Without Remorse (1993)

by Tom - Jack Ryan 08 Clancy

  That realization struck surprisingly hard at the Lieutenant lying in his bed. Somehow he didn't think of himself in those terms. Charon actually had believed himself above it all, watching, taking an occasional part, but not being part of what unfolded below him. After all, he had the longest string of successes in the history of the narcotics unit, capped off with his personal elimination of Eddie Morello, perhaps the most artful action of his professional life--doubly so in that he had eliminated a genuine dealer by premeditated murder in front of no less than six other officers, then had it pronounced a clean shooting on the spot, which had given him a paid vacation in addition to what Henry had paid him for the event. Somehow it had seemed like a particularly entertaining game, and one not too far distanced from the job the citizens of his city paid him to do. Men live by their illusions, and Charon was no different from the rest. It wasn't so much that he'd told himself what he'd been doing was all right as that he'd simply allowed himself to concentrate on the breaks that Henry had been feeding him, thus taking off the street every supplier who'd threatened the man's market standing. Able to control which of his detectives investigated what, he'd actually been able to give the entire local market to the one supplier about whom he had no real information in his files. That had enabled Henry to expand his own operation, attracting the attention of Tony Piaggi and his own East Coast connections. Soon, and he'd told Henry this. he would be forced to allow his people to nibble at the edges of the operation. Henry had understood, doubtless after counseling from Piaggi, who was sophisticated enough to grasp the finer points of the game.

  But someone had tossed a match into this highly volatile mixture. The information he had led only in one direction, but not far enough. So he had to get more, didn't he? Charon thought for a moment and lifted his phone. He needed three calls to get the right number.

  "State Police."

  "Trying to get Captain Joy. This is Lieutenant Charon, Baltimore City Police."

  "You're in luck, sir. He just got back in. Please hold." The next voice that came on was a tired one.

  "Captain Joy."

  "Hello, this is Lieutenant Charon, Mark Charon. City Police. I work narcotics. I hear you just took down something big."

  "You might say that." Charon could hear the man settling into his chair with a combination of satisfaction and fatigue.

  "Could you give me a quick sketch? I may have some information on this one myself."

  "Who told you about this anyway?"

  "That Coast Guard sailor who drove you around--Oreza. I've worked with him on a couple cases. Remember the big marijuana bust, the Talbot County farm?"

  "Was that you? I thought the Coasties took credit for that."

  "I had to let them, to protect my infomant. Look, you can call them if you want to confirm that. I'll give you the phone number, the boss of the station is Paul English."

  "Okay. Charon, you sold me."

  "Back in May I spent a day and a night out with them looking for a guy who just disappeared on us. We never found him, never found his boat. Oreza says--"

  "The crabman," Joy breathed. "Somebody got dumped in the water, looks like he's been there a while. Anything you can tell me about him?"

  "His name is probably Angelo Vorano. Lived here in town, small-time dealer who was looking to make it into the bigs." Charon gave a description.

  "Height's about right. We'll have to check dental records for a positive ID, though. Okay, that ought to help, Lieutenant. What do you need from me?"

  "What can you tell me?" Charon took several minutes of notes. "What are you doing with Xantha?"

  "Holding her as a material witness, with her lawyer's approval by the way. We want to take care of this girl. Looks like we're dealing with some pretty nasty folks here."

  "I believe it." Charon replied. "Okay, let me see what I can shake loose for you at this end."

  "Thanks for the assist."

  "Jesus," Charon said after hanging up. White boy... big white boat. Burt and the two people Tony had evidently seconded to the operation, back of the head, .45s. Execution-style killings were not yet the vogue in the drug business, and the sheer coldness of it gave Charon a chill. But it wasn't so much coldness as efficiency, was it? Like the pushers. Like the case Tom and Em were working, and they wanted to see about this Kelly guy, and he was a white guy with a big white boat who lived not far from the lab. That was too much of a coincidence.

  About the only good news was that he could call Henry in safety. He knew every drug-related wiretap in the area, and not one was targeted on Tucker's operation.

  "Yeah?"

  "Burt and his friends are dead," Charon announced.

  "What's that?" said a voice that was fully waking up.

  "You heard me. The State Police in Somerset have them bagged. Angelo, too, what's left of him. The lab is gone, Henry. The drugs are gone, and they have Xantha in custody." There was actually some satisfaction in this. Charon was still enough of a cop that the demise of a criminal operation was not yet a matter of grief for him.

  "What the fuck is going on?" a shrill voice inquired.

  "I think I can tell you that, too. We need to meet."

  Kelly took another look at his perch, just driving by in his rented Beetle, before heading back to his apartment. He was tired, though sated from the fine dinner. His afternoon nap had been enough to keep him going after a long day, but mainly the reason was to work off the anger, which driving often did for him. He'd seen the man now. The one who had finished the process of killing Pamela, with a shoestring. It would have been so easy to take care of him there. Kelly had never killed anyone barehanded, but he knew how. A lot of skilled people had spent a lot of time at Coronado, California, teaching him the finer points until whenever he looked at any person his mind applied something like a sheet of graph paper, this place for this move, that place for that one--and seeing he'd known that, yes, it was all worth it. It was worth the danger, and it was worth the consequences ... but that didn't mean that he had to embrace them, as risk of life didn't mean throwing it away. That was the other side of it.

