“Come on, Frank,” Williams almost begged, “Did it?”
“Naw. It couldn’t have,” Campanelli waved off as they both stepped into the car.
Once on the second floor, they both went directly to the Chief of Detective’s office. Knocking, Frank swung the door inward and took a peek before entering. Vanek was at his desk with an expression that Campanelli could not identify. Apprehension? Worry? Defeat?
“Come on in,” Dmitri called and waved. He gestured for his detectives to take a seat at his right. Opposite those chairs sat the Chief of the Organized Crime Division, Earl Sebastian. A man in his upper fifties and a bit more than mildly overweight, the dress uniform helped to hide little of it. Despite his weight, the man was always well-kempt and had a reputation as a professional. He nodded to both men as they took seats and exchanged greetings.
Vanek cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands over his middle as he regarded Campanelli. “Frank, Marcus, first off, we congratulate you on locating James Antony’s car so quickly. That was some intuitive work. Secondly, as a result,” he hesitated and shot a glance to Sebastian before tearing off the bandage, “Frank, I am handing you over to OCD, where you will continue working on ‘Sentinel’ full time.”
“Chief,” Campanelli tried to interrupt. He felt the blood drain from his face and his spine heat up in shock and anger.
“Hold on a minute,” Vanek pushed on and raised a hand to quiet his favorite detective. “There are some things you need to know before you get upset. You are to keep on the hunt for Antony, as his case is both human trafficking and murder and the fact that you are already hot on his trail. You also should know that this transfer comes from the Mayor’s Office. He asked all CPD chiefs to pool their best men into a dedicated ‘Sentinel’ task force.”
Campanelli gave his partner a glance and noted a trace of despair. There was no reason to question the mayor’s mandate, for Frank knew from news reports and the department’s Missing Persons Files, that human trafficking had shown little signs of slowing, despite the CPD’s ‘Sentinel’ program.
Earl Sebastian took up the explanation. “The entire department is being reorganized as well. Williams, you’ve already experienced some of this, being a transfer from the south side.”
“Yes, sir. I have,” Williams nodded.
Sebastian shifted in his seat and leaned slightly forward. “The population of the city is declining in number more drastically than has been made public. In just over one year, we have gone from nearly three-quarters of a million people to approximately six hundred and eighty thousand,” he cleared his throat and, with a glance to Vanek, continued. “This drop in population is not only due to trafficking, but the impact from influenzas and other health issues as well. The department is forced to reduce headcount and patrol area in response.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Williams interjected. “We’ve already closed Districts Twenty-Two and Five. What else is there?”
“I am sending you both updated Area and District Maps,” Sebastian said just as both detectives’ implants registered the arrival of the OCD Chief’s transmission. “Have a look at those when you can.
“Campanelli, as a member of the Sentinel Task Force, which I personally oversee, I would like to hear your plan for apprehending Antony.”
“Well, sir,” Frank returned, “I would like permission to stakeout Giovanni Beritoni’s home. He’s the lawyer that sprung Antony so quick.”
“Why?” Vanek asked.
“Well, it’s my opinion that Antony is still in Chicago. There’s been no activity on any of his accounts and I believe he planned on retrieving his car, since he didn’t go to the trouble to dispose of it. It was kept in good shape and fully fueled, even though it was parked in the abandoned parking structure on Wabash.”
“So, you think the car was stashed there and he is…what? Staying with a friend?” Sebastian extrapolated.
“I do,” Frank confirmed with a confident nod. “You see, almost everyone who works for Taylor, Taylor & Packey lives in the building on the same block as the main office. The firm owns both buildings, parking garage and all. Now, I’ve checked and those condos are barely half occupied.”
“Like everything else in this city,” Vanek muttered almost angrily. Campanelli was a bit surprised by his former boss’s sudden display of negativity, but he shelved any reaction.
