One Police Plaza

by William Caunitz

  Anderman went over to the radio operator and spoke a few words of Hebrew. The operator wrote something on a sheet of paper and began to send the message.

  Five minutes after Anderman’s message was transmitted a twin-engine helicopter lifted off the pad in the center of Fort Totten. This craft had camouflaged markings and showed no identification numbers. Twin lights blinked from the rear. It rose slowly at first but then gathered momentum. When it had risen to a point parallel with the middle span of the White-stone Bridge, it hovered a short time, and then set off on a compass heading of southwest.

  There are many spans in New York City that jut across anonymous creeks and canals. The Pulaski is one. It arches across the Newtown Creek, binding Long Island City to the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, and to McGuinness Boulevard, an artery that leads to the industrial heartland of the Borough of Kings. The most noteworthy thing about this bridge is its incredible view of the Manhattan skyline. This morning the outline was sharply defined against a backdrop of a purple sky.

  The Econoline van drove off the exit ramp and stopped for the red light on the corner of McGuinness Boulevard and Humboldt Street.

  The transmission from the department helicopter that was following the caravan was received simultaneously at Communications and temporary headquarters. “Subjects exiting the BQE at McGuinness Boulevard.”

  Inside the temporary headquarters, McQuade grabbed the handset. “Close off the Pulaski Bridge on the Queens side.”

  In Long Island City a line of police cars drove out of the schoolyard on Forty-ninth Avenue and went one block to Jackson Avenue where they snaked into position across the foot of the Pulaski Bridge. When the blockade was established there were three files of radio cars that were backed up by four Emergency Service vans.

  On the Brooklyn side of the Pulaski Bridge everything appeared to be normal. Trucks were making early-morning deliveries; bundles of newspapers were stacked on curbs; bags of bread and rolls waited in grocery doorways; rattling milk cases could be heard off in the distance, morning sounds of a city not yet awake.

  On cramped streets with names like Clay and Box and Commercial, radio cars idled, their crews lolling about and shooting the breeze, asking one question—What’s it all about?

  Westy Stanislaus looked into the rearview and saw the trucks struggling with the grade. “Come on. I wanna get this thing over with.”

  Zangline was in the jump seat. “Patience. We’re almost there.”

  Stanislaus looked back at his passengers and saw that they were wearing kaffiyehs and cradling Uzis. Without headgear and guns they’d look like college kids in patched jeans and worn sneakers, he thought.

  As the Econoline van peaked the brow of the bridge, Stanislaus’s eyes widened with incredulity. He jammed on the brakes and lurched forward, gripping the wheel, leering at the barricade. Suddenly he threw open the door and leaped out, running back to the trucks.

  Marku leaned out the window. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Police! We’ve been had,” he shouted, pointing toward the crest.

  The caravan had stopped.

  Marku climbed down and ran up to the crest. He stood, defiant, shaking his fist down at the police. He turned back in time to see the police line draw across the Brooklyn side, choking off escape. Suddenly the retiring night was filled with the chilling cry to Jihad—war.

  They held an emergency conference behind the Econoline van. Scared men, unsure of what had gone wrong, searching for a way out.

  Kelly looked at Stanislaus. “Waddawe do now?”

  Stanislaus flashed his eyes to Zangline. “It’s up to you, Chief. We’re with you all the way.”

  Zangline was shaken, his face drained. An adage came to mind: If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. He was too old to start over. There were no more chances, no more roads. If he could get himself out of this trap there might be a way out for him. There was no direct evidence linking him to any crime. He was working undercover, trying to ferret out bad cops, protect the security of the country. He had money, enough to last him the rest of his days. He looked at the men around him. “This is the big one. I say we go for broke.”

  Stanislaus reached out and opened the rear door of the van and climbed inside. He motioned to someone for help. Marku climbed in, and together they dragged up five cases to the edge. Stanislaus opened one and took out an olive-green tube that was about three feet long and cupped on both ends. “These babies are going to get us out of here.”

  “What are they?” Marku said.

