Target Manhattan

by Brian Garfield

  You know something about airplanes, then?

  I was a bombardier in the Eighth Air Force, sir. On B-24s, but it comes to the same thing.

  Then it would appear you were the right man at the right place at the right time.

  Just coincidence, sir. And it turned out there wasn’t much I could do about it. Having a knowledge of old bombardment aircraft didn’t do me much good—it just confirmed in my mind that the suspect’s threats had real teeth in them.

  Who suggested calling in the Air Force?

  I did, sir.

  At what time did you make that suggestion, and to whom?

  My first telephone report to Lieutenant O’Hara. That was at approximately eleven twenty.

  Then it was no more than fifteen minutes between the time you arrived at the scene and the time you made your first report back to the lieutenant?

  Yes, sir. It took us that long to get a coherent story. Everybody was trying to talk at once, you know how it is. I stuck to Criscola until I had the outlines of the thing. Then I talked briefly with Ryterband. He didn’t add anything new—only repeated his threat and his demands. Then I called the lieutenant, reported in, told him about the situation, told him I’d actually seen the airplane up there. He said he’d seen it too, of course. It was flying back and forth, the length of Manhattan. I suppose most everybody had seen it by that time. A few people I’ve talked to thought, it was some kind of publicity stunt or somebody making a movie.

  In fact, that was the department’s official explanation at the time, wasn’t it?

  It was until the explosions, yes, sir. I mean the damn thing was there in plain sight of anybody in New York. Anybody over forty would recognize the plane from the war, and a lot of younger people had seen movies and TV shows like Twelve o’clock High. I mean, at that altitude nearly everybody on the street recognized it for what it was, and naturally there were a lot of telephone inquiries. The news media were particularly curious, but then that’s understandable. We had to tell them something. I mean the department had to. I don’t know who dreamed it up, but the official line that was given out was that they were making a movie. Naturally a gang of reporters kept after us to tell them what movie and what producer and what studio and who was the star. I don’t know how the department shunted those questions off, but I gather they did. Of course you know New Yorkers—everybody had their own theory. All kinds of street-corner superstitions and wise-ass ideas. Some middle-aged German immigrant had a heart attack on Forty-third Street. Turned out he’d been in Dresden during the war.

  So you suggested to the lieutenant that they ought to bring in the Air Force?

  Yes, sir. Somebody who might be able to figure out how to handle the situation. He agreed right away.

  But it was quite some time before anybody from the Air Force actually entered the case, wasn’t it?

  Yes, sir, it was.

  Harris

  Your name, please?

  Jack Harris.

  Is that your full name?

  Yes. Jack no-middle-initial Harris.

  Your employment, Mr. Harris? For the record.

  Reporter. Free-lance.

  Oh? Weren’t you working for one of the stations during the Craycroft episode?

  I was doing a feature story for WIMS-TV, yes. I wasn’t in their employ, not on salary. I do features for radio and TV news departments. If they like the idea, they buy it from me. I’m an independent.

  That’s interesting. I didn’t know it could be done on that basis.

  Well, I usually sell the story before I do it. In other words, I’ll call one of the stations, ask them if they’d like me to do a story on such-and-such. They give me the go-ahead and then I do the story.

  You must have a fine nose for features then.

  That’s my bread and butter, Mr. Skinner.

  And perhaps a bit of ESP? Prescience? Is that how you happened to be there on the day Craycroft pulled his episode?

  That was blind luck, nothing else. I was doing a story on the reconstruction of the West Side Highway. I wanted to go up and take some aerial footage—I do some of my own photography. I happened to have a contact at the Port Authority, one of the chopper jockeys, fellow named Woods. I went up with him that day. At that point I didn’t know Craycroft existed.

  Is it normal for civilians to hitch rides on Port Authority helicopters?

  They don’t mind. They’ve got a spare seat. You’ve got to sign a waiver, of course. And they don’t take ordinary people up. Joyriders, tourists, that kind of thing. But if you’ve got a legitimate reason to be there, they don’t mind. As long as you sign the waiver. They don’t want to get sued if you crack up. That’s life in these modern times, isn’t it—everybody’s got to cover his own ass.

  I’m a bit surprised they agreed to. take you up on that particular flight. Wasn’t the pilot ordered to do a close-up surveillance on Craycroft’s aircraft?

  Not originally, no. If that had been the case, you can bet they wouldn’t have allowed me to ride along. No, what happened was they’d assigned Woods to the standard harbor-survey flight. They do periodic spot checks to make sure the shipping traffic is keeping inside the buoy markers, look for hazardous debris floating on the water, even sometimes people stranded in small boats or life preservers. It’s a big harbor, New York. Anyway Woods was assigned to fly the normal spot check, and he’d arranged his flight path to give me a good run over the lower west side of Manhattan so I could get my footage of the highway construction. We were already in the air when he got instructions by radio to discontinue the normal survey and go chasing after Craycroft.

  What time was this?

  I don’t know exactly. You might ask the PA people—they must have kept a log. I know it was somewhere around twelve thirty, maybe twelve forty-five. We’d taken off at noon, but I can’t be sure how long we’d been up before Woods got the new orders.

