A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror Read online

  “Oh, clever. What else?”

  “The alternate spot. The other side of the river, up Mine Torne Road to Cranbury Brook. Hang a right at the dirt road. We’ll be in Borrow Pit. Same time, same signals.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, Copeland. There’s something else.”

  “Give it to me quick.”

  “You think your ass is covered. Well, it’s not. It’s hanging out there, smart guy.”

  “Think so, huh?”

  “I know so. All your asses if anything bad happens. Think about that. I’m not a fool.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about cover, Copeland. Something goes bad for me or mine, the whole world’s going to know all the names, all the places.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Lou heard a loud click.

  Where yesterday he was cautiously allowing himself a reconnaissance to determine the feasibility of going ahead, now the timing of the actual operation was all consuming. There was no turning back. Only a dim possibility, still lurking in the recesses of his subconscious, offered a way out: maybe it was all just a Sherm Wellington practical joke for Halloween.

  * * *

  The girl was standing right beneath the overpass at the Ramsey cutoff on Route 17. She was wearing jeans and a white calfskin coat with a furry collar. Her black hair was all over her face. She climbed in beside him, tossed her head, and swept the hair away with the fingers of both hands. Her cheeks were flushed from standing out in the wind.

  “What should I be wearing?” she asked.

  “Well, you’re really going to be inconspicuous in your little white coat, aren’t you?”

  “Nobody said anything. How am I supposed to know what you guys wear when you play guns. Want a cigarette? I’ll trade you one for a light.”

  “Push that knob on the dash. I’ll take one.”

  She lit both cigarettes and stuck his in his mouth. He dragged hard, savoring the fullness in his chest. She leaned against the door, facing him. Lou felt her staring at the side of his face.

  “I know what a lighter is,” she said.

  “Good,” he said.

  “You don’t look happy”

  “What’s that on your feet?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Penny loafers. How far do you think they’ll take you in the bush? You haven’t done a lot of thinking about this, have you?”

  “I know loafers are not for hiking, okay? I thought we were going to be on a bridge.”

  Lou slowed and swerved into the Ames parking lot; bought her a pair of combat boots.

  “Thanks,” she said, as they pulled out onto Route 17 again. “It was stupid of me, I guess.”

  “This isn’t a picnic.”

  “I said I was sorry,” she said. “I’ve done some hiking in my life. I’m not going to be a problem.”

  “Look, lose the ‘hiking’ crap. When we go into the boonies, it’s going to be tough climbing over rocks and brambles. Cross country. No trails.”

  “Okay. I’m still not going to be a problem.”

  “You’ve hiked, huh?”

  “Yeah, I’ve hiked. I’ve hiked a lot.”

  They settled into hostile silence. Lou spotted a small trucker’s diner tucked in under the rocky cliffs abutting the highway across from the Sheraton Center. He pulled the car beside a small, clapboard building with a Rheingold Extra Dry sign in the window. Before locking up, he checked to make sure he had his map and his rucksack. He ordered a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches and a half dozen Baby Ruths. He stuffed them in the rucksack along with three packs of Salems.

  With all the compromises that got him here, what was the point of continuing his smoking moratorium?

  They were still a quarter of a mile from the truck park. On the highway ahead, Route 17 split into a road heading for the Thruway and a continuation of Route 17 north. They had about thirty minutes to walk it. He looked straight ahead but watched her out of the corner of his eye. She quietly whistled some unrecognizable tune. Her head rocked up and down when she moved, as if she could never assume a more vigilant pose. She had a little bounce in her step. He immediately thought she was going to have a rough time in the bush with a gait like that.

  “Do you have to walk like that?” he asked.

  “Are you ever going to get off my case?” she answered.

  “I just hope to hell Red’s got something on the ball.”

  “I just hope you’ll eventually lose the cob stuck up your ass.”

  His carping was just nerves. She wasn’t all that bad, this Sydney. Maybe it was subliminal; something to do with the fact that, as his own muscles sagged, he appreciated women whose muscles didn’t, and that in itself dictated girls half his age or younger, like this one.

  “Ever hold a gun?” he asked.

  “No, but I think I can hold a gun, don’t you?”

  “We’ll just keep it unloaded then.”

  “And if I need to use it?”

  “I’ll have to think about that one.”

  “Why do we need guns anyway? There’s not supposed to be, like, violence, right?”

  “Think the guard is just going to stand around and let us blow the bridge? Without a gun on him, he’ll give us trouble.” She fell a little behind him but took a couple of running steps to keep up. “It’s not the guard I’m worried about. It’s Red and his merry band.”

  “He seemed like a nice enough person to me,” Sydney said, smirking.

