by Dan O'Shea
Shift change was at 8am, so do it then. Not tomorrow, next day. That was still inside Corsco’s forty-eight hour window. Already working way too much off third-party intel. Needed to at least do a walk through, eyeball the set up, get a clear mental image. So recon tomorrow morning, do the job the next day.
Plane would be at Chicago Executive, up in Wheeling. Traffic was going to suck, that was the downside to the shift-change timing, but the upside was worth it. Pilot was getting paid well to be on call. Buzz him fifteen minutes out, have the engines turning over. Worse case, be wheels up two hours after pulling the trigger.
Ran through the plan one more time, tightening it up. Really liked the fat vest considering there was going to be at least one cop involved. Had a Kevlar lining in the fat vest. Too bad about the cop, though. Shoot a cop, that draws heat, even if you didn’t have to kill him. But heat was why people called the Eagle. Heat was why they paid the money. Wouldn’t be the Eagle’s first cop.
CHAPTER 70
The next morning, Lynch and Bernstein walked into Starshak’s office, closed the door.
“We gotta talk,” said Lynch. “Been thinking. Been so busy chasing our tails on this thing we haven’t done enough of that.”
“What?” asked Starshak.
“It’s al Din,” Lynch said. “The Feds bring him up during their little dog and pony show, tell us he’s Mr .22.Then they give us the one crappy picture, say that’s all they’ve got. All I gotta do is flash it at the shelter where Saturday got killed and I get more than that, find out it’s in Algiers anyway on account of the woman there knows the church. So you gonna tell me that Langley doesn’t know where that is? They can’t even give us that?”
“You saying they don’t want us to find him?”
“I’m saying they’re playing us. They’re playing everybody. Fine. We’ve been around that block before. Whatever above-our-pay-grade national security voodoo they’re up to, we aren’t going to get looped in. But this fuck al Din, he’s in our town killing people. Killed a couple of kids now. That shit we don’t have to eat.”
“So what do we do about it?” Starshak asked.
“I took it down to our tech guy, asked him to start running it against whatever they have from the various crime scenes we can tie al Din to. Guy laughs at me, tells me with that kind of resolution, the bad angle, the lighting, he’d be pulling up false matches by the boatload. Says I got to narrow it down. So I ask him to at least run it against the Stein hit. The stadium has plenty of cameras and we have timing on that down to a tight window. Tech guy pulls up this.”
Lynch handed Starshak an 8x10, nice clear shot of a slim, well-dressed, olive-skinned man in the Stadium foyer.
Starshak looked at the picture from the Feds, then at the new one. “So that’s al Din,” he said.
“Gotta be,” said Lynch.
“OK, so have them run that against the other scenes.”
“Which is what Lynch said.” Bernstein chiming in. “They’re already on it. But that might be a problem.”
“Problem how?”
“The picture,” Lynch said. “The tech guy, before he could even run what the Feds gave us against the Stein shooting, he had to clean up the image quite a bit. Enough, he says, that, if we tried to take it to court, it might get tossed. Get a defense with a good budget, they could bring some digital image expert in and claim we doctored the original enough to get a match.”
“And,” Starshak said, “if the original gets tossed, then anything we found using it gets tossed. Fruit of the poisoned tree.”
“Right,” Bernstein said.
“What else?” Starshak asked. “You said questions.”
Lynch set the grainy surveillance shot that Hickman had passed out down next to the clean shot they’d pulled from the stadium camera.
“We already know that Corsco, Hernandez, and al Din have access to our surveillance system,” Lynch said. “So we know the system isn’t secure. You seriously think that Hickman and those suits from DC don’t have a way in?”
Starshak sat back, the look on his face telling Lynch he could see where this was going.
“Meaning they could have pulled all the clean shots of al Din that they wanted right off of our own system, probably already knew for certain he did Stein, yet they hand us this crap picture to work with, junk that might queer a case if we ever manage to bring one.”
