I am mystified that the Department of Homeland Security--doesn't the name have an anachronistic teutonic flavor to it, you know, kind of like Fatherland; it's all I can do to avoid making the famous Dr. Strangelove salute--hasn't banned this book and burned all the copies. It certainly provides a terrifyingly easy scheme to shut down New York.The Deaf Man is at it again, harassing the 87th squad in a fiendish plot to rob a bank of $2 million. Clues abound, but in his usual obeisance to realism, things go wrong, communication is imperfect, i.e. shit happens.
As far as shutting down NY, the plotters plant small incendiary devices in public places, like movie theaters, ball parks, paint stores, etc., all timed to go off at the same time. The ensuing chaos totally preoccupies the police and fire departments as well as the hospitals. It would be really quite easy. So while TSA is strip searching your grandmother at La Guardia, morons could be planting all sorts of nefarious little devices that would be even more effective than slamming a plane into the Twin Towers.
Classic McBain.
