“It wasn’t anyone at the precinct. That we can be sure of,” Lyle said.
“Right.”
“And it doesn’t ring true to think it was someone at Headquarters.”
“Right.”
“It had to have happened on the way from the precinct to Headquarters.”
“Right.”
Mac snapped his fingers. “The driver or at least one of them, or the guy in the back, riding shotgun.”
He looked at Lyle just as Lyle was looking back at him.
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” Lyle said. “We gotta get their names and we need to talk to them. It’s gotta be one or maybe even both. But the guy in the back is my first choice. He’s sitting there with all of the stuff while the other one is driving the truck. I think it’s the guy in the back. I can smell it.”
“You’re right. That’s it,” Mac said. “That’s it. The guy in the back is sitting with all of the stuff. Of course. That’s it. The question is, how did he know what to look for. Someone got to him. You can bet either he or they didn’t take hostages. That’s a joke. It must be when he delivered it or someone came to pick it up, and he got paid.” Mac then paused. “No, wait a minute,” Mac continued. “He never got paid. They killed him. No doubt about it. That guy, whoever he is, is dead. D-E-D, dead!”
“Right,” Lyle jumped. “Of course. That guy’s gone.”
“Lyle—headquarters. I want those names.”
* * *
But they didn’t call headquarters. They drove back to headquarters and practically ran in. They made a bee line to the Director’s office. The Director, Steve Scribner, was sitting at his desk talking to another officer. His door was shut. They didn’t wait. It was perfunctory.
It just so happened that Mac was a personal friend of Scribner’s. It was Steve Scribner who had been Mac’s orientation officer when Mac had just joined the force and right from the beginning they hit it off.
Steve wrote Mac up in his evaluation form as someone for the ‘force to keep its eye on’ because he felt Mac was an outstanding candidate as an almost certain future detective. So, Mac entered first with Lyle walking behind. They just barged in.
“Steve, sorry. Gotta talk immediately,” Mac blurted out.
Without blinking, the Director excused the officer who was there and the officer left the room with alacrity and shot a friendly nod both to the Director and the new visitors.
“Director, Steven Scribner, this is Detective Lyle Davis. We’re partners, Steve.”
“Hi, Detective Davis. Okay, Mac, what’s the rush?”
Mac then gave Scribner a quick review of the situation.
“Okay, let’s get the names. I agree. It’s gotta be the guy in the back.”
Scribner then made an inter-office call, asked for the ledger with the names of drivers, and gave the date of transfer from Precinct 48 in the Bronx down to Headquarters. He said he wanted to be called back immediately—he wouldn’t be doing anything but waiting for the call.
It took all of about ten minutes during which time Mac and Scribner were talking, when Scribner got the return inter-com call and wrote the information on a pad on his desk.
“Mac, the driver’s name is Jeffrey Stoller. He’s been with us since 1950. I can vouch for him. He’s definitely clean. The other guy is new. He came on exactly eight months ago. He was the one in the back. His name is Raymond Tokoly. Address is 711 Miller Avenue in the East New York section of Brooklyn. I know it. The El-train there stops at Van Siclen Avenue and Miller is a few blocks from the El.
“According to what I was just told, Tokoly is married. No children. Except for his job and address and phone, that’s all they had on him. But I know the neighborhood. It’s a peculiar mixture of Jewish, Irish, and Polish. Tokoly sounds maybe Polish. I know it because I grew up around there. Miller is a street with two-story houses. They’re not quite garden apartments but still it’s a quiet street. Strictly families. No elevators in the buildings. A friend of mine lived on that block, probably a few doors down. It’s probably on that same block. We went to Jefferson High School together—Thomas Jefferson High School. Oh yeah, Tokoly is married, no children. Oh, I said that.”
The next thing you know, Mac and Lyle are careening toward the Brooklyn Bridge and zipping all the way. With traffic, it took them about forty minutes to get to Miller. They parked and walked from where Miller Avenue began, a few blocks from the El, until they hit 711 Miller. It was on the first block after Miller began. Scribner was on the money. Miller was a quiet street. A few people were sitting on chairs in front of their houses.
