Special Operations

by W. E. B Griffin

  “But Carlucci will be very pleased if you can keep the newspapers from calling it the Gestapo,” Chief Inspector August Wohl said.

  “Only one newspaper’s doing that, Dad,” Peter replied, “and you know why.”

  “I don’t,” Barbara said.

  “Arthur J. Nelson, who owns the Ledger, has got it in for the police,” Peter said, “because it got out that his son, the one who was murdered—Jerome?—was a homosexual.”

  “Oh,” Barbara said. “How did it get out?”

  “A cop who should have known better told Mickey O’Hara,” Peter said. “Not that it wouldn’t have come out inevitably, but he blames the Police.”

  Barbara considered that a moment, and then decided to change the subject: “Well, what are you going to do over there, anyway?” she asked.

  “He’s the commanding officer,” Olga Wohl said, a touch of pride in her voice.

  “You asked me how my day was,” Peter said, dryly.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Well, I went over to my new command,” he said, wryly, “about four-thirty. Special Operations will operate out of what until this morning was Highway Patrol headquarters, at Bustleton and Bowler. Three people were waiting for me. Captain Mike Sabara, his chin on his knees, because until this morning, he thought he was going to get Highway; Captain Dave Pekach, who had his chin on his knees because he’s got the idea that somebody doesn’t like him; because they gave him Highway—in other words he thinks he’s being thrown to the wolves; and a sergeant named Ed Frizell, from Staff Planning, whose chin is on his knees because when he dreamed up this ACT thing it never entered his mind that he would be involved in it—banished, so to speak, in disgrace from his office in the Roundhouse to the boondocks, forced to wear a uniform and consort with ordinary cops, and possibly even have to go out and arrest people.”

  Chief Wohl chuckled.

  “And then I went to the Highway roll call,” Peter went on. “That was fun.”

  “I don’t understand, dear,” his mother said.

  “Well, I was practicing good leadership techniques,” Peter said. “I thought I was being clever as hell. I got there, and made my little speech. I was proud to be back in Highway, as I was sure Captain Pekach was. I said that I had always thought of Highway as the most efficient unit in the Department, and felt sure it would stay that way. I even included the standard lines that my door was always open, and that I looked forward to working with them.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Barbara asked.

  “Well, I didn’t know that they thought I was the SOB who took Highway away from Mike Sabara, who everybody likes, and gave it to Pekach, who nobody in Highway likes.”

  “Why don’t they like Pekach?” Chief Wohl asked. “I thought he was a pretty good cop. And from what I hear, he did a good job in Narcotics. And he came out of Highway.”

  “He did a great job in Narcotics,” Peter said. “But what I didn’t know—and it was my fault I didn’t—was that the one time a Highway cop got arrested for drugs, Dave Pekach was the one who arrested him.”

  “The Sergeant? About a year ago?” Chief Wohl asked, and Peter nodded.

  “I knew about that,” Chief Wohl said, “but I didn’t know Pekach was involved.”

  “And I hadn’t seen Miss Cheryl Davies’s clever little newspaper article, and they had,” Peter went on, “so my attempt at practicing the best principles of command left the indelible impression on my new command that I am a fool or a liar, or both.”

  “Oh, Peter,” his mother said. “You don’t know that!”

  “I know cops, Mother,” Peter said. “I know what those guys were thinking.”

  “If they think that now, they’ll come to know better,” Barbara said, loyally.

  “Would you care to order now?” the waiter asked.

  “Yes, please,” Peter said. “I’m going to have something hearty. That’s traditional for condemned men.”

  Chief Wohl chuckled again. Barbara leaned across the table and put her hand on Peter’s. Mrs. Wohl smiled at them.

  They were on dessert when the manager called Peter to the telephone.

  “Inspector Wohl,” Peter said.

  “Lieutenant Jackson, sir,” the caller said. “You said you wanted to be notified when anything came up.”

  Wohl now placed the name and face. His caller was the Highway Tour Commander on duty.