  * * *

  It took a while to find the place. It was crowded with semi-trailers and cabs, attached and unattached. It was just an extra wide parking spot in the highway. There were no signs, no drivers; just trucks and trailers. Traffic sped by on the way to the Thruway. No one on the road paid any particular attention to them. Red stood with five of his men in front of two unmarked Macks from the sixties parked side by side.

  “I hope you’ve got somebody who can drive these things, Red.”

  “No sweat,” he said. “This here is Cook, men. I guess there’s no reason to make any introductions as long as they all know who you are,” he added, looking at Lou. And to the men again, “Cook is overall in charge of this operation. What he says goes. This here is Tasha. She’ll be coming along with us, too. No need for her to know any names either, right?”

  Lou said, “We’re going to have specific guys doing specific things, Red. So I’m going to have to know some names to go by. But that can wait until I get started with the plan. Is this all of your men? I thought you had eight.”

  “I actually have six counting myself. The rest of the men couldn’t muster. The guns and ammo are in the truck. The napalm drums are in that one there.”

  “The radios?”

  “No radios.”

  “Shit, Red. You said you were going to have radios. How the hell are we going to communicate without radios?”

  “I just couldn’t get them.”

  The man did a good job of talking, but when it came to action... Cool it, Lou. Just cool it. It would serve no purpose at this point to belittle the man in front of his cronies. He was depending on them. No matter what he thought of Red, he had to have him and his men behind this operation all the way.

  “Well, forget it then. We’ll have to get along without radios. It’s been done before. It’ll work if we all know what we’re doing.”

  “We’ll make do without radios,” Red said, looking around at his men.

  “Okay, what I want to do is get everybody together in the back of one of these trailers. We’ve got a lot to talk about before we leave this place.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lou had to leave one of the heavy back doors open in order to see within the blackness of the semi-trailer. He risked being seen by someone curious outside, but no one else was around. He stood along a side wall, with the seven others on the floor at his feet, and scratched a diagram in the filth with his finge
r. When they put this trailer to the torch at the bridge, nothing of the plan would remain.

  No traces. Leave no traces.

  “Okay, let’s take it from the beginning. We’re out to do just one thing tonight: raise hell on the bridge to make it look like we’re a radical fringe group.” He ran his eyes over the group sitting on the floor before him. Not a lash flickered.

  “There’s no damned reason for anyone to fire a shot. None at all. In fact, I want zero ammo in the guns. You’ll carry ammunition with you, ready to go, but use it only to keep yourself from getting killed. Does everyone understand that?

  “Now, the way I see it, the operation will succeed if we follow the plan. I want everyone to know exactly what to do out there. There’s no room for screw-ups or ad-libbing. I’ve got this thing timed to the minute. Assuming no major mishaps, the operation at the site will be over in forty minutes.”

  It was still light outside but dim within the trailer. The men inched forward and squinted hard to see the diagram on the wall. Lou, at the edge of the circle, spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.

  “Let’s go. Mack East leaves this location at exactly 8:00 p.m. That’s three men to include Red, who’s in charge. Red, who’s going with you?”

  Red stood and assayed the group like a high school basketball coach. “You, Victor, and you, Wes. You going to spell out our part?”

  “In a minute. Can you sit down? I want everyone to be able to see. I presume you’ve got blasting caps?”

  Leaning against the opposite wall now, Red just nodded his head.

  “Batteries or a blasting machine?”

  Red displayed a small, handheld machine.

  “We’re going to need 1000 feet of wire.”

  “Got it,” Red said.

  “Great. How much C-4 did you get?”

  “You said twenty pounds. I got thirty. You stick a blob of this stuff on each drum and it’ll scatter napalm all over hell. And light it up too.”

  “Okay, we wire it so they all go at the same time. Where are the drums?”

  “All five are in the three-quarter ton. Frawley’s the driver.”

  “Good. Let’s keep going. Mack East takes the Thruway and makes a U-turn at Sloatsburg. Comes back south. At the cutoff, heads east on 87, for the Tappan Zee Bridge. Maintains fifty-five miles per hour all the way. On the other side of the river, he takes Route 9, north. On the south edge of Peekskill, there’s a Hess station on the corner with a phone booth. Red picks up the phone when I call at 9:00 p.m. sharp. Everyone got it? Red?”

  Red was in back of the others. He had to speak, just to keep his hand in. “How do we keep the napalm from jumping all over the place?” he asked.

  “The drums are heavy enough to sit tight while we’re rolling, Red. If they don’t, there’s not much we can do about it now.”

  The light faded. The circle of faces became mottled as, unawares, their fingers transferred dirt from the trailer floor to their mouths, chins, and foreheads. For an instant, the image of Aborigines crouched and shivering in a prehistoric cave flew through Lou’s mind.

  He continued the plan, as he had done a thousand times before, visualizing as he spoke: “The three-quarter ton has Frawley at the wheel and the five drums of napalm. Mack West has me and Tasha in the cab with the driver, and another man in the back. We pull out of this area at 8:15 sharp.

