Almost in pantomime, the cop finally made a decision. Although the CCTV footage was silent, it was clear that he shouted something. The man closest to him immediately reached into his waistband and took out a pistol. The cop, who was young, was mesmerized. He stopped moving. The bullet hit him in the face. He fell backward from the force of the shot.
The CCTV footage ended.
Roland Fortune was not nearly as experienced with the reality and sight of violence as Gina Carbone. He was standing with her and Harlan Lazarus as the footage unfolded. They were in the midst of diminutive desks and chairs in the second grade classroom of PS 6. The sight of the officer, young, inept, inexperienced, unbelieving in that instant before he died, sickened Roland. He sat down on the desk nearest to him. He asked, “Where are those two guys?”
“We don’t know,” Gina said.
“Judge, what the fuck is happening?” Roland Fortune had a temper that rarely flared, but when it came, its intensity sharpened every feature of his face. It resembled the hateful glare of the street kids he grew up with in the Bronx. As a street fighter when he was a teenager, the ability to use his fists gave him credibility in the neighborhood and that credibility had protected him.
Harlan Lazarus, a former federal appeals judge who had left his life-tenure job to become the Secretary of Homeland Security, wasn’t used to people challenging him. His history as a Harvard Law School professor, a United States Attorney, a judge, and now a cabinet secretary had insulated him from other people’s anger and made him expect, and get, homage. He had spent a life surrounded by sycophants. He insisted on being addressed as “Judge.” He said, “Do you want to ask me that question again?”
“Sure. How is it that someone can take a shoulder-fired grenade and launch an attack on the World Trade Center Memorial?”
“Are you serious, Mr. Fortune?”
“Serious? What the hell are you doing? Where are your people? You know what I see? Our police helicopters, our cops, our boats, our guns. Our dead. What the hell are you up to? It’s been seven hours since this all started. How much time do you need?” He caught his breath. His voice rose, “Where the fuck are your people?”
Harlan Lazarus glared at Roland. He was entirely bald; he had one of those skull-like faces with no spare flesh, all bone; he was skinny and intense. “We have long-standing plans, Mr. Fortune, that are now being implemented all over the world.”
“And what the fuck does that mean? I have a thousand people dead before noon, and now an explosion in the most sacred place of my city, and at least two dead policemen. It’s nice to have you fly in from wherever you were, but I haven’t heard one useful word from you.”
“I don’t report to you, Mr. Fortune. You report to me.”
“Since when? Forget that pecking-order shit, Mr. Lazarus. I need information. I have millions of people who elected me to run this city. You’re lucky if you could get your wife to vote for you to clean the toilet. I’m the one guy people listen to. I’m the guy who has to talk to those people, make them comfortable, give them a sense of confidence. You scare the shit out of people.”
“You’re completely out of order.”
“Save that shit for the courtroom. I want to know where your people are and what they’re doing. I want to know if they have any information that this kind of thing is going to happen again.”
Lazarus’ security detail stepped closer to him, almost imperceptibly, drawn by Roland’s anger. Lazarus said, “We’re not aware of anything.”
Increasingly in pain, sweating in the hot classroom, Roland said, “That’s reassuring. You weren’t aware of anything half an hour ago, were you? Or at nine o’clock this morning.”
Lazarus was visibly trembling, enraged. “I think this little dialogue is over. There are things that we are doing.”
“Like what?”
“Mr. Fortune, they are things that are way above your security clearance.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
Lazarus’ stare conveyed nothing but contempt. “I’m about to let the president know that we have a rogue mayor.”
Roland had at least once a month been invited to play basketball with the president, a Rhodes scholar who after two years at Oxford had played for two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers before leaving for law school at Stanford. Roland had never seen Lazarus at any of those private games in the White House gym. “What is this, the eighth grade? Call him right now. Get him on the line.”
“You need another pain pill, Mr. Fortune.”
Harlan Lazarus turned away and left the classroom.
Into the silence that filled the room after the door slammed, Gina said, “Roland, we need his help.”
“Are we getting it? How often did he call you today?”
“Never.”
Roland was now touching his shoulder, as if the act of rubbing it would dissolve the pain. “Gina, I want you to find those two guys. Make arrests. Do you get that?”
Fifteen minutes later, Mohammad Alizadeh and Ali Hussein, two livery car drivers who had been parked since the first explosion in the chilly shadow under the elevated section of the FDR Drive at the eastern end of Wall Street, were thrown against their shabby Lincolns by heavily armed members of the counterterrorism squad of the NYPD.
Word of the arrests was sent as they were happening to Gina Carbone.
After listening quietly on her cell phone, she turned calmly to Roland. “We’ve got two arrests. They’re wearing what looks like the same clothes as two guys on the tape.”
Within ten minutes Roland Fortune was standing in front of PS 6. The Vicodin he had just taken was beginning to work its magic. The throbbing in his shoulder was muffled. He announced into the microphones arrayed in front of him, “A team of elite members of the New York City Police Department’s antiterrorism unit has just made arrests in connection with the murder of a New York City police officer near the World Trade Center Memorial. Let this be a signal that we will find, and quickly find, anyone who harms us. And that we will stop harm before it happens.”
CHAPTER TEN
THEIR APARTMENT WAS on the fourth floor of a classic, five-story New York City brownstone. Its windows overlooked the trees that lined East 80th Street between Madison and Fifth. It was Cameron Dewar who had found the place three years earlier. “Gabe, you’ve got to get over here,” he had said. “I’ve found the place for us. It’s just what we want. It’s amazing, my love.”
They had dated for only three months before they decided to live together. Cam volunteered to do the work of looking for a home for them. They had agreed that they wanted to rent an apartment in an Upper East Side brownstone and hoped they could avoid living in a new, cookie-cutter high-rise building. Cam, an engaging, attractive man who worked in public relations, knew many people. A friend had told him that the owner of a brownstone wanted to rent to a quiet couple. Within five days he and Gabriel Hauser were in the apartment. They had turned it into a cozy Victorian home. They often called themselves Holmes and Watson and the apartment 221-B Baker Street.
Now Cam whispered into Gabriel’s ear. “Gabe, there must be three hundred reporters out there now.”