Suspect number two, Ali Singh, was born to a middle class family in Islamabad, Pakistan. Following graduation from a technical college, where he’d excelled, he worked as an electrical engineer in Islamabad from 1992 through 1995. He was discharged, but the reasons were somewhat vague. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1996. When he couldn’t find work in his chosen profession, Singh got a job at the Imperial Taxi Company in Long Island City, Queens, and at a storage company in Flatbush. Not much was known about his past; his file was pretty thin. He’d been married briefly in 2000 but divorced within a year. Immigration and Naturalization Services said it was probably a marriage of convenience so that he could become a U.S. citizen. Like bin Basra, he was arrested for disorderly conduct during that incident in Queens, then released. He traveled to Germany and Russia in the spring of 2002, and to Kazakhstan later that same summer. He may have trained with Gulzhan Baqrah, but there was no hard evidence. Then he was implicated in the same black market cigarette scheme as bin Basra.
Despite their status as fugitives and their recent identification after the cigarette heist, the FBI decided not to arrest the suspects. “Sunfish lead to bass,” the Special Agent in Charge intoned. Better to be patient and wait.
Ali Singh and Mecca sat together on a sofa in the living room, watching something on TV. All of a sudden, Mecca got up, said a few words, put on his coat and headed toward the door. Decker whipped out his cell phone and called Bartolo. As soon as it connected, Decker heard the phone ring — on the chair immediately behind him! He spun about. There it was, glowing. He could hear the familiar theme song from The Godfather. His partner had forgotten his cell.
Bartolo entered the Happy Day deli to the tinkle of a bell. He walked up to the counter, said hello to the Korean man behind the bulletproof glass, and ordered two coffees — one black, one light and sweet. The deli smelled of Pinesol and old mothballs. Bartolo eyed a pack of brownies on a rack. One hundred and twenty calories, he read. About six minutes on the Stairmaster. Forget it, he thought. The Korean poured the coffees, capped them with lids and stuffed them into a small brown paper bag. Bartolo paid. “Thanks,” he said, and turned, and ran right into Mecca.
For a moment they stared at one another. Then Bartolo said, “Excuse me,” and shuffled down the narrow aisle. Mecca stepped forward to the counter. He asked for half a pound of green tea, with scarcely an accent, as Bartolo headed for the door. Bartolo could feel the suspect staring at his back but he resisted the urge to turn. He ambled nonchalantly through the deli door. He made his way outside and risked a quick glance sideways through the window. Mecca was still staring at him. Bartolo shied away. He gazed at a silver-gray Toyota parked across the street. He strolled along the sidewalk, around the corner, and stopped to catch his breath.
Decker watched the men in the apartment get the call. It was Ali Singh who finally stood and answered it. He said something, turned and peered out through the window. Something was wrong. Decker picked up his infrared eavesdropper — a device that bounced a laser beam across the street and captured conversations from vibrations on the window glass — but since it was still raining, the voices were impossible to hear. Not even the noiseless PIN-Diode laser linked to a 500 mm lens could distinguish what was being said. Singh hung up the receiver. He barked something at bin Basra and then moved swiftly through the room, past the blank wall, into the bedroom where he began to pack up some belongings in a small black duffel bag. Decker swung the camera back toward the living room. Bin Basra still hovered by the personal computer. He typed furiously on the keyboard. Then he stood and made his way to the front hall. Singh joined him and they vanished.
Decker leapt to his feet, grabbed his coat, and bolted out the door.
At exactly the same moment, the man known only as Mecca left the deli and sauntered through an alley toward his apartment building. Bartolo spotted him as soon as he had turned the corner. The Arab glanced about, hesitated for a moment, and then ran. Bartolo gave chase. Mecca tore into the lobby of the apartment building with Bartolo close behind. The suspect ducked into an elevator. The doors closed just as Bartolo stepped into the lobby. The agent threw himself against the elevator doors but he was just too late. The doors slammed shut. Bartolo smashed his hand against the console. He spun about. After what seemed like an eternity, another elevator descended, and Bartolo got inside. The elevator doors closed soundlessly behind him, with excruciating slowness, just as Decker dashed in from the street.
Decker sprinted over to the elevators. Both were occupied, of course, ascending. He turned, searching frantically for the stairwell. There it was. In the corner. He saw the illuminated Exit sign, a livid red. He ran across the foyer, barged through the door, and started up the steps.
The elevator paused at the seventh floor and Bartolo jumped out. He checked the apartment first, then pounded up the stairs. He could hear foreign voices in the stairwell leading to the roof.
“Bartolo?” Decker shouted from below.
“The roof,” Bartolo shouted back. He had already reached the top floor of the building. The door leading out onto the roof was swinging closed. Bartolo drew his gun. He stepped up to the door, kicked it open, and threw himself onto the ground outside, rolling as he fell.
The suspects were fleeing across the roof. He could see them running, rushing through the pouring rain. Bartolo spat, got to his feet and gave chase.
They made their way across the glistening rooftops in a line, leaping from one apartment building to the next, scrambling over chimneys and lawn furniture and clotheslines and giant rolls of tarpaper in the rain. Bartolo closed on Mecca, the trailing suspect. All of a sudden, the Arab leapt across a chasm between two buildings, his arms waving in the air above him as if he were holding a trapeze. He landed roughly on the next rooftop and rolled. Bartolo followed without hesitation. He ran and jumped, but slipped at the last moment on the glistening parapet. He fell just short. The lip of the next building caught him on the chest with a loud thump, and he felt the wind knocked out of him. Bartolo kicked and struggled but to no avail; his body slid across the parapet and he found himself dangling from the roof, his legs waving in the empty air, his muscles straining. “Decker,” he cried. “Decker, help me. Help me!”