The Last Apostle

By robert l. bryan

Is an unholy alliance of terror raining death and destruction on New York City?

Newly promoted NYPD Deputy Chief Ellen Tomlinson, Lieutenant Joey Galeno, and FBI Agent Jimmy Craig are forced to battle the potential annihilation of the city.  Several ISIS claimed attacks have brought the NYPD and the Joint Terrorist Task Force into action to find those responsible for the bombings.  The investigation takes an unexpected twist when the trail leads to a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army located in the borough of Queens.  Have ISIS and the IRA joined forces to bring New York City to its knees?

• Language: English
• Publisher: robert l. bryan
• Release date: Aug 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223141129

robert l. bryan

Thank you for purchasing my book detailing the early history of policing in New York City.  This is the tenth book in the “Police of New York City” series. This is a change of pace for me as most of my previous works have been memoirs regarding my police career as well as humorous works of fiction. You can check out all my books on my Amazon Author Page.  Again, thanks, and I hope you enjoy reading about this small piece of New York City policing history.  I would greatly appreciate a brief review when you have completed the book. https://www.amazon.com/Robert-L.-Bryan/e/B01LXUSALG/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

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PROLOGUE

December 31, 1999

Queens, New York City - Matty was all motion.  His head rotated in a circle, his fingers wiggled, and his feet shuffled back and forth on the carpet.  His patience was gone.  His mother's plea to stand still for just another minute was falling on deaf ears.  He had to move. He had to get out of there.  What three-year old could stand stationary for twenty minutes? It was impossible.

Bill Ryan entered the living room and observed the distress on his son's face. What are you doing to the kid, Maureen?

Just another minute, Maureen said while straightening the brown robe on Matty's shoulders.

Bill took a closer look at his son. What kind of a get up is that anyway? Who is he supposed to be?

Saint Matthew, the Apostle.

Bill scratched his head. And why do you have Matty decked out like a half-pint apostle?

Maureen stood up and placed her hands on her hips. I don't know why I tell you anything - you obviously don't listen. Today is patron saint’s day at Saint Sebastian's.

What?

All the pre-school children in the parish come to the church dressed as their patron saint. It's a New Year’s Eve tradition in the parish.

Bill Ryan sat in the recliner and unfolded a newspaper.  So, you're gonna wrap the kid up in a brown blanket and parade him around the church. You're gonna traumatize the poor kid.

Thanks for the advice, Maureen sarcastically responded.  She knelt down and tied the rope around Matty's brown robe. Don't listen to your father, Matty, you’ll make a wonderful apostle.

San Marco, El Salvador - There was something disturbing about the concrete box he was in.  It had been engineered with absolute precision.  The corners were sharp and straight, the window a perfect square with evenly spaced bars.  Someone actually designed this cell he was in.  They sat in a clean office under the glow of the natural sunrays and used their God given talents to create something so soulless.  Apparently, taking his liberty was not enough.  This place was designed to take so much more than that.

A civil war tore El Salvador apart in the 1980s – and more recently, violent drug-gang crime was tearing it down. About 40 percent of the population lived in poverty while a tiny elite lived in luxury. At the beginning of the twenty first century the economy was in the cellar, and the country still seemed as politically polarized as it did when right-wing death squads terrorized the nation a generation earlier. As bad as the conditions were for the poor, most of the deeply religious poverty-stricken population of El Salvador gave thanks daily that they did not live in San Marco.

The town of San Marco could best be described as a residential area where dwellings were unfit for human habitation by reasons of overcrowding, lack of ventilation or sanitation facility and having drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions’.  Dirty stagnant water, narrow lanes, cramped houses, heaps of garbage and strong stink provided the town with its unenviable identity.  Thrust into the middle of this little piece of hell inside El Salvador was La Perla prison.

The prison compound was nothing more than four houses in a square formation stuck directly in the center of this horrendous neighborhood, with a barb wire topped ten-foot-high chain link fence perimeter being the only feature distinguishing the jail from all the other run-down homes. 

Each house in the prison compound had a large metal garage door and a single prison officer guarding the entryway. Inside the detention areas of each house were two sections: one to the right, blocked off with black tarp, and another to the left, consisting of administrative offices and holding cells. At the end of the row of cells was a large cage, with three of four walls made of steel bars. There were about twenty-five men inside each cage in the four houses. In one of the cages, men sat on the ground, many with cardboard boxes beneath them. Most kept busy making hammocks, and passing the time playing cards or sleeping.

Two of the houses in the compound held detainees belonging to the largest gangs in El Salvador: Barrio 18 and MS-13. These detainees were grouped in cells in separate houses according to gang affiliation, to avoid violence between them. Tattoos on their bare chests identified their affiliation.

Tyrone Mullaney lay in his hammock surrounded by the familiar white walls.  There was nothing else to do but to stare at them – to look at the paint that had started to chip off as time passed, forming images with the pattern of the chips – anything to pass time, slowly going mad, theorizing absurd meanings from the wall’s blank stare.  His cell door was open, but he was in no mood to join the party in the cage at the end of the cell block.  In two hours it would be the year 2000 and he would still be locked inside this hell hole.  He had been on the inside for eight years – or was it nine years – he couldn’t remember anymore. 

