“Rank?”
“In terms of the criminal behavior you’ve investigated.”
I cleared my throat. “Mr. Cavello is the most ruthless and cold-blooded killer we’ve ever looked into. He’s personally ordered the deaths of over thirty people we can directly tie him to. He is an evil human being.”
“Objection!” Hy Kaskel shot up. I expected that. “The defendant is not being charged with any of these alleged homicides. The government’s investigations and pet theories are not of interest to this court.”
“Correction, Your Honor.” Joel Goldenberger waved. “The government will rephrase. I guess what I’m asking is, does your experience with this man go beyond just your investigation? You’ve had personal experience, haven’t you, Agent Pellisante? You’ve seen Mr. Cavello’s brutality firsthand?”
“Yes.” My gaze shifted to Cavello. I wanted him to feel my eyes. I’d waited a long time to say these next words.
“I’ve personally witnessed Mr. Cavello commit murder. Twice.”
Chapter 37
I’D ASSEMBLED HUNDREDS of wiretaps and recorded conversations as part of my testimony, but we just started with my story, what I had seen myself.
“Would you describe for this court the events surrounding Dominic Cavello’s arrest?” Goldenberger asked me.
I glanced toward Manny Oliva’s wife, Carol, who was sitting in the first row. I was glad she was here for this.
“We had been told that Cavello was going to attend his niece’s wedding at the South Fork Club in Montauk on July 23, 2004. We had multiple warrants outstanding.”
“You had tried to arrest Mr. Cavello before?”
“Yes. Cavello had gone underground, though. He was a threat to leave the country.”
“So you staked out the wedding on this tip. Can you describe for the court some of the other agents who assisted you there?”
“Sure.” I swallowed back some emotion. I talked about Manny first. “Manny Oliva was my ASAC at C-10 for three years. I took him right out of Quantico. I brought him up through the ranks. He and his wife had just had twin girls.”
“And Edward C. Sinclair, he was with you there as well?”
“Ed Sinclair was as exemplary a special agent as we had in the unit,” I said. I nodded to his wife, Maryanne, and his son, Bart, in the seats next to Carol Oliva.
“So can you paint the picture for the jury, Agent Pellisante?” Joel Goldenberger placed a blown-up aerial photograph of the scene on an easel across from the jury box. “Agents Oliva and Sinclair are where in the stakeout?”
I walked over and took a pointer. “They were on the beach, outside the club grounds, blocking any escape.” I described how Cavello had disguised himself as an old man in a wheelchair. How, as my special agents moved in, he jumped out of the chair, trying to escape. How he shot one of my agents who was posing as a waiter, Steve Taylor.
“He ran down toward the beach. Manny and Ed were in position. Here. I radioed ahead that he was headed toward them.”
“Can you describe what happened next? I know this is difficult for you, Agent Pellisante, and for the family members of the agents who are present in the courtroom.”
“I heard a volley of shots.” I clenched my teeth. “I counted five—two quick ones, then three in rapid succession. I ran down from my position over the dunes and saw the bodies in the sand.”
There wasn’t a sound in the courtroom. I looked away from the easel, and every eye was focused on me.
“Then what did you do?” Goldenberger asked.
“I went over to the bodies.” I cleared my throat. “Manny was dead. He’d been shot in the head. Ed was hit in the chest and neck. He was bleeding profusely. I could see he was dying.”
“And did you see Dominic Cavello?”
“He was running down the beach, trying to get away. He’d been hit in the shoulder. I could make out what looked to be a gun. He was headed toward a helicopter on a promontory. I radioed for help, and we called in a helicopter from a Coast Guard cruiser offshore to block Cavello’s escape.
“Then I went after him and fired my weapon, hitting him in the thigh. In the time I was calling for help he must’ve hurled the gun into the ocean.”
“So you never found a weapon?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We never did.”
“But you have no doubt who killed your agents, do you?”
