The Evening News (43 page)

plates had also been noted the night before which, again, was not unusual. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, vehicles were left parked for a week or more. But during the second night a different and more alert security guard wondered if the Nissan van could be the one he had heard about as being sought in connection with the Sloane family kidnapping
.
He wrote a query to that effect on his report and the maintenance
supervisor, on reading it next morning, promptly called the White Plains
Police who ordered a patrol car to investigate. The time, according to
police records, was 9:50 A.M
.
The maintenance supervisor, however, did not wait for the police arrival
.
Instead he went to the Nissan van, taking along a large bunch of car keys
he had accumulated over the years. It was a source of pride with him that
there were few locked vehicles which, aided by his key collection, he could
not open
.
All of this was at a time when Saturday shoppers, in their cars, were
beginning to stream into the parking building
.
Quite quickly the supervisor found a key that fitted the Nissan van and
opened the driver's door. It was his final act in the few remaining seconds
of his life
.
With a roar which someone later described as "like fifty thunderstorms
,”
the Nissan van disintegrated in an intense, engulfing ball of flame. So did
a substantial part of the building and several cars nearby, fortunately
unoccupied, though what was left of them burned fiercely. The explosion
punched wide holes in the parking building above and below where the Nissan
van had been and caused flaming cars to cascade through the holes to the
lower floors
.
Nor was the effect confined to the parking building. The Center City Mall
itself sustained structural damage and, in the mall and beyond, windows and
glass doors were shattered. Other debris, initially blown upward, descended
on adjoining streets, tr
aff
ic and people
.
The shock effect was total. When the initial roar subsided, apart from the
quieter sound of fires and falling objects, there was a measurable silence
.
Then the screams began, followed by incoherent shouts and curses
,
hysterical pleas for help, unintelligible orders and, soon after, sirens approaching from all directions
.
In the end it seemed extraordinary that the human toll, when added up, was
no greater than it was. In addition to the maintenance supervisor's instant
death, two others died soon after from their injuries and four more victims
were critically hurt and hovering between life and death. Twenty-two more
,
including a half-dozen children, were injured and hospitalized
.
Overall, the reference to Beirut in the UPI bulletin did not seem
inappropriate
.
Afterward there would be debate, focusing on the question: Would the
explosion have happened if the maintenance supervisor had awaited the
arrival of police? The police said no, claiming they would have called the
FBI whose forensic experts would have examined the van, discovered the
explosive material, and then disarmed it. But others were skeptical
,
believing the police would have opened the van anyway, either themselves
or using the maintenance man's keys. Eventually, though, the discussion was
seen as pointless and petered out
.
One thing became self-evident. The destroyed Nissan van had indeed been
used by the kidnappers of the Sloane family members two days earlier. The
proximity to Larchmont, the van's recorded appearance in the Center City
parking building Thursday and the fact that it was booby-trapped all
pointed to that conclusion. So did the license number which, when checked
against motor vehicle records, was shown as belonging to a 1983 Oldsmobile
sedan. However, the owner name, address and insurance data in official
files were quickly discovered to be phony; also the registration and
insurance fees had been paid in cash, the payer leaving no true identity
behind
.
What it all meant was that the Oldsmobile had disappeared, probably junked
,
but its registration was kept alive for illicit use. Thus the license
plates on the Nissan were illegal, though not on any police "hot list
.”

A question was raised because a witness at Larchmont had described the
Nissan van as having New Jersey plates, whereas those seen in the White
Plains parking building were New York's. But, as investigators later
pointed out, it was normal for
criminals to switch license plate
s immediately after a crime was committed
.
One other conclusion was expressed by the White Plains police chief at the
explosion scene. He told reporters grimly, "This was clearly the work of
hardened terrorists
.”

When asked if, extending that reasoning, it was foreign terrorists who had
abducted the Sloane family trio, the chief answered, "That didn't happen
on my turf, but I would think so
.”