  “What’s up, Jackson?”

  “We got a pretty bad wreck, I’m afraid. Highway Sixteen was going in on a call and hit a civilian broadside. At Second and Olney.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Both of our guys were injured,” Jackson said, reluctance in his voice. “One of the passengers in the civilian car is dead; two others are pretty badly injured.”

  “My God!”

  “It was a little boy that got killed, Inspector,” Jackson said.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Wohl said. “Has Captain Pekach been notified?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You say they were answering a call?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jackson said. “They went in on a call to the Thirty-fifth District. Somebody saw a woman being forced into a van by a guy with a knife at Front and Godfrey, one of the apartment buildings. In the parking lot.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the scene, sir.”

  “What scene, the wreck or the kidnapping?”

  “The wreck, sir. I sent Sergeant Paster to the kidnapping.”

  “Get on the radio, and tell Captain Pekach I said for him to handle the wreck, and then tell Sergeant—”

  “Paster, sir,” Lieutenant Jackson furnished.

  “Tell Sergeant Paster to meet me at the scene of the kidnapping,” Wohl said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wohl hung up without saying anything else.

  He found the manager and arranged to settle the bill before returning to the table.

  “A Highway car hit a civilian,” he said, looking at his father. “A little boy is dead.”

  “Oh, God!” his father said.

  “They were going in on a Thirty-fifth District call,” Peter said. “Someone reported a woman being forced into a van at knife point. I’ve got to go.”

  His father nodded his understanding.

  Peter looked at Barbara. “Sorry,” he said. “And I don’t know how long this will take.”

  “I understand,” she said. “No problem, I’ve got my car.”

  “And I’m sorry to have to walk out on your party, Mother.”

  “Don’t be silly, dear,” she said. “At least you got to eat your dinner.”

  “I’ll call you,” he said, and walked quickly out of the restaurant.

  You are a prick, Peter Wohl, he thought, as he walked through the parking lot. A little boy has been killed and a woman has been kidnapped, and your reaction to all this is that you are at least spared the problem of how to handle Barbara.

  Until Dutch Moffitt had gotten himself killed, everybody concerned had been under the impression that he and Barbara had an understanding, which was a half-step away from a formal engagement to be married. But the witness to the shooting of Captain Moffitt had been a female, specifically a stunning, long-legged, long-haired, twenty-five-year-old blonde named Louise Dutton, who was co-anchor of WCBL-TV’s Nine’s News.

  Less than twenty-four hours after he had met Louise Dutton in the line of duty, they had been making the beast with two backs in his apartment, and Peter had been convinced that he had finally embarked on the Great Romance of his life. And for a little while, the Grand Passion had seemed reciprocal, but then there had been, on Louise’s part, a little sober consideration of the situation.

  She had asked herself a simple question: “Can a talented, ambitious young television anchor whose father just happens to own a half dozen television stations around the country find lasting happiness in the arms of an underpaid cop in Philadelphia?”

  The answer was no. Louise Dutton was now
working for a television station in Chicago, one that not coincidentally happened to be owned by her father—who, Peter understood, while he liked Peter personally, did not see him as the father of his grandchildren.

  There was no question in Peter’s mind that Barbara knew about Louise, and not only because he had covered Dutch’s ass one last time by telling the Widow Moffitt that Dutch could not have been fooling around with Louise Dutton because she was his, Peter’s, squeeze. That he was “involved” with Louise Dutton had been pretty common knowledge around the Department; even Chief Coughlin knew about it. Barbara had two uncles and two brothers in the Department. Peter had known them all his life, and there is no human being more self-righteous than a brother who hears that some sonofabitch is running around on his baby sister. Barbara knew, all right.

  But Barbara had decided to forgive him. Her presence at his mother’s birthday dinner proved that. He had called her twice, post-Louise, and both times she hadn’t “been able” to have dinner or go to a movie with him. He would not have been surprised if she hadn’t “been able” to have dinner with him and his parents, but she’d accepted that invitation. And there wasn’t much of a mystery about how she planned to handle the problem: she was going to pretend it didn’t exist, and never had.

