Infernal Affairs
Page 3
But in response to Alex’s questions, I rolled my eyes. “That was months ago. Why didn’t they come after me back then? I wasn’t exactly in hiding. Hell, I had reporters stalking Mariel and Jeremy for months. I’d think a few SWAT guys could come and find me. The shooter at the church this morning? He and his friends could have been random EDPs from the internet who hated my guts. But them and a SWAT team?”
Alex frowned, shrugged, and drank deeply from the coffee mug. “Well, I don’t have any better idea. How about you, L.T.?”
My Lieutenant held his hands up like he was being threatened with an armed weapon. “Don’t look at me.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’d gotten nearly five hours of sleep, but the adrenaline letdown was getting to me. “We may have to table this for tomorrow. Maybe someone can look into the SWAT team, and maybe we can piece together what their problem was? Preferably before one of their friends on the force takes issue with how they tried to kill me, and I got them first? I think—”
My train of thought was derailed by a phone call. I hesitated for a moment. The ring tone was the “Imperial March” by John Williams—Darth Vader’s tune. It was the ringtone for “D,” the self-proclaimed “gangster” Daniel David DiLeo. I knew he was a criminal, but I’d never seen him do anything. So I’d never had to arrest him. And he wasn’t evil, I would have smelled it on him. Crime was his business, not “thug life”—his and his associates’ business uniforms were black leather jackets, black button-down shirts, button-down collars with the top button undone.
As D himself would put it, “You can’t think you’re gangster if you can’t pull up your damn pants.”
There were a few scattered black jeans, and they wore their pants belted around their waists.
The short version was that D was a work acquaintance. Very much like the cartoon with Sam the sheepdog and Ralph the coyote, who punch in and punch out of the sheep meadow at either end of the Warner Brothers cartoon. Only D and I were far more cordial when we were both on the clock.
I had listed D as a confidential informant, so I didn’t hesitate long before answering the phone. I held it up and explained to the others at the table, “This is my CI, Mister DiLeo. I presume he knows something… I can’t think of another reason for him to call.”
Everyone shrugged and nodded.
I picked up. “Hey, D. How are you doing?”
“Don’t you hey me, Detective. Someone just tried to whack me because of you.”
I blinked. I had rarely heard D raise his voice. It was even rarer for D to yell in my general direction. But given what he just said, I understood. “Would you care to elaborate on that?”
“Yeah, I’ll happily elaborate,” D roared. “I nearly got shot by the damn gang squad. The gang squad. I am a white collar criminal, man. The freaking gang unit? Just because I’m black. This is insulting. I should’ve known you’d be a pain in the ass.”
I frowned. “Explain what this has to do with me?”
“Don’t you pay attention to what happens in your own station? There’s a hit out on you on the Dark Web. It’s $10 million for your head. They don’t even want you alive. It’s dead all the way.”
Chapter 5
Infernal Affairs
“Statler and Waldorf” were an Internal Affairs duo who were obviously older gentlemen. Their real names were Horowitz and McNally, which sounded like a law firm. Even though they were out of Manhattan, they seemed to be permanently assigned to me, out in Queens. We first met over a death in custody inside the station itself. Every time I drew my gun, they seemed to be there sooner or later.
Thankfully, this was the first time that I had seen them in over three months. Yes, though my last major shootout was over half a year earlier, IA had come down on me pretty hard, dissecting every part of my life. However, before the shootout that closed down the Moloch death cult that had kidnapped my son and tried to kill me, Horowitz and McNally had confided in me that much of the pressure that drove them to come after me had come from the Mayor’s office. Considering that a Deputy Mayor was the Voodoo man of the cult, I wasn’t all that surprised.
The call from D was at nearly three in the morning. The flare went up, and everyone closed ranks. As I said earlier, it’s one thing to rat out a cop. It’s another thing to try to kill one. News of the Dark Web bounty seemed to make it to the station house before I did.
Internal Affairs had arrived by five.
By the time they had finished debriefing me, it was six.
They leaned back after going over the footage, my testimony, and my family’s testimony.
Horowitz started. He was a bit scruffier than McNally, with gray hair and beard. It looked like a professor with tenure who stopped caring what he looked like when he strolled into work. “The NYPD has nearly 40,000 cops who are on the job. Assuming we only have a rate of 1% corruption, that’s still four hundred crooked cops who would be at least seriously tempted by this cash.”
McNally nodded with a frown. “Keep in mind, this is low-balling it. If we had a 1% corruption rate, we’d be bored out of our minds a lot more often than we already are. And we’re bored quite a lot. Last time we were bored, we dug into just how many cops fixed parking tickets for their friends and family. Which was about the least shocking thing in the world. Oh, look, every cop has a friend or family member who ended up on the wrong side of the latest arbitrary and capricious ticketing offense the Mayor decides he wants enforced this week. Not a shock. But we’re talking about serious corruption.”
Horowitz conceded the fact. “Let’s go big. “Let’s say we have a 10% corruption rate.”
McNally: “That’s 4,000 corrupt cops.”