“Yeah,” Lynch said. “That.”
Starshak sat back, mouth tight, then sat forward again.
“Your witness from the stadium, the waitress chick, she hasn’t seen these pictures yet, right? Either of them?”
“No,” Lynch said.
“OK, we got a physical description of al Din, right? And we got the piece of junk picture from Hickman. So go back to the techies, give them that, have them run a new search, no doctoring, give ’em a time spread maybe five minutes each side of the good picture, and hope that this pic pops up in the pile. Then we show the whole pile to your waitress chick and hope she picks out al Din. Then we’re legit.”
“It’s still dodgy,” Bernstein said. “It would be a problem if anybody hears how we got the clean picture the first time.”
Starshak took the good picture; put it in his desk drawer. “What picture?”
“Ah,” said Bernstein.
“So let’s hope your waitress is good with faces, Lynch. Then we put a BOLO out on al Din. Hickman said not to chase Hardin and Wilson. Fine. He didn’t say anything about this fuck.”
“You didn’t ask,” said Lynch.
“Not gonna, either. Anything else?”
“Fenn,” Bernstein said. “Got a call from Northwestern. He’s starting to show some brain activity.Doc thinks he may come out of it in the next day or two.”
“How many cylinders is he going to be running on if he does?” asked Starshak.
“No way to know,” said Bernstein.
“They still keeping it quiet?” Lynch asked.
Bernstein nodded. “Yeah. Still handing out the daily update to the celebrity press. No change, no reason to expect any change. But you gotta figure it will leak eventually – nurse, orderly, somebody.”
“OK,” said Starshak. “I’ll make sure our security at the hospital’s still good. For now, we keep it under wraps.”
“And if it leaks, we watch and see what Corsco does,” said Lynch.
CHAPTER 71
“At least that sad little bear is gone,” Wilson said.
She and Hardin were at the Phillips Park Zoo on the east side of Aurora, small municipal zoo, but a decent sized park, and had an eighteen-hole golf course. A park Hardin knew pretty well from his childhood, knew the topography at least, had an idea on the sightlines, egress points. Type of place a sharp operator might want to set up a meeting if he had to have a meeting with guys who just maybe wanted to kill him.
“God,” Hardin said. “I forgot about the bear.”
When he was a kid he used to walk down to the park a lot. One of the few places on the East Side where you’d see a lot of West Siders, kids wearing new clothes, not hand-me-downs, place where you could imagine some other kind of life.
They used to have a bear at the zoo, not a very big bear. Brown bear, Hardin guessed. He was no expert on bears. Fake stone grotto with metal bars in the front and a cement floor that was always puddled with urine and bear shit. Floor of the cage was maybe as big as a decent-sized living room and that bear had been locked inside since the day it arrived. Thing never seemed to move, just lay on the cement, dead eyes staring straight ahead, while kids tossed rocks and sticks at it through the bars trying to get it to do something. Bear had been there the first time Hardin could remember coming to the park, he figured he was four or five. It had still been there two decades later when he left for Africa.
“I hated coming here,” Wilson said. “That bear, it broke my heart.”
Some things had changed. The golf course had a makeover, new clubhouse. Nice little visitors’ center at the zoo,
educational stuff for the kids. Big new water park on the south end, on Montgomery Road, place that used to be a big, empty field, place where Hardin and Esteban and some of the other guys from the neighborhood could get up a sandlot game while the little leaguers from the good neighborhoods played real ball on the real diamonds a little to the east. Mastodon Lake was still there, place where some WPA guys had found mastodon bones back in the Thirties when they fixed up the park on the Feds’ dime.
And cameras. Of course cameras. Security cam on the visitors’ center, another at the parking lot, more probably.
Hardin stood next to a white Camry in the parking lot, turned to face the camera, took off the broad-brimmed hat he’d been wearing everywhere and wiped his brow, did a slow turn, checked all the roads in and out.
He hoped that was enough.
