Ultimate Betrayal

by Joseph Badal

  He rested his head against the leather headrest and closed his eyes. That bastard Toney! He’d fix his ass for good. In the meantime, he hoped his backup plan would work.

  APRIL 20

  CHAPTER 20

  Gunnery Sergeant Sam Collins’s throat was dry and his stomach ached. He rang Dennis O’Neil’s cellphone from a pay phone a few minutes before noon. He nervously looked through the phone booth’s windows.

  “Hello,” O’Neil answered.

  “Meet me in an hour where we had a couple of beers yesterday.”

  When Collins showed up at McNally’s Tavern, a half-hour late, O’Neil noticed the Marine was jittery. His hands shook and he frequently looked over O’Neil’s shoulder at the tavern door. O’Neil ordered shots of Jack Daniels for both of them.

  “What’s up, Sam?” O’Neil asked. “You act like you just robbed a bank.”

  “I wish it was that simple,” Collins replied in a nervous, subdued voice. He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his blouse pocket, placed it on the table in front of him, and covered it with his hand. “You have no idea what you’ve stuck your nose into.” He took a sip of the whiskey, then looked at his glass and downed the whole thing.

  O’Neil signaled the waitress for another round of drinks. “Listen, Sam, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  Collins breathed deeply and slowly let the air out of his lungs. “Okay. I got into work a little early today so I could dig up the information you wanted. I logged into Big Bertha—that’s our mainframe system—and I queried the computer to cross-reference all personnel who ever had anything to do with the Special Logistical Support Detachment. I got a readout that said, ‘NEED TO KNOW BASIS ONLY - ACCESS RESTRICTED. TOP SECRET.’ I’ve got a Top Secret/Crypto clearance, so it was no big deal to access the data file. But it’s against the law for me to tell you what I learned.”

  “Jeez, Sam, what the hell! I—”

  Collins pumped a hand at O’Neil. “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this. I think someone is fucking with the system. I’m going to tell what I learned, but you never heard it from me.”

  “Okay. I got it. But what did you mean when you said, ‘. . . someone’s fucking with the system’?”

  “The SLSD file was unclassified until yesterday. It got classified at someone’s request. I don’t know why or by whom.”

  O’Neil squinted at Collins. “I’m totally confused, Sam.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal. I got into the program and it spilled out the names of every Defense Department analyst who planned or worked on the creation of the unit, every officer and enlisted man ever assigned to it, and every individual who ever touched it in any way. I concentrated on the names of those who’d been assigned to the unit in Afghanistan in its eighteen-month existence. A total of fifteen men. The unit managed a mission called Operation Harvest. The files didn’t go into any detail about what that was.

  “So, I had a list of fifteen names, some of which I immediately recognized.” Collins uncovered the piece of paper and unfolded it. He read from the paper. “Bishop, the new CIA Deputy Director, was the commander of the SLSD, and we know he’s still alive. Then there’s your three dead Marines: Carbajal, Perkins, and Laniewski. I pulled up the files on the other eleven names, and this is where things got weird.”

  The waitress brought another round and Collins snatched up his glass and downed half its contents.

  “Oh, before I forget, I learned your three dead Marines were the only Marines assigned to SLSD. The other men came from the other combat services. One of them—an Army captain named Andrew King—died in Afghanistan. Another man—Roland Wilson—died in a car accident a few years ago. Emile Jackson—died from cancer in 2011. And an Army Master Sergeant, Robert Campbell, was murdered while on leave in New York City in 2004. Can you imagine? The guy spends a career in the Army without getting a scratch on him; then he visits the Big Apple and gets killed. Go figure.

  “Anyway, I eliminated Bishop, the three Marines, and the four men I just mentioned. That left seven names. All of them got out of the service either immediately or shortly after they left Afghanistan. I figured the addresses on file were probably worthless. Then I got a brain flash and checked Veterans Administration records. You know, maybe some of these men got VA loans, or took courses under the GI Bill, or accessed the VA medical system. In any case, I thought I might find more current addresses there.” Collins paused. “You may want to down that drink before I continue.”

  “I’m okay,” O’Neil said.

  Collins shrugged and finished his own drink. “So, I inputted a name in the VA database—guy named Jeffrey Schmitt. The most recent entry in his file—just two weeks ago—was a request for Veterans Burial Benefits. I typed in the next name—Lawrence Goldstein—and I got the same damned thing. Request for burial benefits a week ago. I thought that was a little strange. I mean, what are the odds? Then I input Robert Zimmerman’s name. Nothing. The same with a guy named David Hood. After that, I entered Ralph Connors, Ernest Butler, and Clay Elmer’s names. All three had burial benefits requests on record. You gotta figure that’s a high ratio of former servicemen from one unit dying so young, in their twenties and thirties. But get this! Connors, Butler, and Elmer also died within the last few weeks. That’s eight men from the SLSD, including your three Marines, who died over the past thirty days. And they didn’t just die. All of them were murdered. Nine of the fifteen men assigned to the SLSC, including Robert Campbell who was killed in 2004, have been murdered.”

  “That leaves Bishop, Zimmerman, and Hood still alive,” O’Neil said.

