BA Hammer Blue Flu Ch. 06

The DA charged Ike with 1^st degree murder the next day. Brick later called to say the preliminary hearing will be two weeks from today.

While I was digesting this news, Spook came to see me.

"We do have a tap on our land lines. I found it in the main exchange in the basement. It's good. I have brought you some burner phones to use whenever you are discussing this case. I'm sure they are using roaming scanners to hit the cell phones. These burners have ghost chips and won't register."

"Thanks, Spook. I'll tell everyone to be careful what they say on the company phones."

Well, I know how to send a message to them now. All I must do is pick up the phone and talk to someone and they will get the message.

I have Zorro working on getting me the names of the rest of Blue Brotherhood. He is also working to move the money from their accounts. I have Jerry Kramer's men following Marcus Daley and Robert Hamilton.

I need to investigate the four cops who were part of the arrest. They all have to be dirty. I doubt any of them are stupid enough to have done something obvious. Maybe less obvious.

I pulled the police reports.

Jamileh Hayes was the arresting officer. He is a thirty-one-year-old African American man from Harlem. He has been on the force for five years.

Hayes' partner is Wilbur Smith. He is a thirty-year-old from upstate New York. He was on Buffalo's force for four years and moved to NYPD three years ago.

The two officers that I ran into are Mary Anne Kensington and Anderson Thomas.

Thomas is a forty-year-old fifteen-year veteran. He was the most senior other than Baker, but he was covering the rear and arrived after the other two officers.

Mary Anne Kensington is the youngest and has been a cop for the shortest. She is only twenty-four and has been a cop for only two years.

That's the lot. The obvious weak link would be Kensington, except she would only do what she was told. Being the fourth officer means you are the runner, nothing else. Their car may have been there for Thomas, not her. We will have to see.

I asked Liz to run whatever she could find on each of them, but to be careful. That was all I could do. I decided to go home. Mary would be leaving soon, and I wanted to see her before she went to the theater.

She was getting dressed when I got home. "How's Ike holding up?"

"As good as he can in jail. Tell Liz he is safe. The trial starts in two weeks. You will need to be careful of the police. I don't think they will try anything until the trial is over, but we need to keep our guard up."

She smiled, hugged me, and headed to the theater. I think I am going to need to give her a bodyguard again.

Tomorrow, I will try and find the manager of Chang's apartment building. I suddenly have a better idea. I'll let Stevie go and see him. Everybody likes Stevie. Maybe he can get something out of him. I called him and asked him to come and see me in the morning.

Stevie was there by the time I got in. I took him into our safe room, and we sat down.

"Stevie, I need you to go and see the manager of the apartment building where Ike got arrested. I need to know how the cops got in that night. Did he let them in, or did they have a key. Did he see anything? What can he tell us about the cop that got killed? You know, the usual, only in your nice way."

"What, I'm always nice, you know that. It's you that get into trouble with people. Everybody likes me."

"Okay, then bring me something I can use to help Ike. By the way, don't say anything on our phones or in the other offices. We think we are bugged."

"You bet." He hopped up and left. I guess now I wait for someone to get back to me. I don't like sitting around doing nothing. Not while friend is in such trouble. But everywhere I go I draw a crowd. I must be patient.

I got a text from Zorro. I had been wondering if he was having problems. It doesn't usually take this long. The message only had an address and said "Send someone else. He must say "Blackberry".

That can't be good. He is paranoid by nature, but that is different. I called Stevie with a burner phone and gave him the address and the password. He said he would go now.

I was on pins and needles for the next hour. If Stevie gets stopped by the cops before he can bring me whatever he has, this entire thing could blow up in our faces. Ike depends on us. Good God, I hate sitting in a cocoon waiting.

After an anxious hour Stevie came in. He was carrying an envelope. We went into our cave.

"That man is spooked. Here is the list of names." Stevie handed me the envelope. "He said the bank's security has gotten much better in the last ten years. They know someone is looking around, but they don't know what or who yet. He said it will take a couple of weeks to figure out how to break into the accounts and move the money. Oh, one other thing, he told me to tell you he was keeping most of the money, but he would set up an account for what you asked for."

"That's money for Kramer's boys' families. That's the least we can do." Stevie nodded.

"Good. That seems like the right thing. I've got to get back to the apartment building and meet with Jesus Martinez. He's the building super. I'll let you know." He was gone.

