The task forcesuite was on the hotel’s top floor, behind double doors. A sign sat on a tripod by the door, and said,private meeting—benelux insurance corporation. Inside, three menand four women sat at two boardroom-style tables, looking at computer screens, or chatting; one of them was reading a copy of theTimes. Two cartons of pastries sat on a side table, with some dry-looking Saran-wrapped sandwiches; a Yeti cooler held soft drinks and single-serving bottles of orange juice.
Another man and a woman were at a window, looking out over Staten Island. Everybody paused to look at Lucas, Devlin, and Koch; then the people at computers went back to the computers, or chatting, while the two at the window walked over to the newcomers.
The woman was tall, wearing a dark green suit that matched her eyes, and reddish hair. She stuck out a large, square hand to Lucas and said, “I’m Kate Orish, I’m running the room here.” She nodded at the man, “Dick Kerry is my second.”
Lucas introduced himself and Devlin, then asked, “Where’s the hearse?”
“Looking for surveillance. We were worried that they might be going somewhere we didn’t know about, but then we realized they were running a countersurveillance pattern. They’re still doing that, weaving through the streets, but they’re getting closer and closer to the car wash. Don’t worry, they haven’t seen us.”
“Any idea about their schedule? How soon they’ll be moving the dope?”
“The car wash has a garage on the back part of the lot. We think that’s where they’ll park the hearse. But they’ve got a body on board, and we think they’ll want to get rid of it as soon as they can. We think that the prime distributors will start coming by today. It’s likely that each of the prime guys will be cutting the heroin on his own, rather than somebody trying to cut it all at once, because they all know their own markets. Some will want to cut withfentanyl, some might cut with baking powder, some might move the pure stuff on to lower levels. We don’t know how they do it in this operation.”
“Here we go,” said one of the women looking at computers. “The hearse is making a move toward the car wash.”
Lucas looked over her shoulder, to what looked like a Google map; the map was actually following the tracker on the hearse. Lucas asked, “Where’s the car wash?”
She tapped the screen: “Here. He’s five blocks away.”
They watched as the hearse made another quick turn, and another, and then the woman said, “They’ll drive right past our truck.”
They watched the tracker, then switched to a new computer screen, with a male operator, as the hearse popped up on the camera view of the car wash. After pausing at the cross street, the hearse crossed it, pulled into the driveway at the car wash, and drove toward the garage, where an overhead door opened as it approached. As soon as the hearse was inside, the door came down.
“There are two people in the garage, besides the hearse drivers,” Orish said. “Neither one is a prime distributor. Those guys haven’t shown up yet.”
Nothing moved for a half hour, when an access door opened, and a man came out, followed by the two drivers who Lucas had seen in Hallandale. They walked across the driveway and into the main car wash building, and out of sight. “That’s our guys,” Lucas said. “They looked happy enough.”
“They’re probably looking for an envelope full of cash,” Kerry said. “I expect they’ll be filling out their income tax forms later today, reporting the payment.”
“Probably,” Devlin said. “Getting that Social Security deducted.”
Ten minutes later,the hearse drivers came out of the car wash building, walked back into the garage. The overhead door went up, the hearse backed out, and rolled out of the car wash. Lucas watched on the mapping computer as it headed south on the island, then east, and finally stopped. “Funeral home,” the computer operator said. “They’re dumping the body.”
“The heroin is in the garage,” Orish said. “This is good. This is good.”
Nothing was moving at the garage and a half hour after the hearse arrived at the funeral home, it set off again.
“You know what?” Orish said, after watching the tracker for a while. “I think they’re coming here. Either here or over at the Hampton Inn.”
“They’ll probably stay overnight and then head back to Florida,” Devlin said. “By the time they get back, they’ll have another load.”
“I’m hoping we’ll only do this once,” Orish said.
“We’re all hoping that. We’ve got a couple of people undercover, risking their necks with every load,” Lucas said.
Orish: “Then let’s get it right the first time.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Behan called Cattaneoand asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s still a little rough, but we’re going out. Willy’s okay with it—he wants the cash.”
“Talked to Dougie,” Behan said. “The hearse is in the garage.”
“Excellent,” Cattaneo said. “Though that sounds like a euphemism for a guy who has trouble getting it up, finally getting a hit of Viagra.”
