “At some point, while the aircraft was being towed, Sergeant Andy McGill of the Port Authority Emergency Service unit made a final transmission to his people.”

We all nodded. I said, “McGill and Khalil may have stumbled on each other by accident.”

Koenig regarded his faxes and said, “Preliminary evidence—blood, brain, and bone tissue—suggests that McGill was killed between the galley and the lav—facing the lav. Some tissue was sprayed into the galley, some of it landing on the dead flight attendant, although someone made an attempt to wipe it up, which is why you may not have noticed it,” Koenig said pointedly. He added, “So maybe McGill opened the lav door and discovered Asad Khalil. Also, forensic found a lap blanket with a hole and burn marks, indicating that the blanket was used to muffle the sound of the gunshot.”

I nodded. It’s always amazing what the forensic people can tell you very quickly, and how quickly a detective can make deductions and re-create the crime. It didn’t matter that this was a terrorist incident—a crime scene is a crime scene. Murder was murder. The only thing missing was the murderer.

Koenig continued, “Regarding Khalil’s escape from the aircraft, we can assume he knew what the procedure would be at JFK. With the pilots dead, any Emergency Service personnel entering the aircraft would shut down the engines. At that point, a tow truck would be summoned and the aircraft would be taken to the security area. You know the rest.”

Indeed we did.

Koenig added, “Also, we found what we assume was Yusef Haddad’s hang-up garment bag. Under a suit was a blue Trans-Continental baggage handler’s jumpsuit that was meant for Mr. Haddad. There was, in that garment bag, undoubtedly a second jumpsuit for Asad Khalil, and he had it on at some point, knowing that baggage handlers would come aboard to collect carry-on luggage.”

He looked at Kate, then at me and asked, “Did either of you notice anyone who looked suspicious? You knew something was wrong, yet Khalil got away.”

I replied, “I think he was gone when we got there.”

“He may have been. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe you bumped into him.”

Kate said, “I think we would have recognized him.”

“Do you? Not if he was wearing a baggage handler’s jumpsuit, combed his hair differently, was wearing glasses and a phony mustache. But maybe he saw
you
. Maybe at some point he realized there were Federal agents or detectives on board. Think about that. Try to recall what happened and who you saw on the aircraft and in that security area.”

Okay, Jack, I’ll think about it. Thanks for mentioning it.

Koenig continued, “In any case, Khalil got into an empty baggage truck and drove off. At this point, most men who’d just pulled off one of the most ballsy moves—excuse my language—one of the most audacious moves in terrorist history, would get to the international terminal, get out of that jumpsuit under which was street clothing, and get on an outbound flight for Sandland—forgive my characterization of the Middle East. But no, Asad Khalil is not going home. Not yet. He has to make a stop at the Conquistador Club first. The rest, as they say, is history.”

No one spoke for a full minute, then Koenig observed, “This is a very resourceful, clever, and bold individual. He exploits situations quickly and without hesitation or fear of getting caught. He relies on other people being either preoccupied or unaware that there is a psychopathic killer in their midsts. Speed, savagery, and shock. Decisiveness, daring, and deception. Understand?”

We all understood. If I had the inclination, I could tell Jack Koenig about ten or fifteen such killers I’d come across over the years. The really good psychotic killers were just as Koenig described. You couldn’t believe the stuff they got away with. You couldn’t believe how stupid and trusting their victims were.