The Bohemian

by Bill Bowler

Chapter 15: Ground to Air

conclusion

In New York, a march across 42nd Street and a public rally and demonstration on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza were organized by the Committee for Freedom and Democracy, an organization of Central and South American business and civic leaders committed to halting the proliferation of totalitarian Communism in Latin America. I decided to attend since National Security Advisor Mrak was among the speakers. I had not seen him since the night Cindy died. He was taking time off from his demanding schedule to address the rally on account of the very highest priority he attached to the issue of free elections in Central America, an area where Marxist-Leninists had been making alarming inroads.

A vociferous crowd of several hundred gathered at Bryant Park, marched across 42nd Street and down 1st Avenue to the plaza. Security was tight.

Mrak arrived by helicopter. He ascended the steps of the grandstand and faced the crowd. It was, perhaps, his greatest speech. He spoke of the dark forces of totalitarianism, doomed to failure, of the Free World, led by the champion of freedom, the United States, vouchsafing the security of all nations willing to cooperate in the interests of freedom and liberty.

Mrak gazed across the crowd, which at the plaza had grown to perhaps a thousand. The sea of faces and banners was gratifying. A small band of hecklers had attempted illegally to unfurl a revolutionary banner, only to be escorted away by NYPD and shoved into the back of a barred New York City Corrections Dept. bus parked nearby for that purpose.

As Mrak approached the closing paragraphs of his text, he stopped speaking in mid-sentence. He gripped the podium and leaned forward, straining his eyes in disbelief.

Someone insane had driven a van into the crowd, running over people in its path as it careened towards the grandstand. The sound of gunfire reached Mrak’s ears. Police and security were firing on the van, but still it came closer and closer.

Twenty yards from the grandstand, a police bullet shattered the windshield and the van screeched to a halt. Six masked terrorists in combat fatigues, brandishing submachine guns, leapt from the rear of the van and moved towards the grandstand in military formation.

There seemed no place to flee. The speakers and officials were scattering in panic. Protected by three bodyguards, Mrak jumped from the back of the grandstand and ran to his helicopter, hovering and waiting to carry him to safety. The bodyguards lifted him up the short ladder dangling from the copter. Other agents pulled him grunting into the cockpit.

The chopper lifted away, starting its swing around the gleaming U.N. Secretariat away from the violent anarchy on the ground, away towards safety. Another second and they would be out of range of machine-gun fire. Mrak was thanking God for having delivered him once again from the hands of his enemies, for allowing him to continue the struggle another day.

A last terrorist stepped from the van with a single missile braced to a shoulder launcher. This one wore no ski mask. I recognized his dark hair and eyes, and his face now set in grim determination. It was Carlos. He knelt, took aim, and fired the Stinger. The heat-seeking projectile zeroed in on the chopper and hit the fuel tank, which exploded on contact. Smoking pieces of metal and flesh rained down into the East River.

to Challenge 354...