Night Fall (30 page)

A few men and women from the NYPD side of the twenty-sixth floor came in, including Harry Muller, and I joined them. Then some FBI buddies of Kate’s arrived, so I guessed this was a little send-off thing.

Kate arrived with a few co-workers, and by 6:30, there were about fifteen ATTF people in the place, including Jack Koenig, who never passes up the opportunity to show what a regular guy he’d like to be.

Koenig made a little speech that could barely be heard above the barroom noise, but I caught the words “duty,” “devotion,” and “sacrifice.” Maybe he was practicing for my eulogy.

Robin, who has more balls than most men, came over and introduced herself to some of my co-workers, then she caught up to me, and we exchanged an air kiss. She said, “Someone said you’re going to Yemen.”

“Are you sure? They told me Paris.”

She laughed. “You haven’t changed.”

“Why mess with perfection?”

Kate made her way over to me, and I said, “Robin, this is my wife, Kate.”

They shook hands, and Kate said, “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Robin replied, sincerely, “I’m pleased to meet you. I hear you’re going to Tanzania. What an interesting job you have.”

They chatted a bit, and I really wanted to be somewhere else. Robin asked Kate, “Have you redone the apartment?”

Kate replied, “Not yet. I’m working on redoing John.”

They both got a good chuckle over that. Why was I not laughing?

I asked Robin, “Where is your boss?”

She glanced at me and replied, “Working late. He’s meeting me here for dinner. Would you like to join us?”

“You never asked me to join you when you both worked late, and we were married. What’s the occasion?”

She replied coolly, “You also worked late. Well, have a good trip and be safe.” She turned and went back to the far end of the bar.

Kate said, “You didn’t need to be rude.”

“I’m not very sophisticated. Okay, let’s go.”

“Another fifteen minutes. That would be polite.” She moved off to join the crowd.

Koenig left first, as he always does, followed by most of the FBI crowd who’d made an appearance for Kate and didn’t want to be hanging around too long with the cops.

David Stein came up to me and said, “You made the right choice.”

“Given my choices, there was no choice.”

“Yeah, there was, and you made it. You’ll come back with a clean slate and even some power in your pocket. You need to get back on the Khalil case and forget this other thing. Right?”

“Right.”

“Mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you.” Stein informed me, “You’re not getting screwed. You’re getting a second chance. Kate understands that.”

“I also understand that this outfit doesn’t usually give second chances. How did I get so lucky?”

He leaned close to me and said, “You scared the shit out of them.” He turned and walked away.

This seemed to be a night for running into my least favorite people, and on that theme, I saw Liam Griffith come in and make his way to the bar. He ordered a drink, then came over to me, raised his glass, and said, “Bon voyage.”

I wanted to tell him to eat shit, but I asked him, “Did they forget the little umbrella in your drink?”

He smiled. And why shouldn’t he? He said to me, “I was in Yemen for a few weeks. Also Tanzania and Kenya. Yemen was a little dicey.”

I didn’t reply.

He continued, “I’ve also been to Sudan and Somalia, and some other trouble spots.”

“You must have really fucked up.”

He looked at me a long time, then went into a little rap and said, “As we widen the global scope of our counter-terrorist operations, we realize that the answers to who attacked us at Point A are often found at Point B. And our response to those attacks might take place at Point C. Follow?”

“I lost you after bon voyage.”

“No, you didn’t. What I’m telling you is that counter-terrorism is a vast, complex operation against an equally vast global terror network. The key to success is coordination and cooperation. And that leaves out hotshots and loners who often do more harm than good.”

“Do you mean me?”

“Well, I’m not talking about
me
. If you haven’t noticed by now, counter-terrorism is not like a homicide investigation.”

“Actually, it is.”

He moved closer to me and said, “Do you know why I’m talking to you?”

“No one else here wants to talk to you?”

“I’m talking to you because Jack asked me to talk to you and make you understand that the answer to what
may
have happened to TWA 800 off Long Island may not necessarily be found on Long Island. It may be found in Yemen. Or Somalia. Or Kenya or Tanzania.”

