Lawrence Sanders - Timothy's game

“Beautiful,” Cone says. “Back entrance?”

“Nope. Just a small blind courtyard. Fenced and topped with razor wire. There it is; take a look.”

They saunter along on the other side of Doyers Street, pausing while Cone lights a cigarette, giving him a chance to eyeball the place. Three red-brick tenements in a row. The center building has the ground-floor restaurant. He spots the guards lounging near an iron gate. They look like kids to him: short and wiry.

Cone and Wong continue their slow stroll, turn onto Pell and then Mott Street.

“There’s a place up near Canal where we can get coffee and a nosh,” Johnnie says. “It’s probably open by now.”

“Yeah,” Cone says, “that sounds good. My treat.”

They sit at a table against a white-tiled wall. Wong tucks into a down-home breakfast of buttermilk pancakes and pork sausages with a side order of hush puppies. Cone has a bagel with cream cheese, lox, and a slice of onion. Both swill black coffee.

“You were right,” Timothy says. “A fucking fortress. You guys thinking of hitting it?”

“Our legal eagles say we don’t need a warrant; we’ve got probable cause: a kidnap victim being held against his will on the third floor. But how do we do it? We rush the place like gangbusters and already we’re in deep trouble. Those two jerko guards will probably draw and start blasting away; you know that. And if they don’t, they’ll push the alarm button. That’s what scares me most, because if the alarm goes off before we get upstairs, the guys in the third-floor office are liable to pop Edward Tung Lee just so he can’t testify against them. I told you they were savages, didn’t I? Real primitive types.”

Cone continues munching his bagel sandwich and gulping black coffee. “So what do you want from my young life?”

“We can’t let Edward Lee rot in there, can we? We’ve got to make a try at getting him out as long as it doesn’t endanger his life.”

“You could surround the front of the building and make a big show of force. Then bring in your hostage negotiation team.”

“You think that would work?” Wong says, pouring more syrup on his pancakes.

“No,” Cone says. “Because if they cave and hand you Lee, they’ll know you’ve got them on a kidnap rap.”

“Right. Well, you were an infantryman. Vietnam and your medals and all that shit. So what do you suggest?”

Cone pushes back from the table, lights another cigarette. He finishes his coffee and signals for a refill.

“You got some cowboys in your office?” he asks.

“You mean like a SWAT team? Sure, we got guys like that. An assault squad. Specially trained. Real hotshots. They just don’t give a damn.”

“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Listen, you know anything about the tong wars back in the twenties and thirties?”

“A little. I know the area bounded by Mott, Pell, and Doyer streets was called the Bloody Triangle.”

“That’s right. Well, during one of those wars the boss of a tong was threatened by an opposing gang. They swore they were going to top him. So he surrounded himself with bodyguards. On the street outside his headquarters. In the room where he worked. Even in his bedroom. But he got slammed just the same. You know how?”

“How?”

“The enemy went up on the roof of the building next to the tong headquarters. Same height. They crossed over and let a shooter down in a bosun’s chair. He popped the bossman through a front window.”

Johnnie Wong stares at him. “Son of a bitch,” he says softly.

“Probably the world’s first demonstration of vertical envelopment,” Cone goes on. “When you’re in a firefight, or going into one, you tend to think horizontally. You figure the enemy will be on the same level. You never expect to get a load of crap dumped on your head. In World War Two it took a while for our guys in the South Pacific to learn the Nip snipers were up in the trees.”

Wong leans forward, interested. “You think it would work here?”

“You’ve got buildings on both sides of the United Bamboo headquarters. All the buildings are tight together and the same height. Crossing to the middle roof should be a cinch. You couldn’t lower just one guy; you need more firepower than that. The Yubies’ headquarters are three windows wide. You make sure your lines are secure, and then three guys rappel down the face of the building, one guy to each stack of windows. They’re armed with Uzis or maybe Ingrams or whatever lightweight choppers you guys are using these days. They rappel down to the third floor and start blasting the bejesus out of everything in sight, keeping their shots high because you don’t want Edward Lee cut in two. If you think all that shooting is too risky, then have your hotshots kick the windows out with their boots and toss in stun grenades.”

“Or tear gas,” Wong says. He’s getting excited now.

Cone shakes his head. “Gas would take too long to knock out Lee’s guards. And besides, while this is going on, you’re going to have a squad charging up the stairs to the third floor. And unless they’re wearing masks, the gas will take them out, too.”

“And how does this squad get past the guards, inside the two locked doors, and go galloping up to the rescue?”

“When the guys come down from the roof and the party begins, those two guards are going to run out into the middle of the street and look up, to see what’s going on. That’ll be your chance to grab them-while they’re still peeing their pants. As for those locked doors, they shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to pry open if you’ve got the right tools. My advice would be to blow them. Look, I haven’t been in the war business for years, so I don’t know what new goodies you guys have in your armory. But I’ll bet you’ve got gizmos to get you through locked doors in seconds. Then you go hotfooting up to the third floor where the bad guys are still spooked.”

“You really think that meshugass would work?”

Cone shrugs. “Fifty-fifty,” he says.

“Come on,” Johnnie Wong says angrily, “give it to me straight. If you had to make the top decision, would you say go or no-go?”

“Go,” Cone says.

Wong sighs. “All right,” he says. “I’ll give it the old college try. We’ll have to buck this one all the way up the line, probably to D.C. It’s the time factor that worries me. I want to get Edward Lee out of there before the media gets wind of it or we’ll have a three-ring circus on our hands. By rights, we should have conferences on this, liaise with the NYPD, and maybe even run a rehearsal down at Quantico. But we just don’t have the time. Listen, are you going to be home this weekend?”

“I’ll be in and out.”

“I’ll try to keep you up to speed on what’s going on. I owe you that; it’s your idea.”

“Look,” Cone says, “if you can’t get enough guys to jump off the roof, I could do that. I know how to rappel.”

Wong looks at him with amusement. “Smell action?” he asks. “Can’t get it out of your system, can you? Thanks for the offer, but we’ve got weapons you haven’t even heard about.”

“Guns are guns,” Cone says. “You point and pull the trigger.”

“Forget it,” the FBI man advises. “My God, you’re just a lousy civilian.”

Johnnie says he wants to get back to his office as soon as possible, so Timothy decides to walk home-a nice hike that’ll get his juices flowing. The sun has popped up, but the air is still cool enough. It promises to be a hot, beamy day, not a rain cloud in sight. There’s a skywriting plane at work over Manhattan, and Cone wonders what would happen if a berserk pilot spelled out FUCK YOU for all the city to see and ponder.

He buys a morning Times and a Barron’s from a sidewalk kiosk. Then, nearing home, he begins stocking up on groceries and potables, figuring he’ll spend the weekend in the loft; he doesn’t want to be out if Johnnie Wong calls.