Jimmy Murphy sat at the bar in O’Grady’s Tavern nursing his second Corona Extra, watching the action in the place in reflection in the mirror over the bar. O’Grady’s was hopping tonight. Three of the pool tables were in use and all of the booths had been taken. Detective Soul Cooper sat at the booth with an order of nachos in front of him. He greeted Tom Graves and Marvin Rabinski who slid into the booth next to him. Both of them were a little worse for wear having tangled with Robert McCall. Tom Graves, the Rat Catcher, had a cut above his right eye that had had to have stitches. Marvin Rabinski had been knocked unconscious and dragged twenty feet behind some oil drums in the construction site. He was bruised and was walking with a pronounced limp. Frank Macamber was playing pool with Pete Hightower. Jimmy could see that Macamber’s mood was murderous. He sank two balls that rocketed across the table. He acknowledged his fellow Elite members with barely a glance.
That was when Jerry Kilpatrick entered the pool hall.
Jimmy had expecting him sometime during the evening. McCall had not said when he would arrive. He was casually dressed, as were the other members of the squad. He made a signal to Macamber and slid into the booth with his fellow cops. Macamber sank the last ball with a vicious swipe and headed for the back of the bar. Pete Hightower followed him. Macamber gestured to the booth behind the Elite table. Jerry nodded and sat down there. Pete Hightower slid in opposite him. McCall had warned that there might be bad blood between Macamber and Jerry Fitzpatrick, but in the gilt mirror over the bar Jimmy had no hint of that. Jerry was talking earnestly to Macamber.
Jimmy jumped up and moved to the restrooms. He passed Macamber’s table. He only heard a fragment of their conversation. Jerry’s voice was low, almost drown out in the rowdy atmosphere. He was saying: “…moved her from Bellevue to a private facility called Rosewood Clinic outside of Trenton, New Jersey.”
There was no time more because Jimmy was past them. He washed his hands in the restroom, allowing the minimal time he figured he needed to be away from the booth and went back through the door into the small corridor. A blast of sound greeted him as he walked to the first booth where Macamber was saying: “…finish this once and for all.”
The Elite were all standing up now. Jimmy watched them moving to the doors of O’Grady’s Tavern. He noted that Jerry Fitzpatrick went with them. By the time Jimmy reached the bar and slid back onto his stool, the rest of the cops were gone. Jerry was the last one left standing with Frank Macamber. He looked around for a moment as if trying to get a glimpse of McCall, but he was not in the tavern. Macamber said something to Jerry who nodded and both of them moved through the door out into the street.
Jimmy gave it a few more seconds, then he dialed his cell. McCall’s voice picked up.
Jimmy said: “They’re on their way.”
Then he disconnected and took another swallow of his Corona Extra.
The rest would be up to McCall.
The Elite Officers arrived at the Rosewood Clinic in Trenton, New Jersey just before nine o’clock in the evening. The clinic was on its own grounds with pewter driveway gates assessing the property. It was a five-story building with ivy crawling up the walls and several wrought-iron balconies. Red oak and silver birch trees sheltered it amid stretches of manicured lawns. There were lights on in several of the windows. The cops walked up a flagstone path that led up to the main entrance. Frank Macamber led the way. Inside was a foyer in heavy oak paneling. Several lithographs were displayed in muted colors on the walls of Autumn Trees, a sunset seen through Acacia Trees and a magnificent cherry tree in full bloom. A brunette receptionist sat behind a pine desk in front of a desktop computer. She looked up as Macamber strode to the desk. The rest of the squad waited behind him. Macamber opened his wallet to show his badge and ID.
“Frank Macamber, 16th Precinct in New York. You have a new patient who has just transferred here from Bellevue in Manhattan named Alexa Kokinas. She would have arrived about six o’clock.”
“I’ll check for you, Officer,” the receptionist said in soft tones. She checked the computer screen. Macamber was tense and felt the weight of the others behind him. He was stressed, but tonight was the night it would all end. Finally the receptionist looked up. “Yes, the patient is here at the Clinic. Room 419.” She stood up. “I’ll escort you.”
