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The drive will take less than fifteen minutes. I should be in Manhattan within a couple of hours.
The plane is an Embraer Phenom 300, a light jet with a capacity for up to eight people and can fly up to 1,800 nautical miles. It’s already on the tarmac and the pilot is waiting when I arrive, my limo driving right up to the private entrance and over to where it sits. I climb up the ladder and take a seat, my bags brought up by the flight assistant.
I buckle in, accept a cup of much-needed coffee from the assistant, and open my iPad to read the latest news. I scroll downto find theNew York Timestwitter feed for breaking news, and there it is — the news of my brother’s death.
Breaking: 21-year-old Liam O’Connor, son of business magnate Ronan O’Connor, was pronounced dead on the way to NY Presbyterian after a drug overdose. He was in the company of 31-year-old Sergei Andropov, the son of business magnate Yuri Andropov, after spending an evening at the popular nightclub, NUAGE.Speculation has it that O’Connor took tainted ecstasy laced with fentanyl, leading to his overdose. This tragedy is the seventh overdose due to tainted ecstasy this year…
I want to talk to someone — anyone — at the NYPD to find out what they know about my brother’s death. I wrack my brain to think of someone I know at the local precinct, but my only contact retired a few years earlier — a friend of one of my fellow Rangers from New York, whose father was in the NYPD.
I know I’ll be briefed fully when I arrive at home, but I find it hard to wait. I’m impatient to learn who was responsible for giving him the drugs.
I want to find what happened and bring those responsible to justice.
I call my old buddy Tom Gaines, despite the fact it’s still only 5:30AM. He and I joined up the same year. We’d gone on a couple of missions together before he was injured and was sent home on disability, having lost the use of his legs when a piece of shrapnel from an IED severed his spinal cord.
He answers on the second ring.
“Hey,” he says, his voice sounding surprised. “What’s up? Must be an emergency for you to call this early.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Look, my kid brother died due to an overdose. I need to know the name of someone to contact in the Ninth Precinct to act as my contact. Do you know anyone there?”
“Oh, man. So sorry to hear that. Liam, was it? I remember him. Great kid. Yeah, let me think,” he says and pauses for a moment. “Detective Frank Pearson. I grew up with his brother. He’s a good guy. He works in Major Crimes so he should be able to keep you up to date.”
Tom gives me Pearson’s contact number at the NYPD and wishes me well, saying something comforting about Liam.
“It’s gonna be tough for a while,” he says. “I know how long it takes to recover after the death of a family member, especially one so meaningless, so be patient.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I appreciate your help with this.”
We say goodbye and promise to meet up for a drink when I return to Manhattan, after everything.
I lean back and close my eyes, trying to get some rest before we land, which is in less than thirty minutes.
By the time I feel the plane start to descend, I’ve planned out my first moves when I get back to Manhattan. I’ll deal with my brother’s funeral first, assure my father that I’ll help with whatever I can, and then I’ll call Pearson and introduce myself. While I know there will be officers assigned to the case, I want someone on the inside, who knows what’s going on and won’t have to watch what they say to me. If Pearson can be trusted, he can give me the inside dirt on the investigation.
When we touch down and then taxi to the terminal, I feel tired but determined to find out what happened, who was responsible, and put in place a plan to exact revenge.
I don’t know what that plan will entail, but I know there will be a plan.
And I will avenge my brother’s death.
Whoever did this, whoever gave him the drugs and whoever bought them will pay.
After the flight from Norfolk, I arrive in Brooklyn and my limo drives up to the guardhouse that watches over my father’s mansion. The guard comes over to me and leans in, hands on hips, asking for my ID like I’m a stranger.
I show him my Driver’s License and watch as guard glances down and then up at my face twice.
“Sorry, Mr. O’Connor. I didn’t recognize you.”
I wave his apology away. I haven’t been to the property for almost five years.
The limo takes the driveway to a small parking lot near the entrance where the driver drops me off. I carry my rucksack into the house and when I enter the living room, my father, older brother and several of my other family members are in the living room, drinks in hand.
I’m shocked at how much reduced my father is from his former health and vigor.
He sits in a wheelchair, one half of his face drooping, one hand lying limp in his lap. He’s wearing his Sunday best — a crisp white shirt, dark suit that highlighted his steel-grey eyes, his mop of greying hair and his black bow-tie characteristics that makes him immediately identifiable.
He can barely talk, the corner of his mouth wet with drool.
