The Intercept (16 page)

Nouvian shook his head, appealing directly to Gersten. “I don’t like to be on television. I don’t need to meet the president. What I need is time to practice my instrument, time to be alone. Is that so difficult to understand?”

Gersten said, “Of course, Mr. Nouvian, you are free to get the advice of a lawyer. Maybe file a writ of habeas corpus. But even that would take time. Until and unless we get a court order, nothing has changed. The ceremony this afternoon aboard the USS
Intrepid
is of course a very big deal. And, as with anything regarding the president, security is paramount. Your choice is to remain with the group and enjoy the afternoon, or I suppose stay here at the hotel. But to be honest with you—
not
going will have the effect of bringing more attention your way, specifically as to why you refused to participate.” Gersten checked with Harrelson as she continued. “And regardless, we’re still going to need these background checks.” Harrelson nodded sternly. “Is that the problem, Mr. Nouvian?”

“No.” Nouvian shook his head. “No, it is the general intrusion . . .”

“I’m sorry, but it has to be this way. We have a full morning and afternoon, but as of right now the evening is completely free.”

Frank, the journalist, had removed his glasses, addressing Nouvian and Jenssen. “If I can just interject.” He stood up to address the group. “It’s one weekend. A celebratory occasion, and we find ourselves—rather unbelievably—as the toast of the town. I strongly advocate that we hang tight, play the game, be the people they want us to be, accept what we are offered . . . and at the end of this, all of us, The Six, could very well be set for the rest of our lives. You have children, Nouvian?”

Nouvian nodded.

“You?” Frank asked Jenssen.

Jenssen shook his head and smiled. The smile appeared to be in reaction to Frank’s careerism.

“It costs us nothing to participate, but the payoff could be huge.” Then Frank turned to Gersten. “But I have a question. About these newspaper interviews, how in-depth will they be?”

Gersten showed him a shrug. “Not my party,” she said.

He looked to the publicist.

“As in-depth as each of you chooses to be,” she said.

Frank waved it off. “No matter. We can huddle beforehand. I think we should keep our personal narratives to a minimum. That’s what people will want to know about—the ‘real’ us, the humans behind the heroes. But—never mind that right now. Let’s get through this first.”

He went back to filling out his form. Nouvian looked out the window and sighed, then picked up his pen and began completing his form too.

A doctor and nurse entered the adjoining room of the suite, and Gersten guessed why they were there. “Mr. Jenssen,” she said, “looks like you need to get your arm checked out again. Maybe you can take the form with you?”

Jenssen looked at his blue wrist cast, then pushed himself off the armrest to stand, following her to the doctor.

“Any pain?” asked Gersten.

“Very little,” he answered. “It itches, though.”

“Going to be tough with this heat today,” she said, crossing the hall with him to an adjoining room where the medics had set up a small examining area. Gersten stood aside and invited him through first. That close, she was impressed again by his height and size. He carried himself effortlessly.

“You are a runner?” he said, pausing in the doorway.

“A little bit,” she answered, realizing he was referring to their earlier encounter, when she saw Maggie leaving his room.

“Ever marathon?”

“No, never,” she said. “Not for me. Triathlons are more my cup of tea.”

He nodded approvingly. “You are obviously in excellent shape.”

Gersten smiled at the compliment and at the obvious flattery behind it.

Jenssen held up his cast. “A triathlon is out, unfortunately. But maybe you will join me for a run before we are through here.”

Again she wanted to smile, now at the apparent shamelessness of his flirtation, but could not. She hoped he couldn’t see the lightness in her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she answered, polite but firm.

A crooked smile undercutting his Scandinavian attractiveness. That close, his ice-blue eyes acted like mirrored lenses. Behind them, she realized, was a mischievous little boy. “I’m just looking for a good workout partner,” he said.

“I thought you’d already found one,” she responded.

“I like to vary my workouts,” he said, then continued into the room.

Gersten returned to the hospitality suite, flattered but puzzled by Jenssen’s sudden interest. Perhaps it had to do with her seeing him in the aftermath of his night with Maggie. She had caught him at something. He had revealed himself to be a bit of a cad, in contrast to his outward behavior. Maybe that was a turn-on for him.

The others were filling out their forms in silence, the occasional clinking of a coffee cup and silverware the only noise. Gersten stood against the gold brocade wall, shaking off the odd feeling after her exchange with Jenssen. When he had taken his blue eyes off her, she had felt released. His magnetism was unsettling.

