A friend, when questioned, said, “Mark’s a great guy. We used to go have a few beers, shoot pool, or go biking. Then, a few years ago, he got super busy. Guess his business picked up. I gave up calling him.”
It was the same story with other friends, but, if Jim’s memory was accurate, Taylor’s business, while growing and successful, hadn’t taken a huge jump that would explain the sudden inability to see old friends. Was he too busy because he had other duties?
Jim tapped a pen on the yellow legal pad at his elbow. Notes in his precise hand filled the top half of the paper. Taylor’s file lay open, individual reports spread out over his desk. He re-read the transcript of Mohommad Aziz’s interrogations. The guy had really done a number on Mark Taylor. The man had told his team of interrogators that Taylor had volunteered to take photos of Chicago skyscrapers and the Chicago Board of Trade as possible targets. Details were sketchier than Jim would have liked. When asked why Taylor would do something like that, as there was no documentation that Taylor had ever been a sympathizer, Aziz had said it was greed and that Taylor had demanded fifty-thousand dollars for his photos.
Jim set aside the transcript and pulled out Taylor’s financial records. His debt had been moderate, a car loan and a small business loan, both in good standing with regular payments. The photographer had paid the appropriate taxes on his business, and his spending matched his reported income, with a modest amount set aside in stocks and savings.
There were no big purchases, no large deposits, and no transfers of money. In short, no red flags. If he had been paid fifty thousand dollars, he hadn’t spent any of it. Jim scratched his neck. Maybe Taylor buried it all in a trunk in his backyard.
Buried beneath the financial records was the very odd file that the Chicago police had on Taylor. It contained six reports of Taylor being caught in dangerous situations, but what was strange was he had been cleared of any wrong doing in every instance. In fact, he had played a key factor in most of the situations coming out better than they could have. Better than they should have.
In one case, a car with two children inside had begun rolling down an embankment and ended up in a pond. Luckily for the kids, Taylor had been able to open the door and reach in and pull both kids out, tossing them onto a grassy embankment. The car had gone twenty feet into the pond and sank in deep, murky water. The kids would surely have drowned. Taylor had been mildly injured when his jacket caught on the door latch and he had been dragged. The car hit a bump, according to Taylor’s statement in the report, and his jacket had ripped free.
Jim set the report down. Four others had similar outcomes, but the fifth one was different. It’s the one that intrigued him. In that case, Taylor had been shot while attacking an undercover police officer. Oddly, it wasn’t the officer who shot him, but instead, a member of the street gang the officer had been trying obtain evidence on. Taylor’s attack had saved the officer from being hit. Taylor hadn’t been so lucky and had been shot in the left thigh.
So, why was a clean-cut guy like Taylor hanging out on street corners in a drug-infested neighborhood? Jim wondered if he had been there trying to make a buy, but no reports listed him as a drug user and his drug screen upon arrest had come back negative. None of Taylor’s friends or acquaintances mentioned drugs when they had been interviewed. Besides, he’d come across many addicts in his career and nothing in Taylor’s behavior even hinted that the man was a user.
Tossing his pen down, Jim sat back, his hands clasped behind his head. It just didn’t add up. What would make this guy join up with a terrorist group? His parents were middle America and raised their son in a loving and supportive home. They were practically a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. Neighbors remembered Taylor as the kid who was first to knock on their door to shovel after a snowstorm, or playing baseball in the corner lot with the other boys. The most trouble he had been in was when he had been caught smoking a joint behind a neighbor’s garage when he was fifteen.
He skimmed the transcript from the half dozen phone calls Taylor had made to various government agencies on the day of the attacks. At the bottom of the page was a reference number for the audio recordings. They hadn’t listened to the actual calls that Taylor had made as they had read the transcripts, but now Jim was curious. He called his secretary and requested that she get a copy of the tapes.
It would take awhile before the tapes would arrive, so he took a quick break to get some fresh coffee. Taking a sip, he settled at his desk once again. According to the file, Taylor had a girlfriend…a detective with the Chicago PD. That was an interesting tidbit. The notation said that they appeared to have only been together a short while. Most of his friends had drifted away in the last few years. Jim rifled through the papers to find a brief interview he recalled reading.
He sat forward and sorted through the file. Damn. There wasn’t much. Just the few sketchy police reports he’d already gone over. He checked to see who had filed them. He recognized one. Where had he seen that name recently? Detective Jessica Bishop. He snapped his fingers. Wasn’t that the name of the woman Taylor was dating at the time of his arrest? Interesting. He rubbed his chin, trying to remember the approximate date Taylor had begun dating her. He was sure it had been shortly before Taylor’s arrest.
