The Death Instinct

Chapter Two

Younger, a man who had witnessed the bombardment at Chateau-Thierry, had never heard a detonation like it. It was literally deafening: immediately after the concussion, there was no sound in the world.

A blue-black cloud of iron and smoke, ominous and pulsing, filled the plaza. Nothing else was visible. There was no way to know what had happened to the human beings within.

From this heavy cloud burst an automobile — a taxicab. Not, however, on the street. The vehicle was airborne.

Younger, from his knees, saw the cab shoot from the cloud of smoke like a shell from a howitzer — and freeze, impossibly, in midair. For a single instant, in perfect silence, the vehicle was suspended twenty feet above the earth, immobile. Then its flight resumed, but slowly now, impossibly slowly, as if the explosion had drained not only sound from the world but speed as well. Everything Younger saw, he saw moving at a fraction of its true velocity. Overhead, the taxi tumbled end over end, gently, silently, aimed directly at Younger, Littlemore, and Colette, growing increasingly huge as it came.

Just then Littlemore and Colette were blown onto their backs by the concussive pressure from the blast. Only Younger, between them, who knew the burst of air pressure was coming and had braced himself for it, remained upright, watching the devastation unfold and the tumbling taxi descend upon them. Somewhere, as if from a distance, he heard Littlemore's voice yelling at him to get down, but Younger only cocked his head as the vehicle passed no more than a few inches above him. Behind him the taxi — without haste or sound — made a gentle landfall, skidding, flipping, embracing a metal lamppost, and bursting into flame.

Next, shrapnel. Iron fragments tore slowly through the air, leaving turbulent currents visible behind them, as if underwater. Younger saw the metal projectiles, red hot, softly destroying push carts, rippling human bodies with infinite patience. Knowing such things cannot be seen by the human eye, he saw them all.

The dark smoke cloud in the plaza was rising now, the color of thunder. It rose and rose, a hundred feet high, blooming and mushrooming as it ascended, blocking the sun. Fires burned inside it and at its edges.

Beneath the smoke, the street reappeared. Engulfed in darkness, though it was noon. And snowing. How snowing? The month, Younger asked himself, what month again?

Not snow: glass. Every window in every building was shattering up to twenty-five stories above, precipitating a snow shower of glass, in tiny bits and jagged shards. Falling softly on overturned cars. On little bundles of clay and flame, which had been men and women seconds before. On people still standing, whose clothing or hair was on fire, and on others, hundreds of others, struggling to get away, colliding, bleeding. Mouths open. Trying to scream, but mute. And barely moving: in the dream-like decelerated world that Younger saw, human motion was excruciating, as if shoes were glued to molten pavement.

All at once, the dense burning cloud overhead blew apart like an enormous firework. Dust and debris still occluded the air, but the glass storm ended. Sound and movement returned to the world.

As they got to their feet, Littlemore spat a broken toothpick out of his mouth, surveying the chaos. 'Can you help me, Doc?'

Younger nodded. He turned to Colette, a question in his eyes. She nodded as well. To Littlemore, Younger said, 'Let's go.'

The three thrust themselves into the stupefied crowd.

At the heart of the carnage, bodies lay everywhere, this way and that, without order or logic. Gritty dust and bits of smoldering paper wafted everywhere. People were streaming and stumbling out from the buildings, coughing, badly burned. From every direction came screams, cries for help and a strange hissing — super-heated metal beginning to cool.

'Jesus mother of Mary,' said Littlemore.

Younger crouched beside what looked like a young woman kneeling in prayer; a pair of scissors lay beside her. Younger tried to speak with her but failed. Colette cried out: the woman had no head.

Littlemore battled farther into the crowd, searching for something. Younger and Colette followed. Suddenly they came upon an open space, a vacant circle of pavement so hot that no one entered it. At their feet was a crater-like depression, fifteen feet in diameter, blackened, shiny, smoking, without crack or fissure. Part of a horse's torn-off cloven hoof was visible, its red-glowing shoe fused between two stones.

Doctor and detective looked at one another. Colette gripped Younger's arm. A pair of wild eyes stared up at her from the pavement: it was the severed head of the decapitated woman, lying in a pool not of blood but of red hair.

Far too many people were now packed into the plaza. Thousands were trying to flee, but thousands more were converging on Wall Street to see what had happened. Rumors of another explosion momentarily gripped a corner of the crowd on Nassau Street, causing a panic that trampled dead and wounded alike.

Littlemore climbed onto an overturned motorcar at the corner of Wall and Broad. This gave him a good four or five feet above the crowd surrounding the vehicle. He called out, asking for attention. He said the words police and captain over and over. The strength and clarity of his voice surprised Younger, but it was to no avail.

