Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,98
the Manhattan assistant agent in charge, whose name was Loren Duke. Weaver and two other supervising agents were waiting with Duke. The room was small and stuffy, and one of the agents stood next to a drawn window shade, peering past the shade as if he might actually see something important on the street below. Weaver looked like he was suffering intense gas pains.
Duke: “I’m here for the AIC. He hates you two, by the way. You sicced Louis Mallard on him and the conversation was not a pleasant one. Ten or twenty kilos will probably make it on the street because of you guys and I’d be surprised if a couple people didn’t die from it.”
“Nobody’s forcing anyone to shoot up that stuff. If they do and die, well, tough shit, what did they expect?” Lucas said. “The important thing is, we’re following the money. That’s what we’re doing, right?”
“If we can spot the prime distributors before they spot us,” Duke said.
“They better not spot you,” Lucas said, “or Mallard will rip your AIC a new one. Mallard’s got some exposure here, too. He’s the one who approved the whole task force.”
“We have some damn good FBI surveillance guys down in Florida,” Devlin chipped in. “They could handle that. Are your people less good?”
“Our people are good,” Duke snapped. “None better. But we’re doing this the hard way, and we’re putting some of our people at risk.”
“Sort of like the junkies. This is what they signed up for,” Lucas snapped back. “So—since we’re going after the money, what’s the plan?”
“We’re watching the hearse. It’ll be coming in . . .” Duke looked at his watch. “. . . what, two, three hours from now.”
The agent who wasn’t looking out the window said, “They’re still south on I-95, not in any big hurry. Slow lane only. We expect they’ll take the 440, the Outerbridge Crossing, onto Staten Island. Or they could go on further north on 95 and take 278 onto the island, because most of Sansone’s assets are in Port Richmond, which is way up at the north end of the island.”
Lucas: “I thought Sansone was out of the Newark area . . .”
“He is, but they won’t take the heroin to his house,” Duke said, with a hint of sarcasm. “If they did, we’d be all over them.”
“Is Sansone in town? Right now?”
“Yes. He has an office in the back of one of his donut shops in Newark. So: what are you two planning to do?”
“We want to hook up with your Staten Island task force. You identify the distributors. We’ll pick out the one most likely to take a deal, and approach him.”
“You’re welcome to ride along,” Duke said. “Even though the AIC is grinding his teeth to a very fine powder. Keep in mind that our people know what they’re doing: don’t get in their way.”
“How do we hook up?” Lucas asked.
“Go downstairs to Grand Central, get on the 4 subway to Bowling Green, which will get you to a quick walk to the Staten Island Ferry. You can’t see exactly where you want to go when you come out of the Bowling Green station, so use your phone maps. We’ll have somebody meet you on the Staten Island side.”
“I’m heading back to Florida,” Weaver said. “We need some further discussion here. Doesn’t involve you guys.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” Lucas said.
“Could have done without the call from Mallard,” Weaver said. “May all the saints bless his slightly soiled soul.”
* * *
Duke was right about getting lost coming out of the Bowling Green station, and they did resort to Google phone maps, although Devlin thought it unmanly. Lucas sat inside for the twenty-five-minute trip, having ridden the ferry with all of his children at one time or another. He could see small, mean snow pellets whipping across the harbor, but Devlin had never been, and went outside to look at the shrinking Manhattan skyline and then the Statue of Liberty, which, to Lucas, always looked smaller and greener than it should. After taking iPhone pictures of Liberty, Devlin came back inside, his face as rigid as a chunk of ebony, and said, “It’s colder than Prancer’s dick out there.”
“I think Prancer’s a girl,” Lucas said.
“No fuckin’ way,” Devlin said. He went to Google on his iPhone, and a minute later said, “Damn! All of Santa’s reindeer are girls. Even Rudolph.”
* * *
An agent named Dillon Koch picked them up at the Staten Island terminal in a Chevy Equinox,