  Had you noticed the bomber before that?

  Sure. We weren’t over Manhattan, of course—we were out the other side of Staten Island a good part of the time. But we’d come in over Port Newark and made one or two circuits around the Hudson estuary. We’d seen the plane a couple of times. I must have gawked at it for a while. I’m kind of an old-plane buff myself.

  So I understand. You have a pilot’s license, don’t you?

  Single engine. I flew Sabres when I was in the service. Never liked them much. Too fast to maneuver. One time I checked out in a Mustang—now, there was an airplane.

  You fly for a hobby, don’t you?

  Once in a while I go up to Rhinebeck and tootle around in the air show in some old biplane. I’m not a serious pilot. More of a fan. I wrote a novel about fliers once, but it got turned down—they said it was too closely imitative of Ernest K. Gann. I’d never read Gann at the time. After that I latched onto everything he ever wrote. Spectacular stuff. Have you ever read him?

  I don’t read fiction much, I’m afraid.

  Well, we’re not here to talk about that anyway, are we?

  You said you’d noticed Craycroft’s plane.

  Who wouldn’t? It looked brand-new. He’d done a marvelous restoration job. I mean that B-17 had to be at least thirty years old. They stopped making them around the end of the war.

  What was the plane doing when you first noticed it?

  Making a steep turn over the Battery and that corner of Brooklyn down where all the bridges are. I remember watching it cruise back up north—it was flying over the east side of Manhattan. I remember thinking what a beautiful goddamn airplane it was. They never built a plane that had so much grace, you know?

  A rather brutal kind of grace, I’d say.

  There’s violence in most grace.

  Did you wonder what Craycroft was up to?

  I assumed it was a publicity stunt for that new war movie that just opened at the Loew’s on Third Avenue. You know, the one about the Hiroshima raid.

  Those weren’t B-l 7s at Hiroshima, were they?

  No
, they were B-29s that dropped the bomb. But you can’t expect Hollywood to pay attention to technicalities like that, can you?

  When the radio message came through to Woods, what exactly did it say? What did it tell him to do? What did it tell him about Craycroft?

  I don’t know, I didn’t have a headset. All I know is what he told me. He said he had to break off the flight pattern and go chasing after the B-17, the people on the ground wanted him to take a look at it. Later on he got more chatter on the radio and he told me the guy had bombs in the plane and was threatening to drop them on New York, but that was after we’d made our first pass at the plane.

  How close did you fly to it?

  Pretty close. We hovered out over the docks down around the Staten Island ferry slip at the foot of Manhattan. We hung there while Craycroft made his turn over the Battery and swung out over the bridges and went back up the east side.

  What was your impression at the time?

  Of our instructions or of the plane?

  Both.

  Well, as for the instructions, Woods hadn’t filled me in, but I assumed he was supposed to try and wave the plane off. There are restrictions against flying low-altitude over inhabited areas, you know. Craycroft was violating every FAA and CAA statute I’d ever heard of. He was flying treetop over the tops of the skyscrapers in Manhattan. Incidentally that’s a hard stunt to pull off, you know. The updrafts from those street canyons toss you up and down like a kite. I could see right away he was a hell of a pilot. As for the plane, I’ve already told you that. I thought it was splendid. Beautiful.

  Did you get a glimpse of the pilot?

  We could see the pilot all right. But we weren’ close enough to see his face. He was wearing a radio headset, I could tell that much. Earphones, not a helmet. The plane was running like a clock. All four engines in beautiful sync. When he made his turns he made them as smooth and easy as if he was ice-skating.

  Were the bomb-bay doors open?

  Not at first.

  Azzard

  Your name, please?

  Joel Azzard. New York District Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Do you have a prepared statement, Mr. Azzard?

  I do. May I read it into the record now?

  Please do.

  “At twelve oh five P.M., twenty-second May, the New York office FBI was notified by office of NYPD Commissioner (Toombes) that a crime of bank robbery by extortion was in progress at Merchants Trust Bank Company, Incorporated, Sixty-two Beaver Street, New York City.

  “Special Agents Roger V. Barstow and Alan A. Cobb were dispatched immediately and arrived at the scene at twelve sixteen P.M.

  “At twelve twenty-two P.M. District Director Azzard (Joel, NMI) received a call direct from Special Agent Barstow. Apprised of the unique circumstances and dangers of the crime in progress, District Director Azzard went personally and with dispatch to the scene, arriving at the Merchants Trust offices at twelve thirty-five P.M.

  “Present were the bank president, his chief of security, several NYPD officers and the two aforementioned special agents. They held in custody the suspect, who had given his name as Willard Roberts.

  “According to the report of SA Barstow, the suspect had admitted that he was engaged in a conspiracy, together with the unnamed pilot of a Boeing B-17 aircraft, to extort five million dollars by threat of excessive physical harm to the city and populace of New York.”

  Excuse me, Mr. Azzard, but all this is merely going over ground we’ve established by prior witnesses. Do you mind just giving me a copy of your statement? It will be entered into the record, but I’d prefer to use this time with direct questions pertaining to your own participation in the events.

