State of Siege

SEVEN

Traffic in Times Square is extremely dense after seven P.M. on Saturday night as theatergoers arrive from out of town. Limousines clog the side streets, garages have cars lined up waiting to get in, and cabs and buses inch through the center of the theater district.

Georgiev had allowed for the delay when he planned this part of the operation. When he finally turned east on Forty-second Street and rolled toward Bryant Park, he was relaxed and confident. So were the other members of the team. But then, if he hadn’t served with them, seen that they were cool under pressure, he never would have recruited them for this mission.

Apart from Reynold Downer, the forty-eight-year-old former colonel of the Bulgarian People’s Army was the only truly mercenary man on the team. Barone wanted money to help his people back home. Sazanka and Vandal had issues of honor dating back to World War II. Issues that money would clear away. Georgiev had a different problem. He’d spent nearly ten years as part of the CIA-financed underground in Bulgaria. He’d fought the Communists for so long that he couldn’t adapt to an era that had no enemy. He had no trade apart from soldiering, the army was not paying its people with regularity, and he was much poorer now than he’d been taking American dollars and living under the shadow of the Soviet empire. He wanted to open a new business: financing petroleum and natural gas exploitation. He would do that with his share of the take from today’s mission.

Because of Georgiev’s familiarity with CIA tactics and his fluency in American English, the others had no trouble with him leading this half of the operation. Besides, as he’d proven when he organized the prostitution ring in Cambodia, he was a natural leader.

Georgiev drove slowly, carefully. He watched out for jaywalking pedestrians. He didn’t tailgate. He didn’t shout at taxi drivers who cut him off. He didn’t do anything that would cause him to be stopped by the police. It was ironic. He was about to commit an act of destruction and murder that the world would not soon forget. Yet here he was, the model of tranquil, lawful motoring. There was a time, growing up, when Georgiev wanted to be a philosopher. Maybe when all of this was over, he would finally get to take that up. Contrasts fascinated him.

When he had driven this route the day before, he noticed a traffic camera on a streetlight at the southwest corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. The camera faced north. There was another on Forty-second Street and Third Avenue facing south. Vandal, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, and Georgiev both adjusted their sun visors to cover those windows. They’d be wearing ski masks when they went into the UN. The NYPD would probably review all the cameras in the area, and he didn’t want anyone to have a photographic record of who was in the van. The traffic cameras would tell them nothing. And while police might find a few tourists who had videotaped the van, Georgiev had intentionally approached the target from the setting sun. All any videotape would see was glare off the windshield. God bless the things he’d learned from the CIA.

They passed the New York Public Library, Grand Central Station, and the Chrysler Building. They reached First Avenue without incident. Georgiev timed his approach so they’d stop at the light. He’d made sure he was in the right-hand lane. When they made the left turn, he would be on the same side of the street as the United Nations, on the right. He glanced toward the north. The target area was just two blocks away. Almost straight ahead was the Secretariat Building, set back behind a circular courtyard and a fountain. A seven-foot-high iron fence fronted the complex for its four-block length. There were three guard booths spaced along the gates, behind them. NYPD officers patrolled the street. Across First Avenue, on the corner of Forty-fifth Street, was an NYPD command booth.

He had reconnoitered all of this the day before. And he’d studied photographs and videotape he’d taken months before that. He knew this area completely, from the location of every streetlight to every fire hydrant.

Georgiev waited until the DON’T WALK sign began flashing to his left. That meant they had six seconds until the light changed. Georgiev’s black ski mask was tucked between his legs. He pulled it out and slipped it on. The other men did likewise. They were already wearing thin white gloves so they wouldn’t leave fingerprints but could still handle their weapons.

The light turned.

So did Georgiev.