Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  “Okay, but I want to talk to the police as soon as we do.”

  “Oh, that won’t be a problem, Mr. Burke,” she answered sarcastically. “I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you, too. Now sit down, and shut up!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  O’Hare Airport resembled a large octopus thrown onto the ice from the upper deck of a hockey arena, its legs splayed out in all directions. After the 767 landed, the pilot took a long, circuitous route around the taxiways to the other side of the big terminal, leaving Bob Burke to wonder if Gate C-28 was in Illinois or Wisconsin. As soon as the seat belt light went off, he tried to step over Charlie and head for the exit door; but Sabrina Fowler, now much-less-than-friendly, would have none of it. She stopped him with a long, pointed index finger before he took two steps up the aisle.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she jabbed him in the chest again and drove him back into his seat. “You neither,” she said as she turned her wrath on Charlie.

  “Me? What did I do?” Charlie asked.

  “You’re with him, that’s enough.”

  With a heavy sigh, Burke returned to his seat, looked out the window, and waited, knowing it was now far too late to try to help that woman, if he ever could.

  After the last of the other passengers “deplaned,” Sabrina finally returned, gave him a thin smile, and motioned for them to gather their bags and follow her. On the ramp beyond the exit door stood two uniformed Chicago Police Officers and Detective Lieutenant Ernie Travers. Big and beefy, Travers wore a cheap, blue business suit that hung on him like a wrinkled old sack and might have come from the “2-For” rack at JCPenney. Hard to blame the man, Burke thought. When you do “cop work” these days, bloodstains, sweat, food, coffee, and rubbing up against the criminally unwashed will turn most of your clothes into throw-aways. Besides, with Travers’s body type, he needed a roomy fit to cover what Bob Burke immediately recognized had to be a large handgun in a shoulder holster under his arm, as well as the handcuffs, notebook, two-way radio, and all the other assorted cop-crap that even a plainclothes officer was required to carry these days. The Army solved that problem several wars earlier by issuing their men cheap utility fatigues, but that was not an option for a police detective.

  Travers stood in the center of the ramp outside the airplane exit door, with his arms folded across his chest, carefully appraising Bob Burke as he approached. Bob was doing the same thing, and they both knew it, noting Travers’s hands, his body language, and looking into his eyes. Observing things like that was the way Burke was trained, and apparently Travers was too. For the briefest of moments, their eyes met and the first spark of mutual recognition passed between them. The beefy Chicago cop was a head-and-a-half taller, at least sixty or seventy pounds heavier, and twenty years older. For the same reasons, Bob figured he must look very ordinary and even a bit dorky to the big cop. Of average height and weight, Burke was more fit and trim than his professionally-tailored suit revealed. The shirt collar and cuffs on Ernie Travers’s were graying and frayed and his ugly green-plaid tie must have been a throw-in with the suit, while Bob Burke’s entire outfit appeared expensive and new. His shirt collar was unbuttoned and his silk tie hung loose at the neck, but that was typical of most other businessmen passing through the terminal late any afternoon. Like the others, he carried a briefcase; but his was thick and well worn, as if it weren’t for show and he actually carried things inside that he might use for business. The same was true for his watch. It was a cheap, black-faced Timex army model with an olive-drab, nylon wristband. Look as he might, Travers could not see any tats, earrings, or gaudy “bling” hanging around this man’s neck.

  “I understand you want to talk to the police,” Travers said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that now,” Burke replied realizing this would be a massive waste of time. “I saw a woman being attacked back there…”

  “Back there? You mean in the airplane? Back in coach?” Travers quickly asked.

  “No, no, outside, on the ground. I was looking out the window as we came in to land, and I saw a man chase a woman across one of the rooftops. He knocked her down, jumped on top of her, and started strangling her.”

  Travers studied him for a moment. “You were looking out your window, and you saw this happening as your plane came in? I guess you have pretty good eyes, Mr.…”

  “Burke, Bob Burke.”

  “You got some ID, Mr. Burke?” Travers asked as he held out his hand, looking both bored and angry in equal measure.

