The Hammer of God

Within two hours, David had a court order releasing Rodney from a sympathetic judge, who just happened to once be his law professor at Columbia. One Police Plaza had made a political decision not to fight the judge’s order. The commissioner, the Mayor, the New York Visitors Bureau didn’t want to have a major brouhaha over the new subway searches unless this guy Rodney was caught with a weapon, a bomb, or Bin Laden’s baby picture in his wallet.

Levant punched his locker so hard he dented it when he heard the news that his bosses let his collar go. “They want us out there to find the bad guys. These creeps don’t wear it on their sleeve. It’s in the eyes, man, and I am telling you this guy was bad.” He told his sergeant, who then reminded Levant that he was a good cop with 27 years in, and that going up against the bosses was a surefire way to patrol Far Rockaway on foot in the winter.

The various papers and news outlets ate lunch and dinner on the story. Rodney had been referred to as an “immigrant” in the stories, which used as their angles that this was a case of racial and religious profiling. The far-left crowd started making allusions to Hitler’s storm troopers, Pol Pot’s ethnic cleansing, and the lynching parties in the south.

Finally, not being able to take it anymore, the commissioner went on one of the Sunday morning shows and made only two points. One was that the NYPD never released the ethnicity or religious affiliation of the alleged immigrant. That could only have come from the lawyer or the press. The second was that the arresting officer was black. He then gave a look that might have confused the rest of the country but every New Yorker knew meant so shove your racial profiling charge up your ass.

This sideshow aside, the big story nobody got was that the only concrete lead, the only tangible connection to the biggest assault and mass murder ever to be planned against any country, was allowed to walk out of police custody. It was a great feather in the cap of David Ginsberg.

?§?

Bill entered the Situation Room. Only Reynolds was there.

“What’s up, Ray?”

“NSA intercepted encoded traffic from a suspected terrorist cell node. They have not been able to decode the entire message, but two words are setting off alarms and I wanted you to know.”

“Thank you.”

“Roosevelt and Maghra.”

“Isn’t Maghra the name of the oil refinery where we found the nukes?” Ray was starting to catch on.

“Exactly.”

“Holy shit.”

“Double-xactly.”

“What’s the brain trust think?”

“Well, there’s a Roosevelt Island in New York City.”

“Sure. I got a buddy who lives on it, along with a lot of U.N. personnel.”

“Well, a nuke on the island would take out the U.N. buildings as well as most of the East Side.” Hiccock said as he opened his I-pad to a list. “There’s Roosevelt Raceway, Roosevelt Field Shopping Center, the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown.”

“There’s a Roosevelt Hotel in Paris, too. In fact, there are hundreds of places named Roosevelt, including dozens of schools and the Roosevelt Room upstairs.”

“You know, Ray, Bridgestone and Ross are in New York, from Paris. I feel pretty strongly that if they are here, Paris, Long Island, or even upstairs isn’t going to be the target. Roosevelt Island, right smack dab in the center of the East River. That sounds like a reasonable target.”

At the Store and Lock, Number 1 knew of the difficulties Number 3 had encountered in the subway. According to plan, he knew Number 3 was now hiding out in a Jersey City mosque where the blind Sheik had once presided and presently was little more than a meeting hall for devout Muslims to pray and discuss the Koran and all the other aspects of the religion of peace and love. Those good, law abiding Muslim-Americans had no idea that below the building was a safe house, initially built to house the conspirators of the first World Trade Center bombings back in the early nineties. This chamber was so well hidden that the federal agents who swept the building in late ‘93 never discovered it. Therefore, the place where the enemy had already looked offered the best place to hide Number 3.

Number 1 thought of having Number 3 killed because he was now a loose end and could compromise the entire operation. Rodney’s job was practically done. All that remained was the actual location managing of the prep day and that could be handled by Number 5. Number 1’s only hesitation came from the fact that Number 3 also had a backup role on the helicopter should Number 8 be injured or killed. There was not enough time left to train someone else. He’d have to think about this and pray to Allah for wisdom.

Soon it came to him, a plan so perfect that it was surely the idea of God himself, delivered to him and his mission as a sign of invincibility.