I have not had a minute to speak apart with Manning since he dispatched me to Maimonides last night. I have texted him, however, cc’ing Uribe, three times. Once to report the suicide scars on our still-unidentified female’s wrists and to describe her terrified attempt to bolt from the hospital gurney (without interpretation on my part as to motive), once to inform Manning of her statement that she was at the Rebbe’s last night because she had “followed” Manning, and last to document her Mayday request that I contact on her behalf Amos Ben-David in Israel. I add a note re: Ben-David’s global stature and my own surprise, not to say astonishment, that our woman not only knows this individual but apparently considers him a contact-in-emergency friend.

ME

(by text)

Meanwhile how are you?

MANNING

(texts back)

Read it in the paper tomorrow.

My phone says 0845. I have been issued a helmet, a headset, and, as I said, a Zombie Killer shotgun. In the ladies’ loo I scope myself in the mirror. I look fucking ridiculous.

At the academy we had only two days on “High-Risk Warrant Service,” and even those sessions were abbreviated by Hurricane Alexandria (a hurricane in January, unheard-of as little as ten years ago), which put Wards Island, the site of our training in close-quarters combat, under a foot and a half of seawater. We were supposed to be given a half day on the range for “fam fire” (familiarization) on both twelve-gauge shotguns and M4 assault rifles. Neither happened. I’ve never held or thrown a flash-bang grenade. I wouldn’t know a hooligan tool if I tripped over one.

Even in the supposedly elite workup at DivSix we’ve had no warning order, no ops order, and no operational briefing. We’ve had one short video brief in the Bunker with aerial drone footage of the buildings the operational teams will assault, but only one barely decipherable floor plan diagram, and no photos or physical descriptions of the individuals we’re supposed to apprehend. Not to mention we have never worked with, or even met, the ESU operators we’ll be conducting the service with. I for one have no idea how our teams will be integrated or if each division will be operating on its own.

The NYPD has no tactical entity designated as SWAT. Our version is called ESU, Emergency Service Unit. ESU operators are door-kickers. Their job is to “respond to high-risk tactical operations involving barricaded subjects, hostage situations, high-risk warrant service, tactical crowd control and dignitary/VIP protective operations.”

In police parlance, a raid is never called by that term. It’s a “service,” i.e., a warrant service. To raid a location is to “carry out a service.”