Legacy and Redemption (5 page)

*

Louis Castillo’s night was not to be as quick as he had hoped it would’ve been. Upon his return to 26 Federal Plaza, he and Frank Balentine were met by their respective supervisors at the headquarters of the Joint Terrorist Task Force. Castillo knew that he was in for a long night as soon as he saw his supervisor, Inspector Talbot, this late on a Friday evening. If there was one thing that Louis Castillo could bank on in the NYPD’s end of the task force, it was that if Talbot was there after five o’clock on a Friday night, something serious was going on.

Castillo could sense the urgency on Talbot’s face as he quickly exited his office to meet Castillo and Balentine as soon as they entered. The Assistant Director in Charge of the Eastern District invited the rest of the men to join him in the conference room. Robert Wolf, a forty-two year veteran of the FBI, sat at the head of the large gray conference table. As often as Castillo had been inside this particular conference room, he was still impressed by it. From the full sized American flags standing in each corner, to the miniature flags serving as a centerpiece to the table, everything about the room invoked a patriotic aura. There was even a large screen television monitor mounted on the wall with the symbol of the FBI cast on the backdrop of a waving American flag.

As Castillo sat in one of the black leather chairs, a quick study of Wolf’s blue eyes revealed to Castillo that they were disturbed. Wolf stroked his neatly groomed, salt and pepper beard (more salt than pepper) before beginning. “Everything that I’m about to tell you guys stays in this room. Is that understood?”

Once all parties agreed to the stipulation, Wolf continued. “The situation is precarious at best. Frank, Louie, the information which you guys attained from debriefing the prisoner in Germany has apparently corroborated independent information obtained by CIA operatives in Pakistan.”

Castillo pointed at Balentine. “I knew it, Frank. I knew this guy wasn’t bullshitting us.”

Wolf reached into his pocket, retrieving a bottle of antacids. After taking one, “the thing about it is that all the CIA had was general chatter; nothing specific or tangible to go on. You guys had an actual source giving you the information. The CIA seems to believe that not only will New York and California be targets, but so will somewhere in the central states, possibly the mid-west. We need you both to prepare your reports right now and don’t leave anything out. Every minor detail that this guy told you two is of the utmost importance.”

“Of course,” responded Castillo as he removed an MP3 player from his suit jacket. “Frank and I audio taped the entire interview. I’ll transcribe it, word for word, in my report.” Castillo looked up at Wolf. “When we left for the airport in Frankfurt, the German police were looking into any known associates that the man may have had in Germany, or anywhere in Europe for that matter. Do you know if they’ve had any success?”

Wolf shook his head and tossed another antacid into his mouth. “If they have, they haven’t shared it with us. The CIA has a field team looking into the man as well. I believe they plan on contacting any of their assets in the area to see what they can come up with.”

“Do you think that they’ll be forthcoming if they do come across some information?” queried Frank Balentine. “In the past, the CIA has seemed to stone wall some of our investigations to take them on for themselves.”

Wolf shook his head vehemently, waving a hand as he did. “I’ve been assured from the top that this is a total information sharing investigation. If this is anything near what it sounds like, this could be another 9/11 in the making. We all need to work together to make sure that if it is a real plot, it never materializes. There’s way too much at stake for everyone.”

There was a pause before he continued. “There’s one more thing. This information is top secret, and I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but if it’s true, I think it may be related. Two weeks ago, six hundred pounds of military grade C-4 explosives were stolen in Texas.”

Castillo immediately had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Holy shit…six hundred pounds. How does that even happen?”

Wolf loosened his tie. “Do you remember the report on the news where six of our men died in a helicopter crash during a training exercise?”

Castillo, nor did anyone else, verbally respond. Castillo shook his head slowly in disbelief as Robert Wolf continued. “Well, there was no training exercise, nor was there a helicopter crash. We had a team of eight soldiers moving a shipment of C-4 from the White Sands Missile base in New Mexico to Fort Bliss in Texas. Apparently, two of our men either had been recruited by Al-Qaeda, or were very deep sleepers who got past our background checks when they enlisted. As the team drove along a stretch of desert road in the Chihuahuan Dessert, the two opened fire and killed the others. The truck was discovered hours later with the six dead soldiers; the C-4 and the two other soldiers were nowhere to be found. At first, we thought maybe they were domestic terrorists…but now…after hearing everything else that is going on, we believe they were Al-Qaeda or even possibly ISIS. The helicopter crash was the story told to the families and the media. Between what you were told and this incident…well, let’s just say I’m not a very big believer in coincidence.”

Everyone in the room sat silently for the next several minutes taking in the information. Wolf then stood up indicating that the meeting had drawn to a close. Looking in Castillo’s direction, “you have a long couple of days ahead of you, and you need to start with those reports.”

Castillo was a bit confused regarding the long couple of days comment and looked to Inspector Talbot for clarification. Talbot, clearly sensing Castillo’s confusion “don’t worry Louie, I’ll fill you in.”

John Talbot was a rising star in the NYPD. At age forty-one, he was already a full Inspector, and assigned to what most would consider a choice position in the NYPD. As the Commanding Officer on the police department’s end of the Joint Terrorist Task Force, Talbot was on the fast track to becoming a chief. His position in the JTTF also gave him a federal security clearance a grade higher than the Police Commissioner of the NYPD had.

Talbot, along with Castillo stood up as Wolf exited the conference room followed by Balentine. Once the other two men had departed, Castillo looked up at Talbot, who stood six inches taller than Castillo. “Okay Inspector, why do I have a feeling that I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me?”

“Have a seat, Louie.”

Castillo reluctantly sat back down. Talbot removed his beige suit jacket and put it on the back of the chair before taking the seat next to Castillo. Once the room had cleared out of all of the other agents who had attended the meeting, Talbot began to explain. “Louie, we’ve been in almost hourly contact with the German police since you left Germany. It seems that the German police were giving the prisoner a bit of a hard time.”

