by Bill Stanton
A. J. was totally winging it, but at the same time he was starting to put everything together in his head. “Come on, Chief, don’t play stupid. Don’t tell me you had no idea what Brock was up to. It’s like when a volunteer fireman starts a fire so he can go put it out and be the hero. The whole thing was a fucking setup, although I’m sure nobody told the guys in the apartment.”
Oz looked at A. J. He wasn’t happy, but he was impressed at how sharp A. J. was even after the torture and the loss of blood. He let him continue so he could find out what else he knew.
“And all this old shit,” A. J. continued, looking directly into Fitzgerald’s eyes, “it was never about Supreme, it was never about Anderson. It was all about lousy timing. Anderson got a little greedy, and when Internal Affairs finally decided to make waves, it just didn’t work well with Brock’s agenda. Remember Son of Sam? That’s what Brock and this motherfucker Oz are like. David Berkowitz didn’t get caught actually killing anybody, he got caught because he got a parking ticket. A lousy fucking parking ticket. First Anderson, then Supreme, and now you, Chief, are like that parking ticket.”
Even Oz had to smile. “Okay, Mr. Ross, who else knows about your conspiracy theory? Think before you answer, because the next thing you lose will be your hand.”
With that Oz nodded, but as his men were getting ready to put A. J.’s bloodied hand back on the butcher block, the telephone rang. Oz went upstairs to take the call.
Fitzgerald looked at the ground. He didn’t want to make eye contact with A. J.
“Is this where your career ends, Chief? This the way you want to go out, being a member of a terrorist cell?”
Fitzgerald turned around and walked up the stairs.
• • •
Pennetta counted two people coming up out of the basement by the heat signatures he saw on his scope. He knew in his gut, and from years of experience, that they had A. J. down there. He told Bishop over the radio that this was the moment to move in. As the sun was setting, Bishop ran along the tree line as far as he could until he could make the break. Then, in a low crouch, he ran the twenty yards from the woods to the door, unsurprised to find it unlocked. Treading lightly, he went down eight steps to the second door. Through the shadows he could see one guy, who was about five feet seven, one hundred sixty pounds, standing over A. J. Bishop’s heart started to race. If this were a movie and he were Stallone or the Rock, he’d have pulled out a knife and thrown it perfectly so it pierced the bad guy’s throat, killing him instantly. But Bishop knew he could barely cut a steak. He also knew he wasn’t fast enough to shoot the guard and get A. J. out before they all came running downstairs.
Bishop really wanted to get Zito on the radio, but he had no transmission in the basement. He knew he had to move. But how? He withdrew the Kimber from his holster and was steeling himself to blow the motherfucker away when he got lucky. The man watching A. J. suddenly smacked him across the face and then went upstairs. Bishop could hear him calling one of the other guys for prayer time. “Praise be to Allah,” Bishop said to himself, and smiled.
He holstered his .45, pulled out the commando knife Pennetta had given him, and walked over to A. J. He cut the flex cuffs and whispered into his ear, “Can you move?” A. J. nodded and his face broke into a smile. Bishop saw his bloodied left hand where the missing pinky used to be. He pulled A. J. up on unsteady legs and walked him to the door at the back of the basement, grabbing a rag and wrapping it around his hand. He pulled out the Colt Commander from his shoulder holster and gave it to A. J., then told him to run to the edge of the woods and wait. “Now,” he said, pushing A. J. forward as he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
He slipped back into the shadows, hugging the wall, and waited. He watched the guy look at the empty chair and the trail of blood to the door. As he ran to the rear door, Bishop grabbed him around the throat from behind with his left forearm, pulled his neck back, and stabbed him in the side of his throat. Blood sprayed everywhere. It reminded Bishop of when he’d wash a car as a kid and he’d put his thumb over the open hose, shooting the water all over.
• • •
Oz was about to go back downstairs and cut off A. J.’s hand. Fitzgerald stopped him. “Let me do this,” he said. “Let me go down there and talk to him and see if I can get it done.”
