By Order of the President
Page 36
The commissioner looked at his watch.
“It is now eight-thirteen,” he said. “In thirty-two hours, it will be four-thirteen tomorrow afternoon. At that time, I’m going to the mayor with this. He will like that because it will give him time to make the six o’clock news. You understand me? I don’t want any misunderstandings about this, and it goes without saying that I expect you to immediately bring me up to speed on any further developments.”
“I understand, sir,” Castillo said.
“And, Dick,” the commissioner went on, “I don’t want you to tell your dad about this under any circumstances. I love him like a brother, but he has, as he says and has shown, that West Point Duty, Honor, Country philosophy, and I don’t want him doing something he feels duty and honor require him to do. What this situation requires is someone with the philosophy your dad says the major has: that the end— protecting Philadelphia—justifies the means.”
“I understand, sir,” Miller said.
The commissioner rose from behind his desk.
“We’re now going to the Counterterrorism Bureau. I will ask the commanding officer of the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit—they’re in the same building—to meet us there,” he said. “I don’t know what they have on any connection between our local African American terrorists —who so far have limited their efforts to bring Philadelphia to its knees by taking potshots at passing patrol cars—and any other terrorists, but if anyone has that information they will. I will tell Chief Inspector Kramer and Captain O’Brien that they are to give you anything and everything they have or can develop. I will tell Chief Inspector Kramer that twice because he has an unfortunate tendency to obey only those orders he considers wise and reasonable.”
“Thank you very much, Commissioner,” Castillo said.
“Be warned that neither of these officers is going to be willing to share any more than he feels he absolutely has to with either an Army officer or the special assistant to the secretary of homeland security. But if either of them really gets his back up, get back to me—right away—and I’ll have another chat with him.”
“Sir, how does—Chief Inspector Kramer and Captain O’Brien, you said?—feel about the Secret Service?”
“The Secret Service? I don’t know. I know Kramer hates the FBI with a fine Pennsylvania Dutchman’s passion. And I don’t think O’Brien thinks very highly about the FBI, either. The Secret Service? I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Sir, I have credentials identifying me as a supervisory special agent of the Secret Service,” Castillo said.
The commissioner looked at him for a long moment, shaking his head.
“What do we say about Dick? Or does he have a Secret Service shield, too?”
“I think we can probably get by by showing my credentials, ” Castillo said.
“Okay. That’ll work.”
The commissioner waved them through his office door ahead of him.
He stopped at a desk manned by a uniformed sergeant. “Put out the arm for Chief Inspector Kramer and Captain O’Brien,” he ordered. “Have them meet me right now in Kramer’s office at the arsenal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have an unmarked car, a good one with all communications, delivered out there right away. If one isn’t available, take one away from somebody else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We are cooperating with the Secret Service, that’s all you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come on, Jack,” the commissioner said to the plainclothes policeman who had been waiting for them at the elevator. “We’re going for a ride.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jack, this is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo of the Secret Service and Special Agent Miller. Gentlemen, this is my executive officer, Captain Jack Hanrahan.”
The men shook hands as they walked to the elevator.
[FIVE]
Frankford Industrial Complex Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0825 9 June 2005
“Déjà vu, all over again,” Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said, shortly after Captain Jack Hanrahan had turned the commissioner ’s unmarked Ford Crown Victoria off Tacony Street in Northeast Philadelphia into what looked like an old industrial complex of brick warehouses. “I have been here before. What is this place?”
The commissioner chuckled.
“It used to be the Frankford Arsenal,” he said.
“Yeah,” Miller said, remembering. “We used to come to the commissary here when I was a little kid.”
“When they closed the arsenal, the city tried to turn it into an industrial park,” the commissioner said. “That didn’t work, so they let unimportant parts of the city government— the police, for instance—use the buildings.”
Hanrahan pulled up before a small, century-old, two-story brick building, into a slot marked CHIEF INSPECTOR KRAMER, picked a microphone from the seat, and said, "C-One at CT.”
Castillo looked for a sign on the redbrick building but couldn’t see one.
Everybody got out of the car, and the commissioner walked purposefully into the building, visibly startling two uniformed police officers on their way out who obviously did not expect to run into the commissioner. The others followed him.
Just inside the small lobby, to the right, was an unmarked door. There was a door buzzer button set into the wall beside it. The commissioner pressed it.
A not very charming voice came over a small loudspeaker: “Yeah?”
“Open the door,” the commissioner ordered.
“Who is it?”
“It’s the commissioner.”
“Bullshit!”
“What do I have to do, take the damned door?”
There was the sound of a solenoid, and, when the commissioner pushed on the door, it now opened.
Beyond the door was a stairway. The commissioner went up the stairs two at a time. At the head of the stairs was an embarrassed-looking black man wearing a shoulder holster.
“Commissioner, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .”
The commissioner waved a hand, meaning, “No problem. ”
“Chief Inspector Kramer?” the commissioner asked.
“I just don’t know, sir. I’ll put the arm out for him. Captain O’Brien’s waiting for him, too.”
He nodded across the room toward a glass-walled office.
