BA Hammer Blue Flu Ch. 05

I sat in a police interrogation room for two hours waiting for them. They love to do this to people. I know, I was once one of them. I relaxed as much as I could and waited. You can concentrate on your breathing patterns and think about that. It will slow your heart rate down and pass the time.

Baker finally came into the room. He sat down in front of me and waited. "Okay, Hammer, let's have it."

"Have what?"

"Why you and your buddy killed Chang?"

"Baker, you must be stupidest cop in the precinct. You know we didn't kill him. We didn't have time if we wanted to. We weren't in that room more than a minute before you busted in. It was almost as if you knew we were coming."

"Save it. We'll see about that."

"Yeah, we will. I want to see my attorney. I'm saying nothing until he is here." Baker and I stared at each other for a moment. I finally looked at the glass window. "You going to call my attorney, or do we just sit here and stare at each other?" Baker finally got up and left.

They finally took me to a phone. I called Brick. "Sorry about it being so late. I'm going to need you to come to the 21^st precinct. Me and Ike have been arrested for murder."

"What the fuck? I'll be right there." Brick was there in 30 minutes. They brought him into my holding cell and left us there.

"We found a witness and were on our way to pick him up. We entered his apartment. Before we could get across the living room, a man burst by us. I chased him down the stairs and into the alley. The police were waiting for me there. When they took me up to the apartment, Ike was handcuffed, and the witness had two bullet holes in him. That's it."

"Okay, say nothing to anyone. I'm going to talk to Ike." He knocked on the door and they let him out. He went to talk to Ike.

A couple of hours later, the door opened, and Brick came in. "You have been released."

"What about Ike?"

"They are going to hold him. I think they are going to charge him with something."

Brick led me out of the room, down the hall, and up to the sergeant's desk.

"Here's your things, Hammer." The sergeant pushed an envelope toward me.

"Where's my gun? It hadn't been fired."

"They are holding it for tests."

Brick and I went out into the night. We are in everything I was afraid of getting into.

"I don't think they are going to charge you with anything. What did you say to them?"

"I basically called Baker stupid and told the window to get me you or we could sit here all night."

"Go home. We can get together tomorrow and figure out our next steps."

The next morning, I went with Brick to see Ike. The sergeant at the desk wouldn't let me go in with Brick. He said they had orders from Baker that only his lawyer could go in.

"I'm sorry Mr. Hammer, but Baker was sure you were going to come with him, (pointing at Brick) and he said I'd better not let you in."

"Don't worry sorry, sarge. I'll take care of it." I called Ed and told him about Baker. He came down in a few minutes.

"It's okay, Sergeant. You can let him go with Mr. Eisenhower's attorney. He is the investigator. I'll clear it with Baker." The sergeant nodded and gave me a visitor's pass.

"Thanks Ed. I'm sorry for this." He just patted me on the shoulder and left.

We went into the room and waited for Ike. They brought him in after a few minutes.

"So good to see you, Ike. I'm sorry for getting you into this mess."

He shook his head. "We knew what we were getting into. There's no way they can make this stick."

Brick opened his notebook to take notes. "We'll see about that. They will have to give whatever evidence they have to me. That will give us a place to start. How about you tell me exactly what happened."

For the next hour, Ike recited what we did from his perspective. We then discussed options for a while. Finally, Baker appeared at the door.

"Okay, time's up, boys."

Brick didn't get up or look up. "Lieutenant, I will leave when I am finished. If you have any doubt about that, I certainly can get a judge to explain it to you. So, close the door behind you." Baker fumed. I could tell we were going to have a problem with him. He finally turned and left.

"He has a real hard-on for us. He knows we are investigating them. Ike, be very careful in here." I didn't like this at all.

"No, I have already asked a judge to have him put in solitary with a special guard. I should have the order this morning. A person charged with killing a cop is supposed to get it, but they are bad about wanting the inmates to take of their dirty work. I may sort of wait for the call to go and get it."

"I'll tell Ed about it. I'm sure he will make sure nothing happens too soon."

Brick got the call from his office about the order, and he went to get it. I called Ed and explained about the order. He came down and met me in the hall. He then went to the desk sergeant and told him about the court order, and that they must put him in a special cell with a guard. He told the sergeant to give him the name of the officer who will be on duty. He will hold him personally responsible if anything happens to Mr. Eisenhower. The desk officer called his supervisor. He and Ed made the arrangements and I left. I would really like to see Baker's face when he finds out about this.

I got back to my office and settled into my "thinking" chair.

We are back to square one on a witness. We need that list of members. I'm sure that is one thing that is not on any computer. God knows I would never trust any computer being hack proof, especially after seeing Zorro work. It must be written down but secured somewhere carefully. My guess would be Marcus Daley's office.

The subtle portion of our investigation is over. It's time to move on to the next phase. I called Jerry Kramer and asked him to come by my office.

While I was waiting for him, I decided it was time to take better measures. We have an electronic eavesdrop expert in Ike's company. His name is Miles Zane, but everyone calls him "Spook". He's really quiet and sneaky. He comes and goes, and I never hear him come or go. I asked him to come and see me. When Jerry came in, Spook was right behind him.

"Spook, I am sure your offices and my offices are going to be bugged very soon, if they aren't already. I need this room to be bug proof. We must have a place where we can talk openly. But if you find a bug somewhere else, let me know before you remove it."

