Legacy and Redemption (29 page)

To Castillo, the vehicle looked like a marked white and blue NYPD flatbed truck. On the back of the flatbed was a separate compartment, not obviously connected to the cab of the flatbed in any way, but it was, nonetheless. The compartment served as the storage area for the explosives during transportation. It looked like a giant black cauldron to Castillo.

The NYPD’s
Total Containment Vessel
pulled up directly in front of the location at about the same time that Castillo did. Castillo looked to Lawrence. “Did you find something?” It was put to him as a question, but in reality Castillo already knew the answer…he even knew how much was found—four hundred pounds.

Lawrence removed his head gear and held it in one hand; his glasses were fogged. He looked at Castillo. “Yeah, we sure did; C-4…a whole lot of C-4. We also found blasting caps and wiring. I’m going to have the blasting caps transported separately. I called for the other
TCV
we have; it’s in route from upper Manhattan. The ETA is less than five minutes.”

Lawrence put a hand on Castillo’s back. “Come inside. I’ll show you. The C-4 is very stabile so there’s no need to worry.” Lawrence paused before he continued. “I’ll tell you one thing for certain. You guys probably saved a whole lot of lives. The damage that amount of C-4 could do is catastrophic. I’ve never seen that much of it at one time before.”

A chill ran down Castillo’s spine as Lawrence spoke. He no longer felt the frigid temperatures or the ache in his bad knee. He felt jubilation. The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. He would be able to retire later on in the day knowing that all of the C-4 was now recovered, and all but one of the terrorists had been apprehended. It was a great feeling.

Castillo followed as Lawrence led the way through the kitchen and down the stairway. Lawrence asked for a few members of the Emergency Service team to follow along as well. When Castillo arrived at the partially open wall, he could see hundreds of bricks wrapped in a brown paper. Lawrence grabbed the edge of the broken sheet rock, and with both hands, pulled down a panel creating a space large enough to walk through. He then took hold of a single brick which he offered to Castillo. Castillo accepted the one and a quarter pound brick and read the markings on the wrapping;

C 4

PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY

The words were followed by a lot number and a manufacturing date. After inspecting the explosives, Castillo handed it back to Lawrence. “Is it okay if I take a picture with my cell phone before you remove it?”

It was, and Castillo did just that. He walked back outside so he could update Inspector Talbot back at the Joint Terrorist Task Force headquarters. As he walked outside, he could see Frank Balentine ducking under the yellow crime scene tape. He gave Balentine thumbs up as he made his phone call. Members of the Emergency Service team carried out the bricks of C-4—three hundred twenty in all—and carefully placed them in the TCV for removal.

Castillo first updated Inspector Talbot and then caught Balentine up on all that had transpired since the pre dawn phone call precipitated by Tim Keegan’s hunch. The two men stared in amazement as the C-4 was removed. Balentine threw an arm around Castillo’s shoulder. “Thank God this turned out the way it did, Louie. If we hadn’t found it, you can bet somewhere down the road someone would have come back for it.”

Castillo once again looked at the truck parked in front of the restaurant before he responded. “Frank, truth be told…I think they already have returned.”

Standing among the crowd and watching his destiny stolen away from him was more than frustrating—it was outright maddening. Ahmed Hatif could feel his blood pressure rising with every brick of C-4 being loaded into the NYPD truck. The commotion on the street had awoken him up from his apartment above the bodega, two blocks away. He had heard from the Yemeni man who owned the bodega, that the police were evacuating the area; Hatif immediately knew his plans for New Year’s Eve had been foiled.

The last of the stolen plastic explosives were loaded onto the truck. It slowly began to drive away. The uniformed officers were now tearing down the yellow tape, allowing people to walk past the Halal restaurant where he had secreted the explosives some months back. Hatif would not chance getting any closer; he had seen his name and picture broadcast in the news media shortly after the Thanksgiving shortfall. As he watched his chance at leaving his mark on the Jihad disappear from sight along Brooklyn’s Linden Boulevard, he reflected on the events of the last year which had led him to this very point in time.

It had been just over one year ago, when Hatif had first come to New York City. The dry run, which had been sanctioned by Sheykh Hajjar, had proved to be invaluable. At first, standing among the hundreds of thousands American revelers had been aggravating. But the more Hatif had reminded himself that he was there to learn the best way to kill as many of them as possible the following year, the more accepting of the situation he became.

Hatif had arrived early to Times Square a year ago. He wore a backpack with very few non essential items inside, and he was not surprised to have had the police confiscate it. In fact, he had been testing to see if they would. He walked freely among the crowd up and down the avenues and side streets. As the day grew later, the police began shutting down more and more streets to pedestrian traffic. The officers were shutting the streets down from Forty-Second Street north as the crowd grew. Hatif also noted that vehicular traffic was diverted totally off both Seventh Avenue and Broadway. This meant that Hatif would have to approach from either Sixth or Eighth Avenue the following year when he would drive a truck load of explosives into the crowd.

The Syrian native was not unrealistic though. Once he saw the police presence, and the sheer number of spectators—easily many hundreds of thousands, he realized that he would never get the vehicle all the way to Times Square. He reassured himself and took comfort in knowing that he would still be able to kill or maim hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans when he would detonate the explosives and fulfill his part in the Jihad. His entry in to the afterlife would surely be a grand one.

Further reconnaissance of the area the following day, led Hatif to believe that the best route was from Sixth Avenue along West Forty-Second Street. He would navigate along Bryant Park towards the area where the ball was to be dropped. The plan was for him to drive the truck as fast as possible westbound towards Times Square. People would scatter, and those who didn’t, would simply be run down. Hatif’s plan was to never hit a brake pedal, but rather plow through the crowd until the vehicle came to a stop, and then detonate the explosives amongst the crowd. The sheer number of pedestrians in such a confined area would add to the chaos and leave little room for them to flee without trampling each other. The plan was flawless. The number of casualties would be astounding.