“Wait a moment, Captain,” Sebastian held up his hand. “You’re saying that a fairly low ranking member of the Ignatola crime family is hiding out in the same building as Fillipo Ignatola’s lawyer?”
“I think it’s a fairly strong possibility,” Campanelli confirmed.
“Even though Antony’s accomplices are now in Statesville?”
“Yessir.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I want to know, sir,” Frank pressed on quickly, sensing that he was losing his fight. “I’ve learned from a good source that Ignatola wanted Antony killed for his part in the DuPage Airport arrests. Now, it’s a pretty sure bet that the accomplices that went to Statesville are facing death by flu and even if they don’t get sick, Ignatola can still get to them. He can order someone on the inside to take them out with no trouble.”
“Agreed,” Sebastian nodded.
“I think that Del Taylor or a partner wanted Antony protected for personal reasons. I think that person is Giovanni Beritoni himself.”
“Okay,” the OCD Chief conceded, “but wouldn’t that put Beritoni or whomever at serious risk of a backlash from Ignatola?”
“Yes,” Frank nodded, “a very lethal risk. I believe that he or whoever is hiding Antony is doing so right under their noses.”
Sebastian shook his head either with doubt or sympathy for Antony’s benefactor. Frank saw that Vanek was essentially out of the conversation. His expression was that of a man thinking of something else entirely.
“All right,” Sebastian shrugged, “put together a report of how you will proceed and I’ll approve it. But, keep in mind our limited resources, Campanelli,” he finished with a definitive finger point at Frank’s chest.
“Yessir,” Campanelli answered and sat back.
“Excuse me, sirs,” Williams interjected. “What about me?”
“Well, Frank?” Sebastian said, leaving it to the Captain of Detectives.
“Uh, well…can I take some men from the homicide squad?”
“I was actually going to suggest it, Frank,” Vanek said, coming alive. “Our crime reports indicate that homicides are way down and the Violent Crimes Division is to be hit with layoffs just like every other section. You’ve noticed that your men are on top of things, I’m sure.”
“I have.”
“OCD needs them more for ‘Sentinel’ than anything else,” Dmitri put forth, generating a nod from Sebastian. “Pick the best you have.”
“Well then,” Frank said giving Williams a casual up-and-down appraisal, “I guess I’ll keep this guy…”
“Thanks, pal,” Marcus shot with a crooked grin.
“…and reassign…four to ‘Sentinel’,” he finished as more of a question.
“Frank,” the OCD Chief answered, “I am sending you a list of men that I have handpicked from various OCD departments. I want you to go through it and edit that list in any way you see fit, accommodating any of your homicide squad detectives that you wish.”
Campanelli was taken aback by the sudden confidence and the realization of the heavy burden. His CAPS-Link acknowledged the receipt of the Chief’s file. All he could do was nod in response.
Earl Sebastian smiled. “You haven’t quite grasped what this all means, have you, Captain Campanelli?”
“Sir?”
“You are my second in command of the Sentinel Task Force. It is that important to the mayor, Campanelli.”
“Umm, thank you, sir,” Frank whispered.
“Don’t thank me. It’s going to be more work without extra pay or promotion,” Sebastian added apologetically.
“The City of Chicago is counting on you. First priority is to find Antony, gentlemen,” the OCD Chief finished. Standing, he and Vanek shook hands with Campanelli and his partner and dismissed them.
Frank and Marcus left the room without looking back and strode to the elevator. Neither said a word until they had entered Frank’s cruiser and closed the doors.
“Well, holy shit,” Williams said plainly, looking straight out the windshield.
“You said it.”
After a moment of continued introspection, Marcus said, “What’s your stakeout plan for Beritoni’s place.”
“I’m thinking about that,” Frank said as he lit a cigarette and powered up the cruiser. “First, we have breakfast.” He turned the car in a tight U-turn and sped to Tam’s Place.
