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Back Reckless Abandon Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
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  10. 10
  11. 11
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  30. 30
  31. 31
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  34. 34
  35. 35
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  40. 40
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  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
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  52. 52
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  56. 56
  57. 57
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  60. 60
  61. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  62. AUTHOR’S NOTE

“Got your warrant?” he asked Holly.

“You bet your ass.”

“Then let’s go.”

On the way uptown, in the cab, Stone reached out for Holly’s wrist and felt her pulse.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s about ninety,” he said. “You want to calm down. Take some deep breaths. It’s going to be at least a couple of hours before we go in.”

“I want to do it now.”

“I know, but you have to be patient.”

“No, I don’t,” she replied.

“You’ll do a better job if you pace yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“Certainly.”

She began taking deep breaths, and her heart rate started to come down.

“That’s better,” he said.

“No, it isn’t,” she replied.

50

THE TEAM MET in a conference room at Dino’s precinct. There was a pile of equipment near the door, and men, and a couple of women, were milling around, talking.

“Okay, everybody, settle down,” Dino said, setting a blowup of a floor plan on an easel. A blown-up photograph of Trini Rodriguez was pinned to a wall.

People took seats or leaned against the walls.

“We’re lucky on this one. The building’s under renovation, so current floor plans were filed for the new building permit. What we’ve got is a five-story walk-up, just like the ones on either side, with a fire escape down the back. We’re lucky, too, that the fire escape on our building has been removed, pending replacement, so there’s no way down, except the main staircase.

“The phone number we tracked down belongs to the top-floor apartment, though there’s not supposed to be anybody living in the building while the fire escape is down, but the neighbors say there are still people living there. The building is owned by a Muslim charity, and the tenants appear to be Muslim, too, so we should treat anybody inside as noncooperative but not hostile, unless they behave that way.

“It’s possible that, if the occupants see us going up the stairs, they might give the alarm, and that would make this work more dangerous, so anybody who sees us should be hustled inside his apartment and told to shut up. Anybody who tries to give the alarm should be arrested and gagged until we’re done.

“We’ve got a twelve-man team. I want four on the roof—you can access it from the building to the east—and eight going up the stairs. We’ve got two officers from a Florida department who have a fugitive warrant for Rodriguez, and they’ll be bringing up the rear, so I’ll keep them with me.