Badge of Evil

by Bill Stanton

  The pain was searing and caused A. J.’s knees to buckle, his eyes to tear, and his vision to get blurry. For a moment he thought he might puke. But he didn’t scream and he didn’t move his hand. The man holding the belt around A. J.’s neck laughed. “Shut up,” Oz harshly snapped at him, and he stopped immediately. “You think this is a joke?” Fitzgerald turned away in disgust. A. J. was reseated in the chair and the man who did the cutting tied off his pinky at the second joint. Although the basement was cool, A. J. was soaked in sweat. All four men were staring at him.

  “Quite painful, isn’t it, Mr. Ross?” Oz asked. “You’d think with modern technology there’d be better ways to extract information. But my experience has been that this is the most efficient. So, before I extract another piece of your finger, I’ll ask you once, what do you know and who else knows it?”

  A. J. realized he was playing some kind of bizarre mental chess, and every time he made the wrong move, every time he lost a piece, it would actually be a piece of him. His reply to Oz was vague but had just enough information in it to hold his attention. “I know the connection between the three of you,” A. J. said, looking in Fitzgerald’s direction. A. J. saw that Oz betrayed the hint of a smile at that statement. Before he could follow up, A. J. added, “And I know the connection between you and Brock.” A. J. was now looking at Oz, who blushed with anger.

  “When you say ‘connection,’ ” Oz looked at A. J. and asked, “what do you mean?”

  A. J. was searching for an answer. His finger was throbbing, and he was trying to work through the pain and use his skills as an investigative reporter, his ability to understand what people were thinking, to save his own life. “There are two things going on here,” A. J. said, trying to hold it together, “what went down with the chief all those years ago and what’s going on with you now.”

  Oz nodded and the two men picked him up, placed his hand on the butcher block, and took the second joint of his finger.

  • • •

  Pennetta was unloading the equipment from his car onto his plane, two big military duffel bags and a long rifle case. He was resigned to what they were about to do. Once he had flipped that switch, he became a machine. While he packed the plane, Bishop was still working the phones. Now that he knew the town where A. J. was being held, he needed to get the exact location. When his Verizon contact gave him Morganton, he’d remembered the chief loved to hunt and that his wife had a farm somewhere that had been in her family for a long time.

  One of Bishop’s go-to guys, someone he depended on more than just about anyone else, was a computer geek he called Gigabyte. Gigabyte was his intel wizard, the guy who would get him phone dumps, credit card bills, bank statements, and practically any other critical personal information that was stored somewhere on a computer. Bishop asked Gigabyte to do a property-and-land-deeds search in Morganton as well as the surrounding areas. He gave him all of Fitzgerald’s pedigree information and asked him to check the chief’s wife as well, since the property could be in her family name.

  Pennetta meanwhile was getting his plane ready to fly. It was a 1975 Cessna Skylane 182. He went through his preflight safety check—wings, flaps, tires, fuel, and gauges. His plan was to head to the closest municipal airport, which was in Hickory, about a twenty-minute drive from Morganton. This left him almost no room for error. The drive to Hickory was about 670 miles. His Cessna’s range on a full tank was a hair over 600 miles, which, given that his route would be more direct than driving, meant he’d just make it. The plane would be running on fumes as he got to Hickory.

  As Pennetta was having the gas tank topped off, Bishop came out from the flight office looking very pleased with himself. He had not only the address where he believed A. J. was being held, but the satellite pictures as well, thanks to Google Earth. The cruising speed on the Cessna was 139 knots, but Pennetta could push that to about 175. If all went according to plan, they’d get to A. J. several hours ahead of Eddie and Paul in Bishop’s Porsche.

  • • •

  A. J.’s left pinky was completely gone and his hand was a bloody mess. It had taken three cuts to lose one finger. When they cut off the last piece, A. J. passed out. When he regained consciousness after a few minutes, Oz told him he had nine more to go. A. J. now thought that his best shot was to try to work Fitzgerald. He clearly seemed to be the weak link, the one man of the four whose heart didn’t seem to be in it. “Why are you protecting these scumbags?” he asked him. “Don’t you realize who these people are? I’ve covered the department a long time and your rep has always been as good as anyone’s. Whatever you did with Brock all those years ago has nothing to do with this.”

