We had some more coffee. Whoever was going to work appeared to have gone. The square was quiet. At 9:35, a small procession arrived at City Hall. A police van pulled up, and some SWAT types got out with automatic weapons and spread out in front of City Hall. Then a limo pulled up and Boots got out and walked up the front steps and into City Hall with a Ukrainian on either side of him, and four uniformed cops around them. The SWAT types got back in the van and the van pulled away.
At 10:00 Leonard and five other men got out of the Expedition. One of the men carried a shoulder bag. They walked across the square and into City Hall.
'Here we go,' I said.
Hawk nodded.
'Good,' Hawk said. ' 'Cause we out of coffee.'
'They're wearing some Kevlar,' I said. 'But I don't see heavy weapons.'
'Something in the bag,' Hawk said.
'Grenades, maybe?'
'Maybe,' Hawk said. 'Maybe something disassembled.'
'Maybe ammo,' I said.
'Be prepared,' Hawk said.
We heard a single gunshot from City Hall. It wasn't very loud and, muffled by the building, it didn't sound like much of anything unless you were listening for it.
'Be the cop in the lobby,' Hawk said.
Hawk's cell phone doubled as a car phone. It rang.
We heard three more shots.
Hawk pressed the speaker button.
'Yo,' he said.
The Gray Man said, 'They are in the building. I've encouraged Podolak to exit through the tunnel. The Ukrainians will take him.'
'Car?'
'Yes, in the garage, a silver Volvo SUV.'
'Exchange Street exit?'
'Almost certainly.'
'You?'
I could almost hear the Gray Man's mirthless, wispy smile.
'I have my own plans,' he said. 'We'll talk again.'
The connection broke. Hawk pressed the end button and put the car in gear, and we drove around the square and a block up, where we could see the Exchange Street exit from the garage. We were far enough away so that the gunfire, which had become more frequent, was a barely audible sequence of pops. A block from the field of fire, you wouldn't know anything was up. In the distance, I could hear a siren.
'Reinforcements,' I said.
'My guess,' Hawk said, 'they going to run into some sort of roadblock 'fore they get here. I tole you. Leonard's pretty slick.'
As he spoke, the silver Volvo SUV came out of the garage and went west on Franklin Street.
'Tally ho,' Hawk said, and we drove along Franklin Street behind them.
51
HAWK COULD TAIL a fox through a henhouse, and neither the fox nor the hens would know it. While he drove along, three cars in back of the silver Volvo, I called Vinnie.
'We're on Franklin Street, going west behind Boots,' I said. 'You should probably go home before somebody shoots you.'
Vinnie said 'Sure,' and broke the connection.
'Vinnie don't say much,' Hawk said.
'You wish he'd talk more?' I said.
'God, no,' Hawk said.
We went through Saugus and up Route 1. We went east on Route 128 and south on 114.
'We seem to be moving in a large circle,' I said.
'Be safer to go around the fight than through it,' Hawk said.
'Plus,' I said, 'fooling anyone trying to follow.'
'You bet,' Hawk said.
