When the chopper pilot saw the men below were in position—two clustered at the steps of each row house either side of the suspect property, two crouched behind a ’78 Chevy opposite, and four in the street at the rear—he hovered the Huey high and dropped the cables. Three men, including Captain Jefferson, slithered down to scale over the roof and launch themselves in through the upstairs windows. Over the city emergency radio networks, black and whites were ordered to seal off all streets leading to the area and to prepare to evacuate homes. Fire crews and paramedics were dispatched to wait silently one block back.
The pilot watched Jefferson and his men slide down the cables, smooth and fast until a sudden stop just short of the roof to avoid any tell-tale boot crunch. But the second their steel-capped toes touched, the front ground-floor windows blew outwards, the hollow-point bullets cutting clean through the Chevy and lodging into the walls of the houses opposite, missing the two men hiding behind the car by a hair’s breadth. Someone had seen them.
The drunk, startled awake from his alcoholic daze in the gutter, lurched off in fright.
Two of Jefferson’s men covering the sides of the house had already dropped to the ground with weapons positioned to retaliate, another two kicked in the doors of the houses next door and charged through to the back, scaring the hell out of the families already cowering in the corner after the blasts a few seconds earlier. The two men opposite watched. Those already in the rear jumped the back fence and stayed ready. Captain Jefferson, on the roof and still clipped to one of the Huey’s cables, swung out and down, tossing a grenade in through a window. “Jarmin… all up,” he commanded through his helmet microphone and, instantly, he and the other men on the roof were hoisted up about thirty feet until the blast cleared. The three then lowered themselves back to the roof, slipped down the slope to the guttering, flew over the sides and swung themselves inside the windows, guns ablaze.
318…
Don’t panic, Maxine told herself. She and the woman clasping her baby stared at each other, too afraid to speak.
317…
Stay calm.
Even under this tension, Maxine could still calculate that 317 seconds was just over five minutes. Shaking, she was a good ten feet from the foot of the platform’s exit stairway. Back further, she could see maybe a hundred commuters, and more were piling in. All these people…
316…
“BOMB!” she shouted, her lungs on fire.
For one, maybe five, of the next 315 seconds, those close by on the platform craned their necks to see what was going on, few trusting their ears. “It’s a bomb,” she screeched, “It’s on a timer… Five minutes… Run!”
The woman with the baby was stuck solid in shock. Her adrenaline didn’t seem to kick in. The baby laughed and gurgled, but this time no one thought it was cute. Maxine grabbed the mother’s free arm, dragging her and the baby toward the stairs. Others were already running and pushing ahead of them, behind them, beside them. Maxine could feel the wave of raw panic surging up the platform. As they passed an alarm box she slammed her palm against the flat red button. The mob swelling behind her was shoving her forward, and wouldn’t stop pushing to give her time to answer when the station attendant squawked “What’s the problem?” through the speaker.
Maxine turned her head back but was propelled by the heaving crowd. She managed to cry out “Bomb” before her ankle twisted and she went over.
And under.
TWO minutes from Grand Central, the Metro-North train was already slowing.
At Grand Central, a courier stood waiting at the head of Track 110, unaware of the red timer ticking down inside the white box he’d lugged here. If he could’ve seen it, he’d know he had 280 seconds to get the hell out. It was the same for the courier at Track 45… and the one at Track 120. Grand Central was a big place.
279…
278…
35
SIX MORE SHOTS blasted out of the row house’s ground floor windows, spraying what little glass was left after the first blast across the sidewalk. A quick radio count confirmed that none of Jefferson’s men was hit. He ordered Adder, across the street, to wait five seconds and fire a flash-bang CS gas grenade in through one of the windows. Inside, and upstairs, Jefferson signalled to Smith and Fredericks to brace for the noise, slip on their gas masks and sweep the upper floor.
They found no one.
Jefferson heard the grenade whistle over the street. Even upstairs and muffled through his ear protectors, the force of the explosion stung. Downstairs the flash was solar bright, deafening, designed to stun its targets for forty indispensable seconds.
Jefferson two-stepped down the stairs first, the other two men covering him from above. Unusually, there was no coughing or moaning in response to the gas. Nothing.