Author’s Note

The events described in this book are true and the characters are real. Except for certain interpretations and conclusions, which are the author’s responsibility alone, the story is based on the recollections, files and records of Detective Sergeant Joseph J. Coffey, Jr., commanding officer of the Organized Crime Homicide Task Force and special assistant for organized crime affairs to the Chief of Detectives of the New York City Police Department.

It also relies heavily on wiretaps and electronic surveillance done under court order in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, and on reports, files, records and documents of the New York City Police Department, the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Department of Justice and its Organized Crime Strike Force in New York and elsewhere in the United States, other government agencies, subcommittees of the United States Congress, Interpol, the Munich Criminal Police and other investigative bodies in the Federal Republic of Germany and elsewhere in Europe, court proceedings, and the recollections and statements of certain of the participants in these events.

Those conversations that have been re-created are either taken directly from transcripts of legal wiretaps and electronic eavesdropping devices or are based on the recollections of one or more of the participants in them.

—R. H.

New York, February 1982