From this little sample of people, the overall population living on this quiet family street who were sitting and talking, gave the entire neighborhood a feel of middle-aged family people, maybe in their fifties.
Mac and Lyle climbed a few steps, opened the door to the little alcove lobby of 711 Miller, and Mac traced down the ledger of listed names and apartment numbers with his finger, stopping at Tokoly, apartment 2B. That meant one flight up. They both un-holstered their weapons from their shoulder holsters as they climbed on their toes. They reached 2B. It was one of two apartments on the floor. The door was slightly ajar and they quietly entered, guns drawn.
Sure enough they were faced with a man sitting on a chair in the kitchen. He was severely wounded, obviously in the stomach, and was hunched over. They could tell he was dying. But his eyes were open and he was un-mistakenly looking directly at them.
“We’re police.” Mac showed his badge.
The man began breathlessly mouthing words He was obviously in pain. Mac and Lyle both leaned into him, very close, so they could hear him.
“My wife . . . She knows . . . They got her . . . Sister’s house Carol...It’s the package . . . Carol was keeping the package for us. I think my wife took them there. I wanted . . . more dough . . . Carol at Saratoga Ave . . . 345. 3A . . . Go . . . quick.”
With that, Tokoly, the guy in the back of the police van charged with guarding the stuff, died sitting in a chair.
Mac and Lyle dashed out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. In the car, Lyle radioed Headquarters. Mac took the radio-phone and spoke to his buddy the Director. He told Scribner that they’re onto it and are following the lead but that Raymond Tokoly was dead and Tokoly’s next stop would be the coroner’s lab. He told Scribner that Tokoly had been shot in the stomach and that he and Lyle we’re heading for the address they had on Saratoga Avenue. Scribner quickly told them it was only two or three stops from the Van Siclen station.
Scribner stayed on the line directing Mac and Lyle driving helter-skelter through the streets of East New York mostly under the El, directly to Saratoga.
Now Mac and Lyle were in a panic. Would they get there soon enough to get the shooters? Of course, they didn’t know what the elapsed time was from when Tokoly was shot to the time they themselves had reached him. That time difference could be the difference between getting the guys or not.
As they pulled up to 345 Saratoga, they instantly spotted a middle-aged woman running toward them as they were approaching. She was running as fast as her age would take her. Her arms were flailing. She was shouting: “Police, police.”
Mac and Lyle both jumped out of the car and grabbed her. She started to scream again, “Police, Police.” Mac flashed his badge and said emphatically: “We are policemen.” He said it twice. The lady calmed down but then became hysterical again. They moved her to the car and sat her in back. She was sobbing. Mac sat next to her. Lyle sat shotgun in the front seat but kept looking at them both even as he continued to watch the street.
In what seemed like a long minute the lady again calmed down.
“Are you Mrs. Tokoly?” Mac gently asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “They shot my husband. Oh, I hope they didn’t kill him. He’s all I have. We have no children. Oh, my sister. Carol. Oh Carol.”
Mrs. Tokoly began sobbing again and again Mac tried to comfort her. It took som
e moments before Mrs. Tokoly calmed down. She told them she had escaped when her sister jumped out of the window onto the fire-escape and climbed up onto the roof. I know where she was going but one of them went after her and that’s when I had the chance to run because I dropped the package they wanted and the other one bent down to pick it up. That was my chance.
“I had no choice. I had to take them to get the package or they would have killed me. That’s what they said. Oh God, I think they killed my husband. I’m so nervous. My sister would have climbed over a short barrier onto the next adjoining roof and down one flight to her friend Joyce’s house who lives on the top floor of the other building. That’s the floor below the roof. I’m sure Carol’s there—I hope. Carol and Joyce always visit each other that way. Up to the roof, over and down to either’s apartment.
“You know, I think that if they followed her they wouldn’t know which apartment she went into or if she quietly ran down the stairs into the street. So now I’m thinking that maybe one of them ran down into the street to see if he could see her but the other one might be trying to break into apartments searching for her. Oh God, they both had guns. Oh God, I hope they didn’t get her. Oh God. My husband. Oh Raymond.”
