Banquo's Ghosts (46 page)

All the while a crumbly metallic grey substance fell from his backpack. A little stream of fairy dust, unnoticed in the gathering dusk.

Back on the east side of the park, he reached with his right hand and jostled the backpack, feeling it was much lighter than before. Almost empty.

He approached the steps of the nearest subway entrance, the northern one this time, and slid the backpack off his shoulders. Then looked all around and shoved it into the shiny metal trash can—
against orders.
His was lead-lined, a makeshift job with the heavy lead-laced fabric from an X-ray vest, sewn inside. All packs were supposed to be returned and not left for anyone to find, but he wanted none of it anymore.

Metro card in hand, he swiped himself through the stainless-steel turnstile and trotted downstairs toward the Downtown Number 4 platform, angling his body sideways to avoid the masses surging toward the exits.

Once on the platform Walid paced back and forth, waiting for the train, talking to himself. The hellish screech of other trains coming and leaving along the curved tracks of the station screamed into his jumbled thoughts verging on panic: telling him to get home, to get home now, right now. He pushed into the Downtown Number 4 as soon as it came, not waiting for people to exit first, as is the etiquette, as was proper, as everyone who ever rode a New York City subway knew without having to be told. Once inside, he snatched the handicapped seat at the front of the car, slapped it down on its wall-mounted hinges, and sat, elbows to knees, his head in his hands. Then started to rock his body. Rocking as if his motion would speed the motion of the train.

The other passengers took a step or two away, as New Yorkers do when they think they’re in close proximity to the mad. Walid found himself alone in a safe little corner, or as alone as you could be in a crowded subway car. Rocking away the world.

Back in Union Square, a fashionable woman in her mid-thirties pulled her
Princess
away from the dog run. Time to go home, drop her off, and meet a friend for an early drink. Even with iPod buds in her ears and a Starbucks coffee cup in one of her gloved hands, she noticed something wrong. Her Shih Tzu was starting to whimper.

In the well-appointed Waldorf-Astoria conference room, various parties were still in the early stages of hashing out the question of municipal meltdown. The issue before them—a yawning abyss—and a lot of panicked officialdom was ready to jump. The answer as to
where
one stood now ranged from right on the lip of the precipice, toes over the edge—the Fire Commissioner, MTA Police Chief, NYC Police Commissioner—to a step back—Homeland Security, the city’s Medical Examiner, the CDC, and the Chief of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, recently summoned with an entourage of six flunkies. The “secret” NYPD officer from the Wall Street “secret” Command Center, a no-show.

In the last twenty minutes, the number of “people in the know” had widened considerably and to the city’s peril. Pretty soon the knowledge would spread out of control, escape the Waldorf, and start flashing on the Times Square Jumbo-Tron.

O’Hanlon walked quietly to a corner of the room and called Banquo on his cell. Without even introducing himself he whispered hoarsely, “We need you over here pronto.”

“Where’s Pronto?”

“Waldorf, Suite 11A. Security Tower. That’s the South Tower. Everyone’s here—the Mayor, everybody. It’s going down. You were right, it’s going down, and I just want to say, I should have . . . ”

Banquo’s voice came back gravely, “Stop. Forget about it.” When he felt O’Hanlon shake the guilt from his shoulders, Banquo gave the DOJ lawyer a clue as to where they stood:

“As you may have suspected, I’m being made something of a nonperson. Well, either a nonperson or the very prominent person blamed for everything. I’ve got an internal investigation on me and on B & D too. The Deputy Executive Director and his toadies at the FBI DC Headquarters are watching my every step. This morning the
Washington Post
says I’m a ‘controversial mystery operative who bends the rules in what is supposed to be an era of greater accountability and oversight, sources say.’” His voice sneered at the last two words.

“Look, no one here reads the
Washington Post
; it’s all the other
Post
,” O’Hanlon shot back. “And this is one of those days when no one will
remember what happened the day before. The slate is wiped clean. We
need
you here. Where the hell are you?”

“Close enough.”

Twenty minutes later the elegant spymaster opened the conference room door, paused for a moment to take in the scene. Instead of seven people at the conference table talking reasonably, there were eighteen: a noisy murmuring gaggle of competing interests, scribbling note takers, babbling Bluetooth wireless headsets, everyone talking at once and nobody listening.

O’Hanlon got up from his spot and threw a legal pad down on the table with a harsh slap. The noise brought the group to a sudden pause. For a long moment, he held each person’s eyes in his own. Then graciously gave his seat to Banquo, introducing him as an intelligence official who had been on the case from the beginning, adding two harsh words: “Pay attention.”

Whatever uncharacteristic reticence that Banquo exhibited on their call together had now vanished. He pulled his chair up to the table and announced, unbidden, “We have a nuclear insurgency right here in New York City. As we speak, the populace is being poisoned by roaming Jihadis with radioactive material. Now, quite obviously, we’ve got to stop it.”

The Mayor leaned over to mutter something to his Deputy Mayor—from the look on his face it was something like,
Who is this guy?

Banquo’s words weren’t an invitation for ideas but a prelude to his own plan, now that he was fully briefed by Wallets on the street and O’Hanlon in the conference room. “The Iranians picked up in the Garment District raid
must
be interrogated. Literally right here. And right now. There’s no time for crossed lines of communication.”

“In this room?” someone asked.

“Of course not. We’ll have the hotel secure this entire floor, and a couple of the other conference rooms will be our interrogation cells.” Eyes drifted over to the Mayor, who, with his arms crossed, nodded wordlessly. An aide began relaying the order to the hotel.

