Carmella tapped Tony on the shoulder. “Stay nearby, but out of sight, until I give the all clear. If all goes well, you will be the first uniform on the bus. If the shit hits the fan, you will be our clean-up guy.”
Tony took position against the building so he could see the bus stop on the corner, without being seen himself. Carmella and Matt waited on the bus stop as if they were ordinary passengers. Carson stood in a doorway so he would not be seen by Ibrihim.
The bus came into view when it was a block from Fifty-Fifth Street. Carmella’s heart pounded. It traveled slowly westbound. Carmella gasped when she read an emergency message flashing on the front of the bus: EMERGENCY CALL 911. She raised her eyebrows. Matt shook his head and shrugged.
Was the flashing message good news or bad news? Was the bus driver onto Ibrihim? Was there a hostage situation on board? She would soon know because the bus was pulling into the bus stop.
Carmella’s radio cackled, “66 Sergeant K - Advise all units to standby, the bus is arriving.”
“Oh, crap!” She forgot all about the freaking radio. It was sure to give her away and blow everything!
* * *
The Hasidic man’s eyes met the Palestinian boy’s stare. Their eyes locked. Samuel smiled at the boy. Ibrihim glared back.
The boy’s face rapidly changed from pale white to crimson red. His body trembled and crescendoed into violent shaking.
“Son, let me help you,” Samuel said.
Ibrahim’s glare morphed into an empty stare. Samuel wondered if the boy heard him. He wondered if the boy could even see him anymore.
Samuel saw that empty stare before. In Israel, when suicide bombings were common.
The boy had detached from reality. He is determined to do what he set out to do.
Samuel trembled.
He felt the bus slow down. He glanced towards the front of the bus.
The bus came to a full stop and Frank jumped from the driver’s seat, quickly guiding the passengers off the front of the bus.
Samuel looked at the back of the bus. He nodded his head towards the rear door and dramatically rolled his eyeballs in that direction. Remarkably, the rear passengers understood Samuels’ silent message and exited the bus.
Thank God. Samuel inhaled, tried to steady his breathing and pounding pulse. The bus was emptying and the boy seemed lost in his own world. Except for his body jerking as if his finger were jammed in an electrical socket, Samuel would have sworn he was a mannequin. His eyes were open in a blank stare.
All of a sudden, the boy became rock still. His whole body, except, for his head, became as still as stone. His head bobbed like a buoy on a stormy sea.
The boy’s eyes blinked. The time had come. Samuel huddled over the boy’s lap and grabbed the bag. Samuel held the bag and staggered backwards. Just as he regained his balance, the boy looked at him and shook his head slowly from side to side.
Samuel was puzzled by the boy’s calm demeanor. It was over, the boy failed. He should fight to get the bag back or run. Instead, he sat there. He just sat there.
When the boy closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest, Samuel understood. Samuel had the bag, but it was too late. The boy had already triggered the bomb!
Chapter 34
“Tony!” Carmella held out the police radio and lobbed it as hard as she could in an underarm throw. Tony was fifteen yards away but he caught the radio effortlessly.
Carmella sighed with relief.
The bus pulled up to the curb.
As soon as the bus came to a full stop, the doors opened and passengers rushed off.
Matt pumped his arm towards Fourteenth Avenue. “Go, go— Go! Move folks. Keep moving. Hurry.”
While Carmella waited for the last of the passengers to disembark from the front door, she looked in the doorway where Carson was hiding. He was waiting for the last passenger to empty out the rear door.
She caught his eye. “Now,” she mouthed.
Carmella followed Matt through the front door and found the driver’s seat empty. The bus driver was running towards the back of the bus. Before she could take a step to follow him, Matt shoved her hard.
She pinwheeled backwards through the air and was airborne for an eternity. She did not remember hitting the ground.
* * *
“Frank, no! Get off the bus!” Samuel watched Frank running towards him. “It’s too late!”
In a last minute effort to stifle the explosion, Samuel hugged the duffle bag.