Jim noted the names and details on a legal pad. He intended to investigate the Bishop angle more closely. He sorted the papers and found the interview he was looking for. It had been filed under the personal contacts since Bishop had been the girlfriend. He skimmed the transcript, and scowled. The officer, Sean Daly, who’d done the interview, was either having a bad day or was lazy beyond belief. He should have pushed harder on the fact that a police detective had a relationship with someone giving tips on crimes. Daly should have pounced with follow-up questions.
The reports needed fleshing out and he decided that he needed to do it himself. He glanced out the window and pulled his shirt away from his body. It would be nice to get out of the humidity. The air barely moved outside his window, and even in the air conditioned building, his shirt stuck to him. He grinned. Chicago shouldn’t be too brutal in September.
His mind still entertaining the idea of Chicago, he shuffled the documents back into the stiff expandable file and moved to the row of tall cabinets lining one wall of his office. There was a short knock on his door, and his secretary stepped in.
“Here are the tapes you requested.”
“Wow, that was fast.”
She held out a bundle of tapes held in a stack by rubber bands. “I have connections.”
Jim took the tapes from her and smiled. “Thanks.” After she left, he took the tapes back to his desk, he found his cassette player and slid in the first tape. He had read the transcripts from these tapes several times before, but that wasn’t why he had requested them. He wanted to hear how Taylor sounded.
An hour later, Jim scrubbed his hands down his face and scratched his head with both hands. He was no closer to deciding what to do with his prisoner. It would have been so much easier if Taylor had sounded calm, but Jim had detected a note of restrained panic in the first calls. In later tapes, he’d been not just panicked, but frustrated and angry. The last tape was different. Recorded at 0743 Central time, Taylor sounded defeated, his voice thick. Was he crying? Either the man was a hell of an actor, or he had truly been distraught. Jim replayed that last tape. Taylor’s voice filled the office.
“Please, you have to put me through to someone in charge. There’s not much time left. Oh, God. Please.”
“I’m sorry sir, I need to ask a few questions first.”
“Goddamn it, there’s no time for questions…time…oh, shit…what time is it?”
There was a short silence and then a sharp thump. Jim leaned in, his ear turned towards the machine. What had he done? Dropped the phone? There was a muffled scrape Jim closed his eyes, picturing the scene in his mind. Fear was etched on Taylor’s face and tension in his movements. Jim shook his head and snapped his eyes open. He was probably just superimposing the familiar expressions he’d inspired when questioning Taylor. That’s all it was.
Taylor choked out, “Never mind. It’s too late.”
The tape ended at 0744. One minute before the first plane had hit.
Jim stabbed a finger down on the eject button. The evidence was impossible to ignore. Even if Taylor knew the exact timetable of the plan, there was no way he’d have known exactly when the first plane would hit. There were too many variables. The terrorist pilots could have made their move sooner or later, there could have been a delay due to fighting, as happened on Flight 93 that went down in Pennsylvania. Even the wind could have been a factor. So, how had he known that by 0744, it was too late? Unless he knew that only a minute later, the first plane would hit.
How had he missed that the first ten times through the transcripts? Jim picked the phone up and called to his administrative assistant. “Jill, could you book me on a flight to Chicago?” Glancing at his calendar, he nodded. “Next Wednesday would be fine.”
He sat as straight as the shackles allowed. Across the table, Jim sorted through Mark’s file. At least, Mark assumed it was his file. What was the guy up to? And where were the others? As horrible as interrogations were, at least he knew what to expect. This change in procedure smacked of some kind trickery. The guards were ever present, but stood by the door instead of right beside Mark. For the first ten minutes, Jim had ignored him, looking at him briefly when he had first arrived, and then checked his watch every few minutes. Mark shifted in the chair. What was he waiting for? Were the others late? But why were there no other chairs?
Mark jumped when there was a knock on the door, and right on cue, his heart began pounding. He knew better than to turn to see who had entered. He couldn’t help himself, he prayed it wasn’t a doctor.
Jim smiled and motioned for someone to enter. “Bring it in. Thanks.”
Before Mark could get over his shock at seeing the other man flash a genuine smile, a woman strode past, giving Mark a wide berth and avoiding eye contact. She carried a white paper bag in one hand and a drink holder in the other. The two soft drinks sloshed as she set it down along with the bag. “There’s extra ketchup, mustard and salt.”
“Great. I appreciate it.” Jim dug into his pocket and handed the woman some cash. “That should cover it.”
