The Traffickers

by W. E. B Griffin

  “And with Chad Nesbitt,” Payne said, then went on and gave Washington all the background he’d given Tony Harris.

  “Matthew, you didn’t hear this from me.”

  “Yessir,” Payne said, but it was more of a question.

  “Denny Coughlin is of course going to welcome you back with open arms—”

  “Great! I didn’t want this to be difficult.”

  Washington gave him a hard look. “Kindly allow me to complete my thoughts, Matthew.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Thank you. And what the commissioner has in mind—and, again, you did not hear it from me—is that you’re welcome back to your desk.” He nodded to the outer office of Homicide. “You’ll work out of here.”

  “I’m tied to a desk? What is that about, Jason?”

  “He’s concerned for you, Matthew. We all are. You went through a lot.”

  “Which was why I took the thirty days. Now I’m back. I’m well. And I want to work.”

  Both Lieutenant Jason Washington and Sergeant Matt Payne knew there never was any real chance that Payne would be denied his job if and when he said that he wanted it.

  After all, it was a fact that the shooting had been declared a good one; thus, the department could not use that against him. And it was a fact that the psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron Stein, had said that Payne had suffered only from emotional exhaustion—“The treatment is rest,” Stein said, “and don’t push yourself so hard again”—which sure as hell was not cause for suspension or termination.

  Finally, while it had been the Number Two man in the police department hierarchy, Denny Coughlin, who’d strongly suggested to Payne that he take off the deserved time, it also was a fact that it had been exactly that—a suggestion.

  And now Uncle Denny is probably going to throw Dr. Stein’s “Don’t push yourself so hard again” line in my face.

  Which translates to running in low gear while driving a goddamn desk.

  Had anyone hinted at denying Sergeant Payne his job, Payne knew that technically he could have created one helluva stink. Starting with the Fraternal Order of Police getting its lawyers to file grievances against the department to reinstate Sergeant Payne, and on up to a team of big-gun litigators from the prestigious firm of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester dragging the City of Philadelphia to the Supreme Court of the United States of America for whatever unlawful action they could muster.

  But that was technically. Realistically, of course, no one wanted it to come to blows. And it wouldn’t, because that would not have served either side’s best interests.

  “I don’t agree with the order, Matthew, but the commissioner has his reasons. And he’s the boss. I’ll make it as best I can for you. You know that.”

  Payne nodded thoughtfully.

  And Jason will.

  But it’ll still be a personal purgatory.

  Payne then said, “Thank you, Jason.”

  “You should go upstairs and make your manners. The sooner you start to meet whatever threshold the commissioner has in mind, the sooner everything will be back the way you want it.”

  A detective walked up to Washington’s office.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant.”

  “No interruption. Sergeant Payne here was just leaving. What is it?”

  “Just got word of a shooting at the Reading Terminal Market. At least two dead.”

  “What the hell is going on with today?” Washington said disgustedly.

  First Deputy Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin was leaning back in his high-back leather chair, feet on the desk, and in deep thought, when Captain Francis X. Hollaran stuck his head in the half-open doorway.

  “Chief, Matt’s here. And more info is coming in on the market shooting.”

  Coughlin nodded, then slid his feet off the desk and onto the floor.

  “Thanks, Frank. Give it to me when it’s solid. And send him on in, please.”

  The door opened more and Payne came through it.

  “Matty!” Coughlin said, his tone genuinely pleased.

  Coughlin stood and came around the desk. He affectionately put his arms around Payne and patted him on the back as Payne returned the gesture.

  “Have a seat, Matty,” he said, pointing to one of the pair of upholstered armchairs.

  As Payne did, he watched Coughlin go back to his leather chair. Coughlin wasn’t wearing the double-breasted jacket of his suit, and Payne noticed that he also wasn’t wearing his Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 Special revolver. Nor did he have the well-worn holster threaded on his belt on the right side.

