by Dion Baia
The men fired off a round before jumping into their Ford Coupe and screeching off after the detective. The sentry in the passenger seat opened his door and positioned a foot on the running board. He stood ready to fire at Morris’s car whenever it came into view.
Morris had gained some distance between himself and his pursuers. Also because of the curves in the road and the heavy tree line that sheltered the driveway, the gap was so great that the other car didn’t even have his Lincoln within sight. His vehicle gained momentum as it descended down the road, and it took all of his might to hold the wheel and keep it on track at the current speed he was driving.
When he turned the final corner on the home stretch, he spotted a mid-thirties Chevrolet pickup truck being moved out to block the exit. Morris slammed on the brakes, stuck his .45 out the driver’s side window, and while the car skidded, he unloaded the gun at the driver of the pickup, putting five or so projectiles into the cabin area and killing the man instantly. The sedan came to a screeching halt, just ahead of the pickup.
His eyes quickly darted to the rearview mirror. Around the inclined bend he saw the woods light up from the impending Ford Coupe’s headlights. He grabbed the BAR from the passenger seat and exited the Lincoln. He cocked back the bolt and made sure it was set on “full auto.” The car rounded the corner and Morris leveled his rifle and squeezed the trigger, unloading the full mag of thirty-aught-six rounds at the engine and front tires. Both tires exploded and the driver cut hard to keep control of the vehicle, forcing the Ford to flip over. Because of its speed, it continued to roll, becoming a projectile. The passenger was instantly crushed and thrown off the running board into a tree.
Morris’s eyes widened as it became apparent the tumbling Ford was headed straight toward him. He ran for shelter behind a large tree a few feet away, right as the car was upon him. The coupe toppled sideways and came to an unexpected halt when its roof slammed violently around the tree that was shielding Morris from the impact. Panicked, he checked his body thoroughly to make sure everything was still intact, and not quite believing his own luck, took a step away from his hiding place to survey the damage to the Ford.
Morris pulled himself together and rushed over to the Chevrolet. He threw the dead guy out, jumped in, and moved the truck away from the gate. Once the exit was clear, he got into his Lincoln and put the car into gear. He flew out of the compound, took a left, and traveled down the road as fast as his Continental would allow on the dark back roads of Westchester. Morris put the pedal to the floor and the Lincoln hit its top speed once he reached the highway. The car even began to shake because of the high rate of velocity. He came over a hill around Yonkers and made a little air. As the Lincoln crashed down onto the asphalt, the undercarriage sparked on the road and a hubcap flew off, spinning into the night.
The bright lights from the towering skyscrapers of New York City came into view in the far distance.
Morris cracked his neck and checked his watch. His side was still numb, and he figured Gray Matter’s painkillers were thankfully doing their job. He reached for a cigarette in his front breast pocket and was reminded of the pain in his hand from being shocked. When he found his cigarettes, half were either broken or ripped. He went through them and managed to find a crooked, but nonetheless whole one. Now he just had to find a light….
Chapter 28
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
At top speed, it only took Morris about twenty-five minutes to drive into Midtown Manhattan from lower Westchester. He’d lost the left front fender of the Lincoln trying to get past a double-parked delivery truck on Forty-Second and Tenth as he sped across town from the West Side. He drove along Forty-Second, dodging in and out of traffic as fast as the congestion would allow, and arrived at Grand Central Terminal. He swung left onto Vanderbilt Avenue which bordered the station on the west side. Morris quickly pulled the beat-up sedan into the covered pick-up and drop-off area under Park Avenue.
The jalopy came to a halt up on the curb next to a few parked checkered cabs. The cabbies who were standing around chatting jumped back, startled by the vehicle. Morris threw the car into park and shut her off. The engine started to steam and continued to make a noise while it powered down. He jumped out of the vehicle and nodded at the hacks, adjusting the .45 he had stowed in his waistband, fixed his collar and tie, then headed inside.
