Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice (22 page)

 • • • 

T
he call came while Deval Patrick was waiting to pay for his takeout order at the Thai restaurant. On the line was Tim Alben, the state police colonel. Alben told the governor the news: “We think we have the suspect.” Patrick now had a bundle of Thai food for himself, his wife, and his daughter, but he had to get back out to Watertown, and fast. He called his wife, Diane, and told her he couldn’t come home. They arranged a quick transfer of the food on his way back up north. Diane pulled up outside St. Agatha Parish, in their hometown of Milton, and the governor’s car did, too. Patrick hopped out, handed over the takeout, and gave his wife a kiss. “Be careful,” she said, and he was gone. They raced back downtown, picked up Patrick’s chief of staff, Brendan Ryan, and booked it to Watertown, blue lights flashing.

The principals gathered in a trailer at the Watertown command post—Patrick, Alben, Rick DesLauriers of the FBI, and other top law enforcement officials, including an FBI tactical supervisor who, with chewing tobacco in his mouth and a Gatorade bottle as a spit cup, kept in constant communication with the leader of the Hostage Rescue Team at the boat; the FBI would later decline to name the supervisor. The HRT team leader called the supervisor about every five minutes on the phone; the radio frequencies were too jammed with voices. The supervisor in turn provided regular updates to state and local leaders. At times he just put the team leader on speakerphone so those in the trailer could hear directly what was going on. Inside the trailer, a flat-screen on the wall showed the live video feed from a thermal imaging camera on the Eurocopter TwinStar helicopter that Mark Spencer, a state trooper, was piloting above Henneberry’s property. For a time, Dzhokhar appeared to be totally still. They didn’t know if he was alive or dead. The color of the image on the screen seemed to be fading. Then he moved, and everyone stirred.
He’s moving! He’s moving!
Menino couldn’t get into the trailer because of his injuries, so he sat in the front seat of his SUV listening to the drama on the police radio, fervently hoping that this was really it. The operation seemed to be taking an eternity.
Let’s get this over with
, he thought.

As the drama unfolded, the second-guessing began: How had the house-by-house teams not found Dzhokhar’s hiding place? Was Henneberry’s house within the perimeter that police had spent the entire day searching? A clear answer would prove elusive in the days ahead, as different police officials provided different accounts.
What was clear was that no one had come to search Henneberry’s house that day—nor his garage, his boat, or his backyard—even though he lived just two-tenths of a mile from where Dzhokhar had ditched the Mercedes. Other residents of Franklin Street who lived farther from where Dzhokhar had escaped on foot did have their properties searched, but the work at times seemed haphazard or incomplete. One neighbor had his barn searched, but not his house. Another had her barn searched, but had to ask the officers to check the structure’s cellar. Yet another neighbor, Robert Vercollone, saw a tactical officer conduct only a cursory check under his porch, whose latticework had a gaping hole because of ongoing plumbing work. “It’s the perfect size for somebody to crawl through,” Vercollone said. “But he didn’t poke around any further.”

Answers to such questions would have to come later. By this point, with Dzhokhar surrounded by police and federal agents all armed to the teeth, there was no remaining doubt—they had him. The searches may have covered hundreds of homes and saturated whole blocks with SWAT officers, but the manhunt had hardly proved to be airtight. They had not, despite the promises, knocked on every door. And so it had been left to David Henneberry to discover Dzhokhar on his own. The chance encounter in a Watertown backyard could easily have ended with another victim.

 • • • 

G
rabbing a Kevlar ballistic shield from a federal agent, Rich Correale began to assemble a team to approach the boat. He, Powell, and Cox would lead, followed by the transit police officers and members of North Metro SWAT. Two FBI assaulters would provide cover. The SWAT unit lined up in a stack in Henneberry’s driveway, Correale in front with the shield, the others in a column behind him. The FBI leader returned and briefed them on what he knew. Negotiators were having some luck getting Dzhokhar to cooperate, to follow their instructions, in part by citing
a public plea by his high school wrestling coach, Peter Payack, to give himself up. Dzhokhar had lifted up his shirt at one point to show that he wasn’t wearing a vest. Correale ran through their plan, how they would go at the boat, try to get Dzhokhar to surrender, and grab him if he didn’t. The FBI leader went down the line to each member of the SWAT team. Flashing a thumbs-up, he asked them all: “You good with that?” The leader told them that if they didn’t like what they saw, they should pull back.

