Authors: Alan Zendell
I went looking for Henry when I arrived at Federal Plaza at 7:30 Thursday morning. The scene was much like when he was coordinating the final details of the Union Station action. When he had a minute, I said, “Everything go all right yesterday?”
“We’re all set. We leave for JFK at 8:30.”
Henry had a lot to do, so I stopped in William’s office.
“Glad you’re here, Dylan. I’d like you to work with Rod until you leave. He wanted access to our files on The Philippines. He’s wondering what Husam al Din is doing in Manila.”
“Sounds like you want me to keep an eye on him. You don’t trust him completely?”
“Let’s just say he’s not one of us. You know him better than any of the rest of us, and I’ll feel better with you at his side.”
I found Rod working at a computer in the war room.
“Find anything interesting?” I asked.
“Not yet. I’m looking for a connection between Husam al Din and Islamic extremists in The Philippines. It’s odd that he’s stopping there for as long as he is.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get a flight to New York any sooner on short notice.”
“No, I checked with Northwest. The flight he’s on wasn’t full yesterday, and neither was his connecting JAL flight. He’s in Manila because he wants to be, but there’s nothing in the file to connect him with anyone there. Langley asked their man in Singapore to investigate. I just placed a follow up call to Langley but the analyst William talked to isn’t in yet, and it’s twelve hours later in Singapore. It’s not likely we’ll get anything before we leave.”
“You think that’ll affect our operation?”
“I don’t know. Remember what you said about trusting your instincts? Mine say there’s something there.”
We hadn’t resolved anything when the time came to leave for the airport. Henry had again assembled a team of fifty officers, including chase cars and two helicopters. The flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:30. Everyone was in place by 10:00, carrying three photographs of Husam al Din: clean shaven, with a mustache, and with a full beard.
The plane landed at 10:57 and passengers began streaming toward the customs stations a few minutes later. Eyes and camera lenses focused on every emerging passenger, with Rod and Samir on the floor of the arrivals area. More than half of the passengers on the flight from Tokyo were Asian; most of the rest were American or European. Even disguised, Husam al Din should have stood out from the crowd.
By 11:30, the last passengers had left the plane and most of them had cleared customs. There had been no sign of Husam al Din. William was red-faced, ready to explode, but Henry, who’d been on dozens of failed stakeouts, maintained his cool. He conducted a search of the plane and ordered some of his people to round up the aircraft maintenance workers and baggage handlers who had met it. One of them could have helped Husam al Din exit the plane via the tarmac. We reviewed the passenger manifest, but no one expected that to yield anything. It wasn’t likely that he’d be traveling under his own name or any of his known aliases.
Either we’d been fed misinformation or Husam al Din had missed his flight. I offered to drive back from the airport, and William, Henry, Rod, Mary, and Samir piled into our SUV. Everyone’s mood was dark as we headed back to Federal Plaza stymied by New York’s traffic. The deafening silence was broken by the sound of William’s cell phone. It was the CIA analyst in Langley calling back.
They confirmed the date and flight numbers received from Singapore, and Rod asked William to put his phone on speaker. He’d remained troubled all day by
Husam al Din
’s extended stay in Manila, to no apparent purpose.
“Do you have any idea why he’d do that?” he asked the analyst on the phone.
“No, and I agree that it seems strange,” was the response.
“Do you know your Singapore agent personally? How reliable is he?” Rod asked.
“I only know his name. I’ve never worked with him,” the voice in Virginia said.
Focused on confusion over time issues as I was, and recalling what the motel clerk in Baltimore said last week, an idea occurred to me.
“You received the message from him late Monday evening, didn’t you? But it was twelve hours later in Singapore, so it was already Tuesday morning, there. Is it possible that when your agent said Thursday he was thinking Singapore time? He might have actually been referring to the flight that arrived here on Wednesday.” Wasn’t I the one who said field agents usually got it right?
“It’s possible. If he’s inexperienced dealing with trans-Pacific issues the International Date Line might be something he rarely thinks about. Even old hands sometimes get confused. But it’s tomorrow morning there now, too early to reach him. I’ll try later and call you as soon as I can.”
