Brian Garfield - Target Manhattan

What about radar? Pursuit planes would be tracking on radar, wouldn’t they?

That was what the window was for.

You mentioned a window before. I confess it baffles me.

“Window” is a word used by air people to describe strips of aluminum foil which are dropped from an airplane to confuse radar. I have no idea what the derivation of the word is. But in any case our plan called for bundles of foil to be secured in the spare bomb racks of the airplane so that they could be released by my brother the moment he flew into the concealment of clouds above Long Island Sound. This wouldn’t prevent them from following him, of course, but it would prevent them from getting an accurate enough fix on him to shoot him down immediately. All he needed was a few minutes. In any case we assumed by this point that the pursuit wouldn’t be eager to shoot him down. Their objective would be simply to follow him, see where he landed the plane, and then arrest him on the ground. Once he’d flown away from the populated areas he was no longer a threat to them, you see? So we assumed they wouldn’t shoot him-just track him.

I don’t see how that helped your plans to get away.

Well, we were perfectly willing to have them follow the Flying Fortress. That was a diversion, you see.

A diversion?

That was why we needed the cloud cover. As soon as he was concealed inside a bank of cloud above the waters of the sound, Harold was to drop an inflatable emergency raft out of the plane, and then he was to jump out of the airplane and parachute into the water. The strips of window would confuse the radar of pursuing planes, and they wouldn’t know he had jumped out of the plane. Naturally they would think he was still flying it. The plane would be set on automatic pilot, and would continue to fly a northeasterly course out over the Atlantic Ocean until ultimately it would run out of fuel and crash in the ocean. That wouldn’t happen until more than three hours later, of course, which gave us at least three hours before any suspicions could be raised.

Remarkable.

Yes, it was really very ingenious, I think. Harold would parachute into the water, climb into the rubber life raft and paddle to the rendezvous on the middle of the sound, where he would meet our fishing boat and climb aboard. We hoped to have a ground mist to at least partly conceal this part of the plan, but it wasn’t absolutely essential; the only vital part of the weather requirement was that he had to bail out in clouds, so that he couldn’t be seen when he left the airplane.

The boat would then take them where?

By stages down the coast to Florida and then ultimately to Mexico, where we understood it was possible to obtain new false papers for a price.

And then?

To South Africa, where we intended to set ourselves up in the aircraft business under new names.

It was an incredible plan, Mrs. Ryterband. There’s one detail that puzzles me just a little. If Mr. Craycroft phoned the bank on Monday, how did he know the weather conditions on Wednesday would be suitable?

I can only imagine that he had studied the extended forecast, which as I recall called for partly cloudy conditions throughout most of that week. If the weather had not obliged-if there’d been an important change by Wednesday morning-I’m sure he’d simply have called the bank, canceled the appointment and waited for another opportunity.

Was the Merchants Trust Bank a particular target for any special reason?

No. Any of the major banks would have done as well. We chose the Merchants Trust mainly because it wasn’t too far from the lower East Side Highway, which meant that Charles wouldn’t have far to drive before he could get across the bridge into Brooklyn and away on the expressway.

Did it occur to any of you how bulky five million dollars in cash would be?

We worked it out very carefully, Mr. Skinner. Assuming there would be a random selection of bills in denominations from one hundred dollars down to ten dollars, we calculated a total of approximately thirty-five thousand bank notes. They would be used bills-we specified that. We actually went to the bank and cashed a check for two hundred dollars and changed it into one-dollar bills. Then we weighed the two hundred bills on a postal scale. It was almost exactly eight ounces-half a pound. I’m not sure our scale was exactly accurate-it was quite old-but at least it gave us a working figure. Four hundred bills to the pound. That meant the total would weigh about ninety pounds. Not more than one hundred pounds, in any case. Wrapped in banded stacks of five hundred bills each-about two inches thick, each stack-we calculated seventy stacks. You could fit it all into one large suitcase or two ordinary suitcases. Charles was always a big man, powerful in build-he never went to fat. It was no great effort for him to carry two fifty-pound suitcases, one in either hand. We even tried it, with suitcases filled with books from my library shelves.

Extraordinary.

You needn’t be so surprised, Mr. Skinner. We thought of everything. Everything.

There’s a point of confusion you may be able to help us clear up.

I’ll be glad to if I can.

Who suggested that you get the money up?

(Laughter) Everybody did.

No, I mean, who suggested it first?

I don’t really remember, Mr. Skinner. I do know this much. Everybody was suggesting it. I was the one who had already done something about it.

At what time?

Starting at, oh, I’d say about eleven o’clock. Ira Rabinowitz-my security chief-was in the office, and he was on one line talking to the police. I was on the other line to one of the executive vice-presidents, Mr. Prince, asking him to find out what our cash availability situation was. I told him we had to raise the money. I think he’ll confirm that for you, if there’s any question of it. While I was on the interphone with Prince, two police officers came into the office Patrolmen Weinstein and Criscola?

I suppose so. I didn’t get their names, or didn’t remember them. They were in uniform.

Police records show they arrived in your office at ten fifty-seven.

Then that’s when I was talking to Prince.

I see. Then in your own mind you had decided almost instantly that you were going to pay the ransom?

Mr. Skinner, that man was right in front of me in my office. Willard Roberts, Ryterband, whatever his name was. I’d seen his eyes, heard his voice. And I had seen that plane from my window. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that he meant what he was saying. He had me cold. I was under duress. No man in my position could even think about risking the lives of thousands of innocent people for the sake of an armload of paper money.

But it must have occurred to you that they might have been bluffing. That perhaps the bombs weren’t real-or that perhaps they didn’t intend to use them, regardless.

It crossed my, mind. But it wasn’t a chance I was about to take. Hell, Mr. Skinner, if I’d taken a chance like that I’d have been a pariah for life-whether I’d been right or wrong. No. I had no choice. No choice at all.

It has been suggested that you weren’t committing your own money. That the money belonged to the bank-its depositors and stockholders and the like.

I’m being rather patient about this, I think, Mr. Skinner, but I don’t really think that sort of petty accusation deserves to be dignified by an answer.

Of course. You had both the responsibility and the authority, as chief executive officer of the bank.

Yes.

And, of course, the money was insured.

There seems to be some dispute whether it was insured against this type of crime.

Oh?

I’m sure we’ll iron out those definitions to our satisfaction. There isn’t an insurance company in the world that won’t try to renege if they think they can get away with it. They couldn’t make it stick, of course, but it is the sort of fine print that makes it possible for insurance companies to drag their heels and delay payments. Time is money, of course-the more an insurance company can delay paying, the less it costs them to pay. Aren’t we getting off the track?