The trio disappeared through doors labeled Morgan D. Jack approached the doorway and saw a room full of Hasidic types, all seated before an empty podium. Yeah, that had to be it: Some rabbi was going to lecture or pray or whatever they did. He searched the crowd for Tony but quickly realized the futility of trying to locate him from the doorway. Why did they all have to look so damn much alike? He’d have to go row to row, searching each face, and he wasn’t about to do that. He doubted he’d be allowed.
Next best thing was to hang around until the show was over, catch Tony on the way out, and get in his face. Ask him point blank what he was doing playing Hasidic dress-up.
Why the hell do I care? he wondered.
Good question. He didn’t have a clear answer. Maybe because he’d seen something he couldn’t explain. A guy he was dealing with a few times a week was playing Hasidic dress-up. Why?
The ideal place to wait would be in the lobby, but Cristin might still be there.
Her last name came to him then: Ott.
Karina Haddon’s best friend. At least she had been. Most likely still was.
Karina… his first girlfriend, big-time high school crush… she left for college in California. They reconnected when she returned on her freshman Christmas break, but he never saw… her again after that. She simply and completely excised herself from his life. Leaving him with another kind of crush – the hurting kind. He’d got over it. But now her good buddy shows up in the same hotel, a hundred miles from home.
Wait… he remembered something Karina had said about Cristin going to school in the city. FIT? Or was it NYU? Not that it mattered. She’d be almost halfway through her senior year now, looking to graduate come June. But she hadn’t been dressed like a college student. She’d looked kind of hot. And he’d never thought of Cristin as hot. She’d simply been Karina’s friend.
So maybe she’d gone to FIT after all. Maybe the Fashion Institute of Technology had taught her how to put herself together for maximum effect.
Whatever. He just hoped she wrote off the sighting as a case of mistaken identity and didn’t go back to Burlington County blabbing that she’d seen Karina’s old boyfriend. Not that it would ever reach Jack’s family. She lived in Tabernacle and he knew of no common contacts. But still, he didn’t want anyone anywhere talking about him at any time. He wanted to be gone.
He found a stairway and eased down toward the lobby. He stopped where he had a view and saw Cristin standing off to the side. She seemed to be waiting for someone. A well-dressed middle-age couple approached, spoke to her. She nodded, handed them a card, and they all shook hands. With smiles all around, they disappeared into an elevator.
Great. All he had to do was buy a paper, find a chair, and pretend to read while he watched these stairs and the elevator bank. It would also offer something to hide behind if Cristin reappeared.
6
Kadir crouched in the front passenger seat as Mahmoud angled his cab to the curb near the entrance of the Marriott.
Sayyid leaned forward in the rear seat and whispered, “Allāhu Akbar.”
“Allāhu Akbar,” Mahmoud and Kadir repeated.
Mahmoud pointed to a spot a couple of car lengths head. “We’ll be waiting right there.”
Sayyid jumped out and turned to face them for a moment. With his beard, black suit, and black yarmulke, he made a disturbingly authentic orthodox Jew. He nodded, then hurried into the hotel.
Watching him go, Mahmoud said, “After tonight, the name of El Sayyid Nosair shall be written on the walls of heaven.”
“I pray for his success,” Kadir said.
Mahmoud pulled past the entrance and parked with the engine running. The plan was to wait here for Sayyid who, after slaying the rabbi, would run out through the entrance and jump into the cab. Mahmoud would drive him to a safe place. If questioned later by the police he would say he dropped the fare off at a synagogue near Gramercy Park.
He laughed. “Imagine the confusion! They’ll keep asking themselves, why would a Jew kill a Jew?”
Kadir grinned and nodded, but inside he was terrified. It had all seemed so easy and simple back in the refugee center. But here in Manhattan, the plan seemed full of risks and holes.
He jumped and almost cried out as someone banged on one of the cab’s windows. A liveried doorman from the hotel was motioning them to move on. Mahmoud got out and spoke to him over the roof.
