"Not anymore." Whereupon he launched into a tirade against Steinbrenner, Yankee Stadium, the price of tickets, the salaries of the players, and so forth. These terrorists are clever, sounding just like loyal citizens.
Anyway, I tuned the guy out and thought about how I'd wound up here. As I indicated, I was a homicide detective, one of New York's finest, if I do say so. A year ago this month, I was playing dodge-the-bullets with two Hispanic gentlemen up on West 102nd Street in what was probably a case of mistaken identity, since there seemed to be no reason for the attempted rub-out. Life is funny sometimes. Anyway, the perps were still at large, though I had my eye out for them, as you might imagine.
After my near-death experience and upon release from the hospital, I accepted my Uncle Harry's offer to stay at his summer house on Long Island to convalesce. The house is located about a hundred road miles from West 102nd Street, which was fine. Anyway, while I was out there, I got involved with this double murder of a husband and wife, fell in love twice, almost got killed again, and wound up being forcibly retired from the NYPD on a three-quarter disability pension. It's a long story and kind of a sad one. And the ending is still to come. The perp who did the murders hasn't been tried yet, and I hope my testimony gets him fried, or whatever the great state of New York decides is the most humane and cheapest way to avoid overcrowding on Death Row. Also, one of the women I fell in love with, Beth Penrose by name, is still sort of in my life. Maybe more on that later.
While all this was going on out on eastern Long Island, my divorce became final. And as if I wasn't already having a bad R&R out at the beach, I wound up making the professional acquaintance of a schmuck on the double homicide case named Ted Nash of the Central Intelligence Agency who I took a big dislike to, and who hated my guts in return, and who, lo and behold, was now part of my ATTF team. It's a small world, but not that small, and I don't believe in coincidence.
There was also another guy involved with that case, George Foster, an FBI agent, who was okay, but not my cup of tea either. Funny how all these Federal types got involved with this local double homicide for what turned out to be the wrong reasons, to wit: The husband and wife who were murdered were U.S. government biologists at Plum Island, not far from where I was supposed to be convalescing. This island is a sort of secret government facility, so when this couple got iced, in come the FBI and the CIA. Ted Nash at first put out this bullshit that he was with the Department of Agriculture, which theoretically runs this Plum Island laboratory that maybe does work with biowarfare stuff. But later, under some pressure from yours truly, he admitted he was CIA, but never mentioned the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, and even if he had, it wouldn't have meant much to me then. Now it means I'm his partner. Cruel fate. Or something else.
Anyway, it turns out that this double homicide was not a Federal case and Nash and Foster disappeared, only to reappear in my life a few weeks ago when I got assigned to this ATTF Mideastern team. But no sweat, I've put in for a transfer to the ATTF's Irish Republican Army section, which I will probably get. I don't have any real feelings about the IRA either way, but at least the IRA babes are easy to look at, the guys are more fun than your average Arab terrorist, and the Irish pubs are primo. I could do some real good in the anti-IRA section. Really.
But to backtrack, the two biologists that got murdered out near Plum Island, Tom and Judy Gordon, were actually friends of mine, which is one reason I got involved with that case. The other reason is that I'm stupid.
Anyway, after all this mess out on Long Island, I get offered this great choice of being hauled in front of the NYPD disciplinary board for moonlighting or whatever, or taking a medical disability and going away. So I took the medical, but also negotiated a job at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan where I live. Before I got shot and before the Plum Island mess, I'd taught a class at John Jay as an adjunct professor, so I wasn't asking for much and I got it.
Starting in January, I was teaching two night classes at JJ and one day class, and I was getting bored out of my mind, so my ex-partner, Dom Fanelli, knows about this Special Contract Agent program with the Feds where they hire former law-enforcement types to work with ATTF. I apply, I'm accepted, probably for all the wrong reasons, and here I am. The pay's good, the perks are okay, the assignments sound like they could be interesting, and the Federal types are mostly schmucks. I have this problem with Feds, like most cops do, and not even sensitivity training would help.