“You sure this is the best idea?” Wilson said. “Our hometown? Seems like the kind of place they’ll be watching.”
“Fouche gets us a deal, we’ll have to make the handoff someplace. Maybe I want a home field advantage.”
“And maybe not.” Wilson said, smiling.
“Maybe not,” said Hardin.
They walked out of the park and down Ashland to the parking lot in front of the taco stand where they’d left the Honda. No cameras there. Not the kind of place that could afford them. But the food was good.
CHAPTER 72
Munroe sat up in bed, reached for his phone. He lifted his head from the desk, felt the knot behind his right ear. That little bastard al Din. Munroe’s head was going to be sore for a while. The cell buzzed again. He picked it up, looked at the screen. The surveillance guys.
“Yeah,” he said.
“We picked up a hit on Hardin,” said the voice on the other end.
“Where?”
“In Aurora. Got it quick because we have a priority feed running on any cams out there. Him and Wilson. They were poking around a big park on the east side, Phillips Park.”
“Get it in time to angle anybody in?”
“No. Even with those cams at the top of the pile, there’s still like a ninety-minute processing lag.”
“What was he doing?”
“Recon’s my guess, unless you think he had a sudden urge to go to the zoo.”
“Hold on a sec,” Munroe said. He opened his laptop, brought the park up on Google Earth. Big place. Got a few ways in and out, more than a few if you’re on foot. Trees, some hills it looked like, plenty of stuff to screw with sightlines, but he’d need boots on the ground to get the topography. Public as hell.
And Hardin would know the park. Wilson would know it. The park and everything around it. Might know some people, too.
One more thing caught his eye. A building on the west edge of the park. Munroe switched to street view. Ten stories maybe? Apartments, it looked like.
Munroe knew he’d been brought in on this whole deal because DC wanted subtle. After the cluster fuck in Chicago last year, the last thing they wanted was another firefight. Munroe was still hoping to avoid that, but he was going to need boots on the ground. Boot with guns. This thing went right, then it would come down to one shot. If it went south, though, well…
“OK,” Munroe said. “Get an SOG team out there, have them eyeball the place, give me their best guesses on scenarios and solutions. And find out about that apartment building on the west side. Find me a way to get somebody on the roof.”
CHAPTER 73
Starshak was happy. The waitress play worked. Took about an hour to get a good spread out of the tech guys, another hour for Lynch to get her in to eyeball it, but she picked out al Din right off, no hesitation. Recognized him, recognized his clothes, said she saw him by the elevators right before she found Stein’s body.
Starshak knew eyewitness stuff was crap half the time. But this was solid gold. Cute little All-American girl like that up on the stand? Solid gold.
So now he had a BOLO out on al Din, had the good picture out on the wire, and the tech guys were running it against the rest of this mess. Having a good morning so far.
Then he saw Hickman walking off across the squad toward his office. Fuck. “Lynch, Bernstein,” Starshak yelled across the room.
They looked up, followed his eyes, saw Hickman.
“Fuck,” Lynch said. He and Bernstein headed for Starshak’s office.
Hickman wanted them to pull the BOLO on al Din. “I thought I’d made it clear you were supposed to back off on this,” Hickman said.
“You didn’t make shit clear to me,” Starshak said. “You told Jablonski to lay off Hardin and Wilson, he told me. You see me running anything on Hardin or Wilson? But we like al Din for…” A pause, Starshak turned to Bernstein, “ah jeeze, what’s the count again, Bernstein?”
“Nine,” Bernstein said.
“Nine homicides. Being cops and all, we thought maybe we’d take a shot a clearing those.”
Hickman nodded. “I understand your frustration, Captain, but there are larger issues in play here. This connection between the cartels and Al Qaeda presents a unique opportunity, and it’s something we have to approach with a little tactical discretion.”
“Unique opportunity for whom?” said Bernstein.
“Pardon me?” Hickman asked.
