The Monkey Handlers

by G Gordon Liddy

  “That’s the Tappan Zee,” said Stone. “You’re sure?”

  “Her stern’s near right at me,” said Pappy. “Aka Maru.”

  “All right!” Stone exclaimed. He wheeled the Mustang southeast onto Main Street until he got to Tarrytown, then took Route 9 south a short distance to below the bridge and joined the New York State Thruway. At exit 7-A, he got off and took the Sawmill River Parkway south, weaving rapidly through traffic, alternately infuriating and terrifying other, less skilled drivers in much less powerful vehicles.

  The Sawmill River Parkway is known for its police traffic surveillance, so it was with relief that Stone turned off onto Route 9-A outside of Riverdale to get back over to the river. He gunned it through Van Cortland Park and, just before the bridge separating the Bronx from the island of Manhattan, they were high enough to get a good view back to the river. Aka Maru was coming!

  Stone spun rubber out of the toll booth and onto the Henry Hudson Parkway south toward the George Washington Bridge. As he went by the Cloisters, his luck ran out as a New York City patrol car stared in disbelief at someone going ninety miles an hour in the city. Lights flashing and siren screaming, the patrol car floored it after Stone’s Mustang. “Well,” said Stone, “I guess I’m gonna need a lawyer for this one.” He pulled right and wound the V-8 as tight as he could. The engine screamed as 240 horsepower hurled them forward. The police car moved over to follow, falling behind.

  As the two cars neared the wide-swinging turnoff for Riverside Drive, just underneath the bridge, Stone signaled right, then used all the stopping power of his brakes and the adhesion of his “Gatorback” tires to swing left and onto the Riverside Drive exit. The police car’s driver, seeing that he could not possibly duplicate the feat in his patrol car, didn’t try. He braked, stayed on the parkway, slowed to normal speed, and got on the radio for assistance.

  Stone got the Mustang down slow enough that he could make a hard left at Riverside Drive, then another as, finally at non-attention-attracting normal speed, he fed himself into the spaghettilike maze of the approaches to the George Washington Bridge, following the signs to the lower level.

  The traffic in the left-hand lanes, coming into the city from New Jersey, was still heavy. The right-hand lanes, from New York to New Jersey, less so as Stone moved the Mustang out onto the bridge proper. Because they were in the right-hand lane of the Jersey traffic, they could see the river north easily. Aka Maru, running with the outgoing tide, was moving toward the bridge rapidly, hugging the New York side of the river, where the channel was. Her high superstructure was clear. Stone decided he couldn’t implement his plan from the right-hand lane, too much chance of being spotted from the bridge, and, like all SEAL operations, Stone’s plan depended upon complete surprise.

  Stone moved to the curbside lane and, slowing, lowered the top using the switch on the dash. The top was down by the time the car came to a stop about seven hundred feet out onto the bridge. The four men bailed out without bothering to open the doors. Stone popped the trunk and took the keys. Arno and Pappy Saye took the rope. Stone grabbed the four pairs of welder’s gloves. Cars piled up behind them, blowing their horns. Calmly, the SEALs ignored everyone else and armed themselves. As Wings Harper brought out the AK-47, the fat man in the Cadillac immediately behind them stopped blowing his horn, said, “Oh, Jesus Christ!” and struggled to get down under the dash.

  “South side!” Stone shouted over the noise as sirens could be heard in the background. Wings Harper leveled the AK, and all traffic in adjoining lanes screeched to a halt in a series of rear-end crashes. The four men ran to the middle of the bridge, where a low fence defined the westbound lanes, and vaulted over it onto a wire netlike grid through which the Hudson could be seen clearly far below them. The net-grid sagged under the weight of the four men as they traversed it quickly, vaulted over the other side, and stood against the low fence as the traffic ripped by at forty-five miles per hour.

  Again, Wings did his AK-47 intimidation number, with the same accordion-effect, crash-provoking result, and the men ran to the south side of the bridge and vaulted another railing onto an expanded metal walkway, through which the water was also visible. Stone leaned over the last of the protective railings. There, about another half foot out, ran the slightly rusted aluminum-painted massive outer girders of the bridge.

