Driving Heat (32 page)

Carolyn Jay blushed. “Well. More of a Miss Marple than a Nikki Heat.”

“This one,” said Speyer. He held out one of the ads.

“Are you sure?” Heat asked. “You do know that it could also be neither one?”

“No, definitely this one. It’s got the same white center console for the chrome steering wheel. And see the flared lines of the inset for the motor mount on the stern? Never seen
that before on a boat. Made me want it when I saw it.” He tapped the page with his forefinger. “
This.
I’m telling you.”

With a grateful nod to the librarian, Heat took out her cell phone and dialed the number in the ad.

The owner of Natural Neil’s Marine Restorations in Glen Cove, New York,
didn’t need to look up the sky-blue skiff in his
records because, as with all the boats there, he had worked on it personally. The eighteen-footer had come in along with a number of small vessels damaged when Hurricane Irene blew through in 2011,
and he liked the result of his labor so much, he posted a picture of it in his ads a year later. Once Natural Neil felt sure that Heat was who she said she was, he did go to his records to look up
the address of the skiff’s owner. Before they hung up, he said, “By the way? It’s not really sky blue. In the trade, it’s known as
celeste pallido
.”

A half hour later, Detective Feller, in a floppy fisherman’s hat with a rod and tackle to complete his cover, steered his borrowed undercover Whaler from the Red Hook channel into
Brooklyn’s Erie Basin. He chugged the man-made cove lazily, pretending to be as much interested in the gulls and puffy clouds as he was in his true focus, which was the wharf line. The barge
company that had made the repair payment for the skiff had an address that placed it on a rectangular inlet off Beard Street, just west of the new Ikea. He avoided the narrow channel so he
wouldn’t arouse any suspicion, killed his engine, and floated along in the basin, casting his lure and letting his gaze follow the splash, which was always in the direction of the barge dock.
After a few casts, he leaned his fishing pole on the gunwale, reached down for his tackle box, and took out a sandwich. On his second bite he put the sandwich down and casually picked up his phone.
Heat answered on the first ring. The detective said, “Got your sky blue skiff.”

R
andall Feller maintained a low-key surveillance in case he was being observed, even as he took precautions to cover all the
bases. With Heat engaged for at least half an hour of travel time from Midtown, the critical priority was to observe keenly in order to learn whatever he could about what was going on at Channel
Maritime, while wrapping a net around the perimeter of the wharf that nobody could slip through. The hard part of that job was not being obvious about it. Do it wrong, and you could excel at
keeping the bad guys in, but at the expense of driving away their accomplices if, for example, they had recently taken a ride to pick up a pizza and were coming back with it.

Feller’s first goal was to get himself on land. In short order, three vessels from the Harbor Unit responded to his radio call and formed a blockade, keeping out of the sight line of the
dockyard. That freed him to reel in his lure and putt-putt across the basin to his car in the Ikea lot a quarter mile east.

He met Heat just as she arrived at the staging area Lieutenant Marr had already been set up around the corner and a block north on Van Dyke in the weed-overgrown parking lot of a deteriorating
warehouse. Nikki’s first call after getting Feller’s confirmed skiff sighting was to Marr, asking the veteran Emergency Services officer to command the raid. Even though he worked out
of the 108th Precinct up in Long Island City, she had prior experience with him and, with the possibility of Rook’s being held captive in there, she wanted the best: a cool-headed pro who
left little to chance and got results. “Shouldn’t we get some observers out there while we do this?” asked Feller.

“Already done, Detective,” said Marr with a smile.

“I just went by, and I didn’t see any.”

The weathered corners of the lieutenant’s eyes were tugged into a genial squint. “That’s good news then. We can relax.” He must have noticed the tension in Nikki, and so
went right to work spreading an enlargement of a municipal street map on the hood of his car. How the ESU had managed to pull together a strategy map complete with color-coded markings for
containment, deployment, and contingencies in under thirty minutes—while in transit from Queens—mystified her. But all that, along with the calm Marr had already bestowed on her and
Feller with his light military demeanor, told her she had made the right choice calling in this man.

