Lockdown

Eighty-five

High above the Manhattan skyline, night-time and a set of rolling winter clouds rendered four Air Force F-15s invisible as they threw a wide loop around the island. Below, the skies were empty, save for the NYPD’s fleet of seven choppers which buzzed briskly around Midtown. All other commercial aircraft had been grounded, Kennedy closed; ditto La Guardia and Newark.

Beneath them, the chopper pilots could trace a red pulse of brake lights snaking along the full length of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Sitting next to the pilots, sharpshooters, ready to dispense retribution from on high, checked and re-cheked their weapons, waiting for the call.

The same red points could be glimpsed in the far distance on the Queensboro Bridge, and at the entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. On the other side of the island the traffic waiting to enter the Lincoln Tunnel seemed to back up all the way to some distant New Jersey exit ramp even Springsteen hadn’t heard of.

From up in the gods, the city seemed to be enjoying a sudden spike in popularity at the very moment it had finally maxed out its capacity to contain any more human beings. The sky, finally, appeared to have a limit.

Underground was a different reality. Four hundred passengers sat in the carriages of the A-Train, and didn’t move. Tense. Silent. Further down the track, people being ushered from the platforms and back out on to the street. Iron grilles being pulled across. The city’s veins snapping shut one by one.

It was the same story with the Holland Tunnel. Same story with every tunnel leading into the city. Car engines switched off. Angry drivers exchanging less than pleasantries with stony-faced cops.

‘I got my daughter to pick up from a party. She called an hour ago. She was crying.’

‘But my apartment’s flooded. The super called me. I’ve had to drive here all the way from Maine.’

‘What difference is it gonna make letting one car through, officer?’

Every plea, exhortation and bribe met with the same response. No dice. The city’s closed. No one’s getting in, and no one’s getting out.

Manhattan’s locked down.