A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror Page 10

  “I guess if you keep taking care of things down there like you are, there’s no reason why the account couldn’t swing over to you permanently, Lou.”

  “Patricia, a couple of men came to see me yesterday. They.”

  “It’s amazing, Lou, the transformation down there since you came up to see me. I know Calvin’s very pleased.”

  “I understand, Patricia.”

  “Take care of business. Goodbye, Louis. Bye.”

  “Patricia...”

  “Lou, I’m glad you called. It tells me that you’re really on top of the situation.”

  “Who are the certain people?”

  “Now, if anything comes up...”

  “What does this accomplish?”

  “... that you think I can help out with, don’t hesitate.”

  “Tell me what this is all about.”

  “We’ve got a terrible connection here. I’m sorry. As I say, Louis, take care of business and everything will be fine.” Click.

  Just before six o’clock, Lou called Maggie and told her he was going to be late again tonight, not to hold up supper. He sensed that she thought he was lying, but she didn’t say anything.

  In the early, confident days, Mag would’ve been in his face straight away; but the last three months, she’d created a momentum in both of them that she wasn’t about to jeopardize over some little doubt she may have.

  The black Audi—the same one he’d noticed at the inn—was occupied by Stanfield and Copeland and parked just where they’d said it would be. He got in the back seat without saying a word. The car slid slowly out of the parking lot and headed north on Route 17. It wasn’t a long ride. They got off at the Ramsey overpass, swung around and over the highway, and into a space in front of the Holiday Inn. Neither of the two men in the front seat made any attempt to make conversation all the way to the motel.

  Once in the parking lot, Stanfield cut the engine and said, “This is it, number twenty-three, in the inner court. You go ahead, Christopher. We’ll be with you in a second. Here are the keys. There might already be someone in there. Make yourself at home.”

  There was somebody in the room when he opened the door. She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in what looked like a large living room. She looked up when Lou came in, and he very nearly turned and walked back out. But it was number twenty-three. This was the inner court. If they were going to have a meeting, they’d certainly have to have a room this big to hold it in. He threw his overcoat on the couch and sat down opposite the girl without looking at her.

  Chapter Twelve

  She was very young, no more than twenty-two. She wore jeans, loafers, and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved sweater. Long, ebony-colored hair, parted in the middle, hung down over her face so that she had to read her Vanity Fair magazine through a cascade of black. Except for the upturned corners of her mouth, she wore the solemn look of a convent novice: a look that seemed to say, ‘whatever comes, I’ll handle it.’

  “They said we could drink. It’s over there, if you’re thirsty,” she said, not looking up from her reading.

  Lou’s immediate reaction was to say, no, he didn’t want anything, but he changed his mind in mid-thought. On a table against the wall sat an ice bucket and a quart each of McCullough’s scotch and Old Crow bourbon whiskeys.

  “The beer’s in the fridge,” he heard her say behind him. “It’s through the doorway over there. I wouldn’t turn down a scotch.”

  She looked up from her Vanity Fair as he approached with an inch of McCullough’s for her and a Molson Golden for him. Her eyebrows were a shade too thick, her mouth small and firm, and she kept her lips pressed.

  “I’m Sydney. But maybe I’m not supposed to be telling you my name. What do you think?”

  Lou took her in without moving his eyes. “I’ll let them do the introductions. I don’t know much about this little escapade. I think I’ll just sit back and find out what’s happening before I get too involved.”

  She pushed a dismissive puff of breath through her lips. “Brother, if you’re here tonight, you’re already in knee deep.”

  “You know all about it, of course.”

  “No. But I know that I’m involved. I know that if you know enough to be here, you are too.”

  “Okay, what is this thing?”

  “You’re asking me? I figure I’m the lowest totem on this pole.”

  She drained her glass in one quick swallow, and then went back to her Vanity Fair No pretense, no self-consciousness, this girl invited scrutiny with not a hint of doubt about her ability to stand up to it. She was obviously unimpressed with him. Good for her. Lou settled into his chair, eyed the ceiling and the walls, and read the label on his bottle of Molson.

  The traffic on the highway outside buzzed, and as the seconds and minutes passed, the sound grew as if a swarm of angry wasps was gathering somewhere in a dark corner of the room. Finally, Stanfield, Copeland, and another man came through the door like a marching band.

  All three wore slacks and sport shirts. Stanfield introduced the new guy simply as Red and indicated that Sydney was to be known as Tasha and Lou, Cook. “We all know that the names are wrong, but that’s the way we want it. There’s no need for anybody knowing anyone else’s name. It’s better that way.”

  Copeland claimed the biggest soft chair in the room and pushed it into a dark corner. Seated, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and watched silently from around a tepee formed with his hands against his face.

