Badge of Evil

by Bill Stanton

  “On the bed where you are sitting is a leather pouch,” he continued. “In it is a syringe filled with a low dose of fentanyl, a narcotic that will keep him unconscious for several days. It will have no effect whatsoever on his overall condition. Here is what you will do: Go to the hospital for your regular visit. When you pass the reporters and then go through security, just behave as you normally do. Then, when you are alone with Ayad, empty the contents of the syringe into his IV bag. Stay as long as you like and then come directly home. It’s quite simple really. It only gets messy if you don’t follow my instructions. Do not call anyone and do not go to the police. You will leave your cell phone with me. I have people at the hospital. You’ll be watched. And just to make sure you do exactly as you have been told, I’ll be here waiting with your beautiful daughter,” he said, brushing the back of his pale, spindly fingers against her cheek.

  “But what if—”

  “There are no what-ifs,” he said, cutting her off. “I have given you your instructions. Please do not try my patience.”

  • • •

  “I got it,” Brock practically screamed into the phone when he called Mayor Domenico.

  “Congratulations,” Domenico said. “This is what we’ve worked for. I used some juice on this so my credibility’s on the line. Keep your fucking head down and do what you’re supposed to. No showboating. I mean it. I wanna make the most of this—for both of us.”

  “No worries, boss. I know what’s at stake. And thanks again for everything.”

  “Just be careful. Washington’s not like New York. We’re not in control there. Keep me updated.”

  Brock spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone unleashing his charm offensive. He shamelessly stroked key legislators and various Washington power brokers, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. It was a roaring success. Whatever else he was, Brock was a world-class salesman when it came to selling himself. By five o’clock, though, he could no longer listen to the sound of his own bullshit—a rare development. He was spent. He called his two detectives, who’d been hanging around the hotel pretty much all day, and told them to grab a cab to the White House. He had the car and he was ready to leave.

  About half an hour later, the three of them were in the Navigator. Brock sat in the backseat working his BlackBerry. In addition to the BlackBerry, which he used for e-mails and texts, he had two other phones. One was principally for personal use, family and close friends, and the other, which Sam handled most of the time, was the “Bat Phone,” the number used only by a handful of critical people, like Mayor Domenico, his three deputy police commissioners, and now the White House. These were all “official” city government phones. But Brock had a fourth “unofficial” phone, an untraceable, disposable $50 cell. It was ironic in this age of high-tech surveillance, obsessive security, and relentless intelligence gathering how anonymous someone could be with a prepaid cell phone. A throwaway phone effectively thwarted eavesdropping and electronic tracking.

  While Brock sat hunched over his BlackBerry, the two detectives talked quietly about who was going to do the late shift with the commissioner. As soon as Brock lifted his head, they were silent. “Okay, guys,” Brock said, looking at his watch, “I’ve been cooped up inside all day. I need to clear my head. Let’s hit Rock Creek Park, I wanna take a walk.”

  It might’ve seemed like an odd request, but the detectives were used to the unexpected with Brock. One time he was on his way to give a speech, and he jumped out of his car in downtown Brooklyn to chase a suspect he saw run out of a store. Brock caught up to the guy, tackled him, and held him down until Sam and Chester showed up to put the cuffs on. He then went on to his appearance with torn pants, a fresh scrape on his face, and a dirty suit jacket. It made for a great opening anecdote and the crowd loved it. “Hey, I’m still a cop, right?” he told them. “What was I supposed to do, watch the lowlife run away? Ain’t gonna happen.” He got a ten-minute standing ovation.

  Brock was nothing if not unpredictable. Sam and Chester often picked him up or dropped him off at odd hours in strange places. So when the commissioner said he wanted to take a walk in the park, they didn’t question him. They didn’t even put up much of a protest when he said he was doing it alone. “Commish,” Sam said, going through the motions, “let us walk with you. Please. We’ll hang back a ways if you want.”

  “I got it covered, guys,” Brock said. “If I need you, I’ll call. Sit tight. I’ll be back in about twenty.”

