Fear City (11 page)

“Whatever he wants.”

“Good. I'll have it for you later. Be somewhere I can call you.”

“If I'm not home I'll be at Julio's.”

Abe had both numbers.

He'd call Cristin's place when he got home, and keep calling till he'd heard from Abe. And then he'd have a heart-to-heart with someone at Celebrations' answering service.

 

2

Kadir was waiting by the Space Station's front gate with Yousef and Salameh when a City Chemical truck arrived.

“Got a delivery for unit forty-three-forty-four.”

“That is us,” Kadir said, and punched in the code that would unlock the gate.

They directed the truck to the center building and spent the next hour watching him unload the chemicals and store them in locker 4344 on the second floor. The driver asked them a number of times what they were going to do with all this stuff. Each time Kadir put him off by saying, “Manufacturing.”

And that was true, in a way: They were manufacturing the downfall of the driver's country.

When everything was off-loaded and the driver gone, they found a dolly and brought containers of urea and nitric acid down to Salameh's Nova and filled the trunk. After locking the unit, they drove over to JFK Boulevard and took it south into the Greenville section of Jersey City—so far south they were almost in Bayonne. There, following Ayyad's directions, they found Pamrapo Avenue.

Pamrapo was only a couple of blocks long but they missed the address on the first pass. The converted garage was not visible from the street. The driveway was little more than two ruts through winter-blighted weeds curving around the rusting remains of junked cars.

Ayyad must have heard them coming because he stepped out the porchless front door as they arrived. He didn't offer to help them as they unloaded the chemicals.

Kadir and Salameh struggled with the heavy container of urea, maneuvering it through the door and into the unfurnished front room within. Yousef waited inside.

“This is where we will do most of the mixing,” he said in Arabic. He pointed to the ceiling. “And by the way, we have an American neighbor upstairs—lives there with his dog. This is a thick-walled building, so it is unlikely he can hear anything, but just to be safe, we say nothing in English while we are here.”

Kadir nodded as he looked around the empty room. “You said we'll be mixing here. In what?”

“That is your next assignment. We'll need metal drums—the fifty-five-gallon size are easy to find and will work best.”

“I know where we can get some,” Salameh said.

“Good. Bring three. Oh, and pick up as many old newspapers as you can find.”

“Newspapers?” Salameh said. “Why?”

“I'll explain later. Now get moving. The sooner you get them, the sooner we begin.”

Kadir tugged on Salameh's arm. “Let's go. We're wasting time.”

He couldn't wait to get started.

 

3

Abe had phoned and said the 800 number went to an answering service company located on Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. When Jack arrived at the address he found himself peering through the window of an XXX peepshow and porn shop.

Crap. What was going on?

He backed up and took a look at the converted five-story tenement. A sign in the second-floor window said
ANSWER MANAGEMENT
in red block letters.

Okay. Got it.

The narrow door to the right of the store had been painted and repainted so many times that the trim had lost all its detail. A short row of black buttons was inset to the right. He pressed the one labeled
ANSWER MANAGEMENT
and waited to be buzzed in. Instead a woman's tinny voice screeched from the speaker.

“Who is it?”

He should have anticipated this. When you worked above a porn shop, you didn't simply buzz in everyone who rang. He used the name on his ID.

“My name's Jeff Cusic. I'm here to apply for a job.”

“We're not hiring.”

“Is it because I'm a guy?”

“No, because we're not hiring.”

“Do you have any males answering your phones?”

“None of your business.”

“Well, if you don't, that's sexual discrimination. Look, I'm not trying to cause trouble. Just let me fill out an application for when you do hire.”

“Or what?”

“Or I pay a visit to the city Commission on Human Rights and file a complaint.”

The speaker went silent for a while and Jack wondered if maybe she'd hung up, but then her voice returned.

“Stand back and let me see what you look like.”

“What does that—?”

“If you look like trouble, you're not getting in.”