Suddenly, Mrs. Tokoly spotted one of them coming out of the building into the street. She was about to scream but Mac put his hand over her mouth until she understood not to make a sound.
“Mac, I got him.”
With that, Lyle calmly got out of the car and walked in the opposite direction to where the assailant was standing who was then looking with an alarmed expression in all directions. Lyle lifted his foot onto the fire hydrant so it looked like he was tying his shoelaces. Instead, he furtively looked to see whether the suspect was aware of him. He could instantly tell that the guy was not suspicious of him in any way.
With that in mind, and in a split second, Lyle reversed his direction and walked toward the assailant. Lyle pulled out his gun only when he was about fifteen feet away and shouted:
“Don’t move or so help me I’ll kill you. I’ll blow your mother-fuckn’ head right off. Don’t move a muscle. Not a muscle. Don’t even breathe. You wanna try it, gohead, try it!”
The guy didn’t move. He believed what Lyle promised. Lyle then approached and disarmed him, and brought him over to the car. Mac handed Lyle a pair of handcuffs. Lyle handcuffed the guy and threw him into the front seat of the car. Meanwhile Mac called-in for backup. The guy in handcuffs in the front seat didn’t turn around to look in the back. He just sat there not saying a word.
And that’s the way it remained for no more than six or seven minutes when two other police cars with the new Chevy two-way radios and revolving red Beacon Ray lights answering Mac’s call for back-up, pulled up—two cops in each car. Immediately, the prisoner was efficiently transferred to one of the other police cars and sat in the back. It was fully wired with that chain-link cyclone fence material encasing the back as a temporary jail cell—without giving the prisoner any chance of escaping.
Lyle quickly briefed the four cops from both cars as to what was what.
“The only unfinished business then,” Lyle said, “is to flush out the other one.
Lyle took two of them and pulled them to the other side of thee car and quietly said:
“Look, if the other guy has a package we need to let him escape. We’ve got this one over here. It’s enough. I’m giving this to you on orders of Headquarters. Call up the Director. He’s the Commissioner’s right hand man. He’s the one who approves it this way. But after he confirms it all, nothing of this can be written. We simply agree that the guy escaped. Period! The Director’s name at Headquarters is…”
The cop cut him off. “I know. Scribner. Okay, I believe it. We’ll let him go.”
As the cop spoke, Mrs. Tokoly’s sister, Carol, walks out of the building with her friend, Joyce. They both instantly spot Mrs. Tokoly, and the police, and walk calmly over. The women hugged each other and they all started crying.
“I was going to give him the package no matter what,” Mrs. Tokoly suddenly continued. “But I tried to throw it but it dropped. And when they were distracted by what I did, in that split second I ran out of the apartment.”
At that moment Mrs. Tokoly hesitated.
“Oh God. Did they kill him? Tell me. Did they kill him? The other one must have the package. He’s probably on the roof and is hopping over three or four other rooftops. Right Carol, right? They’re all connected you know. Then he could get to the corner one and that’s the one that leads to the first house around the corner. He’d probably be exiting the building there. You should all run and get him. He has a gun. Oh God, look, I’m shaking.”
With their prisoner in tow, Mac and Lyle assured her that the armed guy must already be far away but that they would get him another time. At the same moment Carol and Mrs. Tokoly didn’t know what to do or where to go. But Mrs. Tokoly certainly knew what to ask.
“Please tell me my husband is alive. Please tell me. Please. Is he alive?
She was looking at Mac and Mac hesitated.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no.”
Yes, they let him get the package, but of course the film had already been altered. Now when Al, Jimmy, Kishnov and Imi got to Simon they would be able to tell him that the counterfeit microfilm is pretty clearly on its way to the Vatican into the hands of Alois Hudal.
Mac and Lyle were relieved. But they talked about Mrs. Tokoly. They felt bad for her.
* * *
Mac and Lyle were off to Montefiore Hospital where they would see Frankie and Willy and beautiful Gloria. They bantered with Willy and told him he was improving and doing it at record speed. Willy really appreciated their visit and how they responded to him—like he was their buddy. Yes, he was kind of proud that he had buddies who were real police detectives. Willy felt protected. It was a definite contrast he was feeling, from being below the zone-of-death when he was pushed, to now being in the center of the zone-of-safety. He was surrounded by pure protection: two officers 24/7, uncle Frank, and Gloria, and now Mac and Lyle too—not to mention Al, who Willy felt was never far away no matter where Al was.
