Chapter 17 - The Fall of the Untouchables
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Clara saw Harlan lunging toward her behind the heavy gold stage curtains, his suppressed pistol raised.
She didn't scream, and she didn't run into the crowded ballroom where stray bullets would hit innocent reporters. Instead, she yanked the heavy steel pastry cart sideways to block the narrow service alcove and reached under the linen tablecloth for her holster—only to find her angle blocked by a panicked hotel banquet manager stumbling backward into the aisle!
Harlan cleared the curtain ten feet away, aiming straight at Clara’s chest. "See you in hell, bitch—"
Before Harlan’s finger could tighten on the trigger, a tall shadow dropped straight over the low brass railing of the mezzanine staircase landing four feet above the service alcove.
Lorenzo landed squarely between Harlan and Clara, driving the heel of his Italian leather boot into Harlan’s chest and sending the corrupt Justice Department chief crashing backward through the swinging double doors of the hotel kitchen prep room!
Clara shoved the panicked banquet manager toward the exit and darted into the tiled kitchen hallway right behind Lorenzo, locking the inner service door so the chaos in the ballroom wouldn't spill in.
Inside the empty stainless-steel prep room—the main kitchen staff having fled when the shouting started in the ballroom—Harlan scrambled up behind a stainless-steel butcher’s island, blood dripping from his nose as he leveled his SIG Sauer at Lorenzo.
"You stupid greaseball bastard!" Harlan snarled, his chest heaving. "Do you know what you just did out there?! Without my protection, the Commission and the Feds will tear your father’s empire to shreds by Monday morning!"
"My father’s empire died in a cellar in 1998 when he bricked my mother behind a stone wall to protect your bank account," Lorenzo said coldly, holding his matte-black Beretta steady at eye level. "I don't want a single brick Salvatore built with your blood money."
"You won't live to see Monday anyway!" Harlan spat, glancing toward the rear freight elevator. "Wait until you open that Geneva vault with that little brass key, Bellini! What do you think is sitting in Safe Deposit Box 409 besides the waterfront deeds?!"
Lorenzo didn't lower his gun an inch. "Enlighten me."
"Your mother didn't come to me in 1998 to turn your father in—she came to me because she found out who really ordered the car bomb that killed your grandfather in 1995!" Harlan laughed wildly, backing toward the stainless-steel walk-in freezer door while keeping his gun trained on Lorenzo. "And the man who signed the check for that bomb is standing right out on the mezzanine balcony calling himself your niece’s grandfather!"
Behind Lorenzo in the doorway, Clara froze.
Vittorio Drago?!
No—Harlan was a cornered snake trying to make them turn on each other so he could make the freight elevator!
"He’s stalling for the elevator door behind him, Lorenzo!" Clara warned sharply.
Harlan saw the freight elevator light turn green behind his shoulder and squeezed the trigger of his SIG Sauer at Lorenzo’s chest while diving backward.
Lorenzo sidestepped the shot by an inch—the bullet sparking off a hanging copper pot—and fired twice.
BANG! BANG!
Both 9mm rounds punched straight through the center of Harlan’s white dress shirt, slamming the corrupt Deputy Director backward against the stainless-steel doors of the freight elevator, where he slid down to the white tiles in a spreading pool of crimson, his eyes staring blankly at the fluorescent ceiling lights.
Outside in the main ballroom, the wail of NYPD sirens and the shouting of federal marshals rushing the stage to arrest a weeping Senator Arthur Sterling echoed through the walls.
Lorenzo holstered his warm Beretta, turned immediately to Clara, and caught her hand, pulling her toward the subterranean tunnel that connected the Plaza’s service basement to the 59th Street subway station.
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"Did you hear what he said about Drago and Box 409?" Clara breathed as they ran hand-in-hand through the steam-filled basement corridor toward the waiting town car Rico had parked on 58th Street.
"I heard him," Lorenzo said, his jaw set like iron. "Which is why before we go back to the Rockland farmhouse to pick up Lily, you and I are making a phone call to Zurich."