  Stone studied the understructure. Four men could perch on the outer box girder, but it would have to be in line. That wouldn’t do for what he had in mind. He looked further. From every other riveted plate where the box girders were joined, there ran a wind gusset, another girder that ran at an angle from the outside of the bridge framework in to join the middle of the horizontal roadway support beams at their center. “There!” Stone shouted over the traffic noise, and he led his men over the railing out onto the foot-wide box girder, along which they walked precariously in the gusting winds, high above the river, up to the wind-gusset connection. Using that triangle of steel as their perch, they squatted. Stone took the melted end of the nylon hawser, played out some line, then swung it down hard against the wind-gusset steel. As the end hit the bottom edge and curled back upward, Pappy Saye hung on to Stone’s belt to hold him as he reached down and caught it. He took the spliced loop end from Arno and fed the single end through it. Then the men, shutting their peril from their minds, pulled the hundred feet of rope all the way through the loop and coiled it up.

  As Stone and his men were coiling the rope, the backup of rush-hour traffic behind the abandoned Mustang and rear-ended cars was already attracting the attention of a local radio news traffic reporting helicopter.

  “We’ve got a real mess going on the west-bound lower level of the George Washington Bridge, Tony. There’s a car abandoned in its lane and a series of rear-enders. The backup has clogged the on ramp from the West Side Highway. People waiting to turn off are already stopped dead, and that’s having an effect on the rest of the south-bound traffic as they try to crawl around them. Take an alternate route, folks. There’s thousands of people down there already with nothing to do but take in the scenery along the river ’cause they’re not going any where and … hold it! Stay with me, Tony! There’s something going on down there on the south side of the bridge. I can see one, two, three, four men out on the girders, right over the water. I dunno what we’ve got here, but they’re in perfect position for a mass suicide!”

  The bow of Aka Maru was just nosing under the north side of the bridge as Stone and his men completed their task and Stone handed out the welder’s gloves. All four donned them, then Stone and Pappy held out the big coil of hawser, ready to drop it.

  Stone gauged the speed of the ship and the distance carefully, aware that if he dropped the line too soon, it could be seen from the high bridge of the stern-mounted superstructure of Aka Maru, and that too late a drop meant a complete miss. Despite the stakes, he was calculating coldly, like a machine. “Now!” he said, and dropped the line.

  The heavy line dropped fast, its weight helping prevent sway from the gusts. It hung out, full length, just feet above and ahead of Aka Maru’s bridge deck overhead. “Go!” Stone commanded, and he dived onto the rope, 212 feet above the water, grasping it only in his two gloved hands. As prearranged, Wings dived next, followed by Pappy Saye and Arno Bitt, only a foot between them.

  “They jumped!” the helicopter reporter shouted into his microphone. “Good God, all four of them! There’s a ship coming under the bridge. They’re gonna hit it! Oh, Lord, Tony, with this wind, we can’t get too close to the bridge.…”

  The four former SEALs hung on to the rope literally for their lives, but they didn’t think of it that way. For them, it was a means of insertion, nothing more, no matter how incredibly dangerous. As they gripped the rope and slid at a speed almost that of a free-fall, they were conscious only of the terrible heat building up on the insides of their hands. They had no second pair of gloves inside the welder’s, as SEALs do as insulation when they perform a fast rope insertion
. The ship passed beneath them looming larger and larger as they fell toward it. The terrible pain building up in their hands made the maneuver seem to be in slow motion, as if it would never end. Yet in just four seconds, all four men were on the overhead of the bridge deck of Aka Maru, whirling in agony to hurl the searingly hot welder’s gloves from their scorched hands.

  Stone and Arno ran to the opposite sides of the bridge and dropped first to the deck, threw open the doors, and entered, .45-caliber semiautomatics pointed at the stunned crew members. A second later, they were joined by Wings Harper and his AK-47, and Pappy Saye, .357 Magnum revolver at the ready. Stephanie, who had been admiring the Manhattan skyline, spun around at the noise and reacted with an incredulous “Oh … my … GOD!”

  Stone put his pistol to the head of van Loon. “Sullivan!” he barked.