“You think we’re buying all this shit?” Lynch said. “This whole drug cartel and terrorist pile you keep shoveling at us? We know Hernandez has a beef with Hardin over his brother. And we think maybe Hardin’s got some diamonds he stole from some bad guys over in Africa. What we don’t see is any evidence that the one thing’s got anything to do with the other. But you keep telling us there’s this grand conspiracy between Al Qaeda and the cartel. So what Bernstein’s asking, I think, is we see an opportunity for you – we’re just wondering how it works out for anybody else.”
Hickman smiled. “It works out for everybody who’s on the team, Detective. I should think you’d be pleased with the idea of taking the gloves off with the drug lords and street gangs for a change.”
“Just raises all those line-drawing questions,” Bernstein said. “Slippery slopes and all that. But, what the hell. It’s just the Constitution, right?”
“Oh my,” said Hickman. “Playing the Constitution card already? I suppose I should go home and polish my jackboots. You really worried if we dot every I and cross every t for a guy like Hernandez?”
“Yeah, and the cameras all over town are nothing to worry about either, not if you’re not up to anything,” said Lynch. “Except we find out the whole system is out there on pay-per-view and Hernandez is one of the guys with a subscription.”
Hickman got up, buttoned his jacket. “Gentlemen, I didn’t come here to argue the point with you. I just thought I would do you the courtesy of informing you in person. Given the sensitive national security issues involved, the Stein case, the South Shore murders, the Downers Grove shootings, the Ringwald murders and anything having to do with Hardin, Wilson or Hernandez, all of that is all being taken over by a federal task force under my personal direction. Of course, we still need and value Chicago PD assistance, and your contributions on these matters to date will be both officially recognized and richly rewarded. But henceforward, you are to act in this matter only on my orders.”
“Practiced that speech all the way over here, didn’t you?” Starshak said.
“This has been cleared all the way up through the commissioner. But feel free to check if you want to rock the boat.” Hickman smiled.
“Think I’ll skip the boat rocking,” Bernstein said. “I feel a little sea sick already.”
Hickman left.
“You heard the man,” Starshak said. “Pretty much clears your desks for you, so go find something to do with yourselves.”
“Cubs are playing this afternoon,” Lynch said. “Want us to get up to Addison, direct traffic or something?”
Starshak shook his head. “Hickman said the Stein case, the South Shore thing, Downers Grove, Ringwald, and anything having to do with Hardin, Wilso
n, or Hernandez. I was thinking the Membe Saturday case. I didn’t hear that mentioned. Did you hear that mentioned?”
“No, come to think of it,” Bernstein said, smiling.
“You got anybody you like for that?” Starshak asked.
“Yeah, actually I do,” Lynch said.
“So go get him. But quietly. No BOLOs. And wipe the damn smile off your face, Bernstein. You look like a girl.”
CHAPTER 74
The tech guy called Lynch. He’d found a clean shot of al Din coming out of a Starbucks on Madison a couple days back. Lynch and Bernstein went down to check it out.
“Guy’s good,” the tech guy said. “Knows where the cameras are. Watch this series. He’s coming out the door, has that hat down, his head angled to the side, no way we get a match. As he clears that frame, he turns, walking sort of backwards, like he’s eyeballing the window display there, so the exterior cam gets nothing. But he misses this couple coming up on him, the guy is on his phone, not looking, he and al Din bump pretty hard, al Din’s hat comes off and he has to face front. That’s where we got the hit.”
“He looks pissed,” Lynch said.
“Can we trace him from that location?” asks Bernstein.
The tech guy nodded. “Yeah, because now I know that hat.” Punches some keys, pulling up street shots, al Din heading north on Michigan, head down, hat low, no angle on his face. “He grabs a cab at Congress.”
“Get a number on the cab?” Lynch asked.
Tech guy shook his head. “Bad angle. Plus it’s rush hour, so we got a gaggle of pedestrians in the shot waiting for the light to change. Blocks the view.”
