Ultimate Betrayal

by Joseph Badal

  One of the S.W.A.T. team’s members found a note taped to the basement door and turned it over to his commander. Printed in pencil on the envelope: “For Rolf Bishop’s Eyes Only!”

  “Who the hell is Rolf Bishop?” the man asked.

  “A CIA bigwig.”

  “What the hell does he have to do with this?”

  Brand just slowly wagged his head.

  CHAPTER 34

  David and Gino were the only ones of the five who’d fled the house who were fully dressed. Dennis wore pajama bottoms, a T-shirt, and black lace-up shoes, without socks. Peter wore a pajama top, dress pants, and slippers. Jennifer Ramsey had apparently had the presence of mind to put on a pair of running shoes to go with a t-shirt and dark-blue sweat pants. The temperature had dropped enough that David felt chilled. He suspected the others must feel the cold even more. “Gino,” David said, “there must be someone who can pick us up.”

  “Sure!” Gino responded. “We could call Bobby Galupo. But I don’t have my cellphone. It’s back in my bedroom. Anybody got a telephone?”

  No one had brought a phone.

  “I’ll go over the wall and try to find a pay phone,” David said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Jennifer announced.

  David was inclined to argue with her, but decided he didn’t have time to waste. He just nodded and jogged away from the group. He crossed the neighbor’s estate until he came to another high, ivy-covered stone wall. He thought for a moment about helping Ramsey over the wall, but decided she’d have to make it on her own; he didn’t need her along if she couldn’t hold up her end. He gripped vines that covered the wall and pulled himself up. After he made certain no one was on the other side, he dropped onto a sidewalk. Ramsey landed next to him a second later.

  David could see the reflections of police lights bounce off walls and trees, but the police vehicles were not visible, parked around a curve in the street. He crouched low, ran across the street, and headed into another street perpendicular to Gino’s street. Ramsey trailed close behind. After only one block, he had to slow to a fast walk. Years behind a desk had taken their toll. He noticed Ramsey’s breathing was shallow, unlabored.

  David saw the lighted sign of a Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority commuter train station two blocks ahead. He hoped there would be a public telephone there. The houses along the street were closer together than they’d been on Gino’s block, each situated on lots that appeared to be about a fourth of an acre. But just as he was about to sprint to the station, a police cruiser pulled up and stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of the steps down to the station. With emergency lights flashing, two police officers got out of the cruiser and stood in the street.

  Ramsey laid a hand on David’s arm and said, “Give me three minutes.” She raced down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

  David caught glimpses of Ramsey as she ran toward the cruiser. She was dressed like your everyday jogger, but it was a bit late at night for a recreational run. She was about a half-block from the police vehicle when David noticed the two officers move away from their car.

  One of the cops shouted, “Hey, stop.”

  Ramsey stopped for a couple seconds, reversed direction, and ran back the way she had just come. While David knelt behind a parked car, he heard her run by. A half-minute later a cop passed him. The gear on his utility belt made all kinds of racket. His breathing was loud and labored. Then the other cop came by in the cruiser, lights flashing and siren howling.

  David stood up and jogged toward the station as soon as the cops passed him. He looked down at the tracks, sixty feet below street level, and spotted a pay phone. He descended three flights of stairs to the concrete platform and walked briskly toward the phone, which was set in the midst of giant trees that formed a wall between the train platform and a steep grassy bank leading to a paved parking lot. David picked up his pace, quickly reached the phone, deposited coins, and dialed Bobby Galupo’s number, which Gino had given him. While he waited for someone to answer, he noticed the train schedule posted in large block letters and numerals in front and to the left of him on the station wall. The last train of the night was due at 12:55 a.m. The wall clock above the train schedule showed 12:49 a.m.

  David heard a sound behind him. His breath caught as he jerked his head around just as he felt something hard press into his back. At the same time, a hand grabbed his left shoulder and a voice rasped, “Drop that phone or I’ll put a cap in your ass.” David heard a man’s voice on the telephone just before he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  The man behind him said, “Give me your wallet and whatever you got in your pockets. Put ‘em up on that phone shelf. Also your watch and ring.”