Hey homeboy, the party’s out here man. Carlos Montoya stood at the open cell door, an open bottle of tequila in his right hand.  Join the party homie – it’s New Year’s Eve.

Tyrone rolled out of his hammock with an expertise indicative of years of practice. He spread his arms, stretched in the middle of the cell and focused on his image from the mirror mounted on the cell wall.  He ran his hand over the most prominent feature on his shirtless chest – an MS-13 devil horn tattoo, noting that the years were causing the ink to fade.  Just as quickly as he had rolled out of the hammock, Tyrone expertly rolled back in before addressing his cell mate.

"You know something Carlos, I used to be happy. Um, yeah, past tense. Sucks, I know. About six months after I got here, old Poppi Guitierrez told me to write down a happy feeling, because I’d soon forget it. So, I took a piece of paper and I wrote sunshine on it.  I didn’t write anything more; I guess I couldn’t really be bothered because it seemed so scary, but mostly it seemed ridiculous that this would happen. So, so now I just have this paper, this stupid scrap of paper that just says sunshine on it. And what the hell am I supposed to do with that? Feel happy? It just sucks.

Carlos slapped Tyrone hard on his inked chest. Enough of that fucked up talk. Cheer up homeboy.

Tyrone leaped from the hammock, his chest stinging. What the fuck is wrong with you Carlos?

Carlos smiled broadly as he retreated out of the cell, beckoning Tyrone to follow. Trust me bro, this will be a New Year’s party you will never forget.

At 12:30 AM on New Year’s Day Tyrone Mullaney joined the line of twenty-four other MS-13 inmates walking through the administrative section of the house.  Tyrone was trying to compute exactly what was going on.  The administrative area of the house was not open to inmates, but where were the guards?  As he entered the guard’s break room, the scene became more confusing.  Carlos Montoya was ushering the line of inmates through the room.  Wrapped tightly around Carlos was Maria Oquendo, Carlos’s girlfriend who visited the prison every other day.  Also present in the room were two other very attractive young females wearing very scanty, sexy lingerie.  The scene became even more bizarre when Tyrone observed the three guards on duty at the house.  The three officers were all lying face down on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs.  The guards were naked except for their uniform caps and some very sexy bra and panties.  Tyrone moved past the motionless guards.  They were either unconscious or dead – he couldn’t tell.  As unbelievable as it seemed, a few minutes later he was out of the house, through the gate and onto the street.

Carlos Montoya, with Maria still in tow, guided his MS-13 crew north.  Tyrone Mullaney began to move alone to the south.  Carlos called out to Tyrone while he was still within earshot.

Hey homeboy. Happy New Year. 

CHAPTER ONE: THE SEASON

Present Day: December 27th

The Christmas season in New York City was amazing. The atmosphere was indescribable, especially for those visiting the city for the first time.  Countless lights and decorations seemed to be everywhere. The huge Christmas tree was lit at Rockefeller Center and the window displays of the shops were beautifully decorated. If there was something that really set the Christmas mood, it was the beautifully decorated streets and shop windows. Big department stores dedicated the whole year to preparing their Christmas windows, with each telling its own story. It was popular for both locals and tourists to wander past the stores during this period, especially on Fifth Avenue. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring The Rockettes provided one of the most iconic Christmas shows in New York, with Santa, the Nutcracker, and of course the Nativity.  These city landmarks and sidewalks were dressed in holiday style – as well as dotted with blockades, bomb sniffing dogs and heavily armed counterterrorism personnel. It was Christmastime in the city. In an area at risk for terrorism, that meant a meshing of festive holiday displays and high-level security. About 6 million visitors descended upon New York City between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, and while many New Yorkers were accustomed to pronounced security measures, seeing officers with large assault rifles standing near Christmas trees and colorful light displays could be jarring for tourists and locals alike. For those in New York City during the holiday season, a photo of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree would likely include heavily armed NYPD counterterrorism personnel as unintended subjects.  While waiting on line to enter Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Show, attendees would likely notice an NYPD Bomb Squad truck parked at the curb.  While utilizing the subway system to visit various holiday sites, revelers were guaranteed to encounter NYPD officers, New York State Troopers, National Guardsmen, and gun-carrying security guards at transportation hubs and other heavily trafficked areas in the city. 

The Bowery is a street and neighborhood in the southern portion of Manhattan.  The name became synonymous with an impoverished area that was the last stop for the city’s downtrodden population.  From the 1940s through the 1970s, the Bowery was New York City's Skid Row, notable for Bowery Bums, a politically incorrect term referring to disaffiliated alcoholics and homeless persons.  Established in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, Sammy’s Bowery Follies was the personification of the Bowery.  The cheap saloon was jammed between two cheap hotels known as Flop Houses.  For several generations, Sammy’s was a trendy nightspot if you were a degenerate, an alcoholic, homeless, a cheap prostitute, or a drunken sailor on shore leave. 