Mark was torn between wanting to look at the woman-the first he had seen in months, or the bag, whose scent told him what it contained. The woman ignored him and left the room. That left him no choice, but it didn’t make it any easier. He swallowed hard and studied the floor. It was the safest choice.
At the crinkle of paper, Mark raised his head. Jim dug into the bag and pulled out two large sandwiches. He pushed one in front of Mark. “I think it has the works.”
Mark recoiled. What was the guy up to?
Jim frowned as he began unwrapping his own sandwich. “It’s okay. You can have it.”
The smell filled the air, and he hoped he wasn’t drooling, but he didn’t touch the food-not even when a container of fries joined the burger on the table in front of him. For all he knew, it was poisoned. More likely, it was a trick and the second he put it to his mouth, Jim would order him to drop it.
Mark remembered a dog he’d had as a kid that would sit with a treat balanced on its nose, waiting eagerly for permission to flip the morsel up and snatch it out of the air. Mark now knew how that dog had felt. It made him ashamed of teaching his pet that ‘trick’. Now it seemed cruel. He studied his shackled hands clasped in his lap. Even if he dared to eat the burger, he couldn’t reach it anyway. There wasn’t enough slack in the chains.
“Eat the damn burger.” Jim set his own lunch down, and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I’m trying to do something nice here.”
Mark darted a look at him. “Why?” His voice was hoarse from disuse, and he cleared his throat. There had to be an ulterior motive. Jim’s face hardened and Mark raised his chin a notch. This was the man he knew. He could handle this.
For a long moment, their eyes clashed and Mark felt a thrill of triumph when Jim looked away first and shook his head. “Fine, eat it or not. I don’t care.” Jim took a bite of his burger and Mark turned his head, the sight of the food making him light-headed.
The thrill of winning died in the next few minutes as he remained at the table, hearing the crunch of the lettuce, smelling the charcoal-grilled meat and the aroma of French fries. What had he won? Nothing. Mark took a deep breath. “I…uh…I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know what you want from me.”
Jim sighed and dropped the fry he held. “I just thought it would be something special for your birthday. We’re not heartless here.”
Shocked, Mark stared at Jim. “It’s my birthday?” It was September eighth? He had been here only ten months?
He was thirty-six years old. Were his parents thinking of him today? Or did they think him a terrorist? Last year, he had spent the day at a Cub’s game. The sun had been hot, the beer cold, and the home team even won the game. He closed his eyes, picturing the deep green ivy covered walls, the emerald diamond and the flags on the center-field scoreboard blowing straight out. Towering above the team flags had been the American flag. He opened his eyes and blinked hard.
“You didn’t know?”
Mark shook his head. How could he have known? It wasn’t like he had a calendar tacked to the wall of his cell.
“Well…shit. Yes, it’s your birthday.” Jim waved to the food in front of Mark. “ So eat up. It’s not poisoned.”
“I can’t…sir.”
“Why the hell not?” The irritation was back in his voice and he gave Mark a sharp look.
Mark bit back a sarcastic reply. This was probably just another way to to torment him. He lifted his hands as far as they would go. If he stretched, he could just touch the edge of the sandwich.
Jim’s face flushed. “Oh.” He called a guard over and instructed him to detach the shackles from the waist chain.
The other man’s embarrassment surprised him, but he didn’t dwell on it. He allowed himself to breathe in the scent of the burger, letting it fill his nose and make his mouth water. Then he took a bite, closing his eyes and savoring the taste and texture. The sauce mixed with the crisp lettuce and tomato and complemented the hot and juicy burger. Pure heaven.
He washed it down with an ice cold soft drink. It made him think of all the times he had eaten this exact same meal. Usually he was with a friend for lunch or late in the evening after a long photo shoot. It was normal. Ordinary. So ordinary, it made his throat tighten and he had to take another long gulp of the soft drink to get the food down. What he missed most was normal life.
Half-way through the meal, it hit him that when he finished eating, he would go back to his cell. Back to his surreal life in a nine-by-six room with white cinder block walls. This meal- this taste of his usual life-it was just a brief interlude. Nothing more. His hands shook and his stomach churned. No longer hungry, Mark set the half-eaten sandwich down.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?” Jim balled up his wrapper and stuffed it in the bag. He tried to quell his anger. Jim probably hadn’t meant to be cruel, but that only made it harder. Mark took a deep breath. “I liked it fine, sir.” For the first time, he lied to the other man. “Thank you. I appreciate the meal.” He touched his stomach. “I’m full, that’s all.” A wave of nausea ripped through him and he prayed he would make it back to his cell before the food came back up.