NEW YORK CITY
With traffic at an absolute standstill, Harvath threw twenty bucks onto the front seat of the cab, and he and Bob jumped out.
According to Herrington, they were only about six blocks away from the VA, and so they decided to make that their destination.
In every bar and restaurant they ran past, people were glued to the televisions and scenes of the devastating explosion on the Queensboro Bridge.
When they arrived at the VA, the lobby was in chaos. Everyone, including the VA police, was huddled around the television sets. Bob led Harvath through the crowd and upstairs to the office of Dr. Sam Hardy. Hardy was in his late forties, tall and fit. He was balding and had a look in his eyes that suggested he’d been around the block more than a few times.
Hardy looked up from the TV set on his desk when Harvath and Herrington entered and said to Bob, “It looks like multiple attacks.”
“Multiple?” asked Harvath as Bob introduced him to Dr. Hardy. “We just heard about the Queensboro Bridge. There have been more?”
Hardy nodded his head. “The reports are just starting to come in, but it looks like all of the bridges and all of the tunnels into and out of Manhattan have been hit.”
Harvath was at a loss for words. He stood there with his mouth agape as they watched the television on Hardy’s desk. Finally, he stated, “I guess now maybe we know why they wanted to draw off the tactical teams.”
“And why they wanted to take out the Emergency Operations Center,” added Bob as he turned to Hardy and asked, “Have you heard from anybody else?”
“No,” replied Hardy, “but I think they’ll start showing up here real soon.”
“Who are you talking about?” Harvath asked.
Herrington ignored him and said to Hardy, “Can I borrow your keycard?”
“What for?”
“I want to take Scot up to the roof and get a look at what’s going on.”
“I’ll go with you,” said the doctor. “I want to get a look too. Let me just leave a note in case anyone comes by while we’re up there.”
Up on the roof, they could see enormous clouds of smoke coming from the direction of the Queensboro as well as several other points around the city. Down on the street, people were in a panic, many of them sprinting down 23rd Street toward the East River, presumably so that they could get a better view of what had happened to the Queensboro and Williamsburg bridges.
For what seemed like an eternity, no one on the roof spoke. They were dumbfounded as they stood there taking in the horror and devastation.
“Bridges and tunnels,” Harvath finally said, “and at the beginning of one of our busiest holiday weekends. How many dead are we going to be looking at? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
“At least,” replied Dr. Hardy, shaking his head. “At least.”
As they stood taking it in, not one of them needed to draw the parallel to that warm September morning in 2001 when a handful of hijackers brought the Twin Towers crashing to the ground. They were all feeling the same thing-the fear, the confusion, and finally the bitter anger that the enemies of America had once again been able to rain such death and destruction down on so many innocent people.
“Al-Qaeda,” Bob said, almost beneath his breath.
Harvath knew he was right. The attacks had al-Qaeda’s fingerprints all over them. Distract and then flank with multiple coordinated attacks. It was ripped right from their playbook. Harvath’s thoughts of leaving government service and going into the private sector suddenly seemed much less pressing. What he wanted at this point more than anything else was justice-a shot to get even, and he knew that Bob Herrington felt exactly the same way.
As they stood watching plumes of gray-black smoke twist into the late afternoon sky, the roof door slammed open and three figures emerged. They were just as Bob had described them in his e-mails and Harvath had no problem recognizing them.
“Are you all okay?” asked Hardy as the newcomers approached.
“They hit everything!” exclaimed Paul Morgan, a dark-haired, twenty-four-year-old who stood about five feet eleven. His preppy outfit of neatly pressed khakis and a crisp linen shirt stood in sharp contrast to the heavy Bronx accent he had grown up with. When Morgan said the word everything, it came out ever-ree-ting. “Every bridge and every tunnel, doc. They nailed them all.”
“We don’t know exactly what they’ve hit, Paul. Let’s just calm down here,” replied Hardy.
“Morgan’s right, Doc,” said Tracy Hastings, a twenty-six-year-old woman whose blond hair was braided into two pigtails. It was a look Harvath had always liked. Pigtails were for little girls, but when big girls wore them there was something sexy as hell about it. And just as Bob had said, Hastings was in incredible shape. She was obsessed with working out and she had sculpted her five-foot-seven-inch frame into a work of art. Normally, Harvath was not drawn to women who were as buff or maybe even more so than he was, but there was something very attractive about her that he just couldn’t put his finger on. Tracy must have noticed Harvath looking her over because she turned her face away as she continued, “It’s all over the TV. They hit every bridge and every tunnel-some of them more than once.”
“Redundancy,” added Rick Cates, the third and final member of their party. He stood at least six feet three inches tall, with dark eyes, a shaved head and a T-shirt that read Guns don’t kill people. I kill people. “This is the exact attack we’ve all been talking about,” he added with a look on his face that mirrored the mix of rage and frustration that they were all feeling.
Hardy tried to calm them down. “We don’t know what’s going on, so let’s just take a deep breath, okay?”
“Every bridge into and out of Manhattan has been blown,” insisted Hastings, “and you want us to just calm down?”
“Yes,” replied Hardy. “Everybody just stop a second.”
Harvath didn’t understand what the doctor’s connection with them was, but they all seemed to listen to him, including Herrington. After the moment of forced silence, Hardy formally introduced Corporal Paul Morgan, United States Marine Corps; Lieutenant Tracy Hastings, United States Navy; and Sergeant Rick Cates, United States Army.
As Harvath finished shaking hands, a blue-and-white NYPD Bell 412 EP helicopter roared right past the rooftop. It was so close that through the open cabin door they could see an NYPD sniper armed with one of the department’s high-end.50-caliber rifles, which was capable of taking out targets over a mile away.
“Hoo-rah!” bellowed Morgan as he pumped his fist in the air. “Go get those fuckers!”
Like spectators in a one-way tennis match, all their heads swung northward to watch the chopper as it raced up the East River toward the smoldering Queensboro Bridge. Whether there’d be anybody left worth getting once they got there was anybody’s guess, but as soldiers, they all appreciated the sight of fellow warriors going into battle, especially ones with an immediate opportunity to avenge an egregious wrong so in need of righting.
The helicopter was out over the middle of the East River, rapidly closing the distance to the bridge, when a white contrail of smoke suddenly appeared in the sky. Cates was the first one to process what they were seeing and as if the pilot of the chopper had any chance of hearing him he yelled, “RPG!”