  “Left … the bridge … a few minutes ago. What the bloody hell…” He left the question unfinished as Stone pushed the muzzle of his pistol hard into him.

  “The Iranians!” Stone snapped. Still shocked, no one answered.

  “It’s a suicide team!” Stone said. “You’ve got minutes before those fanatics let loose a nerve-gas attack!”

  Stephanie recovered first. She remembered what Cole had told her when she asked where the “scientists” were going. “Area one-Alpha starboard!” she said abruptly, then added, “That means the right side of the boat!”

  “Wings,” Stone ordered, “take over aft steering. Pappy, you and Arno seal the watertight doors on one-Alpha starboard. Jam ’em!” The men were on their way as he said to van Loon, “Take me to the fire-control panel—now!” Cole, seeing that Stone was now alone, made a move toward him. Stone shoved van Loon and snapped a shot at Cole’s foot, about an inch from his toe. The blast of the big Colt thundered in the confines of the bridge. Stephanie screamed. Cole froze. Van Loon pointed to the panel. “All right, everyone but the pilot and Ms. Hannigan, hit the deck, facedown!” Stone ordered. “Steady as she goes, pilot. Touch a microphone and you’re a dead man.”

  The traffic helicopter had fallen in behind Aka Maru after she had passed under the bridge. “No sign of any of ’em now, Tony. They had a rope! Dropped right onto the roof of the ship’s bridge! You’d never believe it! This could be a terrorist takeover. I was too far away to see if they were armed, but I’d assume they were. Let’s get the police on this, Tony, and stay with me. Traffic’s at an absolute standstill down there now, all along the river. Our reporting may be partially responsible,” he continued, starting to get carried away, “as people listening to us on their car radios, already bumper-to-bumper, stop to watch this Hudson River drama play itself out right in front of them. Stay with me!”

  Down below, Arno Bitt returned to the bridge deck of Aka Maru. “There were two watertight doors,” he announced. “One leading from the weather-deck ladder passageway, another into the third bay. They’re jammed.”

  Stone turned to the fire-control panel while Arno kept the crew covered. He checked the fire code displayed on it to determine the proper switch, then threw the one that flooded cargo area 1-Alpha starboard on the second deck with carbon-dioxide gas. “All right, pilot,” he said, “beach this vessel on the Jersey side.”

  “What!”

  “You heard me. Stick her in the mud. This ship’s going nowhere.”

  The pilot, two guns on him, shrugged and spun the wheel to starboard.

  “Michael—” Stephanie began.

  “Later,” Stone said crossly. “I’m busy now. And I know starboard means right, for Chrissake. I was in the navy, remember?”

  Pappy Saye came back to the deck. “C’mon, Pappy,” Stone said to him, “let’s go hunt us an Irishman. Arno, hold the bridge.”

  “Aye, aye,” said Arno as Stone and Pappy headed for the weather deck.

  “Where you wanna start, Mike?” Pappy asked.

  “Let’s see if we did any good in one-Alpha starboard first. If it’s empty, we’re after five guys instead of one, and that gas could get us all any minute.”

  The two men went down the hatch in the weather deck to the ladder that led to the three cargo bays that made up 1-Alpha starboard. Stone looked at his watch. “It’s been enough time,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  Pappy cleared the jam on the watertight door and threw it open, staying behind it out of habit. Stone was flat against the bulkhead on the other side of the door. “Wait,” he said, “until enough air can get in there.” They waited until Stone judged it was safe to enter, then did so in the classic one-covering-the-other fashion. Lungs sucking for air, they found the four Iranians slumped over their gas cylinders. One still clutched a piece of paper with writing on it that Stone now recognized as Farsi. “Well,” he said to Pappy, choking on the remaining CO2, “I don’t envy them their chances for paradise.”

  “Come again?” said Pappy.

  Stone shook his head. He was about to answer when his eyes, now accustomed to the gloom, spotted what looked like a pile of canvas over in a corner. He went over to it. It was Brian Sullivan, dressed completely in his state-of-the-art Soviet chemical-warfare protective suit. Stone opened it and felt for a pulse. There was none.

  “What’s that outfit?” Pappy asked.