  As Brock walked into the park, the sun had already gone down. It was dark. Sam and Chester were not happy. “What the fuck?” Chester said. “If somethin’ happens to the boss, it’s on us.”

  “Not really,” Sam said. “You’re just following orders. I’m head of the detail, so I’m the one that’s fucked. But hey, we’ve been down this road before. There’s nothing we can do but ride it out.”

  “So if the boss gets this Homeland Security gig, are we history? Or do we get to be like 007 guys?”

  “Right now,” Sam said, “all I give a shit about is getting the big guy back in this car, taking him to the hotel, and keeping his ass whole until tomorrow’s press conference. And, of course, fillin’ out my fuckin’ overtime voucher.”

  “I was just wonderin’,” Chester said. “Think we’ll get to eat tonight?”

  • • •

  Andrea Jafaari did exactly as she was told. What choice did she have? She had no doubt that the terrifying man in her apartment would kill Mary if she deviated from his instructions. She knew from his weirdly calm, almost disconnected attitude that he was serious. Clearly he’d done this kind of thing before. So how could she risk going to the police? It wasn’t an option. Her only hope was that he was telling the truth. When she arrived at Bellevue, she barely noticed the small crowd of reporters clamoring for a comment from her. It was like she was underwater and their voices were muffled and distant. She breezed through the entrance checkpoint where, fortunately, they didn’t ask to open her bag. Ayad’s room was on the fourth floor. The cops had wanted him isolated, for security reasons, so there were no other patients in his corridor. When she reached his room at the end of a long hall, there were two cops standing like sentries on either side of the door. They nodded to her as she approached. Andrea didn’t acknowledge them. She simply went inside and closed the door behind her.

  When she was finally at Ayad’s bedside, she realized she’d been so preoccupied since she left her apartment that she had no recollection whatsoever of her trip from Astoria to the hospital. She had traveled by some kind of autopilot. Andrea took off her coat, put her bag down on a chair, and moved in close enough to Ayad that her hip was pressed against the bedside. He seemed so peaceful. Even with all the tubes, the mass of monitors, and the bad fluorescent lighting, he looked, to Andrea, almost exactly as he did when he was a little boy and she would go into his bedroom to kiss him good night before she went to sleep. His skin was still so smooth and his features had barely changed.

  “What did you do, my beautiful boy?” she said softly as she stroked his forehead. “Whatever it was, please don’t leave me. I miss you, baby, please come back.” She sat on the bed for a long time. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She cried quietly. Andrea didn’t want the cops to hear her suffering. After a while, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and then she leaned in and kissed Ayad. She kept her face pressed against his and whispered, “We’re waiting for you, baby. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just please don’t leave me. Please, baby, we’re waiting for you to come home.” She sat up slowly, wiped her face once more, and got off the bed.

  She straightened the front of her dress, patted her hair, and took several long, deep breaths. It was only six thirty but the hospital seemed very quiet. Moving deliberately, Andrea opened her pocketbook and took out the syringe. “Forgive me, baby,” she said as she inserted the needle into his IV bag and squeezed the plunger. The clear liquid emptied quickly. Then she just stood there, syringe at her side
, staring at the heart monitor. When it didn’t flatline, which was what she was convinced would happen, she was relieved, for a moment, anyway. At least she hadn’t killed her son, she thought. Maybe there was hope.

  Andrea began to move more quickly now, with a pronounced sense of purpose. She wanted to get home and see Mary. She put on her coat, threw her bag over her shoulder, and took one long last look at Ayad before leaving. In the elevator, she put her hands in her pockets and felt a cell phone. It was Mary’s. She was always yelling at her about being more careful with it. Andrea’s fingers nervously played with the keypad and spun the phone around and around in her pocket. She desperately wanted to call home to make sure Mary was all right. Once outside the hospital, she lost her resolve. She pulled the phone from her pocket and frantically dialed her apartment. When the answering machine clicked on, she quickly hung up. She tried three more times and still no answer. Panicked now, she raced to her car. She opened the door, threw her bag across the seat, and got in. She was trying not to get hysterical. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the top of the steering wheel, struggling to hold herself together. In a moment, she sat back up. Feeling a little calmer, she went to put the key in the ignition.

