Hunters Point: A Thriller

By G.R.R. Restivo

Nick Cook and his girlfriend, Sharita, indirectly get involved into a strange and suspicious plot. While the authorities are not worried about the presidents visit to NYC, Nick and Sharita discover a devious plan that runs from Hunters Point, Queens, New York, to Grand Central Terminal, New York City, that would affect world politics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514489024

G.R.R. Restivo

G.R.R. Restivo has again written another mystery/adventure novel of the detective-architect Nick Cook and his girlfriend. Mr. Restivo has written all his novels part time and continues to live on Long Island.

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Copyright © 2016 by G. R. R. Restivo.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016906991

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-8904-8

               Softcover       978-1-5144-8903-1

               eBook            978-1-5144-8902-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/07/2016

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Contents

Preface

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Novels By G. R. R. Restivo

Eyes of the Innocent

Eyes of Revenge

Interior Darkness

To

all my first generation of nieces and nephews:

Robert

Scott

Vin

Thomas (T.J.)

Joey

Donna

Ken

Vicki

Diane

Nancy

Jenn

Nicole (Nikki)

Christopher

Frank

Ashley

Angeli

Amelia

Preface

T his story was born out of my appreciation of Grand Central Terminal and love of intrigue. I worked for years within two blocks of Grand Central and every morning and night passed through the terminal.

I researched historical books and studied the history of Grand Central Terminal as well as the typography of the original Manhattan Island.

Along with the terminal, I had an idea that was burning in my head and found the right locale to allow it to be born through words; and from words, it grew into a story line. I then decided to continue the lives of the characters I previously created in my earlier novel.

Through my research, I discovered things about New York City I never knew even though I have lived in this city most of my life with the exception of the five years I lived in Connecticut.

Therefore, I want to thank the authors of the several books I read on the subject: Grand Central Terminal by Sam Roberts and New York Underground by Julia Solis.

I hope to get the reader interested in the beauty and grandeur of Grand Central Terminal and to become as fascinated with it as I have been, and the more I read about it, the more intricate the history became.

It’s a great place to go back in time, even now with all the stores and attractions; the beauty of the architecture with its vaulted ceilings and intricate design can still transport a person back to a time when New York City had more grandeur in its structures.

Cornelius Vanderbilt picked the site for the future Grand Central Terminal, and that site is still centrally located. He wasn’t wrong.

Again I want to thank my wife, Loretta, an attorney by profession, for all her input and her typing skills, since I could never type as fast and would most likely still be typing my first novel rather than my fourth.

I truly hope everyone enjoys the story.

Happy Reading,

There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Prologue

M anhattan Island has a varied ancient past.

The Earth formed as one landmass with wide oceans after the cooling of the planet. Eventually the area that was to become the United States separated from its partner, Europe; and for millions of years, it drifted westward. South America also left its land partner, Africa, and drifted along with North America to the west. While the other lands were under water, the area that is today Manhattan was still dry land.

Eons passed; and the volcanic rock turned to gneiss, obsidian, and schist under great pressures. Sedimentary rock hardened to marble and granite. The landmasses we are familiar with now formed after another million years. The Hudson River was but a stream when Manhattan broke away from New Jersey. The East River was only a trickle of water then. Man had not walked on the earth yet, and the dinosaurs had yet to rule the earth. The rock that would become Manhattan schist was formed as one of the hardest rocks nature has ever produced. The Manhattan area that was to become Forty-second Street was but a craggy rock formation.

Millions of years passed, and the fish worked their way out of the sea and started to walk first on little paws, pushing themselves as they did and then nature produced legs, amphibians and the reptiles started to grow as the years passed. These little creatures gave rise to the dinosaurs who walked the area to be known as Forty-second Street for millions of years.

Eventually the dinosaurs mutated into the birds as they died off; and the plates of the earth rubbed against each other to form the ancient Appalachians, the Alps, and eventually the majestic Himalayas. Oceans were formed as we know them now.

Then finally the Ice Age began and encompassed most of the northern areas of North America, including Manhattan Island. When the ice receded, the land was formed to generally the shapes we know today.

Manhattan in the end was made of many rolling hills and interlocking streams and creeks that ran across its width. The area at Forty-second Street was not missing those hills that rose from the new East River to the center of the island. Man came, and they established huts and used fire to cook the hunted animals that were native to the island. How man came to the island is speculation, but the Alaskan connection to Russia may have had a part in the progression of man to North America.