Now Bishop could hear Fitzgerald coming slowly down the stairs. He moved into the center of the room, in full view, so the chief could see him, covered in blood, knife in hand, standing over the body of one of Oz’s men. The shock on Fitzgerald’s face practically lit up the dim cellar.
Finally, Fitzgerald spoke. “You don’t have to die,” he said. It made Bishop angry. He dropped the knife and both men simultaneously went to their holsters. Like the thousands of times they had faced off in friendly competition at the range, they came up in their point-and-shoot stance. Only this time when they fired, they shot directly at each other.
Bishop was knocked down and felt like he’d been hit in the chest three times with a baseball bat. He was waiting for the chief to stand over him and finish him off. But nothing happened. When Bishop got to his feet he realized that while both of them were wearing vests, only Bishop had successfully executed the Mozambique—two to the body and one to the head. Fitzgerald was dead. Bishop briefly stood over him, but there was no time to linger. At the sound of the shots everyone had gone into overdrive.
• • •
Oz’s second guy picked up the M16 that was leaning on the table and ran to the entrance of the basement. When he looked down, he saw Bishop and started firing. That was all Pennetta, who’d never taken his eyes off his scope, needed. Exhaling calmly, he took aim, held his breath, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The lone shot through the window exploded the man’s heart onto the inside wall of the basement staircase.
• • •
Oz pulled out a nine-millimeter and crawled to the basement. He’d barely registered the dead bodies on the floor when he heard a movement, emptied his mag, and made his way to the back door. He needed to get to the Honda. Oz was moving to the car with the keys in his hand when he heard footsteps from behind.
“Turn around,” A. J. said. He wanted to look Oz in the eye when he blew his brains out. He wasted no time pulling the trigger as Oz turned to face him. But nothing happened. Oz laughed. A. J. hadn’t depressed the thumb safety before trying to shoot. He reached in the back of his pants and pulled out his stiletto. He started toward A. J., who tried one last time to shoot. A. J. was circling but Oz was closing the distance quickly.
A. J. grabbed a branch off the ground and swung it around just in time to block Oz’s thrust and avoid being stabbed.
Oz was now a man possessed. He charged at A. J. again. A. J. lifted the big branch over his head like a lumberjack and came down hard, forcing Oz to block the branch with his knife hand. A. J., sweating, dizzy, and breathing hard, lunged for the knife. Both men went down. They rolled down the hill into the dirt driveway about twenty-five yards from the house.
• • •
Bishop didn’t realize he’d been hit until he tried to get up and it felt like his right leg was dead. He crawled up the steps and saw that there was no one left in the house to kill. Making his way out onto the deck, he saw A. J. locked in a life-and-death struggle with Oz. As they stopped rolling about thirty yards away from where he stood, Oz ended up on top and leaned all of his weight on the knife to try to plunge it directly into A. J.’s chest.
A. J. was resisting with what little strength and energy he had left, but Bishop could see he was slowly losing the battle. The knife point was just about to break his skin and the drool from Oz’s open mouth was hitting him in the face. A. J. knew he had nothing left, and he started to close his eyes and think of Nikki and the kids. He didn’t want Oz’s face to be the last thing he saw before he died.
Bishop got down on one knee. His body was shaking, and he knew he was going into shock. But he also knew he had to try to save A. J. He sighted in on th
e head of Oz, and letting out a breath, he slowly started to squeeze the trigger.
He never heard the shot from Pennetta’s rifle, only saw the wide pink spray as the top of Oz’s head exploded.
28
A. J. PUT HIS head back and closed his eyes. He could feel the sun and a slight breeze on his face. He was thinking about the words; he had to find exactly the right words. But he was having trouble concentrating. It’d been almost two weeks since the shooting in North Carolina, and his emotions were still a little frayed. He’d cried twice, both times because he was happy, happy to be alive, happy to be with his family, and happy to return to work. He laughed every time he thought about the image of him, Bishop, and Zito walking away from the farmhouse. What a sight they must’ve been, though there was no one there to see it. A dirt-covered Zito with smeared camo face paint running down his cheeks, half-carrying Bishop, who’d been shot in the leg, walking next to an exhausted, unsteady, battered, and bruised A. J. with a bloodsoaked rag wrapped around his now four-fingered hand.
