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“Executed.”
“And so we have the killers positively identified—and can give the families of the O’Briens their closure—but we do not have who hired them to make the hit. So we have closed one case without an arrest—”
“Some in the business call that solving crimes by eraser,” Washington said.
“—but wind up with what will no doubt become a cold case on the killers’ killer. Meanwhile, the cartels are still calling in hits. And they have an endless pool of hit men. Byrth said the ones who killed Tomas were in the Tejas Familia prison gang. They’d been recently released, and probably working off debt accumulated while in jail.”
Payne paused, then added, “This is usually where I make the wisecrack that that’s what’s known as job security in our business. Except the next one they’ve threatened is Mickey O’Hara.”
“And he said he’s not worried,” Washington said, incredulous.
Payne shook his head. “He said O’Brien had more material beyond the heroin story, and was going to run it.”
Payne gestured at the photograph that was on the desk that showed Tyrone Hooks viewing the glass display cases in the casino jewelry store.
“Meanwhile, we have this bastard casing the place approximately fifteen minutes before the robbery. And there’s video, sharp and clear, of the whole thing going down. But these guys were very good. First, they entered from four different directions, and as they did, they (a) kept their hoodies up and (b) kept their heads down so that their faces were not visible to cameras, then (c) quickly converged at the retail mall and pulled bandannas over their faces. So all we’ve got is four guys in black outfits robbing the jewelry store.”
“And this Tyrone Hooks character,” Coughlin said, gesturing at a photograph on his desk.
Payne nodded.
“Who,” he said, “is now pretty much a dead man walking, according to Tony Harris. If Sully O’Sullivan is to be believed, and I see no reason not to. We need to bring Hooks in—if only for his own safety—except we don’t dare try to grab him at the rally with this crowd around.”
He motioned in the direction of the Executive Command Center and added, “Looking at the rally site, we’ve gone over every viable scenario, and it would be suicide to try.”
Next door, two of the three banks of flat-screen monitors in the ECC showed various views of the Stop Killadelphia Rally at the Word of Brotherly Love Ministry in Strawberry Mansion. The vast majority of these were proprietary feeds from police department cameras—from those on the undercover PECO van to the tiny ones affixed to the helmets of the four Mounted Patrol Unit officers watching the crowd. The third bank of nine monitors showed the live feeds of the news media covering the event.
“While you can’t slay the dragon until you lure it from its cave,” Payne said, “no one can touch Hooks in that contentious crowd.”
“Which is why I’m glad you decided not to attend the rally, Matty,” Coughin said. “Wise decision.”
“The last thing I intend to do is give Skinny Lenny the satisfaction of me backing down,” Payne said, “but I faithfully took heed of Jason’s warning that Public Enemy Number One being there would probably be the spark that ignited the powder keg—or words to that effect. And that igniting that keg would play right into Lenny’s hand, which would be worse than me backing down.”
He paused, then added, “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what, Matty?” Coughlin said.
Payne shrugged. “All the posters of dead bad guys, all the protesting over dealers taking each other out.”
“You don’t?” Coughlin almost snapped, his tone incredulous.
Payne shook his head. “They’re making it out like it’s a bad thing. The miscreants all had long lists of priors. You’d think they’d be thanking us.”
Coughlin grunted. Washington silently shook his head.
“The innocent victims, the anger over their loss, that I get,” Payne said. “But here’s Lenny lumping them all together—and sharing the stage with this thug Hooks. That I really don’t get. Anyway, all our guys are in position to grab Hooks—but right after the rally, and away from the view of the crowd.”
“What’s the latest estimate of crowd size?” Washington said.
“Between twenty-five hundred and three thousand. And growing.”
“Carlucci suggested we send up Tac Air,” Denny Coughlin said. “It took some doing, but I talked him out of it. We don’t need the presence of a helicopter giving the suggestion of an occupying force. I told him that the helos are on standby and if necessary can be there in minutes.”
The Aviation Unit’s tactical aircraft—“Tac Air”—had added, with the help of Department of Homeland Security federal dollars, a pair of Airbus
AStar helicopters to its fleet of Bell Rangers.
“Good idea,” Payne said. “Ghetto birds hovering overhead screams police militarization, which would only give Lenny something else to scream about.”
