The Brotherhood

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “Your first was a woman too, wasn’t it?”

  Boone knew that PC knew better. The CPD had never been able to prove it, but they believed Robinson had nearly cut a superstore night watchman in half with an AK-47. PC had confirmed it for Boone, and now he was about to get Robinson to say it for the camera.

  “Nah! I never did no woman. My first was that guard at that big store, tried to run us off from sneakin’ in the back after hours.”

  Bingo.

  Skeeter was still playing with his phone. “You’re not fixin’ to call somebody, are you?” Candelario said. “Nobody can know where we are.”

  “You think you’re talking to a rookie, PC? I wouldn’t talk to nobody you didn’t want knowin’ where we are.”

  “Then who?”

  “I thought I was gonna see Jazzy is all. Got to check in with my man.”

  “Yeah, listen, he didn’t want to know where we were meeting and I didn’t want to tell him. That way, you know, nobody could get it out of him.”

  “Good thinkin’, dude! You think he’s gonna track me with GPS if I call him?”

  “Don’t call him! ’Course he can track where you are. You’ve got the same technology the rest of us do.”

  “I’m just bustin’ your chops, PC,” Skeeter said, slapping his phone shut. “Chill now.”

  “Hey, you guys leave your gats in the car?” Pascual said. “You know the rules for this meeting.”

  “You want to search us?” Skeet said coldly.

  “Nah, Jacopo’s guy’s gonna do that.”

  The techie in the van held up a hand. “Robinson said he wasn’t calling Villalobos, but he hit the Call button. He’s signaling somebody.”

  “We’ve got to know who,” Boone said.

  “If it’s the DiLoKi, we’ll know,” Galloway said. “We’ve got Villalobos and the rest of the leadership staked out.”

  Within minutes two more cars pulled in, one a Hummer and the other an Escalade. The five bangers now shared handshakes and embraces and the two who had just arrived did their sweep for bugs inside. PC brilliantly informed them that he had decided that Skeeter and Ray-Ray had been the baddest dudes of everybody he knew, at least when they were starting out. The other two immediately took the bait and began bragging about how violent their early kills were and how young they had been.

  Only once did PC strain credulity by asking for one detail too many. Boone could tell he was just trying to ensure CPD had enough detail, and he wished he could communicate to Pascual that they had plenty. Skeeter gave Pascual a long, hard look and said, “What’re you doin’, bro? Writin’ a book?”

  PC laughed a little too hard and said, “That’s a good idea, man! Hey, the senior citizens are here.”

  It was obvious from the moment Jacopo and his lieutenant emerged from their Town Car that the old-timers and the gangbangers neither liked nor respected nor trusted each other. “You all know Tommie Z, right?” Jacopo said as Tommie checked out the room.

  They all nodded and mumbled some greeting, formally shaking both men’s hands.

  In the van, Galloway took a call on his personal cell. “Terrific,” he muttered. “Got it. Don’t let ’em get anywhere near here, and if there’s a way to jam their phone signals, do it now. I don’t want anyone here knowing they’re coming. And listen, if we can get this done before they get here, don’t—do not—apprehend them. That would not end well. What we’re doing here will be way more effective in the long run than rounding up those guys now.”

  He slapped his phone shut and swore. “The DiLoKi, Jazzy in the lead, are loading up and heading this way. Robinson and Villalobos must be closer than Candelario knows.”

  Boone leaned forward. “Do I need to tip off PC, get this thing moving?”

  “I wouldn’t risk it,” Keller said.

  “Me neither,” Galloway and Wade said in unison. Galloway added, “Our guys’ll keep an eye out for company.”

  23

  The Bust

  In the room next to the lighthouse, Jacopo said, “This is your idea of a meeting place?”

  “What’sa matter, Grazzy,” PC said, “you didn’t take your happy pills today, or what? Come on. It’s not a palace like you guys are used to, but it’s secluded. Can’t beat that.”

  “Got to agree with you there. Nobody must come here except on purpose. Now, did you inform everybody of the rules? Tommie will frisk all of you, and you will frisk him and me. Let’s get on with it.”