  Sydney brought her feet up under her, Indian-style, on the couch and leaned into the light from the table lamp, her elbows on her knees. Red dropped into an armless side chair turned backwards, his arms resting across the seat back.

  “As an introduction to this, let me say that we have, at this moment, begun the creation of an illusion.” It was theater. As he spoke, Stanfield sat at the edge of the writing table before them, his eyes roaming the room, and then locking in on each of them in turn.

  “The action that you take in the contact area will be carried out in a very precise manner, exactly as we outline it here tonight. There will be no ad-libbing or failure to follow orders. By the time we leave this room, everyone will know exactly what we’re trying to accomplish.”

  From behind him, Lou heard the snap of a Zippo lighter and smelled cigarette smoke, even before it drifted past his ear and hung in the dim light from Sydney’s table lamp.

  “I’ve got a question,” said the man, Red, raising his hand like a fourth grader. He stood up, still astride the chair, hands on his hips. “Where is this operation taking place? And how can we know that everything is going to work so well that we won’t have to wind up winging it?”

  “Let’s just hold that question, Red. We’ll get to that. Right now, since you’ve got the floor, why don’t you fill the others in on just exactly what makes you tick?”

  Red backed away from the chair with a grunt. Stuffing his shirttail into the belt of his trousers with one hand, sloshing Old Crow on the rocks with the other, he lumbered past Stanfield to a position in the center of the circle of feet. He slowly turned, staring them all down, one by one—something like the first sergeant of the Airborne Training Company at Fort Benning.

  “Most of you don’t know me and never will. My military experience was in the Quartermaster Corps in the late seventies. My mission in this operation is to provide the matériel and equipment. I have the connections. That’s all you need to know. I can get guns, explosives, trucks, you name it. I could get choppers if we needed them. This fucking country supplies the world with surplus war equipment up the ying yang and nobody says a thing.”

  “Red,” Stanfield interrupted, “stuff the philosophy. Do you have anything else to say?”

  “Not right now,” Red muttered and retreated back to his chair.

  Stanfield continued, moving his fingers along the fluted edge of the table as he spoke, lifting his eyes to every corner of the room as if his briefing notes were hiding there.

&
nbsp; “Except for the three of you, no one else knows the real mission here. All the others are right off the street, complete strangers to us and each other, and happy as hell to have our five hundred bucks in their pockets for a night’s work. As far as they know, this is just a job, like digging ditches. The fewer people there are who know the details, the better off we all are. How many men, Red?”

  “I’ve recruited eight men.”

  “And equipment...?”

  “We’ll all be packing Army M-2 Carbines. You’d never believe how easy it is to get hold of these things.”

  “Okay, Red. Thank you. Now let me stress that even though Red’s group of strangers is going to be packing firearms, we don’t anticipate, nor advocate, any gunplay on this operation. There will be absolutely no need to point a gun at anyone, let alone pull the trigger. So much for that.”

  Red grinned at anyone who returned his gaze and leaned well back, gripping the chair back in front of him.

  There had to be a good reason to recruit know-nothing operatives, Lou thought. If caught, they’d have no beans to spill. The more they knew, the worse it would be for whoever cooked up this thing. He also reasoned it was fairly certain that the powers-that-be must have something pretty big on each of the three players in this room: Tasha, Red, and him.

  Stanfield placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Red’s group will constitute the bulk of the strike force. The only other operatives will be Tasha, here, and Cook. We selected Tasha to participate in the operation strictly for the sake of the illusion we’re trying to create. With her along, it broadens—excuse the pun, Tasha—the base of the force.

  “In other words, we want people to understand that this is much more than a bunch of American hoods out on a drunken spree or something. With a woman along, we’ll create the illusion of a more permanent, radically oriented group—a domestic underground organization if you will—along the lines of the Aryan Nation, the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, you name it.

  “People now know that radical organizations are a fact of life. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. The airwaves are full of reports of violent attacks inside the country and out: the FALN torching Fraunces Tavern and bombing the hell out of Wall Street; one hundred eighty-nine Americans falling from a bombed Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland; two hundred forty-one Marines entombed in their barracks in Beirut; etc. We’re going to build on what everyone knows is true.

  “Let’s keep going. Cook is my man. He answers directly to me. Cook will be giving all the orders out there. There will be total obedience to his commands. This is the next best thing to me going myself. If you’re concerned about his credentials, don’t be. He’s a veteran of two tours in Vietnam with the Vietnamese Rangers in Pleiku and the 25th Division in An Loc.

  “Any questions so far?”

  Stanfield finally looked around the group one by one, waiting for one of them to say something. He glanced to the side of the room at Copeland. Then he went on.

  “Okay, no questions. Maybe we’ll have more discussion once everyone knows what we have in mind. To begin with, this operation is going to be duplicated in a dozen other places across the country. Every major city will have a similar incident occur at the same time, on the same date. There will be an unmistakable connection between all of them, so it’s important that you carry out everything to the letter, exactly as I tell it to you tonight.”