Upon his return to the Afghan training camp, he fine tuned the plans with Sheykh Muhammad Hajjar. The Sheykh had been pleased. The only thing left for Hatif to do was to wait for one year to carry out Allah’s wishes.

From that point forward, things really started to take off for Hatif. Sheykh Hajjar, who was clearly impressed by the tactical assault plan which Hatif had drawn up, began to ask Hatif’s advice on other tactical decisions. Hatif went from one of the suicide bombers, to the combatant in America coordinating and supervising the effort—replacing an angry Murad Zein. It was at Hatif’s own request, that he would still be the final bomber on New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

Hatif’s journeys to and from America were not without their share of close calls. The flight to Canada and his first crossing at the United States border had gone off without a hitch. The first few months also went by problem free. It wasn’t until Nazeem al-Haq had tried to take matters into his own hands that things began to unravel. Al-Haq’s failure had led to the identity and capture of the other Jihadists. If not for a coded e-mail message sent by one of the men, Hatif would have also been arrested and sitting in a prison cell right now. Still, his personal freedom was no conciliation.

A premeditated escape plan was his saving grace. After crossing back into Canada, he stayed out of sight at the safe house in the small town of Lacolle in Quebec Province. An Al Qaeda sympathizer who lived at the small farmhouse crossed back into the United States and learned that the vehicle Hatif had stolen had been found by the police shortly after his arrival in Canada.

Crossing back stateside late last night had also not been too difficult. Things did get rather dicey though when he went into the train station at Rouses Point to purchase a one way ticket back to New York City. Upon entering the office, Hatif observed it to be empty; save for ticket clerk. As he approached the counter, Hatif noticed a wanted poster of himself hanging on the wall. He was too close to carrying out the attack to take any chances, and instead, walked out without purchasing a ticket.

With time being a critical issue and hundreds of miles between Rouses Point and Times Square, Hatif carefully weighed his next decision. There was only one car in the parking lot; a 2010 Honda Pilot. The logical conclusion was that it belonged to the ticket clerk. Hatif stuck his head back inside the ticket office long enough to announce that the red Honda parked in the lot had a flat tire. Then he waited for the bait to be taken. He withdrew the .45 caliber handgun from his rear waistband and fired a single shot into the back of the man’s head when he exited the office to check on his car.

Hatif took the man by the ankles. He dragged him back inside the office before he searched the man’s pockets and removed two sets of keys—one of which had a Honda key on the ring. He towed the man’s dead body back behind the ticket counter and walked out, locking the door behind him. He felt confident that with the owner of the car dead, he’d be in New York City by the time morning rolled around and before anyone would be able to piece together that the man’s car had been stolen.

His assumptions may have been correct, but still, he couldn’t take that chance when the young New York State Trooper pulled him over for speeding just north of Albany. That too had been a quick shooting. He had realized that the trooper would be wearing body armor, so Hatif pumped two rounds into the officer’s head as soon as he reached the driver’s side window. Hatif was a master at judging people and reading their body language. The officer had approached without drawing his sidearm or talking on his radio. This had been a clear indication to Hatif that the officer had no idea that the vehicle was stolen.

With the officer’s guard down, the shooting had been unchallenged; the officer never saw it coming. Hatif quickly jumped into the New York State police cruiser and shut off the lights before it attracted attention. He turned the wheel towards a ten foot ditch along the side of the New York State Thruway and put the car in gear before jumping out. As the dark blue police car trimmed with yellow markings tumbled into the ditch, Hatif turned his attention back to the now deceased state trooper. He crouched down and grabbed the officer under the shoulders. He hauled him to the edge of the ditch, right behind a blue highway sign, which read Interstate 87. A solid push was all it took now to discard his body into the ditch as well.

Fairly certain that he had not been noticed by any of the very few passing motorists that late at night, he would continue south heading toward New York City. He hoped his concealment would buy him the precious few hours that he would need to get into the confines of the city before the state police realized they had a dead officer on their hands and launched a massive dragnet for the killer.

Hatif’s trance was broken when he heard shouting from in front of the restaurant. There was a man in a tan overcoat with dark curly hair and wire framed glasses yelling something to the uniformed officers removing the yellow tape. Hatif recognized the man. It was the same man who had come to the restaurant just before Thanksgiving to interview the workers. Hatif had watched the video of the interview captured by the store’s security cameras. The video had been sent to him via coded email from one of the workers at the store. While the worker really had no part in the Jihad, he did have family living in Afghanistan. He was paid in advance for his cooperation if it were to be needed. The price was five hundred dollars cash, and the assurance that his family would live to see the New Year.

The man disappeared back inside the store. Hatif had focused on him. He was obviously the one running the investigation; the one who robbed him of his chance to serve Allah. The hatred of the man was instant. Hatif could feel his blood once again boil. His face went flush and his jaw tightened as he clenched his fists at his side. His explosives had been taken from him; he had been cheated out of his chance to take part in the holy war against the west.

Allah, why would you do this to me? Why would you put so many challenges in front of me only to take them away on the day that I was to serve you? Oh, mighty Allah, please give me a sign what I should do next in your service.

The detective then walked out again and this time went inside the bakery delivery truck. Hatif couldn’t see what the man was doing, but he didn’t stay inside very long. The uniformed officers all began to get into their cars and were leaving the scene. There were only a few police cars left at the time; three undercover cars and only one blue and white car. The detective exited the truck and seemed to stare in Hatif’s direction for a moment. Hatif felt that their eyes had met. It was then that he realized he had received his answer from Allah.