“The arm’s already supposed to be out,” the commissioner said.
“I’ll find out what’s happened, sir,” the man—Castillo and Miller both assumed he was a detective—said.
The commissioner walked across the crowded room to the glass-walled office, signaling the others to follow him. As they got close, a uniformed captain got out of a chair.
The commissioner shook his hand but made no introductions, instead saying, “We’ll wait for Fritz.”
He sat down at a desk that had a small nameplate on it reading CHIEF INSPECTOR F.W. KRAMER, took out his wallet, and looked inside.
“Anybody got two bucks?” he asked. “Kramer is very sensitive about his coffee kitty.”
Castillo was first to come up with the money. Captain Hanrahan took it from his hand and left the office.
Miller nudged Castillo and indicated with a nod of his head at what first appeared to be a poster for The Green Berets movie in 1968 starring John Wayne, but when Castillo took a second look he saw that Wayne’s face had been painted over. The face was now that of a smiling young man and the blaze on the beret was now that of the 10th Special Forces Group.
The detective put his head in the door.
“Two minutes, Commissioner,” he announced.
“Thank you,” the commissioner said.
Captain Hanrahan returned with a tray holding mugs of coffee thirty seconds before a very tall, trim, very tough-looking man with a full head of curly gray hair walked into the office. He was wearing a shirt, tie, and tweed jacket that had left a clothing store a long time ago. The butt of a Colt .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol rose above his belt.
“To what do I owe the honor?” he demanded, then, “Hanrahan, you better have fed the kitty.”
“The kitty’s been fed, Inspector,” Captain Hanrahan said.
“Gentlemen, this is Chief Inspector Kramer, who commands the Counterterrorism Bureau,” the commissioner said. “We go back a long way. About the time of Noah’s ark, we were sergeants in Major Crimes. And this is Captain O’Brien, who heads the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit. This is Supervisory Agent Castillo of the Secret Service and Special Agent Miller.”
Kramer examined Castillo and Miller carefully but didn’t so much as nod his head. O’Brien offered his hand to both.
“Listen carefully, both of you,” the commissioner said. “You are to give them not only whatever they ask for but whatever else—anything—you even suspect they might have use for.”
Captain O’Brien said, “Yes, sir.”
Chief Inspector Kramer said nothing.
“You heard me, Fritz?” the commissioner said. “You understand me?”
Kramer didn’t reply directly.
“You going to tell me what this is all about?” he asked.
“Mr. Castillo will tell you what you have to know. Which will not be all you’d like to know. Understood?”
Kramer nodded, just perceptibly.
“And the fewer people around here who even know they’re here, the better. Understood?”
Kramer nodded again.
“I want you to assign somebody—somebody who knows what’s going on around here—full-time, until this is over. I ordered an unmarked car sent here.”
“I get another car? This must be important,” Kramer said.
“It is, Fritz, believe me. And I don’t want to hear from Mr. Castillo that either one of you is not giving him anything he wants. And I’ve told him to call me the minute he suspects that.”
“Okay. I heard you,” Kramer said.
“We’ll be in touch,” the commissioner said to Castillo and Miller, and then, waving to Hanrahan to follow him, walked out of Kramer’s office.
Chief Inspector Kramer went behind his desk, sat down, leaned back in the chair, and put both hands behind his head.
“Okay, Mr. Castillo, ask away. What does the Secret Service want to know?”
“What I’d like to know,” Miller said, nodding at the John Wayne movie poster, “is who’s the ugly character wearing the blaze of the Tenth Group.”
Kramer’s glower would have cowed a lesser man. Captain O’Brien’s face showed clearly that he understood it was not wise to comment on the poster, or say anything that could possibly be construed as criticism of U.S. Army Special Forces in Kramer’s hearing.
“What do you know about the Tenth Special Forces Group?” Kramer asked, icily.
“He was in the Tenth,” Castillo said. “Then they found out he could read and write and wasn’t queer and sent him to flight school.”
“Two wiseasses?” Kramer asked, but there was the hint of a smile on his thin lips.
“Charley spent too much time in the stockade at Bragg,” Miller said. “His brain got curdled.”
“Delta Force? No shit?” Captain O’Brien asked.
“Delta Force? What’s Delta Force?” Castillo replied.
“The name Reitzell mean anything to you, Mr. Castillo?”
"If your Reitzell is Johnny, and has a wife named Glenda, yeah, I know him.”
“And if I called the colonel up and asked about you, what would he say?”
“He’d probably tell you he never heard of Delta and to mind your own business,” Castillo said.
“Yeah, that’s probably exactly what Colonel Johnny would do,” Kramer said.
He got out of his chair and offered his hand first to Miller and then to Castillo.
“As I was saying, Mr. Castillo, what does the Secret Service want to know?”
“You’ve heard about the 727 that’s gone missing from Angola? ”
Kramer and O’Brien both nodded.
“Not for dissemination, anywhere: There’s a scenario that it was stolen by Somalian terrorists who intend to crash it into the Liberty Bell.”