Frank reached him just as the bomb exploded. The blast instantly killed Samuel and Frank, and Ibrihim. Some body parts were distinguishable but most that remained of them was a pink and black gelatin mess. Matt died a nano-second later when the pipe bomb exploded. His intact body was riddled with nails.
* * *
Carson could not get through the rear door. Just as he placed his foot on the first step, there was a huge blast. The resistance in the air caused an immediate halt to his forward motion. The blast sent him flying backwards until he landed under the elevated train tracks on New Utrecht Avenue.
Chapter 35
Carmella opened her eyes and a bright white light forced them to squint. Her first thought was, “Go into the light.” Her second thought was, “My butt is freaking killing me.”
Through slits, Carmella recognized the ambulance bay of Maimonides Hospital. How did I get here and why is my butt pulsing with pain? She sighed.
She lifted her fuzzy head. The bright light was the illumination of flood lights from a news van. It is not a tunnel to the afterlife, dummy. She laughed at herself despite the pain. As her head cleared, she tried to think why the news van was parked outside of the hospital.
As the ambulance stretcher rolled into the Emergency Room bay doors, she caught a glimpse of mayhem in the street.
News trucks, their telescoping white antennas raised high above the two-story buildings, were parked in front of Manny’s Diner. A crowd of Hasidic Jews congregated on Forty-Ninth Street, opposite the Emergency Room doors. Sirens of arriving ambulances and police cars forced the crowd to separate in order to allow them to pass.
Ambulances, news crews, neighborhood people gathering outside. What happened? She looked up for answers.
Into the face of the burly cop, Tony. Oh no. She remembered. Damn. She remembered.
She was looking at Carson, as she boarded the bus behind Matt. She soared through the air, after Matt had pushed her out of the bus. Where was Matt? Where was Carson?
She looked around frantically, eyeing each stretcher as she rolled past on her own stretcher. She searched each face. No Matt. No Carson.
Her stomach ached. She felt sick.
“Tony.” Carmella looked up. “What happened? Are Matt and Carson okay?” She swallowed hard. “This is clean up duty for you, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is.” He sighed.
“The bomb went off, didn’t it? That’s why Matt pushed me out of the bus.”
“Yes.” Tony’s lower lip trembled. “A good Samaritan and the bus driver evacuated the bus just before it exploded. They died in the blast.”
“Matt? Carson?” She needed to know. Now.
“Carson is being transported to Kings County Hospital. He needs specialized care from their Emergency Room’s Burn Unit. But he should be okay.”
“-and Matt? Is he on his way to KCH too?” Her voice was a whisper. Tears already pooled in her eyes.
Tony waited until the paramedics parked the stretcher in an examination room before answering. He leaned over and took her hand. His eyes were watery. “Yes, he is also on his way to KCH, but not to the Emergency Room.”
Tony held Carmella as she cried for her friend—her hero.
Chapter 36
Matt was buried on Sunday morning, with full honors. Thousands of uniformed police officers lined Coney Island Avenue for blocks, a sea of blue from Eighteenth Avenue all the way to Avenue N. The NYPD was the majority presence, but other police depart
ments from all over the country were in attendance. The officers, wearing dress uniforms with white gloved hands, stood at attention. Behind the rows and rows of police ranks stood hundreds of civilians from the Hasidic and Arabic neighborhoods.
It was eerily silent while the coffin was carried up the stairs into the Chapel. Except, for the “chop, chop” of police helicopter blades and the single nay from a mounted cop’s horse, all was quiet.
Carmella stood at attention in the ranks of blue. Am I really here, at Matt’s funeral? It can’t be. He is standing right next to me, looking so handsome in his dress uniform. We are paying respects for a fallen comrade, side by side. Like they stood together too many times before, for Eddie, Sergeant Miller, Chris, Billy, and for Kenny.
