Campanelli: Sentinel

by Frederick H. Crook

  Terry asked her what was wrong and she explained. Just then, Deputy Chief Alonso arrived in his own cruiser, recognized her and ran to meet her at the entrance to the widened alley that served as the facility’s driveway.

  “Tamara?” he called as he came, for he had met her at a policeman’s ball some months before. She turned and he noticed the frantic expression and the tears. “Where’s Frank?” he asked once he saw that the Captain was not found by his CAPS-Link.

  Tamara could no longer form words. Everything that she tried to say came out in blubbers.

  “Um, she just said that Frank’s implant went dark,” Terry explained.

  Alonso opened his mouth to speak, but heard the rapid firing of a handgun from within the building. Beyond the roaring fire and the sirens, the sound was unmistakable. Looking over the pattern of the fire, he deduced that whoever just fired those shots was on the eastern side of the building, which had not yet caught the blaze.

  “Come on,” he mumbled as he touched Tamara’s arm and jogged toward Wabash, the street that the ‘back’ of the oddly designed church faced.

  Tam followed and so did Terry, unwilling to leave the lady that the detective had entrusted to him.

  Lorenzo eyed the little windows that were set along the top of the church’s walls as he went along and, recalling the blueprints from his implant’s memory, plotted the possible whereabouts of Frank Campanelli. A daunting amount of smoke poured out of these little windows, up to the as yet unscathed amphitheater. Working it out, he discovered that it was possible that the man could have wound his way through the maze of offices at the center of the building and found the exits at the amphitheater.

  The fire was making its way to the eastern half of the church very quickly, fanned along by southeasterly winds. Alonso looked about him for a firefighting crew.

  “Hey! Hey!” he shouted to the group that was manning a hose near the front of the building. He waved them over, but only one left his hose to see what the policeman in the highly decorated dress uniform wanted. “We have a man inside,” Alonso explained, “that may be trying to escape through the side exits to the theater. Get a crew and join me at the door.”

  The young firefighter turned on his heels and ran to retrieve help.

  Lorenzo, Tam and Terry stepped along the widened alley toward Wabash while each of them searched the windows in hope of spotting Frank.

  They arrived to the auxiliary exits on the northeast corner of the building. Alonso searched nervously behind them for signs of the help he had asked for. He could see a trio of firemen on the way.

  “Okay,” he said as he took a step toward the burning structure, “stay here, Tam.” To the man with her whom he did not know, he said, “Watch her, please.” The young man nodded.

  As the three firemen came closer, something very large and immensely heavy gave way on the western side of the church. The Deputy Chief, Tam, Terry and the three firefighters rushing to meet them all stopped to look behind. The garage roof had caved in, taking several feet of the walls down with it. The sudden influx of fresh air fed the fire and it rose up again even more furiously. A plume of orange and yellow jutted into the sky, sheathed in black smoke.

  “Sir,” the lieutenant of the engine crew shouted over the hellacious ruckus, “the Battalion Chief says no one’s going in there! This whole building’s done!”

  Tam’s deep sobs drove her to the ground and Terry squatted to console her. Seeing this, Alonso snatched the hatchet from the lieutenant’s hands and sprinted to the doors. The lieutenant screamed for him to stop and the three firefighters pursued him.

  Before Alonso could get within ten meters of the building, the very doors that he planned on chopping through burst toward him. The Deputy Chief stumbled to a startled stop, causing one of the firemen to run into him.

  From within the smoke-darkened depths of the church’s amphitheater an obscured figure emerged, hunched over and covered in black soot. The man stopped in front of them, coughed and hacked, spat and wretched as he tried to draw breath into his assaulted lungs.

  One of the firefighters rushed to the survivor and offered a mask of oxygen to him. It was gratefully accepted and the familiar figure stood up straight to take in the precious gas.

  Alonso smiled. “Frank.”

  Campanelli nodded and weakly gave his scout salute. After he took another deep breath from the mask and cleared his airway with yet another cough he greeted, “Deputy Chief.”

