Ground Zero

25

“I can explain all this,” Weezy said, gesturing to the high stacks of newspapers all around her. “I haven’t got the Collyer disease.”

Jack smiled. “Yeah. I’m sure you have an excellent reason for keeping every one of these.”

“Believe it or not, I do.”

Jack had taken a meandering course through Queens until he was certain he wasn’t being tailed. Then, after assuring himself her place was empty, he’d left her there and driven the panel truck out to North Corona. He wiped down anything he and Weezy might have touched, then left it in a lot on 108th Street. He didn’t know if the police would be looking for it, but it could go u

During the interval Weezy had showered and changed into a sweatshirt and jeans that were a bit small for her. Her black hair was wet and glossy, and she’d combed it to the side, covering her stitches.

“Can we start at the begi

Weezy nodded. “Probably the best way. Let’s go into the kitchen where we can sit.”

Once they were settled, Jack set the six-pack on the table next to the computer, twisted the cap off a bottle, and offered it to her. She took it and sipped.

“Never had this before. Good.” She held up the bottle. “The downfall of my waistline: pizza and beer.”

“You look good.”

And he meant it. The extra pounds enhanced her. She’d been ski

“I’m fat.”

“Women don’t know what fat is.” How many times had he heard Gia complain about the “enormity” of her perfect butt? “As they say, real women have curves.”

“Well, I’ve got bulges on those curves.”

“You’re way too hard on yourself.”

He cracked a brew for himself and took a long pull.

Aaaah.

Suppressing a burp, he changed the subject. “Never had a Yuengling? Please don’t tell me you drink Bud.”

Her dark eyebrows rose. “My old friend Jack is a beer snob?”

“And proud of it.”

She smiled. “No Bud—Coors Light. I tell myself I’m cutting calories as I use it to wash down pepperoni pizza.” Her smile faded. “I’m a widow, you know.”

Jack nodded. “Eddie told me. I’m sorry.”

“I am too. Things were going great. Then, four years ago, he bought a gun, took the train out to Flushing Meadow Park, sat with his back against a big oak, and put a bullet through his brain.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said again. And he was. He sensed a deep, lingering hurt. “Did he leave a note?”

“Yeah. ‘It’s all become too much. I’m sorry. Love, Steve.’ And that was it.” She sighed. “Never a hint that anything was wrong.”

Jack tried to imagine how he’d feel if Gia ever did something like that. He failed. At least Steve had thought enough of her to do it where she wouldn’t be the one to find his body.

She sipped her beer, then said, “Anyway, as I was going through his things, I went into his laptop and found lots of bookmarks to Nine/Eleven Truther sites. We’ve both always been into conspiracies and apparently this one tickled him.”

“Could there be any co

She shook her head. “That’s tempting, but no. The police traced his movements—applying for the gun permit, waiting for the background check . . . apparently he’d been pla

She turned to her computer and began typing. Soon a black-and-white photo of three bearded guys in turbans popped up. Jack recognized bin Laden but not the others.

“I kept staring at it, feeling something was wrong. And then it hit me. I’d seen the photo before and was sure there’d been a fourth man in it. So I did an image search, but every time I found it, only the same three were in it. No sign of the fourth.”

Jack feigned shock. “Don’t tell me the famous Weezy Co

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Not fu

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“True, but it’s never let me down yet. So I went hunting through newspapers and magazines.”

“Ah,” Jack said, glancing at the stacks that filled the neighboring dining room. “I’m begi

“I was pretty sure I’d seen it in the Times, but I wasn’t sure of the date.”

More mock shock: “You forgot?”

“I never forget what I read, but I’m not always aware of the date when I’m reading it, so my brain doesn’t form a co

“Where on Earth do you buy old newspapers?”

“Google ‘vintage newspapers’ and you’ll see.” She popped up from her seat. “Here, I’ll show—oh!”

Swaying, she clutched the back of the chair.

Jack leaped to his feet and grabbed her arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just dizzy. Not ready for sudden movements yet, I guess.”

“Maybe you’d better lie down.”

She shook him off. “No way. But maybe a beer isn’t such a good idea.”

She left the bottle behind and led him on a winding course through the stacks in the living room. She stopped by one next to the stairs to the second floor, counted down to the sixth issue, and pulled out a copy of the Times.

Handing it to Jack, she said, “Check out page four.”

Jack did just that, and immediately spotted the photo.

“I’ll be damned.”

The exact same configuration of bin Laden and his buds, but this one showed an extra man. The fourth was bearded and turba

Weezy was tapping a finger against her temple. “Never forgets.”

“Who’s the fourth guy?”

“Remember I mentioned The Man Who Wasn’t There? That’s him. Wahid bin Aswad.”

“But what’s the point of taking him out of the photo?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” She crooked her finger at him as she headed back toward the kitchen. “There’s more.”

Back at the computer she plugged in her network cable, opened the New York Times site, and found that issue. But the photo showed only three men.

Jack blinked. “Somebody hacked the Times.”

“Yes. Twice. Because I contacted them—anonymously, of course—and told them the photo had been altered. I watched daily and soon the original was restored. Days later, the doctored photo was back in its place.”

Baffled, Jack dropped into a chair. “But what does the hacker hope to accomplish? Copies of the real photo have to be all over the place.”

“But they’re not. The real, four-man photo exists in newspapers, which are disposable. They wind up either recycled or used as landfill or fish wrapping or on the bottom of birdcages. More and more, people are looking to the Internet for their reading and research. If they blog about nine/eleven and want to include this photo, they snag it from the Times’s site or from someone else who previously borrowed from the Times. And later on, folks snag it from that blog for some use of their own. And on and on and on. The doctored version of that photo is everywhere on the Web. The original with Wahid bin Aswad . . . is nowhere.”

Jack shook his head. “But why?”

“I don’t know. But it’s pretty clear that since nine/eleven, someone’s been trying to rewrite history. Someone’s trying to erase evidence that Wahid bin Aswad was with bin Laden and company on that day, or on any day, for that matter.”

“What do you mean, ‘any day’?”

She started mousing around and opened a photo file.