Kendall looked upon the scene in front of the shelter and tried to hold on to a positive thought. It didn’t work.
He had arrived at the shelter ten minutes after Lieutenant McGreary brought twenty more Guards and just before the reporters stationed at Riverside Hospital relocated their live feed satellite trucks. By that time the crowd outside the shelter had expanded to eighty.
McGreary had called the NYPD for a truckload of blue-and-white barricades to keep the growing crowd away from the shelter entrance. The NYPD was being inexplicably slow to respond, so McGreary was forced to do it the old-fashioned way—with soldiers spaced every three feet facing the crowd. The crowd didn’t like that and began calling the soldiers names. The news outlets caught it all and the coverage was drawing even more people to the street.
Kendall watched and listened as the reporters began interviewing people who knew Sam, or at least those who claimed they did. Some in the crowd told stories of how she’d saved their dog or cat or bird in the middle of the night, but others appeared quiet and afraid. Kendall guessed that many more spectators had grown distrustful or angry in the vacuum created by the CDC’s opaque reports and the governor’s condescending statements. If that confluence of forces wasn’t a perfect storm for conflict, Kendall knew it was pretty close.
Kendall’s phone rang, and his wife’s name appeared on the screen. He answered.
“Is it as bad as it looks on the television?” Ellen asked. Kendall could hear her worry through the phone and it made him feel guilty. He hadn’t had time to watch what the news was reporting, but if it was anything close to what he was looking at in real time, he could imagine.
“I’m sure they’re making it seem worse than it is. It’s a fluid situation, honey. But people are going to be reasonable,” he said.
“Reasonable?” she said skeptically. “CNN is now reporting that an anonymous source within the CDC is claiming the entire canine link is bullshit and that’s why the CDC still hasn’t made any statement to support or justify the quarantine.”
“You know what I told you about anonymous sources.”
“Except this time it makes perfect sense. Why hasn’t the CDC made any real statement? And where are all the sick dogs if it is true?”
Kendall had no answer.
“And the governor’s press conference was a joke,” Ellen continued. “Not one fact. You can call New Yorkers a lot of things and get away with it, but we aren’t stupid. Now he’s moving beyond a quarantine and trying to take these dogs. Have you ever seen a New Yorker give up anything they love without a fight? What on God’s green earth makes you think people are going to be reasonable when they haven’t been given reasons?”
“Because we’ve been through so much worse.”
“But then we were all on the same side. Did you know someone has already set up a ‘Free Dr. Sam’s Dogs’ Facebook page? I just checked and it had over thirty-five thousand followers. Some knucklehead blogged that this whole thing is a conspiracy, that the Riverside Virus is the result of the army’s chemical biological warfare program and that the army is now coming to destroy the evidence.”
“There are always crazies, Ellen.”
“The link to the blog post has already been re-tweeted over twenty-five thousand times. And he just uploaded it in the last hour. Sure, it is crazy talk, but it is only fighting against silence.”
Kendall sighed. “It’s like a digital game of telephone. Rumor becomes news, news becomes truth.”
“And you’re in the middle of the fallout. Have you spoken to Sam?” Ellen asked.
“She’s still MIA, but the shelter just released a statement saying that because the dogs were entrusted to them by the mayor, only the mayor has the authority to force their surrender.”
“She’s not going to do that, is she?”
Kendall glanced around to make sure no one was near. “No,” he said quietly. “But I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You are still a terrible liar,” Ellen said.
“Yeah, well…” Kendall caught sight of the expected NYPD truck carrying five of his cops and the familiar blue-and-white sawhorses. The truck drove slowly through the crowd and parked in front of the shelter. A tactical police van followed.
“I know you’re worried. Maybe you shouldn’t watch it. Go for a run or something,” Kendall offered hopefully.
“You’re joking, right?”
He wasn’t, but even with only a second of retrospection, he realized it had been a stupid thing to say. Still, he decided it was probably better than explaining the truth about to unfold.
