Cold Hit (2005)

by Stephen - Scully 05 Cannell

  He looked at Roger. “Only people you gotta stay clear of is the FBI. The feebs will take everything you got and hand you a shit sandwich for your trouble. Nobody trades with those pricks.”

  “How about the CIA?”

  “They’re cool,” Broadway said. “You can do business with them. The chilly fox in the designer threads who showed up at your funeral is CIA. Special Agent in Charge Bimini Wright.

  “We should take a meeting with the gorgeous Ms. Wright,” Emdee suggested. “Give us something to look forward to.”

  “Sounds like it’s going to be a full day,” I said, and paid the bill.

  We walked out into the parking lot and then I followed their rusting Fairlane out of Venice. We had decided to start by talking with Eddie Ringerman at the Israeli Embassy in Beverly Hills, but we didn’t quite make it.

  Two blocks after we exited the freeway in West L. A., three gray sedans rushed us from behind, running both our cars to the curb. Half a dozen guys who looked like ads for genetic engineering piled out and waved badges in our faces. A few pulled guns.

  “FBI!” one of them yelled. “Stay where you are.” “Hands on the hood of your car and nobody gets hurt,” another screamed.

  “We’re LAPD,” I shouted.

  “Not anymore,” Broadway growled. “I think we’re now federal detainees.”

  The offices of California Homeland Security were located on the top three floors of the old Tishman Building on Wilshire Boulevard. The Tishman was a monument to the concept of temporary architecture—a cheaply constructed twenty-story high-rise that was built in the ’60s. The L. A. Times had recently reported it was already under discussion as a possible teardown.

  The three gray sedans swept into the underground garage to the bottom parking level, and pulled up next to a single secure elevator with a red sign on a metal stand that read: U. S. GOVERNMENT USE ONLY. The car doors swung open as Rowdy and Snitch were pulled roughly out of separate sedans. I was yanked out of a third and pushed toward the elevator.

  The agent in charge, a narrow dweeb named Kersey Nix, put his hand on a glass panel for a fingerprint scan. The doors yawned wide immediately and we were pushed into the elevator.

  When the elevator opened on the top floor, a few more guys with identical haircuts were waiting. They led us down a corridor and put us in three separate lockdowns where the decor was half dungeon, half dental office; windowless, ten-foot square rooms with peach pastel walls, Berber carpet, and Barry Manilow wafting through a Muzak system. There was a thick metal door with an electronic lock. Before he left, my musclebound federal escort confiscated my wallet, cell phone, and watch. My gun had been confiscated back at the site of our arrest.

  “You gonna tell me what this is about?” I asked. “National security.”

  The door closed. The lock zapped. Barry Manilow crooned. There was no place to sit, no furniture, no shelves. Nothing. I was trapped in a musically bland, peach-colored environment.

  I took off my jacket, sat on the carpeted floor, and tried to shake off my anger at these agents who felt they had such an overpowering mandate that they could treat three LAPD officers like criminals. I wanted to hit somebody. My rage flared so suddenly it surprised me.

  When I was going through Marine Corps training, I remember once watching a videotape of an Army psychology program run at Fort Bliss using military police officers. The psychologists divided all the guards working one of our military prisons into two groups. One group of officers was assigned the role of temporary inmates; the others remained prison guards. The real reason for this test was not revealed.

  What army psychiatrists were actually attempting to determine was how the act of granting complete power to one group over another might escalate both groups toward extreme violence. The MPs who were to remain guards were only told that the military was evaluating escape possibilities in Super-Max and to be especially vigilant. The guards pretending to be inmates were told to resist authority and look for any possible way to break out.

  What transpired was amazing. The guards assigned to the role of prisoners didn’t like being inmates. They had done nothing wrong. But their old friends were now hazing them, walking down the prison tiers ringing their batons across the bars, keeping them awake all night so they would be too tired to attempt anything. The men under lockdown became angrier, the captor guards more aggressive. After a week, sporadic incidents of violence broke out between men who had only a few days before, been close friends. In the second week, the army called off the test because a violent fight broke out between the two groups, which almost resulted in the death of a guard.

