“Everything feel okay?” he asked Sullivan. “No problems steering or anything like that?”
“You mean am I driving it myself and not some asshole with a remote control a thousand miles away?”
“Something like that.”
“So far, so good. First sign of the body snatchers, I’ll let you know. Till then, why don’t you get some sleep? You don’t look so hot.”
“I’m good.”
“You want, I can pull over and let you climb in the back. The bed’s nice.”
“You’ve tried it?”
“Sneaked in one night after I’d had a few too many. Knew the Mrs. would kill me and I didn’t want to shell out for a room at the Athletic Club.”
“Cheapskate.”
“You try bringing up four kids on a cop’s salary.”
“What did you make your best year?”
“A hundred, maybe one-oh-five with overtime. ’Bout what you dump in a month.”
“That’s about right. Tough raising a kid on my salary.”
“With all due respect, fuck you.”
“Get in line, Sully. Get in line. But seriously, how much did you put away?”
“The wife was good about saving. Her brother was a broker. We handed him the nest egg. He wasn’t so good about investing.”
“Lose it all?”
“Not all, but in dribs and drabs. He was always putting us in the next hot stock. Me, I’m a Mick from Queens. What do I know?”
“How much you got with me?”
“Everything I got left.”
“Nothing in the bank?”
“And what, earn one percent per year? I hear what you and your buddies are pulling down. I figure I’ll stay with the master. What did that magazine call you? ‘The prince of risk’?”
“Where are you now?”
“We started at two twenty-five. Think you got us up to four and a quarter. Thank you.”
“That’s something.”
“Not like I can stop working. I’m sixty-seven. I’m feeling pretty good. Who knows how long before I crap out?”
Astor saw a shadow pass over Sullivan’s features. “Don’t worry, Sully. I won’t screw the pooch.”
Sullivan nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
Astor sat up straighter and yawned. “How long we got?”
“Two hundred miles to our destination, though I have no idea what you want to do when we get there at four in the morning.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Astor looked away so Sullivan couldn’t read the doubt in his face. For the first time, Bobby Astor wasn’t sure if he would.
64
The safe house was a large, unloved Colonial located in the rolling hills outside the town of Darien in the Connecticut countryside one hour north of New York City. The house needed paint and a new roof, but it would be just fine for the summer, provided it didn’t rain too much. The leasing agent had called it a steal at $3,000 a month. The tall, vaguely Asian gentleman with the vaguely German name who signed the papers offered no comment. He didn’t mind the flaking paint or the leaky roof. What interested him was the home’s isolated location, the endless back yard that ran into a glade of elms, and the fact that the nearest neighbor lived 500 yards away, with a steep hill to separate them.
“A summer retreat for my family visiting from Singapore,” the client had explained. “They have enough of the sea. It’s land they want.”
The leasing agent took one look at his suit, his shoes, and his solid gold Breguet wristwatch and didn’t ask another question. Clients who paid in advance were a rare commodity-and a cashier’s check to boot. Done.
Team One landed at Westchester County Airport at 7 p.m. local time. The plane taxied to the end of runway two-niner at the far end of the airfield, where a hangar blocked it from view. As the flight had originated in Harlingen, Texas, there were no customs formalities to complete or passport control to clear. An unmarked van belonging to the Sonichi Corporation waited at the designated spot. Keys were left in an envelope inside the dash.
The eight passengers deplaned at 7:09.
At 7:10, all were seated comfortably inside the van.
At 7:15, the van left the airport grounds through the east exit. A lone security guard manned the gate. She was too busy watching the New York Mets wallop the Atlanta Braves to register who was in the van, let alone which direction it traveled in.
The driver kept the speed at the legal limit and made the 48-mile trip in just under an hour. It was full dusk when the van arrived in Darien. The passengers alighted wordlessly. It had been a long day, and it was far from over.
Team Two arrived at 8 p.m. after an eight-hour drive from upstate New York. After crossing the border, the team traveled to the Silicon Solutions distribution center in Buffalo, where they traded the cramped confines of the delivery truck for the more comfortable interior of an unmarked passenger van. From there it was a straight shot east by southeast, traversing the breadth of New York State, turning north at the coast, and entering Connecticut.
Team Three landed at Tweed New Haven Airport at 8 p.m. following a three-hour flight from New Orleans aboard a Noble Energy jet. As they had no luggage, they proceeded directly through baggage claim. A van waited at the curb. As the driver signaled to pull into traffic, an airport policeman motioned for him to stop. The policeman walked up and down the van, eyeing the young men and women inside.
“Who are your passengers?” he asked.
The driver was recently arrived from Poland. His English was passable. He had no idea who his passengers were. He’d been tasked with picking up eight arriving passengers and that is what he had done. He shrugged and shook his head.
The policeman came closer.
“Here for a conference in the city,” volunteered a tall blond man in the front seat who had spent five years as a noncommissioned officer attached to the SBS, or Special Boat Service, a crack commando unit of the British armed forces. “Noble Energy. We’re the European sales staff. Know any places to go to find the ladies?”
The policeman was a fan of English Premier League soccer. The Brits were good people. “In New Haven? Nah. You’re better off heading into Manhattan. Standard Hotel. You’ll be fine there.”
“Thanks, mate.”
The drive to the safe house was brisk and uneventful.
Upon arrival of all three teams, the first order of business was to remove the weapons and equipment from storage and prepare it for tactical use. By now, all of the mercenaries were aware of the loss of the operation’s commander, Luc Lambert, and the capture of the weapons store. Though regrettable, neither occurrence was a disaster. This was a military operation, and military operations by definition made contingencies for setbacks exactly like these. As mandated prior to their departure, Lieutenant Sandy Beaufoy, the leathery South African commando known better as Skinner, took command. His first concern was to organize the delivery of a replacement cache of weapons and supplies to the safe house. Arrangements were made for a delivery first thing in the morning.
Skinner gathered the team in the garage to draw their gear. Each member was issued a Kevlar vest, a communications belt with a virgin cell phone and a two-way military-grade radio, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol and fifty rounds of hollow-point ammunition, a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun along with fifteen clips, each of which contained twenty-seven rounds, two antipersonnel hand grenades, one white phosphorus grenade, a Camelbak hydration system, a packet of high-grade dextroamphetamine, better known as “go pills,” and a KA-BAR knife and sheath.
All members received a last item: a protective plastic pouch containing one 500mg capsule of pure sodium cyanide.
The carrot was the sum of $800,000 to be paid to each member upon successful completion of the mission, on top of the $200,000 each had already banked. The stick was a life sentence without the possibility of parole, to be served at a supermax prison. There inmates spent twenty-three hours a day locked inside a 10-by-7-foot cell where the lights never went out. Exercise was taken one hour a day inside a narrow yard with walls rising 40 feet on all sides and fencing covering the sliver of daylight visible above.