  “M-72-A disposable antitank rockets that’ll take the treads off a Russian tank at fifty meters. Each one comes loaded with a sixty-six-millimeter shell.”

  Stanislaus squatted on the edge and held out the tube. He took less than a minute to show them how to use the weapon and then said, “There are six rockets in each case. Each vehicle will take one case with them. I’ll lead in the van. I’ll blast a hole through their line and we’ll plow right through them. The warehouse is near. We’ll detonate all the cars up against the depot and make a run for it in the van. We’ll stick to the original plan, only now we will use the rockets instead of the cars. It’ll have the same effect.”

  There was a moment when they stood in silence, each man contemplating his own future, and then, they clasped their hands together in the center of the group, and broke, each running to his vehicle, shouldering his weapon. For one fleeting second Edwin Bramson felt the urge to run the other way; to surrender. But he couldn’t, not in front of his friends.

  Capt. Jeffrey Sefton walked out from behind the police barricade, a megaphone in his right hand. He was a big man with impressive shoulders and a head of untamed hair. He wore no hat; he never did when he thought there was a chance that television cameras might record his heroic deeds for posterity and the promotion board. Peeved that his forthcoming act of bravery was not to be immortalized on film, the captain started his famous strut up the Pulaski Bridge.

  “He sure eats this shit up,” Police Officer Edmonds said.

  “One of these days he’s going to get his prick shot off,” Police Officer Neale said.

  They were slouched up against the side of their Emergency Service van watching the captain. Their shotguns were resting on their hips and their caps were pulled down to their brows. Rows of decoration bars were stacked up over their shields, symbols of their male pride.

  Other policemen were gathered around their vehicles, not really caring about what was happening on the bridge. Scuttlebutt had it that this caper was nothing to get excited about. Just another talk-down; some asshole with an ax to grind.

  Neale nudged his partner. “I sure hope they get this bullshit over with so I can get home on time. I wanna rap the old lady before the kids get up.”

  “Boy, do I know that feelin’. Sometimes after a late tour I’m so horny even the crack of dawn ain’t safe,” Edmonds said, lifting his cap and patting down his pompadour.

  They watched as the three vehicles rolled over the crest of the bridge in a wedge formation. The van was on the point, the embrasures were down, the weapons thrust out, crosshairs zeroed in on the center of the barricade.

  “Here. Comes. The. Bullshit,” Edmonds said, reaching down the front of his pants and scratching his scrotum.

  Captain Sefton raised the megaphone to his lips. “I am Captain Sefton of the Hostage Nego-”

  The burst of automatic fire lifted the captain up off the ground and spun him completely around. He was dead before he reached the ground.

  “Holy shit!” Neale shrilled, diving behind his van.

  Two ear-shattering explosions sent policemen running for cover. Submachine-gun fire raked the police line. A radio car blew apart, and then another and another. The van carrying all the automatic rifles exploded. The center of the barricade had turned into an orange fireball. Policemen fled the conflagration. Veterans of the Bulge, Inchon, Tet, remembered their forgotten trades. They popped up from behind their cover to fire at the
enemy and then ducked back down. Some fired and rolled away to a new position.

  Edmonds and Neale were crouched behind their van.

  “Ready?” Neale said.

  “Let’s do it.”

  They stepped out from behind their cover, pump-fired two rounds apiece, and ran back. The shotguns had little effect; the distance was too great. A few feet away from them, Sgt. Sam Nelson was crawling on his stomach over to a radio car. He reached up and opened the door and then bellied inside. He glanced up at the radio panel and thought how strange it looked upside down. He pulled down the handset and then tried to figure out which was the right switch. Praying that it was the right one, he pulled one out. “Aim for their tires!” he shouted over the loudspeaker. Bullets riddled the radio car, disgorging chunks of steel and slivers of glass; the fragments tumbled down on him. “Fucking humps can’t take a joke,” he mumbled, crawling back out.

