She pulled up a chair, took my hand, and we sat there for a while.
Finally, she said to me, "Tom is at the... crime scene. He's coming to visit later."
"I'm not receiving visitors named Tom."
"John... he wants to see you, and... congratulate you."
"No photos."
She didn't reply to that, but said to me, "When you're ready to talk about it... I want to know what happened."
I was ready to talk about it now, but I knew I'd be telling the same story at least twenty times to half the Justice Department--not to mention Tom Walsh--so I said, "When I get home." I added, "You can help me with my incident report."
She smiled and said, "Don't puff yourself up."
I smiled.
I was actually hungry, and I asked her, "What's for breakfast?"
"Jail-O."
"What happened to the hard labor boiled eggs?"
She squeezed my hand tight, stood and gave me a teary kiss on my forehead--right where I head-butted the asshole. Ouch!
She looked at me and said, "I want you home with me."
"Me too." I asked, "Where are my clothes?"
She replied, "Probably in an evidence bag."
"Where's my gun?"
"Tom said they have it, and they recovered my gun, too."
"Good." I was going to ask her where Uncle Ernie's knife was, but the last time I saw it, it was sticking out of Asad Khalil's chin--so by now it was downstairs in the morgue where the medical examiner was tugging at it, trying to decide if he should pull it out before or after he cut open Khalil's skull.
Kate and I chatted a bit, and we agreed that I needed a few weeks at home so I could recuperate quietly. I expressed my deep disappointment that we couldn't see her parents or mine in the foreseeable future, and she knew I was full of crap, but she couldn't say that to a man in my delicate condition. I also informed her, "The E.R. doctor said no skydiving for five years."
Breakfast came at about 7:30, and apparently I was on a liquid diet that didn't resemble my usual liquid diet.
Kate chowed down on pancakes and sausages. She asked me, "Would you like more confine mint tea?"
This wasn't as funny as I'd thought when she was lying here.
Anyway, I sat in bed thinking about Vince Paresi and even Boris, who I liked on some level. Boris and I had agreed that he was capable of handling Asad Khalil, but obviously we'd been wrong about that--and we both should have known we were wrong. And on that subject, what the hell was I thinking when I thought I wanted Asad Khalil all for myself? Well, it worked out... barely.
I asked Kate, "Have you heard anything about Boris?"
She shook her head and said, "Why do you ask?"
"I think Khalil killed him."
She didn't respond, but she was probably thinking what I was thinking--I should have reported my contact with Boris to Tom Walsh. Not only would Boris probably still be alive, but if the surveillance team had grabbed Khalil in Brighton Beach, I could have saved myself some excitement at the WTC site--not to mention a few days in the hospital.
Also, Vince Paresi would still be alive.
Well, in this business, you call it like you see it, and as I said, you live--or die--with the consequences.
I wasn't going to beat myself up with this any more than I was going to beat myself up for not thinking about Gabe Haytham in time to save him and his family. The bad guy here was Asad Khalil, and people like him, and those who helped him, and everyone who celebrated death and not life.
Bottom line here--I killed Asad Khalil, so he wasn't going to trial or to prison, and he wouldn't be haunting our dreams anymore. But there are more of them.
I asked Kate, "Did you hear anything about the Port Authority cops? The ones who were in the PA trailer?"
She replied, "Tom mentioned that there were two of them--a male and female--but they haven't been found." She added, "I don't want to talk about this now."
I nodded, but this was still on my mind. My mind, however, was in happy pill land, and I needed to focus on something that was bothering me about this.
It was certainly possible that someone like Asad Khalil could get the drop on two cops who weren't expecting trouble. But what did he do with the bodies?
It would make sense that Khalil had help at this critical moment--maybe one or two other guys to kill the cops and to get rid of the bodies... and hang Vince from the crane.
But when I saw Khalil, he was alone. So if he had accomplices, where were they? Disposing of the bodies? Or did Khalil, true to his M.O., kill them, too?