  Burke complied, pulling out his wallet and handing Travers his driver’s license and a business card.

  Travers studied them both for a moment. “What brings you to Chicago?”

  “I live here, in Arlington Heights, as you can see from the address on my IDs.”

  “And this business of yours, Toler TeleCom?”

  “It’s in Schaumburg. We design and install advanced telecommunications systems. Some are business applications, and some are highly-classified projects for the Defense Department.”

  “Highly classified? And you’re the company president. I’ll bet that requires a pretty-good security clearance, doesn’t it?” Travers asked, thinking Burke might not be a total nut as he slipped the driver’s license and business card into his shirt pocket.

  “My clearances are about as high as you can get, always have been.”

  “I’m sure,” Travers said as he leaned closer and recognized the smell of booze. He looked into Burke’s eyes and could tell he was well toasted. “What’s that, bourbon?”

  “Actually, a couple of scotches, neat,” Burke replied.

  “A couple? He drank three, and they were all doubles,” Sabrina Fowler chimed in.

  “Ah, another country heard from,” Travers turned toward her with a thin, unforgiving smile. “And you were working First Class? Miz…” he asked as he read her nametag. “Fowler? Which means you’re the one who served him all those drinks, and the one I have to thank for saving me from that hot meatball sandwich up in the office?”

  “Oh, give me a break, Lieutenant,” she answered angrily.

  Travers turned his stare back on Burke. “Look, it’s late and I’m tired. I’ll give you a one-time free pass if you’re straight with me, Mister Burke. Did you really see something down there, or is this a few too many scotches talking?”

  “You got a lie detector?”

  “No, and I don’t have a breathalyzer on me either,” Travers glared.

  “Guess we’re even then,” Burke glared right back. “Detective, I know what I saw; so are you gonna keep standing here busting my chops, or are we going to go back there and look?”

  “Back there? Exactly where do you suggest ‘there’ might be, Mr. Burke?”

  That was when the pilot and the rest of the cabin crew came down the aisle behind them, carrying their bags and hoping to squeeze through and head for their hotel, but Travers held up his hand like a traffic cop and stopped them at the door. “Captain Schweitzer,” Travers said, reading the pilot’s nametag. “Give me some help here. This gentleman says he saw a woman being attacked on a rooftop as you came in to land. From the time you were low enough for him to see something like that, until you reached the runway’s outer lights, that’s gotta be what? Four or five miles, at a couple of hundred miles an hour?”

  “On a clear day like today, yeah. And maybe a mile wide,” Schweitzer added.

  “Okay, let’s say four square miles, maybe more,” Travers concluded, as he turned back toward Burke. “That’s half the suburbs north and west of here.”

  “The building wasn’t that far back, Lieutenant,” Burke countered. “We were pretty low by then, a couple of hundred feet or less, I’d guess.”

  Travers cocked his head and studied him for a moment. “What? You fly airplanes too?”

  Burke crossed his arms across his chest, looked up, and gave the big cop a thin, irritated smile. “No, but I’ve flown enough in them — jets, props, and helicopters, low and fas
t — so you might say I know what things look like up close and personal like that.”

  Travers took a second, closer look. He saw a collection of scars on Burke’s hands and face and recognized the distinctive class ring on his finger. “A West Point ring knocker?”

  “Uncle’s Reform School on the Hudson, class of ’99… What about you? The MPs?”

  “Good guess. Iraq, both wars, but I was in the reserves, ‘summer help,’ as we called it. Something tells me you were neither, right?”

  “Me? Oh, I spent twelve years in the Signal Corps.”

  “Signal Corps?” Travers scoffed. “You don’t look like a telephone guy to me.”

  “Funny, I hear that a lot,” Burke said with an embarrassed smile. “Signal loaned me to the Infantry right out of the Point. I was in a mech battalion, the Rangers and some other things.”

  “Some other things?” It was Travers’s turn to smile. “What? Delta? Special Ops? With the ring and twelve years in, that would make you what? A captain or major?”