He stepped back from the door and spread his arms as he looked up. He couldn't see anyone in the window.

“Okay?”

The door buzzed. He leaped to it and pushed his way inside. The woman who met him at the top of the stairs had a face only Anne Ramsey's mother could love.

“Are you for real?” she said.

He held up his hands, showing his empty palms. “I come in peace. I just want to fill out an application.”

“Why bother me?”

“I'm trying all the answering services. My day job doesn't pay enough, so I need a night job.”

“What's your day job?”

“I move furniture. I need something off my feet at night.”

Her expression looked even sourer as she shook her head. “You mean a job you can sleep through.”

“Just let me apply.”

With a sigh she motioned him into her small office. “We don't have a form. I'll give you an index card and you can leave your name and number.”

“Fair enough.”

As he was filling it out with his phony name and a made-up number, he checked out the three-drawer filing cabinet against the wall. The top drawer was labeled
A-J
. Clients?

When he finished the card he said, “Can I peek at the working conditions?”

With an exasperated look she walked to a door at the other end of the office. Jack caught a glimpse of a number of women sitting in little booths talking into headsets before he stepped to the filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer.

“Hey!” the woman said. “What do you think you're doing?”

As she came toward him Jack found the C's and flipped through the folders. The third was labeled
Celebrations
. He pulled it open as the boss lady arrived and tried to close the drawer on his hands.

“Get away from there!”

He backed away, but not before spotting the billing address, and a name: Rebecca J. Olesen.

“Just curious.”

Her face was red with fury as she reached for her phone. “I'm calling the police!”

“No need,” he said, hurrying for the door.

He hit the stairs running and burst out onto Ninth Avenue where he quick-walked down toward 42nd Street. He headed east, stopping along the way to buy a large, padded manila envelope. When he reached Grand Central Station, he turned downtown for three blocks to East 39th.

Murray Hill. A high-rent neighborhood and home to a host of foreign diplomats connected to the UN. The number in the folder turned out to be an old brownstone renovated into office space.

He took the two steps down to the entrance. A world of difference from Ninth Avenue. The door was thick, unsmudged glass. As he'd suspected when he'd seen the address, a security camera was mounted on the ceiling and pointed right at him. He checked the call buttons, set in polished brass. The third one down was labeled
CELEBRATIONS
. He pressed it.

Eventually a woman's voice said,
“Yes?”

“Package for Celebrations,” he said, sounding bored.

Whoever she was she probably had a monitor that let her see who was at the door. She must have been satisfied with his appearance because she buzzed him in.

As he entered the vestibule, a woman stepped through a door at the end of the hall and approached him. She had ash-blond hair, wore a business pantsuit, and looked to be in her late forties. Jack found her fairly attractive for a woman twice his age. She held out her hand as she neared.

“Celebrations?” he said.

She nodded. “Do you need me to sign?”

“No,” he said as he handed her the unsealed, unaddressed envelope. “I need you to tell me if you've heard from Cristin Ott.”

“Who?” Did she flinch at the name? He couldn't be sure.

“Cristin. Ott.” He pronounced the name carefully. “She didn't come home last night.”

“I'm sorry. I've never heard of her.”

The concern in her eyes said otherwise. But concern for whom? Herself or Cristin?

“I'm pretty sure you have, Rebecca Olesen.”

“I don't know how you know my name but I'm very sure I have not heard of hers.”

“She says—has said for years—that she works for Celebrations. Is there someone higher up the chain I can speak to?”

“I'm it, I'm afraid.
I'm
Celebrations. And I don't know your Cristin Ott.” She pulled a cellular phone from her jacket pocket. “And if you don't leave right now I'm going to call the police.”

The same threat, twice in an hour. For an instant Jack considered grabbing the phone and threatening to flatten her nose with it if she didn't tell him. Because she knew—even if she didn't know Cristin personally, she knew the name.