  Collins stared at O’Neil. “The look on your face would be comical under most any other circumstances. You look as shocked as I am.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Oh, no. I gotta tell you, Dennis, I was sweating bullets, freaked out. But I was hooked; so I tried something else. I had two names unaccounted for on my list—Zimmerman and Hood. I called the telephone numbers from their files. The number for Zimmerman was still good; a lady answered. Julie Zimmerman, Robert Zimmerman’s mother. She cried when I asked to speak to her son. You want to guess what she tells me?”

  O’Neil shook his head. “Don’t tell me. Her son was killed in the last few weeks.”

  “You got it! Somebody put a bullet in his head. Zimmerman didn’t show up in VA records because his mother had yet to claim burial benefits. That’s nine guys murdered in less than thirty days. I can’t believe any of this, but it’s true and it scares the shit out of me. I tried the same thing with the telephone number in the Hood file, but I got a recording with no name mentioned. I’ve got no idea if the number’s any good or if it’s been reassigned to someone else. Hood got VA benefits to go to school, but the number in the VA database wasn’t any good either.”

  Collins passed the piece of paper to O’Neil. “Here’s all the information I was able to pull up. Names, dates of death, addresses, phone numbers.” Collins paused to pull his chair even closer to the table and lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “You’re on your own from now on,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m not ashamed to admit I’m scared. Including Robert Campbell, we’ve got ten men murdered out of fifteen who served together ten years ago. Nine of them killed in the last thirty days. There are only two alive—Hood and Bishop—out of the fifteen, as far as I know. Hood could be dead. Bishop might be on a target list, too.”

  Collins abruptly stood up. He pushed his chair under the table and leaned over the chair back. “Don’t tell anyone where you got this information. Remember it’s classified.” He pointed a finger at O’Neil and added, “Don’t call me anymore.”

  O’Neil didn’t have time to thank Collins before the Marine walked out of the bar.

  Detective Jennifer Ramsey had pulled together all the information available on David Hood. She wanted desperately to sit down and talk with the man, but he’
d dropped off the face of the earth. No one at his company headquarters seemed to know where he was—or wasn’t talking, and every time she called his father’s number in Philadelphia, the answering machine told her to leave a message. She’d left three, so far. She needed to go to Philadelphia and try to find Hood.

  Chief of Detectives Croken typed at his computer keyboard when Ramsey knocked on his door jamb.

  “Chief, you got a second?”

  Croken held up a finger signaling her to wait. When he finished typing, he looked up and pointed at a chair in front of his desk.

  “I haven’t had any success finding David Hood in Bethesda. There’s a good chance he’s with his father in Philadelphia.”

  “So, you want to go there?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll authorize one week of travel expenses. Take your unmarked. And I’ll call the Philadelphia P.D. to let them know you’ll be in their jurisdiction and that you’ll be armed.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  “Try not to shoot anyone while you’re there.”

  In his “Read” file, Bishop found a one-page report from an assistant. The Subject line read: “Apr 20, 0710 hours. Computer Inquiry, Special Logistical Support Detachment.” Sweat formed on his brow and his face got hot. He really hadn’t expected any inquiry into the SLSD. While he scanned the report, his concern rose. A Gunnery Sergeant Samuel Collins from the Marine Personnel Office had initiated an inquiry. Collins now had the names of every man in the old unit. Bishop knew that thirteen of the fourteen men who’d served under him in the SLSD were dead. He was confident his hired assassins would soon take care of Hood. But dead men might tell tales, especially if Collins kept snooping.

  Bishop buzzed for his assistant and told him to bring any other copies of the report into his office. When the man entered with the one copy he had made and handed it over, Bishop instructed him to purge his computer of any record of the report. Bishop then ran the original and copy through a paper shredder.

  Bishop sat in his office and stared at the ceiling. As far as he knew, David Hood was still alive. And now he had another problem: Gunnery Sergeant Samuel Collins. He took out his cellphone and dialed a number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Paladin?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Talon,” Bishop said, using the code name Paladin knew.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to place another order.”

  “How big an order?”

  “One.”

  “Name, please.”

  “Gunnery Sergeant Samuel Collins. I’ll wire work and home addresses to you shortly.”

  “What’s the timing?”

  “A-S-A-P.”

  “Wire the fee.”

  APRIL 21

  CHAPTER 21

  Jennifer Ramsey had tossed and turned most of the night in the queen-sized bed in her Philadelphia hotel room. She’d counted every flower in the wallpaper accent trim at the top of the walls three times. She’d tried to watch a late movie, but couldn’t concentrate. She could normally drop off as soon as her head hit the pillow, even in a strange bed. But her mind had been in a whirl since she plugged in her laptop the night before and, on a lark, inputted the name David Hood in Google. An article about the bombing in Bethesda popped up. She knew more than anyone else about that—except for the bomber himself—and was about to erase the article, when something caught her eye. The article mentioned Carmela Hood’s maiden name: Bartolucci. Carmela Bartolucci-Hood was the daughter of a former Mafia chieftain. Could there be a mob connection to the deaths of Hood’s wife and children?