“Hey, motherfucker, are you gonna move your car or not?”
A. J. opened his eyes. It was just after eleven in the morning, and he and Bishop were in the car in midtown. A cabdriver behind them screamed again in a slight Middle Eastern accent.
“The light’s green, motherfucker, MOVE!”
Bishop and A. J. looked at each other and smiled. Then they both looked at the cabbie. “Absolutely,” Bishop said. “Have a great day.”
Bishop hit the gas and they sped downtown on Fifth Avenue. They were on their way to police headquarters. In a very compressed period of time, their relationship had matured the way all good ones do—there was no longer a need for constant forced chatter. They were comfortable enough to sit together in silence. Bishop’s XM radio was playing—what else?—the sounds of the seventies, specifically “Easy,” by the Commodores. A. J. was happy to be lost in his thoughts.
Since they’d been back, the papers were filled almost every day with coverage of Fitzgerald, Anderson, Supreme, and Oz. And, of course, Brock. What started in the headlines ended in headlines: CORRUPT CHIEF COOKS BOOKS, read the Daily News. AIDE TO COMMISSIONER IN DRUG SCAM WITH CHIEF, the Times wrote. And the Post, more playfully, ran with NYPD’S CHIEF WAMPUM. The stories were all interesting, but they were woefully incomplete. More often, however, they were just wrong. Fitzgerald and Oz took the rap. Terrorism, the Middle East, and the raid were never mentioned. And no one blamed Brock for anything except being a lousy, distracted manager. The op-ed columnists carped that he should’ve known what those close to him were doing.
After about fifteen minutes, Bishop pulled up in front of One Police Plaza. They sat in the car for a moment and neither one of them said anything. “Let me come up with you,” Bishop protested halfheartedly. “We should do this together.”
“I don’t think so,” A. J. said. “I think we’ve done more than enough together lately. People are starting to talk.”
“Seriously, I don’t wanna be accused, yet again, of not stepping in to help,” he said as A. J. opened the car door. “You’re always telling me I need to care about things, to actually give a shit. Well, most people wouldn’t have lifted a pinky to help you.” Bishop purposely didn’t look at A. J.’s bandaged hand.
“I’m glad to see you haven’t gotten any funnier,” A. J. said without smiling. “This is something I need to finish. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“You sure you don’t want me to wait for you?” Bishop asked, making one last attempt to change A. J.’s mind. “The last time somebody dropped you off here alone things didn’t turn out so well.”
This time A. J. smiled. “Now that’s amusing. See you later.”
A. J. cleared security and stepped off the elevator on the fourteenth floor. Against the advice of his doctor and his wife, A. J. had stopped taking painkillers. They made him feel light-headed and foggy, like his brain was working in a lower gear. But his hand was throbbing now as he held up his visitor’s pass and was buzzed in through the security doors to the area outside the commissioner’s office. “Good morning,” Brock’s secretary said. “He’s expecting you.”
She led A. J. into Brock’s office and said the commissioner was on his way. He’s still playing games, A. J. thought as he sat down on the couch. Fine. This time I’m ready. The pain kept him focused as he looked around the office at the trappings of power: enormous mahogany desk, huge thronelike leather chair, large windows overlooking lower Manhattan and the East River. And, of course, the mementos. Dozens of vanity photographs with politicians and celebrities: the president, two popes, stars and starlets, athletes, and at least half a dozen foreign heads of state.
A. J. started thinking about North Carolina again. When the shooting had stopped, Zito wanted to contact the local authorities. A. J. agreed. But Bishop convinced them that dealing with the local cops would create too many complications, raise too many questions, and get them entangled in a never-ending web of legal issues. Instead, they called Victoria Cannel and had her get in touch with the Feds. When they returned to New York, they were fully debriefed by the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security over several days of fairly intense interrogations. Once the interviews were completed, they assumed Brock was finished. Not only would he lose everything, he’d be facing very serious criminal charges. They waited with great anticipation for him to be dragged out of his office in handcuffs—and the subsequent explosion of headlines. When that didn’t happen, Zito, Bishop, and A. J. used their contacts to find out what was going on.