But as I say, the work seems interesting. The ATTF is a sort of unique and, I may say, elite group (despite the schmucks) that only exists in New York City and environs. It's made up mostly of NYPD detectives who are great guys, FBI, and some quasi-civilian guys like me hired to round out the team, so to speak. Also, on some teams, when needed, are CIA prima donnas, and also some DEA-Drug Enforcement Agency people who know their business, and know about connections between the drug trade and the terrorist world. There are other Federal types from agencies I can't mention, and last but not least, we have some Port Authority detectives assigned to some teams. These guys are helpful at airports, bus terminals, train stations, docks, some bridges and tunnels under their control, and other places where their little empire extends. We have it all pretty much covered, but even if we didn't, it sounds really impressive.
The idea of the ATTF is to put together all these agencies and contract civilians with their expertise in specialized areas to combat domestic terrorism. The ATTF, for instance, was one of the main investigating groups in the World Trade Center bombing and the TWA 800 crash as well as the African Embassy bombings, though the name ATTF was hardly mentioned in the news, which is how they like it.
The reason the almighty Feds decided to team up with the NYPD, by the way, is that your average FBI guy is from Kansas and doesn't know a pastrami sandwich from the Lexington Avenue subway. The CIA guys are a little slicker and talk about cafes in Prague and the night train to Istanbul and all that crap, but New York is not their favorite place to be. The NYPD has street smarts, and that's what you need to keep track of Abdul Salami-Salami and Paddy O'Bad and Pedro Viva Puerto Rico and so on. Not only are the Feds clueless about the streets and subways and buses and all, but they don't really understand the types they're watching.
Your average Fed is Wendell Wasp from West Jesus, Iowa; whereas the NYPD has mucho Hispanics, lots of blacks, a million Irish, and even a few Muslims now, so you get this cultural diversity on the force that is not only politically cool and correct, but actually useful and effective. And when the ATTF can't steal active duty NYPD people, they hire ex-NYPD like me. Despite my so-called disability, I'm armed, dangerous, and nasty. So there it is.
We were approaching JFK, and I said to Fasid, "So, what do you do for Easter?"
"Easter? I don't celebrate Easter. I'm Muslim."
See how clever I am? The Feds would've sweated this guy for an hour to make him admit he was a Muslim. I got it out of him in two seconds. Just kidding. But, you know, I really have to get out of the Mideast section and into the IRA bunch. I'm part Irish and part English, and I could work both sides of that street. Please, God, get me out of the Mideast and into Clancy's Pub on Third Avenue.
Fasid exited the Belt Parkway and got on the Van Wyck Expressway heading south. These huge planes were sort of floating overhead making whining noises, and Fasid called out to me, "Where you going?"
"International Arrivals."
"Which airline?"
"There's more than one?"
"Yeah. There's twenty, thirty, forty-"
"No kidding? Just drive."
Fasid shrugged, just like an Israeli cabbie. I was starting to think that maybe he was a Mossad agent posing as a Pakistani. Or maybe the job was getting to me.
There's all these colored and numbered signs along the expressway, and I let the guy go to the International Arrival building, a huge structure with all the airline logos, one after the other out front, and he asked again, "Which airline?"
"I don't like any of these. Keep going."
Again he shrugged.
I directed him on to another road, then another, and we were now going to the other side of the big airport. This is good tradecraft, to see if anybody's following you. I learned this in some spy novel or maybe a James Bond movie. I was trying to get into this antiterrorist thing, but the meter was past fifty bucks already, so I got Fasid pointed in the right direction and told him to stop in front of a big office-type building on the west side of JFK that was used for this and that. I paid the guy, tipped him, and asked for a receipt in the exact amount. Honesty is one of my few faults.
Fasid gave me a bunch of blank receipts and asked again, "You want me to hang around?"
"I wouldn't if I were you."