  “Fraaaank!” shrieked Tamara for the second time that day. She ran as fast as she could toward him and nearly knocked him to the cement in a tight embrace. “Oh! Frank!” she cried.

  “I’m okay,” he assured her, but coughed harshly.

  “Sorry!” she blurted and let up on her grip.

  “Are you all right?” Frank asked as he wiped a thumb near her swollen eye.

  “I think it’s fine,” she dismissed and covered him with kisses. He tasted like salt and charcoal, but she cared not.

  “When you went offline, we thought you were…uh,” Lorenzo Alonso stammered.

  Campanelli explained DeSilva’s inhibiting device and his cane-assisted shooting. “I was…just lying there…waiting to die when I remembered,” he paused to hack and take in more oxygen. “I remembered the circuit breaker box. I felt around for it, opened it and pulled everything I could feel until the power to the device went dead. I rebooted the CAPS-Link and could see again.”

  An incessant police siren approached at high speed. Alonso looked about for its source as he said, “That was good work, Frank. But you’re lucky to have gotten out.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Campanelli returned and gave Tam a smoky-lipped kiss, “but I’m not done.”

  “What?” Tam and Alonso said at the same time.

  “Vanek betrayed me. Betrayed us,” Frank explained as his cruiser screamed into the alley. “DeSilva told me that he was taking his family to Alethea right now. I think I know where he’s heading…”

  “Frank!” Tam bellowed in a warning.

  “I’m putting out an APD for him in case I’m wrong,” he said as he gently freed himself of Billingsley’s embrace and stepped to the waiting car. “If I’m right, I’ll bring him back.”

  Shocked, no one in the group could say a word as they watched the dark blue unmarked police car back out onto Wabash and accelerate away in a cloud of tire smoke.

  “Son of a bitch,” Tam murmured in a tone that was anything but anger.

  “He took my oxygen tank,” the young lieutenant complained.

  Alonso turned to stare at the man and refrained to say what was on his mind. Instead, he handed the firefighter the axe and let him lead his two subordinates away.

  “Let me take you to the hospital,” Alonso said to Billingsley. She nodded in grateful acquiescence. The Deputy Chief then turned to the young stranger. “And who are you?”

  “Well, I’m the…uh,” Terry replied sheepishly and stuck his hands into his pockets. Looking to Tamara, he could see that she was leaving it up to him. Dejectedly, he admitted, “I’m DeSilva’s limo driver.”

  “Really?” Lorenzo Alonso smiled victoriously and slung his arm around the man’s shoulders as if they were long lost pals. “I’ve got some people I think you would just love to meet. Have you ever heard of something I like to call the Miranda Rights?”

  ***

  Frank breathed from the oxygen tank as the car proceeded automatically on ‘Condition Three’ to O’Hare International. He had dared to order the car to hop on I-90 and proceed to the Kennedy Expressway. Both roadways had been in disrepair for nearly a decade and though the car was ordered to hurry, it rarely touched one hundred miles per hour due to the giant potholes and buckled bits of pavement. The car put him through a series of hard accelerations, decelerations and abrupt lane changes that turned his stomach. Still, it was faster than taking side roads.

  Heavy commercial vehicles had been banned from using Illinois highways for a long time to reduce the decay
of the system. Therefore, there was nothing sharing the road with him that was any larger than a van.

  Frank tried sending a message to his partner, but Williams was not answering. Contacting the hospital that the police report listed, he found that the big ex-Navy Seal had been stabilized and was in surgery. That little bit of information would have to do for now.

  He accessed the Sentinel Status Blotter to see how far his division had progressed on the day’s arrests. Ignatola had been taken with only a small exchange of gunfire that had killed one of his torpedoes while Del Taylor had been arrested without incident. Several of the pilots that Beritoni had listed on his confession had been found and arrested, but quite a few were still at large, including the one that was said to live in, and fly out of, Barrington. His favorite airport was listed as O’Hare and his aircraft was a self-built, black helicopter sans serial number, FAA registration and computer.