Gersten checked her phone again, but still no update from Fisk. She texted him then, one word, “Hello?” realizing only afterward that it made her sound like a neglected girlfriend.

Chapter 30

F
isk was back in his car and pulling away from the Capricorn Hotel with the air-conditioning cranking when he got the call. He was at the intersection of 116th and Seventh in minutes.

A resident had called 911 after seeing, from the window of the bathroom in her second-floor apartment, what looked like a child trying to drag a man across a small, fenced yard full of junk below. The boy, she said, was struggling to pull the man’s body toward a garage. The man appeared to be dead or unconscious.

A few minutes before police had arrived, 911 received a second call from the cell phone of a man waiting outside the Meme Amour barbershop on 116th Street. The man reported that there was a line of customers waiting to get in for their Saturday morning haircuts, but that the shop was locked. He said that in his sixteen years of coming there for weekly haircuts, the shop had never failed to open, and the customers were concerned.

Arriving officers could do nothing about the closed shop, but quickly gained entry into an adjoining door that led, through a narrow, tunnel-like corridor, to the yard in back. There they met a four-foot-one-inch-tall, thirty-seven-year-old Senegalese dwarf named Leo, who made his living as a barber. He was sweating and red-eyed, and upon seeing the officers raised his stubby arms.

He showed them to the garage, which was locked. Then he showed them to the west corner of the yard, where he had dragged the dead body of the obese Senegalese man who managed the building and rented the garage. Leo had covered him temporarily with cardboard boxes, completely exhausting himself in the process.

Fisk, arriving soon after, learned from Leo that the fat man had last been seen alive late in the previous afternoon, when the barbershop closed for the night. Leo had discovered his body upon his arrival in the morning.

Leo admitted that he believed his friend, who he knew as Malick, was involved in some slightly shady activities, but insisted that he was overall a good, good man.

A homicide detective arrived to catch the murder, and Fisk wasted a few minutes explaining his presence as an Intel officer on the scene, without really explaining anything. He asked Leo what was inside the locked garage. Leo, his short, burly arms barely long enough to cross, said he did not know, but that Malick always carried the key with him.

Fisk was ready to pull on gloves in order to search the dead man’s sweat suit pockets when Leo admitted that he had already looked for the key and that it was gone.

The homicide detective agreed with Fisk that they had probable cause to enter the garage. Fisk found a length of discarded rebar in the junkyard and used it to pry off the dead bolt plate, forcing open the door.

The sight of neat workbenches inside surprised him. Machine tools hung on the Peg-Boards over electronics in various stages of repair. Fisk pulled on gloves before entering, ordering everyone else back from the entrance. He was wary of booby traps, though the morning light allowed him a clear view of the interior.

He went in alone. The shop did not appear to have been ransacked, though a lockbox sat open upon the counter, a cloth bag cast to one side of it. Fisk examined the bag, which was empty. He raised it to his nose and smelled polish and solvent. He placed the scent immediately: handgun maintenance.

Fisk went back outside to where Leo was sitting cross-legged on the ground, smoking a cigarillo while he answered the detective’s questions.

Fisk crouched down on his haunches. “Here it is, Leo,” he said. “I need straight answers, and I need them fast. You tried to cover up a murder and apparently interfered with a crime scene. For all we know you killed this man.” Fisk knew this wasn’t true—the dwarf’s emotions were all too plain—but he needed to cut right to the chase. “Why did you try to hide his body?”

“I . . . I panicked. I don’t want any trouble. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Most people call an ambulance, or 911.”

Leo nodded, agreeing with him. “I’m not most people.”

“You guys roommates, lovers, what?”

“None! Neither. We worked here.”

“His death, his murder—it doesn’t surprise you.”

Leo took a deep drag on the cigarillo. “He wasn’t the sort of man you can warn.”

Fisk nodded. “Your late friend Malick—what kind of weapons did he deal in?”

Leo looked surprised but not shocked. “He was a tinkerer. He could take apart anything and fix it up again better than before.”

“But I’m not talking about electric razors here,” said Fisk. “Malick was killed by someone he met here after-hours. Someone who either didn’t want to pay for something or couldn’t pay. Malick sold guns. What else?”