She darted her eyes to her right, then to her left. No Matt. He was inside the chapel, in the coffin. When the Emerald Society Bagpipes played Taps tears poured down her cheeks. Her throat and stomach ached from stifled cries.
She walked into the chapel with a cane, but at the cemetery she sat in a chair. She could not stand for long. Her lower back began to whine after just a few minutes of standing. After twenty minutes, it screamed. The doctors said her fractured tailbone would heal, but she would feel stiff and achy for months.
Carson was not as lucky. His injuries will heal but his scars will remain. His face, arms and hands will be scared for life. His eyebrows, eye lashes and arm hair will grow back within weeks. His scars will fade, in time.
And Matt, well, Matt was in a better place.
Chapter 37
Carmella held the dog’s leash in one hand and maneuvered her cane with the other hand. The dog walked along the curb and Carmella shuffled beside him. When the dog stopped to face the afternoon sunshine, Carmella did not notice. The cloudless sky seemed dreary to her.
She was exhausted from yesterday’s burial and the luncheon at Matt’s house that followed. When Matt’s mother suggested she take home Matt’s most valued possession, she balked. How could she take care of a dog? But when Mrs. Rosen explained that the dog sat by the front door, all day and night, waiting for Matt to come home she could not refuse.
“I cannot bear to look at the dog, sitting and waiting—” She wiped her eyes. “For my son. Take Boxer as a favor to me.”
“Boxer.” Carmella looked at the brown stocky dog and smiled. “Leave it to Matt to come up with such an original name.”
They laughed. Their laughs morphed into tears.
Mrs. Rosen hugged Carmella. “This arrangement will be good for you and the dog, you’ll see.”
She took Boxer home.
Walking him was a bit of a challenge. She leaned on her cane while she waited for her new dog to take care of his personal business. She longed to crawl into bed as soon as Boxer was done, but she could not rest until she paid her respects at the Rubenstein home.
A short toot of a police siren caught her attention. She looked up. An unmarked police car pulled to the curb. Since she could not yet drive herself, her fellow cops volunteered to drive her places for a while. She waved to the officer before leading Boxer into the apartment.
“Be a good boy.” She patted Boxer’s head. “I’ll be home soon.”
* * *
Carmella grimaced as she climbed the stairs of Samuel Rubenstein’s stoop. Her lower back pinged every time she lifted a foot.
She knocked on the front door and entered the house. Two thirty-something year old men sat on low benches. Samuel Rubenstein’s sons. Carmella took a seat near them. She glanced around the room and spotted a large solitary candle burning on the mantel.
The man sitting nearer to her said, “We will keep the candle lit for the entire week. It reminds us that our father’s soul is not gone, but lives on with God.”
“A lovely sentiment.”
“Thank you for coming,” said the man next to him. “We know how hard you tried to stop the bombing.”
Carmella sniffed. “I am so sorry about your father. Considering the altruist choices that he made during the last minutes of his life, he must have been a remarkable man.”
“Yes, he was. As was your partner, I’m sure.”
“Yes. Thank you. The bus driver was also a special man. If only they had not died in such close proximity to the suicide bomber.”
“Yes, it sickens me to know that the blood of my father is mixed up with that evil man’s blood. The rabbi said a special prayer during burial to cleanse our father’s physical remains from the bombers contamination.”
“Good, I am glad to hear that. I have a special gift for the suicide bomber’s gravesite. I promise you, it will not be cleansing.”
Both men smiled and nodded.
Carmella heard a soft knock on the front door. It was time for the next visitor to pay their respects.
Carmella leaned on the cane as she stood. Her back had tightened while she sat. “May the omnipresent comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”
“Thank You.”
Carmella walked to the front door.
By the time the police car dropped her home, she could barely walk, even with the cane. She did a fine impersonation of Tim Conway’s old man shuffle. Only her version was not funny. It was pathetic.
Once inside her apartment, she changed into an oversized sloppy t-shirt, took a muscle relaxant and lowered herself into bed.