Horowitz: “But that includes all sorts of corruption—”
McNally: “Everything from ticket fixing to bribes to moonlighting as mob button men—”
Horowitz: “So let’s say that ten percent of them are corrupt enough to want to kill you.”
McNally: “That’s still four hundred guys.”
I frowned. This would not be fun.
Horowitz: “Split the difference and half the first number. That we have a 5% corruption rate—”
McNally: “Which is a lower corruption rate than public school teachers, by the way.”
Horowitz: “That still leaves two hundred cops who are willing to kill a fellow police officer for the right price.”
McNally: “Which is an awful lot of guns, bombs and cop cars out to kill you and anyone in the way.”
I held up my hands. Their back-and-forth -dialogue was giving me a headache. I hadn’t expected them to keep going. “Hold on a second. Let’s figure this out logically, okay? Because I think the reasonable first step is to figure out who hates me enough to want me dead, and who can afford a bounty this big. Because, honestly, while I have stepped on more than a few toes in my time, I can’t imagine who has that much loose change floating around out there.”
Horowitz and McNally exchanged a look. I followed the exchange of glances and tried to interpret them. When that failed, I simply asked, “What? What is it?”
Horowitz looked sheepish. He shrugged. “Well, you see…”
McNally: “Remember Rene Ormeno?”
I felt the bottom of my stomach fall out. Rene Ormeno had been a distraction during my ordeal with Christopher Curran, the serial killer who had been possessed by the demon. He was a senior officer in MS-13, which was one part mafia and one part terrorist organization. Their relentless violence was all to further their moneymaking schemes—human trafficking, sex slavery, guns, and drugs.
The last time I saw Ormeno, he had his own private padded cell in the loony bin. He had to be strapped to the wall every waking hour. Before I had taken down the possessed murderer at Rikers Island, the legion within him had possessed a large chunk of the prison population – including Ormeno. When the demons had been banished, Ormeno had been reduced to a raving, gibbering maniac…except when I entered his cell. Then he was stone co
ld sane. Apparently, I had that effect.
I could still see his crazy eyes when he snapped from being a rambling lunatic to a creature with agency-- evil agency that willed nothing more than to destroy me.
But thinking of Ormeno as being anywhere else but in that cell made the world go sideways. “What about Ormeno?”
“Well, ya see—” Horowitz started
“Ormeno is out.” McNally finished
“Yeah. He’s free,” Horowitz concluded
I blinked. I felt like I had been gut punched. “What do you mean that he’s free? Last time I saw him, he was a total nutcase. A danger to himself and to others.”
McNally shrugged. “He got better.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s impossible considering …”
Considering what, Tommy? I thought. Considering that a demon had left its mark in Ormeno’s brain? Considering that your presence was the only thing that seemed to calm the—heh—demons in his head? Go ahead, smart guy, say something.
“Considering the last time I saw him,” I said weakly.
Horowitz shrugged this time. “Don’t ask us, Detective Nolan. We’re not shrinks.”
“However, he is a clue,” McNally added
“Because gee, I wonder if MS-13 could raise ten million,” speculated Horowitz.
I frowned, my brows furrowing. “Wait a second. If he ‘got better’, I thought that the DEA and ICE also wanted Ormeno? They wanted him to flip on Thirteen? Right?”
They exchanged another glance. They had an entire conversation pass between them that I couldn’t hear. It was starting to get on my nerves.
McNally: “It’s in part a combination of lawyers, judges, ACLU reps, his time in the rubber room, and he’s been out of circulation for nearly a year.”
Horowitz: “Who knows if the DEA even wants him anymore?”
McNally: “MS-13’s entire operation could have changed.”
Horowitz: “Which means that Ormeno is useless.”
McNally: “Besides, welcome to NYC’s asylum policy. Both illegal and mental”
Horowitz: “It’s difficult even deporting illegals who are high-profile murderers.”
My brain was starting to hurt. “But Ormeno is a monster.”
McNally: “And?”
Horowitz: “… so, Tommy, have you ever considered WitSec?”
I stared at them both for a long moment, saying nothing. After all, it was a lot to take in, and their blitz style of conversation was faster than Wimbledon.
Go on the run. It was unthinkable. Imagine, being part of a police force with a paramilitary wing, its own foreign intelligence service, a small army that could go toe-to-toe with the National Guard for a few rounds … and then being told to run and hide because maybe a few dozen of them were bad actors.
But then, Mariel and Jeremy and our unborn child. They were just as much at risk. How would they react under continuous threat? I knew that living with me came with its own problems. Heck, living with me was constantly being in condition red. Had we gone another month with peace and quiet on the home front, we might have even relaxed enough to be taken by surprise. What if Mariel and Jeremy had been caught in a crossfire? What if the SWAT team had used an RPG or threw a grenade through my window? What would have happened if we hadn’t been ready for them? Would the SWAT team have murdered my entire family as well? I couldn’t imagine a situation where they could have acted otherwise—the situation would have compelled them to assassinate all of us. Staying outside of police protection? That was akin to suicide.
