Black Ops Read online

  “What’s this all about, Otto?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Your line is probably tapped.”

  There was no blood on either the sheet that the weasel-faced plainclothes policeman pulled from the naked corpse of the late Günther Friedler or on the body itself. There were, however, too many stab wounds to the body to be easily counted, and there was an obscene wound on the face where the left eye had been cut from the skull.

  Someone has worked very hard to clean you up, Günther.

  “Merry Christmas,” Otto Görner said, and motioned for the plainclothes policeman to pull the sheet back over the body.

  The completely bald police official signaled for the plainclothes policeman to leave the room.

  “So what is the official theory?” Görner asked as soon as the door closed.

  “Actually, Herr Görner, we see a case like this every once in a while.”

  Görner waited for him to continue.

  “When homosexual lovers quarrel, there is often a good deal of passion. And when knives are involved . . .” He shook his bald head and grimaced, then went on: “We’re looking for a ‘good friend’ rather than a male prostitute.”

  Görner just looked at him.

  “But we are, of course, talking to the male prostitutes,” the police official added.

  “You are?” Görner asked.

  “Yes, of course we are. This is murder, Herr Görner—”

  “I was asking who you are,” Görner interrupted.

  “Polizeirat Lumm, Herr Görner, of the Hessian Landespolizie.”

  “Captain, whoever did this to Herr Friedler might well be a deviate, but he was neither a ‘good friend’ of Friedler nor a male whore.”

  “How can you know—”

  “A senior BKA investigator,” Görner said quickly, shutting him off, “is on his way here to assist you in your investigation. Until he gets here, I strongly suggest that you do whatever you have to do to protect the corpse and the scene of the crime.”

  “Polizeidirektor Achter told me about the BKA getting involved when he told me you would be coming, Herr Görner.”

  “Good.”

  “Can you tell me what this is all about?”

  “Friedler worked for me. He was in Marburg working on a story. There is no question in my mind that he was killed because he had—or was about to have—come upon something that would likely send someone to prison and/or embarrass someone very prominent.”

  “Have you a name? Names?”

  “As far as I know, Polizeirat Lumm, you are a paradigm of an honest police officer, but on the other hand, I don’t know that, and I never laid eyes on you until tonight, so I’m not going to give you any names.”

  “With all respect, Herr Görner, that could be interpreted as refusing to cooperate with a police investigation.”

  “Yes, I suppose it could. Are you thinking of arresting me?”

  “I didn’t say that, sir.”

  “I almost wish you would. If you did, I wouldn’t have to do what I must do next: go to Günther Friedler’s home on Christmas Eve and tell his widow that her thoroughly decent husband—they have four children, Lumm, two at school here at Phillips, two a little older with families of their own—will not be coming home late on Christmas Eve because he has been murdered by these bastards.”

  [THREE]

  3690 Churchill Lane

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  1610 24 December 2005

  After carefully checking his rearview mirror, John M. “Jack” Britton, a somewhat soberly dressed thirty-two-year-old black man, turned his silver Mazda MX-5 Miata right off Morrell Avenue onto West Crown Avenue, then almost immediately made another right onto Churchill Lane.

  Churchill Lane—lined with clusters of two-story row houses, five to eight houses per cluster—made an almost ninety-degree turn to the left after the second cluster of homes. Britton followed the turn, then pulled the two-door convertible (he had the optional hardtop on it for the winter) to the curb in front of the center cluster. He was now nearly right in front of his home.

  Britton got out of the car, looked down the street, and then, seeing nothing, walked around the nose of the Miata, pulled open the passenger door, and accepted an armload of packages from his wife, Sandra, a slim, tall, sharp-featured woman who was six days his senior in age.

  They had come from a Bring One Present Christmas party held in a nearby restaurant by and for co-workers. Jack Britton had changed jobs, but he and his wife had been invited anyway. They came home with the two presents they had received in exchange for each of theirs, plus the door prize, an electric mixer for the kitchen that seemed to be made of lead and for which they had no use. On the way home, they had discussed giving it to Sandra’s brother, El-wood, who was getting married.

  Knowing that her husband couldn’t unlock the front door with his arms full, Sandra preceded him past the three-foot-high brick wall that was topped with a four-foot-high aluminum rail fence—one that Britton bitterly complained had cost a bundle yet had done absolutely nothing to keep the local dogs from doing their business on his small but meticulously kept lawn.

  Sandra was just inside the fence when Jack looked down the street again.

  This time he saw what he was afraid he was going to see: a pale green Chrysler Town & Country minivan. It was slowly turning the ninety-degree bend in Churchill Lane. Then it rapidly accelerated.

  “Sandy, get down behind the wall!” Britton ordered.

  “What?”

  He rushed to his wife, pushed her off the walkway and down onto the ground behind the wall, then covered her body with his.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, half angrily, half fearfully.

  There came the sound of squealing tires.

  Britton reached inside his jacket and pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .357 Magnum revolver from his shoulder holster. He rolled off of his wife and onto his back, bringing up the pistol with both hands and aiming at the top of the wall in case someone came over it.

