The FBI obtained a layout of the building from the landlord, who thought he was showing the brownstone to a prospective buyer. The blueprints were scanned into a computer at the New York bureau. A three-dimensional image of the interior was constructed from it, and an assault plan was worked out. The day was chosen, and an earlymorning time was selected, when the narrow, one-way street would be the least crowded. People who were going to work would have already left, and tourists would not yet have made their way to Greenwich Village.
Earlier on “M-morning,” when it was still dark, undercover police officers made their way into the shops.
Five officers were placed in each shop, and their job was to handle arrests once the vermin had been flushed out.
The primary squad in the two shops had been instructed to go into action when diMonda shouted, “Hey.” Either it would come when someone pushed him, or when Arden tried to move him from the stoop. Once the primary squad moved, a twelve-person backup team would leave their van, which was parked around the comer on Bleecker Street. Six of them would go in only if they heard gunfire.
When they went into action, police would seal off the street and make sure no one else left their apartments. If the neo- Nazis managed to get out of the building, the other six agents in the support group would be in position, in the street, to pick them up. An ambulance was also parked and waiting on Bleecker, in case it was needed.
It began at 8:34, with diMonda settling down on the stoop with a cup of coffee and a bagel. For the last few weeks, the first two people usually left the building between 10:00 and 10:30, took the PATH train to Thirty-third Street, and went to an office on Sixth Avenue. The office made no attempt to conceal what it was: a small editorial and advertising sales office for the racist magazine Phrer. The visitors left the office with whatever they were supposed to bring back to the apartment. The FBI had examined cartons being shipped to the magazine and found no weapons of any kind; they could only assume that staffers were buying guns, ammunition, and knives on the street and storing them there for disbursement to Pure Nation or whoever else needed them.
The door to the brownstone opened at 8:44. When it did, diMonda threw his coffee cup to the right, in front of the candy shop, and fell back into the lobby. Arden, who had been waiting in the shop, made sure he stepped out when he saw the flying cup.
A young woman, dyed-blond and hard, stepped over diMonda.
“Officer!” she said. “Get this creature out of here!” A tall, mustachioed man picked the much shorter diMonda up by the shirt and made ready to heave him to the sidewalk.
“Hey!” diMonda yelled.
An agent came from the flower shop and stood behind the woman. When she went to push diMonda, the agent jumped between them and pushed her back, toward the flower shop. She screamed at him as a second agent came out and told her she was under arrest. When she resisted, two officers cuffed her and hauled her into the back room.
Meanwhile, Arden had stepped into the lobby of the brownstone.
“What the hell are you doing?” the neo-Nazi yelled at Arden as his struggle with the scrappy diMonda moved onto the street. There, two agents were waiting to pull him into the candy shop.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Arden yelled. “I’ll make sure this bum doesn’t bother you again.” That was for the benefit of anyone who might be listening from upstairs. Arden had already drawn his sleek 9-mm Sig Sauer P226 and was standing against the wall on the left side of the stairs.
DiMonda moved in on the right, holding his Colt.45 automatic. Then the eight remaining agents entered in pairs.
The first two agents covered the first-floor room, just beyond the stairs. One crouched beside the door; the other remained near the stairs with a view of the first lending. The second two agents moved in between diMonda and Arden and took up positions on the first landing. They walked carefully up the stairs, staying to the middle of each step and climbing with their torsos straight. By centering their weight, they not only moved more efficiently, but caused less creaking on each of the old steps.
Then the next two agents went in, stopping halfway up the second flight of stairs. The fourth pair of agents went up and staked their claim on the second-floor landing. One agent covered the door, the other the stairs. The last pair of agents went halfway up the next flight. Then diMonda and Arden ascended to the last landing. DiMonda stood in front of the door while Arden took his position to the right of the door, beside the steps. His gun was pointing up, his eyes on his partner. He would be taking his cue from diMonda. If the FBI man went in, he’d follow. If he backed away, Arden would cover his retreat and follow.
DiMonda reached into the pocket of his tattered jacket and removed a small device which looked like a hypodermic syringe with a receptacle underneath that was roughly the size of three stacked dimes. He crouched, his gun in his right hand, and carefully inserted the thin tip of the device in the key slot. Then he put his eye to the back.
The FOALSAC— Fiber-Optic Available Light Scope and Camera— gave the user a fish-eye look into a room without generating any light or sound. The tiny receptacle underneath contained a cadmium battery and film to record whatever the camera saw. DiMonda carefully swept the device from the left to the right, tapping the bottom of the film cartridge each time he wanted to take a picture. When, it came to trying these bastards, photographic evidence would be important. Especially since the FOALSAC revealed stacks of machine guns, a couple of M79 grenade launchers, and a small tepee consisting of FMK submachine guns. There were three people in the room. A man and woman were eating breakfast at a table in the right-hand corner, and the third person— Gurney— was sitting at a computer table, facing the door, working on a laptop computer. That meant the other four neo-Nazis were in the bedrooms downstairs.
DiMonda held up three fingers and pointed to the room.
Arden looked back down the stairs. He held up three fingers and pointed to the room. Then he waited for the other agents to finish checking out their rooms.
Word came back that the other Pure Nation thugs were accounted for, two in each room. DiMonda gave the others a thumbs up, meaning that they were to proceed to the next step.
The men worked quickly, lest anyone inside decide to go for a newspaper or a walk.
DiMonda put away his FOALSAC. Because chances were good that the doors had been reinforced with metal bars, the age s would not attempt to kick them down. They attached plastique to the doors, to the left of the doorknobs.
The charges would be powerful enough to blow the locks and jambs away. A small metal shield was placed over each plastique to direct the blast, and a magnetized, quartersized clock was attached to it. There was a plastic pull-strip in the top of the clock: when removed, it would start a tensecond countdown. At the end of the countdown, an electric charge would travel from the clock through the metal and trigger the plastique.
DiMonda cocked his head back. The man on the landing was watching him. When diMonda nodded, so did the other man. And so did the man on the steps below him. At the count of three, marked by diMonda nodding his head, all the agents pulled the plastic tab from their clocks.
As the silent countdown progressed, the agents on the landings moved quickly to the doors. During the planning of this assault, they’d considered every possible distribution of Pure Nationals. Now they were disbursing accordingly. For this configuration, agents Park and Johns went upstairs.
Park stood behind diMonda and Johns was on the steps, beside Arden. The remaining two agents took up positions beside the first- and second-floor rooms.
DiMonda had moved to the left, lest he be struck by the doorknob when it blew off. He pointed to himself, then to Park and Johns in turn. Once inside, this was the order, from the left to the right, in which they would cover the Pure Nationals. Detective Arden would be their agent-at-large, assisting anyone who might need help.
The clock finished counting down and the plastique ignited. There was a boom, like a popping paper bag. As the brass knob blew out, the door swung in.
DiMonda went in first, followed by Park, Johns, and Arden. Smoke rolled in from the explosion and the men ran ahead of it, fanning out in a line. As they did, each man shouted “Don’t move!” The cry came from the gut, loud and raw, designed to intimidate as much as possible.