“None whatsoever.” I shook my head. I looked squarely at the defendant. “Dominic Cavello. There was no one else near Ed and Manny when I heard those shots. And the bullet they removed from Cavello’s shoulder was from Ed’s gun.”
“Just to be perfectly clear”—the prosecutor turned and raised his voice—“do you see the man you chased on the dunes that day? The man you saw running away from the dead agents’ bodies?”
“That’s him,” I said, gesturing toward the second row. “Dominic Cavello.”
For the entire trial Cavello had gazed stoically ahead, but now he was focused on me.
And I found out why.
Suddenly Cavello leaped out of his chair. He pulled himself up on the table like some enraged madman. His face was red, the veins in his neck about to explode.
“Fuck you, Pellisante! You son of a whore! You lying piece of shit!”
Chapter 38
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT was total bedlam.
“Lying bastards!” Cavello bellowed in a hoarse, crazed voice. He slammed his fist on the table, sending papers and documents flying.
“And fuck you to this court!” He glared at the judge. “You have no hold on me. You think you have, because you’ve bribed a few of my old enemies to carry your lunch pails. But you don’t have shit. I have you!”
The marshals sprang into action. Two of them jumped in and grabbed Cavello by the torso, wrestling him to the ground. People were screaming. A few ran out the exits.
Cavello fought like a berserk animal. “You don’t have me, Pellisante! I have you!”
A third guard jumped into the fray, and finally they forced the mobster to the floor. Two of them held him down while the third squeezed a set of cuffs over his wrists. He was still shouting at the top of his lungs.
“This court is a joke! A mockery! You’ll never convict me no matter how many traitors and wiretaps you have. It’s too bad, Nicky—about your friends! But whoever killed those scum, I would kiss them on the lips.”
“Get him out of here,” Judge Seiderman called out from the bench, trying to regain control. “Mr. Cavello, you have lost your privilege to sit in on this trial. You are in contempt. You are barred from this courtroom. Jurors, you will go back into the jury room immediately. Bailiff!”
Pandemonium continued in the courtroom. The jurors looked shell-shocked. Members of the press were already running out of the gallery to call their newspapers.
“Take me out of here! Bar me!” Cavello twisted his face toward the judge. “I don’t want to be here any fuckin’ longer!” His voice bellowed throughout the courtroom. “Your court is a joke!”
Blood trickled from Cavello’s mouth. His formerly neatly groomed hair was tousled and wild. The guards lifted him up and tried to drag him through the side door. They had gotten one leg through when he wildly jerked around, and I saw something I could hardly believe.
The bastard was smiling.
Chapter 39
THE JURORS WERE STILL buzzing about what had happened. Shocked. Blown away. The court officials had rushed them all into the jury room. No one could recall ever seeing anything like Cavello’s blowup in the courtroom.
“The asshole just made it easy for us.” Hector shook his head. Everyone seemed to agree.
Maybe it just got to him, Andie thought. His case was shot to hell. He cracked.
The jury was going to be leaving the courthouse earlier than planned, and Andie hoped Jarrod was already here waiting for her and his special birthday celebration. They were quickly herded into the elevator to go downstairs, where the blue bus would be waiting.
As the elevator hit the lobby, Andie tried to regroup. Jarrod was here! In his Stephon Marbury number 3. Rita was waiting with him in the lobby. As soon as Jarrod saw his mother, he ran up and jumped into her arms.
“Happy birthday, honey!” It was wonderful just to see his happy face and give him a big birthday hug and kiss. Cavello, what had happened in there, didn’t matter anymore.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
Andie squeezed him double-tight. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie.”
The bus was waiting right there on the street. Andie and Jarrod climbed on first and made their way into one of the rear seats. Hector and Rosella, who sometimes spoke to each other in Spanish, sat in front of them. O’Flynn squeezed into the row behind them with a rolled-up Sports Illustrated in his fist.
“So tell me about school,” Andie said.