Macamber put away his wallet. “Official police business. We will find our own way up. Thank you for your time.”
He motioned to his Officers and strode to the elevator. Detective Pete Hightower accompanied him. Tom Graves, Saul Cooper, Marvin Rabinski and Jerry Kilpatrick pushed through a door and climbed the stairs.
Macamber punched the button for the 4th Floor. The doors closed and the elevator ascended. He was aware of Hightower’s tension immediately.
“You got something to say to me, Pete, spit it out.”
“Assaulting Alexa Kokinas was one thing,” Hightower said. “The bitch had it coming. Murder is another whole ballgame. You do this, there’s no going back.”
“She’s already spilled her heart to that vigilante, McCall,” Macamber said. “Forget the fact that she’s deaf. He heard her! He took two of our guys out at that construction site and wiped the floor with them. We will take care of Alexa, then we will deal with McCall. We are in this together, Pete. You got that?”
Hightower nodded. He did not like it, but Macamber made sense. Alexa had to be silenced. Macamber and Hightower stepped off the elevator and entered the ward on the fourth floor. It was quiet, the ambiance restrained. Macamber moved to the nurse’s station and flashed the tin.
“Detective Frank Macamber, 16th squad. You have a patient that has been transferred here from New York named Alexa Kokinas. I need to see her.”
The night nurse, a willowy blonde whose name badge said Holloway, smiled at him. “Yes, Alison said you were on your way up. Alexa Kokinas is in room 419. The doctor just left her. I believe right now she’s sleeping.”
“I need to have a word with her,” Macamber said. “It won’t take long.”
The others of the Elite had filed into the ward. Macamber turned to Hightower.
“Secure the floor,” he murmured. “No one goes in or out until I’m finished.”
Saul Cooper made sure the way into the ward was blocked off. The other rogue cops took positions around the nurse’s station. Macamber looked at the other patients in the ward whose doors were all open. In one room a patient was watching a re-run of an old NCIS episode on television. He was wearing pajamas and a terrycloth robe. He was alone. In the next room, a man of forty was playing scrabble with another patient, also in his forties. Both of them were in pajamas. In the third room a man in his thirties was on the bed watching a ballgame with the sound low. He had a pallor to his face, as if all of the blood had drained out of it. Macamber thought we looked pretty sick. Maybe cancer.
Macamber reached the last room on the floor. He noted that there was no longer a uniformed Police Officer stationed outside. Detective Steve Lansing had obviously pulled the police detail when Alexa had transferred to this facility. Macamber paused, listening to the subdued sounds of the far-away television, the soft murmur of the patients, all of it low-key, barely audible, which suited him just fine.
The third floor of the facility it was eerily empty except for one suite in the center where Detective Steve Lansing sat with headphones watching four monitors. At the nurse’s station, Nurse Holloway was typing on her laptop on the television screen. Lansing noted the old man in room 413, the two men playing scrabble in Room 415 and the sick man in Room 417. The only door that was closed was at Room 419. He watched Frank Macamber approach it. Behind him uniformed SWAT Officers crowded around the monitors.
“Wait for McCall’s signal,” Lansing said, tersely.
Macamber opened the door to Room 419 and closed it behind him. The room had only one bed in it. The bathroom door was ajar, the light off. The room was filled with shadows. There was no sound except for the incessant soft bleeping of one of the heart monitors to which Alexa was hooked up to. Her figure was under the covers, turned away from the door. Her distinctive raven hair glowed in the dimness. Macamber paused once again, listening for any telltale sounds he could not identify. There were none. Alexa was hooked up to two cardiac heart monitors and to an electrocardiogram machine. Macamber unhooked the two machines. He reached into the pocket of his overcoat and brought out a silver garrote wire.
A figure stepped out from the shadows of the ajar bathroom door behind him.
In the third-floor suite, the scene on the last monitor was blurry and grainy. Macamber’s lone figure took a step toward Alexa’s bedside. The strangling garotte caught a flash of light in the shadowy room as Macamber moved forward.