  Coughlin had slipped the five-shot revolver, butt forward, into that same holster every morning for thirty-seven years, since the day he reported on the job as a rookie detective. Payne knew that it was the same standard sidearm that Philadelphia Police Department cops had carried for damn near forever, including his father and his uncle when they were killed.

  Then Payne saw, sitting on top of a copy of The Peace Officer, the official publication of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, a new black molded plastic clamshell box. It had the logotype GLOCK—the big G circling the smaller LOCK—molded into its top and bottom.

  “That’s not a new pistol, is it, Uncle Denny?”

  Coughlin looked at it with a sour face.

  “Yours?” Payne pursued.

  “Mariani insisted.”

  Payne raised his eyebrows at the mention of the police commissioner.

  “Since the department now is issuing the Glock 17,” Coughlin went on in explanation, “he said that I needed to set an example.”

  Payne nodded, then said, “Why not one of the other Glocks, the optional models?”

  Police Commissioner Mariani had lobbied—and, remarkably, won the battle—for the city to allow the police to carry more firepower. The Philadelphia Police Department issued to every officer on the force a Glock Model 17—at no cost, after they of course had qualified with the weapon at the department gun range. The 17 was a semiautomatic pistol chambered for the nine-millimeter round. It could hold eighteen rounds, one in the throat and seventeen in the magazine.

  The commissioner, even more remarkably, had also lobbied for and, beyond belief, gotten approval for four Alternative Service Weapons. These were also Glock models, two of the models chambered in .40-caliber and two in .45-caliber.

  It had been remarkable because there were those of the mind-set—said mind-set more often than not being of one’s head being deeply stuck in the sand, or firmly up one’s ass—that it was a danger to the very public they were sworn to protect for the police to carry such powerful weapons.

  All sorts of wild-eyed hysteria surfaced during the debates as to just how powerful a firearm a police officer should have. There had even been a troop of protesters who—perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not—looked like they might rob a bank at any moment. They had marched on City Hall carrying posters bearing a red circle with a diagonal bar across photos of Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry,” the movie character cop who’d terrorized the sensibilities of San Franciscans.

  But in the streets of Philly, as more and more gun battles with bad guys—and gun battles between the bad guys themselves—showed that damn near none of the thugs carried a .38-caliber or similar-size weapon, cooler heads successfully argued that the cops were being outgunned.

  For a Philly cop to carry one of the larger-caliber pistols as his duty weapon, there were rules, of course. Chief among them: The officer had to buy the larger-caliber gun with personal funds. The department would issue only the Model 17 at no cost. Second, the alternative weapon had to be inspected. Which meant undergoing a mandatory inspection by a department armorist at the police department firing range.

  Then there was the actual qualification test. If the officer successfully completed this, she or he was given a certification card that had to be carried on their person at all times. There was also the rule that the pistols could be loaded only with department-issued ammunition—165-grai
n tactical rounds in .40-caliber and 230-grain tactical rounds in .45-caliber. That ammo had to be used exclusively, whether the officer was on duty or off duty. Finally, upon meeting all the requirements to carry one of the larger-bore Glocks, the officer had to give the department-issued Model 17 back to the department.

  There were absolutely no exceptions to the rules—except, of course, one.

  The Special Operations Bureau was tasked, as its name suggested, to perform particularly extraordinary ops. Emphasis on extraordinary. And it was in that environment that Matt Payne, before the police force even began issuing Glocks, began carrying his Colt Officer’s Model .45-caliber semiautomatic. Even after leaving Special Operations (and its commander, Peter Wohl, his rabbi) for Homicide, he continued carrying it, having successfully argued that (a) it had been grandfathered in as an approved weapon, and (b) it could be considered not as powerful as the Glock .45 because it held fewer of the 230-grain tactical rounds that he fed it.

  Payne devoutly believed that his Colt, a smaller version of the dependable John Browning-designed Model 1911 semiautomatic that many argued damn near single-handedly won the Second World War, was superior to the Glock in almost every way. And its size sure as hell made it better for concealed carry.

