Ground Zero

“What do you want me to do?”

She lifted her head and lowered her hand. “It’s passed. I’ll be okay once I get home. I live—”

“—in Jackson Heights. I know. I’ve been there.”

She made a face. “Ew. Did Eddie let you in? Why were you there?”

He told her about how her finger had been tracing “burn my house” on the sheet.

“ ‘Burn my house’? Why would I want you to burn my house?”

“That’s what we wanted to know. That’s why we went out there.”

“No way. That’s been my greatest fear—that someone would burn all the hard evidence I’ve collected. If anything, I’d be trying to tell you ‘don’t let them burn my house.’ Maybe only the second half was coming through.”

“Well, whatever, it sent us out there and I saw your collection. What—?”

Jack’s phone rang then: Eddie, and he sounded upset.

“Jack! Where are you? Weezy’s gone and all hell’s broken loose here! There’s a rumor of a shooting—”

“I’ve got Weezy. She’s safe. But you might not be if you hang around the hospital. Go home and stay there. I’ll contact you later.”

He hung up and turned off the phone. Little chance of Eddie being followed now. Whoever was behind this probably thought they had Weezy in their grasp, so no need to follow her brother. But that would change once they found out their men were dead.

He glanced at Weezy. “That was Eddie. He’ll be okay. But you . . . that’s a different story. Who’s after you?”

“It’s a long, long story.”

“I know some of it. I had a talk with your pal Harris. I gather from all this that you know something about the nine/eleven attacks that someone wants kept quiet.”

Her lips tightened. “What did he tell you?”

“About the puts and calls in the Cardoza account and how he traced him back to a Pakistani named Bashar Sheikh.”

“Is that his name? Bashar Sheikh?” Excitement seemed to overcome her fear. “He found him?”

Jack nodded. “Says he has a photo and the guy looks familiar. He’s counting on you to identify him.”

“Wonderful!” She clapped her hands. “I hope I can.”

“Still have the eidetic memory?”

She nodded. “Sometimes it’s a blessing, sometimes it’s a curse, but, yeah, I still have it.”

Jack reached the FDR and turned downtown, heading for the Queensboro Bridge.

“What do you know, Weez? Why are people after you?”

“That’s just it: I don’t know. Not yet. But I’m getting close.”

“To what?”

“To why the Trade Towers were knocked down.”

Jack suppressed a groan. “You’re not going to tell me it wasn’t al Qaeda, are you?”

“Oh, al Qaeda members flew the planes, no question about that. And they did it for all the reasons al Qaeda has stated. They’re very up front and honest about that. But I believe someone or some group with another agenda had bin Laden’s ear and was pushing him toward those particular targets and that particular method of attack.”

“ ‘Another Pearl Harbor’?”

“No. It’s not the government. We’d have had dozens of whistle-blowers by now if it were. It has to be a secret organization—or organizations. Though I have no proof, I believe the Dormentalists are peripherally involved, but I’m pretty sure the Septimus Order is in the thick of it.”

“The Order? They’re pretty tight with the Kickers these days.”

“I know, but the Kickers didn’t exist back on nine/eleven.”

Jack shook his head to clear it. He was falling under the spell of her words.

“What possible reason could the Septimus Order have for bringing down the Trade Towers?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Wait—does this have anything to do with your Secret History of the World?”

“It’s not my Secret History, Jack. It’s the Secret History. And I’m surprised you still remember it.”

Oh, he remembered it, all right. It had been hanging over his life like a Joe Btfsplk cloud. And he’d met a guy who’d lived through most of it.

“Let’s just say I’ve had a change of heart and leave it at that for now. But what could possibly be worth all those thousands of lives?”

“That’s what I’m trying to learn, and that’s what someone doesn’t want me to find out. But I do know this: It all seems to hinge upon one man, a shadowy, elusive figure named Wahid bin Aswad. I call him The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Jack wasn’t following. “Well, if he wasn’t there—”

“Oh, yes, he was. It’s just that a process has been under way for years to erase all evidence of his existence.”

Jack took the on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge. Not far to Weezy’s house from here.

“How . . . ?”

“You’ll need to see to believe.”

Jack leaned back, wondering. Sometimes you had to see in order to believe, and sometimes you had to believe in order to see.

Which would this be?

24

“Max and Josef dead?” Ernst said. “Both of them?”

Szeto stood stiff and straight, almost at attention, on the far side of the office desk.

“Yes.”

This was terrible. They’d had her in hand. And now . . .

“How is that possible?”

Szeto shook his head. “I do not know. Is mystery for now. Security was there and then police come. I was prevented from scene. I stay as long as I dare, then I must leave.”

Anger quickly overwhelmed bafflement.

“What did she do? Grab one of their guns?”

“I do not know. Max’s weapon was missing. One of our brothers in NYPD tells me each shot twice—two kill shots each.”

“That sounds like she’s trained.”

“Very possible. We have investigated this Louise Myers. Very little is available about her. We know her husband is dead. We find much about him but almost nothing about her. That is suspicious. It means she has kept herself secret. Why do that unless she is hiding something?”

“Like past training?”

“Is possible she is intelligence operative. We had no idea. If Max and Josef did not suspect . . .”

Ernst reined in his fury. “They got careless. I’ll bet she grabbed Max’s gun. He’s done nothing right. He chased her into the path of a car. Then he lost track of her brother. And now he got himself and Josef killed.”

He saw Szeto’s lips tighten. “We do not know that.”

. . . possible she is intelligence operative . . .

If true, this was bad. It made eliminating her much more difficult.

“Who do you think she’s with? CIA?”

Szeto shrugged. “We do not know.”

“No.” Ernst let his voice rise, but not too much. No use letting any Kickers out in the hall know he was upset. “We don’t know much of anything, do we?”

“We know that Max and Josef had her and were transporting her to truck. We know both shot dead. We know truck taken. We do not know for sure she took it but we assume.”

“So if we find the truck, we find her. Are you looking for the truck?”

Szeto smiled. “No need. We know where is truck.”

“Explain.”

And he did.