“I guarantee the FBI will try to hinder us. Some of the NYPD Intel detectives say that the FBI stands for Forever Being Indecisive. But sometimes they’re useful.”
“Agent Santos did not seem interested in some of my suggestions.”
“Such as?”
“Reaching out to Russian immigrants who have an excellent communications network. I’m also looking into the word hawqala, to see if it has been used in the past. It seems like an unusual change of pace for someone delivering a message from a jihadist organization. Perhaps this will be a link we need to find and destroy a significant terror group.”
We sat in silence for a few moments and then I said, “Do you have some personal beef with terrorists, or are you just focused on this asshole?”
“Russia has seen many more attacks than the US. Some are more public than others. It’s a scourge that we would like to see neutralized. If it takes a little effort on our part to teach our friends in the United States how to best deal with extremist groups, then I am all for it.”
“Let’s hope we don’t disappoint you.”
She smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Everyone disappoints me.”
All I could say was, “Hard-line. I like it.”
Chapter 12
Less than an hour after our first briefing, I found myself playing chauffeur to my Russian liaison, Darya Kuznetsova. She apparently had less use for bureaucracy than me. When Dan Santos said he had to go talk to his bosses and directed us to either sit tight or grab something to eat, Darya said, “I’m going to talk to some Russian speakers who might help us. Do you care to be part of such a conspiracy?”
Not only did she have the right idea, she worded the question perfectly. Next thing I knew, we were driving through Brooklyn on our way to Midwood. There were a lot of Russian immigrants from Midwood all the way to Brighton Beach, but I wasn’t sure what information they could offer us.
As we were driving on the Ocean Parkway through Flatbush on our way to Midwood, Darya said, “These are ethnic Russians who lived in Kazakhstan. I don’t want to explain why an NYPD detective is with me. Don’t show your badge. I’ll try to speak in English, but if we speak Russian, just smile and nod.”
“Did you just tell me to be quiet and look pretty?” That got the laugh I intended.
“I hope that brain of yours is as sharp when we have to act quickly. I don’t have a great deal of faith in your FBI.”
“With an attitude like that you could be an American cop. We hate the FBI, too.”
“I’m not a cop.”
I didn’t know exactly what Darya was, but I didn’t get a chance to follow up, because we had arrived at our destination.
The first people we talked to were an elderly couple who lived on the first floor of a five-story walk-up. The man said virtually nothing but glared at me like I had stolen something from his bedroom. His giant, bald head reminded me of a pale watermelon.
The little knickknacks around the apartment could’ve been from any grandmother in the world. I liked a figurine of a burly man in a fur hat driving a wagon with an ox pulling it. It shouted “Russia.”
The woman was better dressed than the man and evidently took care of herself. She agreed to speak English with Darya, and while she had a thick accent, I could still understand her.
Darya told me in a low voice as we walked through the apartment that the man still had ties to Kazakhstan and Russia. That was one of the reasons she didn’t want to bring the FBI along with us. They just wouldn’t understand.
She was also afraid the FBI would use heavy-handed tactics and threaten these people with everything from arrest to deportation—and ruin any chance of getting useful information.
The woman said, “Living in Kazakhstan can be hard in the best of times. We went with a program to work as teachers at a school for Russian children. The climate is better than Moscow, but as we got older, it was still tough on our bodies. We had a chance to follow our oldest son here and have been quite happy for the past nine years.”
Darya said, “Do you talk to others in the Kazakh community?”
“Of course. Every day.”
I followed the conversation, but the woman’s accent was sometimes tough to understand. I liked the way Darya showed her respect as if she were a daughter visiting a grandmother. The old man just stared on in silence.
Finally, Darya got to the meat of our questions. “Have you heard anyone talk about the attack yesterday?”
“Some. Mostly people just repeating things from the news.”
I had considered this question and thought this would be a critical juncture in any interview. Do we reveal the fact that we think the driver was from Kazakhstan? It might make people pay attention.