The Hammer of God

It went out as a Critical Response Call. Immediately, 75 patrol cars, almost one from each precinct in the city, headed toward the theater district. The rolling roadblock method they utilized, where the lead car blocks a cross-town street while the main body zooms by then takes up position in the rear, meant they cut a swath through the city at speeds as high as 60 m.p.h. They got there in less than 120 seconds from their recent post at the Museum of Natural History.

Eddie Deagan was down from his mount and, heard how the shooters were part of a group of men who went into the theater. He tried the doors, but they wouldn’t open.

Of course, none of this happened without the news services being aware. News trucks and helicopters scrambled to the theater district.

For the terrorists, all was going according to plan.

A theater is acoustically a live-end/dead-end room. The live end, where the actors work, amplifies sound so that all their nuances of performance can be heard. The dead end, where the audience sits, is designed to muffle sound and absorb reverberation. So when the house manager came into the lobby to see what all the fuss was about, the shot that perforated her forehead didn’t sound out more than 10 feet. The instant human reaction was also muffled, so the rest of the theater was not aware of what was happening in the rear of the house. In time, though, the screams became more numerous and, hence, louder and clearer.

From his perspective returning from the men’s room, Phil Dunowsky, an off-duty corrections officer, gauged the situation and decided he could get the guy with the gun. He drew a bead on the guy who just shot the woman with the headset on. He was about to do it by the book and yell “Police, freeze,” when he saw the thug point his gun at an old guy who witnessed the killing.

“You bastard. I’m going to shove that gun up your ass!” Mitchell Herzog, a veteran of the Korean War, blurted out. He was more angry than smart. He realized this when the hooligan with the gun turned it towards his face.

Phil fired three times and the bad guy fell. As he died a spasm-induced pull on the trigger fired the gun, just missing the old guy and shattering a sconce on the back wall of the theater. What Phil would never know was that there were more than just that guy in the theater. His world went unexpectedly black as another terrorist loosed a three-shot burst into his head from behind.

From their spot in the parking lot at Citi Field, 100 yards from the shooting set of the film, they began to see some activity.

“Let’s roll,” Bill said as his cell rang. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He ended the call and said “Call Joey.” to his voice-activated iPhone.

“Joey, the President has covered your agent Burrell under the same executive order as Bridgestone and Ross. Tell her she is free to use any means necessary.”

“Roger that. Thanks, Bill. How’s your end going?”

“I’m late for the theater and we are about to see if the movie guys are really making a bomb. Parking lot at Citi Field. Have NEST and extraction teams ready waiting for my order. If you don’t hear from me in five minutes, come in blazing.”

The inter-agency alarms, triggered by the possible sighting of Rashid, took 12 seconds to ripple through every cop, national guardsman, plainclothes and uniformed railroad security personnel throughout Pennsylvania Station. Within a minute, they thought they had a target located in the upper concourse next to the Amtrak waiting area. They didn’t want to spook the guy until they had a clear shot and a chance to secure the case.

One of the FBI agents assigned to Penn made a chilling observation. The subject appeared to have radiation burns on his face and hands. This was confirmed when the subject passed within 10 feet of one of the radiation monitors and it reported, to the secure room deep within the station, that a low-level exposure had taken place. Two plainclothes officers, one dressed as a homeless person, the other as a Knicks fan, came up on either side of the target. They timed their approach just as the target was passing by a trashcan. In an instant, they grabbed him and, in one smooth move, wrestled the case away by breaking his wrist as he was going down. Then, like an NBA star, the “homeless guy” slam-dunked the case into the can. Fifty cops suddenly came out of nowhere, screaming for everyone to get away. The two plainclothes cops hustled the target out of the concourse.