O’Brien’s face showed incredulity at that announcement. Kramer’s face didn’t change, but he took a moment to consider it.
“You wouldn’t come in here with a yarn like that unless you and some other people who can actually find their asses with one hand in the dark believed there was something to it,” Kramer said, finally.
“It’s not even close to being for sure, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment. The same source who told us the airplane was grabbed by Somalians and is probably in Chad—or was in Chad; they’re running that down—said there may be a Philadelphia connection. That’s what we need.”
"Maybe,” Kramer said. “We have some AALs—that stands for ‘African American Lunatics’—in town who would love to see something like that. Right now, all they’re doing is throwing Molotov cocktails at patrol cars, sniping at—correction, shooting at patrol cars; they’re not snipers, as we understand the term—but they’re ambitious. I’ll see what I can turn up.”
"Inspector ...”
“Call me ’Dutch,’ ” Kramer interrupted. “That’s what they called me in Special Forces.”
“I’m Charley,” Castillo said.
“Dick,” Miller said.
“Dutch, we need what you have yesterday,” Castillo said.
“I’ve got some people inside,” Kramer said. “And so does Captain O’Brien—sometimes intelligence and counterterrorism overlaps. There’s four major groups of AALs, and, between us, we’ve got one, two, or three people in each bunch, but they’re in deep, you follow me? We can’t get on the phone and say, ‘Jack, I need what you have on a Somalian connection.’ It’ll take us several hours, at least, to get in touch with any one of them. And anywhere from an hour or more after that to set up a meet.”
“You’re talking about cops or informants?” Castillo asked.
“Cops,” Kramer said. “Good cops who have their balls on the chopping block twenty-four hours a day. We don’t want to blow their cover, and we don’t want them killed. Understand? ”
Castillo nodded.
Kramer said, “Nothing has come across my desk . . .”
“Mine, either,” O’Brien interrupted.
“. . . which could mean there is nothing,” Kramer went on, “or it could mean they’re afraid to say something because it sounds like something that would come from a coke-fried brain.”
“I understand,” Castillo said.
“The fing FBI was in here a couple of days ago . . .”
“The what?” Miller asked.
“A couple of fing assholes from the fing FBI, wanting to know what, if anything, I had on Lease-Aire, Inc.”
“Fing?” Miller pursued.
“That’s not nearly as offensive in mixed company as ‘fucking,’ is it?” Kramer asked, innocently.
“And what did you tell the fing FBI?” Castillo asked, smiling.
“The fing truth. I didn’t have a fing thing on Lease-Aire, Inc.”
The four men were now smiling at one another.
“But maybe you should go out and have a talk with them. I’ll send one of my people with you,” Kramer said.
“Makes sense,” Miller said. “Thank you.”
“Who’s that young woman?” Castillo asked.
O’Brien and Miller followed the nod of his head.
A good-looking young woman in a skirt and sweater, which almost, but not entirely, concealed the Glock semiautomatic she wore in the small of her back, was bent over the second drawer of a filing cabinet.
“Why do you want to know?” Kramer inquired.
“I think I met her last night,” Castillo said.
He saw the look on Miller’s face, which said, Jesus Christ, Charley. We lucked out and got to play the Special Forces card with this guy and now you and your constant hard-on are going to fuck it up big-time!
“It’s no
t what you think, Dick,” Castillo said, the response to which was another facial distortion that meant, Oh, bullshit!
“Schneider!” Kramer boomed. “Get in here, please!”
The brunette walked to the office door, her face registering mild surprise at seeing Castillo, and stopped.
“Inside, Sergeant,” Kramer ordered, “and close the door.”
“Yes, sir,” she said and complied.
“I understand you’ve seen this guy before,” Kramer said. “But somehow I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced. Sergeant Betty Schneider, this is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo, of the Secret Service. Sergeant Schneider works for Captain O’Brien.”
“He told me he was in the food-catering business for oil well rigs, or whatever they call them.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That I was waiting for my boyfriend,” she said.
“Tell him what you were really doing. He has the commissioner ’s personal blessing, and, more important, mine.”
“Tony Frisco and Cats Cazzaro were having a sandwich at the Warwick bar with two characters from the Coney Island Mafia . . .”
“That’s the Russian mob, Mr. Castillo. Really nice folks,” O’Brien explained.
“The table was wired. They were giving me the eye, so I made a play for . . . this gentleman.”
"Get anything?” O’Brien asked.
She shook her head.
“You think they made you?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
"But they were antsy enough about you to worry you?”
"Yes, sir.”
"Which means O’Brien can’t use you again for a while there,” Kramer said. “Right, Frank?”
O’Brien nodded. “Which makes her available to Mr. Castillo ..."
“He said his name was Castle,” she blurted.
“That okay with you, Frank?” Kramer asked.
“Done. Schneider, until further orders you will sit on these two gentlemen.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“There’s supposed to be an unmarked car here. If it’s not here already, it will be soon. Take Mr. Castillo and Special Agent Miller out to Lease-Aire at the airport and wherever else they think, or you think, they should go. Do whatever they want you to do. And don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. ”