  Fitzgerald was listening carefully, but A. J. was really struggling. He felt like he was about to pass out again. He was fighting with everything he had to stay conscious while at the same time trying to find some strategy, some way, to connect with Fitzgerald. His mind was all over the place; images and strands of information came and went like he was in a fever dream. He saw Bishop and Brock at the Sheraton in New York. He pictured his walk with Bishop at the softball field. He remembered him talking about the hookah bar’s owner. “I held that fat guy’s head to the fire,” he could hear Bishop say, thinking he’d mangled the expression. “He said the cops told him to keep his mouth shut.”

  A. J. decided it was worth a shot. “Don’t you see the bigger picture?” he said to Fitzgerald. “Don’t you realize that all of this is about the raid and Brock going to Washington, not the old drug deal? Who tipped off the terrorists before ESU hit the door? I know it wasn’t you, Chief. It was this scumbag,” A. J. said, looking at Oz. With that, Oz went over to A. J. and struck him across the face with a left hook, knocking him and the chair over. The chief looked at Oz for a long moment. “I need a cigarette,” he said.

  Oz told his men to take A. J. upstairs to the shower. “Clean him up and bring him to, then we’ll start all over again.”

  • • •

  Fitzgerald went outside. It was early afternoon. He looked out at the property and wondered why he hadn’t spent more time here over the years. It was so beautiful. They owned several hundred acres that stretched up into the mountains. The land was held in a trust so it could never be sold. If his wife’s family hadn’t done that, he thought, he surely would have sold this farm and used the money for his daughter. Who knows, but maybe he wouldn’t have been forced to enter into a deal with Brock, Anderson, and Church Jackson for money to try to save his daughter’s life. “What’s the difference at this point?” he said out loud. “What’s done is done.” He felt his eyes fill with tears. Things were getting worse and worse. First the drug deal, then torture and maybe murder, and now what? Terrorism? Was the raid some kind of fucking setup?

  He turned around and saw Oz staring at him with an odd look on his face. The moment was broken by A. J.’s screams. The two Arabs were literally rubbing salt into A. J.’s open wound. Oz turned and went back inside. Fitzgerald followed him a few minutes later and saw Oz at the laptops tracking what he thought was Bishop and Lucy in the Boxster. The Porsche still had plenty of miles to cover. It was on Interstate 78 West and approaching 81 South in Maryland. They still had plenty of miles to cover before reaching North Carolina.

  Fitzgerald looked toward the bathroom, where he could hear the Arabs scuffling with A. J. “Enough now,” Oz yelled to his men. “Ice him up and bring him downstairs.” Oz looked back at Fitzgerald. “We all make choices,” he said as if he’d read the chief’s mind, “and then we have to live with the consequences. Sometimes those can be difficult. Whatever happens, it’s always best not to look back. I know this is a dirty business, but you’ll have your house back soon. This’ll all be over and these characters will be fertilizer for your farm.”

  27

  MAYOR NICHOLAS DOMENICO bit into a strawberry and immediately bent forward at the waist so the juice wouldn’t drip on his tie or his crisp white shirt. “This is really good,” he said to no one in particular. Th
e mayor finished the strawberry and decided to stand by the fruit bowl and have several more pieces. It was almost six o’clock and he was hungry. The day had been a blur of meetings and appearances that all seemed to run together—a sit-down with the schools chancellor on class size, an appearance before the city council to discuss better radios for the fire department, face time at a nursing home in Sheepshead Bay, a short press conference, and a spot on an afternoon drive-time radio show. Lunch had never happened and he was happy to munch on some fresh fruit.

  Domenico was in the green room at Fox, waiting to be interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. The taped segment would air that night and likely include the usual set of questions about leadership, the state of America’s national security, and his presidential ambitions. The mayor was eating melon two pieces at a time when he heard a minor commotion outside in the hallway. There was even a little light applause for the arrival of Commissioner Brock. When he walked in, the two men embraced and then Domenico excused everyone else—the various members of his entourage and those of Brock’s.

