Manhattan Lockdown

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE SUN RISING over the East River was always dazzling. Its rays appearing on the horizon sent spears of light that sparkled over the surface of the river. The Triboro Bridge’s outlines appeared for seconds to be on fire as the new sunlight flooded the river and the sky.

In a loose-fitting bathrobe, Roland stood behind the French doors that overlooked the flagstone terrace and the river. He was alone and knew this would be the only time during the long day when he would have complete privacy. The glare from the new sun and the river was almost blinding, as it often was at this time of the day. During the last three years he had repeatedly come to this terrace at dawn, dazzled not only by the light but by the exhilarating strangeness of his life, the change from the dirty and cracked streets of the South Bronx to this colonial mansion in a beautiful park on the river.

Roland was in yet another new world this morning, and it frightened him. He had slept for five hours, the painkillers not only easing the ache in his shoulder and back but putting him down to a deep level of sleep well beyond the realm of dreaming. But at the moment he woke, thoughts about the wounded city flooded his mind. He didn’t for a second think he had emerged from a nightmare in which the events of the last day were all make-believe. It also struck him at that moment of first alertness that he was completely unprepared for this, even though he had regularly met over the last three years with the odd people from Homeland Security to listen to disaster plans. They were like the Stepford Wives of the security world, that new, sprawling industry that, Roland often thought, manufactured fear, not security. They spoke in rapid rote about assets, security perimeters, insurgents, good guys, bad guys. They never varied from a script. They never fully grasped or responded to a question. The plans all seemed like the war games of young boys at play, except that many of those game players were girls, not just boys. And now reality presented something completely different.

On most early mornings, except on the coldest winter days, there were rowers in racing sculls moving steadily downriver and upriver. He was always fascinated by them. The rowers gathered in the predawn on the shores of the Spuyten Duyvil on the northern tip of Manhattan and were already on the river when dawn came. Where did that Spartan drive come from? He’d always admired people who took on things that were hard to do. The serious marathon runner, the long-distance swimmers, the people who worked sixteen-hour shifts in hospitals. He had heard an ultra-marathoner say in an interview, “I do this not because it’s fun but because it’s hard.”

There were no rowers on the river this morning. There were no barges bearing the city’s garbage. No tugboats, no pleasure craft. No ordinary river traffic at all. Just the brightly painted Coast Guard vessels bristling with spinning radar devices and black weaponry. Drab-green Army helicopters, drifting slowly, hovered over the water, lower than he ever imagined they could safely fly. He could feel the pulses from the rotors as they flashed like thousands of swords in the brilliant early light. For a moment he told himself that he would do what he had done at this moment every early morning for the last 365 days. He would walk into the bedroom where Sarah Gordan-Hewitt still slept, arouse her, make love to her, and then, utterly refreshed, go about his day.

But, as it suddenly overwhelmed him, she was dead. That sweet, fulfilling phase of his life was gone.

It was time now, he thought, to suit up and show up.

Just an hour after his time on the terrace, Roland was in an underground conference room at the disaster command center on West 14^th Street. There were twelve other people in the room, among them Gina Carbone and Al Ritter, who was Harlan Lazarus’ deputy director of Homeland Security, and Constance Garner, the regional director of the FBI. On a large video monitor suspended over the circular conference table appeared the secretary of defense, Roger Fitton, and, on the right side of the split screen, General Malcolm Foster, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who looked like a West Virginia coal miner suffering from black lung disease. He was in full dress uniform. Roland knew Roger Fitton, the defense secretary, a former senator from Montana who was only two years older than Roland and who sometimes played, and played well, in those once monthly, much coveted basketball matches in the White House gym.

Roland abruptly started the meeting. “I have to give a press conference at eight thirty this morning on where we stand at. People need information. So I need to know from you folks what developments there have been overnight, what the real risks are, what condition the city is in, when we can ease the lockdown, and what arrests have been made. I want facts, not fantasies. I like the way Commissioner Carbone handled this yesterday. Remember the old Jack Webb line? Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. I’m not going in front of the world with any bullshit.”