  On the bridge the approaching formation maintained its unrelenting field of fire. It crept down, moving closer and closer. The barricade had been turned into a flaming shambles. Cowering behind their van, Edmonds and Neale reloaded their shotguns. Edmonds pointed to the wire trash barrel on the bridge’s walkway. “The garbage cans!”

  “What about it?”

  “Bottles.”

  They sprinted from their cover, running low, zigzagging. Slugs slammed into the ground around them. They made a headlong dive, rolling into the can and toppling it, littering the ground with all sorts of disagreeable debris. Lying prone, they rummaged through the garbage. Edmonds found an empty pack of Coke bottles still in its carrying case. They popped up off the ground and made for the van. A radio car behind them exploded in a violent blue flame. A wave of intense heat struck their backs as they ran, scorching their hair. They dived behind the van and fell to their knees, breathless. Edmonds unclipped a knife from his belt and pushed himself under the van. He opened the blade and started to dig it into the gas tank. He punctured the tank and it dripped gasoline. He increased the pressure on the blade, and increased the circumference of his wrist movement, enlarging the hole until the drip was a steady flow. Neale passed him the bottles and he quickly filled them. “Let’s get the fuck away from here,” Edmonds said, pushing himself out from under the van. As they ran for the radio car about twenty feet away, the van blew apart. Neale tripped over a body, regained his footing, and continued to run. They ran behind the car and Neale immediately ripped off his shirt and started to tear it into strips. He handed them to his partner who stuffed them into the neck of the bottles.

  The van and two trucks had stopped in the middle of the downgrade and were spraying the barricade with automatic fire, preparing for the final assault. There was a large hole in the center of the police line. Stanislaus had waited until the flames had died down. Now he gave the signal to move out and the vehicles started the slow, inexorable advance, making for the hole in the barricade.

  The police opened fire. Their bullets began to find their mark; miraculously none hit a gas tank. The front tires on the Econoline van blew up and the radiator billowed a thick cloud of steam. The van careened on its rims, thumping to the right and plowing into the side of the bridge, finally tearing out a section of railing.

  Neale and Edmonds made their way around to the bridge cutoff on Forty-ninth Avenue. They sprang up from behind the stone balustrade, their arms cocked and the fuses burning. “Now!” Edmonds shouted. They hurled two molotov cocktails, and, then, in quick succession, tossed two more.

  An avalanche of flaming gasoline and dense black smoke rolled across the bridge, engulfing the disabled van. The doors flew open and coughing men jumped out and began to run back to the trucks. Marku, Kelly, and Bramson saw them and leaped down from their trucks. They formed a line across the bridge, firing through the smoke to cover their retreat.

  Charles Kelly was down on one knee putting a new clip into his weapon when a spray of slugs tore into his body. His Uzi clammered to the ground. The last thing he saw before he slumped over was his right eye dangling out of its socket, held by a twisted white cord.

  Two more molotov cocktails exploded.

  “Everyone onto the trucks!” Stanislaus shouted. “When the flames die we’ll smash through them!”

  They threw their weapons on first and then climbed up onto the bed; the first aboard turning and helping the next, extending a hand to a comrade. They squirmed between the flattened heaps of rusting junk, taking up firing positions, in their excitement forgetting the explosive nature of their cargo.

  Westy Stanislaus looked out at the body of Charles Kelly and muttered an obscenity.

  Edwin Bramson leaned around the skeletonized frame of a ’77 Buick and launched a missile.

  On the Brooklyn side of the bridge, Capt. George Macklin could not see what was happening in Queens, as the battle was out of sight, beyond the brow. But he could see the smoke, hear the explosions and gunfire. The radio bristled with urgent appeals for help from the Queens choke point.

  “I wanna move my men out,” Macklin walkie-talkied temporary headquarters.

  “You will hold your assigned position, Captain.” McQuade’s transmission left no room for doubt or maneuver.