  “A major,” Burke said, deciding it was time to change the subject. “What about you, Lieutenant? You still in the reserves?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m a full colonel now, making sure Illinois doesn’t get invaded by Wisconsin with the rest of us ‘weekend warriors,’ Major.”

  “No. no, it’s plain old mister, now, Lieutenant. I hung up the uniform and the rank three years ago. You gung-ho types can have all the excitement now.”

  “Gung-ho types? Boy, have you got that wrong,” Travers laughed. “In six months, I’ll have my twenty-five in and then I’m gone. However, it does sound like you spent some time flying around. Unfortunately, we have one hell of a lot of rooftops out there, Mister Burke.”

  “Agreed, but this was an office building, maybe three stories tall, all blue glass. Almost everything else out there was flat and low, only one- or two-story, so it stood out.”

  “True, but that doesn’t matter,” Travers frowned, thinking. “If the building is out to the west, it’s outside airport property and way outside my jurisdiction.”

  “Your jurisdiction?” Burke snapped angrily. “Look, I saw a woman being murdered back there. What the hell does jurisdiction matter?”

  “Nothing to you, but it opens up a world of legal complications,” Travers said, as he looked away, embarrassed, knowing Burke was right. Frustrated, he turned his attention on Charlie, Sabrina, and the other crewmembers. “Any of you see anything?” he asked hopefully, but all he got in return were shrugs and one loud complaint.

  “Lieutenant,” the flight attendant whined, “I got an outbound to Orlando, first thing.”

  “I’m sure you do, Miz Fowler, but I got a real nice couch up in my office that should help you take a load off those sore feet of yours. By the way,” Travers turned his head and eyed Charlie for a moment, “is this guy with you?”

  “I’m his Vice President of Finance.”

  “Ah, a bean counter. Isn’t that nice,” Travers replied, deadpan. “You can come too.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Sabrina pleaded. “I didn’t see a damned thing.”

  “No, but you’re the only independent set of eyes I’ve got and since you poured all those drinks, you’re coming.” Travers turned back to the pilot. “You too. I have some maps up in my office, and I need you to show me the flight path.”

  Before the City of Chicago opened O’Hare in 1963, it annexed the airport and a narrow corridor of land through the northwest suburbs to physically and legally connect it to the city. The Federal Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, held sway inside the airport’s security checkpoints, in the terminal’s baggage areas, and on its taxiways. The Chicago Police Department’s jurisdiction began outside the checkpoints, and included any non-Federal criminal acts that occurred anywhere on the airport property or within the corridor back to the city. While that seemed like a simple division of labor, it did not account for the hundreds of uniformed and non-uniformed private security guards, county cops, state police, Forest Preserve District police, a dozen separate suburban police departments, US Air Marshals, airline security, and miscellaneous rent-a-cops, who spent most of their time tripping over and frustrating each other. Anyway, that was how Ernie Travers saw it.

  With Travers in the lead and his two uniformed officers bringing up the rear, their small procession worked its way down the long concourse to the main terminal and up a flight of stairs to the small CPD Airport Security Office. It was in the “low rent” district deep inside the second floor. With no windows, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, torrential rain, a blizzard, or even a tornado was only a rumor in here. The office featured a cramped reception area, several small work cubicles, a conference room, and a tiny kitchen barely big enough for a coffee pot. The desks and file cabinets were a mixed bag of US government surplus repainted in an institutional gray. Someone had scrounged a few airline travel posters and taped them to the walls. Cheesy? Perhaps, but the romantic beaches, palm trees, and snow-capped mountains helped hide the faded green paint.

  As depressing as the small office was, it was a plum assignment for a Chicago cop, because it was as far from the department’s big headquarters at 3510 South Michigan Avenue as one could get. Out of sight and out of mind, and without the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the press breathing down your neck, it was the perfect terminal assignment for a senior detective with one too many bullet holes and a history of bad chest pains like Ernie Travers. He trooped everyone inside his conference room, pausing for a moment at his secretary’s desk. Burke saw him lean over, whisper something, and hand her his driver’s license and business card, no doubt to check him out. Burke smiled, knowing that she was about to fall into a very deep DOD black hole.