  “Hello, Mrs. Jafaari.” The intruder from the apartment popped up in the backseat. Andrea was so startled she threw her keys in the air and her heart raced so fast it felt like it was going to explode in her throat.

  “I . . . I . . . I did everything,” she somehow managed to say.

  “I know,” he said with a blank expression. Then he calmly slid his left arm around her throat. He leaned over the front seat a little, and with his right hand he simultaneously grabbed her hand, pushed a .38 into it, and lifted it up to her head. The gun was pointing at her temple. She began to struggle, but he was simply too strong. Quickly, with her hand under his, he pulled the trigger. The shot inside the car was deafening, but he was wearing earplugs. If anyone in the parking lot had been watching, they would’ve seen a quick flash of light and heard something that sounded like a balloon popping. But no one was there, and the parking lot’s security cameras had been disconnected hours earlier. Leaving the gun in Andrea’s hand, the killer got out of the car and disappeared.

  • • •

  Brock walked into the park at a brisk pace, and he was quickly beyond the sight of his detectives. He turned his suit collar up against the chill of the damp night air and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. As he walked, he was recapping events in his head. In his mind’s eye he went through the images quickly. It was like cataloging snapshots. He didn’t dwell on any one thing for very long. He reveled in the mythic image he had of himself. He saw himself as a man like Odysseus, a fearless warrior who had spent years overcoming great odds and conquering insurmountable obstacles to reach his destination. For Odysseus, the journey ended where it began, at home. But Brock had no interest in going back. He felt like a man standing on a precipice, the promised land stretched out in front of him. All he had to do was keep moving forward.

  Brock was not completely lost in his fantasy, however. As he walked, he remained the ultimate predator. He scanned his surroundings, eyeing the park benches, the bushes, the trees. He saw an approaching jogger, about fifty yards away, and he calculated his pace at eight minutes a mile. Not bad, he thought. When he spotted a man with a dog he immediately wondered if he was legit. Maybe he was doing surveillance.

  He had been walking for nearly seven minutes when he came to an artery where a road cut through the park to the other side of town. A taxi rolled to a stop just as Brock approached the intersection. He opened the door and got in. “Twice around the park,” he said to the driver, who was a Middle Eastern man with dark features and a thick black beard. Almost a full minute passed before another word was spoken. The cabbie looked directly at Brock in his rearview mirror. Their eyes met. The cabbie broke the silence by saying something in Arabic.

  “Yes, Abdullah,” Brock responded, “it’s done. Tomorrow the president will make the official announcement.”

  Abdullah nodded and Brock thought he saw something he hadn’t seen in the twenty years the two men had known each other—the hint of a smile. “Praise be to Allah.”

  Brock had first met Abdullah al-Rasheed when he was stationed in Saudi Arabia and had been assigned to a military detail that occasionally provided additional security for the Saudi royal family. Brock stayed in the country for two years after his discharge, taking a job with an American contractor, and that’s when the relationship between the two men really developed, though it had been several years since their last meeting. The last time was when he was about to be named New York City’s police commissioner. Abdullah moved in and out of Brock’s life, appearing at critical moments. Brock’s wife was Abdullah’s cousin, though he didn’t find out until after they were married. There were nights when Brock couldn’t sleep and he’d lie awake next to her, wondering if she was a plant, some kind of operative whose assignment was to seduce him and then keep an eye on him.

  It was not something he allowed himself to think about very often. Mostly because it raised other, even more troubling questions. If she’d married him by design, if it was her assignment, then who was really in control? Brock or his Muslim benefactors? Who was the puppet and who was the puppeteer? Was he pulling the strings and simply using them—over the years, they’d been helpful when he needed money and other kinds of assistance—to achieve his ambitions? Or was he their tool, a potential weapon about to be placed deep inside the president’s cabinet? They’d never asked him for anything; they knew he wasn’t interested in religion and couldn’t have cared less about the subtleties and nuances of Middle East politics. Brock’s only agenda was ambition, ego, and personal gratification—there was little else that motivated him.

