8:53 A.M.
UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT BUILDING
FIRST AVENUE AND FORTY-SECOND STREET
NEW YORK CITY
Two bright yellow school buses came inching up First Avenue, one in front of the other, moving slowly in the massive traffic jam on First Avenue, most acute in the area surrounding the United Nations. The buses were in the easternmost lane, nearest to the UN, slowly approaching the cordoned-off building. From the outside, the buses looked empty, except for the drivers, perhaps on their way to pick up schoolchildren they’d dropped off earlier at the UN on a field trip?
At Forty-second Street, a block below the UN, all vehicles were asked to divert left, into a slow-moving traffic jam away from the highly secure UN complex, where President J. P. Dellenbaugh had just entered.
News trucks and a line of reporters occupied a roped-off section of sidewalk between Forty-second and Forty-third. The camera shot was ideal, an early-morning clear sky surrounding the gorgeous geometric glass-and-concrete edifice of the UN building, whose dark, reflective glass on this morning, with the powder-blue sky above, looked like the ocean.
An FBI officer stood at the corner of Forty-second Street and First Avenue, waving cars and trucks left. When the driver of the first bus waved, the agent allowed the buses to go straight into the cordoned-off area near the reporters, close to the perimeter. The agent held an MP7A1 aimed at the ground. He stopped the first bus. The driver opened the door.
“Yeah.”
“P.S. One Twenty-two.”
“You here to pick up some kids?” said the FBI agent.
The FBI agent looked at the driver, a bald, olive-skinned man with dark eyes, and he suddenly became still as he watched the driver looking at his watch, then to the horizon, as if waiting for something.
A dull thwack—then a bullet from a gunman crouched near the bus door blew a dime-sized hole to the agent’s cheek, a kill shot. It blew out the back of his skull across the sidewalk and he tumbled awkwardly to the ground.
The driver and another man climbed quickly down and lifted the dead agent up, dragging him back onto the bus, even as the driver registered a police officer, who suddenly glanced in the direction of the bus and started walking toward it.
The driver turned to his men.
“Get ready,” he said, looking down the aisle of the bus at a swarm of Hezbollah, all tucked down behind seats and near the ground, out of sight. “It’s about to begin.”