Littlemore fired his gun above his head. By the fifth shot, he had the crowd's attention. To Younger's eyes, the people looked more frightened than anything else. 'Listen to me,' shouted Littlemore after identifying himself once again, his voice reassuring in the midst of havoc. 'It's all over now. Do you hear me? It's all over. There's nothing to be afraid of. If you or someone you're with needs a doctor, stay put. I've got a doctor with me. We'll get you taken care of. Now, I want all the policemen here to come forward.'

There was no response.

Under his breath, Littlemore berated Captain Hamilton for ordering his officers on parade duty. 'All right,' he said out loud, 'what about soldiers? Any veterans here?'

'I served, Captain,' a youngster piped out.

'Good lad,' said Littlemore. 'Anybody else? If you served in the war, step forward.'

On all sides of Littlemore, the crowd rippled as men came forward.

'Give 'em room — step back if you didn't serve,' shouted Littlemore, atop his car. Then he added quietly, 'Well, I'll be.'

More than four hundred veterans were mustering to attention.

Littlemore called out to Younger: 'Could you use some men, Doc?'

'Twenty,' returned Younger. 'Thirty if you can spare them.'

Littlemore, commanding his companies, quickly restored order. He cleared the plaza and secured the perimeter, forming a wall of men with instructions to let people out but no gawkers in. Within minutes fire trucks and wagons from the Water Department began to arrive. Littlemore cleared a path for them. Flames were shooting out of windows fourteen stories overhead.

Next came the ambulances and police divisions — fifteen hundred officers in all. Littlemore stationed men at the entrances of every building. From an alleyway next to the Treasury Building, too narrow for the fire trucks, dark smoke poured out, together with the smell of burning wood and something fouler. Littlemore fought his way in, past a blown-out wrought-iron gate, ignoring the shouts of the firemen, looking for survivors. He didn't find any. Instead, in the thick smoke, he saw a great fiery mound of crackling wood. Everything metal pulsed scarlet: the iron gate, ripped from its hinges; a manhole cover; and the copper badge pinned to a corpse lying among the burning timber.

The corpse was a man's. Its right side was utterly unharmed. Its left was charred black, skinless, eyeless, smoldering.

Littlemore looked at the half-man's half-face. The one good eye and half a mouth were peaceful; they reminded him unaccountably of himself. The man's glowing badge indicated that he had been a Treasury officer. Something glinted and steamed in his incinerated hand: it was an ingot of gold, clutched by blackened and smoking fingers.

Younger used his squadron to take charge of the casualties, dead and alive. The walls of the Morgan Bank became his morgue. Younger had to tell the ex-soldiers not to pile the dead in a shapeless heap, but to line them up in even rows, dozen after dozen.

With supplies from a local pharmacy, Colette threw together a temporary dressing station and surgery inside Trinity Church. Shirtsleeves rolled, Younger did what he could, assisted both by Colette and a volunteer Red Cross nurse. He cleaned and stitched; set a bone or two; extracted metal — from one man's thigh, another's stomach.

'Look,' Colette said to Younger at one point, while helping him operate on a man whose bleeding the nurse had not been able to stop. She was referring to an indistinct motion beneath Younger's operating table. 'He's hurt.'

Younger glanced down. A bedraggled terrier, with a little gray beard, was wandering at their feet.

'Tell him to wait his turn like anybody else,' said Younger.

When Colette's silence became conspicuous, Younger looked up from his work: she was dressing the terrier's foreleg.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

Several hundred people sat or lay on the pews of Trinity Church, with blackened faces or bleeding limbs, waiting for an ambulance or medical attention. 'It will only take a minute,' said Colette.

It took five.

'There,' she said, turning the terrier loose. 'All done.'

In mid-afternoon, Littlemore sat at a long table erected in the middle of the plaza, the air still thick with dust and smoke, taking statements from eyewitnesses. Two of his uniformed officers — Stankiewicz and Roederheusen — interrupted him. 'Hey, Cap,' said the former, 'they won't let us into the Treasury.'

Littlemore had instructed his men to inspect the surrounding buildings for people too injured or too dead to get out. 'Who won't?' asked Littlemore.

'Army, sir,' answered Roederheusen, pointing to the Treasury Building, on the steps of which some two hundred armed United States infantrymen had taken up positions. Another company was advancing from the south with fixed bayonets, boots trooping rhythmically on the pavement of Wall Street.

The detective whistled. 'Where'd they come from?'

'Can they order us around, Cap?' asked Stankiewicz, demonstrating a grievance by tipping back the shiny visor of his cap and sticking his chin out.

'Stanky got in a fight, sir,' said Roederheusen.

'It wasn't my fault,' protested Stankiewicz. 'I told the colonel we had to inspect the buildings, and he says, "Step back, civilian," so I says, "Who you calling civilian — I'm NYPD," and he says, "I said step back, civilian, or I'll make you step back," and then this soldier pokes his bayonet right in my chest, so I go for my gun-'

'You did not,' said Littlemore. 'Tell me you didn't draw on a colonel in the United States army.'

