'Just a second! I'm doing three things at once.' Lyons switched on the receiver. Faint voices in English and Spanish came from the speaker. 'Can hardly hear it. How close do we need to be?'
'Depends. How much concrete between them and you, how much other electronic activity. Play it by ear, as they say.'
'Are you free? Can you get in a mobile unit?'
'You think you need me right now?'
'Hey, Hardman Two's going right into the mouth of the beast. He needs all the back-up he can get.'
'On my way!'
Lyons broke the connection and dialed Agent Smith, his driver and liaison man. 'Where are you? What kind of car you got now?'
'At the intersection of Broadway and Fourth. I'm driving a red ten-year-old Dodge. I'm wearing white painter's coveralls.'
'Be ready to move. You got my box of magnums?'
'Yes, sir. What's going on? Sounds like things are getting hot.'
'Hot? My partner's walking into hell. And we're going in two steps behind him.'
7
Turning every few seconds to scan the traffic behind them, Bernardo gave the cab driver directions that weaved through the financial district. At one corner, the NYPD's phony power company barriers were up. The WorldFiCor was only a block away.
Blancanales looked past the barricade, saw a utility vehicle. There were no workers in the truck. Further up the street, two men in utility workmen's uniforms leaned against a parked car. Two men in suits sat in the front seat of the car. Blancanales looked over at Bernardo, watched him. But Bernardo only glanced at the barricade and told the driver to make another turn.
Several blocks later, they stopped for a traffic light at the edge of Chinatown. The cab driver turned to Bernardo and asked him, 'Boy, do you know where you're going? Is someone following you? Are you looking for someone? What's going on with you?'
'It does not concern you,' Bernardo snapped. 'You're a driver, drive!'
'Sure, kid. Anywhere you want.'
'Stop!' Bernardo shouted. 'We get out here.' He gave the driver a 10-dollar bill, and they walked through traffic to the sidewalk.
Bernardo scanned the cars and trucks passing them, then led Blancanales across the intersection. Again, he watched the traffic passing them, looking at several cars, staring at the faces of the drivers and passengers. He turned from the street, looking at the shoppers and tourists and neighborhood kids on the sidewalks.
Across the street, Blancanales saw Lyons pass in the phony yellow cab. He glanced at Bernardo, winked to Lyons. Lyons raised his eyebrows slightly as he hid his face behind a newspaper.
'Where now?' Blancanales asked Bernardo.
'Wait here.' Bernardo went into a corner luncheonette and moved to the phone. He dialed a number, watching Blancanales while he talked.
Blancanales leaned against a light pole, talked to himself. The minimike was in his inside coat pocket.
'He's making a call. I tell you, this kid is one very paranoid young man. But he doesn't know anything about counter-surveillance. I think he's just a street kid that they recruited. Also, when we went past the WorldFiCor, he didn't even notice.'
Looking back to the luncheonette, he saw Bernardo hang up and step outside. 'Talk to you later, he's coming back.'
Bernardo returned and held up a hand for a taxi. 'The meeting is set,' he told Blancanales. 'But first, we...'
'We must lose any surveillance?'
'My commander instructed me to be very careful.'
They took a taxi to the next block, got out, ran through traffic to the entry of a tenement. Bernardo led him through the central hallway to a back stairway. Up the stairs to the second floor, through a window to a fire escape, down the fire escape to an alley. They crossed the alley.
Bernardo pulled open the unlocked rear door of a restaurant and hurried through the kitchen. The cooks and dishwashers turned their backs. Blancanales saw a waiter go to the rear door, lock it. Then they wove between the tables. The few patrons didn't look up from their lunches and conversations.
Out on the street, Bernardo flagged another taxi. 'Where to, kid?'
'Drive.' Bernardo pointed straight ahead.
'We're sight-seeing,' Blancanales explained.
'Tourists, huh?' The driver commented. 'Where you from?'
'My friend here's from New York,' Blancanales said, 'but I'm from California.' .
'California! First time in the big city?'
'No. But it's the first time I've had time to look around. Any tourist attractions around here?'
'Hey, man! This is Little Italy. Unless you're into crime, you know, gangsters, the mob, Mafia, you got to go uptown for tourist action.'
'This is Little Italy? This where Lucky Luciano grew up?'
'Out!' Bernardo interrupted. 'We're getting out here.'
They dodged traffic as they crossed the avenue. Bernardo led Blancanales around a corner, and without breaking stride, pushed him through the side door of a waiting florist's van. Bernardo slid the door closed, then got into the driver's seat. They were alone in the van.
There were no windows in the back of the van. As Bernardo started the engine, he leaned back and said tersely, 'If you try to look outside, no meeting. If you try to signal anyone, no meeting. Understand?'
Bernardo jerked a curtain shut, then raced into traffic. Blancanales rode in the dark van, his companion a funeral wreath.
Cruising through the narrow streets of shops and tenements, Lyons watched the sidewalks and cars for his partner. The afternoon's heat had thinned the pedestrians. Kids sat on steps sipping Cokes. Teenagers gulped from bag-wrapped beer cans, passed wine bottles. But he saw no Latin ex-Green Beret in a business suit walking with a twenty-year-old FALN soldier. He glanced into the cars in traffic, trying to keep his face concealed behind the headlines of that afternoon's paper. He knew the boy would be watching the traffic for surveillance: for him to see Lyons might mean death for Blancanales. Lyons knew his threats had impressed Bernardo, but the boy was only one of the soldiers in this operation. The others might not give a damn about Bernardo's friends and family.
The D.F. signal faded.
'Go north a few blocks,' Lyons told his driver. The secure phone buzzed. Lyons grabbed it.
'This is Hardman Three,' Gadgets said.
'Where are you?'
'Driving north on Broadway. Where are you?'
Lyons glanced out at a street sign. 'We're going north on Allen. The D.F. signal's picking up. Must be gaining on it. Do you have a D.F. receiver you can pass to Smith?'
'Sure do. I'll call him, arrange a pass. You have anything on the minimike?'
'Nothing. You ready for action?'
'I'm ready for anything. Things are popping all over. You got the news yet?'
'What now?'
'They made some demands. Finally. The Bureau has a negotiation team talking with them now.'
