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Authors: James Patterson
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Brooke’s arms started to cry again.
“YOU FIND THEM!” followed us out the door. “FIND SCOTTY’S KILLER!”
Chapter 33
OTHER THAN BROOKE’S WORDS still ringing in my ears, our ride back to the Bronx was dead silent.
Scott’s multi-agency Drug Enforcement Task Force team was waiting for us in their squad room on the second floor of the 48th Precinct. My Homicide unit was on the fourth. I averted my eyes from the doorway of the muster room Scott and I had met in as I made my way up the stairs.
The guys in Scott’s unit didn’t look like typical cops, even to me. For a second, I thought I’d made a wrong turn and stepped in on a skateboarding club meeting.
The DETF boss, DEA agent Jeff Trahan, was tall and had the longish blonde hair of an aging surfer. Scott’s main backup, or “leash,” as they called him, Asian American NYPD detective Roy Khuong, was so baby-faced he probably had trouble buying cigarettes. New York State detective Dennis Marut had the appearance of an East Asian Doogie Howser. Mountainous, black, draped head to toe in leather and gold, the last team member, Thaddeus Price, looked more like a bodyguard for a gangsta rapper than a DEA agent. I guess that was to his credit.
I stood beneath the buzzing fluorescents, almost wilting under the hard stares of the men.
But after a moment, I realized the expressions were the same ones I’d been seeing all night, looks of loss mixed with anger and shock. Pretty much what I was feeling myself — at least a
part
of what I was feeling.
For a Narcotics team, losing an undercover was a nightmare realized. Like most survivors of homicide victims, they looked like a bomb had just gone off; they were flailing around, looking for some direction, some notion of what to do next.
“We’re here to help in any way we can,” Trahan said solemnly after all the introductions had been made. “Just tell me what we can do for Scott.”
How much longer could I keep this charade up? I wondered as I glanced away from the group’s pain to the water-stained ceiling. A passing Long Island–bound eighteen-wheeler rattled a window that appeared to be painted shut in the corner. I took out my notebook.
“What was Scott currently working on?” I said.
Chapter 34
TRAHAN TOOK A DEEP BREATH and then began. “Scott was our primary undercover on a case we’re making on a couple of Ecstasy dealers from Hunts Point, the Ordonez brothers,” he said. “The older brother is an Air Force pilot who does supply runs back and forth to Germany. Turns out, he’s flying back with just a little more than empty skids on his C-one-thirty. Scott made a couple of midlevel buys with them. We were planning a big one, a quarter-of-a-million-dollar deal, for next week, when we were going to bust them.”
“Had Scott been in contact with them recently?” I said.
“He logged a call with them three days ago,” Roy Khuong jumped in. “But he could have gotten a call tonight — off duty.”
“Would Scott have gone to meet anyone without telling you?” I said.
“Not if he could have helped it,” Roy said. “But undercover is seat-of-your-pants, dangerous work. You know that, Detective. Sometimes you don’t get a chance to call for backup.”
“You’re saying Scott could have been approached by someone unexpectedly, asked to accompany them, and he would have had to do it in order to not make them suspicious,” Mike said.
“Exactly,” said Thaddeus Price. “It happens.”
Trahan added another twist. “Or Scott could even have been approached by somebody from a previous case. Somebody he’d busted who’d gotten out of jail maybe. That’s your worst fear when you’re out there on the street. That you’re going to be in Burger King with your kid and meet somebody you’ve already gone over on.”
I heard my partner groan at what Trahan was saying. There were potentially hundreds of suspects in Scott’s murder.
“First thing we need to do is bring in these
“YOU FIND THEM!” followed us out the door. “FIND SCOTTY’S KILLER!”
Chapter 33
OTHER THAN BROOKE’S WORDS still ringing in my ears, our ride back to the Bronx was dead silent.
Scott’s multi-agency Drug Enforcement Task Force team was waiting for us in their squad room on the second floor of the 48th Precinct. My Homicide unit was on the fourth. I averted my eyes from the doorway of the muster room Scott and I had met in as I made my way up the stairs.
The guys in Scott’s unit didn’t look like typical cops, even to me. For a second, I thought I’d made a wrong turn and stepped in on a skateboarding club meeting.
The DETF boss, DEA agent Jeff Trahan, was tall and had the longish blonde hair of an aging surfer. Scott’s main backup, or “leash,” as they called him, Asian American NYPD detective Roy Khuong, was so baby-faced he probably had trouble buying cigarettes. New York State detective Dennis Marut had the appearance of an East Asian Doogie Howser. Mountainous, black, draped head to toe in leather and gold, the last team member, Thaddeus Price, looked more like a bodyguard for a gangsta rapper than a DEA agent. I guess that was to his credit.
I stood beneath the buzzing fluorescents, almost wilting under the hard stares of the men.
But after a moment, I realized the expressions were the same ones I’d been seeing all night, looks of loss mixed with anger and shock. Pretty much what I was feeling myself — at least a
part
of what I was feeling.
For a Narcotics team, losing an undercover was a nightmare realized. Like most survivors of homicide victims, they looked like a bomb had just gone off; they were flailing around, looking for some direction, some notion of what to do next.
“We’re here to help in any way we can,” Trahan said solemnly after all the introductions had been made. “Just tell me what we can do for Scott.”
How much longer could I keep this charade up? I wondered as I glanced away from the group’s pain to the water-stained ceiling. A passing Long Island–bound eighteen-wheeler rattled a window that appeared to be painted shut in the corner. I took out my notebook.
“What was Scott currently working on?” I said.
Chapter 34
TRAHAN TOOK A DEEP BREATH and then began. “Scott was our primary undercover on a case we’re making on a couple of Ecstasy dealers from Hunts Point, the Ordonez brothers,” he said. “The older brother is an Air Force pilot who does supply runs back and forth to Germany. Turns out, he’s flying back with just a little more than empty skids on his C-one-thirty. Scott made a couple of midlevel buys with them. We were planning a big one, a quarter-of-a-million-dollar deal, for next week, when we were going to bust them.”
“Had Scott been in contact with them recently?” I said.
“He logged a call with them three days ago,” Roy Khuong jumped in. “But he could have gotten a call tonight — off duty.”
“Would Scott have gone to meet anyone without telling you?” I said.
“Not if he could have helped it,” Roy said. “But undercover is seat-of-your-pants, dangerous work. You know that, Detective. Sometimes you don’t get a chance to call for backup.”
“You’re saying Scott could have been approached by someone unexpectedly, asked to accompany them, and he would have had to do it in order to not make them suspicious,” Mike said.
“Exactly,” said Thaddeus Price. “It happens.”
Trahan added another twist. “Or Scott could even have been approached by somebody from a previous case. Somebody he’d busted who’d gotten out of jail maybe. That’s your worst fear when you’re out there on the street. That you’re going to be in Burger King with your kid and meet somebody you’ve already gone over on.”
I heard my partner groan at what Trahan was saying. There were potentially hundreds of suspects in Scott’s murder.
“First thing we need to do is bring in these
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