The primary squad in the two shops had been instructed to go into action when diMonda shouted, "Hey." Either it would come when someone pushed him, or when Arden tried to move him from the stoop. Once the primary squad moved, a twelve-person backup team would leave their van, which was parked around the comer on Bleecker Street. Six of them would go in only if they heard gunfire. When they went into action, police would seal off the street and make sure no one else left their apartments. If the neo-Nazis managed to get out of the building, the other six agents in the support group would be in position, in the street, to pick them up. An ambulance was also parked and waiting on Bleecker, in case it was needed.

It began at 8:34, with diMonda settling down on the stoop with a cup of coffee and a bagel. For the last few weeks, the first two people usually left the building between 10:00 and 10:30, took the PATH train to Thirty-third Street, and went to an office on Sixth Avenue. The office made no attempt to conceal what it was: a small editorial and advertising sales office for the racist magazine Pührer. The visitors left the office with whatever they were supposed to bring back to the apartment. The FBI had examined cartons being shipped to the magazine and found no weapons of any kind; they could only assume that staffers were buying guns, ammunition, and knives on the street and storing them there for disbursement to Pure Nation or whoever else needed them.

The door to the brownstone opened at 8:44. When it did, diMonda threw his coffee cup to the right, in front of the candy shop, and fell back into the lobby. Arden, who had been waiting in the shop, made sure he stepped out when he saw the flying cup.

A young woman, dyed-blond and hard, stepped over diMonda.

"Officer!" she said. "Get this creature out of here!"

A tall, mustachioed man picked the much shorter diMonda up by the shirt and made ready to heave him to the sidewalk.

"Hey!" diMonda yelled.

An agent came from the flower shop and stood behind the woman. When she went to push diMonda, the agent jumped between them and pushed her back, toward the flower shop. She screamed at him as a second agent came out and told her she was under arrest. When she resisted, two officers cuffed her and hauled her into the back room.

Meanwhile, Arden had stepped into the lobby of the brownstone.

"What the hell are you doing?" the neo-Nazi yelled at Arden as his struggle with the scrappy diMonda moved onto the street. There, two agents were waiting to pull him into the candy shop.