Red Angel
Page 29
“Not a problem, but we should try to avoid it.”
Sharon raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise. “So you got what you wanted.”
Devlin stared up at her. “We’ll see. They mayor’s been known to change his mind when things get unpleasant. I do know that we better deliver. We better catch this guy before the press starts chewing on Hizzoner and these holy rollers. Otherwise we might find ourselves working out of a squad room on Staten Island.”
Sharon shrugged. “Hey, there’s always a chance we’ll get a nice view of the harbor,” she said.
When Sharon and Ollie Pitts had left for Opus Christi’s Manhattan headquarters, Devlin joined his remaining three detectives in the bullpen and handed out assignments.
Stan Samuels was a tall, thin, aesthetic looking forty-year old, who looked more like an accountant than a first grade detective. He was known as “the mole” to his fellow cops, because of his passion for digging through old records. Devlin told him to search every record he could ferret out; to find out everything he could about The Holy Order of Opus Christi, from the time the group was founded, through the opening of their new headquarters in New York.
Red Cunningham was a three hundred pound, baby-faced behemoth, who could plant a bug anywhere. He also had close contacts with NYPD’s wire experts in narcotics and intelligence. Devlin told him to call in any favors he had in those divisions, and get whatever they had on major drug dealers who were importing heroin into the city from South America. He also was told to check city records for architectural drawings of the Opus Christi headquarters, and to figure out where best to plant wires if that proved necessary.
Ramon “Boom Boom” Rivera—the group’s self-proclaimed Latin lover, and the squad’s computer whiz—was given the assignment of a complete computer search of everything dealing with Opus Christi. He also was to find out the type of computer system the group used, and to determine if, and how that system could be hacked.
“Sounds like you think maybe this group might be involved in this drug deal,” Boom Boom said, when he had finished.
“Not necessarily the group, itself,” Devlin said. “But maybe somebody who’s part of the group.” He leaned back in his chair and glanced at each of the three detectives. “I just don’t buy a young nun getting tied up in a drug deal all by herself.”
“I read the DD-5’s those homicide detectives filed. Said her parents were from Colombia,” Boom Boom said. “Could have been a family thing. Maybe I should run a check on them.”
“You do that,” Devlin said. “I talked on the phone with the homicide dicks who caught the case. Now I want to talk to them in person. Get things they might not have put in their DD-5’s and work back from there.” He pushed himself up from the chair. “We don’t have a lot of time. The mayor didn’t hand us this thing until it was two days old, and that’s very old for a homicide, so get cracking. One other thing. No comments to the press. You refer all questions to the deputy commissioner for public information. No exceptions.”
About the Author
WILLIAM HEFFERNAN won the 1996 Edgar Award for his novel Tarnished Blue. He is the author of fourteen novels, including the international bestsellers The Corsican, Ritual, Blood Rose, and Corsican Honor. A former reporter for the New York Daily News, he lives in Vermont with his wife and three sons.
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Praise for Edgar Award-winner
WILLIAM HEFFERNAN
and
RED ANGEL
“Heffernan knows how to create characters through sharp and distinctive dialogue; his pacing is fast and fluid, and his plotting is superb.”
NELSON DEMILLE
“[A] strong new entry in his series featuring New York City detective Paul Devlin … [a] complex plot weaving together the Mafia with greedy U.S. and Cuban government officials … The Cuban characters are well-drawn and attractive, even when slippery. Heffernan does a superb job explaining the varieties of Cuban religious experience, the Cuban sensibility, and the ominous shadows of a rigid police state.”
Publishers Weekly
“The suspense is fine, and the pace of writing makes one look out for the next jiggery-pokery to jump out of the nganga (caldron).”
Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Heffernan can write a mean page and create a living character in a few words.”
Stuart M. Kaminsky
“A real attention grabber … deeply involving, expertly detailed, and strategically plotted … highly recommended.”
Library Journal
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Excerpt from Unholy Order © 2002 by Daisychain Productions, Inc.
ISBN: 0-380-81881-7
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