Always congenial, Roger Fitton, an inveterate politician, said, “And good morning to you, Mr. Mayor.”

Roland gave that engaging smile with which he’d been endowed, like a genetic birthright, in his early childhood. “Morning, Roger. Good to see you.” And Roland nodded at the general, who barely nodded in return.

“First,” Roland said, “let me hear about risk. Commissioner Carbone? Mr. Ritter? General? Who wants to go first?”

Gina said, “I will.” This didn’t surprise Roland. He had long ago detected her contempt for the federal agencies that were supposed to have expertise in defending the city. He once heard her say they were “space cadets.” She believed her more focused plans for detecting and deterring threats, dealing with actual crises, and finding and punishing the responsible people were far more effective than any confection that Homeland Security, Defense, the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA had put together. She relished the image of herself as the grunt besting all the West Point and Ivy League grads.

“Go ahead, Commissioner,” Roland said.

“The level of risk remains high. Forget color codes. We have identified people on the streets who are still out there with the capacity and the intention of doing more harm. I authorized six raids during the night, and they have yielded ten arrests. The raids were concentrated in the East Village, in what we call Alphabet City, Avenues A, B and C.”

Harlan Lazarus’ deputy, Al Ritter, asked, “Who was arrested?”

“Primarily Syrian and Sudanese Muslims.”

“Were any of them the names we gave you?” Ritter asked.

“No, those names were useless.”

“What do you mean?” Ritter looked hurt, not angry. Roland and Gina both recognized that he was a stalking horse for the haughty and offended Harlan Lazarus, who was said to be in Washington talking to the president. Roland knew that Lazarus, within minutes of angrily walking out of PS 6 the day before, had called the president to complain. Roland knew, too, that the president had told Lazarus to control himself.

“They were names, just that,” Gina answered. “There were no real people attached to them. Your people at Homeland Security didn’t even give us real addresses.”

“How so?”

“There is no such place as 374 Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem, just as a for instance. There is a Pleasant Avenue. Most Manhattanites don’t even know it’s there. It’s a short, almost anonymous street way over on the eastern edge of East Harlem. The street numbers don’t go that high.”

Roland said, “Fine, Commissioner, so you didn’t have to waste time tracking those names down.” He was intervening intentionally. He admired and respected Gina but knew she was territorial, sensitive, and intent on keeping the allegiances of the people who worked for her.

“What else?” Roland asked. “Are these people telling you anything?”

“We’ve only had them for three or four hours. We’re working on them.”

Constance Garner, an overweight, stern woman, said, “The FBI would like to help you with that. Nobody told us about this.”

“Sure,” Gina said, “we’ll work that out with you.”

Gina was willing to invite the FBI into the universally known prison on Rikers Island where the ten men were being held because they were not the men locked deep inside the pier on the East River. The inmates in the pier were, she was certain, the high-value men, secretly arrested and held in absolute isolation, and she wasn’t about to let anyone see or even know about them. They belonged to her.

“The men you just arrested: are there others like them still out there?” Roland asked.

“There are. We think there is a safe house on West 139^th Street where a group of men who pretend to be immigrant kitchen workers at exclusive hotels live and work together and have a special mission. I gave an order to take them down just as we were walking into this meeting. They’re under arrest now.”

General Foster’s scratchy voice broke out from the video screen. “Who are these people attached to?”

Gina said, “Not certain. There is the group People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad. They’re known as Boko Haram. The Nigerian terrorist group. They’ve been operating in Nigeria and North Africa for more than ten years. Very bad people. It might also be ISIS.”

Ritter said, “Can’t be either of them. They don’t have the capability of mounting large-scale attacks here. They’re too loose and decentralized.”

“Listen,” Roland said. “I don’t care whether they’re from Boko Haram or Procul Harum or whether they’re ISIS or Iggy Pop. What matters is what is happening right now. Mr. Ritter, what can I say at the press conference about what Homeland Security is doing?”