Leo shook his head, teary-eyed. “I know nothing about that. Truly. I cut hair.”

Fisk believed him, which made him even more frustrated. “What was the last thing he said to you yesterday?”

Leo thought back. “It was ‘Au revoir.’ He had his mouth full. He always had his mouth full.”

Fisk said, “Last question. Answer me directly. Did you ever see any chemicals coming through here? Any strange smells?”

Leo shook his head again. “No. Just food.” He stubbed the cigarillo into the ground and began to cry. “Am I going to be taken away?”

Fisk said, “No. Nothing’s going to happen to you, you’re not going anywhere. So long as you tell us every little thing you know about Malick and his associates.”

“I told him he would find trouble.”

“It found him,” said Fisk, straightening and walking back to the dead man in the black sweat suit. Fisk looked around the junkyard, hands on his hips. A homicide just two blocks from the only confirmed sighting of the disguised Baada Bin-Hezam. This was no coincidence.

But a handgun? It was a dumb weapon, essentially useless for urban terror. There had to be more to it than that.

His phone buzzed on his hip. Intel headquarters. “Fisk,” he answered.

It was someone from the surveillance desk. “We have a street camera image we think might be your target. E-mailed it to you, though you’ll want to use your laptop for better resolution.”

“Full face? Mustache and eyeglasses?”

“Negative for mustache and glasses.”

“Where and when?” asked Fisk.

“Thirtieth and Ninth. Time-coded a little more than an hour ago.”

Fisk was already running back toward his car.

Chapter 31

T
he caravan of three black NYPD Chevrolet Suburbans, sandwiched front and back by lit-up NYPD patrol cars, skirted the barricaded streets and descended into a VIP parking area beneath 30 Rockefeller Plaza. There they were met by an assistant producer and her own headset-monitoring assistant, who led them through a warren of corridors festooned with celebrity photos to the makeup salon adjacent to ground-floor studio 1A.

As The Six walked into the long, narrow room of mirrored walls and makeup chairs, the staff lined up along either side applauded. While the group was not exactly used to spontaneous applause, Gersten noted that they were no longer shocked by it and seemed to take the salute in stride.

They had been hastily brushed and powdered in the green room for
Nightline
the previous evening, but here at the
Today
show they sat together three at a time in black leather salon chairs facing a bright mirror thirty feet long for hair spray and primping.

They eyed each other in the mirror, the women smirking as they pretended not to love the attention. Doug Aldrich grumbled when a woman with a diamond nose stud tucked tissue into his collar. “Heavy or light on the rouge?” she asked, and Aldrich gripped the armrests as though he were about to bolt. “I’m kidding!” said the makeup artist, placing a reassuring hand on his arm. “Just giving you some base so you don’t look like a ghost in front of ten million people.”

“Ten million people?” said Joanne Sparks, eyeing her progress in the mirror.

The makeup artist said, as she brushed at Sparks’s cheek, “Probably more, are you kidding? You guys are all anybody wants to hear about! My mom called me today when she heard you were going to be on. My mother
never
calls me.”

Sparks said, “I hope a few of my ex-boyfriends are watching.”

Colin Frank sat quietly, reading a
New York Times
article about them, his leg crossed at the knee as though getting made up for network television was a routine occurrence in his life. He, more than any of them, was the most interested in the way their story was being framed by the media.

Maggie Sullivan couldn’t stop smiling, liking what they were doing to her unruly hair, asking for pro tips. Every once in a while she checked Jenssen in the mirror, probably looking to see if he was looking at her.

When it was Nouvian’s turn in the chair, he picked up a sponge and did the area around his eyes himself. The professional stage musician was used to wearing a light coat of makeup.

Jenssen closed his eyes serenely while two of the makeup artists silently fought over who would do his base. Sparks watched from her chair, trapped beneath a black apron, shooting daggers.

The male stylist stepped in, separating the two women with a gentle elbow. He plucked at Jenssen’s chopped haircut. “Great TV hair,” he said.

Jenssen, his eyes still closed, said, “Must be from watching it all these years.”

The stylist and the makeup team laughed like it was the most hilarious thing they had ever heard anyone say in that room. Jenssen opened his eyes and looked around as though he were being put on.

Gersten smiled to herself. For a while at least, everything The Six said and did was going to be amazing or hilarious or deeply wise.