  Copeland stood and pushed his way through the furniture to the table where he crushed his cigarette in an ashtray, and then proceeded to the refrigerator. “Who wants a beer?” he asked.

  Stanfield continued: “The illusion we want to create is that the series of incidents was centrally coordinated and that other occurrences like it will be committed on a regular basis. The impression will be that there is a sizeable, well-organized and well-financed, hostile guerrilla force loose in the country, bent on bringing overt terrorism inside our borders. Only a coordinated effort by the federal authorities could be effective in countering the threat, along with a hardnosed chief executive in the White House.

  “So much for that. Let’s get into the specifics of the operation. Target A is the Bear Mountain Bridge.” He cast his eyes back up to the ceiling and continued the recitation.

  “As you all know, this bridge spans the Hudson near Peekskill, New York. It’s about forty-five minutes from the spot where we are right now. Bear Mountain Bridge is well known by anyone living within fifty miles of New York—somewhere near twenty million people. At the same time, the bridge is located far enough away from the city itself that we won’t run into problems with congestion.

  “We anticipate no wholesale rubbernecking or gawking by the people of the area. The police forces in the vicinity of the bridge consist of the New York State Police who patrol the Palisades Parkway and the very small, local police departments of the towns of Peekskill, Fort Montgomery, and Stony Point.

  “The bridge itself is guarded by a single officer operating out of the tollbooth on the western side of the river.”

  “You’re not planning to blow that thing are you?” Red blurted out. “I mean what the hell?” Then he skulked back into his seat under Copeland’s silent gaze.

  “We intend to create an illusion. And here’s how it works: nine o’clock sharp, two semi-trailer trucks appear at either end of the span. When Cook sees that the bridge is clear of traffic, he dismounts and, together with Tasha, seizes the tollbooth and the guard. When the booth is secured, all traffic approaching the bridge will be turned away. This will be done in a thoroughly professional way so as to create the impression that the bridge is temporarily closed for repairs.

  “As soon as this is accomplished, an explosive charge will be prepared in the center of the span. It will be detonated on the command issued by Cook. This will create a tremendous explosion that will illuminate the surrounding area for a good mile up and down the river. The trucks will be put to the torch. This will effectively block the bridge to any firefighting equipment or police units.

  “The entire force will assemble under Cook’s direction before the explosive charges are detonated. They’ll infiltrate out by way of the forested area that Cook will select. The escape will consist of evasion tactics, dictated by Cook, with the ultimate aim of arriving at the designated rendezvous point for transportation clear of the area. The arrival time and location will be set up between me and Cook. There is no need for anyone else to know those details at this moment.

  “We expect the result of this operation will be widespread publicity by the biggest media center in the nation. Within hours of the act, certainly—and possibly immediately afterwards—TV sets all over the metropolis will report the event to twenty million Americans. At the same time, the force will be well on its way out of the area, never detected or identified except as the ‘Roscoe Corrazo Division of the American Revolutionary Army.’ This information will be given to the toll guard in the form of a written, official communication that we’re quite certain he’ll pass on to the FBI. Now, let’s have your questions.”

  Lou pushed his thumb and forefinger hard against the bridge of his nose. Is this what it all came to? Twenty-five years of service. A covenant with the people of this country, people he was prepared to defend with his life. Legs full of shrapnel pits. A thousand nights on a hundred hostile hills. Is this what he sacrificed for? A handful of creeps talking make-believe terrorism?

  He waited to see if any of the others were going to speak. They did not. He looked toward Stanfield and saw him staring back, along with all the others.

  “What do you think?” Stanfield asked.

  It was preposterous. They were actually trying to bring this off with him. How do you play it when they just keep building and building the ruse? He couldn’t laugh this time. Before he had a chance to speak, Sydney broke the silence.

  “Exactly what does setting off explosives on the Bear Mountain Bridge accomplish?” she asked solemnly.

  “Terrorism has come t
o America. You want to make a statement, blow something up in America and the whole world knows about it in hours. If you’re lucky, America takes retaliatory action, like firing missiles or something, and you get even more publicity. America is ready to believe that an act like this is just a continuation of the complete breakdown of law and order in this country. This operation takes advantage of this phenomenon.”

  “What’s the message?” she asked.

  “The message is spelled out in the official communication given to the toll guard. It proclaims this operation as just a harmless demonstration of how well organized we are and how dedicated we are to pursuing our objectives. However, the American people can expect to see systematic, terrorist acts in the future that exact a real toll for noncompliance with our agenda.”

  “I never signed on as a terrorist.”

  “I said in the beginning that this operation was designed to create an illusion. The terrorist bit is pure theater.”