"Got it, chief. I'll use a white noise generator with a special personal touch. No microphone will be able to penetrate here. It's easier here because you don't have any windows in this room. The other rooms might be venerable to mics through the glass. Your phones can be tapped. We'll never know for sure."

"If you find a tap on our phones, don't remove it. Let them think they got us, and we'll use it against them if we can." Spook nodded and left.

"Jerry, thanks for coming. You heard about what happened to Ike and me?" He nodded. "They killed our witness and are trying to pin it on Ike. We are filling out how their organization works. However, we have a list of ninety-nine numbered accounts offshore and we have only been able to identify fifteen so far. Eighty-four unidentified cops that are out to get us makes me nervous. I want to start following the two top honchos to see if there is any place they go often that might be worth looking into. Can you have your people follow Marcus Daley, the police union president, and Captain Emanuel Gonzales. He's the head of their fake charity. You will need to be very careful and rotate men often, so they never see the same person. Is that something you are willing to do?"

"Yes, I'll do it. I can bring people in from out of town to work with my guys. Between them I can use a pair on each team."

"Great, I'll cover the expense."

"No, you won't. My men died in that explosion. I'm going to see these bastards die, every single one of them. We'll cover this together."

"Thanks, Jerry, and I am sorry for your men." We shook hands and he left.

I hated to do this again, but I needed Zorro. He was really going to be pissed. I texted him and waited. It didn't take long. All I got was a "NO". It would take something special to get him this time. I went with the oldest incentive, money. I texted him with a dozen dollar signs. That should at least make him think. I may have a back door to the list. He finally sent an address.

I arrived at the address after I had taken several taxis. I am sure I am being followed now. He was as happy as I thought he would be.

"If you don't stop texting me, I will stop giving you a phone."

"I get it, but this time it is worth your while, financially speaking. This organization of yours must be expensive."

"How do you propose to make it worthwhile to me? I already can take enough money to get by."

"How does a couple of million sound? And it's completely dirty. No one would ever be able to say anything about it."

"Why are you telling me about it? Why don't you want it?"

"Because now they have arrested my friend and charged him with murder. I am going to burn their little playhouse to the ground. I don't care about their money; I just want to make sure they don't have it."

"So, this is the Cayman Island numbers I found for you. Bad cops, right?"

"Yeah. If we could drain their accounts and let them find out about it, it should start the rats turning on each other. The question is, can you get into the records of the bank to see the names attached to each account?"

"That wouldn't help much without the eye scan of each person."

"Well, yes and no. One of them turned in to us how they are doing that without going to the Cayman Islands. They have a program that they can use to go online and verify their scans and withdraw money from here. Once we have the names of the individuals, you could use a picture of each to access their account, correct?"

Zorro sat back and thought about it for a couple of minutes. "I don't think it's been done, but I bet I can do it. What do you want to do with the money?"

"I don't care. Keep it. Put it in another account. Give it away, I don't care. I just don't want them to have it any longer. Let's get them fighting amongst themselves. I just need a little for the families of the five men that died in the blast. The rest is yours, for all I care. The thing I need the most is a list of who these dirty cops are. I need to know which cops are clean and which are dirty."

"We might be able to do business. I haven't hacked into a banking system in years. Let's see how much they've improved since then. I'll use this phone when I need to see you." He handed me a new phone and I left.

I got a call from Brick on my way back to the office. I went straight to his office.

"I've gotten what they say is their evidence. I thought we'd go through it together."

He took out the folder and laid each paper on his desk. There was a picture of a throw away gun that they said was the murder weapon. There was a police report of Chang being threatened by the two of us that "he" had turned in a couple of days before he died. The reports of the two cops from each of the two cars that responded to the call. A printout of the 911 call that "brought" the police in the first place.

That was it for now. I wanted Brick's assessment. "How does this stand up as a case?"

"A barebones case. They will fill in the details later. I could try it with this, if the details hold up."

"Observations. One, the gun didn't have a silencer. We heard no shot, even when we were coming up the stairs, and there were no doors on the stairwell. That means he had to be shot before we can into the building. However, someone buzzed us in when we rang his apartment. Someone had to be there. That was the man who ran by us when we came in. Two, why had he stayed? He had to have killed him at least five minutes before he buzzed us in. Was he waiting for us, and why hadn't he left before we got there? He had the time. There had to be a reason he waited. Three, we came into the room with our own guns. If we came to kill him, we would have been wearing gloves and not carrying our own guns in addition to the throw away."

Brick nodded. "All good points, especially about the man waiting. There must have been something real important to make him take that chance. How long do you estimate it took you to run down the stairs and out into the alley and run into the cops?"

"No more than three or four minutes. They were just sitting there. We can add the names of those four cops to the list of dirty cops. They wouldn't have wanted any clean cops around for this. That gives us nineteen names. We need eighty more."

"That's your problem. My problem is blowing up this made-up case."

"There is one other thing. How did the cops get through the front door. When we got back to the apartment, there was Baker and the other two cops. Did they buzz any of the residents? Do the police have a master key to get into the building? We will need to talk to the manager to see."

"Okay. You talk to the manager and the neighbors to see if anyone let them in. I am going to go for the forensics on your gun, Ike's gun, and the murder weapon. It's time I had a talk with the DA."