The detective entered by the top of the grand staircase on the west side of the terminal. He immediately saw a suspicious-looking gentleman standing by the railing on the first landing of the stairs, overlooking the station. He was wearing a dark trench coat and dark cap. The pointer finger on his right hand was wrapped with white boxing tape and in his left hand he was holding something large in position under his trench coat. Morris quickly walked down the steps, looking at the departure boards so not to draw attention.
As he descended the stairs, Morris scanned his beautiful surroundings. In the center of the floor was the infamous circular information booth with the opal clock on top. Between that and the stairs was a brand-new German Tiger tank apprehended fresh off the battlefields of Europe and shipped back to the States. It was on display with an “Uncle Sam” exhibit next to it that read: This is what our boys are up against…BUY WAR BONDS!!
Morris passed the questionable-looking man on the landing and zeroed in on the Irish gangster, Rory Caven, and four other guys all waiting by the clock carrying large suitcases. Timing-wise, it was almost as though they were waiting for Morris to enter the station so they could begin their little performance because once the detective clocked them, two of the men broke away from the group and walked in opposite directions. They were also dressed in identical trench coats. The two men positioned themselves at either side of the large concourse, one by the platforms and the other in the large waiting area in front of the Forty-Second Street entrance.
At the bottom of the staircase, Morris turned the corner and headed out of the mammoth commuter hall with all the other passengers rushing to a departing train. He passed the baggage room, making a beeline for the phone booths at the end of the corridor. The first booth he tried had a sleeping wino lying low within, so he slipped into the next one and toggled the cradle until he heard the soothing voice of a female operator.
“Operator? Sergeant Ambrosio at the Thirty-First Precinct, please. Tell him it’s Walter Morris. As fast as you can. Thank you.” Morris waited. After taking longer than it needed, he heard life on the other end of the line.
“Ambrosio? It’s Walt. Listen because I only have time to say all this once. Get some men together and get your asses down to Grand Central, ’cause it’s all going down right here, now. Next, get on the line to your local G-Men office and tell them Agents Mathers and Helms from the OSS are dead.” Morris winced. “Mathers and Helms. Stop asking questions, just listen to me—a stooge named Laszlo Strozek, a German piano player, set it all up but he was a front to a Fifth Column—”, Morris shifted his weight from his bad leg.
He turned and barked into the receiver. “Ambrose, it’s on the level—yes, a bona fide Fifth Column…. Bigger than your wildest dreams, hiding behind a piano player who was the key to New York’s working class—who didn’t even know himself how deep he was in, the poor bastard. He hid ’em, Nazis for Christ’s, on the run from Europe, he hid them in the shadows, up in the jazz clubs in Harlem, and blackmailed Cuthbert Hayden for finance and transportation. And Rory Caven’s mob now is being used as muscle. But his crew is being set up in the biggest confidence scheme I’ve ever seen. The idiots think there’s a bank vault in Grand Central’s basement….” He paused to let Ambrosio get a word in. “Yes, I know there’s no bank vault. But everyone, including the guy who set it up, the piano player, seems to think it’s a robbery.”
This was taking a lot more time than necessary. Morris needed the cavalry down here and fast.
“Look, just trust me on this. Get your ass down here, to Grand Central, and pronto.
They think it’s a vault robbery, but I’m pretty damn positive they’re unwittingly sneaking a Nazi bomb down there. Yes! That’s what I said, Ambrose. Nazi. Hell, it’s Nazi Frankensteins. Yes, I know how that sounds. Christ, just please hurry!”
He slammed down the receiver and shot out of the booth, heading back toward the main concourse. When he arrived in the massive hall, he recognized a man walking in the front entrance as one of the German men who had left with Von Stroheim. It wasn’t the Oberscharführer himself, but behind him was a towering giant of man, Morris’s old friend Maximillian. It was carrying a brown backpack and wearing the customary dark black goggles that shielded its eyes from view. They crossed the main terminal floor and approached Caven and the other men waiting under the clock. Hans, the German guard, nodded politely at the men.
