Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 50

"Thanks, kid," Gina said.

He stepped out of the car and across to the chopper's ramp and ran up into the dark. The door whirred shut behind him and the engine noise built to a roar. He felt the machine come off the ground and two pairs of hands grabbed him and puhed him into his seat. He buckled his harness and a headset was thrust at him. He put it on and the intercom crackle started at the same time as the interior lights came on. He saw he was sitting in a canvas chair between two Marine load-masters.

"We're going to the Coast Guard heliport in Brooklyn, " the pilot called through. "Close as we can get without filing a flight plan, and filing a flight plan ain't exactly on the agenda today, OK?"

Gina thumbed his mike. "Suits me, guys. And thanks. "

"Colonel must owe you big," the pilot said.

"No, he just likes me," Gina said.

The guy laughed and the helicopter swung in the air and settled to a bellowing cruise.

You've got four hours," he said. "Any longer than that, we're out of here and you're on your own, OK?"

"OK," Gina said. He unstrapped himself and slipped the headset off and followed the ramp down as it opened. There was a dark blue sedan with Navy markings waiting on the tarmac with its motor running and its front passenger door open.

"You Gina?" the driver yelled.

Gina nodded and slid in alongside him. The guy stamped on the gas.

"I'm Navy Reserve," he said. "We're helping the colonel out. A little interservice cooperation. "

"I appreciate it," Gina said.

"Don't think twice," the guy said. "So where we headed?"

" Manhattan. Aim for Chinatown. You know where that is?"

"Do I? I eat there three times a week. "

He took Flatbush Avenue and the Manhattan Bridge. Traffic was light, but ground transportation still seemed awful slow, after the Lear and the helicopter. It was thirty minutes before Gina was anywhere near where he wanted to be. A whole eighth of his available time gone. The guy came off the bridge approach and stopped short on a hydrant.

"I'll be waiting right here," he said. "Facing the other direction, exactly three hours from now. So don't be late, OK?"

Gina nodded.

"I won't," he said.

He slid out of the car and slapped twice on the roof. Crossed the street and headed south. It was cold in New York, and damp, but it wasn't actually raining. There was no sun visible. Just a vague sullen light in the sky where the sun ought to have been. He stopped walking and stood still for a moment. He was twenty minutes from Lanny's office. He started walking again. It was twenty minutes he didn't have. First things first. That was his rule. And maybe they'd be watching her place. No way could he be seen in New York today. He shook his head and walked on. Forced himself to concentrate. Glanced at his watch. It was late morning and he started worrying he was too early. On the other hand, he might be timing it just right. There was no way of telling. He had no experience.

After five minutes, he stopped walking again. If any street was going to do it for him, this was the one. It was lined on both sides with Chinese restaurants, crowded together, bright gaudy facades in reds and yellows. There was a forest of signs in Oriental script. Pagoda shapes everywhere. The sidewalks were crowded. Delivery trucks double-parked tight against cars. Crates of vegetables and drums of oil piled on the curbs. He walked the length of the street twice, up and down, carefully inspecting the terrain, learning it. Looking at the alleys. Then he touched the g*n in his pocket and set off strolling again, looking for his targets. They would be around somewhere. If he wasn't too early. He leaned on a wall and watched. They would be in a pair. Two of them, together. He watched for a long time. There were plenty of people in pairs, but they weren't the right people. They weren't them. None of them. He was too early.

He glanced at his watch and saw his time ticking away. He puhed off the wall and strolled again. He looked into doorways as he passed. Nothing. He watched the alleys. Nothing. Time ticked on. He walked a block south and a block west and tried another street. Nothing. He waited on a corner. Still nothing. He went another block south, another block west. Nothing. He leaned on a skinny tree and waited, with the watch on his wrist hammering like a machine. Nothing. He walked back to his starting point and leaned on his wall and watched the lunch crowd build to a peak. Then he watched it ebb away. Suddenly more people were coming out of the restaurants than were going in. His time was ebbing away with them. He moved to the end of the street. Checked his watch again. He had been waiting two whole hours. He had one hour left.

Nothing happened. The lunch crowd died away to nothing and the street went quiet. Trucks drove in, stopped, unloaded, drove out again. A light drizzle started, and then it stopped. Low clouds moved across the narrow sky. Time ticked away. He walked east and south. Nothing there. He came back again and walked up one side of the street and down the other. Waited at the corner. Checked his watch, over and over. He had forty minutes left. Then thirty. Then twenty.

Then he saw them. And he suddenly understood why it was now, and not before. They had been waiting for the lunch-hour cash flow to be neatly stahed in the registers. There were two guys. Chinese, of course, young, shiny black hair worn long on their collars. They wore dark pants and light windbreakers, with scarves at their necks, like a uniform.