As the natives lived for years, huts lined the hills known as Manna-Hata, which means island with many hills. The American Indians, the Lenape, inhabited the complete island and hunted and fished in the many rivers and streams of Manna-Hata.

Soon the Dutch came and populated a colony at the present Wall Street area called New Amsterdam until the English conquered the Dutch and renamed it New York. The Forty-second Street area was considered upland rural forests with streams. When the Revolutionary War started, the Forty-second Street area was not even a mention in the history of the war; only Broadway Road was used up to the tip of Manhattan during the battles for New York City.

The war passed, and America was growing. The people started to move uptown to the rural areas. In 1811, a grid plan of the streets was designed by the New York legislature, and it was adhered to for the coming future building of homes and structures. Many farms existed then north of the Houston Street line, and when the farms were sold, the streets were established and the hills flattened as much as possible. Streams and rivers if in the way of progress were either dammed or buried under homes, hence the many diseases and floods that took place, since there was no real sanitary conditions down the block from one’s house.

Forty-second Street was on the map, but only goat farms and empty areas existed. In the mid-1800s, a rich former shipbuilder named Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the railroad rights in upper Manhattan and decided that Forty-second Street would be his depot. It was the basic center of the map of Manhattan at the time, and all his tracks could be terminated there.

The area north of Forty-second Street at what is now Park Avenue was full of shacks with penniless people working day to day basically living as beggars and thieves. Vanderbilt bought all the land these shacks and destitute people lived on and demolished them and threw the beggars out.

He built his depot on what is Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue. It was lavish, but it had many errors. The northern tracks on Park Avenue were at grade level, and all the soot and noise from the trains would be unbearable to the people and any houses that were near the tracks would be black. The depot also had no design for future tracks. Nobody counted on the population growing beyond anyone’s expectations. Commuters, as they were called, coming down from the rural Bronx only had four tracks to travel on; and once they de-trained at the depot, they still had to take a horse and buggy down to the Wall Street area.

Underground the depot many streams and creeks were present, and the currents ran to the East River. Vanderbilt buried them under the structure. The hills around the depot were flattened, and graveled roads took their place.

Manhattan grew too fast, and it was necessary to build a new terminal, but the area for it to be built was where the depot existed, and trains were still arriving every day. It was a great engineering feat that took many years. Vanderbilt had passed away before the new terminal was built, but he bought all the land around the new terminal that would serve the terminal in years to come. The tracks that were at grade level for all those years were buried beneath Park Avenue and once that happened, along with Vanderbilt’s advertising Park Avenue’s desired location, it worked. Grand Central Terminal caught on, and soon old stores and shelters made way for the new Waldorf Astoria and the new Byzantine Church. It was the crème de la crème of the avenues, and Vanderbilt owned most of it.

The new Grand Central Terminal was finished in 1913, and since the first leg of the Lexington Avenue subway was completed, there was a perfect connection to the downtown and now uptown areas via the subway. No more horse and buggy was needed.

It stands now as a grand terminal for the Metro North to Albany and New Haven commuter lines to Connecticut. Since the start of the airplane and desired air travel became the darling of the people, the train fell to a subservient role that it never recovered. However, in the 1990s, with a reflux of new commuters coupled with the city growing once again, the terminal has found a new life that led to its refurbishment. Even the commuters using the Long Island Railroad will be served by the old mistress.

Now it stands as a beacon of the past, yet a glorious and beautiful structure buried among the skyscrapers. It seems not to fit into the mode of the area, yet protected and revered by the constant commuters and tourists who take endless photos and tours, it remains a great symbol of New York City.

Chapter One

T he New York sky was sunny and bright as the man walked out of his Queens apartment. The New York City skyline could be seen from his street as a mural painting, almost like a dream. The Empire State Building that looked close as if it was built in Queens stood majestically with its tall spire. As the man turned, the sun in the east hurt his eyes, while he walked to the subway station. He had rented a condominium from a friend of his sister, Sharita. She was his younger sister, but she always watched over him. The bond was great between them, but he always knew she had his back. He walked down Twenty-first Street to Hunters Point Avenue. He is a man of average height with brown hair. His only defining character is his cobalt blue eyes. He wore a dark blue suit