I went into the lobby of the building, a 1960s sort of crap modern architecture, and instead of an armed guard with an Uzi like they have all over the world, except maybe England, there's just a sign that says, RESTRICTED AREA-AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. So, assuming you read English, you know if you're welcome or not.
I went up a staircase and down a long corridor of gray-steel doors, some marked, some numbered, some neither. At the end of the corridor was a door with a nice blue-and-white sign that said, CONQUISTADOR CLUB-PRIVATE-MEMBERS ONLY.
There was this electronic key-card scanner alongside the door, but like everything else about the Conquistador Club, it was a phony. What I had to do was to press my right thumb on the translucent face of the scanner, which I did. About two seconds later, the electronic genie said to itself, "Hey, that's John Corey's thumb-let's open the door for John."
And did the door swing swing open? No, it open? No, it slid slid into the wall as far as its dummy doorknob. Do I need this nonsense? into the wall as far as its dummy doorknob. Do I need this nonsense?
Anyway, there's also a video scanner overhead, in case your thumbprint got screwed up with a chocolate bar or something, and if they recognize your face, they also open the door, though in my case they might make an exception.
So I went in, and the door slid closed automatically behind me. I was now in what appeared to be the reception area of an airline travelers' club. Why there'd be such a club in a building that's not a passenger terminal is, you can be sure, a question I'd asked, and I'm still waiting for an answer. But I know the answer, which is that when the CIA culture is present, you get this kind of smoke-and-mirrors silliness. These clowns waste time and money on stagecraft and such, just like in the old days when they were trying to impress the KGB. What the door needed was a simple sign that said, KEEP THE FUCK OUT.
Anyway, behind the counter was Nancy Tate, the receptionist, a sort of Miss Moneypenny, the model of efficiency and repressed sexuality, and all that. She liked me for some reason, and greeted me cheerily, "Good afternoon, Mr. Corey."
"Good afternoon, Ms. Tate."
"Everyone has arrived."
"I was delayed by traffic."
"Actually, you're ten minutes early."
"Oh..."
"I like your tie."
"I took it off a dead Bulgarian on the night train to Istanbul."
She giggled.
Anyway, the reception area was all leather and burled wood, plush blue carpet, and so forth, and on the wall directly behind Nancy was another marquee of the fictitious Conquistador Club. And for all I knew, Ms. Tate was a hologram.
To the left of Ms. Tate was an entranceway marked CONFERENCE AND BUSINESS AREA that actually led to the interrogation rooms and holding cells, which I guess could be called the Conference and Business area. To the right, a sign announced LOUNGE AND BAR. I should be so lucky. That was in fact the way to the communications and operations room.
Ms. Tate said to me, "Ops Room. There are five people including yourself."
"Thanks." I walked through the bar-and-lounge doorway, down a short hallway, and into a dim, cavernous, and windowless room that held desks, computer consoles, cubicles, and such. On the big rear wall was a huge, computer-generated color map of the world that could be programmed to a detailed map of whatever you needed, like downtown Islamabad. This was big-time.
Anyway, this facility wasn't my actual workplace, which is in the aforementioned Federal building in lower Manhattan. But this was where I had to be on this Saturday afternoon to meet and greet some Arab guy who was switching sides and needed to be taken safely downtown for a few years of debriefing.
I kind of ignored my teammates and made for the coffee bar which, unlike the one in my old detective squad room, is neat, clean, and well stocked. Compliments of the Federal taxpayers.
I fooled around with the coffee a while, which was my way of avoiding my colleagues for a few more minutes.
I got the coffee the right color and noticed a tray of donuts that said NYPD and a tray of croissants and brioche that said CIA and a tray of oatmeal cookies that said FBI. Someone had a sense of humor.
Anyway, the coffee bar was on the operations side of the big room and the commo side was sort of elevated on a low platform. A guy was up there monitoring all the gidgets and gadgets.
