Ultimate Betrayal

by Joseph Badal

  “Maybe stray bullets knocked out the windows,” the mayor said, although without much conviction.

  “I don’t think so, Mayor. Those windows were on the far side of the house, away from the action. Another thing that puzzles me is the amount of debris we found beyond the south wall of the property. Leaves and small branches were scattered on the golf course a couple hundred yards from the back of Bartolucci’s property. I thought I heard a helicopter in the area after Bartolucci’s men surrendered, but I didn’t think anything of it. I knew we didn’t have any aircraft deployed on the mission. With all that debris beyond the wall, I suspect a chopper landed there and picked up men who were not part of my team. The same men who drugged and tied up four Philadelphia policemen who were assigned to guard the back wall of Bartolucci’s place.”

  “What!” Katz shouted.

  “Yeah, we found them trussed up, unconscious on the edge of the golf course. They couldn’t tell us a thing. None of them saw who attacked them. That sounds like a Special Ops team to me. And another thing, what happened to Bartolucci and the undercover DEA agent? When we questioned the guards, they said they had no idea where Bartolucci might be, but that he’d been asleep in an upstairs bedroom. They were as confused about his whereabouts as we were. And one of the guards told us there had been three other men and a woman in the house. And get this: One of the men and the woman were cops.”

  “Cops!” Katz shouted. “Were they ours?”

  “No, I don’t think so. One of Bartolucci’s men told us they were from someplace out of state.”

  Brand waited to see if Katz had any more questions, and then continued. “The other two men were Bartolucci’s son-in-law, David Hood, and Hood’s father, Peter. All four people were Gino Bartolucci’s guests.”

  Brand paused to allow the other two men to fully process all he’d said. Then he added, “I checked on David Hood and learned he has a sterling reputation. He heads up a highly respected international security firm. And Hood’s wife and two children were killed in a bomb blast at their home in Bethesda on April 12.

  “Mr. Mayor, Commissioner, I don’t think we gain a thing from a press conference and we potentially lose a lot. There are only a couple of small groups of people who know about this operation. There are my men, who won’t say a word about it. They’re not about to blab about a raid that turned into such a mess. Bartolucci’s men could spill the beans, but I really don’t see that happening. Who would believe them anyway? The neighbors think all the noise they heard was from fireworks, so there’s no worry on that front. We maintained strict radio silence on our side, so no one could have monitored the raid on a scanner. I’ll come up with a reasonable story for the wounded officers to tell their families. And one other thing. Your story won’t stand up to press scrutiny. If your media friends discover you lied to them, they’ll turn on you like rabid dogs.”

  “Aw jeez,” the mayor groaned. After a few seconds, Katz added, “We need to find Gino Bartolucci. And the minute you hear from this guy Rolf Bishop, call me. I want to know what he might have had to do with this fiasco.”

  “If I was Gino Bartolucci,” Brand said, “I would get away from Philly as quickly as possible.”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Katz shouted.

  Not up to the mayor’s usual eloquence, Brand thought.

  CHAPTER 36

  Bishop slouched in his government Towncar and tried to sleep on the trip up to New York from D.C. But the gears in his brain spun at a thousand miles an hour. Sleep just wouldn’t come. When his cellphone brrred, he sat up straight, breathed in a great quantity of air, exhaled slowly, and hoped for good news. He pushed the TALK button on the phone.

  “Mr. Bishop?”

  Bishop recognized the voice of the leader of the CIA black ops team he’d sent to the Bartolucci estate. “How did it go?”

  The man recited what had happened. The news was not good. The team had basically accomplished nothing.