  Campanelli searched through his contact list and found the name of the aircraft mechanic that he had met the previous year when he and Marcus had been on loan to Sentinel. Finding the phone number, he placed the call.

  “Trane Air,” a familiar male voice answered.

  “Michael Trane?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Detective Frank Campanelli here. You may remember that we met last year. I need your help.”

  ***

  It had been a horrendously long morning already and it promised to turn into an even longer day. Dmitri had gathered his wife and son together the previous night and told them of his predicament and his plans. At first, young Pascha had reacted with the adventurous excitement that one expects of a child. His attitude changed once he learned that each of them were limited to one suitcase which forced the boy to leave most of his toys behind. He had cried himself to sleep.

  “I’m not sure I want to go to this…Alethea,” his wife Andrea had said.

  “I’ve worked hard to make this possible, muya dusha,” he had replied, calling her ‘my soul’ in their native Russian.

  “I was under the impression that you served the public in a lawful manner,” she said with arms crossed as her eyes scrutinized him.

  “It’s far more complicated than that,” he protested and quickly spoke to make his case. After an hour of discussion where he revealed to her the health threats that they all faced and minimalizing the personal danger to his freedom that he had caused by working with Ignatola and DeSilva, she quietly acquiesced.

  The Vanek family had left their South Loop condominium before three in the morning and took a cab to the northern edge of O’Hare International, where they were dropped off in front of a closed restaurant on a roadway named Patton. The three of them inexpertly climbed the fence and hiked across the airport property in the dark, traversing over long unused taxiways and runways to get to the rendezvous point; one abandoned hangar among many that was once a shop for small private aircraft, not unlike the active one just across the tarmac.

  On Friday, Dmitri had been instructed by his contact in the DeSilva organization, a young lady who worked in the church offices, where to meet the helicopter that would ferry them to an undisclosed location where their new identities would be created. Once done, the family would be sent on to a spaceport somewhere in Europe. He was told nothing more to protect the organization.

  Once the little hangar was found, the three Vaneks tried to sleep on workbenches or desks, whichever was found to be most comfortable. None of it was, of course, so little sleep was acquired by any of them.

  The sun had risen and Dmitri watched the skies through the dirty windows, pointlessly searching for the black helicopter even though he was told that the pilot would send him a message to his CAPS-Link when he was on his way.

  Hours went by and the three became quite hungry, especially Pascha. There was nothing to be done about it, he explained, until they reached the next destination.

  Just after eleven a.m., Dmitri thought he heard sirens. He rushed to the window facing the shop across from their hangar and listened as his eyes danced back and forth in search of the approaching police cars. The sound faded quickly and after a time, he was not convinced he had heard them at all.

  While Pascha and Andrea dozed uncomfortably nearby, Dmitri remained at the window, seated upon a dusty table that creaked when he moved. Some minutes later, a mechanic in the shop/hangar on the other side of the tarmac taxiway emerged leisurely from the shadows of his workshop. For several moments, the forty-ish male with electric blue vanity lenses stood there with his hands in his pockets, turning his face to the early afternoon sun as he took in the fresh air.

  For a second, a heartbeat-skipping second, Dmitri thought the man had met his eyes. The abandoned hangar window was quite dirty and faded to white at its edges with age, so it was highly unlikely that the mechanic had noticed him. After a moment, the mechanic casually returned to his work and disappeared inside the hangar.

  Dmitri let out a long sigh, trying to relieve the tension he had been feeling not just for hours or a day, but for more than a month since he had become involved in the human trafficking trade, betraying his duty as a law enforcement officer. The bribes had been worth the risk, at first, but then as the days had rolled by, his guilt had given birth to paranoia.

  Since the shooting incident involving Campanelli at the DuPage County Airport, which resulted in the exposure of Ignatola’s transportation network, Vanek had gotten little sleep. So little, in fact, that he began to doze right there at the window, his body completely unsupported by anything but his own perpetually tense muscles. His eyes closed and his head drooped.