"Let's make that foreign terrorist theory our main focus for this evening's
news
,”
Harry Partridge told Rita and Iris Everly when he heard about the
police chief's comment
.
The CBA contingent had arrived a few minutes ago in two vehicles-the camera
crew aboard a Jeep Wagoneer, Partridge, Rita, Iris and Teddy Cooper in a
Chevrolet sedan driven by a network courier-both having covered the
twenty-five miles from mid-Manhattan in a sizzling thirty minutes. As well
as an assemblage of news people at the scene, a growing crowd of spectators
was being herded behind police barriers. Minh Van Canh and the sound man
,
Ken O'Hara, were already getting videotape and natural sound of the wrecked
building, the injured who continued to be removed, and of piles of twisted
,
tortured vehicles, some still burning. They had also joined an impromptu
press conference in time to tape the police chief's statement
.
After making a general assessment of the situation, Partridge summoned Minh
and O'Hara and began conducting on
camera interviews with some of those
involved in rescue efforts as well as several spectators who had witnessed
the explosion. It was work that could have been performed by the camera
crew alone or with a producer. But it gave Partridge a sense of
involvement, being in action, of touching the story directly for the first
time
.
Touching an ongoing news story was psychologically essential to a
correspondent, no matter how well informed he or she might be about that
story's background. Partridge had been working on the Sloane family kidnap
for some forty-two hours, but until now without direct contact with any of
its elements.
At moments he had felt caged, with only a desk, a telephone and a computer monitor connecting him with the reality outside. Going to White Plains, tragic as the circumstances were, fulfilled a need. He knew the same applied to Rita
.
The thought of her caused him to seek Rita out and ask, "Has anyone
talked with Crawf
?
”

"I just phoned him at home
,”
she said
.”
He was about to come here, but
I pleaded with him not to. For one thing, he'd be mobbed. For another
,
seeing what those bastards are capable of would upset him terribly
.”

"Still, he'll see the pictures
.”

"He wants to. He'll meet us at the network, so will Les, and I have
what's been shot already
.”

Rita was holding several tape cassettes. She
added, "I think you and I should go. Iris and Minh can stay a while
longer
.”

Partridge nodded
.”
Okay, but give me a minute
.”

They were on the third floor of the parking garage. Leaving Rita, he
walked to an unoccupied, undamaged comer. It provided a view of White
Plains and the city going about its regular business. In the distance was
the highway to New England and, beyond, the green hills of
Westchester-all scenes of normalcy in contrast to the devastation close
at hand
.
He had walked away from that chaos, wanting a quiet moment to think, to
ask and answer a tormenting question: Having accepted a commitment to
somehow find and perhaps free Jessica, her son and Crawford's father, was
there any hope . . . the slightest hope . . . of his succeeding? At this
moment Partridge feared the answer would be no
.
What had happened here today, observing what his adversaries were capable
of, had been a chastening encounter. It raised still more questions:
Could such merciless savagery be matched? Now that a terrorist connection
was virtually confirmed, were any civilized resources capable of tracking
and outwitting so evil an enemy? And even if the answer happened to be
yes, and despite initial optimism at CBA News headquarters, wasn't it an
empty conceit to believe that an unarmed news reporting cadre could
succeed where police, governments, intelligence and military so often
failed?

As to himself, Partridge thought, this was no open battle, the kind of
warfare which, perversely or not, excited him and set his juices flowing
.
This was furtive and filthy, the enemy unknown, the victims innocent, the
contest sickening . .
.
But personal feelings aside, should he advise for pragmatic reasons the
abandonment of active engagement by CBA, advocate their return to a
standard role of news observing or, failing that, at least pass on
responsibility to someone else?
He was conscious of movement behind him. Turning, he saw that it was Rita
.
She asked, "Can I help
?
”

He told her, "We've never had one quite like this before, with so much
depending not just on what we report, but what we do
.”

"I know
,”
she said
.”
Were you thinking of turning it in, handing the burden
back
?
”

Rita had surprised him before with her perceptiveness. He nodded
.”
Yes, I
was
.”

"Don't do it, Harry
,”
she urged
.”
Don't give up! Because if you do, there
isn't anyone else that's half as good as you
.”

Partridge, Rita and Teddy Cooper rode back to Manhattan together-at a pace considerably less frantic than their drive out. Partridge was in the front seat with the network driver, Teddy and Rita in the rear
.
Cooper, whose decision to go to White Plains had been made at the last
moment, had stayed in the background there, observing; then and now he
appeared preoccupied, as if concentrating on a problem. Partridge and Rita
,
too, at first seemed disinclined to talk. For both, this morning's
experience had been portentous. While they had witnessed, many times, the
effects of terrorism overseas, to observe its invasion of American suburbia
was traumatic. It was as if barbarian madness had
at last arrived, poisoning an environment which, if not calm, had until now possessed a base of reason. The erosion of that base begun today, they suspected, would be extensive and perhaps irreversible
.
After a while Partridge turned in his seat, facing the other two, and said
,
"The British were convinced that imported terrorism couldn't happen in
their country, but it did. A good many believed the same thing here
.”

"They were wrong from the beginning
,”
Rita said
.”
It was always inevitable
,
never if but when
?
”