Meanwhile, back in room 108, the scene of the original crime, Sal D’Martino sat in an armchair looking at the dead bodies of his wife and her lover, the small war out the window all but non-existent to him. He raised the gun to his temple.
Wallace was so scared and yet still videotaping the battle before him that he didn’t notice the flash on the monitor screen of his remote cameras as they, still in record mode, captured the muzzle flash as Sal went to meet his wife.
The NYPD had kicked the shootings at the Starlight Motel up the food chain of crimes to Major Event. Every cop in the borough of Queens was now heading for the shoddy inn on North Conduit. Emergency Services Unit en-route hearing the reports on heavy weapons called for “Big Bertha,” the N.Y.P.D.’s heavy weapons truck. Many units set up roadblocks at one-mile intervals from the motel. Their orders: “Shut down everything trying to get in or out.” Because the motel was very near JFK Airport, NYPD alerted Port Authority and they went into full prevent-defense. Ten PA cars rolled across runways and taxiways to become a virtual rolling border, guarding fortress JFK. When they rolled up to the perimeter fence, they immediately caught two men trying to scale the wire. One PA cop was injured as the bad guys decided to shoot it out. Twenty cops in cars with shotguns easily outgunned two guys with machine pistols with no cover to hide behind other than a chain-linked fence. Two others were spotted approaching the fence and ran off when the spotlights of the cop cars shone on them.
Aviation was waiting for tower clearance to swoop down on the area, but JFK landed dozens of planes an hour and the tower had to halt all landings so that a helicopter wouldn’t foul up the intake manifold of a jumbo jet with 300 or more souls on it.
The PA cops saw enough of the intention of these men to assume JFK was their target. They ordered a ground freeze and declared the airport in lockdown.
That action triggered the Joint Terrorist Task Force, which brought ten more federal agencies into the mix. JFK being a major potential terrorism target, every conceivable asset that the combined agencies could muster was already conveniently pre-stationed there. That meant that every state and federal anti-crime, terrorism, biological, nuclear, chemical, conventional, and support unit was a five-minute roll from the Starlight Motel.
Blue-helmeted members of the Hercules Anti-Terrorism Squad, in all their body armor, started advancing towards the motel. Regular patrol units held ground and laid down support fire as the heavy-weapons guys swarmed in to neutralize the threat. There were six men left in the room. One was Alzir who was bleeding and handing fresh clips to the two men firing from the window. That left three to try to escape. Each tucked the glass jars inside their shirts, waited until the next volley of fire, then bolted out the door. They were immediately cut down, literally at the knees, from four heavy weapons cops who had snuck around to each side of the room. Unlike the movies, these guys didn’t have to yell “Freeze” and thereby give the bad guy a shot at making their kids orphans. They aimed low and took out their legs, “Perpetrator Shot Running” was the police terminology.
A sergeant tossed a flash bang into the windows like a Ranger tossing a grenade into a pillbox on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The Kilgore/Schermuly Stun Grenade quieted the room in an instant. Four more body-armored cops hit the room as the four outside secured the weapons from the ones who got clipped trying to run. In the two minutes and twenty-two seconds the heavy weapons squad was on the scene the situation had been stabilized.
Wallace had gotten all of it on tape. As the surviving bad guys were being dragged to an interrogation area set up in a command van in the street, Wallace emerged from his car and went over to the heavy weapons unit commander.
“Commander, I’m Wallace Barnes. I was on the job thirty years out of the 42 in South Bronx. I was on a P.I. stakeout when this went down. I got video of the two homicides next door, and, as far as I know, that perp is still in the room.”
“Two homicides! What room?”
“108.”
The commander spoke immediately into his portable. “Be advised all units, armed gunman in room 108. Repeat. Armed gunman in room 108. Two deceased persons and gunman still in room. Approach with caution, and advise.”
Immediately, a path was cleared at an angle, which would cover the line of fire to and from room 108.
At the exact second of the transmission, a white shield, anti-crime cop, still shaking from the first heavy weapons shootout in his six-year career noticed and approached a jar lying on the parking lot asphalt next to one of the downed bad guys. He had one of the forensic team members snap a photo of it to record its position next to the body. He was reaching for it with his surgical gloved hand when the “take cover” order squawked across his radio. For the split second his hand hovered over it, he could swear it was giving off heat. He sought cover, now keeping his eyes on the window next to the blown out ones of the shoot out room.
Two heavily armed cops then scampered around the side of the building like before, only this time they also carried a fiber optic camera. They slid the slim end of the plastic lens under the door and, from a safe distance, manipulated the flexible cable to scan the room. Wallace heard their radio report.
“We show two down by gunshot on the bed and one down by the door. Total three down by gunshot. No others in sight but we can’t see into the bathroom. Advise.”
The commander looked at Wallace. “Three’s all there was. I got it all on tape — video and audio. I think it’s safe for them to enter, Sir.”
“Green team, proceed with caution and secure that bathroom.”
The men kicked in the door.
Within ten seconds, the commander’s radio crackled.
“Secured.”
He turned to the private dick. “Video and audio you say?”
On cue, a Chevy Suburban with flashing red, blue, and white strobes lurched to a halt near the command van. Wallace thought it was going to be more SWAT guys. He was shocked when a blonde woman in black blazer and pants emerged from the passenger side. She walked up to the Commander and spoke in the manner of a superior officer.
“What do we got, Commander?”
“All bad guys engaged in the firefight down or secured. Possible secondary, unrelated, triple shooting next door. Unknown number of perpetrators on the run.”
“I can help with that,” Wallace said.
“Who are you? How can you help?” the no bullshit woman asked, ordered, and demanded in one smooth command voice.
“I am NYPD retired; I was on a P.I. when this all went down. I have video of every guy who escaped and surveillance inside the adjoining room killings.”
The woman turned to the Commander. “You know this man?”
“He gave us correct intel on the second room.”
“Retired at what grade?”
“Detective 2nd grade after fifteen years in patrol.”
“That’s doing it the hard way detective.” She extended her hand, “FBI Special Agent Brooke Burell, Lead Liaison Officer, Joint Terrorist Task Force. We need to see that tape five minutes ago, Detective.”
Fifteen seconds later, they were all huddled around the little screen of his HD camera as he fast-forwarded and rewound the tape so Brooke could take a head count.
“I make it twenty-one through the door, which was the only way out, plus the three in the room. Means we started with twenty-four. Port Authority killed two, we got twelve piled up here, plus three in the bus. That leaves nine at large. Ben, APB all units. Seven suspects in motel shooting still at large, AED.”
Ben ran off to the communications van, while Wallace figured out AED must be fed speak for, “armed and extremely dangerous.”