“Every Workbench Boy we’ve already identified has to be rolled up, along with any close friends or associates, and anyone identified in our ongoing intelligence operation.”

Everyone nodded.

“We need every Farsi speaker that the NYPD or the FBI has in the tri-state area up here on this floor.”

“Done,” said O’Hanlon. “Done,” said the Police Commissioner. O’Hanlon and the Commish’s aide fired up their cell phones.

“We need every member of the Iranian UN delegation detained for questioning, and one Farah Nasir arrested immediately.”

“Whoa!” The Mayor held up his hands.

Another voice: “I think international incidents are above everyone’s pay grade here,” the city’s Corporation Counsel, a lawyer in tortoiseshell Tojo glasses. Uber-dweeb.

“Well, you’ve got an international incident already, like it or not,” Banquo told him. “Who do you need to hear from?”

“I don’t know,” the Corporation Counsel said meekly. “How about the Attorney General of the United States?”

“Is Washington informed and ready to act?” Banquo asked, and Bryce—his cell phone to his ear—nodded tightly.

“You’re talking to your contact at Justice?” Banquo asked, a hint of a smile on his lips, knowing full well the exalted identity at the other end of the line. Bryce nodded tightly again, keeping it to himself, but quietly relishing the moment. Speaking professionally into the phone, “Yes, sir. Yes, I understand. We’ll be careful.” Only Banquo heard the word “Dad” at the end.

O’Hanlon elaborated, “Main Justice knows everything, and they’re briefing the White House. When the Oval Office realizes the gravity and long-term repercussions of this, we’re going to get big-footed, but for now we’re supposed to handle it as we see fit.”

Bryce approached the Mayor and handed him his cell phone, which Hizzoner looked at querulously. “The attorney general,” Bryce explained. The Mayor said hello, listened, and a few moments later closed and handed the phone back to Bryce. “We’re OK on the Iranian Dips,” he said to everyone.

“Now,” said Banquo, “we need to fix the procedures for interrogation.”

“The hotel is clearing the floor now.” This from the Chief of Police again. “It’s all ours in about four minutes, and the Iranians from the Garment District haul are waiting behind a cordon in the
limousine drive-thru. Still in the vans. Say the word, and we’ll bring them to the lockdown elevators. I’ve assigned us a full set of suites and conference rooms on the other side of the floor.”

O’Hanlon waved a piece of paper that had mysteriously emerged from a fax machine in one corner. “I’ve got the Department of Justice waiver authorizing us to stop this attack right here. And by authorization, we mean by
any means necessary.
” He paused looking from face to face around the conference table.

“So who signs it?” The men in the room started to look from one to the other, measuring the question.

Somebody made the stupid remark, “You mean torture, don’t you?” saying what wasn’t supposed to be said. Everyone looked at the speaker, playing Spot the Idiot.

The Mayor.

Banquo sighed. “We mean, by
any
means.”

The Mayor looked over to the city’s Corporation Counsel, who said, “We’ll need time to review the document, and we’ll need it in triplicate.”

“You’ve got to be friggin’ kiddin’ me,” O’Hanlon said, dropping all his Gs, as he always did when he was upset.

Banquo looked down at the table, as if gathering himself. He didn’t look at the Corporation Counsel or the Mayor, but straight ahead above everyone’s heads at the wall in front of him: “We’ve all heard of a ‘ticking time bomb’ scenario, the most extreme circumstance in which a detained subject may have information to stop an imminent attack. It is widely agreed that such a context changes what questioning techniques can be used, whether or not they—‘shock the conscience.’ All by way of saying,” and here Banquo lowered his eyes and looked straight at the Mayor, slowing down his words, “this . . .
isn’t
. . . a ticking-bomb scenario . . . but a bombs-going-off scenario. Do you understand the difference?”

The Corporation Counsel stood up and walked over to the Mayor, leaning down above him to have a whispered conversation.

They both stopped and looked up when Banquo added:

“Anyone standing in the way of getting information now, in this situation, should feel obliged to personally explain to the family of every single person killed or sickened why they let it happen.”

Johnson thought again back to that long-ago NYU panel:
If they didn’t kill you or someone you love, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

The Mayor was back to whispering. But Banquo wouldn’t let him hide in plain sight. “Are you prepared to do that, Mr. Mayor?”

The Mayor, a finely tailored bachelor known for dating actresses and models and knowing—and prizing the approval of—all the right people, looked flabbergasted. Nobody talked to him this way. Nobody.

“Or will you have your lawyer do it for you, Mr. Mayor?” The room went totally still, fixated on this quiet confrontation, this test of wills across the conference table.

“There’s no need for this kind of ad hominem personal . . . ” the Mayor started to say.

“Or how about your scribbler of a publicist here? Think he should do it, Mr. Mayor?”

Banquo looked away in disgust and started to give orders in preparation for the interrogations. More whispering, now furious between the Mayor and his lawyer, and the Mayor piped up to interrupt Banquo: “I can’t be a party to this.”

“Fine, leave,” Banquo said, and kept giving instructions to those around him. The city officials in the room pretended not to be watching the Mayor’s every move, but they all were. Would he actually leave? Had the man ever been talked to in this way in his life? They watched him shrink before their eyes, a political pygmy in a blue pinpoint Oxford shirt with a white collar and starched cuffs. Nervously fiddling with one gold link. He wasn’t heard from for another few minutes, until the Corporation Counsel piped up on his behalf, saying, “Yes, we’ll sign.”

By then, no one seemed to care. The Mayor had become an irrelevancy. There was a city to save.