Murch, who was driving, found the sun reflected into his eyes from the rearview mirror. He switched the mirror to the night setting, reducing the sun to a yellowish ball in an olive haze, and said irritably, "Where the hell is this place anyway?"
"Not much farther," Kelp said. He was holding the typed sheet of instructions in his hands and was sitting beside Murch. The other three were in back, Dortmunder on the right, Chefwick in the middle, Greenwood on the left. They were all in their guard uniforms again, the policelike costumes they'd worn at the Coliseum. Murch, who didn't have a uniform like that, was wearing a Greyhound bus driver's jacket and cap. Although it was properly hot for August outside, the air conditioning inside made it jacket-and-cap-wearing weather.
"Turn there," Kelp said, pointing ahead.
Murch shook his head in disgust. "Which way?" he said with studied patience.
"Left," Kelp said. "Didn't I say that?"
"Thank you," Murch said. "No, you didn't."
Murch turned left, into a narrow blacktop alley between two brick warehouses. It was already twilight in here, but sun shone orange on stacked wooden crates at the far end. Murch steered the Lincoln around the crates and out to a large open area surrounded on all sides by the backs of warehouses. The blacktop ran one lane wide along the rear of the warehouses, like a frame around a picture, but the picture itself was nothing but a big flat square of weedy dirt. In the middle of the empty space stood the helicopter.
"That's big," Kelp said. He sounded awed.
The helicopter looked huge, standing out there all alone like that. It was painted a dull Army brown, had a round glass nose, small glass side windows, and blades that hung out like washlines.
Murch jounced the Lincoln over the rough ground and stopped near the helicopter. Up close it didn't look as gigantic. They could see it was just a little taller than a man and not much longer than the Lincoln. Squares and rectangles of black tape covered the body here and there, apparently to hide identifying numbers or symbols.
They all got out of the cool Lincoln into the hot world and Murch rubbed his hands together as he grinned at the machine in front of them. "Now, there's a baby that'll go," he said.
Dortmunder, suddenly suspicious, said, "You did drive one of these things before, right?"
"I told you," Murch said. "I can drive anything."
"Yeah," Dortmunder said. "That's what you told me, I remember that."
"Right," said Murch. He kept grinning at the helicopter.
"You can drive anything," Dortmunder said, "but the question is did you ever drive one of these things before?"
"Don't answer him," Kelp said to Murch. "I don't want to know the answer, and neither does he, not now. Come on, let's load up."
"Right," said Murch, while Dortmunder slowly shook his head. Murch went around and opened the Lincoln's trunk and they all started to carry things from the trunk over to the helicopter. Chefwick carried his black bag, Greenwood and Dortmunder carried the machine guns and between them toted by its handles a green metal box full of detonators and tear gas grenades and miscellaneous tools. Kelp carried a cardboard carton full of handcuffs and strips of white cloth. Murch checked to be sure the Lincoln was locked up tight, then followed carrying the portable jammer, a heavy black box about the size of a beer case, bristling with knobs and dials and retracted antennas.
The inside of the helicopter was similar to the inside of a car, with two padded bucket seats up front and a long seat across the back. There was stowage space behind the back seat into which they shoved everything, then arranged themselves with Murch at the wheel, Dortmunder beside him, and the other three in back. They shut the door and Dortmunder studied Murch studying the controls. After a minute Dortmunder said in disgust, "You never even saw one of these things before."
Murch turned on him. "Are you kidding? I read in Popular Mechanics how to make one, you don't think I can drive one?"
Dortmunder looked over his shoulder at Kelp. "I could be peddling encyclopedias right now," he said.
Murch, having been insulted, said to Dortmunder, "Come on, now, watch this. I hit this switch here, see? And this lever. And I do this."
A roaring started. Dortmunder looked up, and through the glass bubble he could see the blades rotating. They went faster and faster and became a blur.
Murch tapped Dortmunder's knee. He was still explaining things as he did this and that to the controls, even though Dortmunder couldn't hear him any more. But Dortmunder kept watching, because anything was better than looking up at the noisy blur overhead.
Abruptly, Murch smiled and sat back and nodded and pointed out. Dortmunder looked out and the ground wasn't there. He leaned forward, looking through the bubble, and the ground was way down below, orange-yellow-green-black, jagged with long shadows from the setting sun. "Oh, yeah," Dortmunder said softly, though no one could hear him. "That's right."
Murch fiddled around for a couple of minutes, getting used to things, making the helicopter do some odd maneuvers, but then he settled down and they began to move northeast.
Dortmunder had never realized before just how full the sky was. Newark Airport was just a little ways behind them, and the sky was as full of circling planes as a shopping center parking lot on a Saturday is full of people circling to find a place to park. Murch was moving along under them, heading for New York at a good clip. They passed over Newark Bay and Jersey City and Upper Bay and then Murch figured out how to steer and he turned left a little and they followed the Hudson north, Manhattan on their right like stalagmites with cavities, New Jersey on their left like uncollected garbage.
After the first few minutes, Dortmunder liked it. Murch didn't seem to be doing anything wrong, and aside from the noise it was kind of nice to be hanging up in the sky here like this. The guys in back were nudging each other and pointing at things like the Empire State Building, and Dortmunder turned at one point and grinned at Kelp, who shrugged and grinned back.
The jet they were planning to use for cover normally roared over the police station at seven thirty-two every evening. Tonight they wouldn't be able to hear it, not being able to hear anything but themselves, so they would either have to see it or just take a chance on its being there. Dortmunder hadn't realized noise would be a problem like this, and it troubled him, detracting from the enjoyment of the ride.
Murch tapped him on the knee and pointed to the right. Dortmunder looked, and over there was another helicopter, with a radio station's call letters on the side. The pilot waved, and Dortmunder waved back. The man beside the pilot was too busy to wave, talking into a microphone and looking down at the West Side Highway, which was all snarled up.
Far away on their left the sun was sinking slowly into Pennsylvania, the sky turning pink and mauve and purple. Manhattan was already in twilight.
Dortmunder checked his watch. Seven-twenty. They were doing well.
The plan was to circle around the police station and come at it from the rear, so the cops out front wouldn't get a glimpse of the helicopter landing on their roof. Murch kept following the Hudson north, therefore, until Harlem stood snaggle-toothed on their right, and then he made a wide sweeping U-turn. It was like being a kid on one of those Coney Island rides, only higher up.
Murch had figured out the altitude adjustment by now. He eased down through the air over the Upper West Side, figuring out the street they wanted from landmarks like Central Park and the meeting of Broadway with West End Avenue. And then, dead ahead, there stood the black rectangle of the police station roof.
Kelp leaned forward and tapped Dortmunder's shoulder. When Dortmunder looked at him, he pointed to the sky on their right. Dortmunder looked up there and saw the jet coming out of the west, sweep-winged, sparkling, noisy. Dortmunder grinned and nodded.