“Nah.” He grinned broadly. “It’s my birthday, Mom. No school today, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
They wanted to get them away from the courthouse as quickly as possible, and that was all right with her. A marshal jumped on, counted heads, winking because there was one more than usual. He slapped the side of the bus, sending it on its way with an “Okay!” The driver started the engine.
Andie looked back at the courthouse. Standing outside the side entrance was the FBI guy, Pellisante. He had set up the whole thing when she came to him with the idea for Jarrod’s birthday party.
Thank you. Andie waved at him through the glass. An appreciative, one-finger wave.
He waved back.
Two police cars led the way as the bus pulled out from the curb onto Worth Street. It was a twenty-five-minute trip through the Holland Tunnel back to the motel. A few of the jurors looked around at Andie, wondering when they could break the surprise and sing “Happy Birthday” for this nice-looking boy.
“Hey, Jarrod.” O’Flynn leaned over, staring at his Stephon Marbury jersey. “You like the Knicks?”
“I like ’em. I like Halo more.”
“Halo?” It was a popular battle video game. Pretty violent and graphic. O’Flynn grinned at Andie. “Your mom lets you play Halo, huh?”
“His mom does no such thing,” Andie said. “His aunt, though, that’s another story, for another time.”
A few of them laughed.
The bus pulled ahead to the corner of Church and stopped at a red light.
Andie looked out the window. She was thinking about the party and when to spring it on Jarrod that everyone knew this was his birthday. She figured they’d wait until they got close to the tunnel, build a little suspense. Rosella had made a colorful banner. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JARROD. This was going to be so great.
She saw a gray side-paneled van pull up right next to them. APEX ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS. ASTORIA, QUEENS.
Jarrod said, “So, what’ya got planned, Mom? You always have a plan.”
She was about to give him an answer when she noticed something a little strange.
The driver of the van had jumped out. He was dressed in a navy work uniform, had a baseball cap pulled over his face, long blond hair peeking through. What made it doubly strange was when the guy in the passenger’s seat jumped out too.
They both started to run.
Across the busy intersection. Away from the van. When they reached the other curb, they glanced back. Not at the van.
At them! At the bus.
“Mom? Are you listening to what I’m saying? Earth to my mother. Hel-lo.”
And suddenly she knew! Stabs of terror ripped at her chest.
“Get out of here fast!” Andie screamed to the driver. “Drive away. Now!”
But the light was still red. And they were locked in traffic. Besides, everyone was talking among themselves and not seeing. Jarrod looked up at her strangely and squinted. “Mom?”
“Oh, Jesus.” Andie shuddered, unable to take her eyes off the van. She put her arms around Jarrod. She hugged him close to her chest. Something terrible was about to happen.
“Oh my God. No!”
“Mom?”
Chapter 40
I THINK BACK sometimes to that moment—to the very heartbeat before something terrible happened. Something I couldn’t stop.
What if I could just reach out my hand and turn back the hands of time? Hold on to the moment for one more second? See what I should have seen?
I would see that smile. Not Andie DeGrasse’s, sitting next to her son on the bus as they drove off.
Cavello’s smile. In the courtroom, just moments before.
I would know exactly what it meant.
I had followed the jury out of the courthouse and stayed there, watching the bus as it pulled away from the curb.
With Ellen gone, my life was falling apart a bit. So it made me feel good to help the two of them, DeGrasse and her little boy. It made me feel that in all this craziness, I had done something for a change that put some life back. I watched her wave at me, that happy smile. I waved back. Happy birthday, kid.
And then the world fell apart! Theirs, and mine.
The gray van pulling up next to the bus at the red light. Then two men, in work clothes, suddenly running out.
Running away.
It took a second for it all to register, even for someone trained to see the worst in any situation. Then all of a sudden it was as clear as day. The whole horrible picture.
I heard myself yelling, “Get out of there now!” I started running toward the bus through traffic. “Get out of that bus!”
Then the van exploded, and the entire street just lit up in this brilliant flash. The recoil threw me back into a mailbox. Intense heat from a block away slammed into my face.
