The Hammer of God

On the other end, Number 4 threw the phone under the wheel of a passing New York City bus. It flattened with a cracking sound swallowed up by the pre-matinee hubbub. The six doors of each of two ubiquitous stretch limos — in no way out of place in the theater district — sprang open and eight men exited from each, right in front of the Brooks Atkinson Theater. They all wore long bulky coats. Four of them separated into two teams of two each and spread to the stage door and load-in doors of the theater. Ten others walked right in. The two drivers followed, wheeling a case from the trunk. As the ushers and one security guard protested, each was shot in the face by suddenly raised guns with silencers. The men then just shut the doors behind them and one produced a chain, which they threaded through the panic bars of the main doors, thus sealing the patrons inside. The two who remained outside looked at one another and, upon a nod, lifted their machine guns out from under their coats.

Harold Benson had waited his whole life to see a Broadway play. So on the occasion of his 50th birthday, his wife Doris got two tickets from Decatur, Illinois to New York on Jet Blue, found an affordable Holiday Inn in midtown, and nabbed two tickets to the biggest show on Broadway. They had just finished his birthday dinner at Sardi’s and were leaving. Cindy and Dan were running late and the traffic wasn’t helping. Dan told the cabbie to pull over and that they would walk the next half-block to the theater.

Rimi Patel was walking with her grandson who had just scored big at the M amp;M store. His mother would be cross, but she was following the Grandmother’s Oath, “First, spoil the child.” They passed Vietnam vet Rufus Kincaid who sat in a wheelchair with his one and only leg and a sign explaining why he needed your change for him and other disabled homeless vets. Innocently, Rimi’s grandson dropped three M amp;Ms into Rufus’ cup.

When Harold started to falter, Doris instinctively grabbed him, thinking he was suffering from a heart attack. Then a bullet entered her and the searing pain made her collapse. Harold fell dead on top of her. The window on the cab that had just dropped them off shattered as the cabbie caught a round in his head and fell dead on the wheel, sounding the horn. The bullets spun around the man entering the cab and he slid down the rear panel of the car, streaking blood in his wake. His date was blown back into the cab taking three in the chest blossoming red bloodstains on her new dress for the evening.

Rufus heard the shots and immediately grabbed the little Indian boy and spun around his chair to shield him. Rimi didn’t understand why the man grabbed her grandson, but started screaming. Her screams fell silent as she was hit with three rounds. Dozens of other people fell dead or wounded, turning 47th Street into the Great Red Way.

Edie Deagan was posing for a picture with his mount as two blondes from South Dakota had their boyfriends shoot the ubiquitous tourist shot in New York — the pretty girls smiling alongside the mounted policemen atop his “10-foot cop.” The ripping of the machine pistols finally registered in his ear. He immediately kicked Atticus and let out the rein. The one-ton horse traversed the half-block from Broadway in eight seconds, during which time 10 people were hit. Eddie pulled his Glock and, like a cavalry trooper, started firing at full gallop at the gunman in the long coat spraying the street. His third and fourth shots found center mass on the shooter and he went down. A second shooter on the other side of the theater was too far away for him to get a good shot at while not hitting a pedestrian.

Atticus didn’t hesitate when Eddie nudged him in closer to the shooter, yelling for everyone to get down and take cover. Two white-shield anti-crime cops who were looking out for scalpers and pickpockets had their guns drawn down and in front of them as they advanced one car at a time for cover towards the shooter. As soon as they felt they had a shot, they both swung onto the hood and trunk of a Town Car and pumped 30 shots into the shooter who went down screaming, “Jihad.”

Eddie Deagan took on the role of lookout from his perch atop Atticus. He triggered his lapel-mounted radio. “MTS mounted to Central K. Shots fired, multiple gunmen IFO 256 West 47th Street. Repeat, multiple gunmen. Citizens down, many down.” He scanned the street as the undercover cops kicked the dead shooter’s gun from his body.

He saw a man in a wheelchair keel over as a young boy ran from behind him, then he realized it was Rufus, the vet he’d chased from spot to spot every day. Today, Rufus bought the spot he died in…a hero.