  “Congratulations,” Brock said with a big smile.

  “What the hell for?” the mayor asked, now eating pineapple.

  “All the speculation about you running for the White House.”

  “At this point it’s all bullshit. But it does keep my name in the headlines. Listen, I had you come here because I needed to talk to you face-to-face,” Domenico said, moving away from the fruit bowl toward Brock. “I’m gonna get asked about you when I go on here in about ten minutes. And everywhere I go for at least the next several weeks people are gonna continue to ask about you. How’s the vetting process going?”

  “Fine, sir. My attorneys are responding promptly to inquiries from the White House; my tax returns are in order. There’ve been a few hiccups, but the attorney general is okay with everything.”

  “I’m not gonna bullshit you, Larry. I’ve been hearing rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors, Mayor?”

  “The kind of shit I don’t wanna hear, that’s what kind. Stuff about large gifts, questionable deals, and even speculation that something wasn’t right about the Brooklyn raid. You have to understand we’re joined at the fucking hip at this point. So any shit that comes down on you is gonna get on me as well.”

  Brock waited a moment before responding. “Sir, I believe everything is all right. There are things in my past you know about, and now the White House knows about them too. They’ve told me they’re fine with it.”

  “I’m not feeling reassured. So I’m gonna ask again,” Domenico said, looking hard into Brock’s eyes. “Is there anything I need to know about? Actually, let me rephrase. Is there anything that needs to be taken care of that won’t be taken care of?”

  “Absolutely not, sir. I’m all over this.”

  “Okay, as long as we’re clear on this. You’re only good to me as long as you’re good for me. Understand? I love you like a brother, Larry, but this is business. Don’t ever forget that. Embarrass me and I’ll cut you off in a fucking heartbeat.”

  “I understand,” Brock said.

  One of the producers knocked on the door. “Mayor Domenico, we need you in makeup, sir.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said. Then, turning back to Brock as he was putting his suit jacket on, the mayor said, “Don’t fuck me, Larry. We’ve been together a long time. It’d be a shame to lose you now.”

  • • •

  Pennetta was driving a rented SUV to Chief Fitzgerald’s farmhouse. The equipment he’d brought for the operation was in the back. Google Maps had provided an incredibly detailed layout of the area, which Bishop was sitting in the passenger seat and studying. While he was doing that, Pennetta was prepping him on the mission and going over critical details. Bishop willingly relinquished all control of the operation. As an ESU commander, this was what Zito trained for, planned for, and lived for, every day of his life.

  While they talked about their plan for snatching A. J., Pennetta hoped that Bishop was up to the task. Being a cop in the South Bronx and then a Manhattan private detective probably wasn’t the best training to take part in a dangerous covert operation, but neither one of them had a choice. This was their only shot at freeing A. J. If they failed, he’d likely be dead within twenty-four hours—if he wasn’t dead already.

  About a mile from the farmhouse, they turned onto an access road to the high power lines running along the base of the mountains. This was their staging area, the place where they’d gear up. Pennetta had decided that Bishop would go in and extract A. J. while he covered him with his sniper rifle. They parked in a covered spot where the car was visible from the main road and pulled out the gear. Pennetta had camouflage clothes and face paint for Bishop. He’d wanted Bishop to take an MP5 as his weapon, but Bishop refused, convinced he should stick to what he was good at—and he believed he was very good at close-quarters combat with his .45. He did, however, allow Pennetta to give him a Colt Commander in a shoulder rig as a backup.

  Pennetta was reluctant to use any NYPD weapons or equipment, so he’d brought his latest showpiece, an M40A3 sniper rifle he was testing for a friend who worked for the manufacturer. It was one of a handful of handmade weapons of its kind in use outside of the Marine Corps.

  While he was getting suited up in his camo gear, Bishop tried to stave off a case of nerves by keeping things light. “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” he said at one point. “How big are these pants? If I’m gonna get killed today, how’s it gonna look when the news cameras roll and I’m wearing my grandpa’s pants?”