  The lesson of this video was that absolute power without oversight can quickly morph into murderous rage. By the same token, complete loss of power, without appeal, can escalate behavior to exactly the same place.

  If I was going to make the best of this, I would have to stay cool. I couldn’t let indignation and self-righteousness turn to rage. Whatever was going on here, I was being tested. Anger would only result in failure.

  So I waited. How long did I sit there? I have no idea. At first I tried to keep track of time by counting the Muzak songs. Figuring each at three to four minutes long, I sang along, counting on my fingers. By the time I’d heard “Mandy” four times, my brain stalled and I lost count.

  Next, I tried to pass the time by concentrating on the Andrazack case, trying to come up with something fresh. Several things festered. I knew Broadway and Perry suspected somebody in the foreign intelligence community of bugging embassy computers. Broadway said he thought there might even be bugs or computer scans inside the LAPD’s Counter-Terrorist Bureau. Forgetting for the moment how that could be accomplished, it raised an interesting possibility. If some foreign power was stealing information from inside CTB, had they also found a way to penetrate the LAPD mainframe?

  The media was making a big deal of the Fingertip case and everybody in L. A. knew the basics of those crime scenes. But Zack and I had withheld the symbol carved on each victim’s chest. If some foreign agent had hacked into our crime data bank or more to the point, the medical examiner’s computer, it would explain how they knew to carve that symbol on Andrazack before dumping him in the river under the Barham Boulevard Bridge.

  Further, if Davide Andrazack wasn’t one of the serial killings, but a political assassination, all of the ritual evidence surrounding that hit was just staging. That meant most of the theories I had on it were no longer operative.

  I started over and reevaluated. Maybe there wasn’t just one killer. Maybe two guys threw Andrazack off the bridge into the water, which explained how they could shot-put a two-hundred-pound man thirty feet out into the wash. A bullet to the head doesn’t always produce instant death. Maybe Rico was right and Andrazack’s heart was still beating when he hit the concrete levee and that’s why his right ribcage was bruised. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to hang together.

  Time clicked off a big, invisible game clock while Barry Manilow messed with my mind. Finally, I curled up and tried to sleep. As soon as I laid down, a voice came over a hidden speaker. “Don’t do that,” a man commanded.

  I stood and looked up at the air-conditioning grate. The camera and speaker had to be in there, but it was too high up to get to. I was beginning to fume.

  I needed to go to the bathroom, so I yelled that out. Nobody answered. In defiance, I unzipped and wrote my name on the tan Berber carpet in urine. Foolish, I know, but I have a childish streak.

  “Don’t do that either,” the voice commanded again.

  “Come on in here, asshole. We’ll talk about it.” Nobody answered, so I moved away from my yellow signature, sat down, closed my eyes, and waited.

  It might have been four or five hours. It might have been ten. I completely lost track of time.

  Finally the door opened. Kersey Nix was standing in the threshold.

  “Is it recess?” I said, trying to sound faintly amused, even though underneath, I wanted to r
ip his throat out.

  I noticed he was wearing a different suit. So while I’d been doing sing-alongs with Barry Manilow and writing my name on the carpet, this jerk-off had been at home resting up.

  “I will give you some advice,” Agent Nix said in a reasonable, but bland voice. “Tell us everything you know. Hold nothing back. You are at the beginning of a dangerous adventure. How it ends is going to be entirely up to you.” Then he favored me with a sleepy-eyed half smile.

  “I really need to go to the can,” I said.

  “Come on.”

  He turned and I had a weak moment where I was tempted to kick his skinny butt up between his ears. But I held off. It was a good thing I did, because two identically shaped androids were waiting in the hall just out of sight.

  The four of us marched down the corridor toward the men’s room. I saw a window. It was dark outside. We’d been picked up at 9 A. M. and sunset was four-thirty, so doing the math, I’d been here a minimum of eight hours.

