Manhattan Lockdown (28 page)

“What about the secret arrests and torture reported on the Gandhi blog?”

“I'm assured there were no secret arrests. Everyone—and there are hundreds of people—who has been arrested has undergone the usual processing even in these extraordinary times and either has been or will be brought before a judge for arraignment. Those judges will, as always, ask for pleas of guilty or not guilty and will apply the usual standards that apply to bail decisions on whether to let an accused go free to await trial or to detain him or her. The issue for the judge at that stage always is twofold: Is the person a danger to the community? Is that person a risk of flight? If he or she is one or the other, he or she will be detained. And all of this is a matter of public record.”

“What about torture?”

Just as Gina had instructed him, Roland answered, “There has been no torture. Certainly there has been questioning of detained people. And some leads have proven useful. They were voluntarily given, not forced.”

And then another voice: “We understand just now that the FBI has arrested Antonio Garafalo, a close friend of the commissioner, for the murder of Raj Gandhi, an investigative reporter for the
New York Times.”

Roland Fortune was a consummate actor. He made believe the question hadn't been asked and he made other people believe the same thing. “Even as we speak, delivery trucks containing all the myriads of essential products on which the people of Manhattan rely—food, water, flowers, and, yes, even beer—are arrayed in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx and have been cleared for entry into Manhattan. Our stores will soon be replenished. The pulse of this vibrant city will soon return to normal. Any threats will be stifled. The only changes Manhattanites will see that will make the city different from the tranquil world of four days ago will be the welcome presence on every street corner of soldiers, police, and military equipment.”

Roland raised his left arm, an embracing gesture. “Manhattan will soon be what it always has been. The streets will be alive with all of our vibrant residents. The subways will reverberate under us, like the flow of blood through healthy, vigorous bodies. Tourists from every nation will fill our streets. Yes, we will have all the noise, the excitement, and all the quiet places of refuge, the museums, the parks, the book stores, the irreplaceable diners, that provide the texture of this greatest of all cities.”

As had so often happened in his flawless and charmed career, Roland Fortune smiled at the reporters gathered in front of him, a motley group of some well-dressed men and women who could have passed for bankers to scruffy people who seemed to have been transported in time from Berkeley in 1968, and said, “Thank you all for coming. Relax, resume your lives.”

T
HE PRIVATE CORPORATE
jet seated just twelve passengers. The aircraft bore no external markings or seals except for the name of the manufacturer Bombardier, the Canadian company selected by the Secret Service for the rapidly assembled flight on the theory that its most important passenger would fly only on a North American-constructed corporate jet. There was not a single symbol of American power or prestige or presence on the jet's gleaming surfaces.

President Andrew Carter, as he glanced from the window, was struck again by how the New Jersey Meadowlands, whether he saw them from the ground or the air, were one of the most desolate areas in America. As the jet gradually slowed for its descent into the small Teterboro airport in northern New Jersey, it was less than two thousand feet above the expanse of Meadowlands that always made him think of the title to the Eliot poem
The Waste Land
. Still-polluted rivers and streams ran through the reeds. There were ragged open areas where car and truck dumps were fully exposed, rusting. Unadorned and anonymous warehouses whose flat roofs were at least two acres large were scattered among the reeds and filthy swamplands. Even the new professional football and basketball stadiums, fed by long ribbons of new highways, looked from above like Lego toys, a failed effort to create a Disneyland in a wasteland.

As the jet banked just slightly, that most spectacular of all man-made views in the world came suddenly into sight: the island of Manhattan. Carter scanned the city skyline beginning at lower Manhattan. The new World Trade Center tower, a triangular, multi-sided building that glinted like a sword and was topped by an immense antenna, dominated the downtown collection of tall office buildings. Then, slightly farther to the north, the skyline gradually declined in the older areas of Tribeca, Soho, and the West Village.