… Though, on the other hand, I had been awakened by an angel of the Lord. The timing was too suspicious to have been otherwise. I had been instructed to smite the agents of Satan. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine that a handful of corrupt cops knocking down my front door was the extent of the command. I had literally been handed an order from God. How the department shrinks would love me: “auditory hallucinations” would probably buy me a full pension disability.
I immediately sobered. Tell me this isn’t my ego running amok. “On a mission from God”? Does this even sound like me? Or did I finally just drive off the deep end of what I think I’m capable of, with or without God’s help? Because, Lord, no offense, while I am certain that with You all things are possible … are You going to make me bulletproof? Or, more importantly, my family? Have gale-force winds hurl grenades sideways? You’re all powerful, but if I’m your pointman on this, then I’m going to need a lot of divine intervention…more than usual, I mean.
Sigh. Here I am Lord. Bring it.
I said aloud, “I’m a cop. We don’t run.”
A split second later, the RPG hit the front door.
Chapter 6
Doing the Stations
The rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the arch of the front door. All security glass was reduced to glitter. The door frame was ripped from the concrete, hurling it into the station. The two officers in front were instantly killed. One had been decapitated by the RPG as it shot past. The other one was blown in half.
Inside the station, the shock wave ripped through the front desk, the waiting area, and the bullpen. The glass dividers that separated the officers were blasted out. The relatively new vending machine went flying and crashed through a wall.
Half a dozen cops were killed instantly. None of the two dozen civilians in the front lobby, waiting for everything as varied as parking tickets and copies of police reports, to waiting for their lawyer, survived the first explosion.
The white panel van across the street didn’t hesitate. Both side doors had been opened for the RPG to fire without turning the inside of the van into a crematorium. The one who fired the RPG tossed it aside and picked up a machine gun as the driver backed up half a block, put it in gear, then charged for the front door. They tried to plow through the line of cop cars parked on the sidewalk at right angles to the precinct. One of the cars was the one that Alex and I used on a daily basis. The impact with the white panel van caused our car to explode. It blew the white van back, off of its front wheels, and onto the roof, like a turtle flipped onto its shell.
However, that explosion was powerful enough to create a wide gap in the line of cars. That was good enough for the next car to speed in, charging for the gap in the front door. It sped in, smashing though what was left of the front desk, and through a divider separating the bull pen from the offices.
The gunman burst out of the car, spraying the surrounding area with bullets, even though everyone who was still alive was on the floor, and they were shooting at hip-height.
The gunmen were dressed in “street gang casual,” in leather jackets… even though it was the middle of July … in wife beater T-shirts, and some wore no shirts at all. All of them, however, were covered in tattoos, from their scalps to the ankles. Which was standard for life-long members of MS-13.
Meanwhile, I was upstairs with Statler, Waldorf, and Alex. The explosion rocked the building, and we were all thrown from our chairs. We weren’t going to get any paperwork done today.
I pushed to my feet and rushed for the door. “Come on.”
I was running down the hall, past Alex. He was already on his feet, gun drawn. My Browning Hi-Powered was already in the evidence locker. Thankfully, I still had my 9mm service weapon.
Then I heard the automatic fire and considered that I might need a bigger gun.
I charged downstairs anyway. The automatic fire was still on the first floor. Other cops went behind me, into the basement, where we kept the armory. No one was dumb enough to try to engage automatic weapons just in uniform. Even the Kevlar vests we’re given aren’t enough to take that type of punishment.
Then I noticed that the MS-13 shooters were firing from the hip, barely looking where they fired. The three on my side of the car had their back to the three on the other side of the car, and vice versa. They were firing on full automatic, partially to keep everyone’s head down. The few cops left on the first floor were firing as much as they could.
I slipped through the partially open door, walking low and fast. I moved along the back of the wall, using desks to break line of sight. I stopped in front of the car’s bumper. I was to the left side of the shooters on the passenger side of the car. I was to the side of all of them.
I popped up just enough to aim. I took aim at the driver’s side shooters, since fewer cops were giving them trouble on that side.
I opened fire.
The first bullet hit the driver in the ear. His head snapped to one side, throwing him into the gunman next to him. The second gunman cursed and spun, knocking his fallen comrade off of him. He was still angry when I fired three more times in a Mozambique drill—two bullets to the chest, one to the head. He fell right back into the third gunman on the driver’s side. I didn’t even have the chance to open fire on the last one, since he was caught by one of the cops he’d been shooting at.
I redirected my fire to the passenger side … just in time for the nearest one to turn and see me.
Oh darn.
I fired reflexively, without aiming.
The bullet caught the AK-47 in the muzzle. I don’t mean it struck the barrel, or the sight. It struck the muzzle, corking the opening. It was a 9mm being slamming into a 7.62 mm opening with the force of a few thousand feet per second. It jammed in the barrel through the force of the pressure.
The gunman fired.
If you’ve ever seen what happens when a cartoon character jams a finger into a pistol, the effects were similar. The explosion ruined his hands, split the barrel, and smashed gun shrapnel into his lower body like a fragmentation grenade.
I frowned. Thank you, God.
The next two gunmen turned as their partner fell. It was enough of a distraction for the remaining cops to gun them down.