Back in William’s office, I watched as Henry, Samir, Mary, and William went through lists of usual suspects and potential informers. Things weren’t quite desperate, but we needed to execute an all-out search for Husam al Din and information on what he might be planning. At 7:10 pm, William’s cell phone rang. He talked softly for a minute and thanked the caller.
“You were right, Dylan. Another nice catch. Our friends at the CIA are very red-faced and apologetic, for all the good that does us. The son of a bitch must have arrived yesterday. He’s already had a whole day here, and we have no idea where he is or what he’s up to.”
“We don’t know for sure that he’s here,” Mary said. “I’ll find out if yesterday’s flight crew’s still in town. We can interview them and show them his picture. I’ll go back to the airport tomorrow and interview the Customs officers who were on duty when the flight came in.”
That was a decent idea, but I had a better one. I was pretty sure Henry and Rod did, too.
William said, “I think it’s time to call it a day.” No one disagreed, and we all got up to leave. I stopped to call Ilene to tell her I’d still be a while, and to give the crowd a chance to thin out. Rod slid onto the chair next to mine while I was on the phone. Mary finished packing her things and waved.
Henry sauntered in as she was leaving, grinning wickedly. “I assume we’re all on the same page?”
“First things first, when did you both get here, yesterday?”
Henry had arrived at 7:00, Rod not until 8:30.
“All right. When I get up tomorrow, it’ll be Wednesday morning. I’ll need to call you both as early as possible. When I call you, Rod, I’d better use your cell to avoid attracting Gayle’s attention. What time should I call?”
“Gayle got in the shower about 6:15. We could talk up to about 6:30.”
Henry said, “You can call me at 6:00.”
“I’ll call you both and explain the problem. I assume I won’t have any trouble convincing either of you?”
Rod said, “I’ve been looking forward to seeing how this works.”
I reached into my desk for my audio recorder. “We need to work out how we’re going to handle this. I’m going to record this conversation, and play it back to you when we’re all together. That’ll save some time. Will you just cancel today’s exercise, Henry?”
“No point going ahead with it. I’ll tell William that Langley called with the information we got an hour ago. The question is what do we do on Wednesday? We won’t have time to do any more than pick up a few Airport Police when we get there. I worked things out in general with the Chief Tuesday night. I’ll just tell him the plan changed and we have to move a day earlier, with a smaller force.”
“This is going to make tracking Husam Al Din harder,” Rod said. “You still want to play it that way?”
“You’re thinking busting him and interrogating him might be a better option, now?” Henry asked.
“There’s a third option,” Rod said. “We could just kill him. There’s no moral dilemma, he’s a mass murderer. It wouldn’t trouble me at all to put a bullet in his head and it won’t worsen our position. They’re in obvious disarray. They’d still have the isotopes, but if we take Husam al Din out of the equation, they’ll be in even worse shape, and we’ll buy time to locate them while their masters in Iran scramble.”
“There’s no way I can participate in this conversation if it continues that way,” Henry said, a pained expression on his face.
They both looked at me. “I see the sense of your argument, Rod. I’ll do whatever I have to to get him to talk, but I’m not an assassin.”
Rod shrugged. “It’s your call, Henry. I’m here as an advisor exploring options.”
“If we’re agreed that we’re going try to track his movements again on Wednesday,” I said, “there’s no reason Samir and Mary can’t be part of this. William may insist on coming along himself, but we’ll deal with that at the time.”
“I have to ask you something,” Rod said. “You expect to contact us on your Wednesday morning and change everything that’s happened in the last thirty-six hours?”
“Yes. The instant you answer your phone, things will already have changed. Once I tell you what happened, today, no matter what you decide to do, it won’t be the same any more.”
“What about Henry and me? I mean this Henry and this me? Do we just disappear, or do we go on living in a world in which this afternoon didn’t change while two other people named Henry and Rod follow the new plan?”
Rod threw me a challenging look, as if daring me to tell him he wouldn’t exist any more. I glanced at Henry and saw a different expression that said he couldn’t wait to hear my answer.
“That’s a good question,” I said. “I wish I knew. What you’re asking is outside of my experience; I only know what happens in my own timeline. It’s not like I understand all this. I’m just learning by living. On the other hand, I’m sure you won’t just pop out of existence.”