And all of this brought me back to what had been on my mind all week. Did Khalil have something else planned? Based on just what I saw in the apartment on 72nd Street, Khalil obviously had accomplices and resources here, so he probably had a favor to repay. And what was it? And was it still in the works?
Kate interrupted my thoughts to ask me what I was thinking about.
"Khalil's big finale."
She stayed quiet awhile, then said, "If... if there was supposed to be a finale... maybe whatever was going to happen is not going to happen now that he's dead."
I'd thought about that, and it was possible. But if something big was going to happen--like a car bomb or an anthrax attack from a crop duster--and if somebody like Al Qaeda was behind it, did they need Asad Khalil to pull it off?
Kate said, "I think we talked ourselves into this possibility."
"Do you really think so?" I said to her, "Boris thought it was possible."
"Why don't you get some rest?"
A nurse came in with painkillers. I didn't like these things the last time I was in the hospital with daylight coming through three holes in my body, so Dom Fanelli would bring me a colorless and odorless painkiller made in Poland, which did the trick. But I didn't argue and I put them in my mouth, drank some water, then when she left I spit them out.
Kate said, "You have to take those."
"No pain, no brain."
I started to realize that maybe I should have asked the asshole himself what was up. He wasn't going to tell me when I was beating the shit out of him--but he might have told me when he thought I was as good as dead. He would have said, "I am glad you asked me about that, Mr. Corey. And I will tell you because"--big laugh here--"dead men tell no tales."
Okay. What?
I raised my bed a little more and could feel the sutures pulling in my back. I closed my eyes and got my brain in gear. Something had struck me as odd--or out of place--at the WTC site, and it was now coming back to me.
The tire marks. They were fresh.
That semi had been driven into that site sometime on Sunday. Do they make deliveries to a security zone on a Sunday? I recalled late one night--maybe during the week, maybe a weekend--seeing trucks parked with the drivers bedded down in their sleeping compartment, waiting for the gates to open.
Therefore... why would the PA cops let this tractor-trailer through the gates on a Sunday night? Well, maybe because they were dead.
CARLINO MASONRY SUPPLIES.
The masonry supply thing wasn't quite right either. They weren't pouring concrete yet, and there were no cement mixers on the site. And if they were delivering something like steel mesh or rebars, they'd use a flatbed truck. So what was in that big trailer?
And why did Khalil choose the WTC site to meet me? Well, for the symbolism, as he'd said. I get it... but...
I sat up. "Holy shit."
"John? Are you all right?"
"No."
"What's the matter?"
"Hold on." I was pretty sure I knew what was in that trailer--and I knew, too, it hadn't blown yet, because if it had, I'd have heard it, and even felt it, here, three miles away.
I reached for the phone on the nightstand, and Kate asked me, "Who are you calling?"
"The Ops Center--no, Walsh. He's probably still at the site."
"John--"
Walsh's cell phone went into voice mail--he didn't recognize the number, or it c
ame up "Bellevue" and he knew only two people there, and he probably didn't want to speak to one of them.
I was about to dial the Ops Center, but I got into crazy mode and pulled the tubes and wires out of me. Kate went a little nuts and started yelling, then tried to push the nurse's call button, but I pulled it out of her hand, slid out of bed, and said to her, "Let's go."
"What--?"
I took her arm, and as I moved her toward the door, I said, "You're getting me out of here."
She pulled her arm back and said, "No. John--"
"Trust me. I'll explain. Come on."
She looked at me, then said in a calming voice, "Stay here, John, and I'll get you some clothes."
I looked at my watch, but it was gone. I asked her, "What time is it?"
She glanced at her watch and said, "It's 8:05. You stay here--"
"Kate, at 8:46 A.M., the time when the first plane hit the North Tower, a very large bomb will detonate at the World Trade Center site."
She stared at me, and she looked frightened--not about the bomb, but about me.