  As Abdullah drove through the beautiful park, Brock was momentarily amused by the idea of his real story, the whole story, somehow getting out. No one would believe it, he thought. The version of his life that the public had been given was already unbelievable enough. But when he thought about the planning, the scheming, and the sheer dumb luck that had brought him to where he was now—his complete life story—it was almost enough to make him think there actually was a God.

  In his insatiable quest for power he was never bothered by conscience and only rarely by self-doubt. Through cunning and guile and an uninhibited willingness to do whatever was necessary, he had always engineered his own fate, created his own outcomes. Or at least he thought he had. But now, on the eve of his cabinet appointment, his greatest achievement, for one brief moment he considered the ramifications. Had the man in the seat in front of him played him all these years? If that was true, Brock realized, he had no real idea why. Was Abdullah expecting to call in his favors once Brock was in the cabinet? Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll be the one holding all the cards. Fuck him.

  Despite their long association, Brock didn’t really know Abdullah very well at all. There had been times when Brock tried to uncover his history, to learn something about his background. But he always came up empty. Every road was a dead end. Even when he’d question his wife about her cousin, she’d feed him some crap about how Muslim women were always kept in the dark, or how while they were cousins in name, it was not like being cousins in America, where you spend the holidays with your extended family. They were never close, she explained, and why would they be? Her cousins numbered in the triple digits, and while she knew many of them by name, that was really all she knew.

  Abdullah finally broke the silence. “What are you thinking, my friend?”

  “I always knew I’d get here,” Brock said. “But it’s amazing now that I actually have.”

  “You have done well. This is only the beginning,” Abdullah said, “the beginning of what Allah has planned for us.” Abdullah had already begun to circle back to where he picked Brock up. “This is quite possibly our last meeting,” Abdullah said. “You will be too visible. Any information we need to deliver will pass
through Oz.”

  As the cab pulled over to the spot where Brock had gotten in, the two men said good-bye. “Take care,” Brock said as he moved toward the door.

  “You too, my friend.”

  Brock nodded and got out. He shivered for a moment as a strange chill ran down his body from his head to his feet. Then he started walking back to meet Sam and Chester. When he was about halfway there, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. It was the disposable. There was a text from Oz. “PROBLEM PUT TO REST. 3 DWN. C U SOON.” Brock stared at the message for a few moments as he walked and then put the phone away.

  When he emerged from the park, Sam and Chester looked relieved. “That got the blood flowing,” Brock said, rubbing his hands together. “Anybody hungry? I’m fuckin’ starving, let’s go get some dinner.”

  12

  “IT’S DEPRESSING TO say it, but I’m getting too old for this.” Lucy was talking to Bishop at the bar in a club called Roxx. It was just past eleven thirty and they were having a drink while they waited for Supreme, who was supposed to arrive at midnight. Roxx was in Brooklyn, in a former warehouse on Dock Street, literally under the Brooklyn Bridge. The out-of-the-way location was part of the club’s exotic aura, amplified by the décor; Supreme was a silent partner in the club and had it designed to look like a forest, filled with rocks and trees and a couple of man-made waterfalls. It was an ideal setting for the live animals Supreme had brought in to create a little additional excitement. There were several tigers, two bears, and a leopard.

  The dance floor in the main room could probably hold a couple of thousand people; there were nearly that many out there already, and Supreme and his crew hadn’t even arrived yet. There were also several smaller private-party and VIP areas. The back wall of the main room was almost all glass, providing a stunning view of lower Manhattan and the dark underbelly of the bridge. Several well-known young rappers were in the house as well; word had gone out that Supreme was throwing a party for his latest protégé and everyone wanted to be there.