“We’re setting up intercepts on land and water. Detective Feller, you’ve already taken care of the harbor; what I’ve done is placed units at these intersections.”
He took out an old silver-plated Cross pen and used it as a pointer. “Our choke points are Beard and Dwight, Beard and Van Brunt, Richards and Van Dyke. Fall-back roamers will work Coffey
Street between Otsego and Conover.” He triple-tapped the page. “Nobody’s busting out of here without a Double-Oh-Seven jetpack.” He gave Nikki a wink. “That’ll
happen one of these days. Not today, I have a feeling.”

“What about air support?” she asked.

“Standby only. Chopper’s going to attract media. Don’t want that. There’s a Bell Four-twenty-nine on routine patrol less than two minutes away in Cobble Hill. If we need
a copter, we’ll have a copter, and in a hurry.” He went back to his map.

“Here’s how it’s going to come down. On green, the BearCat parked behind us will enter through the front gate, which is padlocked. That is why God gave us BearCats.
Simultaneously, our other assault vehicle will pull up to the east-side fence here, where teams will deploy from its roof over the concertina with mats and Telesteps. Harbor Unit will send two
boats up the channel to deploy officers and to discourage a water exit. Each team coming in the gate, over the fence, and up the canal will have target assignments.” Nikki leaned in as he
pointed to each spot, which he had color-coded. “The modular office trailer, the warehouse, barge one, barge two, even the minivan and the skiff—just in case Mr. Rook could be located
in either one of those.” Reading Nikki’s breathing, he added with resolve, “Know what? If he’s here, we are getting him out, Captain.”

Heat popped her trunk and put on her Kevlar and, while she cinched the tabs, a sour melancholy spread within her, prompted by her memory of Rook, whom she always mocked for vesting up with armor
that was stenciled “JOURNALIST” instead of “POLICE” and had two small gold medallions embroidered on it—one for each of his Pulitzers. She would give anything to have
him suiting up with her now instead of donning hers to rescue him.

She stuffed the gloom in her back pocket. This was not only the day to do positive, this was the moment.

Heat and Feller crouched behind a small Dumpster, each with one knee
down on a street where old rounded cobblestones had reappeared,
exposed where the newer blacktop had been worn away. The worn stones—a sign of neglect or nostalgia, take your pick—continued under the front gate of Channel Maritime and out along its
wharf, which stretched about two hundred yards toward the Erie Basin. The scene within the property was just as Randall had described from his water surveillance.

A pair of workhorse barges, scruffy boys, each a hundred and forty feet long, were lashed by long sides to the dock, where hawsers wrapped around giant cleats. Between them, a smaller line ran
from underneath a stained tarp that took the shape of a skiff bobbing in the gentle tide. The boat itself wasn’t visible from Heat’s vantage point, but Feller had confirmed seeing a
patch of sky blue peeking out from under its drab camouflage. Rotting timbers, the skeletons of old boats, formed a pile against the brick warehouse, a relic of the golden age of shipping in Red
Hook, before the containers had taken the business to Perth Amboy. Nearer to them, a sagging modular office trailer with a buckled roof sat close enough to the sidewalk to have gotten tagged with
ornate initials and devils’ faces right through the chain-link fence. At the trailer’s far end Heat could see the hood of the silver minivan nosing out, minus a license plate. She heard
a flutter as a plastic shopping bag caught on the top of the fence, billowed in the spring breeze off the water. Then the BearCat roared to life and things started moving.

After a soft squelch, Nikki’s earpiece filled with the buttery, reassuring sound of Lieutenant Marr’s voice: “Good for green.” She and Feller drew their sidearms and fell
in behind the armored vehicle, taking cover with the SWAT team. The BearCat never revved, never had to flex a muscle. Over its enveloping rumble came the sharp ping of metal and Heat saw the gate
whip open ahead and to her left, smacking into the fence and rebounding, only to be bounced back once more, mere steel shrugged off as the black Cat pushed onward.