At that, Correale’s team began walking methodically up the driveway. As they reached the edge of Henneberry’s house, they heard a voice over a PA system: “Back up!” They stopped, not knowing who was giving the command, or what it meant. It turned out later that there had been some confusion over which SWAT team would advance. The FBI leader told them to keep going, so they did. But again they heard it: “Back up!” Correale thought this meant danger.
They see a gun? A bomb? What are they seeing?
he thought. Again, the FBI leader instructed them to continue. “Fellas,” he said, “they’re not talking to you. We’re going to keep going.”

They stepped closer. Then, as they reached the boat, a couple of the SWAT officers fanned out from the stack. They now had a clear view of Dzhokhar, whom negotiators had coaxed onto the side of the boat, to a spot where the tarp had been ripped away. “I’m saying, ‘Holy shit, this is the kid on TV. This is him,’” Correale said.
The same mop of dark hair, the hoodie with blue and orange lettering, the college-boy look that seemed so incongruous with his violent acts. Mike Trovato, a SWAT officer from the city of Revere who was part of the team, remembered his thoughts flashing quickly to his wife and his daughter, who was just a few months old. It was that kind of moment—police were trying to adhere to their training, trying to do their jobs, to follow orders, to focus. But their hearts were pounding. The climax had arrived.

Dzhokhar, illuminated like a stage actor by lights police had trained on him, was draped along the edge of the boat’s port side, blood trickling down like rain on a storm window. His left leg hung over the side, and he was slumped over. He raised his shirt as SWAT officers approached, seeming to offer himself in surrender. But he kept rocking left to right, his right hand dipping out of view inside the boat. He seemed to be falling in and out of consciousness. He was a mess, a bullet round having left a wound on his head, his ear all ripped up, a gash on his neck.

“Show me your hands! Show me your hands!” Correale yelled at him. Brian Harer, a SWAT officer with the transit police, shouted similar instructions. One of the officers was calling him by name.

“All right, all right,” Dzhokhar said back, his voice woozy, lethargic.

“Get off the boat,” Correale said. “Get off the boat.”

“But it’s gonna hurt,” Dzhokhar replied.

He had a point. The side of the boat was maybe seven feet off the ground. It wouldn’t be an easy fall.

This was the tensest moment for the SWAT team. They couldn’t see Dzhokhar’s right hand and right leg. They feared what he might be holding, what he might be reaching for. Maybe the groggy voice was a ruse. Maybe he was just pretending to be out of it. Maybe this was all part of the plot. They’d heard all kinds of things about what weapons he had. And they were only a couple feet away from him. As he began to bring up his right hand, Correale thought,
Here it comes, here it comes
. Powell was thinking the same thing as he watched the hand slowly rise:
Pay attention to his hand. Pay attention to his hand
. Finally Dzhokhar’s hand came into sight. He had nothing. They kept telling him to get off the boat, but he didn’t. The time had come to pull him down.

In a flash, the SWAT officers, including transit officer Jeff Campbell and Revere Police chief Joseph Cafarelli, reached up from the ground and flung Dzhokhar down, the first hands anyone had laid on him since the bombs exploded at the finish line Monday afternoon. Dzhokhar landed on the ground, and not gently. The officers swarmed, immediately frisking him for explosives and weapons. They pulled up his shirt. They patted down his legs. Trovato put his knees on Dzhokhar’s arm and checked his hands for triggers or cell phones that could detonate a remote bomb. They flipped him onto his stomach. Dzhokhar offered no resistance. Trovato, who wore only a T-shirt under his armor, had Dzhokhar’s blood all over his forearms. Two transit cops, Saro Thompson and Kenneth Tran, each grabbed an arm. Thompson snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Around 8:45
P.M.
, the radio crackled with the words everyone had been waiting for: “He’s in custody! He’s in custody!” A cheer went up in the command trailer back at the mall. Amid the police radio traffic,
Menino’s voice cut in: “People of Boston are proud of you.” Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis added his own congratulations, saying over the radio, “It’s a proud day to be a Boston police officer.”

