Manhattan Lockdown

CHAPTER NINE

FOR THIRTY VERY quiet seconds they watched the footage on the video screen placed in front of one of the blackboards in the classroom. Taken by CCTV cameras just fifteen minutes earlier, the scene showed the new World Trade Center Memorial, with walls of water smoothly cascading into the pool. Every five seconds the scene on the screen shifted to a view of the memorial from a different angle. They were essentially static images, even though they revealed a live scene, and they were remarkably clear; a high-definition image of the simple and elegant memorial. The tall walls of constantly cascading water shimmered in the sunlight over the smooth surfaces of dark marble.

And then the scene changed, drastically and horribly. The center of one of the walls exploded, and water and stone burst out, a spectacular sight, like a view of an exploding meteorite. One of the sentries near the top of the suddenly damaged wall stepped backward, completely stunned. He was a New York City police officer assigned to the terrorism unit. He was dressed in black and wore combat boots and a black helmet. Like the six other guards stationed at the memorial, he carried an M-16. Within two seconds it was clear that he was hurt and not just startled by the explosion that had shattered the silence. Mesmerized, Roland Fortune, Gina Carbone, and Harlan Lazarus stared as the screen revealed the sentry begin to stagger aimlessly and fold forward. The rifle fell from his hands. His body lurched toward the brink of the wall, and he fell into the pool.

“Jesus H. Fuckin’ Christ,” Gina hissed.

Then there was a second blast, powerful enough to raise a geyser of water from the center of the pool. Three of the guards dropped to their knees, their rifles raised to firing position. They each pivoted, scanning the suddenly dangerous buildings around them, looking for the source of the missiles that had inflicted such damage on this national memorial. They saw nothing on which to focus and no clear source of danger. They had the discipline of combat veterans and were not going to shoot their powerful weapons without having targets.

Then the scene shifted to another location. Gina Carbone and Roland Fortune instantly recognized the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, where for three hundred years Trinity Church had stood surrounded by its ancient graveyard. The intersection was four or five blocks east of the World Trade Center memorial site.

The CCTV footage showed two men in civilian clothes as they strode quickly, not quite running, into the desolate intersection. They were casually dressed. A lone cop in street uniform emerged from Rector Street, a narrow lane which formed the southern border of the church’s ancient burial grounds. He was surprised to see two men walking rapidly just thirty feet from him. The intersection was otherwise empty. For a moment he seemed uncertain, simply watching the two men move on to the deserted path of Wall Street toward the East River.

Almost in pantomime, the cop finally made a decision. Although the CCTV footage was silent, it was clear that he shouted something. The man closest to him immediately reached into his waistband and took out a pistol. The cop, who was young, was mesmerized. He stopped moving. The bullet hit him in the face. He fell backward from the force of the shot.

The CCTV footage ended.

Roland Fortune was not nearly as experienced with the reality and sight of violence as Gina Carbone. He was standing with her and Harlan Lazarus as the footage unfolded. They were in the midst of diminutive desks and chairs in the second grade classroom of PS 6. The sight of the officer, young, inept, inexperienced, unbelieving in that instant before he died, sickened Roland. He sat down on the desk nearest to him. He asked, “Where are those two guys?”

“We don’t know,” Gina said.

“Judge, what the fuck is happening?” Roland Fortune had a temper that rarely flared, but when it came, its intensity sharpened every feature of his face. It resembled the hateful glare of the street kids he grew up with in the Bronx. As a street fighter when he was a teenager, the ability to use his fists gave him credibility in the neighborhood and that credibility had protected him.

Harlan Lazarus, a former federal appeals judge who had left his life-tenure job to become the Secretary of Homeland Security, wasn’t used to people challenging him. His history as a Harvard Law School professor, a United States Attorney, a judge, and now a cabinet secretary had insulated him from other people’s anger and made him expect, and get, homage. He had spent a life surrounded by sycophants. He insisted on being addressed as “Judge.” He said, “Do you want to ask me that question again?”

“Sure. How is it that someone can take a shoulder-fired grenade and launch an attack on the World Trade Center Memorial?”

“Are you serious, Mr. Fortune?”

“Serious? What the hell are you doing? Where are your people? You know what I see? Our police helicopters, our cops, our boats, our guns. Our dead. What the hell are you up to? It’s been seven hours since this all started. How much time do you need?” He caught his breath. His voice rose, “Where the fuck are your people?”

Harlan Lazarus glared at Roland. He was entirely bald; he had one of those skull-like faces with no spare flesh, all bone; he was skinny and intense. “We have long-standing plans, Mr. Fortune, that are now being implemented all over the world.”

“And what the fuck does that mean? I have a thousand people dead before noon, and now an explosion in the most sacred place of my city, and at least two dead policemen. It’s nice to have you fly in from wherever you were, but I haven’t heard one useful word from you.”

“I don’t report to you, Mr. Fortune. You report to me.”

“Since when? Forget that pecking-order shit, Mr. Lazarus. I need information. I have millions of people who elected me to run this city. You’re lucky if you could get your wife to vote for you to clean the toilet. I’m the one guy people listen to. I’m the guy who has to talk to those people, make them comfortable, give them a sense of confidence. You scare the shit out of people.”

“You’re completely out of order.”

“Save that shit for the courtroom. I want to know where your people are and what they’re doing. I want to know if they have any information that this kind of thing is going to happen again.”

Lazarus’ security detail stepped closer to him, almost imperceptibly, drawn by Roland’s anger. Lazarus said, “We’re not aware of anything.”

Increasingly in pain, sweating in the hot classroom, Roland said, “That’s reassuring. You weren’t aware of anything half an hour ago, were you? Or at nine o’clock this morning.”

Lazarus was visibly trembling, enraged. “I think this little dialogue is over. There are things that we are doing.”

“Like what?”

“Mr. Fortune, they are things that are way above your security clearance.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

Lazarus’ stare conveyed nothing but contempt. “I’m about to let the president know that we have a rogue mayor.”

Roland had at least once a month been invited to play basketball with the president, a Rhodes scholar who after two years at Oxford had played for two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers before leaving for law school at Stanford. Roland had never seen Lazarus at any of those private games in the White House gym. “What is this, the eighth grade? Call him right now. Get him on the line.”

“You need another pain pill, Mr. Fortune.”

Harlan Lazarus turned away and left the classroom.

Into the silence that filled the room after the door slammed, Gina said, “Roland, we need his help.”

“Are we getting it? How often did he call you today?”

“Never.”

Roland was now touching his shoulder, as if the act of rubbing it would dissolve the pain. “Gina, I want you to find those two guys. Make arrests. Do you get that?”

Fifteen minutes later, Mohammad Alizadeh and Ali Hussein, two livery car drivers who had been parked since the first explosion in the chilly shadow under the elevated section of the FDR Drive at the eastern end of Wall Street, were thrown against their shabby Lincolns by heavily armed members of the counterterrorism squad of the NYPD.

Word of the arrests was sent as they were happening to Gina Carbone.

After listening quietly on her cell phone, she turned calmly to Roland. “We’ve got two arrests. They’re wearing what looks like the same clothes as two guys on the tape.”

Within ten minutes Roland Fortune was standing in front of PS 6. The Vicodin he had just taken was beginning to work its magic. The throbbing in his shoulder was muffled. He announced into the microphones arrayed in front of him, “A team of elite members of the New York City Police Department’s antiterrorism unit has just made arrests in connection with the murder of a New York City police officer near the World Trade Center Memorial. Let this be a signal that we will find, and quickly find, anyone who harms us. And that we will stop harm before it happens.”