I stepped back in the car, let the doors close, pushed the first-floor button and hoped nobody tried to get on. Like all hospital elevators, this one took forever to pass each level and before it stopped, I picked my hat up and held it over my .45. I stepped out. This time I didn’t run. The gurney would be moving at proper walking speed, seemingly going through a normal routine, and as long as I hurried, I could meet it outside the building. There was no way this play could be stopped without some kind of shooting, and I didn’t want anybody else in the way.
Ahead I could see the entrance to the emergency room and the elevator bank they would come out of. Now they had two options, going through the crowd, taking the risk of having their weapons spotted, or heading for the walkway door where I was standing. It wasn’t made for gurneys, but it was ramped for wheelchairs and with some juggling, a gurney could get through.
They came out of the elevator just as I stepped outside and now I felt better. They had turned toward the walkway door and I was waiting out there in the dark. There were only a few seconds to look around for their probable course and find cover. The walkway curved down to the street, but the parking places were filled again with off-street overnighters, and the cars there couldn’t handle a limp patient. Unless they had planned on a mobile van or station wagon, any transportation would have to be farther down the line, out of sight from where I was standing.
I moved on down the walk, reached the parked cars and got in the street behind them. The doors of the building swung inward. The guy in the orderly uniform came out first, the AK47 under his arm, still covered by a cloth of some kind. He never took his eyes off the area in front of him, juggling the gurney forward with one hand while the other man pushed from behind. It finally slid through and now the phony cop had the oversized automatic in his hand, the holstered .38 ready to grab.
Risking a shot was crazy. The pair were alert, well armed and probably handy with their equipment. They most likely had preplanned an escape exit if they were intercepted, and killing Velda would be a part of the play. I’d have to get off two perfect shots on the first try with a six-foot spread between targets in dim light at a bad distance, and I wasn’t that good to try.
The gurney made the sidewalk and the two cranked it into a turn going away from the hospital. Both of them were still facing forward, both right on the edge of action. I let them pass me, crouching down behind the bodies of the cars, and when they were about ten feet in front, I kept pace with their movements.
A car turned up the road, momentarily lighting up the area. The beam swept over the gurney, but the two went on in a normal manner. I stepped between the parked cars and let the car pass. It was an unmarked sedan with a woman at the wheel. It seemed like an hour had passed, but it had only been a few minutes.
Hell, traffic was light. A squad car could have been here by now. Another set of lights turned up, a truck dropped down a gear and lumbered up the hill. I moved down two car lengths, still staying close, still silently swearing at the frustrating delays in emergency police actions. A car made the U-turn at the hospital and came toward me from the other direction and only when it got past me did a raucous blast from a loudhailer yell, “Freeze! Police!” and the power lights from the truck turned night into day, blinding the two men in the glare.
Everything happened so quickly there was a hesitancy in the movements the men made. The orderly wasted one second trying to strip the cloth from the AK47 and a pair of rapid blasts took him down and out. The phony cop jammed himself down in a crouch and his gun came up to shoot through the bottom of the gurney. He was out of sight of the others, but not out of mine, and I squeezed off a single round that took him in the shoulder and spun him around like a rag doll.
I was standing and had my hands over my head so the cops wouldn’t take me out with a wild shot figuring me for the other side. Pat came running up, a snub-nosed .38 in his fist, and said, “You okay, Mike?”
“No sweat.” I took my hands down in time to yell and half-point behind Pat, and he turned and fired at the phony cop who had pulled his .38 out of the holster and was about to let go at the gurney again. Pat put one into the side of his head, blowing his brains all over the sidewalk.
They all came out one side, so his face was gory, but still recognizable.
The area was cordoned off so fast no spectators had a chance to get near the bodies. Two cops took the gurney out to the truck, lifted it in the back way, and the lady cop from the first car got in with Velda and the unit lurched ahead, made a turn in the street and headed west.
Pat took my arm and hustled me toward his own unmarked cruiser close by. I said, “Where did you guys come from?”
“Come on, pal, I alerted this team as soon as you headed over here.” He yanked a portable radio from his pocket and said into it, “Charlie squad, what have you got?”
There was a click and a hum and a flat voice answered with, “One officer down in the patient’s room, Captain. We have a doctor here who says he was sapped, then drugged. There are two syringes on the bed table, both empty.”
“Is the officer okay?”
“Vital signs okay, the doc says.”
I tapped Pat on the shoulder. “Tell him to check the last room down the hall on the right.”
He passed the message on and a minute later the receiver hummed and the voice said, “Got a nurse down in there too, Captain. She got the same treatment. The patient who was here is gone.”
“He sure is,” Pat told him.
We went to get into the car when the radio came alive again. Pat barked a “Go ahead” and the cop on the other end said, “Captain, four hospital security guys just got here. They answered a call in the basement and wound up locked in a storeroom.”
“Good. Get a statement from them and check both those rooms out.”
“Roger, Captain.”
He turned the key and put the car in gear. Up ahead the truck was turning the corner and he leaned on the gas to catch up to it. “Mind telling me where we’re going?”
“For tonight you’re going fancy. The Ice Lady is putting you two up in her apartment.”
“Great,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You two aren’t going to be targets any more. The crap’s over, finished. Dr. Reedey is meeting us at Candace’s to check Velda out. We’ll hold you there overnight and get you squared away tomorrow. If you two weren’t friends, I’d slap both of you in a prison ward to keep you out of trouble.”
“Did you get a good look at the guy you shot?”
“I got a good look at both of them.”
“Make ‘em?”
He yanked on the wheel, pulling around a car and coming up directly behind the truck. “The slob playing cop was Nolo Abberniche. He started out as a kid with the Costello bunch. That bastard has knocked off a half dozen guys and all he has are three arrests on petty offenses.”
