Chapter Eleven
Ducks in a Pond /
Bird's Eye View
When seeking to go from Bay Ridge into Manhattan, only a stranger to the Borough attempts to use the Gowanus Expressway, because from early rush hour until after eight pm it's the City's longest parking lot.
By using Ridge Boulevard until its name changes to Second Avenue, one can be essentially the sole car along a three mile stretch until 28th street before acceding to the need to use the Gowanus for a feeder into 278, and then resuming the northward track into Manhattan, this time using the double digit Avenues of the West Side.
As such, they reach the low 40's before it's wiser to abandon their car at the first municipal parking facility they find on 9th Avenue to trek the final two Avenues crosstown on foot, keeping a pace that allows them to traverse the distance at a jog without the drivers of any car they pass having any prayer of catching up.
In this, their experience as Warehouse agents comes doubly useful; they need only dodge around slow walking pedestrians.
"I think I remember this from Batman," Pete says, feeling like Adam West as he evades a woman to keep pace with his lithe partner, one hand holding tight to the satchel slung from his left shoulder. It may not be Artie's leather bag of tricks, but he's learned to carry a few toys on outings like this one.
By the time they reach 7th Avenue, the unofficial border of Times Square, the pedestrian crowds 'celebrating' the Black Lives Matter movement solidly pack every sidewalk and street. It is true that designated areas have been established, and passages are enforced on every street and the areas closest to the buildings are for pedestrians to make their way, but aside from those funnels, when the odds top fifty to one, such regulations take on the aspect of suggestions.
x
"I wish I could say," Myka declares, not going to admit that the run is making her breathe any harder, "that I don't believe this, but I really do."
"This is Rybak's plan," Pete declares. "Shoot up a park, a plaza and a park, make it really dangerous to come here, practically suicide, and they come out in droves to prove they're not scared, not going to back down."
"Well, I'm scared. Rybak could be anywhere, and when he opens up there're going to be a lot of dead people here." She doubts that the weapon has any limit on ammunition or range.
"We're gonna have to break cover, tell the Police there's a sniper, try at least to have a chance to stop him."
xx
Their efforts to do so, once they find a Staging Area which turns out to be the NYPD Midtown South Precinct right on the plaza, meet with some success, for in a valley surrounded by high walls the probability of snipers has long since been considered. A significant percentage of officers clad in riot gear and armor, armed with very intimidating weapons, are already deployed in front of every building.
They may appear, to the unenlightened and ill informed, to be there to 'keep order' among the protestors, but that's not their purpose. Their secondary interest is crowd control, but their primary assignments are to identify as quickly as possible the threat's position, report it and get inside and to the elevated site as quickly as possible.
Hearing about the formidable defenses in no way alleviates the agents' concerns, for the defenders are making the fatal misassumption that the attack will be heard.
x
"We've got to figure out," Myka says, scanning the high canyon walls along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, "where he's likely to hit this crowd from."
"I used to date a woman from New York," Pete says.
Myka is in no mood for his conquests. "Is there a city that doesn't have a woman you've dated?"
"Maybe. I'll have to think about that. But she taught me a valuable lesson, very useful if you need to use a bathroom on a vacant ballroom floor.
"These hotels get hundreds of guests every day, and many of them have huge ballrooms they use for Conventions, which in turn have thousands of visitors every day. The staff cannot be familiar with people coming and going, so they look for tells. If you have luggage, you're a guest checking in; if you look like you don't know the place, you're still a customer of interest.
"But if you walk in like you know where you're going, you belong here; and unless you go to them, you're not on their radar."
"So all Rybak has to do is walk in like he's already a guest –."
"And they're not even going to notice his gunnysack as he goes to the elevator."
"So we need a hotel that offers a view of the Square."
"And my trusty Viber says," he points north and she follows his finger, "that I'm wrong."
x
The crowd is already too full in the triangular plazas that lie point to point where Broadway, long ago converted into a vehicle-less plaza five blocks long, intersects 7th Avenue. At the 42nd Street base of the north pointing triangle is NYPD's Patrol Borough Manhattan South Station House, while across 42nd Street is the Armed Forces Recruitment Station emblazoned with the sigils of the four military branches. Where they stand Broadway is on their right, angling to their left where it crosses 7th Avenue, the former set aside from traffic, the latter still a vehicular thoroughfare.
"Can you sense him?"
"I can do better than that."
xx
From the black leather carry-all slung from his shoulder Pete pulls out a familiar set of binoculars. The Warehouse has two pair in its possession, Paul Tibbet's set from the Enola Gay WW2 mission, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima, far too dangerous to bring out in public for any reason, and Phoebe Scetsinger's.