  Bishop cut the connection; he was wide awake now. He wanted to scream. Nothing was going well. And now he had to get to New York to meet with the President for the G-8 meeting that would include a series of briefings scheduled for the leaders of some of the world’s most powerful economies. Bishop’s assignment was to personally update the heads of state and their intelligence agency directors on information the CIA had gathered on several hot spots around the globe: Syria, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan. CIA analysts, specialists on each of the subject areas, had prepared his script. Bishop estimated his driver would get him to The Plaza by 3 a.m. He could then, hopefully, catch four or five hours sleep before he had to take part in a 10 a.m. practice briefing session. Lunch with the President and the other G-8 leaders would follow, and then his part of the briefing, set for 2:30 p.m. After that he would have the rest of the day free to decide what he should do about Hood.

  Bishop cursed the black ops team and thought about his options. Then the car phone beeped. He picked up the receiver.

  A woman said. “Copley here; verify ID, please.”

  Bishop punched in his seven-digit identification code on the telephone receiver.

  “Sir, I have message traffic for you. Hold while I play it back.”

  A series of beeps and tones played in Bishop’s ear. He heard a voice say he was Captain Brand of the Philadelphia Police Department and had found a letter addressed to him.

  “Now what?” he muttered.

  Bishop cut the connection and dialed the number Brand had left.

  “Sergeant Moynihan. How may I help you?”

  For some reason, the sergeant’s crisp tone aggravated Bishop and put him in a worse mood than he was in already.

  “What you can do for me, Sergeant, is get Captain Brand on the line immediately.”

  Moynihan hated the graveyard shift while the rest of the world was home in bed. Now he had an asshole on the line giving him a ration of shit. “Why don’t you give me your name and a little less attitude, mister, and maybe I’ll see if I can track down Captain Brand for you in the next week or so.”

  “You listen to me, mister. This is CIA Deputy Director Rolf Bishop. You get Brand on the line or I’ll have your ass demoted to some friggin’ backwater precinct where the natives are always restless.”

  Moynihan knew how to handle crank callers. “Hey, I think maybe you should go back to whatever cage you escaped from. Or maybe just haul your butt down to the closest police station. I’m sure your friendly neighborhood cop would just love to talk with a CIA Deputy Director.”

  Moynihan laughed boisterously and hung up.

  Bishop took the phone away from his ear and stared at it open-mouthed. He took a couple of deep breaths until he’d regained his composure, and hit the TALK button again. The phone automatically re-dialed Philadelphia Police Headquarters. This time, a female cop answered.

  “This is Officer Wilson of the Philadelphia Police Department, how may I be of assistance?”

  Bishop tried charm this time. “Officer Wilson, my name is Rolf Bishop. I received a message that Captain Brand needed to talk to me A-S-A-P. Do you think you could connect us, or perhaps take a message for him to call me back?” He gave the officer his cellphone number.

  “Mr. Bishop, give me a moment to see if I can reach Captain Brand.” After a moment, the woman came back on the line. “Mr. Bishop, I have Captain Brand. Please hang on while I patch you into his car.”

  There were a few seconds of dead air and then, “Mr. Bishop, it’s Captain Brand. Thanks for calling me back at such an ungodly hour.”

  “That’s okay, Captain. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got an envelope addressed to you.”

  “Yeah, I got that from your message. Who’s it from?”

  “Can’t be sure about that. But we found it taped to a door in Gino Bartolucci’s house in Chestnut Hill.”

  Bishop wanted to scream.

>   “Mr. Bishop, Mayor Katz wants to meet with you immediately. You don’t happen to be in Philadelphia?”

  Cute, Bishop thought. Brand just tried to put me in Philadelphia. Maybe to tie me to the raid on Bartolucci’s home. “Not only am I not in Philadelphia,” Bishop said, “but I haven’t been there in months. Why do you ask?”

  “I guess I was confused, Mr. Bishop.”

  “I’m on my way to New York City. Tell me what the mayor wants to talk with me about.”

  “I have no idea what Mayor Katz wants except he mentioned he plans to call a press conference about a raid on the Gino Bartolucci estate. He wanted to talk with you before he made any statements about possible CIA involvement in that raid.”