“I am waiting for a fare.”
“Can’t wait here.”
“But–”
“Move it!”
“But my fare!”
“Want me to call a cop? Move your ass out of here!”
As Mahmoud slipped back behind the wheel, Kadir said, “What do we do?”
Mahmoud thought for a second, then turned to him. “I’ll pull around the corner and wait. You get out here and watch for Sayyid. When he appears, bring him to me and we’ll be on our way.”
Kadir didn’t want to leave the relative safety of the cab but had no choice. Mahmoud had the taxi license. He got out and moved toward the busy hotel entrance as Mahmoud pulled away. He felt terribly exposed and obvious out here. Everyone entering and leaving seemed so much better dressed than he. He shivered, but not with the cold. Why, oh why, had he agreed to be part of this?
He straightened his spine and focused on the entrance.
Stop worrying about yourself. Sayyid is inside doing a hero’s work. He might end up a martyr tonight. Be alert. He will be out soon.
7
Jack checked the clock over the registration desk: pushing toward nine o’clock. He’d covered the Daily News from front page to back. He now knew far, far more about the current doings of Cuomo and Dinkins and the Jets’ trouncing of the Cowboys yesterday and the Giants’ anticipated victory in Indianapolis tonight than he wanted or cared to.
But no black-frocked horde had emerged from the elevators.
Bad.
No sign of Cristin either.
Good.
He yawned. Besides this afternoon’s abbreviated nap, he hadn’t had much sleep in the last thirty-six or so hours. Was this really worth it?
All right, he’d take another look, see what they were up to. He didn’t know what was going on up there, so he had no idea what to expect. Maybe some religious thing that went on half the night. Then again, maybe he’d get lucky and spot Tony. Because he was only assuming Tony was there. He hadn’t seen him enter the room. This could be a total waste of time.
He took the stairs and was approaching the Morgan D room when he heard a boom! from within. The sound froze him. It sounded just like one of the magnum rounds he’d fired from his .357. A couple of seconds of dead silence followed the report, and then a cacophony of shocked and horrified shouts.
He spotted a swarthy guy in the doorway, bearded like the rest but wearing a yarmulke instead of a hat. One of the hatted orthodox, an old guy, was tackling him, trying to bring him down. Then Jack noticed the silvery revolver in the first guy’s hand. Unable to shake off the tackler, the first guy shot him in the leg, then burst from the room and darted past Jack for the stairs. Shocked and confused, Jack stepped back as a number of orthodox gave chase.
What the hell?
He took a few tentative steps toward the door and peeked inside.
Chaos.
The old guy was down, howling as he clutched his bleeding leg. A couple of his buddies were already tending to him. At the far end of the room a clump of people were jammed around someone on the floor near the podium. Jack caught a glimpse of a bloody face and then black-clad legs blocked his view.
This was crazy! Orthodox Jews shooting each other? Whoever heard of that?
Had to get out of here. But wait. Could Tony have had something to do with this? Another quick scan of the crowd for him but no use. A milling pond of black hats. Time to go. He didn’t want to be tagged as a witness. Plenty of those in Morgan D.
Jack looked around. The guy with the gun was gone, vanished down the stairs. S
o it made perfect sense for Jack to head in the opposite direction. He took the elevator up to the tenth floor, got out, walked down the hall. He’d kill a few minutes, then take it back down.
8
Kadir recognized Sayyid as he exploded from the Marriott entrance.
He shouted, “Sayyid!” but his voice was lost in the blare of a horn blast from a passing truck.
Sayyid bounded across the sidewalk and into an idling cab.
“No!” Kadir cried, rushing forward, “That’s not–!”
A Jew in a wide-brimmed black hat ran out, spotted Sayyid in the cab, and stepped in front of it, waving his arms. Just then the driver burst from the cab and ran. Sayyid emerged next, waving his pistol. People screamed and ducked as he ran down the sidewalk – in the wrong direction! Mahmoud was waiting around the opposite corner.