The incursion played out like the symphony the field lieutenant had composed: A second BearCat parallel-parked to the east fence deployed a dark-blue waterfall of Emergency Services pros over
the razor wire and onto the property; two Harbor Unit Zodiacs cut rooster wakes up the channel, slowing at each barge and the skiff to offload officers; Heat’s group branched out, half going
for the warehouse to the right, the others, including Heat and Feller, staying in the shelter of the vehicle across the vulnerable open terrain between the entrance and the long trailer.
“Window,” said Feller.

Heat had already spotted the movement. Someone inside the modular had parted the blinds for a glimpse and closed them. They swung, bent and dirty against the cloudy glass. “Team Alpha,
action in the trailer,” said Heat into her walkie.

To her relief, Marr came back on immediately. “Team Alpha, holding fire, repeat, holding fire. We don’t know who’s in there.”

The door burst open and a big man rushed out, hopping the pipe railing beside the three steps and racing for the yawning gate behind the team. Just as Heat recognized him as one of the men who
had grabbed Rook, he drew a gun from behind his back. “Gun,” said Nikki. The man fired one round that smacked the armor plate in front of her.

“Hold fire until he’s clear of that hut,” came the lieutenant’s instructions. Heat and her team countered to the far side of the vehicle for cover and waited.

“NYPD, freeze and drop your weapon!” blasted the bullhorn command from the BearCat. The man ignored that and doubled his pace for the gate, where a rear flank uniform was advancing.
The man raised his pistol to shoot. Well clear of the structure, the team unleashed a volley on him that threw his body into the chain link and then to the ground, pouring red onto the old
cobblestones.

The backup officer toed the dead man’s weapon aside and cleared him with a hand signal to the group. “In the trailer,” came the next PA call. “This is the NYPD. You are
surrounded. Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands raised.” The driver gunned the monster engine as added incentive. No response.

They waited.

But not long. Using hand signals, the Alpha team set up in entry formation, with one cluster taking position behind a concrete ballast block near the steps and the other fanning right to the gap
between the silver minivan and the far end of the trailer. Heat joined the squad behind the concrete cube just as they advanced on the door with a battering ram. She waited at the bottom of the
steps and, during the ram’s backswing, right before impact, she heard glass break. “Back window!” Nikki called, and ran for the gate.

Heat got to the sidewalk just as another huge guy—the same one who tried for a penalty kick with her head—cleared his legs through the shack’s back window and started scaling
the fence.

If he felt the pain of the razor wire, he didn’t show it. He scrambled over the concertina, letting himself fall and land hard in his own blood, which had dotted the sidewalk. Rugged and
solid but UFC-quick, he vaulted to his feet and started to run. “Police, freeze!” called Nikki. He slowed and turned to regard her, actually scoffing, while in her earbud, she heard the
all-clear from inside the trailer.

No Rook.

In that instant, Heat knew she wanted this one alive. For all she knew, this mouth breather was the only link to finding Rook. Or finding out what had happened to him. She holstered up and
charged him.

The shock of realizing that this woman would come at him hand to hand caught the goon so much by surprise that she was able to knock him to the ground with her tackle. He got himself up on one
elbow and, flailing with his other arm, tried to throw a clothesline at her as he had on Third Avenue. But she dipped, presenting her shoulder, and his blow struck at an angle that diffused its
energy. Heat came back with a quick shot with the heel of her hand up into his nostrils, which brought the sound of crunching bone, but no protest. Instead, he log-rolled away from her and came up
kneeling with one hand reaching for his back waistband. In that blink of an eye, Heat heard footsteps racing toward her and overlapping calls of “Gun!” and “He’s got a
gun!” plus her own voice hollering “Hold fire!” and yelling “Don’t!” to him while she drew her piece and then, in a flash of instinct or poetry or just plain
damn payback, she kicked him in the head, sending him tumbling back on the sidewalk with his Glock sliding into the weeds.