  “Ten-fucking-four!” Macklin slammed the radio down over the hood of a radio car, venting his frustration. He dented the hood. He looked over his position and saw his men, their weapons at the ready, aimed at the bridge, tensing to go. He wanted to lead them in a valiant charge; to relieve the beleaguered choke point. Should he disobey a direct order from the Chief of Op and give the word to go? He could be a hero. His picture would be on the PBA calendar. But what if he disobeyed and screwed everything up. After all, he did not know the whole picture. No! The smart move was to follow orders. He and his men would have to wait. There was nothing else for him to do but to listen to the din of battle and stare at the flames and smoke and smell the acrid stink of cordite that laced the air—and pray.

  The fire on the bridge raged and both sides waited.

  “My job is here, coordinating this fiasco,” McQuade said to Malone inside the message center.

  “And my job is out there,” Malone said, leading his men from the room.

  Anderman ran up to him. “Policeman, a helicopter is landing in the parking lot. Follow me.”

  “We don’t need a chopper to go a few blocks,” he said, tugging away.

  “Listen to me, you thickheaded goy! Didn’t you hear those radio messages? Your side is losing. When those flames die they are going to come at you with everything they have. And! They won’t be isolated on any bridge. They’ll be in the streets of Queens where there are houses with people in them, women, children, old people. It will be a bloodbath. Do you want that on your conscience?”

  A strained silence followed.

  Malone was haggard, the shadows on his face were dark, the lines deep. He knew that there was no more time for discussing. It was decision-making time. And that was what it was all about, the rank, the extra pay, department courtesies. To make decisions. Assume responsibility. He knew that Anderman was right. “Let’s go.”

  Anderman led them through the darkened depot, past high mounds of crates and down aisles lined on both sides by phalanxes of oil drums. Anderman ran ahead of the group and rushed up to a metal door that had no knob or hinges. He punched in the combination on the box in the center of the door and it sprang open.

  The helicopter had already landed; its propellers were revving down, sending up funnels of dust and papers off the Tarmac. The aircraft’s hydraulic system was grinding the nose open.

  Malone was aghast when he saw inside the belly of the craft. Five jeeps were lined up single file, each one mounting a GE Minigun M 134 multiple barrel Gatling-type machine gun. Antennas protruded over the rear of the jeeps; each one bore a blue and white pennant with the Star of David. Anderman’s students were behind the wheels, manning the guns. A nameless man with an ugly scar was standing in the lead jeep, gripping the vehicle mount. He looked so at home, a warr
ior readying himself for battle.

  “Anderman, you crazy son-of-a-bitch. Someone will have my balls over this!”

  “So, we’ll lie a little. We’ll say that we were on a UJA fund-raising mission and got lost.”

  “Let’s go!” Malone shouted.

  They ran up the ramp and into the belly of the helicopter, spreading out and climbing into the jeeps. Anderman straddled into the last one. Malone waited until his detectives were safely aboard the pug-nosed vehicles and then climbed in next to Anderman.

  Engines were started. The dull clang of rounds being rammed into chambers reverberated throughout the craft.

  The nameless man with the ugly scar craned his head over his shoulder, making sure all hands were aboard the jeeps. When he saw that they were, he made a wide sweep of his arm, motioning the column forward.

  The lead vehicle jerked forward and wrenched. The brakes squealed and echoed in the helicopter and then the first jeep surged forward and sped out, followed close behind by the others.

  The column drove from the parking lot, turned left, and after fifty feet made a sharp right turn onto Borden Avenue, their proud pennants fluttering.

  The Queens choke point was in a starfish-shaped plaza; five streets and avenues fed into a central disk—the bridge. A tall triangle-shaped building, a garage and a box-shaped building with orange letters on its side spelling: J & D BRAUNER—THE BUTCHER BLOCK, overlooked the bridge. The Hunters Point Long Island Railroad station was nearby, as was the Bloomingdale’s warehouse.

  Disaster units were arriving and people rousted from sleep by the explosions and gunfire peered from their windows and ran to safer parts of their homes. The braver residents of the neighborhood appeared on rooftops for a grandstand view of a battle.

  Across the width of Jackson Avenue policemen ducked behind anything that would protect them. They tensed for the final onslaught.