  Once all were satisfied that no one was carrying, they sat. Jacopo and Tommie sat next to each other, and the gangbangers spread out. Though at times it was difficult to see individual faces, anytime the camera caught Jacopo, he looked in a foul mood. He pulled out a file folder, and PC produced a small pad of paper.

  Pascual suddenly turned formal. “Well, Mr. Jacopo and Mr. Z, I haven’t seen you two since we accommodated you on the unfortunate disappearance of your former associate. What was his name?”

  There was a long silence. “That’s the difference between us and you,” Graziano Jacopo said finally. “You guys like to run your mouths. You think it’s smart to talk about this stuff? I always go by the rule that every place is bugged, so I never make a mistake.”

  “Yeah, you gotta watch out for this place, Grazzy. Like I told Skeeter here, I’m writin’ a book.”

  “And quit calling me that. That’s disrespectful. I’ll call you anything you ask, so extend me the same courtesy.”

  “Well, okay, as long as you speak right into the radiator.”

  Everybody laughed, including Jacopo, but he was also the first to grow serious again. “Speaking of that, is there no heat in this godforsaken dump?”

  “Not much, so we got to hurry,” PC said.

  In the van the techie said, “That’s good, because I think Robinson is still transmitting. Wouldn’t surprise me if Villalobos is listening in.”

  Ray-Ray raised his hand.

  “What’re we, in school?” Jacopo said. “What do you want?”

  “Just wanted you to know it was me who did your boy. My number seven. PC’s guys said it had to look like our work and not yours.”

  “And you did fine. We paid for it and we appreciate it. Now can we get on with the reason for this meeting?”

  “I didn’t even know it was you, Ray-Ray,” Pascual said. “All I heard was that it got done, right there in the entrance to that travel agency. I passed the payoff on down the line. Good work, amigo.”

  “Thanks, but that wasn’t the travel agency. You’re thinking of that accountant who found out we were skimmin’ their books. The one for the Outfit was the guy who turned on ’em. We took him out in the parking lot at Midway.”

  “Oh yeah!”

  Galloway reached for the radio. “This guy ought to get an Academy Award. Brilliant. You coach him, Drake?”

  “A little, but I can’t take credit. Got a lot of input from Jack and Pete—even some from Garrett Fox, who used to be with you guys. But then Candelario is just something special on his own.”

  Galloway held up a hand and spoke into the mike. “Stand by. We’ve got more than enough on every one of them already, but I want to get as much on this cartel as I can; then we move.”

  Jacopo was riffling papers and breathing so heavily through his nose that Boone could hear it through the speakers. “If you thugs are finished comparing gun-barrel sizes, I’d like to get down to business.”

  “No sense getting disrespectful, gramps,” Ray-Ray said.

  “And calling me that is respectful? I owned Chicago before you were born.”

  “Yeah,” PC said. “Let’s hear the man out and see what we can do together. You know the numbers are off the charts, so let’s hear all about it.”

  Jacopo sounded like a college professor, carefully laying out how the cartel had come to him through former associates who had fled the country and then put in a good word for him in South America. “As you know, we have never been in the drug business, but this is too plump to
pass up, and I’ll show you why.”

  The old man began laying sheets of paper on the table and turning them so everyone could see. He outlined how much cocaine was available to be shipped, how it would come into the country, where it was to be processed, and how he foresaw getting it to the street gangs for delivery. Then he asked for an idea of how much business they thought they could do with him.

  “We’ve been talking about this,” Pascual said, referring to his own notes. “And here’s what we think we can do. ’Course we’ll want the option to adjust this as we go, in case we’re way off in our estimates, good or bad.”

  Jacopo’s mood began to shift, and he became much friendlier and more animated. “You can see there’s way more than enough here for everyone, wouldn’t you agree? How about you, Mr. Ray-Ray?”

  The young man threw his head back and laughed. “Never been called that before, Mister Jacopo, but it sounds good. And yeah, I do agree. My piece of this alone will set me up nice.”

