The Inn(80)

Something terrible had happened. Just dreadful. The absolute worst of human behavior.

New York City, my home, had been attacked again.





I WAS redlining even before I hit the highway. One hand was maxing out on the throttle of my old ’61 Triumph TR6 Trophy; the other was trying for the umpteenth time to reach Tracy. The wind was whipping past me, my cell plastered tight against my ear. To hell with my helmet.

Again the call went straight to voicemail, and again I hit Redial. Please, please, please! Pick up, Tracy! We should’ve never ditched our landline. I couldn’t even try him at home.

The news alerts and tweets lighting up everyone’s phones in class reported that multiple bombs had gone off in Times Square. A couple hundred were feared dead, if not more.

Like everyone else, I felt the initial shock up and down my spine. Then came an even greater jolt, straight through the heart.

Tracy had told me in the morning that he was planning to take Annabelle to the Disney Store—right in the middle of Times Square. Our adopted daughter from South Africa was only a little over a year old, and yet she was somehow totally smitten with the place. The music, the colors, the characters she didn’t even know the names of yet. It all made her smile from ear to ear. She loved that Disney Store more than her binkie, bubble baths, or the monkeys at the Central Park Zoo.

At eighty miles an hour, I started to cry.

Weaving in and out of traffic, riding like a maniac, I could feel the anger in me taking over. My time in London, my years with the CIA. All of it had been dedicated to fighting a war that could never be won, only contained. Terrorism isn’t merely a tactic of the enemy; it’s the root of their ideology. They believe in destruction. They want death. And there are no innocent victims. Not to them.

Only to us.

A half hour into the ride, I gave up on trying to call Tracy. A half hour after that, I saw the flashing cherries of patrol cars at the entrance to the Henry Hudson Bridge. Lined up grill to bumper, the cruisers were barricading all three southbound lanes. No one was getting in.

No one was able to make a call either, I was told. At least not on their cells.

“All the carriers were forced to shut down their networks,” said the second cop I approached after getting off my bike.

The first cop had all but ignored me. He was too busy directing traffic in what had become a three-point-turn festival with all the southbound cars that had been heading into the city needing to do a one-eighty. Making those turns even tighter were the piles of torn-up pavement from some recent jackhammering. For once can there be a bridge into Manhattan that isn’t under construction?

“They’re saying the terrorists used cell phones to detonate the bombs,” the second cop explained. “For all we know there might be more to come.”

“I need to get into the city,” I said. “How do I do it?”

He looked at me as if I were deaf. Did I not just hear him? “You don’t,” he said. “No one gets in.”

No, you don’t understand, officer. I need. To get. Into the city!

I stared at him for a few seconds, hoping he might recognize me. It had been less than a year since I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame by helping to rid Manhattan of a serial killer named the Dealer. In the process, I had gained a couple of nicknames myself, including Dr. Death. For a while I was getting stopped on the street at least once a day. Hey, aren’t you that guy … ? Now it was maybe once a month.

All glory is fleeting, said General George Patton.

So much for staring at the cop. He didn’t recognize me. I could’ve tried to refresh his memory or begun pleading my case, telling him about Tracy and Annabelle, but there was no point. He had his orders. The guy was merely doing his job. Besides, I’d already made up my mind on what I would do.

Time was wasting.