Manhattan Lockdown

by Paul Batista

  “Yes.” Suddenly Roland felt his throat constrict. “She is. I’m so, so sorry, John.”

  “What happened?”

  “She put together a birthday party for me. It was on the roof garden of the museum overlooking Central Park. She was very happy. And then the bombs went off.”

  Roland heard this austere, elegant man inhale sharply and sob. Roland quietly asked, “Do you want to hear more?”

  “Indeed, I need to hear this, Roland.”

  “There were three explosions. She died instantly in the first one, John. She couldn’t have suffered.”

  John was crying now, a long wail that Roland couldn’t associate with the man he knew. Still staring at the array of twinkling and flashing lights on the expanse of the bridge, Roland just waited. He had to accept this man’s pain.

  At least a minute passed before John’s ravaged voice came back. “Where is her body?”

  Roland rubbed his gritty eyes, which were still scratched, dry and irritated from the explosive dust. Sarah Hewitt-Gordan, a woman who looked forward to the gift of life every day, a woman who made him laugh and gave him ideas in the brilliant flow of her conversation, and who made love to him with a wild passion that always astonished him, was now a torn body temporarily lost somewhere in this wounded city.

  “No one’s been able to tell me that, John. There are over one thousand people who are dead. It’s impossible at this point to know who all of them are. The morgues are overwhelmed. For years we’ve designated places to use as temporary morgues if this ever happened.”

  More calmly, more like the stiff upper lip British Army officer, John said, “I understand.”

  “The recovery people probably have no way of knowing who she is.”

  “I want to retrieve her. And bring her back here.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have any idea when we will be able to fly there? When the airports will open?”

  “There’s no way to know, John. Not tomorrow, maybe not for days.”

  There was a pause. “Roland, my daughter loved you.” “She loved you as well, John.”

  Roland Fortune heard another profound sob. Then silence. His cell phone pulsed and the screen abruptly read Call Ended. He sat in the cool dark, crying.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GINA CARBONE HAD never been to Pier 37, even though she’d authorized building a secret, dark, unknown prison there. Until today it had never had inmates. The skeletal staff assigned to it posed as janitors and maintenance men, and their only role was to make sure that vagrants and kids never entered the pier. The prison inside, as she had ordered when it was installed, had to remain secret.

  Gina left PS 6 soon after an armored Hummer had taken Roland Fortune away to Gracie Mansion. His departure had drawn a wave of attention from the dozens of reporters who thronged Madison Avenue, and in that confusion Gina and three of her staff members slipped out a side door of the school to an unmarked Ford. The black car raced down Park Avenue. Forty blocks downtown, it sped into the strange and unique circular roadway that ran through the base of the old Helmsley Building and the towering Met Life Building over Grand Central Station. The curving, dark passageway was like a medieval tunnel, and the driver went at a speed that was so much like a race car that Gina, forced backward in the seat by the tug of the car’s velocity, said, “Who’s driving this? Mario Andretti?”

  There were men with rifles who were almost invisible in the dusk settling over the pier, the East River, and the low skylines of the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts across the river. Further to the south were the spans of the dreary industrial-looking Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges and then the glamorous Brooklyn Bridge, whose hundreds of suspension wires shined like the strings of an enormous harp in the final light of this bright day.

  The main entrance to the pier was a massive roll-up door installed in the 1950s, when the longshoreman’s union still dominated the waterfront, the long-gone era of On the Waterfront. Its surface was covered with rust and marked with bold swirls of spray-painted graffiti. The car stopped near the rolled-up gate. The gate opened only with manually operated pulleys. Leaving the car, Gina bent forward and passed under the gate as soon as it was high enough. The chain pulleys screeched.

  Unlike Pier 37’s decaying exterior, the inside glowed with the crafted, high-tech clarity of the inside of a spaceship. Gina walked to an interior door, which slid open noiselessly. There were thirty-two gleaming prison cells. She knew there were eighteen men in the cells, all seized that morning in the coordinated, secretly conducted raids. They were all silent as Gina passed by them. Some of them looked astonished to see a woman.