II
The cleaning crew entered the building at their usual Wednesday morning shift time. The two new faces on the detail mattered not to the veterans among them as the job had a high turnover rate. Their supervisor and building manager led the two newbies to her office, apparently for orientation as was her usual course of action. The crew went about their daily tasks and quickly forgot about the new men.
The building manager, a demure woman in her fifties with sun-dried wrinkles that made her appear even older, closed the door behind the men and went to her desk. Accessing her computer, she brought up a diagram and turned the monitor for the men to see.
“Okay, Mister Beritoni’s residence is on the fortieth floor. This unit here,” she explained in her gravelly voice.
Detectives Hank Lyman and Daryl Davies leaned in to see the screen. They liked the setup. Each unit had a unique shape, with closets or bathrooms jutting out into the hallway, giving them plenty of hiding places.
“Are any of the residents home at this time, Miss Erichs?” Lyman asked.
“Call me Mildred, sweetie,” the old woman beamed and checked her watch. Though certainly old enough, she was not equipped with bio-electronic implants. “As far as I know, pretty much everyone is in the office by now. There are a couple of housewives that live on that floor. You know the type, they haven’t worked a day in their lives, I’m sure. But, they won’t give you guys a second glance, trust me.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Davies responded with a slanted grin.
“That’s not what I mean,” Mildred Erichs said in a humorous tone. “These ladies wouldn’t notice anybody that wasn’t dressed in anything less than a ten thousand dollar suit or drove something that wouldn’t break a bank. You should be free to plant whatever little do-dad’s you want.”
“Can you give us a printout of the floor and label it with the residents’ names and vacancies?” Lyman asked.
“Sure,” Erichs responded, spinning the monitor back her way. After a few taps of her finger on the screen, an eight by eleven inch sheet of crisp white paper slid out from the desktop terminal. “Here you are. Oh, and please be sure to take your time shampooing that hallway carpet. It picks up a lot of stains from all those rich folk parties.”
“We sure will, ma’am,” Daryl promised sarcastically, though it was completely missed by the building manager. The tall detective smiled outwardly, but behind the expression, the man seethed with irritation.
“Enjoy your day,” Hank Lyman wished as he tugged his partner from the room.
“I’ll shampoo her ass,” Daryl whispered once they had put some distance from the woman’s office.
Lyman smiled, “Don’t worry about it, let’s just get this done and us outta here.”
“Fine by me.”
The detectives were dressed in gray coveralls and appeared to be just like any other employee of The Park Monroe’s maintenance crew. They retrieved a cleaning cart from the basement equipment room and rode the elevator to the fortieth floor.
The door opened and the men quietly stepped out. Lyman consulted the printed layout and pointed to the entryways to the first two units. The one across the hall belonged to their prime suspect, Beritoni. “This is it,” he whispered lowly and stepped to the front door soundlessly.
Davies took a moment to listen next to the front door of the unit opposite Beritoni’s. Both detectives had augmented their audio receptors to maximum.
“There’s someone here,” Lyman sent to Davies’s implant in text.
Daryl nodded, stepping further into the hallway and rounding a corner to listen further up the way. As he did, Lyman retrieved a device from his pocket and crouched to the floor. Setting the snake-like item onto the carpet, he connected his implant with it and sent it cautiously forward.
“I hear one residence with a holovision,” Davies sent to Lyman, who needed not reply. Daryl returned to Beritoni’s front door, saw what his partner was doing and nodded in approval before setting off in the other direction to listen for others.
The snake was six inches long but only a millimeter tall in order to slide through the gaps underneath doors. Nonetheless, Hank Lyman had to force the tiny spy device just to make it part way inside. It slithered and thrashed under his direct control and, even though the detective had set his audio receptors back to their default levels, he could hear the articulating metal scraping on bottom edge of the door. Lyman winced at the sound, certain that if someone were at home that they would have heard it as clearly. For several seconds, he and the spy device went completely still.