Instead, he said, “You won't help me find her? I've got a bad feeling about her.”

There. A flinch. No question about it. “I wish I could help you, I really do, but I simply don't know her. Now please leave.”

Jack decided this was neither the time nor place to press the issue. He'd watch her, and when the time was right …

Without a word he turned and walked away.

 

4

Mir Aimal Kasi followed Dolley Madison Boulevard on his way back from a delivery in Arlington. He had no idea who Dolley Madison was, and it wasn't the fastest route back to Reston where his courier service was based, but it took him past a certain driveway in a section of McLean called Langley. He passed whenever he could. The trees along the road hid the headquarters of the hated CIA, the eyes and ears of the Great Satan where the ruination of Islam was plotted.

The road was nearly empty now, but in a few hours the plotters would stream out onto the highway, heading for their homes. And every weekday morning the eastbound cars backed up at the traffic light that controlled their left turn into the headquarters.

He could strike a blow for Islam then.

He imagined lobbing hand grenades between the twin rows of waiting cars as he drove by, shrapnel piercing gas tanks and igniting them, secondary detonations causing more explosions. And amid the fiery thunder the screaming cries of infidels as they burned alive.

A pleasant fantasy.

But where could he get hand grenades? He had the whole weekend to seek some out.

 

5

“Good,” said Yousef as he positioned the three fifty-five-gallon drums around the front room. “These are perfect.”

Kadir wished he'd help them carry the second load of urea and nitric acid in from the car, but he seemed to think he was above that. Ayyad had gone back to his job.

When the car was empty, and Kadir and Salameh were gathered in the room, Yousef said, “We have enough here now to get started with the first batch. You two will mix nitric acid into the urea crystals until it forms a gel. When that happens I'll show you how to add strips of newspaper to thicken it into a paste.”

“What will you be doing?” Kadir said.

“I will be mixing the nitroglycerin in the kitchen. That's a more delicate job.”

Kadir had heard of nitroglycerin but knew little of it beyond that it had to be handled with care.

“Isn't that dangerous?”

“Very. That's why I'll be in a different room where it won't be jostled. We'll store it in the freezer for safekeeping.”

Kadir still didn't like it. He pointed to the barrels of urea and bottles of nitric acid lining the floor against the wall. They'd only scratched the surface of what was stored back at the Space Station locker.

“Do we need two explosives? We'll have over half a ton of the urea mix.”

Yousef's voice took on a lecturing tone. “I have made this kind of bomb before. It will consist of four explosions.” He held up a finger. “The first will be blasting caps set off by standard fuses.” Another finger came up. “The blasting caps will set off containers of my nitroglycerin.” A third finger rose. “The nitroglycerin will set off your urea nitrate paste, which will do the bulk of the damage.” The fourth finger jutted up. “The nitrate will then rupture the hydrogen tanks.”

“Hydrogen?” Salameh said.

“We use it all the time back home,” Yousef said. “It creates an extra explosion and a huge fireball.”

“But we have no hydrogen.”

Yousef smiled. “We will when the time comes.”

He ducked back into the kitchen and returned with two sets of swimming goggles and an oblong cardboard box. From that he withdrew small paper surgical masks to cover their mouths and noses.

“You are going to need these.”

Kadir took a mask and a set of goggles. “Why?”

“Fumes,” Yousef said. “The fumes are not pleasant. And be careful with the nitric acid,” he added. “It is highly concentrated and if it splashes on you it will make a hole through your clothes and burn your skin.”

Kadir was no longer so eager to start the process.

 

6

Rebecca Olesen stepped out of the brownstone and onto East 39th Street at a little past eight. Jack had thought she'd never leave—had started to fear he'd missed her during one of his infrequent food and bathroom breaks. He'd spent most of the time freezing his butt off at a NYNEX kiosk on the corner of Lexington, pouring coins into the phone as he repeatedly called Cristin's home and cellular phones.