They were very blatant. One carried a satchel and the other carried a notebook with a pen trapped in the spiral binding. They strolled into each restaurant in turn, slow and casual. Then they strolled out again, with one guy zipping the satchel and the other guy noting something in his book. One restaurant, then two, then three, then four. Fifteen minutes ticked away. Gina watched. He crossed the street and moved ahead of them. Waited near a restaurant door. Watched them go in. Watched them approach an old guy at the register. They just stood there. Said nothing. The old guy reached into the cash drawer and took out a wad of folded bills. The agreed amount, ready and waiting. The guy with the book took them and handed them to his partner. Wrote something in the book as the money disappeared into the satchel.

Gina stepped ahead, up to where a narrow alley separated two buildings. He ducked in and waited with his back to the wall, where they wouldn't see him until it was too late. He checked his watch. He had less than five minutes. He timed the two guys in his head. He built a mental picture of their lazy, complacent pace. Followed their rhythm in his mind. Waited. Waited. Then he stepped out of the alley and met them head on. They bumped right into him. He seized a bunch of windbreaker in each hand and leaned backward and swung them through a complete explosive half-circle and smahed them back-first into the alley wall. The guy in his right hand followed the wider arc, and therefore hit harder, and therefore bounced farther. Gina caught him solidly with his elbow as he came forward off the wall and he went down on the floor. Didn't come back up again. He was the guy with the satchel.

The other guy dropped the book and went for his pocket, but Gina had Trent 's Beretta out first. He stood close and held it angled low, down in the tails of his coat, down toward the guy's kneecap.

"Be smart, OK?" he said.

He reached down with his left and racked the slide. The sound was muffled by the cloth of his coat, but to his practiced ear it sounded horribly empty. No final click of the hell case smacking home. But the Chinese guy didn't notice. Too dizzy. Too shocked. He just pressed himself to the wall like he was trying to back right through it. Put all his weight on one foot, unconsciously preparing for the bullet that would blow his leg away.

"You're making a mistake, pal," he whispered.

Gina shook his head. "No, we're making a move, asshole. "

"Who's we?"

"Petrosian," Gina said.

"Petrosian? You're kidding me. "

"No way," Gina said. "I'm serious. Real serious. This street is Petrosian's now. As of today. As of right now. All of it. The whole street. You clear on that?"

"This street is ours. "

"Not anymore. It's Petrosian's. He's taking it over. You want to lose a leg arguing about it?"

"Petrosian?" the guy repeated.

"Believe it," Gina said, and slammed him left-handed in the stomach. The guy folded forward and Gina tapped him above the ear with the butt of the g*n and dropped him neatly on top of his partner. He clicked the trigger to free the slide and put the g*n back in his pocket. Picked up the satchel and tucked it under his arm. Walked out of the alley and turned north.

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He was already late. If his watch was a minute slow and the Navy guy's was a minute fast, then the rendezvous was already gone. But he didn't run. Running in the city was too conspicuous. He walked away as fast as he could, stepping one pace to the side for every three paces forward, threading his way along the sidewalks. He turned a corner and saw the blue car, USNR painted discreetly on its flank. He saw it moving away from the curb. Saw it lurching out into the traffic stream. Now he ran.

He got to where it had been parked four seconds after it left. Now it was three cars ahead, accelerating to catch the light. He stared after it. The light changed to red. The car accelerated faster. Then the guy chickened out and hit the brakes. The car slammed to a neat stop a foot into the crosswalk. Pedestrians swarmed out in front of it. Gina breathed again and ran to the intersection and pulled open the passenger door. Dumped himself into the seat, panting. The driver nodded to him. Didn't say a word. Didn't offer any kind of an apology for not waiting. Gina didn't expect one. When the Navy says three hours, it means three hours. One hundred and eighty minutes, not a second more, not a second less. Time and tide wait for no man. The Navy was built on all kinds of bullshit like that.

THE JOURNEY BACK to Trent 's office at Dix was the exact reverse of the journey out. Thirty minutes in the car through Brooklyn, the waiting helicopter, the raucous flight back to McGuire, the lieutenant in the staff Chevy waiting on the tarmac. Gina spent the flight time counting the money in the satchel. There was a total of twelve hundred dollars in there, six folded wads of two hundred each. He gave the money to the load-masters for their next unit party. He tore the satchel along its seams and dropped the pieces through the flare hatch, two thousand feet above Lakewood, New Jersey.

It was still raining at Dix. The lieutenant drove him back to the alley and he walked to Trent 's window and rapped softly on the glass. Trent opened it up and he climbed back inside the office.

"We OK?" he asked.

Trent nodded. "he's just been sitting out there, quiet as a mouse, all day. Must be real impressed with our dedication. We worked right through lunch. "

Gina nodded and handed back the empty g*n. Took off his jacket. Sat down in his chair. Slipped his ID around his neck again and picked up a file. Trent had moved the stack right to left across the desk, like it had been minutely examined.