Immediately, Bass got in touch with his contacts on the police force, who got a description of the car and the plate numbers on the air.
A patrol car spotted them heading down 95 toward Coral Gables and got the word to headquarters, who relayed it to Bass and Williams.
"Tell the patrol car to stay on their tail! If they lose them, we'll bust the cops back to the academy! Tell them we're on the way!" Williams was practically frothing as he relayed the orders. "Let's go!"
He and Bass headed for their car.
I
t was Carol who spotted the tail. She was the driver. "There's a marked car hanging on our tail," she informed her passengers.
"Where the hell did
he
come from?" Stone wondered.
"I don't know, but there he is. There's not enough traffic to hide him tonight."
"Can you lose him?"
"In a Toyota? I can try."
Carol stomped the accelerator and sped down the nearest exit ramp, ripping onto the service road at something far above a safe speed.
"Hot damn!" Hog roared from the rear seat as Carol took the first right turn, throwing Loughlin over into Hog in the crowded car. "Does this mean we're engaged?"
"I bloody well hope not," the Brit returned. "My mother would never understand."
Carol shot the little white car through a series of sharp rights, then a few lefts. She knew that in speed the Corolla was no match for the police car. Her only chance was to outmaneuver them.
It wasn't going to be easy. The police had taken
Williams's
threat to heart, and the driver was hanging in like a madman. They flew down residential streets and past businesses. "Hey!" Hog yelled. "Ain't that the Orange Bowl?" Stone took a quick glance. Sure enough, he could see the outlines of the stadium in the distance.
"I saw the Dolphins play there once," Hog informed them, as happy as if he were on a sightseeing tour. "It was when
Griese
was the quarterback. That Marino kid is good, all right, but
Griese
really had a touch on the ball. He threw for over three hundred yards that day."
Carol took another sharp right, tossing Hog around in the seat and taking away his view of the stadium. "Are they still behind us?" she asked.
Stone checked. "Yes. But no closer."
If she had known the area, Carol would have found her job easier. As it was, she had to keep moving while trying not to get lost or run into a dead end.
"There's an alley coming up," Stone said. "Try it."
Carol looked at the dark space between two storefronts. She jammed on the brakes and spun the wheel to the right. The rear end of the Toyota drifted, but thanks to the front-wheel drive, the forward tires bit into the pavement and the car swung into the turn.
The car sizzled down the alleyway, driving over excelsior from thin packing crates and barely missing a Dumpster. The alley was only one block long.
The white Corolla leaped into the street and across into the next alley. Fortunately, there was no car coming from either direction. Carol didn't look or make any attempt to yield the right of way.
The alley ended in a T, with the top of the T being the brick wall of another building. Carol literally stood on the brakes, bringing the car to a shivering halt inches from the wall. As she turned the wheel to the left, they all heard the police car carom off the Dumpster from the other alley.
Carol got her foot off her brake, cut her lights, and turned left. She drove out of the alley and turned left back onto the street, then hooked another left and drove slowly to the alley entrance.
The police car hit the wall.
Not hard enough to stop it, however, but hard enough to shake up the occupants. They had almost managed to stop in time. When they finally recuperated from their close call, they would have no idea about which way to turn.
Carol drove past the alley with her lights out.
"Can you find the highway again?" Stone asked.
"Sure. But it might be better if we took the secondary roads."
Stone agreed. It took them a little longer, but they found the entrance to the storm drain before two o'clock. It was on a dark side street, and no one saw the three men slip out of the car, lift the cover, and disappear inside.
"I
t smells like shit in here," Hog complained.
He, Stone, and Loughlin were walking through a pipe five feet in diameter, their flashlights glinting off the sides and off the narrow trickle of water that ran along the bottom. They were all dressed in
camo
fatigues, their faces blackened.
"This is a storm drain, not a sewer," Stone reminded him. "There is a difference."
Hog wasn't convinced. "It still smells like shit. What's that over there? Looks like a turd to me."
Loughlin walked ahead to where Hog's light picked an object out of the shadows. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. "A bloody rat," he said. "But don't worry, Hog. It can't bite you. It's dead."
"I ain't afraid of any rat," Hog growled. "I just don't like
walkin
' in shit."
"Let's go," Stone ordered. His words echoed off the metal walls of the pipe. He moved ahead, and the others followed.
"You sure the weather forecast didn't call for rain?" Hog asked.
Stone ignored him. The information Carol had drawn from her computer said that there was a city storm drain running beneath Don Vito
Lucci's
property. When the estate had been built, it had taken in a considerable amount of land, including one of the openings of the storm drain near the far edge of the property.
Stone believed that the opening might still exist. "Why cover it up?" he had asked Carol. "It was concrete, with an iron cover. It must have looked like something useful. Unless they investigated the whole estate, they don't even know it's there. I'm sure the previous owners wouldn't have covered it. There would have been no reason to."
Carol had agreed. "But what if you're wrong?"
