Insatiable Appetites

58

Early on Monday morning Dino sat at a table in a police vehicle made to look like an ordinary camper and went over a well-marked large-scale map of the area that included the Bianchi estate.

“Okay,” Dino said to the Special Operations captain in charge of the unit, “tell me how you’re going to approach the house.”

“We’ve got a detail of a dozen men up this creek at a little marina,” the captain said. “At half past one PM they’ll come down the creek by boat and land at the estate’s dock, which can’t be seen from the house. They’ll conceal themselves in the woods around the old stone barn and wait for my command over the radio.”

“What about the front of the house?”

“We borrowed the Scali painting company van, which is large, and we’ll send that up the driveway to the service drive that branches off. We’ll unload four men near the kitchen door, and they’ll go in with buckets of paint and their weapons concealed in drop cloths. Once inside, they’re going to have to play it by ear.”

“I want you to explain to your people that this man may seem old, but he’s very dangerous, especially with a knife.”

“They already understand that, boss.”

“And I want every one of them to understand that nobody is to risk his own life to take this guy alive. Do I make myself clear?”

“If he’s armed, shoot first and ask questions later, right?”

“That’s one way to put it. Another way to put it is: we don’t have enough on this guy to convict him, but we know that he’s the one who cut up the priest and who got rid of Carmine Corretti’s body, which we haven’t found yet. I do not want him to walk.”

“I read you, boss,” the captain said.

“Where’s the white van going to be?”

“Right where we are now. They’ll respond to my radio call to go in.”

“How many people?”

“Three, and they know what they’re doing.”

“I want at least one armed cop with them.”

“I can do that.”

“Dress him for the occasion.”

“Right.”

“Now, we’ve had a change of plan. We’re not sending the van to New Jersey, it’s going right here.” Dino tapped the map. “We worked it with the Feds.”

“That’s much more convenient,” the captain said.

“Have the people in the van been told that this is a twenty-four-hour job for them?”

“That’s been made clear.”

“They’ve got the paperwork they need?”

“We’ve double-checked that — it’s all in order.”

Dino went over a list in his notebook. “Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I’m going to the office, and I want you on your cell phone with me for the whole operation. I want to know, step by step, how it’s going.”

“I’ll be in touch the whole time,” the captain said.

“And remember, there will be two civilians in the house, and I don’t want them roughed up in the process or, worse, shot.”

“I’m on top of that, boss.”

Dino was having trouble leaving the RV. “I hope to hell that I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“Don’t worry, boss, we’ll get this done right.”

“I’m counting on that,” Dino said, “and I don’t want any statements to the press coming out of your unit, and I don’t want any leaks, either. We’ll make this public at the right moment.”

“We’re a tight bunch, boss, nobody’s going to leak.”

Dino shook the captain’s hand, left the RV, and got into his car. “Okay, let’s go to the office,” he said to the driver.

He had never in his life been more nervous.