  After I used the facilities and washed up, I followed Agent Nix to a large set of double doors on the east end of the building. He led me inside a huge office, with an acre of snow-white, cut-pile carpet under expensive antique mahogany furniture. The U. S. and California State flags flanked each side of a Victorian desk big enough to play Ping-Pong on.

  I’d seen the man standing in the center of the room waiting for me before, but only on television. He was in his late fifties, tall and handsome, with silver hair and a patrician bearing. He was flanked by two assistants—gray men with pinched faces. Everyone wore crisp white shirts, and a blue or a red tie. Patriotism.

  “I’m Robert Allen Virtue, head of California Homeland Security,” the tall, handsome man said. “I hope this hasn’t inconvenienced you too much.”

  “Only if you don’t like Barry Manilow,” I replied.

  Chapter 27

  I waited a few feet inside the plush office and tried to work out a good strategy to use on this guy.

  Robert Allen Virtue was a political heavyweight who was chosen by the governor of the state of California and anointed by the U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security. He had a law degree from Princeton and dangerous connections in the political community.

  I, on the other hand, was a Detective III in a city police department with a junior college education. My only dangerous connections were a sorry bunch of dirt bags I’d put in jail. Adding to my dilemma was a pile of anger I didn’t quite know what to do with. Survival instincts told me Robert Virtue was not a profitable adversary for me. He could sink me with one torpedo.

  “I’m sorry for the long wait,” he said, equitably. “I was in Sacramento and couldn’t get down here before now.”

  He pointed to a chair that had a black briefcase on it. “Just move that case and have a seat,” he said.

  “I’d prefer to stand.”

  “I’d like you to sit. Please,” he said sternly, as if even this small challenge to his will was annoying to him.

  I decided to save my shots and not get into it over trivial bullshit. I picked up the briefcase, which was surprisingly heavy, put it on the floor beside the chair and sat.

  “Where are Detectives Broadway and Perry?” I asked.

  “For now, let’s stick to you.”

  “Alright. What do I have to do with Homeland Security? I’m a homicide detective working a serial murder.”

  “There are things going on in this world that would appall even you, and I’m sure you’ve seen your share of atrocities. A life-or-death espionage game is being played in the streets of most major U. S. cities every day. In Los Angeles we have one of the most vigorous contests. Unfortunately, you got mixed up in this because someone in the foreign intelligence community elected to hide a political killing in your grisly serial murder case.”

  He crossed to his desk and picked up a blue LAPD folder. I recognized it as a Professional Standards Bureau file with my name on the cover. Under Title 2 of the Police Bill of Rights, that folder, which contained all the complaints ever filed against me, was a confidential document and could only be accessed with my written permission. He set it down without mentioning it, just showing it to me to let me know he could cut right through my wall of rights anytime he chose.

  “You are to turn the Andrazack killing over to me, and agree to no longer pursue it. He’s not in your murder case. He was an alien intelligence officer in this country illegally, who also had a high threat assessment rating.”

  Virtue seemed to know all about my investigation. I only ID’d Andrazack twelve hours ago, and the identification was supposed to be under a CTB Cone of Silence. I couldn’t help but wonder how he came by his information.

  “Mr. Virtue, excuse me, but despite the dead man’s nationality or illegal immigration status, I don’t think my bosses will want this investigation removed from the Fingertip case. It’s certainly possible that he could have stumbled into the wrong place and was targeted by our unsub. Beyond that, the man was murdered in Los Angeles. Shot in the head, mutilated, then dumped into the L. A. River. That certainly makes it a city case. If it’s not going to be worked by LAPD, who’s going to handle it?”

  “I will,” he said, and gave me his warm political smile, acting as if he had just decided we were going to be buddies after all.

  “You will,” I repeated. “Personally?”

  “Well, not personally, but I’ll put someone from the local office of the FBI on it.”

  “Excuse me again, sir, but the Bureau doesn’t have jurisdiction. Since this is an L. A. street crime, Homicide Central represents a better option.”

  Now he was getting frustrated. “Homeland Security and the FBI will take the case as a matter of national security,” he said flatly.