  David really didn’t care about his wallet, money, or watch, but there was no way he would willingly hand over the ring Carmela had given him. He tensed, then tried to relax. He took his wallet from a rear pants pocket and laid it carefully on the phone shelf. He removed his watch and put that on top of the wallet. With his left hand he reached into a pants pocket and pulled out change. He was about to drop the coins onto the shelf when a loud “Hey!” punctuated the night.

  The shout seemed to distract the robber. He momentarily lessened the pressure of the pistol, but then pushed it even harder against David’s back. The sound of footsteps hammered on the wooden steps. The robber cursed: “What the fu . . . .”

  David felt the pistol shift slightly to the right. He pivoted to his left, came face-to-face with the gunman, their chests almost touching. He used his left hand to grab the man’s right wrist, immobilizing his gun hand. He drove his right hand into the man’s throat with all the force he could muster. Despite being slightly off-balance and seriously out of practice, David did enough damage with the blow that the gunman dropped his weapon, grabbed his throat, fell to his knees, and croaked like a seal. David felt momentary satisfaction from the man’s pain. He picked up the pistol and slammed it against the man’s temple. The mugger fell sideways, unconscious or dead. David got down on one knee next to the man and searched his pockets. In the left pocket of his hooded sweatshirt he found a key ring with the distinctive keys of a Chrysler product.

  Ramsey ran up while David gathered his things from the telephone shelf. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Goddamn punk!” David exclaimed.

  “What do we do now?”

  A bright light suddenly appeared in a tunnel about five hundred yards up the tracks.

  “We’d better get out of here,” David said. They sprinted away and were halfway up the stairs by the time the train stopped at the station. At the street, David noticed a single dark sedan parked in the lot behind the train station.

  “Come on,” he said to Ramsey. He ran down the sidewalk, turned into the parking lot, and ran to the car—an ancient, rusted-out Dodge Dart. He tried the driver’s side door and found it unlocked. He got behind the wheel and tried the car key he’d taken off the mugger. When the engine came to life, Ramsey slid into the passenger seat. David tore out of the lot and drove down Highland Avenue back to Gino’s street.

  “We’ve got to get off the streets around here,” Ramsey said. “There are probably police checkpoints all around the area.”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “I don’t see the emergency flashers anymore. We’ll have to pull onto the property where we left the others. Neither Gino nor my father would be able to scale the wall.”

  David cut off the Dodge’s headlights and drove into the driveway. Twenty yards off the street, the driveway curved slightly to the right and was blocked by a huge wrought iron gate. On the driver’s side was a speaker box. David pushed the button on the box. The sound of a ringing telephone came through the speaker. Then a man’s groggy voice.

  “Jeez, who is it? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Philadelphia Police,” David said. �
��We’re after a prowler who might have scaled the wall from next door onto your property. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Is that what all the noise is about?”

  “Yes, sir. What’s your name?”

  “Arthur Ellison; I’m the caretaker here.”

  “Would you open the gate so we can search the grounds?”

  “I’ll be right there,” the man said.

  “No, sir,” David said. “You stay inside and lock your doors. I don’t want you hurt. The man we’re after is armed and dangerous. Can you open the gate remotely?”

  “Sure. I’ll do that.”

  The speaker box squawked and then went silent. David looked over at Ramsey and hunched his shoulders. She smiled at him. “You know impersonating a police officer is a crime?”

  “I suspect that would be the least of my worries.”

  The gate retracted to the left. He drove onto the property and, in the rear view mirror, watched the gate automatically close behind them. He drove along the brick driveway until he had a clear view of the front of the house. The spot where they’d left the others was across a wide stretch of lawn, twenty yards to the left. He tapped the gas pedal just enough to roll across the lawn. A couple yards from Gino’s secret tunnel, David stopped the car and said to Ramsey, “Get behind the wheel. I’ll find the others. You need to be ready to drive this heap out of here as soon as we’re all aboard.” He got out and walked into the bushes, and whispered, “Dad, Gino.”