  Her destination was a room whose door was printed with the words “Interview Station.” A bearded thirty-year-old man named Abdullah Hasan sat at a table. There were two detectives in sports jackets in the room, each far larger than Hasan. They were unarmed. Hasan seemed to smirk when a woman entered the room.

  “You’re supposed to stand up when I come into a room,” Gina said.

  He looked puzzled, as if wondering why anyone would ever stand up for a woman.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  Hasan glanced at the two men, obviously looking for answers from them, for sympathy, for intervention. They were men, after all, cohorts.

  “Do you know who I am?” she repeated.

  He shook his head. There was an arrogance in the gesture, a look she recognized as contempt.

  He said, “You tell me.” Just those three words made it obvious he was fluent in English.

  Gina punched the side of his head. It was a sharp strike. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs or restrained in any way. Although staggered by the unexpected force of the punch, he managed to stand up. He scowled at her.

  Gina stepped forward. She hit him in the stomach. He bent forward, struggling for breath.

  “Don’t you talk fresh to me, fella,” she said.

  One of the guards picked up the overturned chair and eased Hasan into it. When Hasan stopped gasping, the guard poured water for him. In a polite voice, he said, “Drink this.”

  Hasan did.

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Hasan,” Gina said. “I know you know who did this. You’re a smart man. We’ve known about you for a long time. We know you like to do deals. We can do a deal for you. Tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Tell us who worked on this with you, who had the idea, who acted on the idea, and where all your friends are now. What their plans are. You help us and we can help you. You give us something and we give you something. We know what a good businessman you are. You’re great at bargaining. We have the bargain of a lifetime for you. Give us the truth and you can get anything you want.”

  Bargaining was indeed familiar territory to Abdullah Hasan. “What do you think I know?”

  “Come on, Mr. Hasan. That’s not the way bargaining works. You think about where you are right now, and let me tell you what happens to you if you don’t tell me the truth. Nobody knows where you are. You don’t know where you are. We know. Lots of people were killed today. Who knows, maybe you were, too.”

  His absolutely black eyes stared at her, barely blinking. Gina, who had for years dealt with street drug dealers, leaders of Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan gangs and Italian Mafia soldiers, recognized that this was an intelligent man. She also recognized, instinctively, that he was the kind of man who might roll over on his cohorts and cooperate. He was a coward, a punk, an opportunist. She actually admired those few Italian, Russian, and Puerto Rican gang members who would never rat on their buddies and would go to jail for years in the crazy belief in the integrity of their silence and loyalty.

  He said, “I’m hungry. Can I have some food?”

  This was a good sign. He wanted something. Smiling gently at him, Gina said, “Detective, please get him some food.” She paused. “Mr. Hasan, remember, we can help you. Just relax. These men will stay with you. Talk to them.”

  Gina Carbone left t
he cell.

  ***

  A panel truck marked with the words Jeeves Linen came to a stop on 61st Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue. Engine running, the van idled for thirty seconds near the service entrance to the elegant Regency Hotel. Three men dressed as hotel workers scanned the nearby areas. One of them gave a signal, an upraised hand waving slightly, and the rear door of the van opened. An automated lift brought down to the sidewalk a large bin containing neatly folded sheets, napkins, and tablecloths. As the bin was rolled on its steel wheels toward the open service entrance, Gina Carbone walked alongside it and into the hotel.

  With three armed guards, she took the service elevator to the tenth floor. Her room was the closest one to the service elevator on that floor. As she opened the door, she said to the guards, “Did you make sure you put a mint on the pillow?”