The president and the passengers on his side of the jet all stared at the familiar, always magical sight: the Empire State Building, still stunning and sleek; the Chrysler Building whose top resembled frozen lava; and the triangular heights of the modern green-tinted Citibank Building. For the first time Andrew Carter saw the new slender apartment building that rose like a needle more than ninety stories above 57
^th
Street. It was black, so tall and thin that it was eerie.

When the jet made its final adjustment for the landing at Teterboro, the Manhattan skyline slid out of view, like a magical illusion. The president settled into his oversize seat and strapped and snapped on his seat belt. To his right was Roger Fitton, the secretary of defense whom Carter had privately decided to fire just a week before the assault on Manhattan. On the president's left, in full formal military clothing, was dour, determined General Malcolm Foster, that scrawny native of West Virginia the president completely trusted even though the two men couldn't have been more different. Carter was naturally eloquent; Malcolm Foster spoke only when he had a fact to convey. Secret Service agents sat silently in the rows of seats behind and in front of the president of the United States.

The perfectly engineered Bombardier was as quiet as a glider plane when it was two miles from Teterboro. Suddenly Roger Fitton, who
had taken a three-minute call on his cell phone, said, “Mr. President, your favorite mayor just finished a press conference.”

Carter smiled. “He's the only man in the world who loves those cameras more than I do.” He lapsed into silence. “So tell me what he said about Gina Carbone's resignation?”

“Not word one.”

“Didn't Lazarus get my order to him?”

“That was Lazarus just on the cell with me. He did give your order.”

“Before or after Fortune's press conference?”

“Before.”

“Before?”

“Right, before.”

“So what did the motherfucker say at this press conference?”

“Fortune praised Commissioner Carbone as if she were the Ulysses S. Grant of the twenty-first century. He said that because of her effectiveness he was ordering the immediate lifting of the lock-down of Manhattan. The city, he said, is now safe enough for that.”

Carter's moods and reactions had always been a mystery to Fitton. Carter and Fitton had known each other for the few years their careers in the Senate overlapped when they had adjoining office suites and both served on the Foreign Relations Committee. As Defense Secretary, Fitton had met with Carter at least twice a week over the last three years in the Oval Office and conference rooms in the Pentagon and elsewhere. Fitton had never once been invited to the legendary basketball games Carter held at the White House gym.

As the Bombardier leveled with the sureness of an arrow, with the flat New Jersey terrain racing on both sides of the slender craft, Andrew Carter said nothing. Whoever the pilot was had the expertise of an astronaut. The wheels of the jet made a velvet contact with the old and somewhat rutted runway of the small airport.

Even when the Bombardier stopped completely, its flawless engines subsiding into silence, no one in the cabin moved; there were no snapping sounds of seat belts clicking open and loose. This was because Andrew Carter, ordinarily as vigorous and fast at fifty-two as he had been decades earlier as a college, and briefly a professional basketball player, remained motionless. The only sound, the only movement, came two minutes after the jet halted when the pilot opened the cockpit's sealed door. The pilot, who had close-cropped blond hair, was a woman. Andrew Carter and the other people in the luxurious cabin hadn't known that because the door to the cockpit was closed and sealed when, less than an hour before, they had quickly scaled the stairs to the inside of the plane. The pilot and copilot, a large man in a Navy pilot's uniform who left the cockpit only when the attractive woman was at the front of the cabin, hadn't made any announcements during the flight.

Without unfastening his belt, the president leaned closer to Roger Fitton, asking, “Rog, how many Army and Marine soldiers do I have in the city?”

“Between fifteen and twenty thousand troops.”

“Where are they primarily?”

Fitton shrugged. “All over Manhattan.”

“Roger,” the president said, “those are not really adequate answers. In fact, they're lousy answers.”

