Could you hear what was said between them?
Yes. It was very brief. He told his partner the money had been delivered, that it was now in the car and that he was preparing to drive away from the bank, alone. He said something like, “They’ve kept their part of the bargain, Harold.”
Did you hear Harold’s reply?
First Ryterband said, “I’m leaving now.” Then his partner on the radio said, “Roger. Out.” Then Ryterband got in the car and drove away.
What time was that, Mr. Eastlake?
It was exactly three thirty-five.
Brian Garfield
Target Manhattan
Azzard (Cont’d)
He was a badly rattled man. Scared to death. I was afraid he was going to drive right into a telephone pole, and that would be that. But he got away to the bridge all right. We had the bleepers on his belt and the money. There was an unmarked convoy on his tail, of course-two triangulation vans and a couple of plainclothes cars to boot. They stayed out of his sight, though.
You hadn’t had much time to conceal anything in those suitcases, had you?
Enough. One of our electronics boys had fixed up the cases while they were being loaded over at the Federal Reserve.
Oh, I see.
Our trackers followed him across the bridge and onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He was a little ahead of the rush hour so he made fairly good time, even without speeding.
He then went onto the Long Island Expressway?
A few miles out beyond Queens, yes. Then he came to rest. Our vans moved in, triangulating by radio. They stopped about two hundred yards from his beacon. After a little while the beacons split up. They were different frequencies, we could tell which was which. Our agents could, that is. I was still at the Merchants Trust, but I was in radio contact with our field teams.
I understand that. What happened when the radio devices separated?
We’d more or less expected something like that. Obviously he’d taken the money out of our containers and transferred them to something else. As it turned out, he also switched cars, but that had no effect because we’d planted the bug on his belt, not his car. That bug-the one on his belt-moved away. The other two bleepers-on the suitcases-stayed put. We let him get some distance away before our men moved. One team followed the moving signal-Ryterband. The other moved in on the stationary signals. They found the empty suitcases in a private two-car garage, along with his car, which he’d left there. Meanwhile the second team of agents followed Ryterband north toward the shore of Long Island Sound.
At what time did this take place?
He reached the garage, where he made the switch, at approximately four fifteen. He left the garage at four twenty-three.
Was he in communication with Craycroft throughout that time?
Yes. We’d brought a radio up to the bank; we were monitoring their communications. They kept it very brief-maybe they didn’t want us homing in on Ryterband’s transmissions. Anyhow, he simply reported the successful conclusion of each step of his operation. He’d say something like, “Step two, completed.” Craycroft would say, “Affirmative.” That was about the sum of it.
At what time did Ryterband reach his destination?
The bleeper stopped moving at four fifty-six.
Grofeld (Cont’d)
Captain, you’ve made a thorough study of Harold Craycroft-his background, to some extent his motivations. In the course of this detective work have you interviewed psychiatric experts?
Yes, I have.
Now, as the time drew close to the five ten deadline on that Wednesday, May twenty-second, the most crucial question in your minds must have been, “Will he drop those bombs, or won’t he?”
That’s it in a nutshell, yes.
The ransom had been paid, not much more than a half hour late, as it turned out. You then had to use your best judgment as to whether Craycroft would accept that or whether he would bomb the city anyway. Now, you’ve just stated that you’ve obtained psychiatric opinions on Craycroft. You must have asked these experts whether in their judgment Craycroft intended to drop the bombs.
I did, naturally. But it was like the parable about the blind men trying to describe the elephant. I talked to four shrinks and got four opinions. They could have been talking about four different guys. I’d expected that, actually. When you go to trial, you can always find experts to give testimony on both sides of the case. It doesn’t mean anybody’s lying. They have different opinions, that’s all. Nobody except a clairvoyant could have told us what was actually going on inside Craycroft’s head at that particular time.
Then you really had no way to be absolutely certain of his intentions?
None at all.
You had to rely on judgment and intuition, then.
You could put it that way.
Is there some other way you’d prefer to put it, Captain? I’d like to be as clear as possible on this point.
Look, we’d been monitoring conversations between Ryterband and Craycroft for several hours that afternoon. We hadn’t heard Craycroft say, “I’m not going to drop the bombs.” Everything we heard led to exactly the opposite conclusion. Add to that the fact that Ryterband himself was obviously afraid of Craycroft’s intentions-he didn’t seem to know either, any more than we did. But he knew Craycroft a lot better than the rest of us did, and if Ryterband was scared, we had to be scared, too. Add to that the fact that Craycroft was obviously deranged. I mean, nobody ever really questioned that. The point is we knew just one thing for certain: that he was unpredictable. He couldn’t be depended on to do the sensible thing or the logical thing or the compassionate thing. He was listening to the sound of his own private drummer; we couldn’t hear the beat of that drum, and we had no way of anticipating his moves.
Therefore, I take it, you reasoned that you had to assume the worst.
Mr. Skinner, if a stranger points a loaded gun at you, you don’t know for sure that he’s going to pull the trigger. But if you get a chance, you’ll sure as hell duck out of his line of fire. Or, given the chance, you’ll shoot him first.
The law of self-defense.
I’m not talking about the law. I’m talking about natural reaction-common sense. He had a loaded gun pointed at us. And we couldn’t get out of the way. If we could be sure he wouldn’t shoot, that would be one thing. But all we knew was what we could see. We took steps designed to remove the threat. Defend ourselves. Whatever you want to call it. We had to try. Craycroft had a screw loose. He might let fly at any time. We had no guarantee he’d wait until ten minutes after five. We had no guarantee of anything. The sooner we tried to neutralize him, the better-in terms of odds.
Mr. Toombes acquiesced to that line of reasoning?
Yes. But I was the one who talked him into it. If you’re looking for someone to pin the blame on.
I’m not, Captain. I’m only trying to get the facts.
You’ve got to remember, I think, that we had Adler and the FBI chief breathing down our necks, too. They wanted to blow him out of the sky regardless. The difference between our scheme and theirs was at least we were trying to insure that innocent bystanders wouldn’t get hurt.
Yes, I think the record makes that abundantly clear.
And actually there wasn’t much point holding off until the deadline. Suppose we’d waited until ten after five? What were we supposed to do? Let him drop the bombs and then go after him? It was pointless, really. We had to