“That’s the signal,” Steve Lansing said. “Move out! Go! Go!”
The SWAT Team were already on the move into the third-floor corridor, moving quickly toward the door leading to the stairs.
In the ward, the nurse came around the counter at the nurse’s station and tackled Saul Cooper, bringing him down to the ground. She pulled handcuffs from her white coat and put the bracelets on him before he could even move. At the same time, the old man in Room 413, Sam Kinney, who had lost interest in his NCIS re-run, was galvanized into action. He flung Detective Tom Graves to the floor. The two other patients in Room 415 and Room 417 tackled Pete Hightower and Marvin Rabinski respectively. Neither of them had idea what had hit them.
The door to the ward was flung open and the SWAT team surged in, all of them with their weapons drawn. Sam Kinney was struggling with Tom Graves, but the fight was over before it had begun when Graves realized he was surrounded by SWAT Officers. The other “patients” both had their men on the ground. One of them produced a pair of handcuffs from his robe and pulled Tom Graves’s hands behind his back. The other patient had no trouble with Marvin Rabinski who was still recovering from the beating he had received at McCall’s hands. Steve Lansing entered the ward right behind them, his Glock 19 in hand, but he did not think he would need it.
In Room 419 Frank Macamber moved to Alexa’s bed holding the garotte taut in his hands. The figure’s raven hair was splayed across her face. She turned over, as if restless in her sleep.
The figure was not Alexa Kokinas.
An attractive Police Officer held a Sig Sauer .9mm pistol in her hands.
“You’re under arrest, Detective Macamber,” she said, calmly.
The Police Officer threw back the covers, revealing she was wearing jeans, a dark blue t-shirt, and bare feet. But she was slightly off-balance. Macamber’s reaction time was lightning fast. He hit her in the face with a fist that stunned her, at the same time knocking the Sig Sauer pistol out of her hands. He grabbed her long raven hair and slammed her back against the wall. He kicked her legs out from her. He brought the strangling garotte around her throat and pulled it taut.
McCall moved out of the darkened bathroom.
He aimed a vicious punch at Macamber’s kidneys. He grunted, taken completely by surprise. McCall ripped the strangling garotte out of his hands. The female Police Officer slumped to the floor, gasping for breath. McCall dropped the garotte to the floor, hitting Macamber as he turned toward him. The blows struck Macamber in the solar plexus and his face. McCall followed it up with what was called in Muay Thai a Buffalo Punch, designed to take down a charging Buffalo in one hit. That move brought Macamber down to his knees. McCall found the notch right above the collar bone at the base of Macamber’s throat and pressed with his knuckle. But Macamber was stronger than McCall had anticipated. He lashed out at McCall, hitting him below the belt, sending him back against the heart monitor equipment which crashed to the floor. McCall came back with a Kao Tone straight knee strike. Two elbows to Macamber’s face finished him. He collapsed to the floor.
McCall grabbed the young Police Officer who was still trying to get air back into her lungs and deposited her on the bed. He picked up her fallen Sig Sauer pistol and dropped it beside her. Macamber tried to crawl back onto his feet. McCall grabbed him and threw him against the opposite wall with uncharacteristic rage.
“Alexa couldn’t hear you!” McCall shouted at him. “She had to deal with shadows and shapes she didn’t even recognize!”
He grabbed Macamber and threw him against the wall in front of the bed. “She was helpless once you had tasered her! But you were counting on that, weren’t you?”
Macamber was groggy, trying to function. McCall did not give him a chance to recover. He grabbed his shoulders and threw him once again against the far wall.
“Did that pump you up?” McCall raged at him. “Knowing Alexa couldn’t hear where the blows were coming out of the shadows?”
Macamber put up his hands to ward off more blows. McCall grabbed him and connected to his shin. He doubled over and went down to the floor. This time he did not move. McCall stood over him, breathing fast, his hands held loosely at his sides.
From the doorway of the room, Steve Lansing said calmly: “Try not to kill him, McCall. I need him to testify.”