  “I see. Okay, well, then I’ll need to hear that from my supervisor. I can’t just walk away from an active case I’ve been assigned to. Somebody from my division has to give me the nod.”

  Virtue had again picked up the blue folder and was tapping that Bad Boy file on his fingertips letting me know what an asshole he thought I was being. “Let me make that call then. Excuse me.”

  He turned and walked into an alcove where there was a secure communications hookup. A big black box scrambler sat next to a digital phone. He dialed a number.

  While he talked softly into the instrument, I made a little trip over to his I Love Me wall. A mahogany-framed plaque announced his graduation from Princeton. Another frame displayed his graduation diploma from the FBI Academy at Quantico. He’d been in the January class of ‘68. I remembered hearing that Virtue was once a Cold War warrior for the FBI. There were fifty or more pictures of R. A. Virtue shaking hands with world leaders, national sports celebrities, actors, and U. S. politicians. I saw shots of him standing with President Jacques Chirac in Paris and with former USSR President Brershnev in Lenin Square. There was one of him with Jimmy Carter in an African village, surrounded by children with distended bellies. I moved further down the wall where a few big-game shots were displayed. Guys with two-day growths wearing fur-lined vests, smiled vacantly at the camera with large bore rifles broken open over Pendleton sleeves. All of them were grinning proudly while some freshly slain longhorn sheep or elk looked into camera with that same startled look you find on old people in wedding pictures. In one of these shots I saw a narrow-shouldered man with orange hair. I leaned closer.

  Agent Underwood of da motherfucking FBI.

  “Okay, your chief and the head of your Detective Bureau, whom I’m told is also your wife, are on the way over,” Virtue said as he reentered the room. “Apparently they want to do this in person so they can get a case transfer form signed for legal reasons. You can wait in the outer office.”

  I exited into the waiting room and sat on a chintz sofa, fuming while picking imaginary lint off my jacket. The light blue-and-green furniture in this suite was cool and restful but did little to calm me. After seeing Underwood’s picture this made a little more sense. When I told Agent Orange, my temporar
y supervisor, about Davide Andrazack, I broke my word to Broadway and Perry. Although he’d pledged to keep it confidential, that lying dickhead had obviously blabbed everything to Virtue or Nix.

  A little while later Roger Broadway arrived looking tired and pissed, escorted by his own super-sized steroid case in a black suit. Roger sat in an expensive high-backed wing chair. I started to speak, but he caught my eye and shook his head. Then Emdee Perry joined us. Another huge fed had him in tow.

  Perry didn’t sit, choosing instead to look out the window at the lights on Wilshire Boulevard. “These boys are startin’ t’ get my tail up,” he muttered softly.

  Finally, Chief Filosiani and Alexa arrived with someone in a brown suit who was introduced as George Bryant, from LAPD Legal Affairs. They stopped in the waiting room to make sure we were okay.

  I nodded a greeting at Alexa who nodded back. She looked under control, but I knew she was pissed. She’s my wife and I can read the storm warnings. A minute or two later, we were ushered into Virtue’s plush office. Tony introduced Alexa and Bryant, and we all sat on the plush furniture.

  “I’d like to know under what authority you detained these detectives working under my command,” Alexa challenged, going right at Virtue the minute everyone was settled. Tony hung back and let her vent.

  “I have a situation here,” R. A. Virtue said.

  “You’re damn right you do,” she snapped. “These men are not criminals. You can’t kidnap police officers and hold them without cause.”

  “You might want to try and contain yourself, Lieutenant Scully,” Virtue said coldly.

  “I think she’s right,” Tony said. “You’ve held these men since eight-forty this morning. We didn’t know what happened to them. A major situation alert went down.”

  “This involves national security,” Virtue said.

  “You can’t just pick up our people and hold them without warrants,” Alexa challenged.

  “Our powers are sanctioned by the Homeland Security and Patriot Acts of two-thousand-one,” Virtue countered. “These three men were involved in a sensitive case, and we simply held them as material witnesses until I could get down here and deal with it. Now, do you want to stand around and argue that, or can we get on with the business of this meeting?”