Just before quitting time, two longshoremen had been crushed to death beneath a container that slipped its rigging and plummeted down onto them in the hold.

And two office workers, who were photography buffs at an office at Pier 27, left work without taking their camera. They never came back for it. Which was all right with the management, because it never got much work out of them anyway.

The state and local police stayed on alert until midnight and, finally receiving no signal, checked with the Treasury Department.

By dawn they received word to call off the alert, with thanks for their cooperation. They were not told what the mission had been or whether it had succeeded.

They were also informed to be on the alert for any Ocean Wheel Company trailer-trucks. To stop and to search them. They were not told how many Ocean Wheel trailers or what the license plate numbers were. They saw no such trucks.

By 1 p.m. th.e next day, in the oval office of the White House, the assistant attorney general who had coordinated the operation was explaining to the attorney general, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Treasury secretary and a very dour President, what had gone wrong.

"At about 4 p.m., we lost contact with our Treasury agent, and that was it. No traces. Nothing. We are in the midst of a blanket search now." He stood at the far end of the conference table, a sheaf of papers before him, wishing for a mild heart attack. Even a severe one would do.

"You said two tractor-trailers with heroin. How much heroin in each?" This question from the director of the FBI.