Scetsinger had been a birder, a profession as innocuous as Tibbet's had been dangerous. When trained on a bird, the device allows one to see everything from the bird's point of view. While its downside is that it cannot control or direct the bird, it is exceedingly useful for covert surveillance, as it gives the user a literal bird's eye view of the area.
Myka points out a probable good choice, three pigeons on a building ledge, but when Pete trains the glasses on them the view only lasts a moment before he pulls the eye pieces away. "Whoa, 9D trio-optical eyeball overload.
"Too much?"
"Kinda yeah."
"Try that one." There is a single bird standing on a streetlight, facing pretty much into the crowd.
"Oh, you've gotta experience this."
"Maybe later."
He quickly discovers a downside not mentioned on the card: birds tend to snap their views from one direction to another in ways he's sure are comfortable for them, but he feels he risks optical whiplash if he tries this for too long.
Fortunately, it doesn't take too many snap turns for him to find their target. "Hey, Mykes?"
"What?"
"This is really bad."
x
Barely distinguishable in the distance, at the far end of the second triangle plaza, are a series of red steps that rise over the throng, and that's where Pete is pointing.
He lowers the binoculars, checks their situation and points to the west side of 7th Avenue. "You'll have to go that way, make your way to those stairs." Without waiting for an answer, he moves right and works his way through the crowd to the east side of Broadway.
Smothering a curse, she presses through to the sidewalk which is free from all but the normal pedestrian traffic, and as she rushes block after block the situation reveals itself in all its horrible reality.
Five blocks from where they had originally stood, after the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue cuts the streets into two crowded plazas, one northward pointing triangle, the other southward, she reaches Father Duffy Plaza between the statues of George M. Cohan and Francis P. Duffy, Chaplain of the Fighting Sixty Ninth Infantry Regiment of WW1.
There, on the north edge of the plaza, rise a series of wide steps favored by tourists for the spectacular view of Times Square. The red tinted metal stairs, filled with spectators curious about the intent of the gathering, are 43 feet wide and rise high on 28 steps. At the top and alone, which Myka suspects is due more for his unbathed condition and accompanying stench, stands a shirtless man carrying behind him a long duffel bag.
He no longer wears the distinctive tee shirt, which the Agents decide is the first evidence that he possesses any sense. When you come into a space the size of Times Square, the center of a 'Black Lives Matter' rally, you can't be unobtrusive wearing a 'Black Lives –' shirt where the final word is the antithesis of the motto's creator's intent.
Looking across to 7th to where her partner has paused, Myka is sorry that Rybak is showing another sign of intelligence. 'He has the high ground.'
He's standing before a clear Plexiglass barrier that reaches to his mid-back, so there is only one chance for them to take him out without being observed.
She signals this to Pete, and doesn't need to elaborate on their chances of reaching him in a frontal assault. Not only can they not reach him without being seen, but everyone else on those steps are unsuspecting targets if they do try it.
Pete gestures with right hand arcing over left arm, she nods and makes her way to 47th St.
x
When they clear each side of the steps and meet mid-way, they discover how bad their situation really is.
Before them, directly under the back of the stairs, is a TKTS, a long series of windows where people are lined up to purchase tickets to the many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows that fill the area. The top of these booths are so high that they have no shot at the man standing above them.
x
Their only chance is to get further back, and this means crossing the street to stand in front of a too-well packed Olive Garden Restaurant and on a too busy sidewalk.
"Who'd've thought I'd long for the Middle Ages?" Pete laments.
While on a mission to bring down the mad Caretaker of Warehouse 9, Paracelsus, they'd journeyed through time with the aid of a collection of artifacts that should never have been put together to another kind of Olive Garden, much to Pete's regret at missing a proposed delicious meal.
"Pete, there's no time!"
Across the street and high up, Rybak has set down the duffle bag and drawn from it a long, jewel encrusted golden bow.
They draw their Teslas and, already attracting attention, they aim their weapons.
"I so would have liked a good pension," Pete laments.
"Aim…. FIRE!"
x
Twin bolts of electricity launch like lightning from ground to sky to a discordance of screams from too many mouths.
On the steps, Rybak's body is suffused with wild power and, when it ceases, he falls forward.
The Agents break left and right to get around the high steps, knowing that with the side effect of getting zapped, Rybak's short term memory is fried. However, the witnesses' memories are just fine. Even if the Men In Black's mnemonic zapper existed, and Pete had been so disappointed to learn that it does not, it would have done no good against the scores of witnesses on all sides of the stairs.