  The conference room’s far wall was taken up by a large aerial photograph of the northwest suburbs. The airport sat at the center, with runways pointing out in all directions. Travers motioned for Captain Schweitzer to join him at the map. “Show me your approach, what you came in over.”

  The pilot quickly found Runway L-110, and drew a line to the west with his hand. “We were on autopilot, Lieutenant. I may have looked out the front windscreen a couple of times, but my eyes were focused on the instruments, not the ground. Sorry.”

  “Okay, thanks a lot, Captain. I appreciate the help. You can go.”

  “Me too? Can I go?” Sabrina Fowler asked hopefully.

  “Nope. You’re staying.”

  “Why? I told you I didn’t see anything.”

  “Sure you did; you saw him,” Travers replied. “Okay, Mr. Burke,” he said as his hand swept across the map. “I assume you’ve seen more than a few aerial photographs…”

  “Too many, Lieutenant,” Burke answered as he stepped forward.

  “You were on the left side of the plane, looking down at an oblique angle, so I figure this is about what you would have seen,” Travers said as his finger drew a line across the map. “Anything look familiar?”

  “Finally starting to believe me, huh.” Burke answered.

  “I never said I didn’t, but you don’t make it easy.”

  Burke smiled as he stepped closer and let his eyes run across the aerial photo. “The rooftops do look about the same, don’t they?” he said as he tried to picture it all in his mind. “The one that woman was on was light brown. Maybe some kind of gravel?”

  “They call it pea gravel. It protects the surface on some kinds of roofs.”

  “The office building was blue, three stories tall, and I remember a big water tower not too far away, almost in line. It was white, with some kind of green stuff on it,” he said as he pointed to a circular shape. “There! That’s the water tower. You can see the long, circular shadow it throws.”

  Travers stared at the aerial photo. “Figures,” he moaned.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, for starters, it ain’t Chicago.”

  “And it ain’t Kansas, either, Toto. So what?”

  “That’s Indian Hi
lls. Let’s say we tread a little softly out there, that’s all.”

  “A little softly?” Burke questioned.

  “Chief Bentley doesn’t appreciate outside agencies coming into his town. There was some history between him and my predecessor, so I avoid the place whenever I can. Sometimes, he’s not a problem; sometimes he’s a pain in the ass.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “It’s his town, not mine,” Travers shrugged. “But if you don’t like the way I am handling this, I can drop you off at TSA and you can tell them your story. Of course, you might end up sitting down there all night, getting put on their ‘disruptive passenger no-fly list,’ and find all of your nifty security clearances put on hold, but if that’s what you’d prefer…?”

  “No, no,” Burke answered, resigned to his fate.

  Ernie Travers’s secretary walked into the room. “Did I hear ‘Indian Hills,’ Ernie? You aren’t going to drive over there unannounced, are you?” she asked as she slipped him Burke’s driver’s license and business card, and shook her head “no.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll see how it shakes out, Gladys,” he answered as he slid the cards across the table to Burke. “If I need to make a stop, I’ll radio in and have you call the Chief for me.”

  “Bentley? You want me to call that moron?” she asked.

  “I hear he likes to schmooze with secretaries.”

  “Ernie…,” she groaned. “The guy’s a blowhard, and that little pit bull of his, Bobby Joe, is a creep. If he so much as touches me again, I swear…”

  “You have my permission to deck him,” Travers answered. “If he doesn’t want to cooperate, tell him I’ll turn the whole thing over to the FBI or the state cops. His choice.”

  “No matter, he ain’t gonna like it,” she said as she walked away shaking her head.

  “All right, folks, let’s go for a ride,” Travers said firmly as he glanced at Sabrina Fowler again. “All of us. Looks like you all have your carry-ons, so bring them along and we’ll throw them in my trunk.” Now, she was really furious, mostly at Burke. Travers led them out the Airport Security Office’s back door into a lower service area where a large, dark-blue unmarked police cruiser was parked.