'I didn't draw, Cap. I just kinda showed 'em the heater — pulled back my jacket, like you taught us to. Next thing I know, a half-dozen of them are all around me with their bayonets.'

'What happened?' asked Littlemore.

'They made Stanky get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, sir,' said Roederheusen. 'They took his gun.'

'For Pete's sake, Stanky,' said Littlemore. 'How about you, Lederhosen? They take your gun too?'

'It's Roederheusen, sir,' said Roederheusen.

'They took his too,' said Stankiewicz.

'And I didn't even do anything,' said Roederheusen.

Littlemore shook his head. He handed them a stack of blank index cards. 'I'll get your guns back later. Meantime here's what you do. We need a casualty list. I want a separate card for every person. Get names, ages, occupations, addresses, whatever you-'

'Littlemore?' shouted a man's authoritative voice from across the street. 'Come over here, Captain. I need to speak with you.'

The voice belonged to Richard Enright, Commissioner of the New York Police Department. Littlemore trotted across the street, joining a group of four older gentlemen on the sidewalk.

'Captain Littlemore, you know the Mayor, of course,' said Commissioner Enright, introducing Littlemore to John F. Hylan, Mayor of New York City. Hylan's straggly, oily hair was parted in the middle; his small eyes bespoke considerable distress but no great intellectual ability. The Commissioner presented Littlemore to the other two men as well: 'This is Mr McAdoo, who will be reporting to President Wilson in Washington, and this is Mr Lamont, of J. P. Morgan and Company. Are you sure you're all right, Lamont?'

'The window shattered right in front of us,' answered that gentleman, a diminutive well-dressed man with a nasty cut on one arm and a staggered, uncomprehending expression on his otherwise bland face. 'We might have been killed. How could this happen?'

'What did happen?' Mayor Hylan asked Littlemore.

'Don't know yet, sir,' said Littlemore. 'Working on it.'

'What are we going to do about Constitution Day?' whispered the Mayor anxiously.

'Tomorrow is September seventeenth, Littlemore — Constitution Day,' said Commissioner Enright. The Commissioner was a man of imposing and appealing girth, with abundant waves of gray hair and unexpectedly sensitive eyes. 'The celebrations were to take place right here tomorrow morning, in front of the Exchange. Mayor Hylan wants to know if the plaza will be ready by then.'

'She'll be clear by eight this evening,' said Littlemore.

'There you are, Hylan,' replied Enright. 'I told you Littlemore would get the job done. You can hold the celebration or not, just as you wish.'

'Will it be safe — safe for a large gathering?' asked the Mayor.

'I can't guarantee that, sir,' said Littlemore. 'You can never guarantee safety with a big crowd.'

'I just don't know,' replied Mayor Hylan, wringing his hands. 'Will we look foolish if we cancel? Or more foolish if we proceed?'

McAdoo answered: 'I haven't reached the President yet, but I've spoken at length with Attorney General Palmer, and he urges you to carry on. Speeches should be given, citizens should assemble — the larger the assembly, the better. Palmer says we must show no fear.'

'Fear?' asked Hylan fearfully. 'Of what?'

'Anarchists, obviously,' said McAdoo. 'But which anarchists? That's the question.'

'Let's not jump to conclusions,' said Enright.

'Palmer will give a speech himself,' said McAdoo, a handsome, slender, tight-lipped man with a fine strong nose and hair still black despite his age, 'if he arrives in time.'

'General Palmer's coming to New York?' asked Littlemore.

'I expect he'll want to head the investigation,' said McAdoo.

'Not my investigation,' said Commissioner Enright.

'There can be only one investigation,' said McAdoo.

'If we're having a big event here tomorrow morning, Mr Enright,' said Littlemore, 'we'll need extra men on the street. Three or four hundred.'

'Why — is there going to be another explosion?' exclaimed the alarmed Mayor.

'Calm down, Hylan,' said Enright. 'Someone will hear you.'

'Just a precaution, Mr Mayor,' said Littlemore. 'We don't want a riot.'

'Four hundred extra men?' said Mayor Hylan incredulously. 'At time and a half for overtime? Where's the money going to come from?'

'Don't worry about the money,' said Lamont, pulling himself to his full diminutive height. 'The J. P. Morgan Company will pay for it. We must all go about our business. We can't have the world thinking Wall Street isn't safe. It would be a disaster.'

'What do you call this?' asked Hylan, gesturing around them.

'How are your people, Lamont?' said Enright. 'How many did you lose?'

'I don't know yet,' said Lamont grimly. 'Junius — J.P. Jr's son — was right in the way of it.'

'He wasn't killed, was he?' asked Enright.

