“Keep watching. Report back every thirty.”
Stone ended the call and turned his gaze back to the old brick structure.
Chapman stirred behind him. “What if someone notices us in this alley?”
“Then we move.”
“I’ve never been to New York before. It’s not as glamorous as I heard.”
“That’s Manhattan, to the west over there. That’s the land of the rich and famous. The Bronx is a different experience. Some cool places and some not so cool places.”
“So I take it you’ve been here before?”
Stone nodded.
“Business or pleasure?”
“I’ve never traveled for pleasure.”
“So what’d you do when you were up here last?”
Stone didn’t even attempt to answer her query. And from her look, it was clear Chapman didn’t really expect a response.
Yet in his mind’s eye it was decades ago and Stone pulled the trigger on his custom sniper rifle, ending the life of another enemy of the United States as he walked across the street with his mistress toward the luxury hotel where they were going to have sex. His downfall had been ordering the execution of two CIA personnel in Poland. Stone had put a shot through the right eyeball at the stroke of eleven p.m. from a distance of nine hundred yards on elevated ground with a breeze from the north that had given him a few anxious moments. The mistress hadn’t even known what happened until her dead lover hit the pavement. The NYPD and local FBI, tipped off to what was going down, had never attempted to solve the case. That’s just how it was done back then. Hell, thought Stone, maybe that was how it was still done.
He refocused on the brick building even as his index finger curved around an imaginary trigger.
CHAPTER 93
Six hours later Stone and Chapman had moved to an empty building across the street. Filthy mattresses and dirty syringes signaled this for a “prick palace” for addicts, although it didn’t look like anyone had been there in a while. They’d entered through a rear door and settled themselves in for however long this would take. Stone opened his rucksack and handed Chapman a bottle of water, an apple and a hunk of hard bread.
“You know how to show a girl a good time, I’ll give you that,” was her only comment as she started in on her “meal.”
A bit later Stone’s attention was engaged when the front door of the building opposite them opened and Ming and another man came out, walked down the street and turned left. He immediately relayed this to Finn.
“You want me to follow them?” Finn asked.
“No. At this hour of the night they’re probably going for something to eat. They’ve been in there all day. You think you can get a peek inside one of the windows? If our intel is right, there should be ten others in there plus Friedman. But I’d like to get a more accurate head count.”
“The place is mostly dark, but I’ve got a Gen Four NV scope with me.”
“Be careful, Harry. These guys know what they’re doing.”
“Roger that.”
Twenty minutes later Finn reported back. “Got two sentries on the first floor, southwest corner. Assuming cocked and locked though no visible weapons. The others must be on the upper floors. That’s the best I can do with the scope.”
Knox got on the phone. “Hey, Oliver, what would you say if I could get my hands on a TI?”
“A thermal imager? How?”
“I know people here. Hell, I should have brought one with me.”
“How fast can you get it?”
“One hour.”
“Do it.”
Within one hour two things happened. Knox returned with his thermal imager, and Ming and his colleague came back and went inside the building. They were carrying large bags of what looked to be fast food.
Two minutes later Knox buzzed Stone.
Knox said, “Okay, I just hit the building as best I could. This device is rated for penetration of most construction materials, so brick, rebar and concrete block are no problem.”
“How many are you seeing?”
“I’ve got six images, all with SBAs,” said Knox, referring to soft body armor. “It blocks the thermal signal so it stands out pretty prominently.”
Stone looked perplexed. “Just six? You’re sure?”
“Wait a sec. Okay, now I see it, third floor I’ve got a thermal with no SBA.”
“Gender?”
“From the silhouette looks to be female.”
“Friedman.”
“Probably. But I’ve never met the lady. No way to do a positive ID from the TI anyway.”
“Thanks, Joe, you and Harry sit tight.” He looked at Chapman.
She said, “Okay, we have the players lined up, site locked down. Do we go in shooting or do we call in official reinforcements?”
“Some reason you keep harping on that theme?”
“I could say I was concerned we’ll all get shot. Well, I am concerned about that. But I’m more worried that some of us will be tempted to do things that we might officially regret later. Well, I’m worried that one of us will be tempted.” She looked at him expectantly.
“You can leave right now. No one’s stopping you.”
“It wasn’t an ultimatum on my part, merely a passive comment.”
“I don’t get you sometimes.”
“Just sometimes? I’m disappointed.”
“How many weapons do you have?”
“My Walther and a Glock. Four extra clips. You?”
“Enough.”
“A shotgun, MP-5 or TEC-9 would be nice in close-quarters combat.”
“Let’s hope the other guys don’t think that way.”
“You know they’ll be loaded.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You can’t exactly walk through the city with an arsenal without getting some attention from the NYPD.”
“Maybe they stashed it there earlier.”
“Maybe they did.”
“We can still call in backup.”
“We don’t even know if Friedman is in there for certain.”
“But at least six bad guys are. In a building they’re not supposed to be in.”
“Well, for all we know they leased the space and have every right to be there. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re not supposed to be here either. Joe and Harry are doing me a favor. And I’m unofficial. You’re the only one with a badge and it has the queen on it. It would take about six months to explain it all to the boys in blue and we’d probably stay in lockup that whole time.”
“Well, the ‘queen’ has revoked my authority but I see your dilemma. So what do we do now?”
“I expect they believe a zig is coming.”
“So we zag?”
“We zag.”
Stone picked up his phone. “Get ready,” he told Knox. “We go in one hour.”
The zag did not exactly go according to plan. In fact it did not come close to going according to plan. The first indication was that neither the front nor rear doors were locked. Finn and Knox collapsed the rear entry and Stone and Chapman the front entrance at two a.m. precisely. The guards stationed there were asleep. Guns pointed at their heads woke them, but they took their time about it. By the time Stone’s team hit the top floors the four other men were up and stretching.
The second indication of their plan being unsuccessful was that none of the men even had their guns in their hands. The last clue was that the woman on the third floor wasn’t Friedman. She was older by about twenty years and appeared to be drunk. At least they couldn’t wake her. She snored on.
Thoroughly frustrated, Stone let his anger get the better of him. He grabbed Ming by the neck and slammed him up against the wall. “Care to tell me where Friedman is?”
Ming’s smile was both deliberate and superior. He replied coolly, “She anticipated your visit.”
Stone slowly released the man. Ming looked around at the other three, their guns pointed at him and his team. The woman snored loudly in the corner on an old cot.