“They say it’s okay—nobody else can land while that chopper is sitting there.”
Dugan walked down the stairs to the thirty-sixth floor and let himself through the fire door. His group was standing in the hall, waiting, their uniforms on. “Surprise,” Dugan said to them. He checked his watch: “Two minutes and we go upstairs. Nobody makes a sound or says an unnecessary word. Rack your shotguns, safeties on.”
Stone and Dino arrived two floors up from their suite by elevator and stepped into the hallway. There was considerable bustle as sellers found their rooms and arrayed their wares on tables already set up.
“You go in there,” Dino said to Stone, pointing at an open door. “Look like you’re selling or buying—you choose.”
“Gotcha,” Stone said.
“Are you still packing?”
“No, I left it in the room, unloaded.”
“I’ll be around,” Dino said.
Stone watched as a detective with a shotgun went into a coat closet and closed the door behind him. Another detective, pretending to be a seller, buttoned his jacket to conceal his weapon.
Then suddenly, and very quietly, the room was flooded with SWAT members, armed and wearing masks. The occupants of the room were covered, and two men went to the closet door, yanked it open, and rousted the surprised detective, then everybody was frisked and disarmed. Nobody said a word. Two of the SWAT team raked jewelry into a bag, then they left the room, leaving one man to cover the room. He was enough.
Stone stood there and listened but heard nothing except the breathing of the people around him. Three or four minutes passed, then the man covering them stepped into the hall. “Nobody move,” he said, then closed the door behind him.
Stone tried the phone: dead. His cell phone had no signal.
Dugan received the jewelry bag, then made a cell call. “Start your engines,” he said. “Okay, everybody, back down the stairs and move according to plan. Don’t shoot anybody, if you can avoid it.” He watched them go, then walked slowly down the hallway, feigning a limp, to the fire door and walked upstairs to the roof. He could hear the helicopter engines turning.
Dino watched from the cracked door of a linen closet as the fake SWAT team assembled and headed for the stairs. As soon as they were through the door, he ran over and locked it behind them. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a tall but stooped Hasid limping slowly down the hall, carrying a bag. He was about to call to him when Stone burst out of the room where he had been held. “Got ’em?” he asked Dino.
“All of them. They’re trapped in the stairwell being disarmed.”
“What’s that noise?” Stone asked, looking up.
“Sounds like a helicopter arriving,” Dino said. “Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.”
Dugan walked across the roof, set his bag inside the helicopter, and got inside. He took off his hat and ringlets and put on a headset. “Go,” he said to the pilot over the intercom. The chopper rose, then banked and headed west.
A minute later, Dino burst onto the roof, followed closely by Stone. “SWAT team!” he yelled.
A cop stuck his head out the utility shack on the roof. “Yes, Chief?”
“Who’s in that helicopter?” Dino demanded, pointing at the fast-disappearing aircraft.
“One Hasidic guy,” the team leader said.
“Why was he leaving? The sale hasn’t even started!”
“When he landed he said he was delivering, and I called it in,” the team leader said.
Dino’s radio crackled. “This is Bacchetti.”
“We bagged them all,” a voice said. “They’re stripped of the uniforms and cuffed.”
“Did you get the jewelry bag?”
There was a brief silence. “Negative, Chief. No bag.”
Dino turned to the team leader. “Did the guy in the chopper take a bag with him?”
“Yes, Chief, one of those things on wheels.”
“Oh, shit,” Dino said.
63
Dino pressed a button on his cell phone.
“This is Monte.”
“Have you got Jake Sutton covered?”
“Yes, Chief, he arrived at eight a.m. and hasn’t left his office.”
“Is there another way out of his office?”
“There’s a staircase to the roof—nowhere to go from there.”
“Dugan just left the hotel in a chopper, and he has the loot with him. Get up on that roof and make sure Sutton doesn’t join him!”
“Got it, Chief! Stand by!”
Dino waited patiently until the man came back.
“Chief?”
“Yeah?”
“Jake is still in his office. I’ve got a man posted to keep him off the roof.”
“Call me if a chopper shows up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dino had a sudden thought. “Monte, does Jake have any kids?”
“Yeah, Chief, he’s got a son, Isaac, called Ike. He