I looked through the names on the list. He also sent along a picture of each and a brief summary of their lives. They were not all cops. There were city officials in other departments also.

This is bigger than I thought. I guess it's time to call in "Bob Burger". He's an FBI agent I have worked with before. I don't know his real name, and I don't want it.

I put in a call on one of the burner phones. He answered, but he didn't recognize the number. "Who is this?"

"It's Hammer. I'm using a burner phone so I can't be traced. My office phones are bugged, and I think my regular cell phone probably is too."

"This is going to be good. You never just call to say, how's things going, "Bob". No, you've got a war with Russian mobsters, sex slaves to rescue. I'll give you this, you're never boring."

"And this will probably by up to your standards too. Have you ever heard of a para-military police force in New York called Blue Brotherhood?"

"I've heard rumors and rumblings."

"Well, I have a complete member list, and some of the names on this this is very surprising. That's why I'm going to need your help. I'm afraid there are a couple of your agents on this list. We will have to be very careful how we proceed."

Silence, for a long time. "Where'd you get this list?"

"One, you don't want to know. Two, this is the result of Westminster's investigation. We found his witness. They killed him and put it on my man. There are people in many city agencies."

"I will have to take this to Carter. (He was the head of the southern district of New York office.) We will have to begin an investigation. This could take a year."

"I don't have a year. They aren't making Ike take the fall for killing the witness. You can have all the officials except the corrupt cops. They are mine. They have killed several people covering their money laundering and extortion."

"We can talk after I talk to Carter. Can I reach you on this number?"

"Yeah, for now. let me know what Carter says." He hung up.

I separated the cops from the other people on the list. There were ninety cops and ten city officials and FBI agents. Now we know the enemy. The only surprising thing about the list is that Mary Anne Kensington, one of the officers that arrested me, is not on the list. I guess that makes sense, she is newer, and they probably are waiting to gauge her interest.

While I was studying the list Stevie came back. He had interviewed Jesus Martinez, the building super for Chang's apartment building.

"Ok, here it is. The cops do not have a key to get into that building. It is an older building, and it has not been updated. But no-one, cop or anyone, buzzed him that night about getting in. I am not really surprised, however, when you see this. There is another cop living in that building. He was friends with Chang. He said they would ride to work together when they had the same shifts. His name is Omar Ahmed. "

I grabbed the list and found his name there. Chang's name was also on the list, so that is how he knew details of their operation to tell Westminster. "So now we know who probably killed Chang and was the man who flew by me in the dark. He had a place to go hide after he lost me. He was undoubtably the one who buzzed his cop friends into the building that night."

"Let's see if the timeline is correct. When the cops are ready outside, and we are almost there, Ahmed calls his friend and goes to see him. He kills him as we pull up. Something delayed him. the cops. He buzzed us in, but had to wait to buzz the cops in. We were coming up the stairs by the time he had buzzed them in, and he had to hide in the room. At his first chance, he bolted by me and headed down the stairs. When he went out back, he hid until I burst out the door and into the arms of the waiting cops. He then slipped back into the building and went to his apartment. That works. I will tell Brick. Thanks Stevie."

I called Brick and went up to lay this out. The case is coming together.

Jerry Kramer called the next day asking to see me. I suggested his place. It was probably safer.

"My men have been shadowing the two men you ask us to. Hamilton is a typical accountant type. He goes nowhere and does nothing. However, Daley is another matter. He has a few interests outside the police union. we found at least two steady women he sees. This man likes the high life and knows how to spend money. He also has gone to a warehouse near the docks. That building doesn't look like much, but he has gone there twice in the last two weeks. There must be something there."

"Thanks, Jerry. You can pull you men now. I think we will need to see what is in that building."

"Okay, but if you are going to hit it, I need to be there."

"Agreed. However, now I don't want to hit it. I just want to see what is there, quietly. I don't want them to know we are aware of it." Jerry nodded and I left for my office.

I stopped by Brick's office to update him on what we had found.

Brick was thinking about his trial strategy. "I think I am going to put on a defense at the preliminary hearing. The cops are the only thing they have. I have a handwriting expert looking at the "complaint" Chang supposedly filed against you. We know it is fake, we just need to sow a little doubt. Their entire case is based on police testimony. I intend to work each one of them hard. "

"Okay. I am going to try to find out what they have in that warehouse. It can only help us."