  Pennetta almost smiled.

  “I saw that,” Bishop teased him.

  Pennetta tossed him a belt. “Shut up and tuck the long pants into your boots,” he told Bishop.

  “Next mission,” Bishop said, “I’ll do the shopping.”

  • • •

  It was getting late in the day and the sun was starting to set. A. J. was back in the basement being watched by one of the men, which seemed unnecessary given how battered and depleted he was. The other man Oz had brought in was upstairs at the computers monitoring the travel progress of the Boxster.

  Oz was watching the dirt road and the entrance to Fitzgerald’s farm with binoculars. The chief walked up behind him and asked, “What’s the plan?” Without turning around or looking away from the binoculars, Oz replied, “The plan is simple. Once they come over the wooden bridge, one of my men will block the road behind them. They’ll have no way out. We have some heavy artillery in the trunk of the Honda fixed with silencers, not that anyone would hear anything out here. We’ll take them into the basement first for serious interrogation.”

  “Why don’t we just get it over and done with?” Fitzgerald interrupted. “Let’s kill them.”

  “No,” Oz snapped. “If that’s what we intended to do, it would’ve been done already, and it would’ve been staged to look like an accident. We need to talk to them, we need to find out what they know. The commissioner’s future depends on it.”

  • • •

  Like all strong, effective military and law enforcement leaders, Pennetta was a control freak, totally anal about his work. So he and Bishop were well prepared. They knew the terrain, they had prearranged positions, and they had point-to-point throat radios for communication. Pennetta set up on the high ground in the woods opposite the Fitzgerald farmhouse. He cleared a flat area for his M40A3 sniper rifle, which weighed nearly twenty pounds, and got it solidly positioned on a bipod. Then he lay down flat on his stomach, made sure there were no small rocks or tree branches beneath him, and checked the farmhouse through his scope. From where he was positioned, he’d be shooting at a distance of eight hundred yards—not terribly long for a Marine Corps sniper but not exactly the average distance of an NYPD shoot-out. Given the fact that the overwhelming number of gun battles for the NYPD occurred in an area of less than twelve feet, Pennetta, who was a world-class shot, was cursing under his breath, wishing he’d put in more time on the sniper
range.

  • • •

  Bishop had a longer hike to get in position, looping around through the woods to come up directly behind the farmhouse without being spotted. Once they were both in position, they’d share reconnaissance: exactly how many men were in the farmhouse, A. J.’s location, possible strategies for getting him out with the least amount of contact. Pennetta compiled most of this information using his scope, which had both standard night-vision capabilities and thermo-imaging. With a laser range finder for both black heat and white heat, he could pick out the bad guys in the dark, through the trees, and around corners, by the body heat they gave off.

  From Pennetta’s vantage point, he counted three bodies, and all were moving around freely. That told him that either A. J. was dead and buried at another location, or he was in the basement, which would explain why Pennetta was not picking up his image.

  As he relayed this information over the point-to-point, Bishop had just finished mother-fucker-ing his way through the woods (albeit very quietly, under his breath) and was coming up to the rear of the house. He removed his backpack and pulled out his own set of infrared glasses. From behind the house he saw the old barn, the building supply shed, and the outhouse, positioned precisely as he’d seen them on the satellite photos. He also saw Fitzgerald’s truck and an old Honda. He suspected Oz and his assembled cretins were heavily armed, and he was seriously starting to wonder how the hell he’d ever get to A. J. Then he saw the old-fashioned double storm-shelter doors on the side of the house leading down to the basement and smiled.

  • • •

  When Oz returned to the basement, followed by Fitzgerald, it was A. J. who initiated the interrogation. “Who set up the Jafaari kid?” he asked. Fitzgerald just stood there and looked at him.

  “I can understand the rest of them,” A. J. continued, “you know, thinking they’d be martyrs, that they were gonna die for Allah. Although how fast you think they would’ve given it up if they knew they were gonna die for Lawrence Brock? But where’d you get the Jafaari kid? He doesn’t seem to fit.”