  There then came the sound of automatic-weapons fire—Kalashnikovs, he thought, two of them—and of a few ricochets and glass shattering, and the tinkle of ejected cartridge cases bouncing on the macadam pavement of Churchill Lane.

  And then squealing tires and a revved-up engine.

  Britton crawled to where he could look out the gate to the street. He saw the Town & Country turn onto Wessex Lane but knew there wasn’t time for a shot at the minivan. And he realized he couldn’t have fired if there had been time; another cluster of houses was in the line of fire.

  He stood up, put the pistol back in the shoulder holster, then went to Sandra and pulled her to her feet.

  “What the hell was that, Jack?” she asked, her voice faint.

  “Let’s get you in the house,” he said, avoiding the question. “Into the cellar.”

  He took her arm and led her up the walk to the door.

  “I dropped the goddamn keys,” Sandra said.

  He ran back to the fence, drawing the pistol again as he ran, found the keys, and then ran back to his front door.

  There were half a dozen neat little holes in the door, and one of the small panes of glass in the door had been shattered.

  He got the door unlocked and propelled Sandra through the living room to the door of the cellar, which he had finished out with a big-screen TV, a sectional couch, and a wet bar.

  “Honey,” he said, his tone forceful, “stay down there until I tell you. If you want to be useful, make us a drink while I call the cavalry.”

  “I don’t think this is funny, Jack, goddamn you!”

  “I’ll be right outside. And when the cops get here, I’m going to need a drink.”

  He closed the cellar door after she started down the stairs. Then he went quickly to the front door, took up a position where he could safely see out onto the street, and looked. He saw nothing alarming.

  He took his cellular telephone fro
m its belt clip and punched 9-1-1.

  He didn’t even hear the phone ring a single time before a voice said: “Nine-one-one Emergency. Operator four-seven-one. What’s your emergency?”

  “Assist officer! Shots fired! Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane. Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane.” He’d repeated the address, making sure the police dispatcher got it correct. “Two or more shooters in a pale green Chrysler Town & Country minivan. They went westbound on Wessex from Churchill. They used automatic weapons, possibly Kalashnikov rifles.”

  He broke the connection, then looked out the window again, this time seeing something he hadn’t noticed before.

  The MX-5 had bullet holes in the passenger door. The metal was torn outward, meaning that the bullets had passed through the driver’s door first.

  If we had been in the car, they would’ve gotten us.

  Goddamn! The car’s not two months old.

  When he heard the howl of sirens, he went outside. He looked up and down the street, and then, taking the revolver out of its holster again, walked down to the sidewalk to see what else had happened to the Miata.

  The first unit to respond to the call was DJ 811, a rather rough-looking Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor patrol car assigned to the Eighth District. The howl of its siren died as it turned onto Churchill Lane, and when Britton saw it coming around the curve, he noticed that the overhead lights were not flashing.

  Britton turned his attention back to the Miata. The driver’s-side window was shattered and several bullets had penetrated the windshield. The windshield had not shattered, but Britton couldn’t help but think how the holes in it looked amazingly like someone had stuck all over it those cheap bullet-hole decals that could be bought at most auto-supply shops.

  He walked around the front of the car and saw that it had taken hits in the right fender, the right front tire, and the hood.

  He smelled gasoline.

  Oh, shit! They got the gas tank!

  Then he heard a voice bark: “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!”

  Britton saw that two cops in a patrol car had arrived.

  They were both out of their car and had their service Glock semiautomatics aimed at him from behind the passenger door and across the hood.

  Both looked as if they had graduated from the academy last week.

  The order reminded Britton that he was still holding the Smith & Wesson. At his side, to be sure, pointing at the ground. But holding it.

  Not smart, Jack. Not smart!

  “Three-six-nine! Three-six-nine!” Britton shouted, using the old Philadelphia police radio code for police officer.

  The two very young cops, their Glocks still leveled on him, suddenly looked much older and in charge.

  The one behind the driver door repeated the order: “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!”

  Britton’s problem was that he did not think he could safely do as ordered—“Drop the gun!”

  The Smith & Wesson Model 29 is a double-action model, meaning he could squeeze the trigger to fire a round with the hammer forward or cocked back. The latter required less pressure from the trigger finger.

  It was Britton’s belief that one well-aimed shot was more effective than a barrage of shots aimed in the general direction of a miscreant. He also knew that a shot fired in the single-action mode—with the hammer drawn back—was far more likely to strike its intended target than one fired by pulling hard on the trigger with the hammer in the forward—or uncocked—position. The extra effort required to fire from the uncocked position tended to disturb one’s aim.

  He had, therefore, formed the habit, whenever drawing his weapon with any chance whatever that he might have to pull the trigger, of cocking the hammer. And he had done so just now when he walked out of his front door.

  If I drop this sonofabitch, the impact’s liable to release the hammer, which will fire off a round, whereupon these two kids are going to empty their Glocks at me.