So to get this moving, I lied, "Khalil told me this when he thought he was going to kill me."
"Oh my God..."
"Let's go. You got your cell phone?"
She grabbed her purse, and we hurried out the door.
The other side of the ward was for the criminally insane, and I didn't want to wind up there, so I tried to look nonchalant as we passed quickly through the ward filled with guards from the Department of Corrections.
We got to the security checkpoint and almost got through, but a big DOC guy stopped us. It must have been my hospital pajamas and slipper socks that caught his attention.
Kate went into full FBI mode, flashed her creds, and made it clear to the guy that this was none of his business.
He backed off, and we were out in the corridor.
We got on an elevator and she asked me, "Where are we going?"
"Ground Zero. Let me have your phone." I dialed Walsh. I knew he always took Kate's call, but he got me instead, which confused and disappointed him.
He said, "John... good to hear from you. I was going to--"
"Tom, listen to me--"
"We are so sorry about Vince--"
I lost the call in the elevator, and I said to Kate, "When we get outside, commandeer an ambulance."
She nodded.
The elevator reached the lobby, and Kate moved quickly toward the First Avenue exit as I redialed Walsh and followed her.
Tom answered again and said, "Kate told me you were resting comfortably and I just want to say--"
"Tom, shut up and listen to me." That shut him up, and I said, slowly and clearly with calm urgency in my voice, "Asad Khalil, when he thought he was going to kill me, told me that there was a bomb planted at the WTC site--"
"What?"
I could hear engine noises in the background, and I asked him, "Are you still there?"
"Yes."
"I think the bomb is in the big semi there--Carlino Masonry Supplies. Do you see it?"
"I'm... standing next to..."
"You might want to move. But before you do that, call the Bomb Squad ASAP. Then get everyone the hell out of there--that is a very big truck."
Silence.
I walked out of the lobby, and the guard at the door said to me, "Hey! Where you goin'?"
Walsh asked, "John... are you sure about this?"
Very good question. And the answer was no, but I said, "Yes."
The guard was speaking to me, but I waved him off. Where the hell was Kate?
Walsh was saying, "The trailer is locked."
By now, Tom Walsh was probably thirty blocks away, so I wondered how he knew that. I said, "Yes, it would be locked, Tom." I hesitated, then said, "I think--think it's set to--"
The guard had another guard with him now, and they wanted me to go inside with them. I said to them, "I'm waiting for an ambulance." I said to Walsh, "It's set to go off at 8:46 A.M."
He didn't ask why I thought that, because that time is burned into everyone's mind.
There was another silence on the phone, and I thought I'd lost him, but then he said, "That's thirty-one minutes... I don't think we can evacuate this area--"
"Try. Meanwhile, evacuate the site and get the area cordoned off. Call the Bomb Squad."
I hung up, and the guards had me by both arms, so I told them, "I'm STP positive."
They backed off, and one of them made a call on his radio.
An ambulance pulled into the pickup lane with Kate in the passenger seat, and I opened her door and said to her, "Get out."
"No. I'm going with you."
One of the guards told the ambulance driver, "This guy is STP positive."
Kate said, "John, get in the ambulance. Now! Or I'm going without you."
She meant it, so I moved as quickly as I could toward the rear doors and climbed into the ambulance and knelt between the two front seats.
Kate said to the driver, "Ground Zero. Liberty Street. Lights and sirens."
The driver, a young black woman, hit the bells and whistles and off we went. She asked Kate, "What are we responding to without EMT personnel, and why are we taking a patient to Ground Zero?"
Kate explained, "It's really complicated, Jeena." She added, "And really urgent."
Jeena knew how to weave and bob and blow the lights, and I estimated we'd be at Ground Zero in about five or six minutes.
I asked, "What time is it?"
Kate looked at her watch and said, "Eight twenty-one."
Twenty-five minutes. I said to Kate, "The second plane hit at nine oh-three, and there are more people around at that time. So maybe--"
She said, "Let's go with eight forty-six."