Kadir ran after him, calling his name, but Sayyid didn’t seem to hear. He came upon a man in some kind of uniform that Kadir didn’t recognize. He must have seen Sayyid’s pistol because he pulled out his own. Kadir skidded to a halt when he saw it.
“Stop right there!” the man cried.
Sayyid turned and fired, hitting him in the shoulder. But instead of falling, the uniformed man dropped to one knee and shot three times. He missed. But then another shot cracked from somewhere as Sayyid turned to run, striking him in the neck. He went down, firing wildly, as some of the Jews from the hotel rushed up and disarmed him.
Kadir backed away and crossed the street, forcing his legs to walk instead of run while he tried to make sense of what he’d just witnessed.
What had happened back at the Marriott? Had Sayyid succeeded? Something must have happened, else why would he have been chased from the hotel?
And what a string of bad luck! Mahmoud having to move the taxi, Sayyid getting into the wrong one, and then running into some sort of policeman as he fled.
But the big question remained: Who was the third shooter? Who had fired the shot that took Sayyid down?
Quickly he circled around to where Mahmoud should have been waiting but his cab was nowhere in sight. Mahmoud had deserted him.
He felt as if Allah had deserted him as well. Wasn’t anything going to go right tonight?
9
After wasting a little time strolling up and down the tenth floor hallway, Jack returned to the elevator bank and headed back to the lobby.
When he stepped out he found cops and EMTs and even firemen. He was literally pulled from the elevator cab to make room for a stretcher going up. Adopting an appropriately shocked and bewildered expression, he allowed a cop to hustle him out the door.
Once outside he crossed the street and stood with the crowd of passersby who’d stopped to watch all the commotion. People who’d seen him come out of the hotel asked what was going on. Jack played dumb: I got off the elevator and everything was crazy. They scooted me out without telling me a thing.
Someone arrived and said there’d just been a shootout farther down Lexington Avenue, and that cops and EMTs were already on the scene tending to the wounded. Part of the crowd took off in that direction but Jack stayed put.
Eventually word filtered down that there’d been a shooting in the hotel, followed by another down the street, but nobody knew who had taken a bullet in either incident. And while the crowd around him speculated wildly on the who and the why, Jack watched for Tony.
No luck on that score. Maybe he’d slipped away while Jack was upstairs, maybe he was still inside.
Eventually the black-and-white cop cars and ambulances left. Orthodox Jews drifted out in twos and threes, none of them Tony. The crowd dissolved, heading for bars or home to watch the end of the Giants-Colts game. Jack stayed. More of the black hats came out, but still no Tony.
No Cristin either, although she too might have left while Jack had been upstairs.
He figured some of the sedans parked in front of the hotel were unmarked detective cars. And for sure a forensics team was combing through the Morgan D room at that very moment.
Not much point in hanging around any longer. He grabbed a cab back to his place – taking a cab anywhere had been next to unthinkable when he’d been working for Giovanni. Now he was taking his second in one night.
Living large. Oh yeah.
He still had no TV, so he turned on his clock radio and scanned the stations. Didn’t take long to learn that Meir Kahane had been shot and killed at a midtown hotel after addressing a chapter of the Jewish Defense League.
Jack had heard the name before, associated with some protest or another here or there around the city, but had never been able to drum up enough interest in him to learn more. After all, it seemed that at any time on any day, someone was protesting something in one of the five boroughs.
The newscaster repeatedly used the word “controversial” in describing the victim. Jack was too tired to listen to more. The guy sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him what interest Tony No-last-name had in the Jewish Defense League.
But as Jack lay in bed, waiting for sleep, instead of his thoughts centering on Tony and all the questions he’d raised tonight, they swirled around Cristin Ott. He hadn’t known her that well in high school, but under normal circumstances it would have been kind of nice to say hello, maybe have dinner together, hang out and catch up on what they’d been doing since they’d last seen each other.