Morris tried to edge a little closer, ducking behind passing commuters so not to be noticed.
Almost on cue, a Grand Central employee walked over to Rory and the mob. He was a black man with a matching pair of nasty scars that spread outward from his mouth. He was the same man from the bar when Morris first visited The Creo Room. Without even looking at them, the man unlocked the door to the information booth and hurried away as though nothing ever happened.
The small crew automatically pulled up their jacket collars, a few of them putting on gloves. The German tied a red handkerchief over his mouth and nose, and the Irish mob removed Cagney, Robinson, Bogart, and George Raft masks from out of their pockets, the very same masks worn by Von Stroheim’s crew back at the Empire State Building robbery. Once everyone was sorted, Rory put on a Paul Muni mask.
Robinson opened the information booth door and walked inside, where he immediately stuck a gun into the side of a railroad employee who had his back to the action. The man froze. Robinson whispered something, the worker listened then nodded. A moment later Bogart came in, and as instructed, the employee opened up an inner door in the middle of the booth which led to a spiral staircase concealed inside.
Except for the man in the George Raft mask, who stayed in the booth with the railroad employee, the crew proceeded to follow Cagney down the cylinder steps. Maximillian was at the rear without a mask.
Morris watched it all unfold. “Shit!” He glanced around, quickly trying to formulate a plan. “C’mon, Morris…think.”
He saw another Grand Central employee, an elderly baggage man, coming out of a staff door on the far side of the concourse. He tried to look as nonchalant as possible while he scurried over to the gentleman.
“Hey there, excuse me.” Morris took out his wallet, flashed it open, then swiftly closed it again. “Police.”
The employee was only just getting to look down at the wallet before it was halfway back into Morris’ pocket.
“Uh, what do you want, officer?”
Morris looked from side to side and lowered his voice so no one else could hear. “I need you to get me downstairs, to the basement.”
The man gestured to the two staircases on either side of the grand space that both descended to the lower level. “The stairs are over there and the—”
“No,” Morris said matter-of-factly, while still keeping an eye on the remaining men lingering in and around the station, “I mean to the subbasement, where it goes down to the basements below. You know, my brotha.” Morris winked.
That employee stared back at the detective, his mouth wide open in shock. “What? No one can go down there, not even me. Hey, what’s all this about?”
Morris sighed, he didn’t have time to convince the old man. He looked around, then quickly flashed the butt of his holstered firearm. “Buddy, I’m so sorry for this, but I’m in a real rush, and at this precise moment, I gotta go save the world, you with me?” The man’s eyes widened in horror. “Don’t get nervous, pal. Trust me, I’m the good guy. But we gotta go, and now.”
The old man unconsciously nodded in agreement and turned toward where the information booth was, but Morris stopped him and placed his hand on the man’s forearm.
“Naw, not that one. That’s where all the trouble is. There’s got to be another one, let’s use that.”
The worker glanced around, thinking of other options. “Oh, yeah, of course, there’s another one down off platform twenty-five, by where the Twentieth Century Limited is arriving tonight.”
“Great, sounds like a plan.” Morris formed the biggest and brightest smile he could muster. “Let’s move.”
Chapter 29
THE M42 BASEMENT, SUBSTATION 1T AND 1L
Rory Caven and his masked crew continued down the narrow, winding staircase. Heading up the rear were the German and Maximillian, which stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb due to its towering stature.
Morris followed the elderly baggage handler down to track twenty-five, walking along the luxurious red carpet that ran the length of the platform, put down in preparation for the arrival of the Twentieth Century Limited from Chicago. They continued past an enormous Art Deco-stylized diesel locomotive that idled on neighboring track twenty-six but shared the same platform. As they walked by the man’s fellow porters, conductors, and other baggage handlers who were busy preparing for the Limited’s arrival into New York, the men took notice of their coworker walking with Morris, and all stared inquisitively at the pair who were heading toward the darkened tunnel and underground railyard.
