“You know what the odds are of this working?”
“Very slim,” I said.
“What about Gallagher?”
“I want to leave him out of this, for now. I can’t afford to burn that bridge, not while there’s a chance of him seeing the light and letting Bryan go. Or at least extending the deadline.”
“So I’m going to call in the troops, sending them on a wild-goose chase, and conceal information crucial to the investigation? When the commissioner finds out he’ll turn me into a school crossing guard, with a defective whistle.”
“It’s on me,” I said. “If it goes south, you only knew what your people told you, and I withheld the crucial facts. I’ll take the bullet.”
What I was saying was true to a point, but much was left unsaid. Barone would look bad in the process, and he had to know that.
“This is a big ask,” he said.
“Captain, my brother is going to die if we don’t do this, and maybe even if we do. I am asking you to do whatever you can to prevent that from happening, whatever the blowback might be.”
“You know which precincts we’re talking about?”
“I do.” I took a piece of paper out of my jacket pocket, and handed it to him.
He looked at it, and said, “This has to go through the chief.”
I nodded. “He’ll go with your recommendation, as long as you tell him it’s life-and-death.”
“Which is what you’re telling me,” he said, pointedly.
I nodded again. “Which is what I’m telling you.”
He thought for a moment, then went to his desk and picked up the phone, asking his assistant to get the chief on the phone for him. “If he’s not there, find him,” Barone said. “This is Grade One.”
Within twenty minutes we had the authorization we needed and I was on the way out there to organize the operation, which had almost no chance for success.
I was almost there when my cell phone rang. It showed up as “caller unknown,” which gave me hope that it was Gallagher.
It was.
“Stay near this phone,” Gallagher said, instead of “hello.”
“Of course. Why?”
“I may have information you’ll want to hear.”
“Good, but when?” I asked. “Time is running out.”
“I know the timing better than you,” he said. “I just need to confirm something, and maybe save some lives in the process. You’ll be a goddamn hero.”
“I just want my brother alive,” I said. “That’s all.”
“Then hang tight.”
“I will.”
He was quiet for a while, and I thought he might have hung up. “Hello?” I said.
“I needed to know that Steven hadn’t done anything,” he said. Again there was a long period of silence. Then, “I knew, but I needed to know.”
“Please tell me where Bryan is,” I said, but Gallagher ignored my plea.
Instead he said, “Have you ever crossed the line?”
I knew exactly what he meant. “No, I’ve gone to the edge a few times, but never crossed it.”
“Think long and hard before you do,” he said. “Because there is no way back.”
Bryan … we’re making great progress. I just had a conversation with Gallagher that was very promising. He said he was soon going to be telling me information that I’d “want to hear.”
You would have made a great cop, and it’s not too late. All you have to do is give up any hope of ever having a decent house or car, but the upside is that you’ll start getting shot at.
You’re handling this amazingly well, Bryan, and I’m proud of you. You’ve always been miscast as the younger brother, because I’ve always looked up to you.
See you soon …
“What the hell happened here?”
It was the question Tommy Rhodes asked as soon as he walked in, but he had a pretty good idea already. He had seen the car leaving, and gotten a look at the driver.
The door to Carlton’s house had been ajar when Rhodes came in, and the scene was fairly chaotic. William, who had been assisting Carlton throughout this operation, was bleeding slightly from the mouth, and had obviously come in second place in a two-person encounter.
Carlton was doing quite a bit worse. He was screaming in pain, yelling at William to get the car, and holding his arm at an awkward angle. It was obviously broken, and Rhodes saw it as a good bet that the driver who had just left was the source of the break.
“I’ve got a broken arm, that’s what happened.” Then, to William, “Let’s go.”
“Where are you going?” Rhodes asked.
“The hospital, where do you think?”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“That I fell, that I slipped, what the hell is the difference? If you got here on time, maybe this wouldn’t have happened at all.”
He started moving towards the door, but Rhodes closed it.
“What are you doing?” Carlton asked.
“I’m trying to find out what that guy wanted, and what you told him.”
For a brief instant, Carlton’s face reflected some worry along with the pain, but he recovered quickly. “He thought I had Brennan killed.”
“What did you say?”
“That I didn’t, what do you think I said? Damn idiot, he didn’t even know the cops shot the killer.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” Carlton lied. He wanted Rhodes in the dark as much as possible; he didn’t trust him.
“What else did you tell him?”
“Nothing. This hurts like hell, you understand? If they don’t operate on it right away, it won’t heal right.”
“Carlton, you’re not in this alone, OK? Tell me what else you told this guy.”
“For the last time, Rhodes, I didn’t tell the guy anything. Now get the hell out of the way.”
But Rhodes was no longer looking at Carlton; he had nothing more to say to him. Instead he turned to William, making eye contact without saying anything.
William understood the unspoken question, and slowly shook his head from side to side. Carlton didn’t notice the connection between the two of them; he was already heading for the door.
He got his hand to the doorknob when the three bullets hit him in the back, pushing him into the door, before he slumped to the floor.
“Leave him right here; I want him found,” Rhodes said to William.
“He will be.”
“Just the latest victim of the outraged citizens of Brayton.”
William smiled. “They’re out of control.”
Barone had done an impressive job.
Whatever he had said to his counterparts in the three northwest New Jersey counties had certainly motivated them. By the time I got to state police headquarters, officers from all three counties had gathered there. There were probably sixty in total, more than I would have expected could have been spared from other work.
“We’re looking for someone who has been kidnapped and is being held in what we believe is an underground room. Our assumption is that it is a bomb shelter, though we cannot be absolutely positive about that.”
One of the officers asked what made me think it was a bomb shelter, and I said, “The room seems to be soundproof, and fits the design typical of shelters in the sixties. C rations were also found in a metal cabinet, though they have apparently expired.
“We have reason to believe that the shelter has been occupied recently, as there is a satellite television hookup that is operable and in use.”
I showed them pictures of Bryan; I didn’t mention that he was my brother, but it’s likely that some of them made the connection because of the name, and the rather slight resemblance between us.
“There is a complicating factor,” I said. “A major complicating factor. There is a limited air supply, scheduled to run out soon. So there is no time to lose.”