“We’re implementing the plans that have been in place for dealing with precisely this kind of attack.”

Roland paused, staring at Ritter and shaking his head almost imperceptibly, feigning irritated disbelief. “That’s really, really reassuring. I’m sure the entire population of the City of New York will breathe a collective sigh of relief to hear that. So let me ask again: What is Homeland Security doing right now?”

“We’re monitoring unusual communications from sources here in the city and elsewhere. We think we’re close to deciphering what appears to be a sophisticated method of transmitting messages.”

“And what are the results?”

“Nothing definitive yet.”

“Anything else? Where are your people?”

“We’re coordinating with the Army.”

The mayor said, “Monitoring, coordinating? All of that sounds pretty invisible, doesn’t it? We’re almost twenty-four hours into this. What you’re telling me sounds like the work of spooks chasing spooks, except that the spooks being chased have rifles, grenades, plans.” Looking up at the video screen, Roland was genuinely exasperated and making no effort to conceal it. “General, what are you doing?”

The hard-bitten general answered reluctantly, obviously annoyed that he had to respond to a question from a Puerto Rican with the strange name Roland Fortune. “There are troops and material support being assembled at Fort Dix.”

“Fort Dix is what, General, somewhere in New Jersey, about eighty miles from Manhattan?”

“Logistically, we had to locate and transport elements of the 25^th Infantry and 101^st Airborne from various other locations around the country. My troops and assets can’t be safely deployed without proper support.”

“I never had the honor of serving in the military, General, but frankly what you’ve just said does not make any sense. I don’t need tanks and cannons here. I need what you folks like to call boots-on-the-ground. So when do they get here? The reality is that the people who live here will only be made more comfortable if there are men and women in uniforms at every street corner.”

“That’s futile.”

“Is it? I don’t think so.”

“We also need approval from Secretary Lazarus,” the general said. “After 9/11 the watchword is coordination.”

“Mr. Ritter, you work for Lazarus. Can you tell me what the fuck is really going on?”

“We’ll have an answer soon. Secretary Lazarus is meeting with the president and his folks right now.”

Raising his hands in exasperation, Roland said, “This is all stunningly inept. It takes my breath away.”

Ritter and General Foster didn’t respond. Ritter glared at Roland as the general, almost without blinking, stared from his segment of the split screen. He looked like a photograph, not a man on a live feed.

Roland asked the secretary of defense, “Roger, do you have anything to say?”

“Sure. The general and Mr. Ritter are experts on military issues, but the president is the final decision-maker. As soon as this conference call is over, I’ll join a video conference with the president, Secretary Lazarus, and the general.”

“Commissioner Carbone,” Roland said, “do you have any reaction to what we’ve been hearing?”

“I have as many uniformed officers with as many M-16s on the streets as I can find, but it’s a thin net.”

“At least it’s something,” Roland said.

He turned to Hans Richter, an impeccably organized deputy mayor responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the Sanitation, Housing, and Health Departments. He was a fifty-five-year-old bachelor who always seemed to be in his office in the Municipal Building across Centre Street from City Hall. “Hans, what’s happening from your perspective?”

“Candidly, Mr. Mayor, Manhattan is in a steady state of collapse. Garbage is piling up on every street, normal ambulance service is almost nonexistent. We also have thousands of people who were in the city yesterday only for a day, visitors from the suburbs for the most part. They have no apartments or homes to return to.”

“Didn’t someone tell me that if we had a Code Apache situation there were shelters with food and other essentials where people could go?”

“We do. But they’re overflowing. There are six hundred cots set up in the Armory on Park Avenue, for example. They’re all occupied. But many of the other shelters are in neighborhoods that apparently don’t feel as safe to out-of-towners. So there are thousands of people who, for the first time in their lives, are living in the parks and streets. We are managing to provide food and water and some, but not enough, sanitation facilities.”

Increasingly in pain, suddenly focusing on the image in his mind of Sarah and the recollection of her scent, Roland recognized that his spirit was bruised. He worried that his mood was deflating. Everything seemed too immense and too complicated and too uncertain. He said, “What else, Hans?”