Castillo studied his supervisor’s light brown eyes, trying to get a sense of where the conversation was headed. Castillo narrowed his eyes just a bit and tilted his head. “Okay, so what does that have to do with me?”

Talbot loosened the light brown tie from around his neck, undoing the top button thereafter. “What this guy told you has been run up the ladder—all the way to Washington. Everyone seems to be in agreement that this has to be considered a
live threat
, especially given the fact that there’s six hundred unaccounted for pounds of explosives out there.” Talbot shook his head. “New York and California, plus an unknown third location; if this information is accurate…” Talbot never bothered to finish the sentence as the implications were stronger than the spoken word in this instance. “Everyone has to do their part to make sure this doesn’t happen. It may be just a rumor, but we can’t take that chance.”

Castillo offered a smile. “Inspector, this is me you’re talking to. No need for the hard sell. You know that I’ll do anything that the job…and my country need me to do.” He paused momentarily before continuing. “Just tell me what my part in this is. That’s all that I ask.”

“Like I said, the German police haven’t exactly treated this guy too well since you guys left. He’s totally shut down on them. We need more information if it’s at all possible to extract from him. Washington’s position is that you and Balentine have already established a rapport with him, maybe seeing a friendly face—or at least one who hasn’t been beating on him, will help persuade him to talk. Balentine is going to stay behind and work directly with Deputy Director Wolf in case Washington has any questions that need to be answered about your interrogation. We’ve already squared things away with the German police. They’ve agreed to let you run the interrogation as long as they can sit in on it. I guess they want to make sure that we’re not trying to withhold any information from them.”

A quick range of emotions ran through Castillo’s head. He certainly didn’t want to go on another long trip, but at the same time, he was honored to have the top brass of the nation’s security look to him for help. In his mind, he felt that the trip would be a waste of time. He believed that he had already extracted as much information as the prisoner knew.

“Inspector, I’m speechless. Are you telling me that they’d rather send an NYPD detective rather than let the CIA take a shot at the guy?”

“Looks like you’ve made the big leagues, Louie,” retorted Talbot as he stood up and grabbed his jacket from the chair. “You’d better get busy transcribing the interrogation. Our flight leaves at five am.”

Castillo let out a sigh. “
Our
flight? Wait…did you say five am?” He shook his head. “Please tell me you’re kidding me, boss.”

“I wish I was, Louie. I wish I was.”

Castillo took off his glasses and set them on the desk in front of him as Inspector Talbot left him alone in the conference room. Castillo rubbed his eyes and momentarily put his head down on the desk. Castillo knew that the hardest part of the next two days would be happening right now. He picked up the phone which was affixed to the desk in front of him and dialed a number.

“Hi Sharon, remember when I said that I’d be home in a couple of hours…”

*

Timothy Keegan and his partner for the night, Andre Thomas, had walked their foot posts on Linden Boulevard nearly a dozen times during the four hours since they’d been dropped off. They each had their department radio blaring, for fear of missing a radio run on their post. It was a busy Friday night in the S
ix-Seven,
and the radio was in a
backlog
. They were holding seventeen jobs waiting to be assigned, but there was nothing that Keegan or Thomas could do to help out, as they were on foot posts nowhere near where the jobs were.

The two officers continued to walk their beat looking to write their first ever parking summonses or maybe even make their first ever collar. The efforts had met with no luck right up until their meal hour which began at
2200 hours
. At ten pm, and with the precinct still in a backlog, getting a ride back to the stationhouse for meal was out of the question. Sergeant Galvin had given the specific orders not to bother the sector cars for a ride if they were
holding jobs
in the precinct.

While Keegan was not a fan of fast food, with little other options, he and Thomas walked to a nearby fast food restaurant on Utica Avenue. The restaurant was about halfway full; mostly teenagers and some couples. The staff was similar to what Keegan figured most fast food chain restaurants would have working for them—teenagers and college students. Keegan glanced down at the white tiled floors, which in his opinion, was long overdue for a good mopping. They ordered their food and sat down at a booth looking out onto the drive thru window line. Keegan couldn’t believe the length of the line to eat what he considered less than desirable food.

As the two men ate their meals and shared stories of their academy days, Keegan glanced out of the window; the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. He pushed aside his fries and urgently grabbed for his memo book. “Holy shit, Andre! Read me off the license plate number of the green Lexus on the drive through window.”

Keegan’s heart began to pound as he compared the numbers Andre Thomas read to him to the one’s he’d written down in his memobook a day earlier. Keegan had recognized the plate number, and in his heart, he knew that it was the car taken in the gunpoint carjacking, but he wanted Thomas to read the plate number for verification.

Keegan shoved his food aside, grabbing his hat from the seat next to him as he began to explain. “That car was taken in a carjacking and it’s wanted for two other gunpoint robberies.”

Keegan began to run for the door with Thomas right behind him, although neither one knew exactly what they were going to do once they got outside. Keegan keyed his portable radio as he made his way towards the door, his voice cracking as he did so. “Six-Seven training post to central.”

*

Brooklyn’s sixty-seventh precinct was one of the busiest precincts in the city. It wasn’t unusual on such a hot summer night for the radio to be in a
backlog
of jobs. At the moment that Tim Keegan tried to make the first official radio transmission of his career, the precinct was currently holding over twenty radio runs waiting to be assigned. Seasoned officers had trouble getting through to the radio dispatcher at times on such nights. While rookies needed to learn how to become cops, they often sounded unnecessarily nervous on the radio. More often than not, the radio dispatcher would answer sector cars over the rookies when both were trying to transmit a message in an attempt to
clear the screen
of the pending jobs.