Deadly Assets Read online

  BOOKS BY W.E.B. GRIFFIN

  HONOR BOUND

  HONOR BOUND

  BLOOD AND HONOR

  SECRET HONOR

  DEATH AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  THE HONOR OF SPIES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  VICTORY AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  EMPIRE AND HONOR

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BROTHERHOOD OF WAR

  BOOK I: THE LIEUTENANTS

  BOOK II: THE CAPTAINS

  BOOK III: THE MAJORS

  BOOK IV: THE COLONELS

  BOOK V: THE BERETS

  BOOK VI: THE GENERALS

  BOOK VII: THE NEW BREED

  BOOK VIII: THE AVIATORS

  BOOK IX: SPECIAL OPS

  THE CORPS

  BOOK I: SEMPER FI

  BOOK II: CALL TO ARMS

  BOOK III: COUNTERATTACK

  BOOK IV: BATTLEGROUND

  BOOK V: LINE OF FIRE

  BOOK VI: CLOSE COMBAT

  BOOK VII: BEHIND THE LINES

  BOOK VIII: IN DANGER’S PATH

  BOOK IX: UNDER FIRE

  BOOK X: RETREAT, HELL!

  BADGE OF HONOR

  BOOK I: MEN IN BLUE

  BOOK II: SPECIAL OPERATIONS

  BOOK III: THE VICTIM

  BOOK IV: THE WITNESS

  BOOK V: THE ASSASSIN

  BOOK VI: THE MURDERERS

  BOOK VII: THE INVESTIGATORS

  BOOK VIII: FINAL JUSTICE

  BOOK IX: THE TRAFFICKERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK X: THE VIGILANTES

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK XI: THE LAST WITNESS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  MEN AT WAR

  BOOK I: THE LAST HEROES

  BOOK II: THE SECRET WARRIORS

  BOOK III: THE SOLDIER SPIES

  BOOK IV: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

  BOOK V: THE SABOTEURS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VI: THE DOUBLE AGENTS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: THE SPYMASTERS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  PRESIDENTIAL AGENT

  BOOK I: BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK II: THE HOSTAGE

  BOOK III: THE HUNTERS

  BOOK IV: THE SHOOTERS

  BOOK V: BLACK OPS

  BOOK VI: THE OUTLAWS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VII: COVERT WARRIORS

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  BOOK VIII: HAZARDOUS DUTY

  (and William E. Butterworth IV)

  CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS

  BOOK I: TOP SECRET

  BOOK II: THE ASSASSINATION OPTION

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2015 by William E. Butterworth IV

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Griffin, W.E.B.

  Deadly assets / W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV.

  p. cm.—(Badge of honor ; Book 12)

  ISBN 978-0-698-16446-8

  1. Payne, Matt (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Butterworth, William E. (William Edmund), author. II. Title.

  PS3557.R489137D42 2015 2015019808

  813'.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_2

  IN FOND MEMORY OF

  SERGEANT ZEBULON V. CASEY

  Internal Affairs Division

  Police Department, the City of Philadelphia, Retired

  “There came a time when there were assignments that had to be done right, and they would seek Zeb out. These assignments included police shootings, civil rights violations, and he tracked down fugitives all over the country.

  He was not your average cop.

  He was very, very professional.”

  —Howard Lebofsky

  Deputy Solicitor of Philadelphia

  CONTENTS

  Books by W.E.B. Griffin

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART I

  [ ONE ]

  TWO DAYS EARLIER . . .

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART II

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART III

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART IV

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART V

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART VI

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART VII

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART VIII

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART IX

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  PART X

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  [ THREE ]

  [ FOUR ]

  [ FIVE ]

  PART XI

  [ ONE ]

  [ TWO ]

  TWO DAYS LATER . . .

  [ THREE ]

  Preview of The Hunting Trip

  I

  [ ONE ]

  Broad Street and Erie Avenue, North Philadelphia

  Monday, December 17, 8:45 P.M.

  Matt Payne impatiently squeezed past the small groups of passengers that had just gotten off the subway train cars of the Broad Street Line, and moved with purpose down the tiled concourse toward the exit.

  The muscular twenty-seven-year-old was six feet tall and a solid one-seventy-five. His chiseled face had a two-day scrub of beard. Behind black sunglasses, dark circles hung under sleep-deprived eyes.

  He wore a Philadelphia Eagles ball cap and a gray hooded sweatshirt with the red TEMPLE UNIVERSITY logotype. Concealed inside the waistband of his blue jeans, at the small of his back, was an Officer’s Model Colt .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol. And in his back pocket, in a black leather bifold holder, were his badge and the Philadelphia Police Department
–issued card identifying him as a sergeant of the Homicide Unit.