'No, but his face was a bleeding mess. There's only one thing I know for certain: the Morgan Bank will open for business as usual tomorrow morning at eight o'clock sharp.'

Commissioner Enright nodded. 'There we are then,' he said. 'Business is usual. That will be all, Captain Littlemore.'

When Littlemore returned to the table where his men were interviewing witnesses, Stankiewicz was waiting for him with a businessman who was sweating profusely. 'Hey, Cap,' said Stankiewicz, 'you better talk to this guy. He says he has evidence.'

'I swear to you I didn't know,' said the businessman anxiously. 'I thought it was a joke.'

'What's he talking about, Stanky?' Littlemore asked.

'This, sir,' said Stankiewicz, handing Littlemore a postcard bearing a Toronto postmark, dated September 11,1920, and addressed to George

F. Ketledge at 2 Broadway, New York, New York. The postcard bore a short message:

Greetings:

Get out of Wall Street as soon as the gong strikes at 3 o'clock Wednesday, the fifteenth. Good luck,

Ed

'You're Ketledge?' Littlemore asked the businessman. 'That's right.'

'When'd you get this?' asked Littlemore.

'Yesterday morning, the fifteenth. I never imagined it was serious.' 'Who's Ed?'

'Edwin Fischer,' said Ketledge. 'Old friend. Employee of the French High Commission.' 'What's that?'

'I'm not entirely certain. It's at 65 Broadway, just a block from my offices. Have I committed a crime?'

'No,' answered Littlemore. 'But you're staying here to give these officers a full statement. Boys, I'm taking a quick trip to 65 Broadway. Say, Ketledge, they speak English at this French Commission?' 'I'm sure I don't know,' said Ketledge.

Several hours having passed, Colette announced to Younger that they were almost out of bandages. 'We're running out of antiseptic too. I'll go to the pharmacy.'

'You don't know the way,' said Younger.

'We're not in the trenches anymore, Stratham. I can ask. I have to find a telephone anyway to call Luc. He'll be worried.' 'All right — take my wallet,' Younger replied.

She kissed him on the cheek, then stopped: 'You remember what you said?'

He did: 'That there was no war in America.'

At the foot of the steps she ran into Littlemore. The detective called up to Younger, 'Mind if I borrow the Miss for a half-hour, Doc?'

'Go ahead. But come up here, would you?' said Younger, bent over a patient.

'What is it?' asked the detective, ascending the steps.

'I think I saw something, Littlemore,' said Younger without interrupting his work. 'Nurse, my forehead.'

The nurse wiped Younger's brow; her cloth came off soaked and red.

'That your blood, Doc?' asked Littlemore.

'No,' said Younger untruthfully. Apparently he'd been grazed by a piece of shrapnel when the bomb went off. 'It was just after the blast. Something out of place.'

'What?'

'I don't know. But I think it's important.'

Littlemore waited for Younger to elaborate, but nothing followed. ' That's real helpful, Doc,' said the detective. 'Keep it coming.'

Littlemore trotted back down the stairs, shaking his head, and led Colette away. Younger shook his too, but for a different reason. He could not rid himself of the sensation of being unable to recall something. It was almost there, at the edges of his memory: a fog or storm, a blackboard — a blackboard? — and someone standing in front of it, writing on it, but not with chalk. With a rifle?

'Shouldn't you take a rest, Doctor?' the nurse asked. 'You haven't stopped for even a sip of water.'

'If there's water to spare,' said Younger, 'use it to wash this floor.'

The bells of Trinity Church had tolled seven when Younger finished. The wounded were gone, his nurse gone, the terrier with the little gray beard gone, the dead gone.

The summer evening was incongruously pleasant. A few policemen still collected debris, placing it in numbered canvas bags, but Wall Street was nearly empty. Younger saw Littlemore approaching, covered in dust. Younger’s own shirt and trousers were soaked with blood, browned and caked. He patted his pockets for a cigarette and touched his head above the right ear; his fingertips came away red.

'You don't look so good,' said Littlemore, looking in through the doorway.

'I'm fine,' Younger replied. 'Might have been finer if you hadn't deprived me of my assistant medical officer. You said you only needed her for half an hour.'

'Colette?' asked Littlemore. 'I did.'

'You did what?'

'I brought her back after half an hour. She was going to a drugstore.'

Neither man spoke.

'Where's a telephone?' Younger asked. 'I'll try the hotel.'

Inside the Stock Exchange, Younger called the Commodore Hotel. Miss Rousseau, he was informed, had not been back since the early morning. Younger asked to be put through to her room, to speak with her brother.

'I'm sorry, Dr Younger,' said the receptionist, 'but he hasn't come back either.'

'The boy went out?' asked Younger. 'By himself?'

'By himself?' said the receptionist in a peculiar voice.

'Yes — did he go out by himself?' asked Younger, irritation rising along with concern.

'No, sir. You were with him.'