“They were names, just that,” Gina answered. “There were no real people attached to them. Your people at Homeland Security didn’t even give us real addresses.”
“How so?”
“There is no such place as 374 Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem, just as a for instance. There is a Pleasant Avenue. Most Manhattanites don’t even know it’s there. It’s a short, almost anonymous street way over on the eastern edge of East Harlem. The street numbers don’t go that high.”
Roland said, “Fine, Commissioner, so you didn’t have to waste time tracking those names down.” He was intervening intentionally. He admired and respected Gina but knew she was territorial, sensitive, and intent on keeping the allegiances of the people who worked for her.
“What else?” Roland asked. “Are these people telling you anything?”
“We’ve only had them for three or four hours. We’re working on them.”
Constance Garner, an overweight, stern woman, said, “The FBI would like to help you with that. Nobody told us about this.”
“Sure,” Gina said, “we’ll work that out with you.”
Gina was willing to invite the FBI into the universally known prison on Rikers Island where the ten men were being held because they were not the men locked deep inside the pier on the East River. The inmates in the pier were, she was certain, the high-value men, secretly arrested and held in absolute isolation, and she wasn’t about to let anyone see or even know about them. They belonged to her.
“The men you just arrested: are there others like them still out there?” Roland asked.
“There are. We think there is a safe house on West 139th Street where a group of men who pretend to be immigrant kitchen workers at exclusive hotels live and work together and have a special mission. I gave an order to take them down just as we were walking into this meeting. They’re under arrest now.”
General Foster’s scratchy voice broke out from the video screen. “Who are these people attached to?”
Gina said, “Not certain. There is the group People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad. They’re known as Boko Haram. The Nigerian terrorist group. They’ve been operating in Nigeria and North Africa for more than ten years. Very bad people. It might also be ISIS.”
Ritter said, “Can’t be either of them. They don’t have the capability of mounting large-scale attacks here. They’re too loose and decentralized.”
“Listen,” Roland said. “I don’t care whether they’re from Boko Haram or Procul Harum or whether they’re ISIS or Iggy Pop. What matters is what is happening right now. Mr. Ritter, what can I say at the press conference about what Homeland Security is doing?”
“We’re implementing the plans that have been in place for dealing with precisely this kind of attack.”
Roland paused, staring at Ritter and shaking his head almost imperceptibly, feigning irritated disbelief. “That’s really, really reassuring. I’m sure the entire population of the City of New York will breathe a collective sigh of relief to hear that. So let me ask again: What is Homeland Security doing right now?”
“We’re monitoring unusual communications from sources here in the city and elsewhere. We think we’re close to deciphering what appears to be a sophisticated method of transmitting messages.”
“And what are the results?”
“Nothing definitive yet.”
“Anything else? Where are your people?”
“We’re coordinating with the Army.”
The mayor said, “Monitoring, coordinating? All of that sounds pretty invisible, doesn’t it? We’re almost twenty-four hours into this. What you’re telling me sounds like the work of spooks chasing spooks, except that the spooks being chased have rifles, grenades, plans.” Looking up at the video screen, Roland was genuinely exasperated and making no effort to conceal it. “General, what are you doing?”
The hard-bitten general answered reluctantly, obviously annoyed that he had to respond to a question from a Puerto Rican with the strange name Roland Fortune. “There are troops and material support being assembled at Fort Dix.”
“Fort Dix is what, General, somewhere in New Jersey, about eighty miles from Manhattan?”
“Logistically, we had to locate and transport elements of the 25th Infantry and 101st Airborne from various other locations around the country. My troops and assets can’t be safely deployed without proper support.”
“I never had the honor of serving in the military, General, but frankly what you’ve just said does not make any sense. I don’t need tanks and cannons here. I need what you folks like to call boots-on-the-ground. So when do they get here? The reality is that the people who live here will only be made more comfortable if there are men and women in uniforms at every street corner.”
“That’s futile.”
“Is it? I don’t think so.”
“We also need approval from Secretary Lazarus,” the general said. “After 9/11 the watchword is coordination.”
“Mr. Ritter, you work for Lazarus. Can you tell me what the fuck is really going on?”
“We’ll have an answer soon. Secretary Lazarus is meeting with the president and his folks right now.”
Raising his hands in exasperation, Roland said, “This is all stunningly inept. It takes my breath away.”
Ritter and General Foster didn’t respond. Ritter glared at Roland as the general, almost without blinking, stared from his segment of the split screen. He looked like a photograph, not a man on a live feed.
Roland asked the secretary of defense, “Roger, do you have anything to say?”
“Sure. The general and Mr. Ritter are experts on military issues, but the president is the final decision-maker. As soon as this conference call is over, I’ll join a video conference with the president, Secretary Lazarus, and the general.”
“Commissioner Carbone,” Roland said, “do you have any reaction to what we’ve been hearing?”
“I have as many uniformed officers with as many M-16s on the streets as I can find, but it’s a thin net.”
“At least it’s something,” Roland said.
He turned to Hans Richter, an impeccably organized deputy mayor responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the Sanitation, Housing, and Health Departments. He was a fifty-five-year-old bachelor who always seemed to be in his office in the Municipal Building across Centre Street from City Hall. “Hans, what’s happening from your perspective?”
“Candidly, Mr. Mayor, Manhattan is in a steady state of collapse. Garbage is piling up on every street, normal ambulance service is almost nonexistent. We also have thousands of people who were in the city yesterday only for a day, visitors from the suburbs for the most part. They have no apartments or homes to return to.”
“Didn’t someone tell me that if we had a Code Apache situation there were shelters with food and other essentials where people could go?”
“We do. But they’re overflowing. There are six hundred cots set up in the Armory on Park Avenue, for example. They’re all occupied. But many of the other shelters are in neighborhoods that apparently don’t feel as safe to out-of-towners. So there are thousands of people who, for the first time in their lives, are living in the parks and streets. We are managing to provide food and water and some, but not enough, sanitation facilities.”
Increasingly in pain, suddenly focusing on the image in his mind of Sarah and the recollection of her scent, Roland recognized that his spirit was bruised. He worried that his mood was deflating. Everything seemed too immense and too complicated and too uncertain. He said, “What else, Hans?”
“Food supplies in the stores have virtually vanished. There’s been a rush for food, water, and other supplies that’s happened with a speed we didn’t anticipate. So we’re experiencing more and more pleas for food assistance.”