Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [113]
“Jesus Christ, Ernie! Watch the walls!”
The Vets cab meanwhile had finished its tailspin. It was blocking off every police car except one, Tubbs’s, which had somehow slipped by.
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Detective Tubbs yelled as he fought the unmarked car’s steering wheel for control.
“All units, all units! They set a roadblock on the FDR! Repeat. There’s a roadblock on the FDR! Over.”
Meanwhile, the single police sedan was screeching into teeming traffic filling all three narrow, twisting lanes of the FDR south. A truck slammed to a jolting stop behind. Horns blared from every possible direction.
The police car was hemmed in tight by two of the Vets cabs. The black barrels of M-16s were jammed out both windows of the cab to their left.
Ernie Tubbs couldn’t breathe. He was bottled in at fifty-five miles an hour. One of the M-16s fired a round.
The warning shot flared over the police sedan roof like night tracers in a combat battle zone.
A Vet in military khakis and black greasepaint screamed over at Tubbs. His voice was muffled under the traffic whistle, but Tubbs could hear every word.
“Get off at the next stop! Get the fuck off this road!… Everybody but the driver hands up! I said hands up! Hands up!”
Closing on the next exit, Tubbs spun his wheel hard right toward the guardrail. The unmarked police sedan shot at a seventy-degree angle toward the off ramp.
It bumped hard over loose plates, sending off sparks. The patrol car went up on two wheels. It threatened to turn over. After a moment when gravity seemed an indecisive force, the car finally bounced back onto all four wheels. It shimmied down the off ramp, then stopped dead on the bordering city street.
“We lost them! Over.” Tubbs screamed into his radio transmitter. “We lost them on the FDR!”
Detective Maury Klein finally Whispered out loud inside the police sedan, “Thank fucking God.”
Chapter 85
AS SOON AS he heard the news that Green Band had been spotted, Carroll spun down several steep flights of stairs inside No. 13.
He took the rubber-edged steps two and three at a time. He was racing outside, hoping to find a police helicopter waiting.
Everything was happening at once on the street.
Crashing footsteps of other running men. Police squad car engines starting. Tires screeching up and down Wall Street and Broad and Water.
Carroll was carting an M-16 rifle, which felt weird bouncing against his body. Flashback time—he was an Army infantry soldier again….
Except for one thing: this was downtown Manhattan and not Viet Nam.
His sports coat flew open as he ran, revealing the Browning holster as well as a bulletproof vest. His heart was pounding at a volume consistent with the street noise.
A radio squad car he passed relayed me latest information on Green Band’s whereabouts.
“They’re moving at about thirty-five miles per hour Six vehicles. They’re all regular Checker cabs. All are heavily armed. They’re proceeding east.” It’s a set-up for something else, Carroll thought.
What though? What were the Vets going to do now? What was Hudson’s plan?
A silver and black Bell helicopter was waiting in a Kinney parking lot A few weeks earlier, the parking lot would have been filled with the luxury cars of Wall Street workaholics. The police helicopter was whirring like an outsized moth. It was ready to fly.
“M-16 and a Bell chopper.” Carroll winced as he swung his body inside the hot, cramped helicopter cockpit. “Christ, this brings back memories. Hi, I’m Carroll,” he said to the police pilot seated inside.
“Luther Parrish,” the pilot grunted. He was NYPD, a heavyset black man with a leather flak jacket and clear yellow goggle glasses. “You ex-Viet Nam? You look like it. Feel like it.” Parrish snapped a thick wad of gum as he talked.
“Class of 1970.” Carroll finally smiled. He played it a little combat cool, like you would boarding a copter in Nam. The truth was, he hated choppers. He hated seeing the goddamn things. Carroll didn’t like