  Gino, Peter, and O’Neil moved out of the bushes.

  “Anything happen since I left?” he asked.

  “Nothing, except the cops patrolled the grounds next door until a few minutes ago,” Peter answered.

  “They’re not still there?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s like they wanted to get away as fast as they could.”

  “Well, let’s get out of here before someone thinks to check on this side of the wall,” David said.

  When they were all in the car, David told Gino, “As long as we’re in Philly we’ll be targets of every cop in town. You’re supposed to meet with your friend in New York tomorrow evening, anyway. So maybe now’s a good time for all of us to make the trip there.”

  “Good idea,” Gino replied. “Where did you get the car?”

  “Stole it!” David said.

  “Couldn’t find anything better?” Gino said.

  Jennifer Ramsey drove back across the lawn to the driveway and then down to the gate, which opened automatically. She pulled away from the estate and drove out of Chestnut Hill.

  Thirty minutes into the drive toward New York City, Gino was asleep in the front passenger seat, as was Peter in the back seat. O’Neil, in the back between David and Peter, was awake, as was David. Ramsey adjusted the rear view mirror so she could better see David’s face. She thought about the way he’d handled himself at the train station and at the neighbor’s estate. The man knew how to take command under pressure. She admired that in a man. Sure he was handsome, but it was more than that, more than physical attraction. Jennifer bit her lower lip and reminded herself that Hood had just lost his wife. Don’t waste your time on this one, she told herself.

  CHAPTER 35

  Two hours after the raid, Captain Lincoln Brand met with Police Commissioner Sullivan and Mayor Katz at the mayor’s house.

  “Let me get this straight, Brand,” the mayor said. “You have five wounded officers, two with dog bites. You wounded one of Bartolucci’s guards, found no trace of an undercover DEA agent, or Gino Bartolucci, or anyone else, for that matter. You wounded two dogs. And you woke up the neighborhood. Is that about right?”

  Brand could see where the blame for this fiasco was about to be placed. “Well, that’s about right, Mayor. Except”—and here his tone was thick with sarcasm—“don’t forget we found a stash of heroin.” His voice rose. “But it sure as hell wasn’t enough to fill a panel truck, as the DEA guy told us.”

  The mayor gave him a squint-eyed look and said, “How the fuck will I explain all this to the press? And wait ‘til the animal rights people find out my S.W.A.T. team hurt a couple puppy dogs.”

  In a perverted, vindictive sort of way, Brand enjoyed every bit of the mayor’s discomfort. Although Commissioner Sullivan had yet to say anything, Brand could tell from the anguished look on his boss’s face and his continual shifting in his chair that Sullivan was in agony.

  The mayor’s mood suddenly changed. “Hey, we can tell the media we had intelligence about a stash of drugs at Bartolucci’s place. No one says a thing about the dogs. The story will be that Bartolucci’s gangsters fired on our men first and wounded several brave police officers.”

  Sullivan gave Brand a pained look and finally said to the mayor, “I don’t think any of that will pass muster.”

  Brand felt he had no choice but to further ruin the mayor’s brief moment of optimism. He held up a hand, fingers spread, and ticked off the points he felt needed to be made. “First, about the drugs,” he said. “We had no probable cause for the raid. You’ll remember it was the DEA that put us up to this. But my guess is the DEA will pull a Sergeant Schultz. They won’t know nothing. They’ll never admit to having anything to do with any of it. So, a defense attorney right out of law school could get a case against Bartolucci tossed out of court—if it even got past the DA’s office. Second, why would a wily old Mafia Don who’s been around forever have a couple hundred pounds of heroin on a dining room table? Why would he take that kind of risk? Third, what about the DEA undercover agent we were told was on the property? There was no one there. Bartolucci’s people had no clue about a DEA agent when we questioned them. Fourth, when I confronted Bartolucci’s men and told them to lay down their guns, they were honestly surprised we were cops. Now, why would a bunch of supposed drug runners be surprised that the cops raided their place? They seemed to expect trouble, but not from the police. Right now, Bartolucci has a potential lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia. If you go to the press with some story that smears his name, he could own the City. Fifth”—he wiggled the little finger on his raised hand—“we found a bank of busted windows on the south side of the house. We never went near that side of the house. Something really stinks. Oh, and by the way, we found this envelope taped to the basement door when we searched the house.”