A second later she heard a thump and felt the mattress near her legs sink. Boxer lay curled by her feet. They slept.
Chapter 38
The next morning Carmella rose from her bed painlessly. The muscle relaxant did the trick. The hot shower massaged her back but getting dressed was another story.
So much bending was involved in dressing. Not only did bending cause her pain, but so did the mirror’s reflection of the plain black pants suit that she wore. After today’s funeral mass she vowed to never dress in black again.
After a quick walk with Boxer, Carmella returned home to await today’s ride. She heard the siren’s toot, scratched Boxer’s neck and walked out the door.
When she spotted the cop who volunteered to drive her today she looked twice. His face broke out in a grin when he saw her puzzled expression. He was the Seven-two cop from the roadblock.
She sat in the car and smiled at him. She was dumbfounded.
He held out his hand. “I’m Ozzam Zaki. I believe we’ve met.”
She took his outstretched hand and cupped it warmly with both her hands. “It means a lot that you understand why I dumped on you that night.”
“Hey, it was a humbling experience for me. No job is too small, right?”
“It turns out that Abdul was a hero, after all, and not a prisoner. I would not call safeguarding a hero a small job.”
Ozzam beamed.
He drove to the church for the bus driver’s funeral mass. Carmella needed to pay respects to the family of the third hero that died last Thursday.
Afterwards, she will give the villain what he deserved.
* * *
When the bus driver’s funeral was over, Carmella and Ozzam traveled wordlessly towards the Cross Island Expressway. She was touched by the mass. The bus driver’s priest and family celebrated his life at the Catholic Mass and took comfort that his soul is everlasting. The bombing was not mentioned. The bus driver’s family refused to give the terrorists any power at the funeral. The omission of the terrorist act made the service dignified.
When the police car merged onto the Van Wyck Expressway, Carmella glanced at Ozzam. “You don’t have to do this with me. It is kind of a silly thing to do anyway.”
Ozzam responded without hesitation. “It is silly when dealing with rational minds. But when dealing with zealots, it needs to be done. If it deters just one suicide bomber, it’s worth it.”
Carmella looked down at the large plastic thermos between her feet. “Well, I can do it another day. Maybe when Carson is released from the hospital—”
“Ibrihim will be buried by then. It has to be today.”
“Being a Muslim, are you okay with this?”
“Are you kidding?” His face turned red. “Because I am a Muslim, I am okay with this!”
“What we are about to do is against your beliefs.”
“I am going to make sure the Muslim community, especially the radical mosques, hear about this.” Ozzam let out a puff of air. “It should be done every time an Islamic extremist commits an act of terrorism, as a deterrent.”
“Okay, then.” Carmella a nodded. She pointed at the green sign for the Whitestone Expressway. “Let’s go to Hart Island and get it done.”
They waited ten minutes for the ferry. There is no way they could have gotten on the ferry without a connection. The Department of Corrections runs the island and Potter’s Field. Roy made a phone call and it was arranged.
Once the ferry docked, Ozzam drove off the ramp. He stopped at the entrance to the Island. The dock security officer directed them to Potter’s Field, the city’s cemetery for unidentified or unclaimed bodies. No one claimed Ibrihim’s remains.
Ozzam followed the bumpy road towards the burial site. Carmella clamped the thermos firmly between her feet. She would not allow its bloody contents to spill onto the floorboard. Every drop was intended for Ibrihim.
Fields of tall grass and blue weeds grew on both sides of the road. The soft lapping sounds of the bay was soothing. Carmella felt a sense of tranquility. She was not at all bothered by the act that lay ahead.
As they neared the burial grounds, a windowless blue cargo van with the words “CITY MORGUE” printed on its side jolted Carmella out of her repose.
Ozzam parked the police car two car lengths behind the morgue wagon. Five plain pine coffins were stacked next to the van, ready for burial. Four of the coffins were stacked together. One stood aside from the group. She had a good idea of who lie in the lonely coffin.
The Impoverished: Boxed Set Page 16