“What’s your status?” came a message from Captain Campanelli over the CAPS-Link. He and Williams had set up shop in an empty office in a building on the corner of Dearborn and Adams which faced the west side of The Park Monroe. Campanelli quickly discovered that the windows of Beritoni’s condo had been decorated by “hummers,” small electronic devices that created vibrations against a pane of glass. This would disrupt any vibrations created by a human voice and muddle what the laser microphone could decipher. Eavesdropping on the residence was out of the question.
“Feeding the snake under Beritoni’s door. It’s stuck, but I’m working on it,” Hank sent back.
Daryl Davies returned to Lyman’s side and dropped to a crouch to take in what was happening with the reptilian-modeled device. “Quiet that thing down,” he sent to Hank.
Lyman halted the device’s wormy movement and shot a look at his partner. “How else am I going to get it inside?” he sent.
Thinking quickly, Davies remembered the carpet shampooer. Holding up an index finger for Lyman to wait, Davies stepped to the maintenance cart and removed the semi-autonomous machine from it, set it upon the floor and activated it. The short round robot whined to life with a scream like a tiny jet engine and, with the use of radar and cameras, found its location and went about its business. It spewed carpet cleaner from its underbelly and spun up the rotating bristles, working the foamy cleanser into a thick lather. The machine was designed for completing the job quickly, not quietly. It would cover the metal scraping sounds from the snake easily.
Davies checked the time. It was close to ten-thirty in the morning. The carpet monster would take close to thirty minutes to complete the task unless they aborted it. Daryl looked to Hank and smiled, receiving a thumbs-up from his partner.
Lyman knew to step away from the door, as the noise might attract whoever was inside to the peephole. Keeping the snake’s view in a small rectangle at the upper middle portion of his sight, he stood and backed quickly around the corner.
***
From the glass embossed tower two blocks away, Campanelli and Williams kept their eyes trained on The Park Monroe. It seemed pointless as they could do nothing other than watch for movement on the drapes of Beritoni’s residence, but they watched anyway and waited.
Frank sighed as time ticked by. It should not have taken more than a few minutes for the snake to slip in and search the residence, but because of the low clearance of the condominium’s high quality doors, the mission was already past the ten minute mark.
“Well, at least if he is inside, there’s no place for Antony to go,” Williams commented.
“There is if
he shoots his way out,” Campanelli countered. “If he finds out that we’ve discovered him, it’s up to Lyman and Davies to take him down and Antony will go down shooting.”
The thought had occurred to Marcus, but he simply had not wanted to vocalize it. “Should we get over there?”
Campanelli sighed again in contemplation. “We just don’t know if he’s there.”
“I don’t know, Frank,” Williams went on, “over the last year I’ve grown to trust your hunches.”
Campanelli turned his eyes to his partner and, thinking about it, understood the strength of his instincts. Nodding, he said, “Let’s go.”
***
Lyman sent to Davies and Campanelli: “Snake is free of the door and I’m working it along the hallway.”
“Williams and I are on the way now to back you up,” Campanelli replied.
This message sent a chill up Lyman’s spine. The Captain of Detectives must be certain that the cop killer was in the lawyer’s house or they would have stayed where they were. He thought about asking if they had received more information when he noticed the snake’s camera view shudder. He commanded the device to stop and, realizing that the evenly timed shaking was becoming stronger, lifted the head of the snake and craned its neck in all directions.
“Footsteps,” Hank Lyman sent to Davies in an audible message. “The occupant is on the move.”
Davies acknowledged and forwarded the update to the Captain and Williams.
Lyman’s heart felt as if it skipped when the camera view went black. His first thought was that the device had been discovered, but the screen lightened a second later. Hank spun the device around and followed the movement. He quickly found that the screen had been blackened by the passing feet of the occupant. He ordered the snake to move fast in pursuit, backtracking over the area that it had just slithered over. The view stopped shaking a moment later. Whoever was inside had come to a stop.
Campanelli: Sentinel Page 9