"Right."
Jeena asked, "What are we talking about, folks?"
I answered by saying, "As soon as you drop us on Liberty Street, you turn around and get out of the area."
She thought about that and said, "Sounds like you might need an ambulance down there."
"Yeah, but..." I tried to think about how big this bomb could be, and like everyone in this business, I compared it to the Oklahoma City bombing. That was a small truck with about five thousand pounds of explosives that did massive damage. This trailer, if it was full of the same stuff, would take out fifteen or twenty city blocks--basically all of Lower Manhattan, from the Hudson to the East River, including the Financial District right down to Battery Park. And how many people lived and worked there? Maybe a quarter of a million, and there was no way to evacuate them in time... Holy shit.
I said to Jeena, "Pull over. I have to drive."
She informed me, "Nobody drives my ambulance."
Kate turned back to me and said, "John, maybe we don't need to be there."
No, we didn't need to be there, but I didn't respond to that logical statement. I looked out the windshield, and I could see we were already on Broadway. Twenty-six Fed and 290 Broadway were right ahead. In fact, we were already well within the blast zone.
I looked at the time on Kate's cell phone: 8:25.
I called Walsh and asked him, "What's happening?"
He replied, "We got all the construction guys out of here, and all the crime scene people, and we've cleared the observation deck and cleared the streets." He added, "There's no way to evacuate this area so we're trying to get people underground."
"Where's the Bomb Squad?"
"I see the trucks coming down the ramp."
"You still there?"
"Where else am I supposed to be?"
"Tom... if that thing goes off, it's going to vaporize--"
"John, I have my hands full at the moment--"
"Did you get the lock cut off?"
"Yes, but the Bomb Squad advised me not to open the doors. Okay, I--"
"We'll be right there," I said.
"What? Where are you?"
"Just speeding past your corner office in an ambulance."
"With Kate?" r />
He likes Kate. He wants me vaporized. "Two minutes--"
"Get the hell out of here. That's an order. Okay, here's the Squad."
The phone went dead, and Kate said, "Eight twenty-six." She asked me, "Where's Tom?"
"Still there."
She nodded.
Jeena had put it all together and informed us, "You got about twenty minutes."
"Thanks."
Kate said to her, "Pull over, get out, and get into a subway station."
Jeena didn't reply and kept going. Up ahead at Murray Street, Broadway was blocked off with police cars. They saw the ambulance coming, and one of the cruisers moved aside and we shot through.
The streets around the site were nearly deserted, except for police cruisers with their roof lights flashing, and warnings blasting out of their bullhorns saying, "Get off the streets! Go down into the subways and leave the area!"
Another cruiser's bullhorn was blaring, "Get away from the windows! Go into your building basement!"
Well, I wasn't an expert on bombs, but I did know that a massive explosion would suck the breathable air out of underground spaces. Not to mention ruptured gas and water lines, falling debris, and collapsing buildings--again.
I hoped to God this day didn't make three thousand dead look small by comparison.
Jeena snapped a hard right on Barclay, a left on West, and within two minutes we were at the open gates to the ramp and Jeena stopped.
It almost didn't matter what time it was anymore; we were so close to the center of the blast that we couldn't get clear unless we turned around now--and we weren't turning around.
Kate threw open her door and said to Jeena, "Get as far as you can as fast as you can."
I was about to open the rear doors, but the ambulance began moving again and we were on the ramp, heading down into the pit. Jeena said, "Too far to walk."
I moved between the front seats again and said to Jeena, "That big tractor-trailer over there." I added, "Thanks."
As we moved quickly down the ramp, I could see one Bomb Squad truck and two guys in blast suits--which weren't going to help them at all--and Tom Walsh. And that was it. Except for three idiots on the way.
I could also see the yellow crime scene tape that encompassed about an acre around the tractor-trailer, and within the tape was the crane where Vince Paresi had been hanging...