do about that. Besides, if Nick stayed true to form and didn’t come back until the next day, the footprints would have filled in before they were spotted.
The telephone connection box was mounted at eye level on a wall outside the building; on a surveillance run two nights earlier, Nori had found it by tracking the lines coming from a telephone pole on the adjacent side street.
She stopped now and examined the rectangular metal box, moisture steaming from her nose and mouth, snow rustling between her ankles. After a moment, she reached out to Barnhart and he handed off the cable cutters, directing the flash beam onto the box. The phone wires entered the bottom of the box through a PVC plastic conduit. The same line, she knew, would be used to transmit signals from the alarm system to its monitoring station. Although it was possible Roma had installed a dedicated line for his system, or even a cellular-link backup, she doubted it. As a member of Barnhart’s undercover strike force during his years with the FBI, she had broken into many mob-controlled premises, and almost to a one had found them protected with crude, easily circumvented systems. Big Paul Castellano’s mansion on the hill had been the singular exception, but the Gambino family don had always held lordly pretensions. Not so Roma. He was a gangster of the old school and would undoubtedly rely on his heavies for security.
Noriko brushed some snow off the PVC conduit and opened the cable cutters around it. The air trembled with lightning. A food wrapper broke away from a trash spill up the alley, skittered past her foot. Her lips compressed with effort, she clipped the pipe halfway through, then rotated the cutters and clipped the other half of the pipe, exposing the insulated wires inside it. She severed them with a single quick cut.
Barring some unlikely fail-safe, the phones and external alarms were out of commission.
She passed the tool back to Barnhart and gestured to her left. Several yards farther along the wall, he could see a back door that opened into the alley. He nodded and they hastened over to it, Nori in the lead.
She crouched at the door as Barnhart turned his flash onto the lock plate below the knob. Then she produced a flat leather case from a patch pocket on her coveralls. Zipping open the case, she selected two needle-like steel shims from the large set inside it, clamped one between her teeth, and inserted the working end of the other into the keyhole. She raked it deftly across the bottom cylinder pins, felt one, then two, of them activate. Seconds later she extracted the pick from the keyway, switched it with the one in her mouth, and used the second to jiggle open the remaining tumblers.
The latch slid back with a metallic
Noriko glanced over her shoulder at Barnhart and he nodded again. She reached for the doorknob. If there were a fire bar or something of that nature across the inside of the door, they would have to try to gain access from the street, where they would be in a much more visible — and risky — position.
She twisted the knob, applied slight pressure to the door with her shoulder.
It eased inward a crack.
“Abracadabra,” Barnhart muttered, squeezing her shoulder.
A relieved breath hissing out between her teeth, the tension draining from her muscles, Noriko carefully replaced the shims in their case and returned it to her pocket. Barnhart swung the MagLite toward the mouth of the alley and thumbed it on and off twice. Nimec returned the all-clear signal and sprinted out of the shadows to his companions, a nylon duffel bag in his hand.
Suddenly they heard the rumble of an engine, saw the yellow sweep of headlights on the snow-covered blacktop, and froze outside the door, waiting. A second ticked by. Another. Then a Sanitation Department snowplow went clattering past the alley, turned left at the corner, and moved off down the avenue.
Nimec motioned for them to enter the building.
Barnhart went in first, his tools in his pockets now, both hands around the pump gun. Its underbarrel light threw a tight conical beam into the gloom beyond the door. They could see a narrow back stairwell leading upward to the left, a hallway straight ahead of them.
Barnhart glanced at the others, angled his chin toward the steps, and started to climb them.
They followed him up without hesitation.
Lightning ripped into the street lamp on the corner of Eighty-sixth Street and Narrows Avenue just as Nick Roma’s car turned off Shore Road in that direction. His face registered surprise as the sodium bulb flared brightly and then blew in terminal overload, sprinkling the road with its jagged, smoking remains. On the Lincoln’s radio the voice of Michael Bolton dissolved into snaps, crackles, and pops.
“Son of a bitch,” the driver muttered.
In the backseat, Roma stared out his window. All along the avenue, spindly winter-bare trees swayed in the wind roaring off Gravesend Bay.
He shot a glance at the dash clock.
“It’s almost eleven-thirty,” Nick said edgily. “What the hell’s taking you so long to get where we’re going?”
“It’s this fucking weather,” the driver said. “I take it any faster, our wheels’ll be all over the road.”
Roma responded with an indeterminate grunt. He wondered if Marissa would be wearing that short, white lacy thing he’d given her last week. Wondered how fast he would peel her out of it once he stepped through her door. God, God, he was so coiled with tension, so wound up with need, he didn’t think he’d be able to wait until they got into bed. Maybe later they would take a bath together, bring one of his bottles of wine with them…
“Shit!” he said abruptly, slapping his leg in frustration. What was wrong with him? The wine. He’d forgotten the goddamn wine at the club.
He glanced over his shoulder at the sedan following behind them, glad he’d instructed his bodyguards to stick close until he reached Marissa’s. At least now they’d have a chance to make themselves useful.
“Val, listen to me,” he said, leaning forward over the seat rest. “Call the others. There’s a plastic bag in my office, near the desk. It has two bottles of wine in it. Tell them to head back and get it, bring it over to the girl’s place, and ring her bell. I’ll come to the door and take it from them.”
Val nodded, took one hand off the steering wheel, reached for the flip phone in his pocket.
“And Val…?”
The driver briefly met his eyes in the rearview.
“Tell them to be quick about it,” Roma said.
“Our boy Nicky’s been living the high life,” Barnhart said quietly, angling his underbarrel flash into the plastic bag beside Roma’s desk. The light glinted off two bottles of red wine. “He’s got a couple bottles of Chambertin just sitting around in here.”
“And expensive cologne,” Noriko whispered. She was at the desk opening drawers, her hand feeling around inside them. “Seems to be it, though. There’s zip in these drawers. No papers, no pens, not even a stick of chewing gum.”
Barnhart stepped over to her, pulled one of the drawers completely off its tracks, and set it on the floor. Then he reached back into its empty slot, searching for hidden compartments.
Meanwhile, Nimec was moving along the walls, sliding his gloved hands over them, probing for a recessed safe or cabinet. The only hidden devices they’d found so far were Nick’s giant television, theater-quality sound system, and a VCR/DVD reader that fed both systems. Predictably, the disk in the hopper was the first
Finding nothing immediately, Nimec paused, looking around. Even in the darkness, he could see that the place was fastidiously neat and clean. If there were squirrel holes, Roma would be careful to keep them well camouflaged.
His gaze fell on the mirrored wall opposite the door and he turned quickly to Barnhart, tapping his arm.
“Shine the light at the mirror,” he said, pointing. “Start over toward the middle.”
Barnhart nodded and swung the Benelli around.
As Nimec moved closer to the wall, Barnhart’s flash shone on the floor-to-ceiling panels, throwing starry