  But he could see the end now, and he had to start planning beyond the end. He had to be even more careful. Okay, so the cops knew who he was, but he was certain that they had nothing. Even if the girl, Xantha, someday decided to talk to the cops, she'd never seen his face--the camouflage paint took care of that. About the only danger was that she'd seen the registration number on his boat as he'd backed away from that dock, but that didn't seem to be much of a worry. Without physical evidence they had nothing they could use in front of a court of law. So they knew he disliked some people--fine. So they might even know what his training was--fine. The game he played was in accordance with one set of rules. The game they played had another. On balance, the rules worked in his favor, not theirs.

  He looked out the car window, measuring angle and distance, making a preliminary plan and working in several variations. They'd picked a spot where there were few police patrols and lots of open ground. No one could approach them easily without being seen... probably so that they could destroy whatever they had in there if it became necessary. It was a logical approach to their tactical problem, except for one thing. They hadn't considered a different set of tactical rules.

  Not my problem, Kelly thought, heading back to his apartment.

  "God almighty ..." Roger MacKenzie was pale and suddenly nauseated. They were standing on the breakfast porch of his house in northwest Washington. His wife and daughter were shopping in New York for the fall season. Ritter had arrived unannounced at six-fifteen, fully dressed and grim, a discordant note for the cool, pleasant morning breezes. "I've known his father for thirty years."

  Ritter sipped his orange juice, though the acid in it didn't exactly do his stomach any good either. This was treason of the worst sort. Hicks had known what he did would hurt fellow citizens, one of whom he knew by name. Ritter had already made his mind up on the matter. but Roger had to have his time to ra
ttle on.

  "We went through Randolph together, we were in the same Bomb Group," MacKenzie was saying. Ritter decided to let him get it all out, even though it would take a little time. "We've done deals together ..." the man finished, looking down at his untouched breakfast.

  "I can't fault you for taking him into your office, Roger, but the boy's guilty of espionage."

  "What do you want to do?"

  "It's a criminal offense, Roger," Ritter pointed out.

  "I'm going to be leaving soon. They want me on the reelection team, running the whole Northeast."

  "This early?"

  "Jeff Hicks will be running the campaign in Massachusetts, Bob. I'll be working directly with him." MacKenzie looked across the table, speaking in barely connected bursts. "Bob, an espionage investigation in our office--it could ruin things. If what we did--if your operation became public--I mean, the way it happened and what went wrong--"

  "I'm sorry about that, Roger, but this little bastard betrayed his country."

  "I could pull his security clearance, kick him out--"

  "Not good enough," Ritter said coldly. "People may die because of him. He is not going to walk away from it."

  "We could order you to--"

  "To obstruct justice, Roger?" Ritter observed. "Because that's what it is. That's a felony."

  "Your tap was illegal."

  "National-security investigation--there's a war going on, remember?--slightly different rules, and besides, all that has to happen is let him hear it and he'll split open." Ritter was sure of that.

  "And run the risk of bringing down the President? Now? At this time? Do you think that'll do the country any good? What about our relations with the Russians? This is a crucial time, Bob." But then, it always is, isn't it? Ritter wanted to add, but didn't.

  "Well, I'm coming to you for guidance," Ritter said, and then he got it, after a fashion.

  "We can't afford an investigation that leads to a public trial. That is politically unacceptable." MacKenzie hoped that would be enough.

  Ritter nodded and stood. The drive back to his office at Langley was not all that comfortable. Though it was satisfying to have a free hand, Ritter was now faced with something that, however desirable, he did not want to become a habit. The first order of business was to pull the wiretap. In one big hurry.

  After everything that had happened, it was the newspaper that broke things loose. The four-column head, below the fold, announced a drug-related triple murder in sleepy Somerset County. Ryan devoured the story, never getting to the sports page that usually occupied fifteen minutes of his morning routine.

  It's got to be him, the Lieutenant thought. Who else would leave "a large quantity" of drugs behind, along with three bodies? He left the house forty minutes early that morning, surprising his wife.

  "Mrs. O'Toole?" Sandy had just finished her first set of morning rounds, and was checking off some forms when the phone rang.

  "Yes?"

  "This is James Greer. You've spoken to my secretary, Barbara. I believe."

  "Yes, I have. Can I help you?"

  "I hate to bother you, but we're trying to track John down. He's not at home."

  "Yes, I think he's in town, but I don't know where exactly."

  "If you hear from him, could you please ask him to call me? He has my number. Please forgive me for asking this," the man said politely.

  "I'll be glad to." And what's that about? she wondered.

  It was getting to her. The police were after John, and she'd told him, and he hadn't seemed to care. Now somebody else was trying to get hold of him. Why? Then she saw a copy of the morning paper sitting on the table in the lounge area. The brother of one of her patients was reading something or other, but right there on the lower-right side of the front page was the headline: DRUG MURDER IN SOMERSET.

