Premeditated Murder (37 page)

(
Boston Post,
July 4, page 1)

July 4—Northampton, Massachusetts

TERRY WAS HUNGOVER AND CLEANING UP, BUT the smile that he had been wearing all last night was still plastered all over his face.

He had been up way too late partying with Zack and some friends after the big verdict, and when he woke up, a lot the worse for wear, he decided that he would spend July 4 quietly, rather than drive in with Zack to join him and Justin on the Esplanade for the fireworks. Thanks to the perfect weather, the place was going to be packed tighter than normal for the Independence Day festivities, which meant there would be less than the usual seven and one-half square inches for each sunburned ass in the park.

On those rare occasions when Terry actually won a criminal trial, he enjoyed putting the file back in order before packing it up and putting it in storage. It helped him linger on the victory just that much longer. So he went over to Zack's house and began to put everything into boxes.

Sure, it was possible that the Commonwealth would attempt to appeal, but it was unlikely. O'Neill had come off relatively well, given what the case had turned into, and he probably didn't want to look like the guy who went out of his way to try to send a successful terrorist hunter to his execution. He'd had his big moment of victory in the trial when the jury returned their verdict, and he could blame the judge for the fact that the defendant got away with it.

So as Terry started to reorganize the file folders and label the boxes, he was pretty sure that they wouldn't be opened for a long time, if ever again.

And then he came across the folder that the President had given him yesterday at the diner in Worcester, and opened it to the first page—a memo listing the six dead terrorists with a brief summary of their history.

Khalid and Nemetallah Wali, Helene Ghazi, Maliq Ansaar, Ahmad El Amin, and Marianne Duhamel. These were the given names of Calvin's victims. The jury had never even known that the male victims had been using aliases. Was their verdict really a condemnation of vigilantism, however justified, or had they been so traumatized by Calvin and his acts that they seized upon the opportunity to put him away forever?

Terry would never know, and he was okay with that. He dropped the folder in the box and started to close it, but something stopped him. He reached back into the box, pulled out the file, and opened again to the front page.

Khalid & Nemetallah Wali, Helene Ghazi, Maliq Ansaar, Ahmad El Amin, & Marianne Duhamel.

Something nagged at Terry, like a forgotten phone message. He stared at the list of names. There were the two Wali brothers, who had used Nathenson as an alias—Marc and Mitchell. And the two women, who didn't use aliases. Ghazi and Duhamel. But when Terry got to the last two names, Maliq Ansaar and Ahmad El Amin, the nagging feeling grew stronger.

Terry flipped through the file until he reached the sections outlining each terrorist's dossier. Ansaar's alias was John Bercher. The pictures of him in the file revealed him to be the Elvis Costello terrorist: dark hair, thick, black-rimmed glasses. He was the one that Cal had shot while he was on the couch.

El Amin—aka Rudolf Lange—was the guy who crashed through the window into the courtyard below. The reconnaisance photos in the government's file showed him to be of average height and build, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a mustache. Terry didn't remember much about the way El Amin had looked after Cal's attack except that it was horrible, because he'd taken a bullet under his left eye and then had landed right on his nose down on the brick path three floors below. His face was so messed up that even Judge Cottonwood had allowed only black-and-white photos to be shown to the jury.

But as Terry flipped the page to read about El Amin's criminal history, his eye caught something at the bottom of the prior page:
C-shaped scar on back of left hand.
Maybe that's what Terry's subconscious had been trying to get him to remember. Because it was odd. Not that the identifications had been in question. There had never been any doubt about whom Cal had killed. But Terry had never noticed any scars in any of the autopsy photos. So he left the folder open on the table and pulled out the file containing the autopsy reports and photos of the victims.

He flipped through the pictures until he came to El Amin's. The dead man was lying on the examining table, on his back; his hands rested on the table, palms down. He was dark-skinned. He had a mustache.

But the back of his left hand was unscarred.

Terry turned to El Amin's autopsy report and started reading.

POSTMORTEM EXAMINATION: RUDOLF LANGE

External:
The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished twenty-eight-year-old male approximately 64 inches long and weighing approximately 130 pounds …

Terry put the report down and picked up the government's dossier of El Amin.
Physical description: Height: 5‘8”–5‘10”. Weight: 150–170 lbs.

Okay. Something was very wrong here. A guy could fluctuate in weight. But sixty-four inches was five feet four inches. How could the government's estimate of El Amin's height be that far off?

He flipped back to the reconnaisance photos and found one with El Amin standing next to one of the women—the one named Helene Ghazi. El Amin was a good half a head taller than she was. Terry quickly flipped to the autopsy report on Ghazi.

She was sixty-four inches tall.

Holy shit. The sixth guy that the government said was in this terrorist cell was five feet nine inches tall, weighed a hundred sixty pounds, and had a scar on the back of his left hand.

The sixth guy that Cal had killed was five inches shorter, thirty pounds lighter, and had no scar.

It was a different guy.

Ahmad El Amin was alive.