“What’ll happen on Friday? Which of us will you see then?”
“I’m fairly certain that on Friday, I’ll see the results of what we do on my Wednesday. Based on what I’ve experienced with Ilene, I’d say you’ll be the same two people I see tomorrow morning, Wednesday I mean. In a sense, the new Rod and the old Rod will merge into one person. For a while, you’ll experience two different realities, although the one we’re in right now will feel like a dream, and the memory of it will rapidly fade, just like the memory of a real dream does. That’ll be true for the two of you, but not for the others. They’ll remember only what happens after I intervene tomorrow. What’ll make it different for the two of you is that you know what’s happening, and you have intense feelings about it.”
“Go on,” Rod said. Henry just listened.
“Why don’t you try to send your other selves a message?” I said. “Take a few minutes and write an account of how today turned out and what we’re planning to do about it. Print it, date it, seal it in an envelope with the front page of today’s
Times
. Give the envelope to me, and I’ll give it back to you when I see you tomorrow, my Wednesday.”
Thursday evening. Ilene was happy.
“To what do we owe your smiling countenance?” I asked.
“Nothing blew up today and you’re here.”
“And?”
“And, I can go to sleep tonight confident that you’ll be here, uninjured, when I wake up Friday morning.”
“Which means I was here yesterday morning and I slept here Wednesday night?”
“Am I supposed to be telling you that?”
“I shouldn’t have asked, but you set me up.”
She’d have already told me if she needed to warn me about anything. I hadn’t told her about today’s fiasco, and other than to protect her, I wouldn’t have told her anything significant on Wednesday night, either. We turned off our phones and had a pleasant, if shortened evening. Ilene snuggled against me reading a book, and I flipped through the summer re-runs looking for something to divert me, coming inevitably to rest on the eighth inning of a Yankee game.
At the sound of the announcer’s voice, Ilene said, “Come to think of it, there
was
something about yesterday that I meant to tell you. Marc called to talk about our baseball weekend.” When I didn’t say anything, she added, “You forgot, didn’t you. The Red Sox series starts next week on Thursday night.”
We’d had a family tradition since Marc and Gregg were kids. Every year, we immersed ourselves in a late-season weekend of Yankee-Red Sox madness. In recent years, since the boys had moved out on their own, the annual weekend had been even more special, expanded now, to include their wives. Gregg and Marina were driving down from New Haven, Marc and Keli from Philadelphia, and they’d all spend the weekend at our house.
The kids had tickets for Thursday night’s game. We’d all go to Friday night’s game, and Saturday, we’d watch the afternoon game on the tube, then go out for an overpriced dinner. We’d end our baseball orgy Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, with 55,000 other fanatics.
Ilene was right. I’d completely forgotten about it, which spoke volumes about where my head was. Nothing had interrupted our baseball weekends in twenty years. I could only hope we’d wrap up the terrorist threat quickly so we could enjoy it.
Since the last thing I heard before falling asleep was Ilene’s cheerful, “See you on Friday,” I awoke with two things on my mind: assuring that today was Wednesday and remembering that Ilene would think last night was Tuesday. Other than that, our morning began normally, at least until she was in the shower.
I called Henry just before 6:00. “It’s me again, with another Wednesday surprise.”
Henry needed only a couple of seconds to get oriented. “What’s up?”
“Our CIA contact got the date wrong. Husam al Din is arriving today. I’ll meet you at 7:30 and explain, but you need to change plans.”
Henry agreed so easily, I wondered if he’d been expecting the call. When I called Rod’s cell phone, even he wasn’t especially surprised.
“Is it safe to assume you’ve already done Thursday and it didn’t turn out as we planned?”
I told him what I’d told Henry. After all my trepidation about how people would react when I told them how I lived my weeks, they both acted as if this were a routine part of doing business. They were already in the office when I got there. I opened the envelope I’d brought and took out Thursday’s
Times
headlines and the statements they’d written to themselves. They listened to the last ten minutes of our Thursday evening conversation, and by 8:00, they were ready. A few minutes later, Samir and Mary arrived and we told them about the CIA’s error.