In Henneberry’s yard, the officers’ priorities shifted to a new urgency: saving the life of a terrorist who had killed and maimed so many. “It was a real possibility that he could die without medical aid,” Trovato said. “I very much wanted him to live.” Like many other cops, he wanted to see Dzhokhar stand trial, to face justice for what he’d done. “Let’s move him away from the boat,” the FBI leader said. He was concerned an explosive device might be on board. Trovato grabbed Dzhokhar by the belt. Transit officers grabbed his arms. They dragged him across Henneberry’s yard, fifteen or twenty feet away from the boat. “Okay, that’s good,” the FBI leader said. Another FBI agent ran up and began emptying Dzhokhar’s pockets, to inventory things for evidence. Trovato and other officers yelled for EMTs. Two medics from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives came running over and began working on him. Two Boston paramedics jumped in, too. The medics provided oxygen. Dzhokhar was lifted into a waiting ambulance and brought to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the same hospital where his brother had been taken.
Dzhokhar was in rough shape: fractured skull, multiple gunshot wounds, including one from a bullet that went through the left side of his face, and injuries to his mouth, pharynx, and middle ear. He was battered and bloody, but he was alive.

 • • • 

A
t 8:45
P
.
M
.
, the BPD tweeted the three words the city badly wanted to hear:
Suspect in custody
. The news swept through the crowd of media at the scene like wildfire; within minutes, Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer were repeating it on CNN and ABC. The instant Dzhokhar’s capture was made public, Greater Boston erupted in euphoria. All the pressure that had been building since the bombing, all that anxiety and uncertainty, evaporated. Revelers streamed into the streets near Fenway Park. They flooded Boston Common. They ran out onto the sidewalks. They waved American flags and shouted teary thank-yous to police. They belted out “God Bless America.” In Watertown, they cheered as Dzhokhar’s ambulance sped toward the hospital. In the center of town, a crowd gathered outside the H&R Block and hollered attaboys at the cops, whose blue lights swirled in the darkness. Unlike the night before, those lights now cast a reassuring glow. The sense of relief was overwhelming, and it was everywhere. Police officers who’d been at the scene exchanged hugs, high fives, and emotional reflections. Some shed tears of joy. It had been one hell of a week. Adrenaline dissipating, they felt pride, exhaustion, and grief for the damage that remained. All the cheering felt good. As they left Franklin Street, Cox said, it looked “like if the Red Sox had won the World Series.” Not everyone follows baseball, though. Everyone was following this. Everyone had a stake in it. In an era of social and political fragmentation, it was perhaps the closest Boston would come to a shared, unifying moment.

Correale, Powell, and Cox stayed at the scene a few minutes, then started the unhurried walk back to their van. It didn’t take long before the gravity of it all began to sink in.
That’s probably going to be a piece of history right there
,
Powell thought. His fiancée called as he walked away from Franklin Street. She had just seen him on TV. She was proud but a little piqued—Powell had told her only that he would be helping out that night. It wasn’t exactly untrue. He’d just left out the part about being on the front lines. “The drive back, we’re like, we can’t believe we were involved in that,” Correale said. “What are the odds?” It’s possible that commanders on the ground initially assumed they were a Boston SWAT team, because of the similarity of the Boston and Malden uniforms. But it had hardly mattered in the end—they were trained to do the job, too, and they had done it. “We took one of the most wanted men in the United States into custody—we were part of that,” Correale said. “And that’s something.”

One of the state troopers who took part in the operation at the boat was a member of Deval Patrick’s police detail. He told the governor afterward that any one of the officers there would have gladly put a bullet in Dzhokhar. But when Dzhokhar was wheeled to the ambulance right in front of them, the restraint was striking. No one made even a gesture of disrespect. “Is it my place to kill him? If he posed a threat to me and my officers, in a second,” Cafarelli said. “But I’m not the instrument—and my guys aren’t the instruments—of vengeance for anybody. Bring him to justice and let the courts do what they gotta do.”

When it all ended, Patrick was relieved but still concerned that there might be more to the story than they knew. The investigation, in many ways, was just starting. Was the crisis really over? He wasn’t sure. “So personally, it felt like a triumphant moment, but not a conclusive moment.”
At 10:05
P.M.
, President Obama spoke at the White House. He thanked law enforcement for their work. He promised a thorough examination of the Tsarnaev brothers’ backgrounds, motivations, and associates. He paid homage to the fallen. And he praised Boston’s spirit for carrying the city through one of the most trying weeks imaginable. “Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed,” the president said of the terrorists. “They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated.” Back in his temporary quarters at the Parkman House on Beacon Hill, Menino cracked his bedroom window and heard the party on the Common. He felt proud of the city, and happy as hell.