  Galloway barked into the mike, “Now.”

  He instructed the driver of the van to head through the woods to the lighthouse, and in the meantime, everybody inside watched the bust unfold on the monitors.

  Boone was impressed that the SWAT team, in full heavy gear and looking like black-clad RoboCops, was somehow able to surround the building, putting sentries at the entrance and windows, without being detected at first. One, brandishing a massive submachine gun, was posted by the cars that contained all the perps’ weapons.

  Just before the SWAT team leader kicked open the door, Skeeter Robinson must have seen something. He leaped to his feet, his chair sliding across the floor, squealing a string of curses that caused the others to rise and reach in vain for their weapons.

  The door resounded with the leader’s kick, then seemed to explode again when it slammed against the wall. Everyone responded at once except Graziano Jacopo, who remained seated, slowly shaking his head and not even watching the proceedings. It was as if he understood immediately that he had been set up.

  The gangbangers, Candelario included, backed away, but from deep inside his boot Skeeter produced a switchblade. He yanked it out, the blade snapping open as he raised it, but he was immediately driven back with a blow to the chest by the butt end of a SWAT semiautomatic. As Skeeter hit the ground, the SWAT team member said, “Oh, sorry, Skeeter. I forgot you were the one who called this in. I should have pulled my punch, eh?”

  The others glared at Skeeter, who looked stricken. “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout, man? I never called nothing in! It wasn’t me!”

  While the others were each subdued by two team members and cuffed at the ankles and behind their backs, Jacopo finally stood slowly and turned to face the SWAT team leader. “May I reach into my pocket for my lawyer’s card?”

  “Of course,” the leader said, his weapon leveled at Graziano’s chest. He pocketed the card and nodded to a subordinate to cuff the old man. “Just the wrists,” he said. “This old boy ain’t runnin’.”

  “That’s for sure,” Jacopo said, and as they were led out, he seemed to look wistfully at the car full of weapons.

  The SWAT team member standing guard smiled at him. “Eat your heart out.”

  By the time the van pulled in, SWAT was loading the suspects into a paddy wagon and tethering them to steel loops in the wall.

  All were swearing and blaming each other, and Jacopo was fuming about Candelario “thinking this place was so perfect. If you’re behind this, fat man, believe me, you’re going down.”

  Boone stayed in the van to protect his own identity, but he watched on the monitor as Jacopo turned to one of the cops. “Officer, I was just here to listen. If you find my prints on those documents, it’s only because I was being kind enough to read them over. I had no intention of engaging in any illegal activity whatsoever. I will say nothing further without legal counsel.”

  Meanwhile the report came in from unmarked squads on the Edens that all five cars that had left DiLoKi headquarters exited the same ramp, crossed the highway, and headed back the other way in a single line. “Must have heard the whole thing go down on Skeeter’s phone,” Galloway said. He turned on the mike and reminded the officers, “Let ’em go. We’ll have them soon enough.”

  It took the rest of the day for the Bureau of Investigative Services to comb the crime scene, impound the cars, and confiscate the weapons. The videoing and recording of the meeting had gone without a hitch and gave the U.S. Attorney’s office a mother lode of incriminating evidence that would make this the most massive sting of organized crime in the history of Chicago.

  As promised, Pascual Candelario was processed at central booking in front of a press pool that disseminated the pictures all over the country. PC was then spirited via unmarked van to the garage of a luxury condo tower downtown, where he was transported via service elevators to a penthouse. There he would enjoy a phalanx of round-the-clock security until he was due to testify before the grand jury.

  Within two days it became obvious and widely reported that Pascual was the turncoat, and his mother and child were also put into protective custody. The story became the biggest in Chicago in decades, and the priority of the Chicago Police Department, primarily the Organized Crime Division, became to protect Pascual at all costs.

  Because of the police activity in and out of the high-rise, it soon became obvious where he was ensconced, and tenants complained of the interference. Day after day inside, the U.S. Attorney’s office walked Candelario through recollecting hundreds more names of notorious gangbangers and members of the Outfit he had worked with. Arrests were made nearly hourly as the media circus continued.