  Taking the subway, which Payne had boarded at the City Hall station after paying the $2.25 fare, hadn’t been his first—or his second—choice. But considering his options at the time, it had seemed the fastest.

  And with leads in the killings all but dried up, he had no time to waste.

  After exiting the concourse, he took the steps, two at a time, up to street level, then started across the deep gray slush of snow and melted ice that covered the sidewalk.

  At the newsstand shack on the southeast corner of Erie and Broad, he quickly tugged a newspaper from a stack topped with a chunk of red brick, stuffing it beneath his left arm, then peeling from his money clip a pair of dollar bills. He handed the cash to the attendant—a heavily clothed elderly black man with leathery hands and a deeply wrinkled face and thin beard—and gestured for him to keep the change.

  Payne turned and glanced around the busy intersection.

  The storefronts were a blend of bars and fast-food chain restaurants, banks and pharmacies, barbershops and convenience stores. Payne thought that the facades of the aged buildings, as well as the streets and sidewalks, looked much like he felt—tired, worn out.

  On Erie, halfway down the block, Payne saw the coffee shop he was looking for—tall stenciled lettering in black and red on its front window read THE DAILY GRIND—then grunted.

  On the second floor, above the diner, was a small, locally owned bookstore that had signage advertising WE SHIP TO PRISONS. Directly across the street, a new billboard on a rooftop had in bold lettering REPORT CRIME TIPS! LEX TALIONIS PAYS CASH REWARDS UP TO $20,000—800-LEX-TALN, and, in a strip along the billboard’s bottom, the wording MAKE A DIFFERENCE—BECOME A PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICER next to a photograph of the smiling faces of attractive young women and men attending the police academy.

  Payne walked quickly to The Daily Grind.

  As he pulled on the stainless steel handle of the diner’s glass door, then started to step inside, he almost collided with a grim-faced heavyset Latina in her twenties carrying three waxed paper to-go coffee cups. He made a thin smile, stepped back, made a grand sweep with his free arm for her to pass through the doorway first, then went inside.

  It was a small space, permeated by the smell of fried grease and coffee. The only seating was at a stainless steel countertop at the back that overlooked the open kitchen. Elsewhere, customers could stand at the nine round high-top tables and at the worn wooden counter that ran at chest height along the side walls and the front windows.

  There were just two customers now, both older men who were seated at opposite ends of the back counter and busy with their meals. An enormous coal-black man in his forties, wearing a grease-stained white apron tied over jeans and a sweaty white T-shirt, stood stooped at the gas-fired grill, his large biceps bulging as he methodically worked a long-handled wire brush back and forth. Flames flared up with each pass.

  The cook stopped, looked over his shoulder, saw Payne, called out, “Hey, man, he’ll be right with you,” then turned back to scrubbing the grill.

  At the far right end of the counter, under a sign reading ORDER HERE/PAY HERE that hung from the ceiling tiles by dust-coated chains, was the cash register. And just beyond it was a faded emerald green wooden door with TOILET FOR PAYING CUST ONLY!! that appeared to have been handwritten in haste with a fat-tipped black ink permanent marker.

  The bathroom door began to swing open, and a brown-skinned male in his late teens stepped out, drying his hands on a paper towel.

  Daquan Williams was five-foot-eight, extremely thin, and, under a ball cap with THE DAILY GRIND in stenciled letters across its front, his shoulder-length wavy reddish-brown hair was tied back with a rubber band. He wore black jeans and a tan T-shirt that was emblazoned with a coarse drawing of the Liberty Bell, its crack exaggerated, and the wording PHILLY—NOBODY LIKES US & WE DON’T CARE.

  The teenager made eye contact with Payne, nodded just perceptibly, then looked away as he went to the rack of coffeepots. He pulled a heavy china mug from a pyramid-shaped stack, filled it with coffee, then carried it to Payne, who now stood by a window in the front corner of the shop, opposite the door, watching the sidewalk traffic over the top edge of the newspaper as he casually flipped its pages.

  The teenager placed the steaming mug on the wooden counter beside a wire rack containing packets of cream and sugar.

  “Thanks, Daquan,” Payne said, then yawned widely as he reached for the coffee. “I really need this.”

  He held out a five-dollar bill.

  Daquan didn’t take it. He nodded toward the enormous cook cleaning the grill.

  “Boss man say you don’t pay,” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard.

  “I appreciate that, but I like to pay my way.”