  And when her knee found his under the table, he had understood that after they had said good night to his parents, they would go either to his apartment or hers, and get in bed, and things would be back to normal.

  The problem was that Peter wasn’t sure he wanted to pick things up where they had been, pre-Louise. He told himself that he had either been a fool, or been made a fool of, or both; that Barbara Crowley was not only a fine woman, but just what he needed; that he should be grateful for her tolerance and understanding; that if he had any brains, he would be grateful for the opportunity she was offering; and that he should manifest his gratitude by taking a solemn, if private, vow never to stray again from the boundaries of premarital fidelity.

  But when he had looked at Barbara, he had thought of Louise, and that had destroyed ninety percent of his urge to take Barbara to bed.

  He got in his car, started the engine, and then thought of Mike Sabara.

  “Jesus!” he said.

  He reached into the glove compartment and took out the microphone.

  “Radio, S-Sam One Oh One,” he said. “Have you got a location on S-Sam One Oh Two?”

  After a longer than usual pause, Police Radio replied that S-Sam One Oh Two was not in service.

  Peter thought that over a moment. If he and Pekach had been informed of the crash, Sabara certainly had. And Sabara was probably still using his old radio call, Highway Two, for the number two man in Highway.

  “Radio, how about Highway Two?”

  “Highway Two is at Second and Olney Avenue.”

  “Radio, please contact Highway Two and have him meet S-Sam One Oh One at Front and Godfrey Avenue. Let me know if you get through to him.”

  “Yes, sir. Stand by, please.”

  I’m going to have to get another band in here, Peter thought, as he backed out of the parking space. Bands. I’m going to have to get Highway and Detective, too.

  Every Police vehicle was equipped with a shortwave radio that permitted communication on two bands: the J-Band and one other, depending on what kind of car it was. Cars assigned to the Detective Bureau, for example, could communicate on the J-Band and on H-Band, the Detective Band. Cars assigned to a District could communicate on the J-Band and on a frequency assigned to that District. Peter’s car had the J-Band and the Command Band, limited to the Commissioner, the Chief Inspector, the Inspectors, and the Staff Inspectors.

  He was six blocks away from Bookbinder’s Restaurant when Radio called him.

  “S-Sam One Oh One, Radio.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Highway Two wants to know if you are aware of the traffic accident at Second and Olney Avenue.”

  “Tell Highway Two I know about it, and ask him to meet me at Front and Godfrey.”

  “Yes, sir,” Radio replied.

  Peter put the microphone back in the glove compartment and slammed it shut.

  Now Sabara, who had very naturally rushed to a scene of trouble involving “his” Highway Patrol, was going to be pissed.

  It can’t be helped, Peter thought. Mike’s going to have to get it through his head that Highway is now Pekach’s.

  When Matthew Payne walked into the kitchen of the house on Providence Road in Wallingford, he was surprised to find his father standing at the stove, watching a slim stream of coffee gradually filling a glass pot under a Krups coffee machine.

  “Good morning,” his father said. He was wearing a light cotton bathrobe, too short for him, and a pair of leather bedroom slippers. “I heard you in the shower and thought you could probably use some coffee.”

  “Can I!” Matt replied. He was dressed in a button-down-collar shirt and gray slacks. His necktie was tied, but the collar button was open, and the knot an inch below it. He had a seersucker jacket in his hand. When he laid it on the kitchen table—of substantial, broad-planked pine, recently refinished after nearly a century of service—there was a heavy thump.

  “What have you got in there?” Brewster C. Payne asked, surprised.

  “My gun,” Matt said, raising the jacket to show a Smith & Wesson Military & Police Model .38 Special revolver in a shoulder holster. “What every well-dressed young man is wearing these days.”

  Brewster Payne chuckled.

  “You’re not wearing your new blue suit, I notice,” he said.