“You know I love you, right?” Ellen said.
“I do. I love you too.”
“About what I said to you before I left…”
“It’s OK. Forget it.”
“I can’t. I just wanted you to know that if anyone is smart enough and brave enough to figure a way through this, I believe it is you. I guess that’s the way it is supposed to be… why you need to be there. I’m proud of my husband.”
Kendall didn’t know what to say. Relief brought him close to tears. “I… I…”
“Go do your job. Do it for us. We want to come home.”
Ellen spared him further broken sentences and disconnected.
Lifted by his wife’s confidence, Kendall walked to the NYPD truck and McGreary met him there. “About time those barricades got here,” McGreary said.
Kendall shrugged. “Bureaucracy. You know how it is. Can you guys give us a hand off-loading these?”
McGreary directed three Guards to join the five cops in the back of the truck and help remove the barricades. Kendall was relieved to see that Owens was not in the mix.
The cops and the Guards quickly piled the barricades on the sidewalk in front of the shelter. “We got it from here, gents,” Kendall told the soldiers.
Kendall and his men began setting up the barricades on the street, lining them up very close to the shelter. As a result, the barricades separated the Guard from the shelter.
Kendall gave the police van a thumbs-up. The doors opened and a ten-officer tactical unit jumped out. This was the same type of unit that patrolled Grand Central, Penn Station, and the 9/11 Memorial. The officers were armored and armed with automatic assault rifles, and distinguishable from the Guard only by the color of their uniforms (all black) and the insignia on their jackets. The tactical unit quickly took positions behind the barricades.
McGreary came over shaking his head. “We don’t need tactical,” he told Kendall, keeping his voice low because of the row of video cameras pointed at them. “And you’re not giving us enough room. We’re all gonna be wedged up against the shelter.”
“Who’s we?” Kendall said.
An angry red vein pulsed in McGreary’s neck. “What the hell is going on here, Sergeant?”
“Actually, you can congratulate me. I just received a provisional promotion from the mayor herself about thirty minutes ago. It’s Captain Kendall now, which—no disrespect, Lieutenant—makes me the most senior command officer on site at the moment in this joint operation.”
“Except my chain of command reports directly to the governor,” McGreary protested.
“Yup.” Kendall pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “That reminds me. I’ve been authorized to give you this.”
McGreary grabbed the paper and read it. “I don’t understand this,” he said. Owens took a position behind McGreary, using the opportunity to scowl at Kendall, but McGreary directed him back.
“It’s a mayoral executive order,” Kendall said. “Number 107.”
“No shit. I can read that part.”
“By order of the mayor of the City of New York, the NYPD has been given authority to protect city property from all forms of trespass during the health emergency. I emphasize the phrase all forms.”
“You’re telling me that we can’t go into the shelter?”
“Um-hmm.”
“And that you’re authorized to use force to prevent our entry?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“If I remember my history correctly, they call this treason, don’t they?”
“You know, Lieutenant, I asked that very same question. But it turns out that the city acting through the mayor has the right to protect its property against trespass through its executive command—that’s me, by the way—absent a specific order from a higher level of government. You have a specific order from the governor or the president of the United States directing you to occupy this building?”
“Nope. Sure don’t.”
“Then I don’t think we have a conflict.”
“And when I get my direct order?”
“Until then, sir. Until then.”
McGreary saluted Kendall and gave him a thin, almost amused smile. He stepped away to confer with his men by their Jeeps.
Kendall knew that by the time they had finished their conversation, every news outlet had received a press release from the mayor about the executive order, explaining that the shelter was under the mayor’s protection until further notice. Although the press release didn’t say so expressly (because it didn’t need to), it certainly left the reader with the impression that the governor’s action in the face of the CDC’s silence might be politically motivated. The news outlets immediately ran with the story, and more people from the neighborhood and beyond came to support the shelter.
For the moment the shelter and the dogs within it were safe.