“Saw it with my own eyes,” Joe said. “Got no reason to lie no more.”
“Thank you, Joey,” Ambrose said, looking up at Mariucci, his face flooded with relief.
“Yeah, Joey, you did good, paisano,” Mariucci said.
The captain flipped his notebook shut and put it inside his jacket. Ambrose had what he’d come to New York for. They could both use a drink.
Joey lifted his bony arm and placed his hand on the captain’s shoulder. “You got something else, Joe?” the captain asked.
“When we, uh, got h-home from P-Paris,” Joey Bones said, his voice rattling with effort, “Benny kinda let it get around on the street that it was me who’d whacked the guy. Why not, right? Who would know? Nobody in the neighborhood ever messed with me after that. I was a made man, you understand? I was Joey Bones!”
It was very quiet in the car. Just the patter of soft rain on the tin rooftop.
“You did good, Joey,” Mariucci said.
But Joey was already gone.
As they emerged from the car into the glare of the TV lights, Mariucci paused, squinting, and said to Congreve, “Who the hell is that?”
“Who?” Ambrose said.
“Over there. Edge of the crowd. There’s a woman in a black raincoat staring right at you. See her?”
“Where?”
“Never mind. She’s gone.”
Chapter Forty-three
Berlin
THEY WAITED UNTIL DARKNESS FELL AND THE MOON ROSE over the snowcapped mountains. Then they flew. Jet was wrapped in a blanket, sound asleep on a bench seat behind the pilot. She’d put another blanket on the floor for Blondi. Arnold was flying. Stoke sat in the copilot’s seat to his right, now wearing Arnold’s muscleman black VDI uniform, a perfect fit if a little tight across the shoulders. They were headed almost due north, destination Berlin. The moon was full, just rising over the ragged peak of the Weissspitze at nine thousand feet.
“You do know how to fly this thing, right, Arnold?” Stoke had said to him as they trudged through knee-deep snow from the Zum Wilden Hund out to the black chopper on the pad. It was a specially modified Super Lynx helo that had once belonged to the German navy. Stoke noticed AIM missile brackets mounted under the belly between the skids and asked about them. The Lynx formerly flew antisubmarine warfare missions for NATO.
“Yes,” Arnold said, “I know how to fly it.”
“Good. Then we got the right Arnold.”
Twenty minutes into the flight, Stoke leaned over in his copilot’s seat, pressed his face against the cool Perspex, and stared down thoughtfully at the endless white ground. At this altitude, basically zero, give or take a foot or two, you had a pretty good sensation of speed. They were skimming across snow-covered fields, brushing the tops of the tall pines, and jinking and juking around any small hill that got in their way. There was a whole lot to be said for the fun factor, flying below the radar across Europe. Stoke concentrated on their little moon-shadow zipping along on the sparkling snow just beneath them.
“What’s that up ahead?” Stoke asked Arnold.
“Czechoslovakia,” Arnold said.
“Let’s try not to hit it.”
Sometimes, Arnold would get so low down, the Lynx and its darting shadow almost kissed. Catch a skid and you’re not sitting on top of the world, Stoke thought, and looked at his watch. If they could stay down on the deck and maintain this speed without cracking up, they’d touch down at Tempelhof well before midnight. It was nice and warm in the cockpit. It had been a long day. Stoke let his head fall back across the seat and closed his eyes.
“Put it down just there,” Jet said to Arnold, waking him from some dream of swaying palms and convertibles and his beautiful Fancha climbing out of a turquoise pool dripping wet and naked as the day she was born. Soon as all this was over, first-class ticket nonstop to Miami.
The black helo was approaching the LZ low and dark, no landing lights outside; inside, the cockpit was lit only by a dim red glow from the instrument panel. Stealth chopper. He hoped. Heavy armed resistance at this point would be a problem. He had only the Schmeisser and a few mags of ammo he’d been able to scrounge up going through drawers at the gasthaus. Jet had the dead Arnold’s automatic and two spare mags.
They approached Tempelhof low and from the rear, away from the entrance where the guards were stationed. Here, boxy apartment complexes and warehouses would hide their approach from the guards at the entrance on the far side of the field. Arnold dropped down below the rooftops. He flew between the buildings, along a narrow deserted street that dead-ended at the fence line. They rose slightly and almost clipped the fence. A darkened helo, coming in low, a hush kit to dampen the engine noise, hell, they had a pretty good chance to arrive unannounced.
He wasn’t sure what they’d find on the ground, but as they crossed the perimeter and flared up for a landing, he sure as hell felt like they were going into the belly of the beast.
They set down on a very remote part of the airfield, in the moon-shadow of a rusty hangar that looked like it hadn’t seen much use since “Operation Vittles,” the American airlift that began in 1945. There was a high perimeter wall all around the field, topped with concertina wire, and probably guarded by remote sensors. In the far distance stood an illuminated complex, the huge semicircular building that housed Von Draxis Industries.
Stoke swung his cockpit door open and was met with a blast of cold air. It felt good, woke him up. So did the snarling hellhound that leaped up out of the darkness behind him and flew bare-fanged across his chest and out the open door. Doing his mental weapons check, minding his own business, he’d clean forgot about Blondi. The Doberman might even the odds up a little bit. Maybe a lot.
“She had to go,” Jet said by way of explanation.
“Okay, Arnold,” Stoke said, cocking the Schmeisser, “shut this bird down and sit tight. We’re going to get out, stretch our legs, and figure out what to do next.”
“We know exactly what to do next,” Jet said. “Let’s get moving.”
Stoke smiled at Arnold. “Like the lady said, we know exactly what to do next. Let’s get moving.”
There was an old wooden sign above the door with the faded word Steinhoffer painted on it. Name of a Luftwaffe ace jet-set. The doors were locked. Stoke kept the machine pistol on Arnold and Blondi straining on her leash while Jet unlocked the padlocks on the rusty corrugated hangar doors. The fact that she had a key to this old building was mildly surprising but Stoke kept his mouth shut. They were on her turf now. When a woman had a plan, you had to be prepared to zip your lip and go with it. It had taken him nearly half a century to figure that out.
Jet got the lock open and pushed back the sliding doors. The hangar was empty except for the gleaming black car.
“Stokely,” Jet said, “there’s a tool shop at the rear. Get some duct tape and immobilize him. Use a lot. We might be a couple of hours. I’ll take Blondi.”
“You heard the lady,” Stoke said to Arnold. He handed the leash to Jet. “Let’s go get you taped up.”
Ten minutes later, having secured Arnold to a heavy wooden workbench that was bolted to a wall, he was back. Jet was squatting on her knees beside the car, talking to Blondi in German. Telling the Doberman the plan, Stoke assumed. He was pretty sure he’d be next to find out what it was.
“That’s some car,” he said to Jet. And it was. It was maybe the most beautiful machine he’d ever seen. Glinting black in the moonlight that filtered through the skylight, it looked like a high-tech spaceship. “What is it?”
“Mercedes SLR,” Jet said. “Built in England by McLaren. It’s basically a Formula One race car you can drive on the street. Six hundred eighteen horsepower, top speed of over 320 kilometers per hour.”