  “He said, curiosity oozing from every pore,” Matt said, gently mockingly.

  “Well, we haven’t had the pleasure of your company recently,” his father said, unabashed.

  “I communed with John Barleycorn last night,” Matt said, “at Rose Tree. I decided it was wiser by far to spend the night here than try to make it to the apartment. Particularly since the bug is one-eyed.”

  “Anything special, or just kicking up your heels?” Brewster Payne asked.

  “I don’t know, Dad,” Matt said, as he took two ceramic mugs from a cabinet and set them on the counter beside the coffee machine. “All I know is that I had more to drink than I should have had.”

  “You want something to eat?” Brewster Payne asked, and when he saw the look on Matt’s face, added, “If you’ve been at the grape, you should put something in your stomach. Did you have dinner?”

  “I don’t think so,” Matt replied. “The last thing I remember clearly is peanuts at the bar.”

  His father went to the refrigerator, a multidoored stainless steel device filling one end of the room. He opened one door after another until he found what he was looking for.

  “How about a Taylor ham sandwich? Maybe with an egg?”

  “I’ll make it,” Matt said. “No egg.”

  Brewster Payne chuckled again, and said, “You were telling me what you were celebrating….”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Matt said. “You’re a pretty good interrogator. You ever consider practicing law? Or maybe becoming a cop?”

  “Touché,” Brewster Payne said.

  “I was on the pistol range yesterday,” Matt said, “when Chief Matdorf, who runs the Police Academy, came out and told me to clean out my locker and report tomorrow morning, this morning, that is, at eight o’clock, to the commanding officer of Highway Patrol.” He paused and then added, “In plainclothes.”

  “What’s that all about?” Brewster Payne said.

  “John Barleycorn didn’t say,” Matt said. “Although I had a long, long chat with him.”

  “You think Dennis Coughlin is involved?”

  “Uncle Denny’s involved in everything,” Matt said as he put butter in a frying pan. “You want one of these?”

  “Please,” Brewster Payne said. “Were you having any trouble in the Academy?”

  “No, not so far as I know.”

  “Highway Patrol is supposed to be the elite uni
t within the Department,” Brewster Payne said. “You think you’re getting special treatment, is that it?”

  “Special, yeah, but I don’t know what kind of special,” Matt said. “To get into Highway, you usually need three years in the Department, and then there’s a long waiting list. It’s all volunteer, and I didn’t volunteer. And then, why in plainclothes?”

  “Possibly it has something to do with ACT,” Brewster Payne said.

  “With what?”

  “ACT,” Brewster Payne said. “It means Anti-Crime Team, or something like that. It was in the paper yesterday. A new unit. You didn’t see it?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Matt said. “Is the paper still around here?”

  “It’s probably in the garbage,” Brewster Payne said.

  Matt left the stove and went outside. His father shook his head and took over frying the Taylor ham.

  “It’s a little soggy,” Matt called a moment later, “but I can read it.”

  He reappeared in the kitchen with a grease-stained sheet of newspaper. When he laid it on the table, his father picked it up and read the story again.

  “May I redispose of this?” he asked, when he had finished, holding the newspaper distastefully between his fingers.

  “Sorry,” Matt said. “That offers a lot of food for thought,” he added. “This ACT, whatever it is, makes more sense than putting me in Highway. But it still smacks of special treatment.”

  “I think you’re going to have to get used to that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How many of your peers in the Academy had gone to college?” Brewster Payne asked.

  “Not very many,” Matt said.

  “And even fewer had gone on to graduate?”

  “So?”

  “Would it be reasonable to assume that you were the only member of your class with a degree? A cum laude degree?”

  “You think that’s it, that I have a degree?”

  “That’s part of it, I would guess,” Brewster Payne said. “And then there’s Dennis Coughlin.”

  “I think that has more to do with this than my degree,” Matt said.

  “Dennis Coughlin was your father’s best friend,” Brewster C. Payne said. “And he never had a son; I’m sure he looks at vou in that connection, the son he never had.”