We know that much. Where did he plan to get away to?
The route was very carefully planned. Charles would cross the Williamsburg Bridge and take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Long Island Expressway and then drive east on Long Island to Route One Oh One, where he would turn south into the Williston Park area and allow himself thirty minutes to lose his pursuit. We assumed he would be followed, you see, in spite of our instructions, and we had studied methods of “shaking a tail,” as they call it. Naturally we realized there was no way to elude the pursuit permanently on the highways, but all we really needed was a few minutes’ invisibility. For Charles, that is. We’d done a good bit of reading-detective novels, mainly. Some of them are quite ingenious, you know. I’ve been addicted to Rex Stout and John D. MacDonald for many years. I was able to find passages in their books which gave us excellent techniques for escaping pursuit by the police or anyone else.
Remarkable.
How’s that?
Nothing, Mrs. Ryterband. Do go on.
Having eluded the police, Charles was to drive his car into a certain two-car garage. Naturally we hadn’t actually gone to Williston Park to select such a garage, but I have to assume that my brother actually did so at some point, without telling us. That morning he must have given Charles the address of the garage. There are a good number of householders in those areas who have garages but don’t have cars of their own, and who therefore rent out their garages to people who want to secure their own cars off the street. We’d talked about renting one of those garages.
So we can assume that’s what Mr. Craycroft actually did.
I’m sure you can, yes. In any case there was to be a second car waiting in that garage. There were to be watertight duffel bags in the second car. As soon as Charles arrived in the garage, he was to transfer the money out of whatever containers it was in, and repack the money into the waterproof bags. This was partly to protect the money, but it was also because we’d read about cases-kidnapping and that sort of crimes-where the police had actually hidden small transmitters in the suitcases that contained the ransom money, so that they could follow the suitcases by radio direction finders.
You’d thought of everything, then.
My, yes. Don’t forget we’d been indulging ourselves with this game for months.
Yes, of course. Well, go on, if you don’t mind.
Yes. Leaving the original suitcases-empty of course-in the original “getaway car,” and transferring the money itself into duffel bags in the second car, Charles would then drive north on Route One Oh One to Port Washington, where the plan called for a rented fishing boat to be waiting at a particular\ dock. Again of course we hadn’t actually rented any boat or tied it up at any real dock. But again we’ve got to assume Harold did these things in secret.
Yes. I see.
The boat had to meet certain requirements. It had to have both sailing masts and fairly powerful engines. To increase its possible range of operation, you see. It didn’t have to be particularly fast, because we weren’t expecting to have to outrun anyone in it, but it did have to be seaworthy in terms of the open ocean, and it had to be fairly small and simple to operate because Harold was never interested in sailing, and that would leave most of the operation of the boat up to Charles and myself. Charles became an accomplished sailor, of course, during his days in Alaska and on the California coast. Until last year, in fact, we had our own twenty-four-footer on Long Island, but we were forced to sell it.
I see. This boat was to have been rented and tied up at a dock in Hempstead Harbor, was it? And Mr. Ryterband would take the money aboard the boat?
Yes. According to our plan it would then be nearly five o’clock, allowing for the time taken by traffic en route and the time used in evading pursuit and changing cars. So Charles would actually be on board the boat at some time between four thirty and four fifty. He would cast off and make for Long Island Sound under engine power, and as soon as he was out of Hempstead Harbor, he would put up sail if the wind was with him. Otherwise he’d use engine power; there wouldn’t be time for tacking against the wind.
I see. Were you supposed to be on board with him?
According to the make-believe plan, yes, I was. As it actually turned out I didn’t even know they were putting the plan into action, so of course I had no idea there was a real boat, let alone that I should be there aboard it. I believe I know what actually happened in their minds, however.
Yes?
It was a perilous voyage they had in mind. I believe Harold intended from the beginning to leave me behind until they had reached their final destination. Then, I think, he hoped that he and Charles would be able to get a secret message to me, and that I would be able to join them.
All right. Let’s leave that subject for the moment and get back to their escape plan. You’ve placed Mr. Ryterband, with the money, aboard this boat in Long Island Sound. Now, what is Mr. Craycroft’s part in it? How do the two men make a rendezvous?
We had worked out the exact compass coordinates on the charts. At five ten-a bit more than two hours after the money was paid-Harold would discontinue circling over Manhattan Island. He would cross the East River above the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges as if he were going to make another circuit in his pattern, but once over Brooklyn he would continue to fly east and then northeast across the heavily populated areas of Long Island.
The idea being that there would be no point along his route where he could be shot down without risking the destruction of a populated area?
Yes. Exactly.
And then?
You have to understand that we’d made certain assumptions about the way the authorities would react to all this. If we were wrong, of course, it didn’t matter, but if we were right we had to be prepared for their countermeasures.
Can you explain that a bit more, please?
We expected the Air Force or the Navy to have armed planes in the air, ready to shoot Harold down at the first opportunity. If they didn’t put up such planes, of course, it simply made our scheme easier to carry out. But we had to assume they would have planes up.
I see.
That was why we’d decided that the key to the plan was to pick a day when there would be clouds over, Long Island Sound. And a degree of mist on the water.
Go on, please.
Flying eastward-northeastward-across Long Island, Harold would seek these clouds. He had an unlimited number of places to go into the clouds-he could do that at any point where the clouds overhung both the shore and the waters of the sound. The point was he had to leave land behind at a point where he wasn’t visible.
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.