  “You have me confused,” Bishop said. “Who is Gino Bartolucci and why would the Philadelphia mayor be so misguided as to connect the Central Intelligence Agency to a raid on some gangster’s place. Do me a favor, Captain. Kindly tell Mayor Katz I’ll be tied up in New York for a couple days. I’ll call him when I return to Langley.”

  “Yes, sir. But the mayor won’t be pleased.”

  Finally, after a long pause, Bishop said, “Tell me about the envelope.”

  “Oh yeah,” Brand said, as though he’d forgotten about it. “As I said, we found it taped to a door.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s in it?”

  “Mr. Bishop, I have no idea what’s in the envelope. Do I understand you want me to open it?”

  Bishop guessed the envelope had already been opened. But he couldn’t help admire how well the man handled deception. Brand would be a real asset to the CIA. “Of course, Captain Brand,” he said. “Please open the envelope and tell me what’s inside.”

  “All right, sir,” Brand replied. “Huh,” he said, after several seconds had passed. “I don’t understand the note, but here goes. It reads: ‘When you play ball with the wrong people, you get the bat shoved up your ass. Bend over, Rolfie Baby, your time has come.’ Do you know what that means, Mr. Bishop?”

  “I have no idea. But I’ll think about it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bishop,” Brand said. “I’ll be sure to pass your message on to the mayor.”

  “You do that.”

  Brand chuckled. Bishop had claimed he didn’t know who Gino Bartolucci was, but then he’d referred to Bartolucci as a ‘gangster.’ The man had lied.

  CHAPTER 37

  David had spelled Jennifer Ramsey behind the wheel of the Dodge after they crossed into New Jersey. It was now 3:15 a.m. While he drove the stolen car north, Gino slept beside him and Peter and O’Neil slept in the back seat, with Jennifer Ramsey sandwiched between them. David stifled a laugh when he looked at her in the rear view mirror and saw her bemused expression.

  The scene in the back seat made David want to laugh. His father snored loudly; O’Neil’s head rested on Ramsey’s shoulder. Drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. The clothes they wore, which they’d acquired at a Wal-Mart outside Philadelphia, only made the scene more humorous. Peter, O’Neil, and Ramsey were dressed in an assortment of Wal-Mart athletic shoes, sweatshirts, and jeans that David had hurriedly bought. O’Neil wore a sweatshirt adorned with the cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn Rooster. Peter’s sweatshirt was emblazoned with the Washington Redskins’ logo. Ramsey’s was free of logos and writing, but it was a god-awful pink with glitter in the shape of a star on the front.

  They’d been on the road for over two hours when David pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike into a rest stop. The others awoke when he stopped in front of a Roy Rogers restaurant. They were an hour’s drive from New York City.

  “I’ll take the car around to the gas pumps,” David said. “Why don’t you all make a pit stop, get some food? I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes. Oh, Dennis, why don’t you see if they have prepaid cellphones for sale inside?”

  Jennifer used the pay phone in the women’s room and put in a collect call to Lt. Croken’s cell.

  “Jeez!” Croken shouted. “This better be a matter of life or death. Do you know what time it is?”

  “Lieutenant, it’s Detective Ramsey. Sorry about the time.”

  “What the hell are you up to? You left me a goddamn cryptic message that you’d found Mr. Hood, the guy Cromwell believes murdered his family.”

  “I also left the message that I am convinced Hood had nothing to do with the explosion at his home.”

  “Yeah, I got that, too.”

  “Lieutenant, Cromwell’s an idiot. I know for a fact Hood’s innocent. Gino Bartolucci is helping Hood try to find out who killed his family. He’s protecting him at the same time.”

  “Gino Bartolucci, as in Don Gino Bartolucci, the Mafia Capo?”

  Ramsey swallowed hard. “Yes, that Bartolucci.”

  “I got a call from the Philly P.D. They claimed there was a gun battle on the street where Hood’s father lives. They also claim some woman was involved. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “Uh-h-h, sort of.”

  “You were sort of involved in a gun battle?”

  “I went by Hood’s father’s house to try to track down his son. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Jeez! Any other surprises, Ramsey?”