Roger Fitton had an almost inflexible cheeriness, a quality that enabled him to win by huge margins every election he ran in Ohio. The president had picked him as the secretary of defense because he felt he needed at least one bright face among the sour collection of men and women, including Harlan Lazarus, who ran what the press always called the president's “national security team.” And Fitton also carried at least an aura of military service: as a young man he had enlisted in the Army Reserve, spent four months on
active duty and then twelve years on almost nonexistent reserve duty, leaving with the rank of major, the reason why some soldiers in the Administration addressed him as “Major.” Andrew Carter knew it was a joke. Fitton had entered the Army because he always intended to be a politician and believed, correctly, that a claim to military service would give him some intangible edge, a credit, particularly in a state like Ohio.

“I don't understand, Mr. President. That's the best information I have. I can get you exact numbers and locations in two seconds.”

The president glanced at him with unveiled disdain and, after the tense beat of two or three seconds, he turned to his left. General Foster was staring straight ahead, as if at attention. “General?” Carter said.

Without hesitating, the general said, “Twelve thousand three hundred and seventy-five, sir. They're located at every street corner in Manhattan. There are an additional two thousand nine hundred troops on Naval and Coast Guard craft on the rivers and in New York Harbor, all ready for specific deployment.”

“General, I want your reserve troops to concentrate at every bridge and tunnel leading into and out of Manhattan. Your commanders must make sure that no one, absolutely no one, leaves or enters Manhattan until
I
give that order.”

“Mr. President,” the grim general said, “those access points are currently under the control of the NYPD.”

“So?”

“If we deploy in the next hour, my soldiers will come face to face with those police officers. I understand that the rank and file of the NYPD are remarkably loyal to that commissioner, Ms. Capone or whatever her name is. She must already have directed her people that the mayor has announced the lifting of the lockdown. They see themselves as working for the mayor, not you.”

“General, let me say it again. United States soldiers are to be posted immediately at every entrance and exit point in Manhattan. No one leaves or enters Manhattan unless
I
say so.”

“What is it exactly, sir, that you want my troops to do? We soon will have armed men and women facing each other at bridges and tunnels, with directly conflicting orders. Tempers will flare. In Afghanistan I had many situations where soldiers, the Afghans and my troops, nominally allies on the same side, came into direct contact at times when they were under competing orders. And the results often were not pretty.”

“Listen, General. I am the commander in chief. My orders are that Code Apache stays rigidly in effect until
I
say otherwise. How you and your people implement those orders is your business.”

Carter then finally reached for the buckle of his seat belt. The unfastening sound of the click sharply resonated, followed immediately by a series of identical clicks as everyone else unfastened theirs.

Malcolm Foster stood first to give Carter access to the aisle. He saw the president put his hand on Fitton's wrist just as Fitton was about to stand.

“By the way, General, I'm certain the major here, with his deep reservoir of military experience, can help you.”

***

The silver blades of the green Army helicopter already flashed like a million swords in the bright sunlight as Carter led a small entourage through a cordon of Secret Service agents on the skillet-hot tarmac of the Teterboro runway. At six four, Carter was not only the tallest person in his entourage, he was taller than the sixteen men and two women in the Secret Service detail which suddenly materialized around him.

The Army helicopter carrying President Carter was indistinguishable from the dozens of other green helicopters that were airborne at the same time over the Hudson River and the amazing spectacle of Manhattan, and, in the distance, the glittering expanse of New York Harbor. Carter could see the Statue of Liberty, as distinct as the miniature models of it displayed in the shops and kiosks of every airport in America.

Behind him in the thunderous interior of the helicopter, the president heard the clipped voice of Malcolm Foster on a cell phone, but couldn't hear the words. Carter was certain that the homely, hard-bitten general was giving out commands to follow the president's order. As Carter had expected, the general hadn't spoken to the secretary of defense, who sat quietly on the hard metal bench in the helicopter's belly. Those benches were benches made for soldiers and not for the president of the United States.

A thousand feet below the helicopter was the dazzling perfection of the grid of midtown Manhattan. It had the straight lines of crisscrossing streets and avenues and the tops of buildings that made it look like a gigantic chessboard with all the pieces in their precisely ordained places. Carter had flown over every small and large city in America, and there was no sight like this anywhere else in the country.