Night Fall

Up I went. Four floors, which reminded me of the five-story walk-up where I grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I hate stairs.

The last flight of stairs rose into the middle of the glass-enclosed lookout room. The room was not lit, but I could make out a few tables and chairs, a desk with telephones, and a military-type radio that was glowing and humming in the quiet room. There was no one in the room.

Through the plate glass picture windows I could see a railed catwalk, which ran around the square tower.

I opened a screen door and went out onto the catwalk.

I walked around the square tower, and I stopped at the southwest corner. Across Moriches Bay, I could see the outer barrier islands and the Moriches Inlet that separates Fire Island from the Westhampton dunes and Cupsogue Beach County Park, where, in vulgar police parlance, someone banged his bimbo on the beach and maybe videotaped a piece of evidence that could blow this case wide open.

Beyond the barrier islands was the Atlantic Ocean, where I could see the lights of small boats and large ships. In the sky were twinkling stars and the lights of aircraft heading east and west along the shoreline.

I focused on an eastbound aircraft and watched as it came opposite Smith Point County Park on Fire Island. It was climbing slowly at about ten or twelve thousand feet, about six or eight miles offshore. It was about there that TWA Flight 800, following the normal flight path out of Ke

I tried to imagine what it was that more than two hundred people saw rising off the water and streaking toward the aircraft.

Maybe I was about to meet one of those people-or someone else.

I walked back into the watchtower and sat in a swivel chair at a desk facing the staircase. After a few minutes, I heard footsteps on the creaky stairs. Out of habit, and because I was alone, I drew my off-duty.38 Smith amp; Wesson from my ankle holster and stuck it in the back of my waistband under my knit shirt. I saw the head and shoulders of a man coming up the stairs, his back to me. He walked into the room, looked around, and saw me.

Even in the dim light I could see he was about sixty, tall, good-looking, short gray hair, and dressed in tan slacks and a blue blazer. I had the impression of a military guy.

He walked toward me and I stood. As he got closer, he said, “Mr. Corey, I’m Tom Spruck.” He put out his hand and we shook.

He said, “I’ve been asked to speak to you.”

“By who?”

“Miss Mayfield.”

It was actuallyMs. Mayfield, or Special Agent Mayfield, or sometimes Mrs. Corey, but that wasn’t his problem. In any case, the guy was definitely military. Probably an officer. Special Agent Mayfield knew how to cherry-pick a good witness.

I wasn’t talking, so he said, “I was a witness to the events of July 17, 1996. But you know that.”

I nodded.

He asked me, “Would you like to stay here or go outside?”

“Here. Have a seat.”

He rolled a swivel chair toward the desk and sat. He asked, “Where would you like me to begin?”

I sat behind the desk and replied, “Tell me a little about yourself, Mr. Spruck.”

“All right. I am a former naval officer, A

I remarked, “So, you know what pyrotechnics look like at dusk over the water.”

“I sure do.”

“Good. What did they look like on July 17, 1996?”

He stared out through the plate glass window toward the ocean and said, “I was in my Sunfish-that’s a small, one-man sailboat-and every Wednesday night, we’d have informal races in the bay.”

“Who are we?”

“I belong to the Westhampton Yacht Squadron on Moriches Bay-and we finished sailing about eightP.M. Everyone started back to the club for a barbeque, but I decided to sail through the Moriches Inlet into the ocean.”

“Why?”

“The sea was unusually calm, and there was a six-knot wind. You don’t often get conditions like that for a Sunfish to venture out onto the ocean.” He continued, “At about eight-twenty, I had navigated the inlet and was out to sea. I took a westerly heading, along the Fire Island shoreline opposite Smith Point County Park.”

“Let me interrupt you here. Is what you’re telling me public record?”

“It’s what I told the FBI. I don’t know if it’s public or not.”

“Did you ever make any public statements after you spoke to the FBI?”

“I did not.” He added, “I was told not to.”

“By who?”

“By the agent who first interviewed me, then by other FBI agents in subsequent interviews.”

“I see. And who first interviewed you?”

“Your wife.”

She wasn’t my wife at the time, but I nodded and said, “Please continue.”

He glanced out at the ocean again and continued, “I was sitting in the Sunfish, looking up at the luff of the sail, which is how you spend most of your time in a sailboat. It was very quiet and calm, and I was enjoying the sail. Sunset was officially eight-twenty-oneP.M., but EENT-end-of-evening nautical twilight-would be about eight-forty-fiveP.M. I glanced at my watch, which is digital, illuminated, and accurate, and saw that it was eight-thirty and fifteen seconds. I decided to come about and enter the inlet before dark.”

Captain Spruck stopped speaking and had a thoughtful look in his eyes, then he said, “I glanced up at my sail, and something in the sky to the southwest caught my eye. It was a bright streak of light rising into the sky. The light was reddish orange and may have risen from a point beyond the horizon.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“I did not. The light streak was coming from out on the ocean, toward the land, and slightly toward my position. It was climbing at a steep angle, perhaps thirty-five or forty degrees, and seemed to be accelerating, although that’s a difficult call because of the angles and the lack of firm background references. But if I had to estimate the speed, I’d say about a hundred knots.”

I asked, “You figured all this out in… how many seconds?”

“About three seconds. You get about five seconds in the cockpit of a fighter-bomber.”

I counted to three in my head and realized that was more time than you get to dodge a bullet.

Captain Spruck added, “But as I told the FBI, there were too many variables and unknowns for me to be absolutely positive about any of my calculations. I didn’t know the point of origin of the object, or its exact size or distance from me, so its speed was a guess.”

“So you’re not really sure what you saw?”

“I know what I saw.” He looked through the window and said, “I’ve seen enough enemy surface-to-air missiles coming at me and coming at my squadron mates to get a sense of these things.” He smiled tightly and said, “When they’re coming at you, they look bigger, faster, and closer than they actually are.” He added, “You divide by two.”

I smiled and said, “I had a little Beretta pointed at me once that I thought was a.357 Magnum.”

He nodded.

I asked, “But it was definitely a streak of red light that you saw?”

“That I’m sure of. A reddish orange streak of bright light, and at the apex of this light was a white, incandescent spot, which suggested to me that I was seeing the ignition point of probably a solid fuel propellant trailed by the red-orange afterburn.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“But did you see the… projectile?”

“I did not.”

“Smoke?”

“A plume of white smoke.”

“Did you notice this aircraft-this 747 that subsequently crashed?”

“I noticed it briefly before I became fixed on the streak of light. I could see the glint-the last of the sunlight off its aluminum skin, and I saw the aircraft’s lights, and four white contrails.”