“Not a one,” Mitzi said.
Stone looked out the window. “There he goes.”
Dino called for his car, while Stone called his helicopter, and then they both ran to the elevator.
When they emerged from the apartment building they found Dino’s car waiting for them at the curb. They hopped in and, after making a quick U-turn, raced up Park Avenue and around the corner of Seventy-ninth Street.
As they turned the corner, Stone saw the helicopter approaching the building and inside a cop who was holding an elevator that would take them up. They emerged from the top floor fire door onto the roof just as the aircraft landed on the tennis courts, jumped in, and buckled their seat belts.
Stone took the left seat, next to the pilot, and put on his headset. “Okay,” he said, “we’re looking for a black sedan that’s been marked with two raw eggs.”
“How’d you do that?” the pilot asked.
“From a great height,” Stone replied.
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STONE SPOKE INTO the headset microphone. “Let’s stay as low as possible, until we spot the car. When we do, let’s go higher, so as not to worry our man.”
“Shall we try Park Avenue first?” the pilot asked.
“Affirmative,” Stone said.
The helicopter rose vertically from the tennis courts for a couple of hundred feet, then the pilot executed a ninety-degree turn toward Park Avenue and pointed the machine downtown. They had moved only a few blocks when Stone looked down and saw the egg-decorated Mercedes.
“There,” he said, “in that traffic backup by the construction site.”
DEREK SHARPE SAT in the traffic jam and began to sweat. He wasn’t worried about Sig Larsen leaving without him, since it took both of them to withdraw or transfer funds from their offshore account, but he was anxious to have this over and done with. He longed for a beach and a drink with an umbrella in it.
Finally, traffic edged forward, and he broke loose of the jam and headed downtown at a good speed.
STONE WATCHED as the Mercedes moved quickly down Park Avenue. “He’s going to turn west toward the Lincoln Tunnel,” he said to the pilot.
“I’m ready,” the man replied.
At Forty-seventh Street, the Mercedes made its turn and began the slow process of driving west on a crosstown Manhattan street. The pilot hung back a block or so, keeping the black car in sight.
“HE’LL TURN LEFT on Eleventh Avenue,” Stone said. “Then we’ll pick him up on the other side of the Hudson when he comes out of the tunnel.”
“Got it,” the pilot said as the Mercedes turned left on Eleventh Avenue. “Shall we cross the Hudson now and get ahead of him?”
“Sure,” Stone said.
The pilot turned right and headed toward the river. “Did you see that guy put the Airbus down in the river?” he asked Stone.
“I saw it a dozen times on TV, and I’m still amazed that everybody walked away from that one,” Stone replied. “The pilot said he was just doing what he’d been trained to do, but he did it awfully well, didn’t he?”
“Sure did,” the pilot said. “Here comes the other end of the tunnel.”
“Let’s gain some altitude,” Stone said. “I don’t want him to spot us when he emerges.”
The pilot flew the machine a little way south and hovered at five hundred feet looking back at the tunnel. “Traffic’s moving well at this hour of the day,” he said. “He’ll pop out of there soon.”
A black Mercedes appeared. “There,” Stone said, pointing.
“Not unless he stopped at a car wash,” the pilot said. “No egg on that car.”
“You’re right. Cars are pouring out of the tunnel; he should be out of there by now.”