My team, on the operations side, was sitting around somebody's empty desk, engaged in conversation. The team consisted of the aforementioned Ted Nash of the CIA, George Foster of the FBI, Nick Monti of the NYPD, and Kate Mayfield of the FBI. WASP, WASP, Wop, WASP.
Kate Mayfield came to the coffee bar and began making herself tea. She is supposed to be my mentor, whatever the hell that means. As long as it doesn't mean partner.
She said to me, "I like that tie."
"I once strangled a Ninja warrior to death with it. It's my favorite."
"Really? Hey, how are you getting along here?"
"You tell me."
"Well, it's too soon for me to tell you. You tell me why you put in for the IRA section."
"Well, the Muslims don't drink, I can't spell their f-ing names on my reports, and the women can't be seduced."
"That's the most racist, sexist remark I've heard in years."
"You don't get around enough."
"This is not the NYPD, Mr. Corey."
"No, but I'm I'm NYPD. Get used to it." NYPD. Get used to it."
"Are we through attempting to shock and appal?"
"Yeah. Look, Kate, I thank you for your meddling-I mean mentoring-but in about a week, I'll be in the IRA section, or off the job."
She didn't reply.
I looked at her as she messed around with a lemon. She was about thirty, I guess, blond, blue-eyed, fair skin, boyish kind of build, perfect pearly whites, no jewelry, light makeup, and so on. Wendy Wasp from Wichita. She had not one flaw that I could see, not even a zit on her face or a fleck of dandruff on her dark blue blazer. She probably played three sports in high school, took cold showers, belonged to 4-H, and organized pep rallies in college. I hated her. Well, not really, but about the only thing we had in common was some internal organs, and not even all of those.
Also, her accent was hard to identify, and I remembered that Nick Monti said her father was an FBI guy, and they'd lived in different places around the country.
She turned and looked at me, and I looked at her. She had these piercing eyes, the color of blue dye No. 4, like they use in ice pops.
She said to me, "You came to us highly recommended."
"By who? Whom?"
"Whom. By some of your old colleagues in homicide."
I didn't reply.
"Also," she said, "by Ted and George." She nodded toward Schmuck and Putz.
I almost choked on my coffee. Why these two guys would say anything nice about me was a total mystery.
"They aren't fond of you, but you impressed them on that Plum Island case."
"Yeah, I even impressed myself on that one."
"Why don't you give the Mideast section a try?" She added, "If Ted and George are the problem, we can switch you to another team within the section."
"I love Ted and George, but I really have my heart set on the anti-IRA section."
"Too bad. This is where the real action is. This is a career builder." She added, "The IRA are pretty quiet and well behaved in this country."
"Good."
"The Palestinians and the Islamic groups, on the other hand, are potentially dangerous to national security."
"No 'potentially' about it," I replied. "World Trade Center."
She didn't reply.
I'd come to discover that these three words in the ATTF were like, "Remember Pearl Harbor." The intelligence community got caught with their pants down on that one, but came back and solved the case, so it was a draw.
She continued, "The whole country is paranoid about a Mideast terrorist biological attack or a nuclear or chemical attack. You saw that on the Plum Island case. Right?"
"Right."
"So? Everything else in the ATTF is a backwater. Nobody's seen a Black Panther in years, the Puerto Ricans want statehood, the IRA just wants Yankee dollars, the Reds are finished, the neo-Nazis and militia guys from Idaho are afraid of getting mugged in New York, and the other fringe political groups are either nonviolent or too stupid to worry about. The real action is in the Mideast section, and you look like a man of action." She smiled.
I smiled in return. I asked her, "What's it to you?"
"I like you."
I raised my eyebrows.
"I like New York Neanderthals."
"I'm speechless."
"Think about it."
"Will do." I glanced at a TV monitor close by and saw that the flight we were waiting for, Trans-Continental 175 from Paris, was inbound and on time. I asked Ms. Mayfield, "What's the name of this guy we're waiting for?"
"Khalil. Asad Khalil."