  “Latest Soviet chemical-warfare outfit. So good it’ll protect even against Sarin.”

  “Well,” said Pappy, “if it’s so fuckin’ good, how come it didn’t protect him from plain ol’ C-oh-two?”

  Stone smiled grimly. “That suit protects by being able to filter the smallest microscopic particles of gas out of the air.”

  “But, when there ain’t no air—”

  “You smother like anybody else,” said Stone. “Suit or no suit.”

  The two men walked away, past the other four bodies and toward the watertight door. Pappy looked down at the Iranians and said, “Hey, Mike, what was you gonna say about not envyin’ those Iranians?”

  “Well, Pappy,” said Stone, “how’d you like to be them right now, giving an after-action report to the Ayatollah himself … and telling him you fucked up?”

  Pappy Saye grinned. “Yeah,” he said as he ducked through the door. “Paradise, my ass!”

  20

  When the telephone rang in his study at home, Walter Hoess started, even though he was expecting the call. “Herr Hoess?” the caller asked. Hoess recognized the sound of the voice. Frantically, he said, “I kept my part of the bargain! The ship sailed as scheduled with what you asked for aboard!”

  “Calm yourself, Herr Hoess. We know you kept your part of the bargain, and we are prepared to keep ours. Pay attention. What I say will not be repeated. It is now oh-two hundred hours. At precisely oh-two forty-five, you are to be at the public telephone on the southwest corner of the Bahnhofplatz. Alone. When it rings, pick it up and you will receive further instructions. Tell no one or the boy dies. We watch and listen.”

  “But there’s barely enough time to—” The telephone went dead in Hoess’s hand. He rushed through the still house to the interior of the garage, picked a set of keys from the keyboard, and entered the 500 SL Mercedes convertible that lurked like a black panther among the more placid sedans.

  Hoess pressed the remote switch for the garage door and started the Mercedes. It seemed to him an hour was consumed by the door sliding slowly up and back against the ceiling. Before it was fully open, Hoess shot through it and into the chill June German night.

  A lone truck lumbered across the Bahnhofplatz as Hoess turned onto it. He circled until he came to the public telephone and, leaving the engine of the Mercedes running, he got out and ran over to the telephone booth. There, by light of the tiny booth dome light, he checked his watch. He prayed that it was correct. If so, he had three minutes to spare. They were the longest three minutes of his life.

  Precisely at 0245, the telephone rang. Eagerly, Hoess snatched the receiver from its cradle. Freed from the weight of the receiver, the cradle rose, activated a mercury switch, and the ensuing blast of Semtex plastique v
aporized the booth, Hoess, four feet of the earth beneath them, and much of the Mercedes.

  The echo of the explosion had barely stopped resounding throughout the Bahnhofplatz when a worn Audi sedan rolled up to the northeast corner, opposite the site of the blast. A rear door opened and a blindfolded teenage boy was thrust out onto the sidewalk. From inside the car, a voice the boy’s father would have recognized said, “You see, boy, we keep our word.”

  * * *

  The attractiveness of the twenty-two-year-old female yeoman first class sitting behind the gray steel desk in the outer office of the commanding officer of the Brooklyn Navy Yard was marred by the look of disapproval on her face as she surveyed the four men who had just entered the room. Three of them were in uniform, hastily purchased whites, bedecked on the left breast by stacks of “fruit salad”—decorations from several nations—all topped by the infamous “Budweiser” insignia of those dreadful sailors answerable only to the SEAL admiral. The black sailor’s stack of medals was almost ridiculous. It ran all the way up from the top of his pocket to almost his shoulder seam—like some foreign field marshal or something, she thought. Well, much good it would do him. The man in her boss’s office today was not the commanding officer of the Navy Yard. These three were going to do a carpet dance before the SEAL two-star admiral from the Pentagon himself. She had no idea what the civilian was doing there. Perhaps he was the complaining witness to what she was sure was their misconduct. Her voice was icy as she called the roll. “Master Chief Petty Officer Virgil R. Saye, retired?”

  “Here.”

  “Chief Petty Officer Herman S. Harper, retired?”

  “Yo.”