  "Everybody's interested in that guy," Frank Allen observed.

  "What do you mean?" Charon had come into Western District on the pretense of checking up on the administrative investigation of the Morello shooting. He'd talked Allen into allowing him to review the statements of the other officers and three civilian witnesses. Since he'd graciously waived his right to counsel, and since the shooting looked squeaky clean, Allen hadn't seen any harm in the matter, so long as it was done in front of him.

  "I mean, right after the call from Pittsburgh, that Brown girl who got whacked, Em called here about him. Now you. How come?"

  "His name came up. We're not sure why, and it's just a quick check. What can you tell me about him?"

  "Hey, Mark, you're on vacation, remember?" Allen pointed out.

  "You're telling me I won't be back to work soon? I'm supposed to turn my brain off, Frank? Did I miss the article in the paper that says the crooks are taking a few weeks off?"

  Allen had to concede the point. "All this attention, now I'm starting to think there might be something wrong with the guy. I suppose I have some information on him--yeah, that's right, I forgot. Wait a minute." Allen walked away from his desk toward the file room, and Charon pretended to read the statements for several minutes until he came back. A thin manila folder landed in his lap. "Here."

  It was part of Kelly's service record, but not very much, Charon saw as he paged through it. It included his dive-qualification records, his instructor's rating, and a photograph, along with some other gingerbread stuff. Charon looked up. "Lives on an islaud? That's what I heard."

  "Yeah, I asked him about that. Funny story. Anyway, why are you interested?"

  "Just a name that came up, probably nothing, but I wanted to check it out. I keep hearing rumbles of a bunch that works out on the water."

  "I really ought to send that down to Em and Tom. I forgot I had it."

  Better yet. "I'm heading that way. Want me to drop it off?"

  "Would you?"

  "Sure." Charon tucked it under his arm. His first stop was a branch of the Pratt Library, where he made photocopies of the documents for ten cents each. Then he hit a photo shop. His badge enabled him to have five blowups of the small ID photo made in less than ten minutes. Those he left in the car when he parked at headquarters, but he only went inside long enough to have an officer run the file up to homicide. He could have just kept the information to himself, but on reflection it seemed the more intelligent choice to act like a normal cop doing a normal task.

  "So what happened?" Greer asked behind the closed door of his office.

  "Roger says an investigation would have adverse political consequences," Ritter answered.

  "Well, isn't that just too goddamned bad?"

  "Then he said to handle it," Ritter added. Not in so many words, but that's what he meant. There was no sense in confusing the issue.

  "Meaning what?"

  "What do you think, James?"

  "Where did this come from?" Ryan asked when the file landed on his desk.

  "Detective handed it to me downstairs, sir," the young officer answered. "I don't know the guy, but he said it was for your desk."

  "Okay." Ryan waved him off and flipped it open, for the first time seeing a photograph of John Terrence Kelly. He'd joined the Navy two weeks after his eighteenth birthday, and stayed in ... six years, honorably discharged as a chief petty officer. It was immediately apparent that the file had been heavily edited. That was to be expected, as the Department had mainly been interested in his qualifications as a diver. There was his graduation date from UDT School, and his later qualification as an instructor that the Department had been interested in. The three rating sheets in the folder were all 4.0, the highest Navy grade, and there was a flowery letter of recommendation from a three-star admiral which the Department had taken at face value. The Admiral had thoughtfully tucked in a list of his decorations, the more to impress the Baltimore City Police: Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat "V" and two clusters in lieu of repeat awards of the same decoration. Purple Heart with two clusters in lieu of--

  Jesus, this guy's everything I thought, isn't
he?

  Ryan set the folder down, seeing that it was part of the Gooding Murder file. That meant Frank Allen--again. He called him.

  "Thanks for the info on Kelly. What brought it up?"

  "Mark Charon was over," Allen told him. "I'm doing the follow-up on his shoot, and he brought the name up, says it came up in one of his cases. Sorry, pal, I forgot I had this. He said he'd drop it off. He's not the sort of guy I'd figure for being drugged up, y'know, but ..." His voice went on past the point of Ryan's current interest.

  This is going too fast now, too damned fast.

  Charon. He keeps appearing, doesn't he?

  "Frank, I got a tough one for you. When that Sergeant Meyer called in from Pittsburgh, anybody else you mention that to?"

  "What do you mean, Em?" Allen asked, annoyance beginning to form in his mind at the suggestion.

  "I'm not saying you called the papers, Frank."

  "That was the day Charon popped the dealer, wasn't it?" Allen thought back. "I might have said something to him ... only other person I talked with that day, come to think of it."

  "Okay, thanks, Frank." Ryan looked up the number of Barracks "V" of the State Police.

  "Captain Joy," said a very weary voice. The barracks commander would have taken a bed in his own jail if he'd had to, but by tradition a State Police barracks was just that, and he'd found a comfortable bed for his four and a half hours of sleep. Joy was already wishing that Somerset County would go back to normal, though he well might make major's rank from this episode.