F. Paul Wilson - Ground Zero

Jack took the on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge. Not far to Weezy’s house from here.

“How . . . ?”

“You’ll need to see to believe.”

Jack leaned back, wondering. Sometimes you had to see in order to believe, and sometimes you had to believe in order to see.

Which would this be?

24

“Max and Josef dead?” Ernst said. “Both of them?”

Szeto stood stiff and straight, almost at attention, on the far side of the office desk.

“Yes.”

This was terrible. They’d had her in hand. And now . . .

“How is that possible?”

Szeto shook his head. “I do not know. Is mystery for now. Security was there and then police come. I was prevented from scene. I stay as long as I dare, then I must leave.”

Anger quickly overwhelmed bafflement.

“What did she do? Grab one of their guns?”

“I do not know. Max’s weapon was missing. One of our brothers in NYPD tells me each shot twice—two kill shots each.”

“That sounds like she’s trained.”

“Very possible. We have investigated this Louise Myers. Very little is available about her. We know her husband is dead. We find much about him but almost nothing about her. That is suspicious. It means she has kept herself secret. Why do that unless she is hiding something?”

“Like past training?”

“Is possible she is intelligence operative. We had no idea. If Max and Josef did not suspect . . .”

Ernst reined in his fury. “They got careless. I’ll bet she grabbed Max’s gun. He’s done nothing right. He chased her into the path of a car. Then he lost track of her brother. And now he got himself and Josef killed.”

He saw Szeto’s lips tighten. “We do not know that.”

. . . possible she is intelligence operative . . .

If true, this was bad. It made eliminating her much more difficult.

“Who do you think she’s with? CIA?”

Szeto shrugged. “We do not know.”

“No.” Ernst let his voice rise, but not too much. No use letting any Kickers out in the hall know he was upset. “We don’t know much of anything, do we?”

“We know that Max and Josef had her and were transporting her to truck. We know both shot dead. We know truck taken. We do not know for sure she took it but we assume.”

“So if we find the truck, we find her. Are you looking for the truck?”

Szeto smiled. “No need. We know where is truck.”

“Explain.”

And he did.

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 unnoticed there for a while. He took the subway back to Jackson Heights and walked up from Roosevelt Avenue, picking up a six-pack of Yuengling lager along the way.

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 beginning?” Jack said.

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 skinny to the point of boyishness in high school.

“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 connection between his . . . death and what happened to you today?”

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 planning it for some time. I never had a clue. I still don’t have any idea why. I don’t think I ever will.” She shook her head. “But that’s not the story. The story is that as I skimmed a few of the sites I came across a photo of bin Laden and his top two deputies, al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef. Here. See for yourself.”

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 Connell memory hiccupped?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Not funny. I was worried it had.”

“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 beginning to see.”

“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 connection. Anyway, I bought a bunch of back issues from the immediate post–nine/eleven period and found it.”

“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.