AS ZACK APPROACHED THE PARKING LOT BY the T station at Riverside, he realized that he was really screwed. Traffic had been butt-ugly for the last half hour of his trip, and there was no way that he was going to find a parking spot. He was going to have to dump his car somewhere far from the trolley stop, hike back, and—

Incredible. Just as he was pulling up to the part of the lot closest to the train, a car started up and pulled out of a beautifully legal spot about fifty feet from where Zack needed to stand and wait for the trolley.

It was like God was smiling on him.

EL AMIN CHECKED THE SKY AGAIN AS HE DROVE toward the airport and shook his head. The weather was absolutely beautiful. The crowd at the Esplanade would be huge. The number of people that would die would be at a maximum.

It was like God was smiling on him.

PETE DIDN'T KNOW WHY HE WAS DOING THIS.

Every July 4 since he started as a cop fourteen years ago, he volunteered for duty that day. At first, it was to get the overtime. Now that he had greater seniority, the overtime was easier to come by, and Vicki was really bugging him to take the day off.

But there was something about working that day that had become like a tradition for Pete, and it was hard for him to give it up. Even though he felt like nothing he did mattered anymore, he hadn't quite reached the point where he was able to chuck his whole routine.

Things were pretty quiet that afternoon, so Pete pulled into the Double V a little earlier than normal for his end-of-the-shift coffee. Carlos was there with his parents, and while they all shared some apple pie, he explained that even though the President had immediately flown back to Washington after testifying, he had ordered Carlos to stay in town for the long weekend with his family.

Joe told Pete that he and Maria were going to close up early and take Carlos home. Pete said good-bye, got into his cruiser, and headed for the entrance to the turnpike.

Five minutes later, Pete's cell phone rang. It was the lawyer that he'd given his card to yesterday at the Double V. He wanted to get in touch with Carlos.

Because he needed to speak to the President.

TERRY COULDN'T BELIEVE IT. TALK ABOUT screwups. How could everybody have misidentified the sixth victim in that apartment? More accurately, the one who fell
out
of that apartment.

But then it made sense. The victim's face had been almost completely destroyed by the bullet wound and the injuries suffered in his fall. The other three men who were shot were the ones who had rented the apartment. The coroner and the police had assumed that the fourth male victim had to be the fourth male occupant of the apartment. It fit with everything else, and whoever identified the victim no doubt assumed from the general description of Rudolf Lange—dark-haired, dark-skinned, with a mustache—that it was him. But if the sixth victim wasn't Rudolf Lange, who was he?

And then that feeling that Terry was missing or forgetting something started to play around the edges of his consciousness again. Was there a chance that the real Rudolf Lange, aka—Terry checked the dossier again—Ahmad El Amin—was going to show up? Not in a million years, now that the guy knew that the government knew he was a terrorist. Terry looked down at the file. El Amin had taken classes at UMass. Served as a teaching assistant. Worked part-time in a copy center.

And obtained a pilot's license to fly small planes.

Wait a minute. Didn't that transcript of the phone conversations include something about airplanes? Terry dug out the transcripts. He frantically flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

…
Right now, our method is with an airplane.

… I pray that this summer, [inaudible] many newspapers from Boston. I will attend their biggest celebration on July 4.

… Perhaps we will meet July 5, and you will show me [inaudible] of your airplane.

[laughter, inaudible]

… He told me that there was going to be a great celebration this summer, and then there was going to be a loud cry from heaven, and then with God's help there would be another celebration even greater than the first… . And he said that fire and the praise of God would rain down from the summer skies in the fourth hour of the afternoon of the fourth day …

Jesus Christ. This guy was going to launch some kind of attack from his airplane at four o'clock on the Fourth of July at Boston's biggest party.

The celebration at the Esplanade.

Zack
.

EL AMIN KNEW THAT ALL GLORY BELONGED TO God, so he tried hard not to feel anything but praise and thanks to the Almighty as he neared the exit for the airport. But in truth, he was feeling a little proud of himself. His was going to be a truly magnificent death.

When he got to his plane, El Amin would place the final crate of hand grenades within easy reach of his pilot's seat, then he would pack the rest of the plane as full as he could with fertilizer and ammonia.

He knew that he was going to have a great deal of success killing people with the hand grenades, but when his time for martyrdom arrived, it would be in a manner befitting the blessed nature of his mission.

God would be greatly glorified.

AS ZACK EMERGED FROM THE TROLLEY, HE heard his cell phone ring. Finally. Zack had been trying to get his sister on the cell phone for the past two hours, with no luck. Claire had told him that she, her husband Tyler, and Justin would be easy to spot. They were going to get to the park early and set up a blanket near the handicap area close to the Hatch shell. She'd assured Zack that he'd find them right away.

Sure he would.

Zack had asked Claire to call when they reached their final spot, so he would know exactly where they were. The call must have been from her.

But when Zack answered the phone, it was Terry's voice he heard. He listened for about forty-five seconds, and then he started to run.

IT WAS 3:44. THERE WAS A STRETCH OF THE LEFT lane clear ahead of him. Pete pushed the speedometer up past 100. There was no way that he was going to make it.

The little airfield that Abdul el Whatever was using was still five to ten minutes away. If he was going to be flying above the Esplanade at 4:00, he'd have taken off already.