Sammy’s Bowery Follies still served beer and booze seven night a week, but over the past several years a remarkable transformation had taken place.  What was once one of the city’s worst dens of debauchery was now one of the trendiest night spots for the growing hipster set.  What made this transformation most remarkable was the fact that there were little to no renovations performed on the bar.  Physically, Sammy’s looked exactly the same as when sleeping drunks were falling off stools as late as the 1980s. The difference now between this trendy hipster bar and the former cheap, decaying saloon was the ingenious backstory concocted by the owner - assigning significance to the junk and clutter that had filled the space for years. For many years, a pathetic looking string of Christmas lights were strung year-round along the top of the dirty mirror behind the bar.  Not much of a story there.  That is until the new owner began circulating the story that the lights were harvested from a foreclosed home that housed an outsider artist who no one had heard of but who recently inspired an upcoming album that would be very well reviewed. Then there was the decrepit, rotting wood door to the men’s room that always looked ready to crumble at its next use.  The owner could have easily had a new door installed, but why incur the expense when it was just as easy to invent some history for the door.  A small handmade wooden plaque hung on the wall adjacent to the door.  Those who paused to read the plaque would discover that the bathroom door was made from the wood of a tree felled during a great storm in the late 19th century.

On weekend nights, Sammy’s Bowery Follies was an unmistakable hipster haven, evidenced from the exterior by the line of bikes chained out front as well as the carefully drawn chalkboard advertising PBR pounders for $3. Inside the bar, the tightly packed wall to wall clientele were clearly members of hipsterdom.  Men wore wool hats, Ren and Stimpy t-shirts, tight fitting skinny jeans and high-top sneakers.  For the women in Sammy’s, it was vogue to dress like they were 4-year-olds preparing for bed. Onesies abounded with most girls sporting lopsided haircuts and baggy rompers that rendered them formless, the suggestion of a sexless person. There were no fat people in Sammy’s.  Hipsters put a premium on Skinny.  A fat person inside Sammy’s was obviously lost.

As the lone string of lights behind the bar celebrated the season at Sammy’s, there were no heavily armed cops, National Guardsmen or security guards standing watch on the Bowery.

To the unfamiliar eye, mayhem was ruling the night inside the crowded pub. The interior was low, narrow, and dark and the heavy black beams running the length of the ceiling signaled that the pub was very old.  The numerous sports photos and paintings on the wall behind the long oak bar along with the assortment of hand painted Gaelic signs on the opposite wall caused the establishment to reek with atmosphere.  Atmosphere, however, was better appreciated in quiet serenity.  Donegal’s Pub in Woodside, Queens was rocking.  The jukebox blared 80s rock as the two young bartenders struggled in vain to keep up with the calls from the two-deep crowd at the bar.  The loud voices and laughing were accented every few minutes by the cheers and groans of a group of mostly young men completely focused on a large screen HD television mounted as high on the wall as was possible, which wasn’t all that high considering the low ceiling height.  The Rangers were playing the Islanders in Brooklyn and there was no question that Donegal’s was a Ranger bar.  Chris Kreider scored on a breakaway triggering a huge cheer under the television.

In the back of the pub, Matty Ryan was oblivious to the screams, cheers, and loud music.  He drained the last of his pint and wiped his mouth with his hand.  It was desperation time, and Matty knew it.  Mike Wilson had left himself with 38.  Mike had been banging out double 19s all night, and Matty was aware that the next time Mike stepped up, it would be over.  Before stepping to the line, Matty studied the board one last time.  He was sitting on 158 with very little prospects for victory.  The next time Mike threw, he would hit his double 19 and end the match. This was his last chance.  Matty took a deep breath and toed the line with his right foot.  He very slightly bent at the knees and leaned forward, careful not to step over the line.  He brought the dart to eye level, supporting it between his right thumb, index and middle fingers.  A quick flick of the wrist and the dart was in flight, ending the journey with its point buried securely inside the triple 20 section of the board.  Matty’s teammate, Kevin McBride, shouted Triple twenty – ninety- eight left.  Matty kept his feet planted.  He did not want to lose his zone.  The second dart was raised and gone.  Kevin again provided the audible update. Triple twenty – thirty-eight left.  Matty wanted to hold his stance, but he was beginning to lose his balance.  He took two steps back from the line and took a deep breath.  Miraculously, it was all there in front of him.  The match with The Shamrock Pub was tied 2-2, and he was now one dart away from winning the match and the United Dart League championship.  Matty was back on the line, trying to find his previous stance.  He held the dart at his side, slowly spinning it between his thumb and index finger. He stared intently at the double 19 on the outer ring of the dart board.  The Rangers had scored another goal, but Matty never heard the celebration.  He remained locked on the double 19.  His last dart slowly rose to eye level and then it was gone.  The pop of the dart hitting the board was followed immediately by the joyous call of Kevin McBride. Double 19 – game dart. 

Matty followed proper protocol and immediately turned to shake hands with Mike Wilson. Good match.

Congratulations, Mike stated while unsuccessfully trying to mask his disappointment.

Matty’s good sportsmanship was terminated by a bear hug applied by Kevin McBride.  The 6ft 5in McBride elevated Matty at least two feet in the air while shaking him from side to side like a rag doll.  "You son of a bitch! You beautiful son of a bitch! You