"Then we'll pull back out and go through the front gate."
"Quietly?"
"Probably not. So let's hope the opening's still there.
"This should be it." Stone shined his light upward at a round iron covering. "Now if no one's built a summerhouse on it, we'll be all right."
The three men had all been walking bent over, and Hog welcomed the chance to stretch out. He stepped to the spot beneath the cover, gave his light to Loughlin, and pressed his hands against the iron.
He pushed upward.
Nothing moved.
Hog looked big enough to move half of Miami if he really wanted to, but all his strength seemed useless against the round piece of iron.
"God
damn
!" Hog exploded, the breath rushing out of him. "Maybe they did build a
fuckin
' summerhouse on top of that thing."
He set his feet and tried again.
Nothing.
Loughlin stepped over beside him, handing both lights to Stone. "Let me help."
Both men pushed and heaved until their legs and arms trembled.
Just as they were about to give up, the covering seemed to move slightly.
"As far as anyone knows, that covering hasn't been moved since the late thirties," Stone told them. "Fifty years is a long time. It may be rusted in place."
They heaved again. The cover shifted even more, and dirt poured down on their heads, getting down their necks and inside their
camos
.
"Keep pushing," Stone ordered.
Loughlin and Hog strained powerfully. Suddenly the cover seemed to rise straight up and dirt cascaded in.
They moved together as if on a given signal, throwing the cover up and to the side. Through the opened hole they could see the night sky, a faint star glimmering above.
The dirt slowed to a trickle, forming a black mound at their feet.
"That
sonofabitchin
' cover was
heavy
!" Hog said.
"So am I," Stone told him. "But toss me up there anyway." Hog hooked his hands together and Stone put his foot in the cradle.
"One, two,
three
!" Hog puffed, and raised his hands.
Stone went through the hole. He had no idea whether there were dogs on the grounds or not, and it was his job as leader to find out. He hadn't had time to reconnoiter, and he wouldn't have been able to see through the thick stone walls of the estate anyway.
He found himself rolling through dirt and flowers. It was no wonder the iron cover had been so heavy. Someone, at some time in the past, had planted a flower bed over it, bringing in topsoil for the plants to grow in. At least Stone was sure they didn't have to worry that anyone was guarding it.
Rising to his knees, a silenced .22 automatic drawn, he surveyed what he could see of the grounds.
Some of the area was planted in trees and flowers, but the land around the house was conspicuously bare. Outdoor lighting illuminated the entire circumference of the house.
If you could call it a house. Villa was more like it, a Spanish villa, the kind of place that in a town smaller than Miami might have been turned into a historical site or an art museum.
From where he was kneeling among the flattened flowers, Stone could see the front, one side, and the back of the house, which was around seventy-five yards away.
There was a pool in back, and most of the back and side seemed to be accessible only by crossing a stone patio. Patios often meant pressure-plate alarms, and Stone hoped that the plates, if anywhere, were indeed in the patio. He didn't want them to be in the yard.
So far, no dogs.
"Hey,
Sarge
, what the hell is
goin
' on up there?" It was Hog's voice, coming from the drain. "I'm ready to get out of this damn sewer."
"Storm drain," clipped British tones corrected.
"Whatever. How about it?"
"All right. But no lights." Stone crept over to the hole and reached in, taking the flashlights that were handed to him. Then he reached back and took
Loughlin's
hand, helping as Hog hoisted him up.
When Loughlin was out, they both extended their arms to help Hog.
When Hog emerged, he took a deep breath. "About time. What
d'you
think,
Sarge
?"
"I haven't seen any dogs, but that doesn't mean they aren't here. And I haven't seen any men. Keep the .22s ready just in case."
Each man had a silenced .22 automatic for dealing with dogs as noiselessly as possible.
"We can cut through those trees over there and get a little closer to the house, but there'll still be a wide open space to cross."
"We'll become invisible," Loughlin observed wryly.
"Right. We're going in through the second floor. Everybody has a security alarm on the first floor, but who expects anybody to come in through the second floor?"
"Mafia bosses?" Hog asked.
"Let's hope not. You can see how well the whole thing is illuminated, but there's at least a little bit of a shadow on that back corner, right near that decorative balcony. That's where we go in."
"Good idea," Hog rasped. "Except here come the
fuckin
' dogs!"
W
illiams was
hellaciously
pissed when they finally located the wrecked police car. "You fucking lost them!" he snarled. "By God, you'll be sorry you did. You'll be lucky if you can get a job rousting queers in Key West after this."
One of the cops, a young man with a sandy mustache, protested, "It wasn't our fault. Their driver was a demon! Shit, nobody can drive like that."
Williams's
rage turned from hot to cold, and his voice leveled out. "Someone did. And it wasn't you. Think about it when you begin your new career."
He stalked away from the wreck. The car's bar lights were still flashing, sending red and blue beams reflecting off the walls and pavement of the alley.