  Matt motioned toward the pistol box. “May I?”

  Coughlin snorted. “Go ahead. But be damned careful, Matty. When you’re around guns, they tend to go off.”

  Matt looked quickly at him and saw that Coughlin was smiling.

  Matt unsnapped the two silver latches, opened the box, and removed the weapon. He automatically took care to keep the muzzle pointed down, then ejected the magazine and pulled back the slide enough to see that no round was in the chamber.

  “Nice,” he said.

  “Damn thing’s a monster compared to my .38.” He paused. “Which, I might add, served me just fine.”

  “You never had to use it, Uncle Denny.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So why the nine-millimeter?”

  “You’re not listening, Matty. I’m supposed to be setting an example. Besides, my .38 was fine. Why carry around an elephant gun? And I sure as hell didn’t want to have to buy a damned gun. If Mariani is forcing me to take one, it’d damn well better be a free one.”

  Payne put the pistol back in the box, closed the lid, and snapped the latches shut.

  “You know what they say about a nine-millimeter, don’t you, Uncle Denny?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “It’s a .45 set to ‘stun.’ ”

  Coughlin grunted.

  “Thank you for that educational ballistic tip, Marshal Earp.”

  Payne shrugged and smiled.

  “ ‘If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared,’ ” Payne quoted.

  Coughlin’s Irish temper flared: “Jesus H. Christ, Matty!”

  Payne put his hands up, palms out. “Hey, Niccolo Machiavelli said that, not me. Early 1500s, I believe it was.”

  “If you think that kind of talk’s going to help with your case . . .” He paused, shaking his head. “Well, I suppose we actually should get into that, into why you’re here.”

  “I heard—” Payne began just as the intercom speaker on the phone buzzed.

  “Hold that thought, Matty.”

  Coughlin pushed a button. “Yeah? What is it, Frank?”

  “Call for you holding on line four, Chief,” Hollaran’s voice came over the speaker. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you want this one. Could be educational for Sergeant Payne to listen in on.”

  Coughlin looked to the bottom edge of the phone and saw the blinking red light under one of the row of five buttons, three of which were regular phone lines and two of which were secure lines.

  He punched the SPEAKERPHONE button on the phone base, then punched the button above the blinking light and said, “Commissioner Coughlin.”

  “How’s my favorite small-town police chief?” a soft feminine voice inquired.

  Coughlin’s face lit up and Payne smiled at the sound of the voice.

  Coughlin then glanced beyond Payne. Across the room was his I Love Me wall, and there he saw the picture of him standing beside the diminutive Liz Justice. The photograph had been taken two years earlier, when the Philadelphia Executive Women’s League had given her their annual Benjamin Franklin Leader of the Year Award.

  She was a petite thirty-five-year-old with a bright face and deeply intelligent dark eyes who wore her shoulder-length brunette hair parted on the right. In the picture she wore a navy blue woolen business suit with a double row of brass buttons down the front, navy silk stockings, black leather shoes with low heels—and a dazzling smile.

  “How the hell are you, Liz?” Coughlin said, his voice also showing his pleasure.

  “Plodding ahead in the never-ending war against crime, Denny.”

  “Indeed. Welcome to the club.”

  “I need a favor, Denny.”

  “You got it.”

  “I need some doors opened for a friend of mine.”

  “They’re wide open, Liz. Who is he?”

  “A Texas Ranger. The youngest one. Reminds me of Peter Wohl. Or maybe Matt Payne—”

  Coughlin glanced at Payne, who was somewhat glowing in the praise.

  “His name is Jim Byrth,” she went on. “He’s after a charming guy who likes to cut girls’ heads off. He heard the bastard’s in Philadelphia.”

  “We sure as hell can do without any of that. This Byrth will be doing us a favor. When’s he coming?”

  “He’ll be on the Continental flight arriving at three twenty-two.”

