Part 40

Rosal registered into Room 1205 at the Plaza, where agents had arranged to occupy an adjoining room. He had a leisurely dinner in the hotel dining room and then he strolled to the nearby Savoy, where he met Tarditi in the lobby. The men kissed each other on the cheek and then sat in a secluded corner in animated conversation. It was almost midnight when they parted and went to their rooms.

The following morning, Tarditi left his hotel and took a cab to an apartment building on East 79th Street. He remained in the building only a few minutes, and when he emerged he was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper. He went directly back to his hotel.

About 11 A.M., Tarditi left the Savoy Hilton, carrying in his hand the brown parcel, and he walked to the Plaza Hotel.

Customs Agent Mario Cozzi was one of those watching Tarditi. Cozzi never knew what it was that drew his attention to a battered 1957 Ford station wagon parked at the northeast corner of Central Park South. Perhaps it was the driver. He was a huge man with a skull-like face and large ears who seemed to be interested in Tarditi, too. From long habit, Cozzi made a mental note of the license number, New York LK8935.

Tarditi went directly to Rosal’s room, and left the brown parcel with the diplomat. Then he returned to his own hotel.

Narcotics Supervisor George Gaffney and Customs Agent-in-Charge Carl Esposita sat in a parked radio car near the Plaza Hotel entrance. They were reasonably certain that if heroin were being smuggled, then the contraband would be in Rosal’s luggage, for which he had claimed diplomatic immunity. If their suspicions were correct, the question was: Where would the delivery take place and to whom?

A dozen agents were dispersed throughout the area in radio cars, receiving their orders by radio from Gaffney. At noon an alert was flashed when Rosal called for a bellman to take his bags from his room to a taxi. He checked out of the hotel and the bellman placed his four suitcases in the trunk of a taxi.

Only a few minutes earlier, Tarditi had left his hotel. Agents reported by radio that he had gone to the corner of 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue, where he was met by Charles Bourbonnais, the TWA steward, and by a tall, gangling man with a skull-like face. The three men were still standing on the corner talking when Rosal’s taxi pulled away from the Plaza Hotel.

“This must be it,” Gaffney said to Esposita. The command car followed a discreet distance behind Rosal’s cab, which went directly across town to the corner of 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue. There the diplomat stepped from the taxi to be joined by Tarditi and Bourbonnais. Gaffney’s radio car continued on down the street to a vacant parking space.

From the shadow of a doorway across the street, Mario Cozzi snapped a picture of Rosal, Tarditi and Bourbonnais as they stood talking beside the taxi. Then he noticed a familiar-looking Ford station wagon parked nearby. The man at the wheel was the jug-eared driver he had seen parked earlier in the day near the Plaza Hotel, watching Tarditi. The driver was Nicholas Calamaris.

Rosal spoke to the taxi driver, who opened the trunk of the car. The three men looked into the trunk and for a moment it appeared they were going to transfer the luggage from the cab to the station wagon. But Bourbonnais suddenly strode toward the station wagon, while Tarditi and Rosal entered the taxi after the driver had closed the lid of the trunk.

In that interval of a few seconds, a dozen agents were prepared to rush the men if the luggage had been transferred to the station wagon. When nothing happened, Gaffney withheld his order.

Bourbonnais slid into the seat beside Calamaris, who drove toward Third Avenue with Rosal and Tarditi following closely behind in the taxi. At Third Avenue the two cars swung north and still the occupants were totally unaware that their cars were bracketed by the automobiles carrying Narcotics and Customs agents.

At 75th Street, the taxi was halted by a stop light while the station wagon continued on. Gaffney made a sudden decision. “Let’s not tail them any farther,” he snapped into the microphone. “Let’s get them now.” The control car quickly shot forward and swerved in front of the cab. Other cars closed in to block the station wagon.

Mike Cozzi leaped from his car to the taxi, jerked open the door and flashed his agent’s badge. “We’re Treasury agents,” he said. “Don’t make a move.”

“What is this?” Rosal exclaimed.

Tarditi protested, “Do you know who this man is? He is a diplomat! He is entitled to diplomatic immunity!”

The agents began firing questions at the two men.

“A diplomat to what country?”

“I am the Guatemalan ambassador to Brussels.”

“Are you on a diplomatic mission to the United States?”

“No.”

“Does your government know you are in the United States?”

“Well, no....”

At the station wagon, Calamaris was protesting, too. “Why are you stopping us? What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry,” an agent said, “just get moving. Drive off the Avenue onto 76th Street. Over there!”

“I don’t know nothing....”

“Get the car moving. You’re blocking traffic.”