"Unless you get caught. That would be a mess."

"Agreed. I must be careful."

Careful is correct. It would be a disaster for Ike's case to be caught in there. I decided to put together a team for this job. I took two of Ike's best men and Spook and had them meet me in the cave. Liz ran the details to the building. It was owned by a holding company. She tracked it through a couple of other holding companies until she found the owner. It was Marcus Daley. Homer would be proud. She is getting good at this computer thing.

"It is my plan to just see what is there. I would like to put a surveillance camera up in the rafters, if possible, to keep track of what they are doing there. "Bear", I'd like you to check out the area. See what is around there, and what their security looks like." Bobby "Bear" Menstrual was one of Ike's best. For a big man he is quite nimble. He can slink around with the best of them. He smiled and headed off for the address.

"Spook, when we get in there, we need to put a camera up, like I said. I would also like to bug the place as best we can."

"Sure. I've got the equipment. We will have to be careful. They probably have a surveillance system. If they do, I can tap into that, and we can piggyback their system. They will never know we are there."

"That would be the best option. We know they will cover everything that is important to them. Get whatever you need to for tonight. When Bear gets back, we will put together a plan."

Everyone headed out to get what they needed.

We reconvened at 9 P.M. that night. Bear went first. "This building is in an isolated area. They picked it well. It would be hard to get to them without them seeing us. We will need some sort of distraction."

"Did you see any cameras in the area? If we can get to the camera without being seen, Spook might be able to do everything we want without going into the building itself."

"Yes, there is a camera on the front right corner. It covers the front and right side. The cord hangs down below it a little. Maybe we can tap it there."

"The problem with that is we would have no where to run our cable. We will probably need to find a connection that is more isolated. How do we find a distraction?"

Bear spoke up. "I did notice there was traffic in front of the building. It was coming from the port."

"That is a possibility. What are the buildings beside this one?"

"There is a deserted building to the right of this building. The two buildings are about twenty feet apart. The camera would see us if we tried there."

"How about at the back of that building? If it is dark in the back, we might be able to slip through unobserved."

That might be our best chance."

"Let's do this. Let's go there and take a look. If we aren't sure we can do this, we will come up with another plan."

It was agreed and we headed out. We parked down the street and walked to the deserted building on the right side. It wasn't too difficult to get into that building. It was an empty, open warehouse. Spook looked for cameras and checked for electronic activity with whatever equipment he had brought. He found nothing suspicious. We moved along the wall to the side of the building next to Daley's building. For an old building in an empty neighborhood, Daley's building had first class security. We moved to the back of the building and went outside. At the corner we surveyed the backside of Daley's building. There was a light in the back, but the side still looked dark. We decided to chance it and one by one slipped across the divide.

Once behind Daley's building, we looked for any wiring that looked out of place. The main power pole was there. There was a door in the back, but Spook found a security wire on it. He found a small hole in the wall and pushed a long hose that had a camera in it. He was able to look at the security on the door. It had the trip connection on the door. We were able to look around the warehouse. It was dark, but there was not much in the back area of the warehouse. The rafter area looked blank. Maybe we should look at the roof.

One of the smaller guys was helped up to the roof. He was gone for five or six minutes. When he came back, he said there were a couple of cupolas giving the building venting. Spook went up to look at what they were. I went with them. I would need to see what we could do.

The cupolas were small domes that had venting on every side. Spook ran his small camera into a vent and looked at the security in it. There appeared to be no security apparatuses on the top of the cupola. There was a camera in the well of the cupola. If we could get the top off, we could splice into that camera, and we would be in. There was a loose wooden board. We were able to pry it open and Spook could reach the camera cable. He began working his magic. It had to be smooth. If he breaks the connection to the camera, the monitors will notice. He carefully slit the rubber cover, and the metallic insulator to reveal the wires to the camera. He carefully squeezed the connector clamp onto the wires. His monitor immediately came to life. He saw what the camera saw. It was time to go. We put the board back and headed down. After we slipped across the divide, we headed to our car. Once there, Spook began running through the entire system they had. He could see every camera, and there were many. They were determined not to be surprised.

Once we got back to the office, Spook headed to his office. He needed to learn their system thoroughly. Everyone else went home.

We are making progress. We will see what they have in the building. Zorro will let me know when he had moved the money.

We are ready. The trial is next.