  It was the kind of quick, joking comment that made the cops she came into contact with relaxed and loyal; one of the reasons why, even as a woman, she had the respect of most of the forty thousand cops who worked for her. The commissioner she replaced was a lawyer from a big law firm, a partner of the last mayor. That commissioner, her predecessor, was a haughty bald guy who was derided as an ineffective, effete snob by the whole force, from captains to the new recruits.

  The cops who regularly served on her security detail were so loyal that they never broke the code of silence about her personal life. They knew about Tony Garafalo, who was waiting for Gina Carbone in the living room of the suite. He was the supervisor of the service department at a big Mercedes Benz dealership in Brooklyn. He was married. He had three teenage kids. He had once served eight years in a federal prison after he was convicted of intimidating witnesses who had been called to a grand jury to testify about the Gambino family.

  Tony Garafalo stood in the middle of the living room. “Hey, babe,” he said.

  Tony Garafalo was Gina Carbone’s lover.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  GABRIEL HAUSER WAS jolted out of a restless sleep at three in the morning. The skin at his throat literally dripped with sweat and the soft skein of hair on his chest stuck to his body. Despite the air-conditioning, the bedsheets under him were wet. He reached for his cell phone on the nightstand. Its pulse had vibrated so powerfully that it made the nightstand and even the bed reverberate enough to wake him. The phone’s small screen cast a glow on the nearby furniture and walls. Cam was asleep beside him.

  Gabriel had received many calls at this time of the night. Not one of them was happy, ever. It was a rule in life that no conversation at three a.m. was ever good. The vibrating cell phone was the one that linked him only to the hospital; it was his umbilical phone, the cord that attached him to work and that could be pulled at any time he was away from Mount Sinai. His civilian cell phone, the one that connected him to his family and friends and the world at large, was in the kitchen, turned off. At the last time he checked it, there were at least twenty messages in it, all of them from reporters at news stations, newspapers, blogs, and magazines. He hadn’t taken a single one of those calls or returned a single message. The voice-mail box was full.

  “Dr. Hauser?” Gabriel didn’t recognize the voice. Had one of the reporters somehow gotten his secret hospital number? Who gave it away?

  “Who’s this?”

  “My name is Irv Rothstein.”

  The name meant nothing to Gabriel. “You’ll have to tell me who you are.”

  “I’m a deputy mayor. I work with Mayor Fortune.”

  “Are you calling from Mount Sinai?”

  “What?”

  “Are you calling from the hospital? This number is only for the hospital.”

  “No, I’m calling from Gracie Mansion.”

  “What is it?”

  “The mayor wants you to join him at a press conference tomorrow morning.”

  “A what?”

  “He wants to introduce you to the public. To the world, in fact.”

  Oliver always slept at the foot of the bed and ordinarily stayed still through the telephone calls that came to Gabriel in the middle of the night. Like Cam, who still breathed sweetly and regularly beside him, the dog was familiar with these calls. But he had been skittish and needy since the morning walk and the two hours he had spent, whimpering and terrified, tied to the iron railing before Cam had retrieved him. Now Gabriel saw in the dark Oliver’s upraised head and the sweet, trusting eyes staring at him.

  “I’m not interested in a press conference.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I can’t see a reason why I should do that.”

  “Dr. Hauser, there are so many reasons. The city, the country, in fact, needs to see how a brave American responds to a jihadist attack. The mayor wants to congratulate you. So does the president. What you did yesterday was heroic.”

  “I don’t think so. It was an instinct. I’m an emergency room doctor, and there was an emergency.”

  “Doctor, this is important. There is no good news anywhere. Like it or not, you’re the only good news around. You should share it.”

  “Doesn’t the mayor have better things to do? I know I do.”

  Irv Rothstein wasn’t used to people refusing to cooperate with him and Roland Fortune. “Can I have the Mayor speak to you?”

  Cam, his face as handsome as ever, was awake now. The conversation had gone on much longer than the usual three a.m. calls. He mouthed the words, “What’s up?’