“Or Paris.”

“Or Paris. But you can start in Yemen.”

This is when I should have kneed him in the nuts, but I kept my cool and said, “I see why you and Ted Nash hung together. You’re both assholes.”

Mr. Griffith took a breath and said, “Ted Nash was a good man.”

“No, actually he was an asshole.”

“Your wife didn’t think so when they spent a month together at the Bayview Hotel.”

I realized this guy was baiting me so I’d take a swing at him and wind up fired and charged with assault. I’m prone to biting at this kind of bait, which is fun, but not smart.

I clamped my hand on his shoulder, which startled him, and I put my face into his and said to him, “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

He broke free, turned, and left.

No one seemed to notice the little altercation, and I mixed again with the group.

Kate and I stayed another fifteen minutes, then another. By about 7:30P.M., I was rocked, and I wanted to leave, so I motioned to Kate and walked toward the door.

Out on the street, Kate and I caught a taxi. I said to Kate, “Jack told me that he’d reinstate the special team when we got back. Did he mention that to you?”

“No. He probably wanted to tell you himself. That’s good news.”

“You believe him?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Don’t be so cynical.”

“I’m a New Yorker.”

“As of next week, you’re a Yemeni.”

“Not funny.”

She asked me, “What were you talking to Liam Griffith about?”

“Same as last time.”

“It was nice of him to come and see us off.”

“He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

I decided not to mention to Kate about her and Ted Nash at the Bayview Hotel because it wasn’t relevant, it was the past, Ted was dead, nothing had happened between them, I didn’t want to start a fight before we parted, and Liam Griffith was, in the words of the Feds, an agent provocateur, and was probably lying to piss me off. But I did wonder how both he and Jack Koenig knew that I was a little sensitive on that subject.

We rode home in silence, not wanting to say much more about this day.

We spent the next day, Saturday, getting our personal affairs in order, which was more complicated than I’d thought it would be, but Kate had a grip on what needed to be done.

We spent Sunday calling and e-mailing people, mostly family and friends, informing them of our separate overseas assignments and promising contact information when we arrived.

On Monday, Kate changed the message on our answering machine to say we’d both be out of the country until further notice.

For security reasons, agents’ mail can’t be forwarded to certain foreign countries-Tanzania and Yemen being two such countries-so we made arrangements for the post office to hold our mail, and it hit Kate that she wouldn’t see a mail-order catalogue for a long time.

Modern life is simultaneously convenient and complicated-both as a result of advanced technology. Kate has great faith in the Internet to solve most of her logistical problems, handle her finances, shop, communicate, and do business. I, on the other hand, use the Internet mostly for accessing my e-mail, which needs about six clarifications before I can figure out the post-literate, brain-dead messages.

Assured that we had done everything we needed to do to sever ourselves from life as we knew it, we went shopping for our journeys.

I wanted to go to Banana Republic, which would have been appropriate, but according to Kate, Eastern Mountain Sports on West 61
^st
Street was the favored destination for people with weird destinations.

So, EMS it was, and I said to the clerk, “I’m going to the shit-hole of the universe, and I’m looking for something I can be abducted in that would look good in photos released by terrorists.”

“Sir?”

Kate said to the young man, “We’re looking for desert and tropical khakis, and good boots.”

Whatever.

After the shopping, Kate and I went our separate ways for a while, and my last stop of the day was the Windows on the World bar in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, known, with New York modesty, as the Greatest Bar in the World.

It was about 6:30P.M., and the bar, on the 107
^th
floor, an ear-popping 1,300 feet above sea level, was hopping with a wide assortment of people like me who felt the need for a ten- or fifteen-dollar drink and the best view in New York, if not the world.

I hadn’t been up to this place since last September when Kate dragged me here for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force’s celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its founding.