Once they were miked, the group was led outside into the barricaded lane of Rockefeller Center for an outdoor segment. Except for Jenssen, who had never lived in the States, everyone was familiar with the out-of-town tourists waving hello to their friends and relatives back at home. This morning, many of the onlookers had brought handmade signs honoring their arrival, in anticipation of their well-hyped appearance.

GOD BLESS YOU! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

NEVER FORGET!

USA USA USA!

UNITED WE STAND!!

The plaza was shaded by surrounding buildings, but the heat was still an issue. In spite of it, some people had been camped out since before dawn. They went crazy when The Six emerged behind the assistant producer into the heat of the day. Flashbulbs and shouting. For a moment, Gersten expected someone to try to push through the plastic, police-style barricades.

That moment passed, but not the applause. The crowd was still into it even after Matt Lauer emerged and the red camera light went on. Seven director’s chairs were set up, though none sat in them. The excitement of the crowd disrupted the flow of the introductions, and the interview started with everyone on their feet. Lauer took them through the aborted hijacking once again, prodding them with questions to keep the narrative flowing, before following up with a softball for each of the heroes.

“Were you afraid?”

“Did you think before you acted?”

“Would you do it again?”

Then, in a surprise reunion brilliantly staged by the show’s producers, Scandinavian Air Flight 903’s pilot, Captain Elof Granberg, and copilot, Anders Bendiksen, were brought out to Maggie’s delighted squeal. They received tearful hugs and firm handshakes from The Six, moving right down the line. The pilots’ stories were briefly recounted, augmented with the flight recording of Granberg’s distress call. Then they too were prompted to add their own words to the chorus of praise.

The appearance fused the group yet again. Gersten detected a pattern of high and low, and briefly sympathized with the emotional roller coaster they were trapped on. The moments of genuine adulation were transfixing to watch, not only for Gersten but for the entire nation—and Gersten, close as she was to them, could only imagine what it was like to be its focus. In those few moments, the group set aside their individual characters and became the band of everyday citizen-heroes the viewing audience wanted them to be.

The sole note of discord came when Matt Lauer pointed out the fact that a member of the Secret Service was part of their entourage. “Are you ready to announce your candidacies for the U.S. Senate?” he joked.

Surprisingly, it was Jenssen who answered. “We are meeting President Obama later today,” said the Swede.

Matt Lauer said, “Is that the ceremony on the USS
Intrepid
?”

“Exactly.”

Gersten saw Harrelson bristle at this public release of information.

Matt Lauer said, “What is that like, to go from private citizens last week to meeting with the president today?”

The others were at a loss for words. Jenssen said, “It is quite an honor, though of course, it would have been nice to have a say in the matter.”

Matt Lauer picked up on this immediately. “Are you saying that you would prefer not to meet the president?”

“Not at all, not at all. But some of us relish our private lives and look forward to resuming them as soon as possible. We are being kept under watch at our hotel, believe it or not, except for appearances such as these. I am not an American citizen, but most of us are, and apparently even dutiful citizens—even ‘heroes’—are subject to detention.”

Matt Lauer crossed his arms, leaning forward for the kill. “You all are being held against your will?”

Colin Frank jumped in as though Jenssen were on fire and Frank held the only bucket of water. “No, no. It’s a unique circumstance, Matt. I think what my friend Magnus here is saying is that there are certain compulsory aspects to our current situation, which, I want to stress, we are willing and happy to comply with.” He then pulled it back with a smile. “It’s all so new to us. It’s been a wild ride, Matt.”

Gersten watched the mayor’s publicist look up at the sky as though praying for lightning—anything to change the topic. The woman reached for her phone before it could ring.

Matt Lauer ended the long segment with thanks to all, linking their brave feat to the anniversary of the country’s independence. The audience’s applause turned to sustained cheering, and Gersten watched a monitor as the shot was held for a long time. The cameras took in the crowd, finding tears, then came back to the group. Maggie Sullivan spontaneously grabbed Colin Frank’s hand, then Doug Aldrich’s, raising both in acknowledgment and appreciation. They bowed like members of a Broadway cast, the moment beaming out to a grateful nation.

The others joined the chain, even Magnus Jenssen, who moved around the group so he could lay his good hand on Alain Nouvian’s shoulder. The producers held the shot for more than a minute—in television, an eternity—before finally breaking for a commercial.