The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [105]
Riot shotguns and a variety of handguns caught the glint of the morning sun. Bolt actions slid into readiness, waking the swans, causing the hired Vietnamese and Mexican help to duck into laundry closets and a few unoccupied rooms.
One of the Club members was arrested during his morning swim. Another member was stopped while jogging down nearby Bellagio Road. The majority of the members were roused from sleep.
The raid was led by Wilkes of the FBI, but the team also included Stuart Fischer, from the New York district attorney’s office. Sarah McGinniss was there in spirit. So was Stefanovitch.
The raid was the culmination of four months of strategic planning and unusual cooperation, not only among U.S. agencies but also governments around the world. Known Club members had been under surveillance for weeks before the California meeting. The documentation necessary for prosecution filled several large rooms in Wilkes’s offices in Washington. Duplicate material was stored in warehouses in New Jersey and, for safety, at Interpol headquarters in Europe.
The RICO Act was cited over and over again to the twenty-seven businesspeople, then to their expensive teams of attorneys.
So much for respectability; for the Club’s being civilized and blending in; for euphemism of any kind. The police were finally learning the rules of the game. There were no rules at all. Except to shoot to kill.
100
Alexandre St.-Germain; The World Trade Center
SEVEN-FIFTY A.M., AND he was alone. He was more alone than he had ever been in his life. Am I suicidal? he wondered. He had no definite answer for himself.
He hurried across the sterile expanse of marble and stone inside the World Trade Center lobby. He took one last deep breath at the elevator banks, to steady himself, to get himself ready.
He pulled out an Ingram machine-gun pistol. The compact weapon came from underneath a loose-fitting black sports jacket.
It happened so quickly that no one could have reacted any differently. A man pushing an Au Bon Pain bakery cart distracted the bodyguards at the last moment.
“No one moves. That means you and you especially. No point trying to be heroes here. No need to die for this piece of shit.”
Alexandre St.-Germain recognized Parker an instant before he saw the submachine gun. Parker had reached the elevator doors simultaneously with St.-Germain and his entourage.
The plan was skillful in its execution, almost effortless. To work, it had to be.
Parker immediately pushed St.-Germain inside the elevator. He pressed the black muzzle of the Ingram hard up against the man’s throat.
“Don’t sweat it,” he said to the Grave Dancer. “Everything is cool. We’ve already thought of everything. No body doubles this time.”
Both of Alexandre St.-Germain’s hands were thrust out, palms forward. He was holding back his own people. “I will take care of this,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”
The doors slid shut without a sound. Parker and St.-Germain were alone inside the elevator, facing one another across the empty passenger car.
“I’m sure we can work something out. Come to an agreement.” St.-Germain spoke very softly.
“Just shut up, Pusherman.”
101
PARKER JABBED THE button marked “108,” the tower’s top floor. Up there was the famed observation deck, where ordinary folks could pay to peer out over New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, the whole metropolitan area.
The passing floor numbers registered on the indicator lights. The elevator-car cables whined like ropes of steel scraping together.
As the numbers reached thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, Isiah Parker watched closely; then he jammed the emergency button. The elevator bucked slightly, then slowly scraped to a stop. The alarm bell inside went off, a loud wailing that was painful to the ears.
“You thought you had it all figured out,