‘Wait,’ said Harper. ‘Just wait for a moment.’
Then they heard a shout and further away, another shout and another. It wasn’t a secret assault, it was a war cry. ‘Let’s get out there,’ said Harper. A moment later, they heard a huge smash of glass, followed by another, and suddenly the whole street was ringing with car alarms, shop alarms and broken glass.
‘
Harper got on the radio. ‘This is Detective Harper. We’ve got major rioting starting up down here in Borough Park. We need SWAT, we need support. It’s big.’
Harper, Kasper and Levene ran down into the street. Then they stopped and drew back. Thirty or more hooded Nazis were running along the street with hammers, axes and baseball bats. They’d coordinated the seven teams. It wasn’t seven separate hits, it was one major assault. The shop fronts were exploding with fragments of glass, the doors smashed open. There didn’t appear to be any looting. The rioters would simply rush in and destroy what they could.
Across the street, people started to pour out of the Jewish restaurants screaming in terror. Gasoline was being splashed through the broken shop fronts and the sudden whoosh of fire exploded on to the street.
‘We can’t just watch, Harps. We got to do something.’
‘I’m thinking about how to get out of this without getting anyone killed,’ said Harper. ‘If all these rioters were being tailed by our operation, then we’ve got support.’ He got back on the radio, listened and turned. ‘They’re here.’
The joint operation involved over eighty police officers, who streamed into the street. Harper, Eddie and Denise were joined by ten or twelve other officers and they began to sweep towards the rioters. The other officers came from the west. The rioters gradually became aware that they weren’t going to smash and run like they had planned.
‘Do not draw your weapons,’ ordered Harper over the radio. The streets were full of people running, some starting to fight the Nazi rioters. ‘We can’t ensure the safety of the public. Tackle them safely, but take them down. Now.’
The police ran forward. Two to one, grabbing the rioters, chasing them through broken and flaming streets. The rioters were flung to the ground, and cuffed, then left to struggle. Members of the public began to attack the rioters: there were groups kicking cuffed men on the ground. Harper moved forward. ‘Get the public off the streets.’
He ran up to one group. Two men and a woman were screaming at one of the cuffed rioters, dragging his balaclava off. ‘Get out of here before I arrest you,’ said Harper. ‘Don’t become one of them.’ He moved them off and up the street, saying, ‘Denise, can you direct these people out of here before they land themselves in prison.’
Harper and Eddie then raced across to a jewelry store, where two big guys with hammers were smashing the cabinets. A lifetime of work broken in a moment. Harper flew in and grabbed the first. He pulled the hammer from his hand, smashed his jaw with his forearm and threw him out to Eddie. The second guy watched, then dropped his hammer and let himself be cuffed.
Outside, there were seven or eight rioters still evading the police, but the majority had been downed. Harper looked at the damage. Twenty or thirty shops smashed to pieces, several burning, billowing black smoke. If they hadn’t been trailing these guys, it would’ve been a hundred times worse; the gangs would’ve attacked people. There was no question, a much worse situation had been avoided.
Harper called through on the radio: ‘We’re nearly there, people. Get the rest of them cuffed and move them out of here. We need to get this whole place cleared.’
Harper saw the big guy from the truck disappear down an alley with two other rioters. Not wanting any of these cowards to escape, he darted after them, back up the alleyway. As they headed back to their truck, Harper pulled out his badge and called: ‘NYPD. Stop! Drop your weapons — now.’
The lead guy stopped and turned. He saw that Harper was alone. Harper saw them come at him. Three of them and he was the only thing stopping their escape. A hammer flew at him, hard and low. If it hit, it would break his leg. Harper jumped out of the way and the hammer smashed into the brick wall.
‘I didn’t appreciate that,’ said Harper. ‘Not one bit.’ The second hammer rose high and flew across him. It was easy to avoid. Hammers were slow and heavy. Harper pulled the rioter towards him. He landed a boot in his groin and butted him to the ground. The other two came in fast. One jabbed at Harper with the ax, while the second guy threatened a big blow to his head.
Harper backed to the wall. An ax, a hammer and two frightened and desperate rioters. There was no fear, just the thumping of his pulse and the softening of the boundaries between his mind and his body. He could hear the screeching of alarms in the background. He could smell the smoke. He could even see the fear in the two sets of eyes staring out through their masks. He felt the wall at his back, the ax-head thump in his stomach again, the hammer press against his shoulder, being driven backwards like some beast.
Harper calculated they were just out of reach of his fists. He needed to get closer, inside the range of their weapons. He ducked, pushed the hammer away with his right shoulder, and moved inside the ax-head using his left arm. It gave him what he needed: something within his reach. He came up from below, delivering a thunderous uppercut to the hammer guy and an elbow to the lead. The hammer guy dropped his weapon and crumpled, dazed. The lead guy was shaken but not out. Harper moved in. This was no boxing match, this was a street fight. His right boot scraped hard down the man’s shin and dug into his foot, while his arms reached up, grabbed the masked head and tugged it forward at speed. His knee then came up hard to meet the head. There was a loud crack and then a thud as the guy hit the ground.
Harper knelt down and pulled off his mask. ‘You want more?’ The man’s nose was split wide open, and his eyes had that lost look that Harper had seen so many times in the ring. ‘I said,
The man shook his head. Harper grabbed him. ‘Where’s Martin Heming?’
‘Fuck you,’ he gasped. ‘Heming isn’t here. Heming is cleaning up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Yeah, like I’d tell you.’
Harper raised his fist, then stopped himself and stood. He had to use his head now. What would Heming be cleaning up?
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Harper was sitting on the hood of his car looking out over the destruction with Denise. Eddie Kasper was in the back of an ambulance talking to a young female paramedic with cute dark brown eyes.
‘What now?’
Harper looked at Denise. ‘We’ve got twenty-four more individuals to talk to, so we can hope that they’ve heard of Sturbe or that they know where Heming is hiding. But how helpful are they going to be?’
‘No sign of Heming, then?’ she asked.
‘He wasn’t here. The guy I took out said he was “cleaning up”.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’ve been trying to work it out.’ Harper took a call on his cell phone. It was Mark Garcia. ‘Where are you?’ said Harper.
‘Just taken our arrests to the cells. I’m back at McRory’s. Where are you?’
‘I’m still at the scene. You found something?’
‘Yeah, we found the black cards. They all just have the address in Borough Park. They were ditched in the toilets, torn-up and flushed. They weren’t careful. Quite a few pieces were on the floor.’
‘So what’s the news?’
‘One of the cards didn’t have the address on it.’
‘What did it have on it?’