  “The Philadelphia P.D. staged a raid on Bartolucci’s place a few hours ago.”

  “What!”

  “Listen, Chief, I gotta go. The others will wonder where I am. I’ll call you later.”

  “Don’t you hang up on me, Ramsey,” Croken screamed. “Don’t you fuckin’—”

  They all stood outside the restaurant when David returned. Their clothes and their obvious self-consciousness about them made David smile.

  “Ah say, ah say, boy, what’s so damn funny?” O’Neil asked in an imitation of Foghorn Leghorn Chicken’s voice, and the others cracked up.

  After they piled into the car, David pulled onto the highway, drove for about an hour, and then exited again after Rahway, New Jersey.

  Gino got out and called Joey Cataldo on the prepaid cellphone O’Neil bought at the truck stop. It took ten rings before someone answered. It took another couple minutes before Cataldo came to the phone.

  “Gino, it’s 4:30 in the morning; I assume this is important.”

  “You know me how many . . . maybe thirty years? You think I’d call you if it wasn’t important?” Gino said

  “Right. What can I do for you?”

  “I got a stolen car I need to make disappear and I need another car to replace it. I need a place to hole up for maybe a couple days, along with four friends. And we all need changes of clothes. Lastly, that matter we planned to discuss over dinner tomorrow night, you think you’d be ready to meet tonight instead?”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Cataldo said. “I found out what you wanted to know. As for the other stuff, where are you now?”

  “Off the Jersey Turnpike, just south of the city.”

  “Okay, here’s what you do. Take the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel. When you go through the tunnel, look for the turnoff to the Meadowlands . . . you know where the sports stadium is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Pull into the stadium lot. You’ll see a blue Ford van parked near the east ticket window with two men in it. Give your car keys to one of them. One of the guys in the van will be my nephew. He’ll take care of you. Clothes and stuff we’ll take care of later. You need anything else?”

  “No, Joey. Thank you. I’ll see you tonight. Where do you want to meet?”

  “My nephew will fill you in.”

  It took a bit over a half-hour to locate the right exit and another ten minutes to reach the stadium. Gino spotted a solitary vehicle in the lot.

  “That’s our guy. Blue van.”

  David stopped ten yards from the van. Gino got out and walked the few steps to the vehicle. Th
e two men there got out and one of them said, “Don Bartolucci, my name is Sal Fanelli. It’s an honor to be of service to you. Jimmy here will take care of your car.”

  Gino waved back at the Dodge. The others got out and approached the van. Fanelli opened the van’s sliding door and waited for them to climb aboard. Gino got into the front passenger seat. When they were all seated, he asked, “So, where you taking us, Sal?”

  Fanelli stared at Gino, surprised. “Didn’t Uncle Joey tell you, Don Bartolucci? I was told to bring you all out to his place on Long Island. You’ll be his guests.”

  Rolf Bishop woke at 8 a.m. He’d slept fitfully and felt just as exhausted as when he went to bed a few hours earlier. The stump of his leg hurt more than usual. He attached the prosthesis to the stump and staggered to the bathroom. He had to get ready for the day’s events. He’d always been up to any task, but the pressure of the last few weeks had begun to take a toll. He actually felt sorry for himself—a first for him. He rose from bed, went into the bathroom, and stared at the tired face in the mirror. Bishop yelled at the image in the glass, “Suck it up, man.” He then asked the question he’d asked countless times before, “What would an extraordinary person do in this situation?”

  At Joey Cataldo’s Long Island estate, Sal Fanelli dropped his exhausted passengers in front of a two-story stone guesthouse. A butler with an English accent greeted them as they left the van. “Welcome to Casa Sogna. My name is Cyril. If you will follow me.”

  David glanced around at his companions. They all looked as though they’d been rescued from a ship wreck. Each was in need of a shower. Their clothes were not only wrinkled, but were spotted with catsup, mustard, and coffee. To Cyril’s credit, he didn’t react to their appearance.