  He never heard the creaking hinges of the hangar’s back door, nor did he hear the unmistakable patting of leather soles against dust-covered concrete.

  “Vanek!” a voice erupted, startling the three family members awake. Andrea let out a short scream and nearly fell off the desk she had been lying on. Pascha awoke slowly and naturally, his innocent mind having only registered a loud, unidentifiable sound.

  Dmitri shot to his feet, noisily shifting the table into the metal wall. He stood glaring at the newcomer that had exclaimed his name so furiously. Out of habit, he placed his right hand on the weapon tucked into the small of his back. He did not go as far as to draw it, as the man standing in the shadows in front of him already had his in his dangling right hand.

  “Frank,” Vanek greeted weakly. His lips pursed in defeat, though there was relief as well.

  “Chief,” Campanelli returned with heavy sarcasm.

  There was silence for a moment as the two policemen stared at one another. Andrea grabbed Pascha’s hand and led him to join Dmitri at the window, hoping to influence the altercation peacefully. Andrea slowly wrapped her free hand into her husband’s left one.

  “Tell me why I’m here, Dmitri,” Frank muttered in a voice tense with anger. His features were mostly in shadow, though his short white hair and his eyes were perceptible in the muted sunlight.

  “You’re here to stop us from going,” the senior Vanek said.

  “Oh, more than that,” Campanelli went on. “I’m also charging you with conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Are you going to stand there and tell me that you knew nothing about DeSilva’s plan to kill Mayor Jameson?”

  Andrea gasped sharply and gave the detective a look that would shame the Devil. Dmitri closed his eyes irreverently and took a deep breath. When he exhaled, he held Campanelli’s eyes and spoke lowly. “I did not, Frank. I can’t prove it, but I didn’t, and I wouldn’t have let him go through with it if I had.”

  “Well, the shooter missed,” Frank said after a tense moment, “and hit my partner instead.”

  Dmitri’s eyes closed again as he asked, “Is Marcus all right?”

  “He might be.”

  Just then, the side door to Campanelli’s right creaked and shuddered open. “These the people you were looking for, Detective?” the mechanic from across the tarmac asked.


  Without his eyes leaving the Vanek family, Frank said, “Yes, Mister Trane. I thank you for your help.”

  “You need some backup? I can call the station here…”

  “I’ve got this, thank you. Please return to your shop.”

  “Sure,” Michael Trane replied and shut the door.

  “Frank, I…didn’t want to get drawn into this, but…” Dmitri began to ramble.

  “Shut up,” Campanelli told him as he fished through his inside pockets with his free left hand. In a moment, he retrieved a cigarette and stashed it between his lips. “I wanted you to know that most of the pilots that work for DeSilva have been arrested. All but two.” He paused to use his lighter, which brought a flickering yellow glow to his smoke soiled face and clothing.

  “Jesus, Frank,” Dmitri spat nervously, “you’ve been through hell.”

  Frank chuckled briefly as he closed the lighter and took a puff of tobacco. “You can say that. The Church of the Divine…whatzit-hoozits…burnt to the ground with me in it.”

  Dmitri, knowing Frank’s past experience with fires, began to sweat. He shifted nervously and swallowed.

  “Oh, and DeSilva’s dead. Ignatola’s arrested. So is Del Taylor,” Frank listed off-handedly.

  “So, did DeSilva tell you where to find us?” Dmitri interjected.

  “Only because he thought he had me cornered and was about to shoot me,” Campanelli explained deliberately, “all while his castle was going up in flames around him.”

  The Vanek family was silent as they watched the Sentinel Detective saunter forward into the sunlight that angled through the windows behind them.

  “While this rally was happening,” Frank pushed on, “DeSilva had a couple of devout followers take Tamara from her restaurant just before they set it on fire, too. You also told him about me…about my vision and he nearly killed me after blinding me with an implant inhibitor. You almost got me, Williams and Tamara killed,” Campanelli finished with a tight voice filled with barely restrained fury.