Then what?
I told him we needed authorization and equipment. I showed him O’Brien’s list. He just blinked at it. I’m not sure he wasn’t convinced we were crazy, but he probably figured, what the hell. I kept pressing him, telling him we had to try it. It took a little while. I had to explain about the authorizations we’d need, and in circumstances like that you have to explain things several times before anybody understands.
Yes. You have to penetrate past their confusion.
Right. Your brain gets pretty numb, times like that.
What were these authorizations you required?
Well, first, of course, we needed permission from the highest possible authorities to try the stunt at all. City, FBI, and military. Or at least a couple of them. Then we’d need full cooperation from whoever was in command of those jet fighters circling up there. At that point none of us actually knew who was giving them their orders.
You found out, though?
Toombes went over and asked General Adler. Adler told him the planes had been launched by order of Major General Bradford Hawley of the Air National Guard.
Adler had phoned Hawley earlier, I take it?
Yes. Launching the planes had been Adler’s idea, but the authority was Hawley’s. Incidentally, when I called Hawley, the first thing I asked him was whether the fighters were really armed with live ammunition.
And were they?
Yes. Twenty-millimeter cannon and air-to-air missiles.
Sidewinder missiles.
That’s right.
Now, at this time-what was it, about ten past three?
About that, yes.
At this time you began to seek authorization from the various departments?
Yes. Both Mr. Toombes and I spent a lot of time on telephones.
And ultimately you received these authorizations?
Most of them, yes. We figured we could live without the rest of them.
Which were denied you?
The FBI, for one. They’re great buck passers. Azzard didn’t want to take the responsibility, and his next superior is in Washington and was somehow unavailable through all our attempts to reach him.
But you decided to go ahead without FBI permission?
What choice did we have?
I don’t know, Captain. That’s what we’re here to determine.
We got a pretty snappy go-ahead from Mr. Swarthout, the Assistant Deputy Mayor. That covered us with the Mayor’s office. We’d established an open line to General Hawley-he was in a National Guard office at Floyd Bennett Field-we got that line and held it open after about three thirty. Hawley wanted a crack at that bomber any way he could get one, and it looked as if we might give him one, so he seemed willing to play along with us. He’d somehow gotten Pentagon clearance. He had direct radio communication with the three Starfighters. In the meantime Mr. Swarthout, who was still in his office at City Hall, established contact with the headquarters of the Port Authority and began to clear us for the helicopter and the crop duster that O’Brien and Harris had asked for.
How much time did all this take?
It was nearly four o’clock before we had it all nailed down and had the channels of communication open.
Still, under the circumstances that was fast work.
We had a crisis on our hands, Mr. Skinner.
That doesn’t always grease the skids under the bureaucracy.
Well, there’s a certain amount of interaction. I mean, each of us had contacts among people who could help us. I knew Mr. Toombes. He knew Mr. Swarthout. Swarthout knew the people at Port Authority. I mean, relationships like that are inevitable in governmental structures. We were able to get lines of communication opened, and that was the key to it. I don’t think there was anything unusual about that. The apparatus is clumsy, but if you know how to deal with it, you can function pretty fast.
I see. And Mr. Toombes had called in General Adler…
I don’t have much sympathy for General Adler, I admit. But the fact is it’s a good thing he was there. We might have had an easier time with some other Air Force officer, but we had to work with what we had.
I thought you regarded him as a worse threat than Craycroft.
In a way we did. But I’m a cop, and O’Brien’s a cop, and if Adler had really busted a fuse, we had him right there in the room and we could have neutralized him. Put him under arrest, shut him up. No, the real threat was always Craycroft, although I’ve got to admit Adler scared the hell out of us. We had to keep a damn close eye on him-you couldn’t be sure when he might get on the phone and tell General Hawley it was time to go to war.
Now, while you were seeking authorizations and opening channels, what was being done about the requisitions on O’Brien’s list?
Frankly I skipped the chain of command on most of those. I just gave orders to some cops to go get the stuff. The radio transmitters, the paint. Mr. Toombes, through Mr. Swarthout, got us the Port Authority helicopter-the biggest one they had, one of those twin-rotor banana jobs. I sent a squad from the precinct down to one of the construction outfits to requisition one of those big junkpile electromagnets with a battery-pack power supply. And we got the crop duster from the Jersey mosquito-control people, again through the Port Authority by way of a request from the Deputy Mayor’s office.
These items you obtained yourself-the paint, the radios, and the magnet-you did that on your own authority, Captain?
I did: I figured I’d argue later about whether I had the right to do it. If the stunt worked, nobody was going to bitch about a little moonlight requisitioning on my part. If it didn’t work, my head was likely to roll anyway. I didn’t see any point wasting time taking that stuff upstairs.
Now, in the meantime, while all this was going on, the government bankers were trying to expedite the delivery of the ransom money?
Yes.
Eastlake (Cont’d)
Yes, we were going all out. We had the truck loaded by three twenty. That was ten minutes earlier than I’d anticipated. I called Mr. Maitland to tell him the money was on its way. I rode over in the truck myself, with the guards.
At what time did you arrive at the bank?
The traffic was fairly heavy, and you know how narrow those streets are. It was only a few blocks, but it took about ten minutes to get across to Beaver Street. We drew up in front of the bank building. A group of men were waiting for us at the curb. Police officers were diverting pedestrian traffic. Mr. Maitland was there, and several officials with him, and a man whom someone pointed out to me as Charles Ryterband.
This was down at street level? They had come downstairs to meet you?
Yes. They told me the money was to be transferred directly from our truck to Ryterband’s car. The car was being brought around just then by two policemen, who parked it immediately behind our armored truck. Someone was carrying a large portable radio set of some kind, which they placed inside the car on the passenger seat. Later I was told that was a two-way radio, by which Ryterband kept in contact with his partner in the airplane.
And you transferred the money into the car?
Yes, sir. We had packed the money into two cases.
Suitcases
Actually they were fiberboard document cases-the handiest things we’d had available-but they were similar to large suitcases, yes. We placed them in the trunk of the car. Ryterband insisted on opening them to make sure they contained the money. Then he locked the trunk lid over them and went around the side of the car to talk to his partner by radio.
