Honorable Jerry Carlucci, mayor of the City of Brotherly Love, who had shown up five minutes after he had heard that Wohl intended to take M. C. Wheatley’s door.
Larkin turned around, crossed Farragut Street again, and returned to where Carlucci and Wohl were standing by Wohl’s car, just out of sight of the residence of M. C. Wheatley.
“I think they’re about done,” Larkin said. “I’m impressed with the way they’re doing that, Peter,” he said.
The mayor looked first at Larkin and then at Wohl.
“So am I,” Wohl said. “Jack Malone set it up. He put them through a couple of dry runs in the dark at the Schoolhouse.”
I suppose that proves, Larkin thought, that while you can’t cheat an honest man, you can’t get him to take somebody else’s credit, either.
“Peter does a hell of a job with Special Operations, Charley,” His Honor said. “I think we can now all say that it was an idea that worked. It. And Peter going in to command it.”
“ ‘The Mayor said,’ ” Wohl replied, “ ‘just before the 1200 block of Farragut Street disappeared in a mushroom cloud.’ ”
“You think he’s got it wired, Peter?” Mayor Carlucci asked.
“I believe he’s crazy,” Wohl said. “Crazy people scare me.”
“William One, William Eleven,” the radio in Wohl’s car went on. William Eleven was Lieutenant Jack Malone.
Officer Paul O’Mara, sitting behind the wheel, handed Wohl the microphone.
“William One,” Wohl said.
“All done here.”
“Seven?” Wohl said.
“Seven,” Jason Washington’s voice came back.
“Have you seen any signs of life in there?”
“Nothing. I don’t think anybody’s in there.”
“Your call, Jason. How do you want to take the door?”
“You did say, ‘my call’?”
“Right.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Washington said.
“Jason?”
There was no answer.
“Jason?”
“Jason. William Seven, William One.”
There was no reply.
“That will teach you, Peter,” Mayor Carlucci said, “Never tell Jason ‘your call.’ ”
“William Eleven, William One.”
“Eleven.”
“Can you see Seven?”
“Payne just jumped onto the porch roof.”
“Say again?”
“Payne came out onto the roof over the porch of the house next door, jumped over to the next one, and just smashed the window and went inside.”
A bell began to clang.
“What did he say about Payne?” the Mayor asked.
“I hope I didn’t hear that right,” Wohl said.
He tossed the microphone to Officer O’Mara and quickly got in the front seat beside him, gesturing for him to get moving.
They were halfway down Farragut Street toward the residence of M. C. Wheatley when the radio went off:
“William One, Seven.”
Wohl grabbed the microphone and barked, “One,” as O’Mara pulled up, with a screech of brakes, in front of the house.
“Boss,” Washington’s voice came over the radio, “you want to send somebody in here to turn off the burglar alarm?”
There were more screeching brakes. A van skidded to a stop, and discharged half a dozen police officers, two of them buried beneath the layers of miracle plastic that, it was hoped, absorbed the effects of explosions, and all of them wearing yellow jackets with POLICE in large letters on their backs.
As the two Ordnance Disposal experts ran awkwardly up the stairs, the mayoral Cadillac limousine pulled in beside Peter Wohl’s car, and Sergeant Jason Washington walked casually out onto the porch.
“Jason, what the hell happened?” Wohl called.
“When Payne let me in, the burglar alarm went off,” Washington said innocently.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Wohl shouted. “God damn the both of you!”
“Where’s that mushroom cloud you were talking about, Peter?” the mayor asked, at Wohl’s elbow.
“God damn them!” Wohl said.
“I don’t think he really means that, Charley, do you?” the mayor asked.
“Mr. Mayor,” Wohl said. “I think you’d better stay right here.”
“Hey, Peter,” the mayor said as he started quickly up the stairs of the residence of Mr. M. C. Wheatley. “The way that works is that I’m the mayor. I tell you what to do.”
At 8:25, as the schedule called for, Marion Claude Wheatley picked up AWOL bag #1, left his room in the Divine Lorraine Hotel, caught a bus at Ridge Avenue and North Broad street, and rode it to the North Philadelphia Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
There he purchased a coach ticket to Wilmington, Delaware, went up the stairs to the track, and waited for the train, a local that, according to the schedule, would arrive at North Philadelphia at 9:03, depart North Philadelphia at 9:05, and arrive at 30th Street Station at 9:12. Marion didn’t care when it would depart 30th Street Station for Chester, and then Wilmington. He wasn’t going to Chester or Wilmington.
At 9:12, right on schedule, the train arrived at 30th