  Payne put the money on the counter, then sipped the coffee.

  Daquan nodded. He took the bill.

  Payne glanced at Daquan’s left ear. What looked like a new diamond stud sparkled in the lobe. Payne considered mentioning it, but instead gently rattled the newspaper cover page.

  “So,” Payne said quietly, “what do you know on this hit?”

  Daquan’s eyes shifted to the front page of the newspaper, and his facial expression changed to one of frustration.

  The photograph showed, behind yellow tape imprinted with POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, two members of the medical examiner’s office standing at the rear of a white panel van. They were in the process of lifting through the van’s back doors a gurney holding a full body bag. Splashed across the image was the headline: #360. ANOTHER MURDER, ANOTHER RECORD.

  The teenager, head down, quickly turned on his heel and marched to the cash register. He punched in the coffee, made change, then carefully closed the cash drawer as he scanned the front door and windows. Then, from beneath the register, he pulled out the busboy cart and rolled it to the front of the diner.

  “Your change,” he said in a normal voice, holding the money out to Payne.

  “That’s your tip. Keep it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Daquan stuffed it in the front pocket of his jeans as he immediately turned his back to Payne. He busied himself clearing the small plates and cups from the nearest high-top table.

  “What about the drive-by?” Payne pursued, again speaking quietly as he flipped pages.

  “I really can’t say,” Daquan replied, almost in a whisper, without turning around.

  “Can’t?” Payne said. “Or won’t?”

  Daquan shrugged.

  “Peeps talk, they get capped. That’s what happened to Pookie. Law of the street. That’s why I texted you now, after they came—”

  “Who did it?”

  “Capped Pookie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s just it—I don’t know,” he said, then looked over his shoulder at Payne. “Matt, I didn’t even know the dude. They’re threatening me over something I don’t know.”

  “Any guess who did do it?”

  Daquan turned back to busing the table and shrugged again.

  “I heard word that King Two-One-Five knows,” he said.

  Payne thought: Tyrone Hooks knows—or ordered it done?

  He pulled his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans, rapidly thumb-typed and sent a short text message, then tucked the phone back.

  “When’s the last time you saw your parole officer, Daquan?” he said, picking the newspaper back up.

  “Few days ago.”

  “It go okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “How’s school coming?”

  “Hard, man. Just real hard.”

  “One day at a time. You’ll get that GED.”

  Daquan then pulled a hand towel and a spray bottle of cleaner from the cart and began wiping the tabletop
.

  Payne said, “Nice diamond stud. Is it real?”

  Daquan stopped wiping.

  “Uh-huh. S’posed to be, anyway,” he said, made two more slow circles, and added, “Got my momma something nice for Christmas, and this earring, it was part of the deal.”

  “Really?”

  Daquan grunted.

  “Really,” he said, then moved to the next table. “You know, I’m trying to get my life straight, staying away from the street. You think I like busing tables? Only gig I could find.”

  “I know. Remember?”

  Daquan sighed.

  “Yeah, of course I remember. You know I appreciate the help, man.”

  “Keep your nose clean, make it through the probation period, and we’ll work on getting your record cleared. Have the charge expunged. Then we’ll find you something else. Right now, this is good, honest work.”

  “I know.”

  “You should be proud. Your mother told me she is. Especially now, after Dante’s death . . .”

  At the mention of his cousin, Daquan looked over his shoulder at Payne.

  Payne saw deep sadness in his eyes. They glistened, and it was obvious that he was fighting back tears.

  “I can’t get past that, Matt. We were real close, you know, going way back. Now he’s gone, and I’m here.” He looked down and rubbed his eyes. “But I’m really not here. I’m just a shell walking around.”

  Daquan lifted his head, looked at Payne—then his eyes immediately looked past Payne, out the window.

  Payne saw the sadness in Daquan’s face suddenly replaced with fear.

  “Shit!” Daquan said. “They’re back!”

  He grabbed the busboy cart and started pushing it quickly to the back of the diner.

  Just then, as Payne turned and looked out the window, the glass front door swung open.

  Two teenaged black males wearing thick dark parkas marched in, the first one, tall and burly, raising a black semiautomatic pistol in his right fist.

  Payne dropped the newspaper and quickly reached behind his back to pull his .45 out from under his sweatshirt.

  Daquan shoved the busboy cart at the pair and then jumped behind the back counter as the tall, burly teenager fired three shots.

  The sound of gunfire in the small diner was deafening.

  Payne leveled his pistol at the shooter as he shouted, “Stop! Police! Don’t move!”