  If that’s the way you’d prefer to do it.

  Thank you. Now your two agents reached the bank somewhat before twelve thirty, and you yourself got there about twenty minutes later.

  That’s correct.

  During that interval, what did your two agents accomplish?

  Quite a good deal, I can assure you.

  Can you be specific?

  Mr. Skinner, you asked me just now to confine this to my own participation. Now, which is it to be?

  What I’m looking for is your own evaluation of the performance of your men and of the police as well.

  Performance evaluations are classified within the bureau, Mr. Skinner. I’m not at liberty to divulge the contents of our personnel-efficiency reports. At your own suggestion, I’d like to confine this interview to the contents of my written report and any relevant questions you might like to ask which would have to do with my own actions.

  In that case perhaps you’d allow Special Agents Cobb and Barstow to appear here and give their own testimony?

  I’m afraid that’s impossible.

  Why?

  Both men have been transferred out of this district.

  Are those punitive transfers?

  No. Standard rotation policy.

  I wasn’t aware the FBI had such a policy.

  We don’t broadcast our internal operating procedures, Mr. Skinner.

  This isn’t an accusatory investigation, Mr. Azzard. We’re not trying to pin anything on anybody. All we’re trying to do is to lay the groundwork for efficient procedures in the future in case something like this should happen again. In the light of that I must say your attitude seems rather uncooperative, not to say obstructionist.

  I’m sorry. I have my own instructions, you know. We have strict regulations about revealing information to outside agencies or individuals. I had to obtain special permission from Washington to appear at this inquiry at all. I wouldn’t like it to appear in the record that the FBI was in any way obstructionist. We’re as disturbed by what happened as anyone is.

  Then mightn’t it be possible to bring the two agents back to New York to be interviewed? It wouldn’t take long.

  You’d have to inquire of Washington about that. They’re not under my command anymore.

  I can see we’re not getting far with that tack. Let’s go back to your own part in this, then. When you arrived at the bank, how much had been ascertained about the suspect’s identity and the identity of his partner in the airplane?

  Quite a lot. We had the suspect’s fingerprints by then. We—

  Weren’t the fingerprints obtained by the New York police officers before your men arrived?

  I don’t really know who actually pressed his fingers to the ink pad, Mr. Skinner. All I can tell you is that the code had been teletyped to Washington and we’d received a make on the subject back from the FBI lab. That was before I left my office—probably around twelve twenty. Suspect was identified as Charles David Ryterband, sixty-two.

  Did the fact that his fingerprints were on file indicate that Ryterband had a criminal record?

  No. He’d tried to volunteer for the draft in 1942. They have fingerprint records of everybody who’s applied to serve in the armed forces.

  So he in fact had no criminal record? No convictions, no arrests?

  None.

  Had Craycroft been identified by then?

  No. Not yet.

  What other information did you get on Ryterband, besides his name?

  A summary of his service record accompanied the teletype report. He’d applied for the Air Corps during the war, with a specialty in aircraft maintenance. He’d been rejected on Four-F grounds—health.

  Anything else?

  We had his wife’s name. Ellen Craycroft Ryterband. They were married in nineteen forty-four.

  So he was Craycroft’s brother-in-law, then.

  Yes, but of course we didn’t know that then.

  Well, I’ve dwelled long enough on the identification issue, haven’t I? I imagine it wasn’t the issue of primary concern to you at the time, was it?

  No. Of course not. Our primary problem was what to do about the demands. How to respond.

  Had any decisions been made prior to your arrival at the bank?

  Wha
t sort of decisions do you mean?

  Decisions to acquiesce or not to acquiesce.

  No final decision had been made, no. They were preparing for various contingencies. The bank had started to make efforts to raise the cash, in case it was decided to go ahead and pay the ransom.

  Who made that decision? To raise the money, I mean.

  I’m not sure. It may have been one of my agents.

  Mr. Maitland says it was Police Sergeant O’Brien who suggested he’d better start getting the money up as fast as he could.

  Well, I wouldn’t want to contradict him on that.

  In any case it wasn’t your suggestion, then?

  No. I would have suggested the same thing, but it had already been done before I got there, as I told you.

  Sergeant O’Brien seems to have displayed rather keen initiative throughout this affair, wouldn’t you say?

  I didn’t pay too much attention to him, I’m afraid.

  Wasn’t he there?

  Yes, he was there. He’d conducted the interrogation of Ryterband until my men arrived and took over.

  Isn’t it possible that your men added nothing, by way of new knowledge or decisions, to what had already been achieved by Mr. Rabinowitz and Sergeant O’Brien?

  I wasn’t aware we were putting the FBI on trial here.

  We’re not. I’m trying to form a clear picture of what took place, that’s all. What immediate action did you take upon arrival at the bank?

  My first action was to interview Special Agents Barstow and Cobb, to put myself in the picture so to speak.

  How long did that take?

  Only a few minutes. I was able to tell them we’d come up with an ID make on Ryterband. I then confronted Ryterband with the fact that we knew who he was.

  How did he react to that?