McCall looked up from the shadows and saw Lansing standing in the open doorway of Room 419, a Glock 19 in his hand. Slowly the rage that had been building inside McCall had dissipated. He turned to the bed and lifted the Police Officer back to her feet. She was pissed that Macamber had got the jump on her. She shook out the handcuffs and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“You have the right to remain silent, Frank. Whatever you say may be held against you in a court of law. You know the speech. Try to walk so I don’t have to carry your ass.”
She dragged Frank Macamber through the open door of Room 419. Detective Steve Lansing holstered his weapon.
“Policeman Jessica Daniels. She usually works vice for me at the 7th Precinct. I think her feelings were hurt. She is used to dealing with drug dealers and street gangs. Macamber was tougher than she realized. You okay?”
McCall slowly nodded. The fury that had taken over him had subsided.
“Remind me to never piss you off,” Lansing murmured. “Don’t worry about the smashed heart equipment. Just props.”
McCall followed Detective Lansing out of the room, closing the door behind him.
He looked out at the chaos in the ward.
It had all been a set-up.
The Rosewood Clinic in Trenton, New Jersey and not been officially opened as yet. The building was going through extensive repairs and had been closed for four months. The Receptionist who had greeted Frank Macamber and his Elite cops worked as a Security Consultant. The staff in the ward on the fourth floor had been assembled with Detective Steve Lansing’s help. The computers were new and never been used. Nurse Holloway was in fact Detective Linda Holloway of the 7th Precinct. The two Scrabble Players in their thirties were vice cops named Chris Fellows and Bobby Stevens who also worked at the 7th Precinct with Steve Lansing. The sick man was Detective Ray O’Quinn who worked vice at the 7th Precinct. The old man who had been watching the NCIS re-run on his television, which had been just hooked to cable that day, was Sam Kinney. He looked triumphant, although McCall could see he was wheezing from tackling Detective Tom Graves. McCall had been worried about Sam, but the old spy had jumped at the chance to get “back into the action”. He gave McCall a thumbs-up sign.
The SWAT Officers had rounded up all of the Elite cops and taken them into custody. Officer Jessica Daniels handed Frank Macamber over to the SWAT team. McCall noted that Jerry Kilpatrick was handcuffed with the others. McCall took Steve Lansing arm and nodded at Jerry.
“Jerry Kilpatrick helped me set up the sting on the Elite. He comes from a prestigious family of cops. Three generations. I have already talked to the Assistant District Attorney, who happens to be my ex-wife, Cassie Blake, about Jerry Kilpatrick. She is going to consider a plea-bargain for him. He never actually raped Alexa Kilpatrick, but he allowed the assault to happen. That in itself was bad enough, but Frank Macamber was a powerful influence on all of them. Jerry feared for his life and the lives of his family.”
Lansing nodded. “I already talked to Cassie,” he said. “Macamber is being arrested on attempted murder and the other members of the Elite are looking at rape and conspiracy charges. She is working out a deal for Jerry Kilpatrick. He may not have to serve any jail time.”
“Let me know how that goes.”
McCall looked at the rogue cops being hustled out into the corridor to the elevators. Frank Macamber turned around to look back at McCall with murder in his eyes. Then the Elite were being taken down the stairs by the SWAT Officers.
“I didn’t think anyone could bring down these rogue cops,” Lansing said. “I alerted the Captain at the 16th Precinct as to what was happening. He was appalled by the magnitude of the crime his detectives had committed. He is my next call. He will not be sorry to hear about Frank Macamber. He had been trying to nail him for two years.”
Lansing held out his hand and McCall shook it. “No parting words about vigilantes taking the laws into their own hands?” McCall asked.
“Not this time,” Lansing said. “Just watch your back, McCall. One of these days you’re going to come on a situation you can’t get out of.”
McCall glanced over at Sam Kinney wryly. “You’ve been speaking to my conscience.”
Lansing smiled. McCall headed out of the fake ward and disappeared down the stairs to the lobby.