Oh, God, no! No!
All I could do was watch helplessly as the juror bus was engulfed in flames. Then it exploded.
I fumbled for my radio, connected back to the security team at the courthouse. “This is Pellisante. We’ve got a full-scale nine-one-one. The juror bus just blew up! Corner of Worth and Church. Repeat, the juror bus just exploded! We need full medical support out there now!”
Then I ran toward the bus at full speed.
It was bad. Very bad. Flames raged out of the hulk of the van. Dense gray smoke billowed over the street. People everywhere around me were screaming. Passersby, injured by the blast, were lying dazed on the street. A taxi lay upended and in flames.
I did a quick scan for the two men in work clothes. They were gone, melted into the bedlam. Dear God, the juror bus was no more than a charred, burning carcass. The entire left side was just a fiery, jagged hole.
I ran to the entrance. The blast had blown it wide open. The heat coming off arm rails felt like a thousand degrees.
Everything was covered in flaming char. The bus driver was dead. Not just dead, decapitated. Oh, God. One of the passengers, an elderly woman who I could picture sitting in the back row in court, had been flung over the driver’s back and smashed into the front window. I didn’t remember who she was—which juror?
“FBI,” I screamed into the thick, diesel-smelling smoke. “Can anyone hear me in there?”
I waited for voices. There had to be voices. C’mon! Moaning, shouting, screams for help, some evidence of life.
I shielded myself from the flames as I listened for somebody, anybody.
Nothing came back, no sound. That’s what I’ll always remember. That’s what will always haunt me. The silence.
Chapter 41
IT FELT AS THOUGH my heart didn’t move a beat. I just stood there listening, praying. Somebody say something back to me. Shout! Scream for help!
All I heard was the crackle of flames, and all I saw was the dark gray smoke mushrooming through the bus. The scene was as still and desolate as a bloody battlefield after the fighting was done.
I covered my face with my hand and pushed my way down the aisle. Madness, but I had to do it. It was impossible to see. Somebody, a small woman, had been hurled against a side window and was twisted into a grotesqu
e position. Others had died right in their seats. Clothing was burned off.
I recognized some of the faces. The writer was dead. So was the kindly-looking Hispanic woman who always knitted. Both had been roasted in their seats. Then I saw the red-haired guy who worked for Verizon, O’Flynn.
“Can anyone hear me?” I shouted. Only silence came back from the passengers.
I heard sirens outside. Emergency vehicles had arrived on the scene. Someone else, a policeman, stepped onboard. “Jesus, God.” He winced. “Is anyone alive?”
“I don’t think so.”
I tripped over some kind of mound. It turned out to be the body of the Jamaican mechanic, his clothes charred, his body crisp.
The thick, acrid smoke was starting to get to me. I coughed, pulled up my shirt, and covered my nose and mouth with folds of cloth.
“We better wait for the emergency people,” the cop called to me. He was right. There were noxious fumes and fire everywhere. The damned thing could go up at any time. I tried to see the back of the bus. There were no signs of life there either.
Then I heard something. A groan—more like a whimper. Someone alive?
“FBI,” I shouted, fighting against the fumes. The smoke was blinding. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
I heard the voice again, just a murmur.
“I’m coming.”
Then I saw him. On the floor. It was the boy! He was in the fetal position underneath a seat. “Jarrod!” I bent down—I remembered his name. “Jarrod!”
I put my face down to his, as close as I could get. The floor was hot, steaming.
My stomach fell. The little boy was dead. His pink skin was black with horrible burns. I wanted to retch. I couldn’t help bringing up the image of his face just seconds before in the window as his mother waved to me. “I’m sorry, little guy.”
Then I heard it again. The whimper, soft and faint. Someone was alive.
I pushed over twisted metal and bodies to the very back of the bus. Vinyl seats and plastic panels were melting in flaming strips. The smoke clung to my skin, like scalding rubber.
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