Safe House

“You know when?”

“They ain’t decided yet. But I know the place they’re gonna hit. Twenty-six Federal Plaza.”

“Federal Plaza? On lower Broadway?”

“That’s the one. It’s perfect, bro. You know what’s in there? The FBI. IRS. And Immigration too. Everything they hate. All in one place. And it’s only a block away from the federal court too.”

“That building’s a monster. They’d never get a truck close enough to—”

“Bullshit,” Herk cut in. “It ain’t that tight. They showed me—it was in the papers— this fucking loon got on the goddamn roof there. Said he was going to off himself, take the dive. People standing around on the ground, yelling up at him to jump and all. You can’t get into the underground garage, the way they did at the World Trade Center, but you know what? You can park cars all around the place. On Broadway, on Worth, on Lafayette, and on Duane. They ain’t gonna use no dumbass rental truck, like Oklahoma City. They bought the stuff. A lot of stuff. For years, they been buying the stuff, just waiting. Got legit plates for the rigs and all. There’s seven of us. That’s more than enough.”

“You’re getting to be a real pro at this terrorism stuff, huh?”

“Oh man, it’s just jive-talk. You know, like in the joint—we call things different names than they do out in the World. This Federal Plaza goes up, we don’t need no communications—the media’ll do it for us, that’s what they said. Soon as it’s on the news, the other cells take the word. And it all goes up. You know what else? They said all kindsa stuff is going up just from copycats. Like with the nigger churches.”

“What are you talking about, Herk?”

“Ah, I didn’t mean it, man. I been down with them, I talk like them. You know how I feel about the Prof. I wouldn’t never—”

“Not about words, Herk. The churches. What about them?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, the way they explained it, see, they used to firebomb colored churches. In the South, right? A long time ago. To stop the spooks from voting and all. Okay, so, like, it’s started again, right? You see churches going up all over the place. Only it ain’t just the Klan and all. It’s, like, everyone. Motherfuckers see it on the TV, they want to do it too. You got kids painting swastikas—like I got,” he said, tapping his chest—“all over the place. And they ain’t Nazis or nothing. Some of them, they’re, like, mud people themselves. You know, Pakis and Koreans and all. They don’t know nothin’ about the Jews, they just follow the pack. Go along. That’s what’s happening with the churches, that’s what the guys say. You know what? They even got colored guys burning down colored churches. So when we blow the building, it ain’t just the other cells gonna do it, man. Everybody’s gonna be jumping on.”

“Fuck! And they have everything they need already?”

“Sure. They was pulling jobs. Bank jobs. And armored cars. Before I got there. To raise money for all the stuff they got. That came up, once.”

“Huh?”

“That I was the only one who hadn’t . . . I mean, even Lothar, he went along on a couple of the jobs. I was the only one who didn’t do none of the robberies.”

“So what happened?” I asked him, suppressing my frustration at the big man rambling through a mine field.

“Well, this guy, Kenny, he tried to like get in my face, you know? It’d never happen Inside, a punk motherfucker like that trying to aggress me. But I guess maybe he felt safe, I dunno. Anyway, you not allowed to ask anyone what they did—in their own cells, I mean, that’s the rules—but he asked me if I knew what it felt like to stick a gun in a Jew banker’s face and take his precious money.”

“And . . . ?”

“And I asked him if he knew what it felt like to stab a motherfucking Jew in the heart and stand there and watch him die.” He laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“These guys better not go Inside, bro. At least, not this Kenny punk. I wanted it, he woulda given me his ass right then.”

“Yeah. Okay. But you don’t have the date, right?”

“I’m telling you, Burke. Nobody got the date. I ain’t no genius, but I got this much figured out. Once they got the date, ain’t nobody leaving. We’re all gonna go together. In separate cars. Then we go to the scatter plan.”

“What’s that?”

“This ain’t a real cell, okay? Like, they all come from different ones. The scatter plan is we all go back where we came from. I mean, ZOG’s gonna be down on us like white on rice soon as this thing blows. It’s every man for himself. Every cell’s supposed to have something set for each guy. When he comes back, understand?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking it through, looking for the hook. “You’re sure it’s Federal Plaza?” I asked him.

“It’s what they say, bro. And they ain’t saying nothing else. They say everyone’s gonna blame the Arabs first. There’s a bunch of them went down for the World Trade Center, right? And they—the Arabs—they supposed to of sworn they was gonna do more. I guess they—the guys in the cell—talked over a lot of spots. Before I came in, I mean. But this is the only one they talk about now. They got maps, big blow-up maps so you can see every little building on the street. They got all the lights timed. They wanted to do it on a Saturday— d’you know that’s like the Jew Sunday, where they go to church and all? Anyway, they can’t do it then, ’cause the area’s too packed.”

“That whole area is empty on Sunday mornings,” I said.

“Yeah. That’s when it’s gonna be. That’s what they said.”

“Damn! Why didn’t you tell me—?”

“I don’t know which Sunday, bro. I thought you meant when they was gonna —”

“Never mind,” I told him. “Herk, did you ever see the cars they’re going to use?”

“Nah. But I know it ain’t just cars. They got one of them private garbage trucks. Not from the city, you know the ones I mean?”

“Sure.” Private carters handled most of the commercial trash collection in Manhattan. Seeing one parked in the early-morning hours wouldn’t make a cop look twice.

“And they got a semi too. From one of the moving companies.”

“Jesus. They’re gonna pack all these with explosives?”

“Yeah. I dunno what kinds, but I tell you this for sure, man—it ain’t no puny dynamite. The stuff they got, they say it’s gonna fucking level that building.”

“It’s Twenty-six Federal Plaza,” I told Pryce.

“It can’t be,” he said. “It has to be a diversion of some kind.” The muscle jumped under his eye. “Or they made Hercules . . . they know he’s a plant.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, maybe more hope than analysis.

“Your friend’s not a genius,” Pryce came back, a trace of something like sadness vibrating at a low register in his thin voice.

“He’s got an education,” I told him quietly. “Not your kind of education. Mine. Maybe he wouldn’t score so high on an IQ test, but he was raised in places where you had to know when they were coming for you if you were gonna survive.”

“Maybe, but—”

“—he’s as smart as that piece of shit Lothar,” I cut him off. “If they didn’t make him, they’re not gonna make Herk. Besides, I think they’re in too deep now. And remember, he’s got that credential. One none of them have. If they bought Lothar, they’ll buy Herk.”

“Sunday morning adds up. It would minimize the loss of life, but that’s not such a bad thing from a public- relations standpoint. Oklahoma City angered even some of the extremists—so many dead children from that day- care center. . . . And any other time, they couldn’t be certain they could get enough vehicles close enough. But . . .”