Big Apple Takedown

Publisher Joe Paulson laid it all on the line, “Dan, you either produce the next three chapters of Homicide on the Nile by the September 15 deadline or we will immediately drop you from our stable of writers.

Paulson and his Magnifying Glass Publishing Company had released three New York Times bestsellers written by Dan Rodriguez in just five years. The Covid Pandemic brought everything to a standstill when the writer contracted a recurring case of long covid that played havoc with his immune system.

Homicide on the Nile stood unfinished in his home office hard drive as Dan labored even to get out of bed for two months.

Paulson had a point, though, the writer had to get the medical treatment he needed, get his ass in gear and start moving or face the fact that his royalty-driven bank account could run into a real shrinkage problem. With the sorry state of his life swirling around him, he walked almost robot-like into the subway for his daily trip from the publisher’s office to his Greenwich Village apartment.

Pulling his hoodie over his head to blot out some of the negative vibes, he played some upbeat jazz tunes through his earbuds. Content in his New York anonymity, he ignored those around him as they ignored him.

Then Dan got a rude awakening as a swarthy man with anger written all over his face brushed into him at a dead run. This nearly caused him to hit the pavement head first. The writer recovered quickly enough to see the man race up the stairs pursued by two mysterious looking thugs.

He covered his face and leaned against the subway wall to avoid a volley of shots one of the bandits fired from a 357 magnum, bringing the man they pursued to the floor of the subway station. Bending down, the author discovered a small, wrapped package the fugitive had stuffed into the front pocket of Dan’s hoodie as he ran past.

Rodriquez grabbed his cell phone in a panic and dialed 911, reporting the incident anonymously before bolting for the subway entrance. Holding the package close to his body, he raced up the stairs and ran as quickly as he could down the five blocks to his apartment.

In his bedroom he opened the package as his hands shook. His face turned pale when a copy of Encounter in Cairo, his previous novel, fell onto his bed. Paging through the book, he found a pocket cut into the back cover. He pulled out a map and a note.

The note, written in barely understandable English, spoke about a cache of explosives terrorists had hidden in the basement of Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York City Mayor Howard Jamison as part of a plot to force a settlement of the conflict in the Middle East.

Before he had a chance to think, a loud noise erupted from his living room as the two characters from his earlier underground encounter slammed his door open.

“Get your hands up and don’t make a sound,” the larger of the two men shouted, “you already know too much, so don’t make us silence you sooner than we had planned to.”

They then tied the writer’s hands behind his back and blindfolded him, roughly forcing him to his feet, out the door, into the elevator and into a waiting van.

Dan squirmed to get out of the bindings that almost cut off his circulation. His body rocked painfully back and forth as the vehicle swerved in and out of the afternoon traffic.

The thug who looked like the leader of the group shouted, “My name is Kalib and this is Azab. We belong to the Front for a New Middle East, a revolutionary organization that will bring a new order to both Palestine and Israel. We plan to force the chief executive of this, the most important city in the United States, to have New York City finance the first step of our jihad from its treasury. Then we will demand that your country and its allies agree to immediately bring about an end to the bloodbath in the Mideast. Our group will install new leadership, beholden to neither side in the current conflict. We will bring peace, but only under the terms we dictate and, our new government will not permit the plague of permissiveness and regional rivalries to reignite disputes of the past. We will not deviate from our plan to institute our new world order.”

Kalib went on to explain that one of their operatives had worked her way into a position as a trusted advisor in Jamison’s inner circle. During one of the mayor’s elegant cocktail parties she and Fashed, her boyfriend, had smuggled explosives into the Gracie Mansion basement. The duo awaited instructions from Kalib and the other leaders of the Front to force the mayor into helping them execute their plan for the new jihad or face the destruction of his mansion and the loss of many lives..

“Unfortunately,” the captor added, “Fashed let greed get in the way of his devotion to our cause and demanded a larger payment for his services than we agreed on. He threatened to reveal the details of our plan to your authorities before we fully executed it. You encountered us as we chased him down and sent him to meet Allah. Too bad you interfered. Now we will have to eliminate you.”

Before Kalib and his crew killed Fashed in the subway he had tipped off the city police and the FBI about the plot. They had picked up the trail of the terrorists and staked out Dan’s apartment.

Another police group arrested Fashed’s girlfriend and removed the explosives from the Gracie Mansion basement. They told her to have the ringleader and the other gang members meet them at a mayor’s residence as they had planned.

Just as the terrorists’ van pulled up, Dan managed to work himself loose from his bindings and escape into a police cruiser. Then, after a 20-minute shootout outside the mansion, the FBI captured Kalib and Azab and the rest of the gang.