their boots and toss in stun grenades.”
“Or tear gas,” Wong says. He’s getting excited now.
Cone shakes his head. “Gas would take too long to knock out Lee’s guards. And besides, while this is going on, you’re going to have a squad charging up the stairs to the third floor. And unless they’re wearing masks, the gas will take them out, too.”
“And how does this squad get past the guards, inside the two locked doors, and go galloping up to the rescue?”
“When the guys come down from the roof and the party begins, those two guards are going to run out into the middle of the street and look up, to see what’s going on. That’ll be your chance to grab them-while they’re still peeing their pants. As for those locked doors, they shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to pry open if you’ve got the right tools. My advice would be to blow them. Look, I haven’t been in the war business for years, so I don’t know what new goodies you guys have in your armory. But I’ll bet you’ve got gizmos to get you through locked doors in seconds. Then you go hotfooting up to the third floor where the bad guys are still spooked.”
“You really think that meshugass would work?”
Cone shrugs. “Fifty-fifty,” he says.
“Come on,” Johnnie Wong says angrily, “give it to me straight. If you had to make the top decision, would you say go or no-go?”
“Go,” Cone says.
Wong sighs. “All right,” he says. “I’ll give it the old college try. We’ll have to buck this one all the way up the line, probably to D.C. It’s the time factor that worries me. I want to get Edward Lee out of there before the media gets wind of it or we’ll have a three-ring circus on our hands. By rights, we should have conferences on this, liaise with the NYPD, and maybe even run a rehearsal down at Quantico. But we just don’t have the time. Listen, are you going to be home this weekend?”
“I’ll be in and out.”
“I’ll try to keep you up to speed on what’s going on. I owe you that; it’s your idea.”
“Look,” Cone says, “if you can’t get enough guys to jump off the roof, I could do that. I know how to rappel.”
Wong looks at him with amusement. “Smell action?” he asks. “Can’t get it out of your system, can you? Thanks for the offer, but we’ve got weapons you haven’t even heard about.”
“Guns are guns,” Cone says. “You point and pull the trigger.”
“Forget it,” the FBI man advises. “My God, you’re just a lousy civilian.”
Johnnie says he wants to get back to his office as soon as possible, so Timothy decides to walk home-a nice hike that’ll get his juices flowing. The sun has popped up, but the air is still cool enough. It promises to be a hot, beamy day, not a rain cloud in sight. There’s a skywriting plane at work over Manhattan, and Cone wonders what would happen if a berserk pilot spelled out FUCK YOU for all the city to see and ponder.
He buys a morning
The elevator works until noon on Saturdays so Cone doesn’t have to lug all his bundles up six flights of steep stairs. He gets everything stowed away, gives Cleo fresh water, fresh litter, and a Twinkie. Then he undresses and sacks out on the floor mattress to complete his night’s sleep.
He awakes a little after noon, feeling grungy and tasting that onion from the bagel sandwich. So he brushes his teeth, showers, shaves, and pulls on fresh skivvies. Then he pops a beer, lights a cigarette, and eats two Mallomars.
He figures the action he suggested to the FBI man has a reasonable chance of success. It’s got surprise going for it, and if the guys on the roof and the guys on the street can coordinate, it should go like silk. If their timing is off, it could be the biggest foozle of all time.
What it requires, of course, is luck. Cone has seen perfectly plotted combat operations go awry because of accidents, breakdowns of equipment, or acts of God. Other rumbles, planned by wetbrains who didn’t know shit from Shinola about fighting a war, went off without a hitch because they had luck going for them.
He hopes Johnnie Wong has luck, or a lot of good men could get their butts shot off. Still, he reflects, that’s what they’re getting paid for, and if they don’t like the odds, they should get into another line of business-something a frontline grunt in Nam would have found a wee bit difficult.
He resolutely puts memories of that time and that place into the farthest, dimmest corners of his mind, and tries to concentrate on today’s trials and tribulations. He wishes Samantha wasn’t a thousand miles away. Not that he would ever ask her advice or cry on her shoulder, but her physical presence is spice in a world he finds flat and tasteless without her.
He wonders how he ever got diddled by the fickle finger of fate and ended up an investigator, prying into other people’s lives and sticking his nose into financial brannigans. Because, he ruefully admits, his own life is so dull. He’s living vicariously, and if it wasn’t for Cleo, he could go nights without speaking to a living soul-assuming cats have souls. And why not?
It’s that kind of a moony weekend, with a lot of reading, drinking, smoking, and pigging out on food that comes in plastic wrappers. Not a phone call, from Wong or anyone else, and his cabin fever is just about to drive him to a seizure of pub-crawling when his phone rings late Sunday night, and he kisses it for luck before he says, “Yeah?”
“It’s on,” Johnnie Wong says. “And if I sound whacked-out it’s because I haven’t slept for forty-eight hours. I can’t talk about it on the phone. You remember where I parked my car on Saturday?”
“Sure.”
“Can you meet me there at two-thirty?”
“I’ll be there. Anything I can do to help?”
“Pray,” Wong says, and hangs up.
Cone’s got about three hours to kill and figures it’s too risky to take a snooze; he might not wake up in time to witness the fireworks. So he spends a half-hour cleaning his S amp;W.357 magnum and oiling the ankle holster.
Since it’s going to be a night operation, he debates the wisdom of wearing a black turtleneck sweater and dark gray slacks. But then he realizes he’s just conning himself; he’s going to be a spectator, not a combatant, and his costume is of no importance. So he wears a navy blue T-shirt under the usual corduroy jacket, and stuffs his cap in the pocket.
He spends the last hour reviewing the plan again, trying to spot flaws. He can’t find any; the plot still looks good to him. If everyone does his job, and Lady Luck is smiling, Edward Tung Lee should be sleeping in his Fifth Avenue apartment by dawn.
He exits his building to find a low-hanging cloud bank over the city. If there are moon and stars up there, they can’t be seen-which Cone takes as a promising portent for night action. Also, there’s no wind to speak of, nothing strong enough to bother those cowboys rappeling down from the roof.
He drives the red Escort over to Chatham Square, finds a place to park on the Bowery, and walks back. Johnnie Wong is waiting for him. The FBI man is wearing camouflaged combat fatigues and looks unexpectedly bulky. Cone digs a finger into his ribs and feels the armor beneath the cloth.
“Bulletproof vest?” he asks.
“I hope so,” Wong says, grinning.
“Don’t tell me you’re flying off the roof?”
“Hell, no; I’m no bird. I’m leading the squad up the stairs after we blow the outside doors.”
“Then it’s going down like we said?”
“Pretty much,” Wong says. “With a few minor refinements. The guys going off the roof will be carrying Ingram Mark Tens. Plus stun grenades.”
“What are you carrying?”
“Old Faithful: a Thompson forty-five with drum magazine.”
“How do you blow the doors?”
“Our boffins have come up with a cutie. It’s a high-energy explosive made to look like a credit card, and just as thin. You slide it between the door and jamb, pull the friction snapper, and run like hell because it’s got a five-