The robber with the Cagney mask cautiously peered out behind the door at the bottom of the spiral staircase. It opened up to a large vestibule area not accessible to the public. There were many other doors, all leading to different areas of the basement. About thirty feet away, a military guard was sitting on a wooden stool reading a newspaper, right in front of a single freight elevator door labeled M42. Cagney methodically brought his .22 High Standard Model B pistol out through the small gap in the door, and with one eye, aimed his weapon, which had a sound suppressor attached. He fired one muffled shot, no louder than a mechanical function of the action of the pistol, and a hole simultaneously appeared in the guard’s newspaper, blood splattering on the inside half. The guard fell to the ground and Cagney rushed over to put a second round into his temple at close range. Cagney rifled through the keys attached to the guard’s belt while the others blocked the doors so no other railroad personnel could accidentally interrupt them.
Hans hurried over and regarded Cagney with disdain. “He will not have keys to the lift on him, that is why we need you men,” he said through a thick accent.
He motioned for their safecracker, the man behind the Edward G. Robinson mask. Edward G. stepped over them, removed a few tools from his work bag, and began to unscrew the large electronic lock and keypad that controlled this elevator.
As they got closer to the end of the platform, the baggage handler was starting to show signs of nervousness due to Morris being in such a hurry and also not talking.
“Hey, listen, mack, I don’t know what your play is here, but you really can’t go down there. You could be shot, they have guards.”
“I’m hoping for that, my friend.”
When they reached the end of the platform, they both walked off and into the underground railyard.
The robbery crew waited patiently while their specialist, Eddie G., toiled with the electronics of the lock, stripping down the right wires and twisting them together. It caused a sudden spark which shorted out the box and the elevator doors flew open. They all packed into the large metallic freight elevator and Eddie G. began to unscrew the panel inside, gaining quick access to the electronics that controlled the lift’s buttons which, like the doors, usually required a key in tandem with a six-digit code. He hot-wired the box and within seconds the panel was illuminated. He hit the basement button and the elevator began to descend.
They dropped eight floors, and when the elevator doors opened, there was another vestibule where a military guard was stationed. The doors weren’t even fully open when a
shot rang out from a pistol and the guard was killed. The masked crew exited the lift and headed through an archway that led down a short flight of stairs to the sub-basement. They reached the bottom step and opened the door.
Two military police were positioned at the end of a corridor, both sitting beside a steel desk in deep conversation. One was eating a sandwich while the other was flicking through a late edition of the local newspaper.
Two of the gang looked at a masked Rory, who nodded. Their hands disappeared into their jackets and each came back out holding revolvers.
Hans raised his hand and the Irish gangsters stopped to look at him. “May I make a suggestion?”
Maximillian entered the hallway and in an instant was upon the two like a shadow. The first guard turned his head just in time to see Max snap the neck of his colleague who was eating. He dropped his newspaper and opened his mouth to scream. Like a bolt of lightning, Max’s arm shot out and a second later retracted with the man’s larynx. The MP tried to speak but the only thing that came out was gargling. Max shoved the palm of its other hand hard into the man’s face, splitting his nose like a banana, instantly stunning him. The giant then forced the head down and with the other hand struck the base of the skull with the force of a sledge hammer. The guard’s lifeless body dropped to the floor.
The men were speechless as they walked into the hallway. A little warily they passed Max, who stood silently near the dead men. They continued to the end of the long, narrow corridor and opened another door which led to yet more stairs.
“All right, Kraut,” Rory said to the German, “take Liam and Tom here,” he motioned to the men in the Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart masks, “with you and your pal Frankenstein to the bottom. Liam can crack open whatever vault they got down there. When you fill your bags, have your friend there bring ’em back up. Me and Oli here,” he pointed to the man wearing the Cagney mask, “will stay and watch the door.”