  “He’ll be met. If he’s a friend of yours, I’ll meet him myself.”

  “That would probably get the word out that the doors are open. He wants to nab this critter quietly.”

  Liz Justice had been a chief inspector of the Philadelphia Police Department running Internal Affairs when the City Fathers of Houston, Texas, had decided that their troubled police department needed a new chief. One with lots of experience in internal affairs. To say that the Houston PD was having more than a little problem with corrupt cops was akin to calling the mafia a misunderstood boys’ club. “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride” had become such common knowledge it may as well have been painted on the fenders of every squad car. And everything they’d tried thus far had failed to effect any significant change.

  When the search of the nation’s major police departments came up with Chief Inspector Justice’s name, the only thing against her was her gender.

  But the mayor had solved that in genuine Texas fashion: “Who better to break up the Old Boy Network than a lady who’s a fourth-generation cop?”

  Not only did Liz still have friends on Philly’s force, she still had family. Including a cousin in South Detectives, Lieutenant Daniel “Danny the Judge” Justice, Jr. He was reputedly the smallest and without question the most delicate-looking white shirt in all of the Philadelphia Police Department.

  Two weeks after the Houston mayor made the decision to hire Chief Inspector Liz Justice, she had been sworn in as the United States’ first female chief of a major city police department. The historic news put her on the cover of Time magazine.

  “I do appreciate it, Denny. Please give my love to your far better half.”

  He chuckled. “Will do, Liz. Take care of yourself down there in the Wild West.”

  She laughed appreciatively.

  He punched the SPEAKERPHONE button, breaking the connection.

  Coughlin looked at the I Love Me wall again. Payne could almost see the gears turning in his mind.

  And Coughlin was indeed thinking.

  The reason Hollaran said that Matty overhearing that conversation would be educational was because (a) he’d had a nice talk with Liz before sending her call in here and knew what she wanted and because (b) he believed that sitting on this Texas Ranger would solve our problem of what to do wi
th Matty.

  That’s what you call a good assistant—one who solves problems for his boss.

  “That’s one terrific woman,” Payne said with genuine praise.

  Coughlin turned to Payne.

  “Yeah, and one terrific cop.” He paused. “And you, Matty, are one lucky one. Guess where you’ll be at three twenty-two this afternoon?”

  [THREE]

  826 Sears Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 8:16 A.M.

  Sitting on the well-worn parlor couch, her legs crossed beneath her, Rosario Flores sipped from a can of Coca-Cola.

  Across from her, Paco and Salma Esteban each sat in a stackable molded plastic chair, of the type commonly found on backyard patios.

  “Are you sure?” Salma Esteban said softly, leaning toward her.

  Rosario nodded. “It is all my fault. I could have stopped it, or at least been smarter, when we met El Gato in Matamoros . . .”

  She then explained herself.

  It had been no accident that Ana and Rosario had crossed paths with Juan Paulo Delgado just over the border from Brownsville, Texas.

  On that late afternoon in March, he had lain in wait, carefully watching the pedestrian traffic crossing the Gateway International Bridge into Matamoros, Mexico. He again was ready to cull from the crowd.

  Ana and Rosario, wearing jeans, T-shirts, and dirty sneakers, were walking off the bridge in a group of twenty others. They had been officially declared by United States immigration officials to be unaccompanied minors. They had no way of knowing, of course, but they had joined some 35,000 other immigrant children who in a given year were so declared and, accordingly, lawfully deported.

  This afternoon’s group was a mix of teenagers and younger children. One was a six-year-old, being carried by another teenager, whose mother was said to be missing in the desert. And Rosario held the hand of a sad-eyed ten-year-old boy whom she’d met only an hour earlier, when the group had been gathered. He’d warmed to her and taken her hand.

  Two days earlier, Ana and Rosario had been in another group, one of a dozen Latino women and children, when they were caught illegally attempting to enter the United States of America.