  Gabriel touched Cam’s hand, as if reassuring him, and then said, “Look, Mr. Rothstein, this is not the kind of thing I do. If he wants to call me after seven, I’ll talk to him, but my answer is going to be the same for him as it is for you. I’m not interested.”

  “Mayor Fortune is a very sincere, persuasive man. He thinks you’re a hero, as does everyone else, Dr. Hauser, and you can lift people’s spirits.”

  “I doubt it, Mr. Rothstein.”

  ***

  Roland Fortune and Gabriel Hauser didn’t speak that morning. At six thirty a hard knock sounded on the door to the apartment. Instantly alert and protective, Oliver stood up at the foot of the bed, barking as he vaulted to the floor and ran to the door. Gabriel woke, his heart racing at the sudden onslaught of sound that jolted him from a deep sleep. Gabriel went to the door. The knocking continued, sharp and insistent. While trying to settle Oliver, Gabriel said, “Who is it?”

  “Police, police.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Just open the door, sir.”

  Gabriel hesitated. His dislike of police, of authority, was implanted in him the precise moment he was thrown out of the Army. And then he heard Cam’s voice. “Let them in.”

  Gabriel opened the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. Cam tossed Gabriel’s bathrobe to him. “Here, baby, put this on.” Gabriel left it on the floor at his feet.

  The lead detective pushed open the door, holding out his badge. He was a sandy-haired man in his late forties, the picture-book image of the Irish cop. Two other men in suits followed him. Plastic identification tags hung from their necks. They were younger, both of them bulked up from exercise, looking like toy action figures.

  The leader recognized Gabriel. “Dr. Hauser?”

  Gabriel was always icily cool under pressure. Still standing almost nonchalantly in the doorway, still wearing only the white towel around his waist, Gabriel said, “What can I do for you?”

  “Dr. Hauser, I’m from the intelligence unit of the police department’s counterterrorist division. My name is McDonough. These men work with me.”

  Gabriel felt a surge of anger and resentment. Four years earlier, when he was in Kabul, a mild-mannered lieutenant colonel politely asked him, “Major Hauser, could I get a second of your time?” He then told Gabriel he was with Army Intelligence, and within ten seconds he said that the Army had uncovered e-mails from Gabriel to Tom Lathem, who had been an intern with him at Mount Sinai and, for a week, his lover. The chubby, bland colonel, who had the demeanor of a bookkeeper, told Gabriel
that his duties at the Kabul regional hospital had been suspended immediately and that he was to leave Afghanistan the next day for Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where he would be discharged from the Army within seventy-two hours. “You should’ve been more careful, Major Hauser. This is the United States Army. The same rules are for everybody. We never ask, and you shouldn’t have told.”

  Although McDonough had none of the unctuous style of the Army colonel, Gabriel’s annoyed angry reaction was obvious in the tone of his voice. “It’s early in the morning, Detective. I don’t have a lot of time. And, as you can see, we weren’t expecting you.”

  “Do you need time to dress?”

  “I’m dressed.”

  “We need your help.”

  “Everybody seems to.”

  Cam, who had brought Oliver’s loud protective barking under control, hadn’t often heard Gabriel speak with even a hint of anger. Cam knew how outraged and pained Gabriel had been, and still was, by the way he’d been bundled up and hustled out of the Army by a rigid, vicious policy: Don’t ask, don’t tell.

  McDonough said, “Look, sir, we’ve been looking again and again at the CCTV footage from yesterday. We’ve been able to enlarge views that had not been as clear before we were able to bring some new technology in. I don’t know if you’ve seen that footage of you wading into what looked like hell.” He paused. “You did some great things out there, Doctor.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  McDonough’s reaction was increasingly combative. “Sure, understood, so let’s cut to the chase. The first man you treated, do you remember him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “He was an Arabic kind of guy, right?”

  “What does that mean, an ‘Arabic kind of guy’?”

  “From the Middle East? You spent a lot of time there, I’m told.”