At 8:25 there was still no sign of William. I had to stop myself from asking whether he’d been late yesterday, too. This
was
yesterday. We couldn’t wait any longer, so we left him a note. We also called his cell phone from our SUV, and left him a long message.
Since we’d scheduled a briefing with the team Henry had assembled for today, I suggested bringing some of them along, but Henry nixed the idea.
“Airport security is trained for this, and we don’t have time to set anything else up. No way I’m doing this with an unrehearsed crew. An eight-person airport security detail is meeting us at the International Arrivals Terminal at 9:45.”
Since, for me, this was a replay of Thursday, I had a pretty good idea how our smaller force could be positioned to the best advantage, assuming today’s crowds were similar. Samir and Rod were in the Arrivals area in front of the customs stations, as we’d planned.
“I wish we’d had more time to set this up,” Henry said.
“We’ll do fine, Henry,” I said. “Except for being there on the wrong day, the drill you put together for Thursday went off perfectly, but it was probably overkill.” I thought thirteen people well positioned were enough to ensure not losing our quarry in the terminal, and we’d have two chase cars in addition to our own.
“You’re probably right,” Henry said, “but I’d feel a lot better if we had the helicopters.”
Helicopters would have been invaluable in the event we lost the suspect’s vehicle in traffic, but there just hadn’t been time. The local police could quickly organize highway surveillance and traffic diversions on the fly if need be.
Henry’s cell phone rang while we were checking the arrivals board. It was William, ready to melt the phone lines to Langley over the date screw-up. Realizing no one at Langley would even know about it until Thursday, Henry handed me the phone.
“William,” I said, trying not to sound desperate, “you don’t want to blast Langley for this. It wasn’t their fault. It was some contract agent in Singapore.”
“You know who takes the heat if you screw up?” he shouted.
“You do, I guess.”
“Damn right!”
“I get it, William, but no harm’s been done. They caught the mistake and warned us.”
“I thought Henry said it was you who figured it out.”
“I was just guessing; Langley confirmed the error. And we may need their help in the next few weeks. Let’s not alienate them.”
William ended the debate. “We’ll see how today goes. Make sure you keep me informed.”
Henry checked his watch. We didn’t have long to wait; the plane was on time today.
“Everyone take your positions,” Henry said into his phone, when the plane touched down. By 10:35, people were streaming through the gates. Twenty passengers came through the jetway, and there he was. Beard trimmed short, hair cut European style, dressed like an English banker, complete with umbrella, and traveling without entourage, passenger twenty-one was, unmistakably, Azim Husam al Din.
Samir and Rod had devised a little charade. Dressed down in jeans and tee shirts, they stood in line behind our quarry, speaking softly and rapidly in Arabic. I could hear them clearly in my earpiece. I didn’t understand a word they said, but I knew the script. Samir acted nervous and agitated, talking about a problem with his entry visa, afraid the passport control people wouldn’t let him into the country. I didn’t know how to say “those fucking Americans” in Arabic, but I was sure that was included in his angry diatribe.
Rod pretended to try to calm Samir, warning him not to attract attention, but Samir wouldn’t stop. Watching through a glass wall from the balcony above, I saw Husam al Din becoming agitated. He had no desire to be near the center of the customs officers’ attention. Finally, he turned to look at Samir. Through my earpiece, I distinctly heard, in English, “Listen to your friend. He is giving you good advice. You need to relax and act naturally, or you’ll get both of you thrown into prison.”
Samir shut up, and Rod offered Husam al Din his hand and introduced himself, assuring him that Samir would behave. Samir said nothing, but concentrated on the target’s words and body language.
Nice work, I thought, as Rod continued to engage Husam al Din in conversation, the latter appearing to visibly relax as they spoke softly and inconspicuously in English. Rod spun him a story about visiting cousins who had jobs for them, trying to get him to talk about his own activities. No one expected him to say he was there to kill Americans, but he might offer a clue about where he was headed.
He was cordial, but he evaded Rod’s questions, revealing only that he was here on business that would take him to both New York City and New Jersey. The final act of Rod and Samir’s drama occurred at Passport Control. We’d planted one of our people at a review station. Rod and Samir walked to that desk, and the bogus officer told Samir his visa was missing a required stamp and a signature. Samir protested loudly, and the officer warned him that he was risking arrest. Rod acted as if he was going to Samir’s aide; Husam al Din grabbed his elbow.