  Boone spent much of his day and also many of his off-duty hours with Pascual. When off the clock, he and the former gang leader would study the Bible and pray together. Pascual told Boone, “I feel a huge weight off me, man. I can’t wait till this is all over and my mother and son are with me somewhere far away.”

  “It won’t be long, brother,” Boone said. In truth, he too longed for that day so he could get back to relaxed times with Haeley and Max. Their Saturday dates had become impossible after it came out in the press that the officer who had lost his family was the principal detective in the sting operation.

  Boone and Haeley still saw each other at church, but to get any time together they had to order in at one or the other of their apartments. These times were more awkward than they might have been because Haeley expressed such fear about Boone’s safety, and he was so distracted planning for the day Pascual would be transferred to court to begin his testimony.

  That move alone was being planned with military efficiency. There would be fake starts and stops, decoys, and—of course—no notification of the press. Still, members of the media knew how to sniff out information, and somehow, someway, someone was likely to stumble onto the actual transfer date and time.

  Rumor had it that Jazzy Villalobos and the rest of the DiLoKi leadership were in concert with the Outfit and had already selected a suicide killer who would get Candelario, knowing full well it would cost him his own life in the process.

  “Some things you can control,” Boone told Haeley. “Some things you cannot.”

  “Do you have to be there when he’s transferred?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s my guy. I’ll be there for him.”

  “And if someone comes after him?”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to to protect him.”

  24

  Officer Down

  Fletcher Galloway, working with the U.S. Attorney in planning to move Pascual Candelario to the court where he would testify in secret before the grand jury, decided that the safest way would be to do it in the middle of the night without fanfare. Test runs were made via typical exit routes from the penthouse through the bowels of the high-rise, but when the time came, Boone Drake and four undercover cops merely went directly to PC’s door and ushered him out.

  At two in the morning, they took a service el
evator to the basement garage, then, just to be sure, backtracked and went through a first-floor banquet kitchen. Finally they made their way to the garage from another direction and headed for the unmarked van.

  As they passed a lone security guard, one of dozens Boone had seen over several days at the condo tower, he gave the man a quick once-over to be certain he was armed only with a nightstick, handcuffs, a flashlight, and a can of Mace.

  But something caught Boone’s eye. Tucked up under his uniform cap were cornrow curls. Boone squinted, thinking. The rest of the security guards in uniform seemed to have a dress and hair code similar to the Chicago PD’s.

  As the group passed the guard and approached the van, Boone felt compelled to glance back to where Cornrows had seemed to lazily watch them. The man was in full crouch and reaching behind his back. Taking no chances, Boone bellowed, “Gun!” before he even saw it, and moved between the phony guard and Candelario.

  His instinct was right. The man produced what looked like a .45-caliber Glock and squeezed off one deafening round from about fifteen feet away. The slug hammered into Boone just below his left clavicle and knocked him to the concrete floor. He could feel something shatter—whether it was bone or bullet he did not know—and immediately felt his left lung collapse. As he lay there sucking wind, he realized what he had just seen.

  Before the impostor could get off even a second shot, two of the officers had wheeled around and emptied their service revolvers into him while the other two hustled Pascual into the van. One officer screamed at the driver, telling him where to take PC and to call for an ambulance.

  The other was on his radio, shouting, “Ten-one! Ten-one! Ten-one!” and reporting their position. Within seconds, dozens of squads screeched onto the scene.

  Boone lay there knowing Pascual was safe and that every Chicago cop in the vicinity would respond to a 10-1, one of the few number codes the department used. 10-4 served its universal purpose. 10-1 was a distress call asking for all available manpower.

  Had bone or bullet fragments done more than nick a lung? Boone tried to control his breathing, but he felt his pulse racing and was aware of a widening pool of blood beneath him. The shooter was clearly dead, and as the officers bent over Boone, trying to reassure him and keep him comfortable, one was tearing off his own shirt to press it into the gaping wound. The other paled looking at Boone’s injury.