  At 5 a.m., Jennifer abandoned hope of sleeping and got out of bed. After a thirty minute jog on downtown streets, she showered, dressed, and ordered breakfast from room service. She’d wait until a reasonable hour and drive to the Hood residence in South Philadelphia.

  Rodney Strong and Zeke McCoy arrived in Philadelphia on a Delta flight from Atlanta at 7 a.m. They’d worked together on several occasions and had a long and successful history as hired killers. Their client, code-named Talon, had used them twice before to remove business opponents.

  Strong and McCoy were native Georgians who grew up around guns and took their weapons skills into the U.S. Army and became Army Rangers, where they honed and complemented their skills with a variety of other talents: survival and hand-to-hand combat training; explosives fabrication; sniper training. They were the products of a very efficient military training program funded by the taxpayers. Now they employed their skills exclusively against some of those same taxpayers. Neither of the men had ever gone to war on behalf of their nation and had never killed an enemy of their country. But they’d killed several dozen citizens who’d in some way alienated the wrong people.

  The Georgians made enough money to dress well, eat at the best restaurants, and fly first-class, but they still talked like the under-educated hicks they were. However, they usually didn’t say much. They appeared to be two well-dressed businessmen on their way to a meeting. They were businessmen of a sort . . . they performed a service for a fee.

  Their target in Philly was a business executive named David Hood. They had the target’s photograph and address. They didn’t know if the man was married or single, was a father, went to church on Sunday, coached little league, or supported the United Way. They couldn’t have cared less. They planned to take care of business this morning, in time to catch the early afternoon return flight to Atlanta.

  It took them an hour to pick up a Ford Explorer from Hertz, to drive to a black market weapons dealer they knew, then to drive to Rosemont Street, and to reconnoiter the target’s father’s residence—where they’d been told Hood might be holed up. They circled the block and found a restaurant parking lot where Strong, in the rear seat of the Explorer, changed from his suit to a USPS mail carrier’s uniform—a disguise he’d used before. McCoy then drove back to the Hood’s block on Rosemont. Halfway down the block, he noticed a black Lincoln Towncar double-parked in front of the Hood residence. The Lincoln’s trunk lid and two rear doors were open. McCoy pulled into a parking place on the street, eight car lengths from the Lincoln. He stayed in the car while Strong got out and approached the house.

  From his vantage point in a rocker by a second story window in the Galante house across from the Hood residence, another one of Gino’s geriatric “watchers” saw the Explorer slow down as it passed in front of him. He didn’t do anything about it until, a few minutes later, the Explorer returned and parked up the street. He immediately put down his coffee cup and a chocolate biscotti and phoned Gino’s command center. He told Gino a car drove past the house, then came back, and had now parked. One guy stayed with the car while a second man, dressed like a mailman, was on foot.

  Gino hung up and called Frankie Siracusa on his cellphone. “Frankie, my lookout tells me a brown Ford Explorer just parked on Rosemont. One guy behind the wheel and a second guy dressed like a mailman. How about you send a guy by there to check things out.”

  “Boss,” Frankie replied, “Paulie and I are still on Rosemont. At the Hood’s. We got stuck on Broad Street because of an accident. We just got to their house ten minutes ago. Remember you told me to bring them here so they could pick up some clothes. David and Peter are just now leaving the house. Hey, I see the mailman.”

  Rodney Strong was confident. People always opened their doors for a mailman, especially if they thought he might be delivering a special package. But instead of “special packages,” Strong carried a MAC-10 in his mailbag. His eyes moved from the Hood residence to the Lincoln. Two men sat in the front seat. Then movement to his left drew his eyes back to the front porch of the residence. He immediately recognized his target, swung the mailbag from his side to his chest, and reached for the weapon.

  “Goddammit, Frankie, get the hell out of there,” Gino shouted. “That ain’t no mailman! The
y don’t deliver this early.”

  David followed Peter down from the porch, tossed their bags into the open car trunk, and slammed the trunk lid shut. Peter walked around to the open rear right side door and got in. David turned to the other side of the car, when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder just when Frankie screamed, “David, get in the car, quick!” Fifty feet away, David saw a man pull a weapon from a leather bag. The man went from a fast walk to a run.

  A hand grabbed his arm, pulled him along the side of the vehicle, and pushed him into the rear seat of the Lincoln. David heard automatic gunfire erupt and the thump of bullets against the Lincoln’s reinforced steel shell. Then the answering sounds of a fired pistol. David righted himself on the seat and looked out the still-open door. Frankie was returning fire. Then Frankie groaned and fell to the pavement.

  Detective Ramsey saw the double-parked black Lincoln forty yards ahead on the one-way street, just as she heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire. She slammed the brakes of her Crown Victoria and screeched to a stop. As she snatched her .38 Special from her purse on the seat next to her, she opened the driver side door and jumped from the car.

  David leaped out of the Lincoln and crouched next to Frankie. The sound of the automatic weapon had been replaced by the pop-pop-pop of a pistol. He couldn’t see who fired it, but he saw a mailman sprint back up the street. David grabbed the pistol from Frankie’s hand and fired at the man. He tossed the weapon through the open car door to Peter and dragged Frankie into the back seat.