“You seem to have a good line on him.”
“Plenty of fliers, nationwide inquiries. Pal, you are traveling in some pretty heavy company. That other guy was Marty Santino. He’s another hit man, but he likes the fancy jobs. This one was right up his alley.”
“Who’s paying for it, Pat?”
“That died with those hoods. You know damn well we won’t find anything to tie them in directly with any of the mob boys, but we sure as hell know there’s a connection somewhere.”
“Beautiful,” I said. “We wait for them to make another run on us.”
“Not this time, Mike. You drop the code leading to a truckload of coke down our throats and we’re going to treat you like royalty until it shows up. They don’t know we own Anthony DiCica’s little secret. Well, once it’s in our hands they can go back to business as usual. You’re going to be our little secret too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.
“Simple, pal. We’re taking you and Velda right out of the action. Both of you are too important as witnesses and possible targets to be exposed during the mop-up. I know damn well you’re not going to let her out of your sight, so we’re setting both of you up at a safe house of our choosing. Any objections?”
“No.”
“Good. I thought you’d do it my way for once.
You’ll be covering Velda and we’ll be covering both of you just in case. It may seem redundant, but we don’t want to take any chances.“
I nodded and looked back at the buildings passing by.
The truck slowed, edging toward the curb, and pulled to a stop in front of the apartment building. The way the doorman came out to run us off you’d think we were from Mars, but when the blue uniforms showed, he backed off fast, held the doors open while the gurney came out and helped get it on the service elevator. I squeezed on beside it, and when I did, Velda’s eyes fluttered, then opened, and she looked at me. She didn’t know what had happened or where she was, but she knew me and smiled.
Candace was waiting at her apartment and she wasn’t alone. Bennett Bradley and Lewis Ferguson were deep in conversation, and Coleman and Carmody were at the bar. They stopped what they were doing to help get Velda into the bedroom where Burke Reedey was laying out his supplies. There was nothing I could do so I went to the bar and made a drink for myself.
“Make one for me too, please,” Candace said.
I mixed the highball, turned around and handed it to her. “Appreciate your lending us the apartment.”
“And I appreciate your trying to make me president.”
“They shoot at presidents,” I said.
“They shoot at cops too.”
We clinked glasses, each taking a good pull at a drink. “How is Ray doing with the code?”
“All we can do is wait. He’s linked in with Washington and Langley, and all we know is that it isn’t an ultrasophisticated concept. Apparently he had a working knowledge of codes, and with the repetition the computers can deliver, it shouldn’t take long.”
“Who’s going on the bust?”
“A select group. We’re assuming it’s within driving distance and the coordination is coming under federal jurisdiction. They can organize assistance from any local police departments if they have to.”
“Where do you stand?”
“In the catbird seat, my wonderful friend.” She looked past me and pointed.
Pat was finishing with the cops who had brought Velda up and was waving me over to the table where the men were conferring over a map. They had circled out an area in New York State northwest of Kingston with Phoenicia as a hub. Ferguson was a ski buff and knew the area well, but best of all, he had access to a cottage in the mountainous section and had outlined the entry roads and was explaining the place’s benefits.
“From the building there is good three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility. Power comes in from the road, but the place is equipped with emergency Coleman lanterns, a hand pump for water if the power goes out, and always has a good supply of split logs on hand for the fireplace.”
He shaded in a section on the map and explained, “The house sits ... here.” He tapped the pencil to indicate the spot. “And approximately fifty yards away toward the road are two stone outcroppings, excellent positions as guard posts. A man can be stationed at both positions with a good field of fire that would cover anyone trying to gain entry.”
“What about the rear?” I asked him.
“A sheer cliff almost sixty feet high. They’d have to drop in by parachute. The foliage is just too thick for anybody to break through up there without a dozen machetes or brushhooks.”
Pat said, “We’re not dealing with trained woods-men, Mike.”
“You can buy them, kiddo.”
“Not as fast as we can move.”
I took another jolt of the highball. “Let’s give the other side a little credit. Suppose they had an observer at the hospital to catch the action. Suppose he saw what was going on and followed the truck back here.”
“What’s your point, Mike?”
“How are we getting out of this place without being spotted? They have men, money and machinery going for them too. They could have spotters with radios as well as the cops.”
Pat gave me one of his noncommittal gestures again. “Suppose you just let us take care of that.”
After what he pulled with the blast at the hospital, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Sure, pal, sorry,” I said. I finished the drink and went back for another one. Candace had it ready for me. For the first time that evening I took a close look at her. There was no dress this time, just a beautifully tailored khaki jumpsuit that would look fashionable as hell at a cocktail party or would be casually efficient for a field sweep. Whatever she had in mind, she was ready for it. Those big sensual eyes were almost iridescent with anticipation, and the tautness of her body showed right through the twill of the jumpsuit.
She knew I was going to say something.
She was waiting to hear it.
The phone rang. Instantly, the room went quiet. She picked up the receiver. When she scanned the room with one quick glance and nodded, we knew she was talking to Ray Wilson. She picked up a ballpoint pen, stripped a page off the pad beside the phone and began writing down the instructions. She finished, thanked him and hung up.
“We have the location of the truck,” she said.
“It’s in a barn on a farm north of Lake Hopatcong on Route Ninety-four, just before coming into Hamburg.”
Bennett Bradley said, “I’ll alert the Jersey highway patrol, and they can pick us up on the other side of the George Washington Bridge with an escort.”
“You want any county police on this?”
“Forget it,” Bradley told him. “We don’t want to divulge any details of the site.” He went back to the map they were using for our relocation and found what he was looking for. “Here,” he said. “We’ll have two more cars meet us at the junction of Routes Fifteen and Ninety-four.” He picked up the phone, called the operator for the number of the Jersey highway patrol, then dialed it.