The answer didn’t satisfy anyone. It was beyond anything any of them could’ve anticipated. Homeland Security had thrown a blanket over the entire affair. Beyond murder, corruption, and drug-dealing charges for Oz, Chief Fitzgerald, and Kevin Anderson—all of whom were dead anyway—everything else was now classified until further notice. Using the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a federal crime to release classified information that could harm the government’s foreign intelligence activities, the Feds had completely shut them and everyone else down. A. J., Bishop, and Zito were forbidden, under threat of federal prosecution, from talking about any aspect of what had happened—other than the claims and charges that had already been made public. And there was no definitive evidence tying Brock to any of these activities. It was an incredibly bitter pill for them to swallow.
And while there might have been a time earlier in A. J.’s life when he would’ve considered writing the story and defying the Feds, his days of being a renegade—of believing in telling the story no matter the costs—were behind him. He had a family, and a lifetime of experience as a journalist had taught him that telling the truth was not always the best thing. Sometimes the consequences could be devastating.
Suddenly the private door behind Brock’s desk flew open and the commissioner walked in wearing warm-up pants and a sleeveless T-shirt. He had a towel draped over his head and was soaked in sweat. He’d just worked out, and his hands were taped like he’d been boxing or maybe working the heavy bag. Brock was just about finished unwrapping his right hand as A. J. stood up.
Without a word, Brock stepped around the desk toward A. J. and, in one uninterrupted movement, threw his towel in A. J.’s face, pushed him back down on the couch, and removed a Walther PKK/S from the back of his waistband. Racking a round in the chamber, he pointed the gun in A. J.’s face.
“I could just splatter you all over the couch right now and be done with it,” Brock said with little real malice.
A. J. smiled. After all he’d been through, it was going to take more than this bullshit bravado to rattle him. “Go ahead, tough guy,” he said, staring directly into Brock’s eyes. “Who’re you gonna blame it on? All your patsies are gone. No more Oz, no more Fitzgerald. You’re all alone now.”
Stepping back and putting the gun on the desk so he could unwrap his other hand, Brock shook his head slowly in disgust. “This has been a fucking spectacular pain in the ass. But make no mistake,
shithead, that’s all it’s been. The Feds don’t have anything on me and neither do you. It’s all circumstantial. The president’s sent word that he thinks my services would be better utilized outside the confines of a federal post. I really did want Homeland Security. But I’ll survive. There’ll be other opportunities. I let the president know that I’d rather stay in New York as police commissioner. After all, A. J., if I left, who’d be here to keep an eye on your beautiful little family, right?” Brock said with a wink.
The commissioner went to his chair and sat down heavily. He took a cigar out of an ornate wooden box near the phone. As he leaned forward, A. J. smoothly grabbed the gun off the desk and pointed it at Brock’s face. Brock was a little surprised and he almost smiled. A. J. was angry but in control.
“You deluded son of a bitch,” he said. “Are you nuts? You really think there’s any way you’re going to remain PC after everything you’ve done? You think I’d let that happen? Make no mistake, motherfucker, you’re going to resign immediately.”
“And why’s that?”
A. J. was squeezing the gun so tight that his bandaged hand had started to bleed. He was in a shooter’s stance, feet shoulder-width apart, both hands on the weapon. Drops of blood were dripping on the commissioner’s carpet.
“You’re gonna resign as police commissioner because I say so.” A. J. took one hand off the gun, reached into the inside pocket of his blazer, and pulled out a book covered in ornately engraved black leather with a zipper around the outside. Brock recognized it almost immediately. It was the pocket-sized Koran that Oz always carried.
“It’s funny, you know,” A. J. said. “With everything going on and all the excitement, I forgot to give this to the Feds. I took it out of Oz’s pocket, right after Zito blew his brains all over me and the North Carolina dirt. Did you ever get a chance to look at it? Really interesting reading. Especially all the handwritten entries detailing his various activities. Oz was very organized. I had it translated by an imam I’m friends with uptown.”