Screams started to rise around me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the truck.
The driver made an agile exit from the crumpled driver’s door and stood right next to the truck. Over his face, he wore a red scarf with white starburst designs.
He shouted, “Hawqala!”
Chapter 3
I stood in shock like just about everyone else near me. This was not something we were used to seeing on US soil.
Eddie and Jane, crouching on the sidewalk next to me, both stood and started to move away from me.
I grabbed Eddie’s wrist.
He looked back at me and said, “We’ve got to help them.”
Jane had paused right next to him as I said, “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
As I said it, the driver of the truck reached in his front jacket pocket and pulled something out. I couldn’t identify it exactly, but I knew it was a detonator.
I shouted as loud as I could, “Everyone down!” My family knew to lie flat on the sidewalk and cover their faces with their hands. A few people in the crowd listened to me as well. Most were still in shock or sobbing.
The driver hit the button on the detonator and immediately there was a blinding flash, and what sounded like a thunderclap echoed among all the buildings.
I couldn’t turn away as I watched from the pavement. The blast blew the roof of the truck straight into the air almost thirty feet. I felt it in my guts. A fireball rose from the truck.
The driver was dazed and stumbled away from the truck as the roof landed on the asphalt not far from him.
Now there was absolute pandemonium. It felt like every person on 49th Street was screaming. The blast had rocked the whole block.
The parade was coming to an abrupt stop. Parade vehicles bumped one another and the marching band behind the step van scattered. A teenager with a trumpet darted past me, looking for safety.
The driver pushed past spectators on the sidewalk near us and started to run back down 49th Street where he had driven the truck.
The ball of flame was still rising like one of the floats. Then I noticed a couple of the floats were rising in the air as well. The human anchors had followed instinct and run for their lives.
Snoopy was seventy-five feet in the air now.
Several Christmas tree ornaments as big as Volkswagens, with only three ropes apiece, made a colorful design as they passed the middle stories of Rockefeller Center.
I glanced around, but didn’t see any uniformed cops close. The one young patrolman I had seen keeping people in place was frantically trying to help a child who had been struck by the truck.
I had no radio to call for backup. I just had my badge and my off-duty pistol hidden in my waistband.
There had been plenty of cops early, but now I saw that some of them had been hurt in the explosion, others were trying to help victims. It was mayhem, and no one was chasing the perp. I was it. I had to do something.
Chapter 4
When I stood up, my legs still a little shaky, I concentrated on the red scarf I’d seen around the driver’s face and neck as he fled the scene. The splash of color gave me something to focus on.
I looked around at my family, making sure everyone was still in one piece. They were on the ground and I said, “Stay put.”
I worked my way past panicked parade spectators until I was in the open street and could see the driver half a block ahead. I broke into a sprint, dodging tourists like a running back.
By this point, no one realized the man running from the scene was the driver. The people this far back on the street didn’t have a front row seat to the tragedy. No one tried to stop him. Everyone was scrambling for safety, if there was such a place.
I started to gain on the man because he hadn’t realized yet that he was being pursued. He had a loping gait as if one of his legs was injured. But he was also alert, checking each side and behind him as he hurried away.
I wasn’t a rookie chasing my first purse-snatcher in the Bronx. I didn’t feel the urge to yell, “Stop—police!” I was silent and hung back a little bit so he didn’t pick up on me.