CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was Columbus Day, a special day to celebrate a dead white male stumbling onto a continent on his way to someplace else. I’ve had similar experiences coming out of Dresner’s bar.
We were dressed casually today; I had on comfortable loafers, black jeans, a sports shirt, and a leather jacket. Kate was also wearing jeans, with boots, a turtleneck, and a suede jacket. I said, “Your handbag doesn’t match your holster.”
“Well, then, I need to buy a new handbag today.”
I should learn to keep my smart mouth shut.
Kate and I exited our apartment house on East 72nd Street, and Alfred, our doorman, hailed us a cab.
Holiday traffic in Manhattan was light, and we made good time down to 26 Federal Plaza.
It was a beautiful, clear, crisp fall day, and I hummed a few bars of “Autumn in New York.”
Kate asked me, “Do you know if Tom Walsh will be in today?”
“No, but if you hum a few notes, I might recognize it.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“I think that’s well established.”
The taxi driver, a fellow named Ziad Al-Shehhi, was speaking on his cell phone in Arabic.
I put my finger to my lips and leaned forward. I whispered to Kate, “He’s talking to his Al Qaeda cell leader… he’s saying something about Columbus Day sales at Bergdorf’s.”
She sighed.
Mr. Al-Shehhi signed off, and I asked him, “Do you know who Christopher Columbus is?”
He glanced in his rearview mirror and replied, “Columbus Circle? Columbus Avenue? Where you want to go? You say Federal Plaza.”
“You never heard of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria?”
“Sir?”
“Queen Isabella, for God’s sake? Are you marching in the Columbus Day Parade?”
“Sir?”
“John. Stop it.”
“I’m just trying to help him with his citizenship test.”
“Stop it.”
I sat back and hummed “Autumn in New York.”
It being a Federal holiday, the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force was not fully open for business, but Kate had decided to go in anyway to keep me company and catch up on paperwork. We’d have lunch together, then she’d leave to catch the Columbus Day sales.
Even when we’re working the same schedule, we don’t always travel to work together. Sometimes, one of us takes too long with our makeup, and the other one gets impatient and leaves.
Kate had the
The front page headline read: RUMSFELD FAVORS FORCEFUL ACTIONS TO FOIL AN ATTACK. The story went on to explain that the U.S. needed to act early during the “pre-crisis period” to foil an attack on the nation. It seemed to me that if Saddam was reading the
The other big story was the car bombing of a nightclub frequented by Westerners on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. This seemed to be a new front in the war of global terrorism. The death toll stood at 184 with more than 300 injured, the largest loss of life since September 11, 2001.
The
We weren’t going to win the war on terrorism until we won the war of the words.
I turned to the
“I don’t know.”
“A guy who ran out of ammunition.”
She shook her head, but Ziad laughed.
Humor really bridges the gap between different cultures.
Kate observed, “This is going to be a long day.”
As it turned out, she was right.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Harry wasn’t at his desk when we got to 26 Federal Plaza at five to 9:00, and he wasn’t there at 9:15, or 9:30. As per my last conversation with him, he was supposed to see Walsh today. Walsh was in, Harry was not.
The office was quiet for a change, and I counted three NYPD at their desks, and one FBI-Kate. Also, the command post center, elsewhere on the 26th floor, would be manned by at least one duty agent monitoring the phones, radios, and Internet. Hopefully, the terrorists were leaf watching in New England for the long weekend.
I called Harry Muller’s cell phone at 9:45 and left a message, then I called his house in Queens and left a message on his answering machine. Then I beeped him, which, in this business, is official.
At five after 10:00, Kate came across the floor and said to me, “Tom Walsh wants to see us.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. Have you spoken to him yet?”
“No.” Kate and I walked to Walsh’s corner office. The door was open and we entered.
Walsh stood and met us halfway, which is usually a sign that you’re not in deep doo. He motioned us to the round table near the window and we sat. The table was strewn with papers and folders, very unlike when Jack Koenig occupied this office.
On his big picture window, about where you could once see the Twin Towers, was a black decal showing the towers, with the words 9/11-NEVER FORGET!
It was, as I said, a nice fall day, like the one a year and a month ago when the attacks happened. If it weren’t for the meeting at Windows on the World, Jack would probably have been here in his office and witnessed it as it happened. David Stein, too, would have seen it from his corner office. As it turned out, they saw it from much closer.
Tom Walsh began, “John, the computer security people inform me that you used your password to try to access a restricted file on Friday.”
“That’s right.” I looked at Walsh. He was young to be the special agent in charge, about forty, black Irish, not bad-looking, and unmarried. He had the reputation of being a ladies’ man, and also a teetotaler, making him an Irish queer-a guy who preferred women over whiskey.
He asked me, “What is your interest in that file?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Tom. I couldn’t get into it, so I don’t know if I had any interest in it.”
He stared at me, showing a little impatience, I thought.
I used to think I didn’t like Jack Koenig’s Teutonic style, and I thought I’d like Walsh, being half-Irish myself, but this was a case of the job shaping the man-nurture over nature or whatever.
He said, “What the hell is ‘Iraqi Camel Club Weapons of Mass Destruction’?”
“Just me being silly.” I glanced at Kate, but she wasn’t amused, only confused.