  Brand pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his tactical vest and waved it at the mayor. “It’s addressed to Rolf Bishop, the recently confirmed CIA Deputy Director.”

  “Why in God’s name would anyone in that house leave an envelope for a top CIA guy?” Sullivan asked.

  The mayor’s face sagged. He had an expression as though he finally realized he’d been scammed. “What’s in the envelope?”

  Brand pulled the note from the envelope and handed it to Katz. The mayor read it aloud: “When you play ball with the wrong people, you get the bat shoved up your ass. Bend over, Rolfie Baby, your time has come.” The mayor read the message aloud a second time.

  Brand could barely contain his laughter.

  The mayor refolded the note and returned it to Brand, who put it back in the envelope. “Captain Brand,” Katz said. “I think the commissioner and I will figure out how to deal with this mess. While we do that, why don’t you go out to my living room and try to get CIA Headquarters on the phone. Tell them we need to immediately talk with Deputy Director Bishop. When you reach him, tell him we found a letter addressed to him. Don’t tell him we’ve looked in the envelope.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor, I’ll get right on it.”

  “Oh, one other thing,” Katz said. “Why don’t you call that asshole DEA guy, Morton, and see what he has to say?”

  “I already tried. The DEA night duty officer checked his computer for me and discovered Timothy Morton retired from the agency. No forwarding address.”

  It took Brand fifteen minutes to connect to the Langley duty of
ficer. She told him to leave a recorded message for Deputy Director Bishop. Brand waited for the beep and then spoke into the phone: “This is Captain Abraham Lincoln Brand of the Philadelphia Police Department. We found a letter addressed to you. If we do not hear from you soon, we will open the letter.” He added his telephone number and hung up.

  Brand rejoined the mayor and the police commissioner who had brandy snifters in hand.

  Katz fixed his gaze on Brand, pointed at a chair.

  “Linc, Clarence and I have decided we have only one course of action. We’ll call a press conference for ten this morning. We’ll announce that the Philadelphia S.W.A.T. unit executed a surprise raid on an estate in Chestnut Hill that is secretly owned by the former head of organized crime in Philadelphia. We’ll say we had information that a significant amount of illegal drugs was hidden on the estate and we will display the drugs your team captured. We’ll say Bartolucci’s guards opened fire on the S.W.A.T. officers. We will also say the guards at the estate were heavily armed. We will announce that each of the men who took part in the raid will receive the Medal of Merit.”

  The mayor turned to his police commissioner. “Did I cover everything, Clarence?”

  “Sounds like you got it all, Mr. Mayor.”

  The mayor returned his attention to Brand. “You have any suggestions?”

  Brand first looked at his boss and then at the mayor. “No disrespect intended, gentlemen,” he said, “but you’ve got to be kidding. You go out and tell that crock of shit to the press and it will come back and bite us all on the ass. You tell that story and you’ll have to bring charges against Bartolucci and every one of his men. Their lawyers will rip those charges to shreds. I believe Gino Bartolucci was as much a dupe in this scam as we were. I think the agenda of that DEA son-of-a-bitch, Tim Morton, had nothing to do with the story he gave us. There are way too many unexplained things about this whole operation. And what about that busted bank of windows I mentioned earlier? And what about that note addressed to Rolf Bishop? Until I saw that note, I thought the DEA had orchestrated this clusterfuck. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe the CIA used Morton to play us. This whole thing stinks.”