“Do not intervene, my friend. Once we are through customs, you can contact your family members, who will be in a better position to help him.” Rod nodded and stepped back, walking away so he could speak
sotto voce
into his microphone.
“Subject is fully engaged.”
Excellent. Rod now had an excuse to stay by Husam al Din’s side; we didn’t have to worry about losing him in the crowd. Under our watchful gaze Rod made his way to baggage claim alongside Husam al Din, who stopped to make a cell phone call, nodding affirmatively at what he heard. They discussed Samir’s options until Husam al Din’s baggage arrived, whereupon he apologized, saying there were people waiting for him. He shook Rod’s hand and said he had to go.
Rod looked convincingly crestfallen. “You are an important businessman. I know I have no right to ask, but I hoped you could help my friend.”
We all held our breaths as Husam al Din considered that. Finally, he asked, “Is there a number at which I can reach you? Tell your friend to request a hearing. That will keep him here for a few days. I will check with my associates and let you know if they have any advice.” Husam al Din was too smart to leave a trail anyone could follow, but at least that was something. We’d have a trace on the burner phone we’d acquired for Rod. He wrote down the number and thanked him.
Husam al Din hurried out of the terminal and looked around. Two middle-Eastern men approached him and they each embraced him. They led him to a waiting taxicab and were gone in seconds, trailed discreetly by two unmarked police cars in the weaving, unrelenting airport traffic. Samir, Rod, Mary, and I ran for Henry’s car, a hundred feet away. The plan was for our three cars to play leap frog, staying a reasonable distance behind the taxi, but even outside the airport, in New York traffic, that could be chancy. Henry would stay in contact with police dispatchers in the area in case we needed assistance keeping the cab in sight.
Our car had barely started moving when Henry’s radio chirped. It was the cop in charge of the detail, who was riding in the lead car. “The subject vehicle is leaving the terminal area, Agent White. Wait a minute, they’re slowing down. They’re exiting the freeway, taking the cloverleaf. Where the hell are they going? They’re turning onto the west service road, heading north. There are several buildings and hangars up ahead on the left. Okay, they’re turning left, now toward a smallish building. It’s the general aviation terminal.”
That was totally unexpected.
Henry told the cop to keep the primary subject discreetly in sight. Given the traffic patterns in the large airport complex, we were two minutes behind them.
“The CIA report specified New York as his final destination, didn’t it?” I asked. “Or did it simply say he was flying from Manila to New York?”
“No, it was definite that his destination was New York,” Henry said. “What the hell are they up to?”
I could see the cloverleaf up ahead. Samir figured it out first as we were looping around. “They’re headed for the heliport.”
Henry barked into his radio. “You still have the suspects in view?”
The cop we’d heard before came back on the line. “Yeah, we got ’em. They’re entering the building. If we get any closer they’ll know we’re trailing them. It’s a very small building. We can see clear through it to a helipad.”
“We think that’s where they’re going. Don’t lose them, but don’t let them know you’re following them. I’ll catch up to you,” A couple of minutes later, we screeched to a stop and Henry jumped out.
“Cover all the exits, just in case,” Henry told the lead cop.
Unlike the passenger terminals, there was no security at general aviation, and no gates or jetways. By the time Henry entered the building, Husam al Din and his friends were already hurrying onto the tarmac, toward a waiting helicopter. We could see the crew on board, apparently primed to take off. The blades began turning even before all three were aboard.
Henry ran toward the helipad exit, shouting to me. “Dylan, find out if there’s a way we can stop them from taking off.”
I ran to the commercial helicopter service’s ticket counter. When I asked, the attendant shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a private aircraft; we have no control over it. The only way to keep them from taking off is for the tower to deny clearance. You can get airport security to contact them, but you’d better hurry. That helicopter’s been parked out there waiting for nearly an hour. The pilot probably requested clearance while they were on their way here. He doesn’t have to taxi, so as soon as the tower says go, he’ll be off the ground and on his own.”