  “We branch off on the Thruway and head north. Our speed is fifty-five. That gets us to Central Valley on Route 6 at 8:50. On the outskirts of town, on Route 17, there’s an old gas station and a public telephone. I put through the call to Red at the Hess station at 9. As soon as we hang up, all three trucks start moving. At the speed limit, we arrive at opposite ends of the bridge simultaneously.

  The bridge should be virtually deserted because of Halloween. Two men keeping their weapons out of sight will be positioned at the ends of the bridge to turn back cars. Red, give me some names.”

  Red, squatting on his haunches, ripped off the names like a mail call: “Wes and Victor in Mack East, Pegley and Bruce in Mack West, Frawley in the three-quarter. And remember, you guys, we don’t want no gun play. You’re supposed to be a road crew and park police as far as motorists are concerned. Question. Who gets the toll guard?”

  “Tasha and I dismount at the toll shack. We take the guard. We move him outside, where he can see and hear everything. He’ll report it all to the cops.”

  The girl spoke up for the first time. “What if he runs?”

  “He won’t run. We’re going to hold on to him. You’ll have a gun at his back.”

  “How about the napalm?” Red asked, from the back again.

  “Okay, put that on hold. We’ll get to it. Now, as soon as the ends of the bridge are secured and the toll guard is in hand, I take the three-quarter ton and drive the drums, caps, and wire out to the middle of the bridge. Frawley stays with Tasha, Bruce, and Pegley on the west side.

  “The drums will be preset to go except for the blasting caps. The setup on the bridge will take five minutes, tops. When I’m finished, I’ll flash the three-quarter’s headlights. I wish to hell you had delivered on the radios, Red.”

  “Sorry,” Red said, unperturbed. “My man couldn’t come up with anything but old Prick 6’s. They’re not worth a shit.”

  “We’ll make do with what we have. Now, the trucks are in position at the ends of the bridge, blocking the entire roadway. Once they’re in position, the cab and the trailer are doused with gasoline. On the west side, when you see the headlights flash, Frawley—and only Frawley—fires a couple of tracer rounds into the gas tank and sets the truck afire. Then, the four of you move out smartly across the bridge. Meet me in the center and we’ll string the wire out to the east side as we go.

  “When we’re all together on the east side, we blow the napalm in the center of the bridge with the blasting machine, ignite Mack East, and make our escape.”

  “I’ll do all the shootin’ on the east side,” Red broke in. “I don’t want no joker hosing down the area.”

  “Good. Once again, we’ll run the wire out going east. That’s our primary escape route. We deploy the full thousand feet to save walking time.”

  “How about the guard?” It was the girl again.

  “At the point where the truck on the west is afire, the guard is released. He can’t hurt us at that point. Besides, the whole world will know what’s happening as soon as the demo goes.”

  “How long will it take us to get across the bridge on foot?” Bruce asked this time.

  “Hustling, it’ll take us fifteen minutes. Okay, one more time; all trucks arrive at the bridge at the same time. In minutes one and two, we seize the guard and seal off the bridge. We turn back motorists with the story that the bridge is temporarily closed for repairs. In minute three, I drive to the center of the bridge in the three-quarter ton truck. In minutes nine through thirteen, I prepare the C-4 with blasting caps wired in parallel and flash my lights.

  “The folks on the west side fire Mack West, release the toll taker, and beat it out to the center of the bridge, arriving there at minute twenty. Minutes twenty through thirty, we move to the east side, stringing wire as we go. At minute thirty-one, we fire Mack East and blow the napalm drums. At minute thirty-five, we’re across the road and into the woods. That leaves five minutes for anything unforseen. Oh, God.

  “We’ll be vulnerable once the charge goes. We’re going to run like hell to Route 9D and get across to the far side. We cut up into the woods and start climbing. It’ll be a bitch, believe me. A thirty percent slope.

  “It’ll take all the strength we have. Once on top, we’ll be hard to stop. We can go in any direction, except west. In the dark, we’ll be next to impossible to detect in the woods. It’ll be close to midnight. We’ll have about twenty-four hours to hide out before we rendezvous and get back to civilization.”

  “It sounds like a piece of cake,” Red said.

  “It always sounds easy. A lot can go wrong. If anything bad c
an happen, it will. The keys to the whole operation are timing and following instructions. A hundred different plans could bring this operation off. This is just one of them, and it’s good. But even a bad plan will work with good execution.

  “Let me say right now that I’m in charge of this thing. I don’t intend to have anything happen to me. But if I buy it, Red is the next honcho. If he goes, it’s Frawley. Everybody got the chain of command? Good. That brings us to casualties. We leave no one alive behind.”

  “Aw, come on,” he heard from one of them, followed by a round of chuckling. It was the guy called Wes.