  “Three-six-nine!” Britton said again. “I’m Jack Britton. I’m a detective. This is my house. My wife and I are the ones who were—”

  “I’m not going to tell you again, you sonofabitch! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”

  “May I lay it on the ground, please? The hammer—”

  “Drop the fucking gun!”

  “Take it easy, fellows,” a new voice said with authority.

  Britton saw two more Philly policemen, a captain and a sergeant. He had not seen another car drive up, but now noticed there were four police cars on Churchill Lane. The wail of sirens in the distance announced the imminent arrival of others.

  “Hello, Jack,” the captain said.

  Britton now recognized him. He had been his sergeant, years ago, when Officer Britton was walking a beat in the Thirty-fifth District.

  “If I drop this gun, the hammer’s back, and—”

  “Holster your weapons,” the captain ordered firmly. “I know him. He’s one of us.”

  When the police officers had complied with the order—and not a second before—the captain walked to Britton and squeezed his shoulder in an affectionate gesture that clearly said, Good to see you, pal.

  “Jesus, Jack, they shot the car up, didn’t they?”

  “It’s not even two months old,” Britton said.

  “What the hell happened here, Jack?”

  “Sandra and I were at the Rosewood Caterer’s, on Frankford Avenue, at the Northeast Detectives Christmas party. I thought I was being followed—2002, 2003 Chrysler Town and Country, pale green in color. I didn’t get the tag.”

  “Tommy,” the captain ordered, “put out a flash on the car. . . .”

  “Black males, maybe in Muslim clothing,” Britton furnished, “armed with automatic AKs, last seen heading west on Wessex Lane.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. He grabbed the lapel mike attached to his shirt epaulet, squeezed the PUSH TO TALK button, and began to relay the flash information to Police Radio.

  “Kalashnikovs?” the captain asked, shaking his head. “Fully auto ones?”

  Britton nodded. “And they got the gas tank.” He pointed.

  The captain muttered an obscenity and then turned to the young policemen.

  “Put in a call to the fire department—gasoline spill,” he ordered, and then looked at Britton.

  “Well, although I thought for a minute they weren’t following me, they were,” Britton said. “They came around the bend”—he pointed—“just as Sandra and I got inside the fence. I tackled her behind the wall and then all hell broke loose. . . .”

  “She all right?”

  “She’s in the basement. Shook up, sure, but all right.”

  “Why don’t you put that horse pistol away, and we’ll go talk to her?”

  “Jesus,” Britton said, embarrassed that he hadn’t already lowered the hammer and put the Smith & Wesson in its holster.

  The captain issued orders to first check to see if anyone might have been injured in the area, and then to protect the scene, and finally gestured to Britton to precede him into his house.

  Sandra had left the cellar and now was in the living room, sprawled on the couch. There was a squat glass dark with whiskey on the coffee table, and she had one just like it in her hand.

  “You remember Captain Donnelly, honey?”

  “Yeah, sure. Long time. Merry Christmas.”

  “You all right, Sandra?” Donnelly said, the genuine concern of an old friend clear in his tone.

  “As well—after being tackled by my husband, then having those AALs shoot up our house and our new car—as can be expected under the circumstances.”

  “AAL is politically incorrect, Sandra,” Captain Donnelly said, smiling.

  “I can say it,” she said, pointing to her skin. “I can say African-American Lunatics. I could even say worse, but I’m a lady and I won’t.”

/>   “Take it easy, honey,” Britton said.

  “I thought Jack was finished with them,” Sandra said. “Naïve little ol’ me.”

  Britton leaned over and picked up the whiskey glass.

  “Can I offer you one of these?” he said to Donnelly.

  “Of course not. I’m a captain, a district commander, and I’m on duty. But on the other hand, it’s Christmas Eve, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll get it,” Sandra said, rising gracefully from the couch. “I moved the bottle to the kitchen knowing I would probably have more than one.”

  Donnelly looked at Britton.

  “Tough little lady,” he said admiringly.

  “Yeah. Those bastards! I understand them wanting to whack me, but . . .”

  “Jack, let’s get a few things out of the way.”

  “Like what?”

  “I heard you left the department, but that’s about all I know. You’re still in law enforcement?”

  “I guess you could say that,” Britton said, and took a small leather wallet from his suit jacket and handed it to Donnelly, who opened it, examined it, and handed it back.

  “Secret Service, eh?”

  “Now, if anyone asks, you can say, ‘The victim identified himself to me by producing the credentials of a Secret Service special agent . . .’ ”

  “ ‘... and authorized to carry firearms,’” Donnelly finished the quote. “You guys carry Smith & Wesson .357s?”

  “I do.”

  “What have they got you doing, Jack?”

  “I’m assigned to Homeland Security.”

  “That’s what Sandra meant when she said she thought you were through with the AALs?”

  Britton nodded, then suddenly realized: “And speaking of Homeland Security, I’m going to have to tell them about this before they see it on Fox News. Excuse me.”

  He took his cellular telephone from its holster and punched an autodial number.

  [FOUR]

  The Consulate of the United States of America