“Food supplies in the stores have virtually vanished. There’s been a rush for food, water, and other supplies that’s happened with a speed we didn’t anticipate. So we’re experiencing more and more pleas for food assistance.”

“This lockdown can’t last,” Roland said.

Hans Richter continued. “Even though this is not my area of expertise, I have to also say the financial markets in New York are closed. I’m no economist, God knows, but that’s spreading financial confusion around the world.”

Roger Fitton, a career politician who himself wanted to be president, spoke soothingly, “Roland, the president is aware of that. He’s the decision maker.”

“As in George W. Bush, I’m the decider?”

“I hope I’m going to recommend to him that the lockdown be gradually lifted today and tomorrow if the situation begins to stabilize.”

“I can’t have a city under siege. Even after the Paris attacks there were no sieges. Sieges cause fear, and fear will rapidly unravel the whole fabric of the city.”

From the back seat of the SUV racing from 14^th Street to City Hall, Roland saw empty streets that looked like cities in those Japanese-made horror movies from the 1950s in the grip of an invasion from space aliens. Although this was Manhattan on a bright Monday morning in June, there were very few people outside. There was virtually no traffic. The usual congestion of double-parked delivery trucks replenishing the city after a weekend was gone. Stores and diners were closed since they were places staffed mainly by people from the outer boroughs who hadn’t been able to cross the river into Manhattan. As the caravan of heavily guarded SUVs rushed down the old sections of lower Broadway, a squadron of fifteen bicyclists on sleek Italian machines and in skintight, gaudy clothing sped on the freshly painted bike lanes.

“I hope,” Roland said, “that the TV stations capture that. It might brighten things up more than I will.”

Irv Rothstein, on the rear-facing seat directly across from Roland, said, “Weave the bike riders into your speech. Something like these people are vital and undaunted.”

“Or maybe, Irv, they’re just crazy.”

Roland leaned forward to see the lead rider, a woman. Although all the riders had helmets and were thin and hard to differentiate, she had a special, powerful litheness. “By the way, Irv, is the doctor there yet? I want to talk to him before we go on the air.”

“Dr. Hauser?”

“The one who did all that work with the wounded people. As the kids would say, that was some brave shit.”

“He didn’t want to show up with you.”

“Did you scare him, Irv? Haven’t I told you to learn to make nice-nice?”

“No, I was smooth. He told me he was more interested in being a doctor than a celebrity.”

“Did you tell him he can raise the spirits of this city? We need at least one man in bright shining armor.”

“He was adamant. I asked if he’d speak to you.”

“Get him on the line for me. I’ll talk to him right now.”

Gina had sat quietly beside Roland since the convoy pulled out of the warehouse building where the command center was hidden. She held up her right hand. “Mayor, don’t do that.”

He turned to look at her. “We might have time to get him down here.”

“We don’t want him down here.”

“Come again?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

The convoy made the turn through the iron gates surrounding City Hall. Knowing that cameras were trained on him, Roland jumped athletically out of the back seat of the SUV as if on a campaign stop. He was smiling. But his movement triggered acute pain. He shook the hands of the police officers who were guarding the plaza in front of City Hall. He walked up to the microphones on the top step, looked out at the television cameras, and spoke.

After the press conference, the mayor, Irv Rothstein, and three other staff members, his political and campaign cadre, watched the replay of the press conference. Just as it was ending, Irv said, “You sure did good.”

Roland nodded. He had been well-prepared, not through the angry and discordant voices he had heard at the command center, but by his own half hour, in private, thinking about what he wanted to convey. And he could see in the video that, in fact, he’d succeeded in delivering that balance of reality and optimism he sought. The broadcasters who summarized the conference spoke about his reassurance, his message of sternness in hunting down the terrorists and preventing further attacks, the need for vigilance and calm, and the steady scaling back of the lockdown to begin to restore essential services.

“You did good,” Irv repeated.