One of the FBI bosses who spoke that night said, “I congratulate you all on your fine work over the years, and especially for the arrests and convictions of all those responsible for the tragedy that occurred here on February 26, 1993. We’ll see you all back here for the twenty-fifth anniversary of this superb team, and we’ll have more to celebrate.”

I wasn’t sure I was going to make that party, but I hoped there would be more to celebrate.

Kate called to say she’d be joining me shortly, which meant about an hour. I ordered a Dewar’s-and-soda, put my back to the bar, and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even the New Jersey oil refineries looked good from up here.

Around me were lots of tourists, along with Wall Street types, yuppies, lounge lizards, pick-up chicks, and suburban couples in town for some special occasion, and probably a few people in my business, who had offices here in the North Tower, and who used this place for high-level meetings and dinners.

This was not particularly my kind of place, but Kate wanted to come here, she said, to see New York City from the top of the world on our last night together; a memory that would stay with us until we returned.

I wasn’t feeling any real separation anxiety about leaving home, hearth, and wife, the way soldiers do who are leaving for the front lines. To put this into perspective, I’d be gone only a few months, I could call it quits whenever I wanted, and the danger at my destination, while real, wasn’t as great as a soldier’s off to war.

And yet, I did feel some sort of unease, maybe because of Jack’s sincere concern that nothing bad happen to me, along with the signing of documents that anticipated my disappearance, abduction, or death. Also, of course, I felt apprehensive about Kate going to a place where Americans had already been targeted by Islamic extremists. I mean, our job was to fight terrorism, but up until now, we’d done it here, in America, where only one certified terrorist attack had occurred-right here, actually.

Kate arrived uncommonly early, and we hugged and kissed as though we were meeting after a long time rather than separating.

She said, “I packed a few boxes for us that we’ll ship to the embassies tomorrow in the diplomatic pouches.”

“I have everything I need.”

“I included a six-pack of Budweiser for you.”

“I love you.”

I ordered a vodka on the rocks for her, and we stood with our backs to the bar, holding hands, and watching the sun set over the wilds of New Jersey.

The place had become a little quieter as people enjoyed the sunset moment, drinks in hand, a quarter mile above the earth, separated from the real world by about a half inch of clear glass.

Kate said to me, “We’ll come back here when we return.”

“Sounds good.”

She said, “I’m going to miss you.”

“I miss you already.”

She asked me, “How do you feel right now?”

“I think the alcohol goes to the brain faster at this altitude. I feel like the room is swaying.”

“It
is
swaying.”

“That’s a relief.”

“I’m going to miss your sense of humor.”

“I’m going to miss my audience.”

She squeezed my hand and said, “Let’s promise to come back the same as when we left. You understand?”

“I do.”

It was Disco Night, and a disco band began playing at 9P.M. I took Kate onto the small dance floor and showed her some of my seventies moves, which she found amusing.

The band was playing “The Peppermint Twist,” which I renamed the “Yemeni Twist,” and I made up some dance steps called “Camel Ride” and “Dodge the Bullets.” Obviously, I was drunk.

Back at the bar, we started drinking a house specialty called Ellis Island Iced Tea, which at sixteen bucks a pop needed a more upscale name.

Kate ordered sushi and sashimi at the bar, and while I don’t normally eat raw fish and seaweed, when I’m plastered, I put things in my mouth that I shouldn’t.

We got out of the Greatest Bar in the World around midnight, with the greatest pounding in my head I’ve had in a long time.

Out on the street, we got into a taxi, and Kate fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. I stared out the side window as we made our way home.

New York after dark. I’d have to remember this in the months ahead.

The FBI travel office had thoughtfully arranged to get us flights out of JFK within two hours of each other; Kate had a Delta flight to Cairo, and I had an American Airlines flight to London. I’d fly on to Amman, Jordan, then Aden, and Kate would fly directly to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Hopefully our guns would arrive in the diplomatic pouches before we did.

Our doorman wished us bon voyage, and we took a limo to the airport, arriving first at the Delta terminal. We parted at curbside, without too much soppy stuff and no tears. I said, “Be safe. I love you. See you later.”