Mac, Lyle, and Frank stepped out into the hall while Al stayed with Willy. Frank got right to it.
“I’m really sorry about the guys. I knew Chico well. He would stop in to see me at the bar sometimes, maybe once every two or three weeks. He’d always say to me that a drink is okay but getting smashed is not. That was how he always put it. ‘Don’t get smashed.’ I’m feeling very bad about Chico. Very bad! I’m going to send the family something. I’ll do whatever I can.”
At that point, Willy’s inner circle, his own gang, was splintering. Gloria was headed back to the motel escorted by Mac and Lyle, but Frank and the two officers on duty remained.
Willy said his goodbyes and Gloria kissed him.
On the other side of the world, Max joined Al, and Jimmy. Hugh, Shmuel, and Imi were also travelling. All of them would meet at their agreed upon destination with—S. W.
PART 4
HOME BASE
. 16 .
INFORMATION TO WIESENTHAL
“Aye, aye, aye. Look at this. Unbelievable. You did it. You did it. We’ve been looking for this list for years. I’m not going to ask how you did it but you did it.”
That was Wiesenthal’s first comment when Al, Jimmy, Imi, Hugh, Max and Shmuel had all arrived. It felt like a miracle occurred. Al handed Simon the authentic microfilm along with the one that was a facsimile, but entirely misinformation.
Weisenthal had arrived at their meeting place with two very strong looking Israeli Secret Service men right out of Imi’s Krav Maga class that was required for all Mossad agents. Of course, they were carrying weapons but that was for distance shooting. Up close there would be no need for weapons. This was Wiesenthal’s personal body-guard squad.
Wiesenthal was a modest looking gentleman of about fifty. He was about six-feet tall which was on the tall side for a
Jewish man who was born in a Ukrainian hamlet—a shtetl—and he was of moderate build. He actually looked like a French resistance fighter, especially because he was wearing a beret a bit tilted. But of course, he was not in the least interested in how he looked because upon seeing the material at hand he almost howled:
“Look at this: Eichmann, Mengele, Priebke, Brunner, Katrink, Sommer, Kopkow, Danz, Abel. Look at this list. And the countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Syria, Canada, even the United States. How many did you say,” Wiesenthal asked Imi?
“Exactly four-thousand one-hundred eighty-six,” Imi answered. “But here’s the thing Simon. Right in the middle of it all is listed—you can see at number two-thousand forty-two—exactly halfway into the entire list, the name of Gustav Schell. But nowhere on anyone’s list in any country is the name Gustav Schell known as an escaped Nazi criminal.
“Another interesting thing is that of all the names each have two destinations—one primary and one secondary. The second one is a just-incase. Schell only has one destination and it’s in a place different from where the others go—just in case. Schell, apparently is supposed to be living at the bottom of a mountain near Monaco, you know, the French Riviera. It’s either these mini towns near to Mont Tete de Chien like La Condamine, or Mentone — all on the French Riviera. Mont Tete de Chien ; that one we can’t figure out unless you might have some inkling about it. Could it possibly be what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know—but on second thought,” Simon said, “maybe I do know. Well, let me put it this way: Is it possible that we’re both thinking the same thing? But, in any case, Imi, why would you guess those particular towns?”
“Well, they’re all in some way related to Monaco. As a matter of fact, one of them, I think it’s Tete de Chien, looks directly down over the entire principality of Monaco. In addition, La Condamine and Mentone have all sorts of relationships with Monaco. Importantly however, is that they have access to waterways. In fact, in our preliminary investigation, we’ve found that in the harbor of Mentone a large yacht is anchored that we also found out doubles as a speed boat. And—it boasts a radar detection-system. So, of course, this Gustav Schell increasingly becomes more interesting. Is it his yacht, is the question? Who the hell is he? He certainly must either be very high on the list or else could be some outside source who’s important to their cause and perhaps must, at all cost, be protected, or disguised.”
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