Ordinary mortals watching all that cash disappear into thin air might shake their fists at the sky and give up.
Not cops. Especially not me or Kylie.
We ran after it. Instinctively we both headed toward the 26th Street exit. It wasn’t where our car was, but it was the fastest way to the ground.
By the time we got there, Judge Rafferty was surrounded by six cops: Danny Corcoran; his partner, Tommy Fischer; and four uniforms.
“I’ve got the chopper pilot on the radio,” Corcoran said. “He’s tracking the drone. It looked like a flyspeck at first, but he finally got his camera locked in on it.”
“We’re going after it,” I said. “You and Tommy get the judge out of here fast.”
“I’m fine, Detective,” Rafferty said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you, Your Honor. I’m worried about your picture being all over the internet in the next five minutes.” I swept my hand in an arc around the growing crowd that had come to take in the beauty of the High Line and got the extra added bonus of being in the middle of a police action. Most of their cell phone cameras were still pointed skyward, but some of them started to advance on the cluster of cops at the top of the stairs.
“We need wheels,” Kylie yelled. “Who’s got an RMP?”
One of the uniforms reached into his pocket and pulled out a key fob. Contrary to what you see in the movies, cops don’t bolt from their cars and leave their motors running. The vehicle is their responsibility, so when it’s unattended, most of them lock it.
He tossed Kylie the keys, clearly not happy about giving up his ride. “And who are you?” He grinned. “Get the name, share the blame, Detective.”
“Kylie MacDonald, Red unit. I’ve got a decoy cop cab parked at Twenty-Three and Ten. It’s all yours”—she read the name on his uniform—“Officer Pendleton.” She gave him her keys, and the two of us flew down the stairs.
Within seconds we were tear-assing up Tenth Avenue. I got the chopper pilot on the radio. “Aviation, this is Red Leader. What’s the twenty on that drone?”
“The UAV—unmanned aerial vehicle,” he said, correcting me, “is about eight hundred feet over Thirtieth and Ninth and headed east. He’s only poking along at about twenty miles an hour. My kid has one that goes faster.”
“This one is carrying a hundred thousand dollars in cash,” I said.
“That wouldn’t slow my kid down, but…Red Leader, do not—repeat, do not—turn onto Thirtieth. There’s an eighteen-wheeler backing into a loading dock. He’s jamming up the whole street. Head east on Thirty-Fourth.”
Kylie slowed down just enough to hang a hard right onto Thirty-Fourth. It’s a wide, busy crosstown thoroughfare, four lanes with two-way traffic. But at least it was moving. Cars, trucks, buses, and pedestrians all got out of our way as she barreled down the street, lights flashing, siren wailing, creating a center lane of her own.
“UAV is descending,” the pilot said. “That will cut his speed dramatically. He’s at Thirty-First and Seventh Avenue. I have you in the RMP at Thirty-Fourth crossing Eighth.”
By the time he finished his sentence, Kylie had whizzed past an accordion-fold articulated bus, and we were halfway to Seventh.
“Red Leader, the UAV is at three hundred feet and dropping,” the pilot said. “Looks like he’s going to set it down. The avenue is crowded. I may lose him. You’re going to need eyes on the ground.”
I radioed Central, told them the drone was hovering over Penn Station, and asked for every cop in the area to start looking up. “It’s carrying a hundred thousand dollars of department funds,” I added. “Arrest anyone who touches it.”
“Turn right, turn right,” our eyes in the sky said.
The traffic in front of us was stopped for a red light, so Kylie yanked the car to the left and hopped over the double yellow line into the westbound lane. Then she blasted a couple of whoop-whoops on the siren, made a sharp right across two lanes of eastbound traffic, and skidded onto Seventh Avenue.
I bent down low in the front seat and looked up through the canyon of skyscrapers. Nothing. “Aviation, I still don’t have a visual,” I yelled into the mic. “Where is he?”
“He’s at your twelve o’clock headed straight toward you over Penn Station and still descending. He’s at fifty feet, forty, thirty, and…camera lost him. He’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“He dipped under the canopy at Thirty-Second and Seventh—the one over the entrance to Penn Station that cuts through to Madison Square Garden. Stop your car. Right there by that taxi rank.”
Kylie jammed on the brakes, stopping the RMP in the middle of one of the busier crosswalks in Manhattan. We jumped out of the car. Several uniformed officers who had seen the drone go down came racing toward us.
“The white drone,” one of them said. “Is it carrying a bomb?”
“No,” Kylie said. “Stolen money. Did you see where it went?”
“It flew under this overhang and disappeared,” the cop said.
“Find it,” Kylie barked at the growing cadre of men and women in uniform.
The lot of us stampeded down the steps into the massive underground catacomb that sits below Madison Square Garden. Unlike its east side sister, Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station is devoid of charm. Its main claim to fame is its capacity.
I looked up at the departures board. Trains were coming and going minutes apart. Over half a million passengers a day pass through the vast space, tens of thousands of them with rolling suitcases, any one of which could have contained the UAV and the ransom money.
“Detective,” our eyewitness cop said, “I saw that drone fly in here, and I know for sure it didn’t fly out. It’s got to be somewhere inside the station.”
“Somewhere inside the station,” Kylie said, looking at me. “That’s good news. Now all we have to do is find something the size of a couple of coat hangers inside the biggest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere.”