But Jack’s circumstances weren’t normal, and smuggling cigarettes wasn’t exactly a topic for casual conversation.
Why was he thinking about Cristin when a guy who he’d been working with could be linked to a shooting, maybe two?
And then it came to him: His life in the city had been a scramble for food and shelter since day one. Not exactly a happy existence, but one of his own choosing, where he profited or lost by his own decisions. He’d learned that autonomy could be exhausting. Still he wouldn’t trade it for anything.
But now that he was no longer under the money gun, he could relax a little and look around. And what he saw was… not much.
He’d been so busy scrambling that he hadn’t realized until now how alone he was.
10
Roman Trejador’s message had left his new address – a suite at the St. Regis – and told Nasser to stop by between eleven and midnight. So at 11:09 he was knocking on the door.
This time Trejador answered the door himself. Again he was in a bathrobe, but his hair was wet, as if he’d just taken a shower.
“Nasser, come in,” he said smiling. “I wasn’t sure you’d get my message.”
“I always check my answering machine.”
“I won’t bother offering you a drink,” he said as Nasser followed him into the suite’s front room. He pointed to a black nylon duffel bag on the floor next to the sofa. “Your investment funds.”
Nasser nodded but made no move to pick it up. “Everything is arranged on the other end?”
“So I’m told.” He nodded toward the TV that was playing without sound, and Nasser noticed a banner reading Rabbi Kahane Assassinated. “It looks like your friend was successful – almost too successful.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, despite a comedy of errors, he almost got away with it. If he’d escaped, they would have been looking for an orthodox Jew as the perpetrator. And that wouldn’t do – one orthodox Jew killing another isn’t going to start any fires.”
“Luckily that cop he ran into shot him.”
Trejador laughed. “First off, that wasn’t a cop, but a postal inspector who happened to be armed. And he missed completely. I had to shoot the Egyptian.”
Nasser felt his mouth working without speaking. Finally he found his voice. “What? You?”
“I went over to the Marriott for insurance. Good thing I did.”
Roman Trejador was known as the most hands-on actuator in the Order. Most other actuators delegated tasks to lower-echelon members. Not Trejador. He was not averse to going into the field and getting his hands dirty – or, in this case, bloody. br />
“Wasn’t that risky?”
“Of course. But no gain without risk. Now the world will know that a radical Jew was murdered by a radical Muslim. We’ll see what develops. Kahane’s followers have acted violently in the past, we should expect no less now.”
Nasser nodded. That was why he’d prodded El Sayyid Nosair. “If we’re lucky, this will start an escalating cycle of vengeance and retaliation leading to…”
“Chaos,” they said in unison.
Nasser glanced at the TV. “Any rumbles from Israel yet?”
“Too early. There’s seven hours difference. Not even sunrise yet. But don’t expect too much. Kahane has become isolated lately, his influence waning.” Trejador pointed to the duffel. “There lies the long-term jihad-feeding investment that will pay off in global chaos.”
“Yes,” said Nasser al-Thani. “I’ll be delivering it tomorrow.”
TUESDAY
1
“You were there?” Abe said, almost choking on one of the cream-cheesed bagels Jack had brought along. “When it happened?”
“Right outside the door. I heard the shot.”
On his way over, Jack had passed a fair number of newsstands where every front page of every daily had screamed the news about the Kahane killing. And a copy of just about every one of those papers, maybe even more, was spread out on Abe’s counter. He’d never been here in the morning. Were all these papers part of a daily ritual? Surely he didn’t read them all.
“And for why were you in such a place?”
Jack didn’t hesitate. He’d expected the question. He trusted Abe but didn’t know how tight he was with Bertel. Would what he said here get back to his boss? He doubted it, but couldn’t be sure. So he’d come up with an answer that was neither the whole truth nor a lie – a skill he’d honed during his adolescence.
“I thought I saw someone I knew go inside so I followed.” Follow the vague statement with a concrete change of subject: “So who was this Kahane?”