CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As soon as Jimmy had gotten back to the office, he began updating the task force on the information that he had recently acquired. He had a time and a place that Sully Preston was supposed to meet up with his crew. They were allegedly planning something big. Jimmy wanted to immediately start planning a raid on the motel the criminals were supposed to meet at. Taking down this group before anyone else got killed was a high-priority goal. They had two days to plan and prepare. Thursday night was when the meeting was supposed to occur.

Jimmy had asked Marcus to come by during the planning phase. The task force did not want to include ESU in this raid because they wanted to maintain as much control as possible over both the suspects and any evidence that they could collect. They had all learned the hard way in court that, the shorter the chain of custody for evidence, the better. Marcus came by, but after a quick briefing, said there was probably not much he could offer in the way of Federal support. He could, however, use their expansive list of media contacts to arrange for some healthy media coverage of the bust. Such coverage might be enough to take a little pressure off their backs from the bosses down at 1 Police Plaza.

Jimmy pulled Marcus aside and said, "Some people are a little apprehensive about the media thing. They're worried about reporters blowing our operation before we have a chance to take down the bad guys."

"No worries," Marcus said. "The only people we let in are experienced reporters. They're used to tactical operations and are pretty careful not to get in our way or to tip anyone off ahead of time. Their good behavior is what keeps them on our notify list whenever we head out into the field."

"Good," Jimmy said. "Really appreciate your help on this one, brother."

"Not a problem. Just wish we could offer you something more useful. These days, we are pretty much restricted to stuff related to terrorism. It's not an official mandate, but we don't seem to pursue anything else unless it's pretty high profile. Back when I joined the Bureau, I had no idea it was going to devolve into selective law enforcement driven by politics."

"Sooner or later," Jimmy said. "It always comes back to politics. But, at least at the local level, we can still solve a few crimes in between election campaigns."

The task force had created a staging area just a few blocks away from the motel. They discreetly placed a few detectives around the motel for surveillance. Upon confirmation of the suspect's arrival, the rest of the task force and the media would transition from the staging area to the motel and quickly take down the suspects.

"This is bullshit," Jimmy said. "Why in the hell are we just sitting here?"

"Because there's nothing else to do, right now, Jimmy."

"We should be up there watching," Jimmy said. "At least we would be doing something. Besides, we know what he looks like better than anyone just holding a picture of him."

"Jimmy, they have pictures, video, and even two of the Narco guys who were watching him when we had him in the interrogation room. They know what they're doing. Let them do their job."

"I can't just sit here and…"

"We got something," someone from the surveillance team reported over the radio.

"Yeah, that's Preston's vehicle. Make, model, and plates all match," another team member reported in.

"Okay, we've got movement. He exited the vehicle and is headed for a room on the east side of the building. Looks like its first floor… Yeah, first floor. Okay, we got a room. It's one of the ones we've been watching, somebody's been in there for a while already. He's knocking on the door and looking around. Door is opening. Can't ID the person inside, they stayed behind the door. Okay, he's in. We are green for target one. Repeat, we are green for target one. Room 145, first floor, on the east side of the building. Unknown number of occupants inside. But we are green for target one."

"Finally," Jimmy said. "I just wish we knew if they were all here or if more people are arriving."

"Be patient, Jimmy," Eva said. "We're already halfway there. Now, we just need to stick to the plan. We wait thirty minutes to see if anyone else shows up."

For the next thirty minutes Jimmy paced back and forth staring at his watch. He wanted these people in custody so he could start unraveling this nightmare of a case. He knew the key to all of this was waiting in that room. After this, he shouldn't have to hear another word about his old man. His father really was a great detective and a true force of nature on the job. But Jimmy couldn't wait to be out from under the weight of the long shadow that his father had created.

"It's time, Jimmy," Eva said. "Let's go get these assholes and put this thing to bed."

"Finally," was all that Jimmy could say.

A few minutes later, everyone was in place, stacked in a line outside the motel door. Brooklyn Narcotics Detective Curtis Jefferson was first on the door with the battering ram. At six-feet, four-inches tall, and weighing in at two-hundred-and-forty pounds of well-maintained muscle, he was a natural choice for any forced entry operation. When the signal to enter came, Eva knocked loudly on the door, announced herself as NYPD, and stepped back. With one swing from Jefferson's battering ram, the motel door came off of its hinges and sailed across the room. With the grace of a ballerina, Jefferson quickly stepped aside, and the rest of the team filed into the room with guns drawn.

The media crews were strategically located around the parking lot in order to capture the best footage of the suspects being walked out of the motel room. As two of the suspects were brought out in handcuffs, area lights turned on, and the whirring sounds of cameras began to fill the air. The captain of the 75th precinct, on hand to give a press briefing following the conclusion of the operation, was standing off to one side of the parking lot.

The captain, unaccustomed to waiting for much of anything, was shuffling his feet and waiting for all the humdrum to be over so that he could finally give his press briefing. He glanced up as two of the suspects were being escorted out of the room, and what he saw horrified him. It took every bit of his willpower to overcome the paralysis that was threatening to seize his body.

The captain, almost imitating a newly born giraffe, lurched forward and grasped the tactical vest of the nearest detective. "Get them out of here, get them out of here, now," he wheezed, frantically waving his arm toward the media crews spread across the parking lot.

Curtis Jackson turned to see what was suddenly weighing down his tactical vest and found the precinct captain hanging on for dear life. He initially thought the captain might be having a heart attack because of his clear inability to speak or even stand up straight. But then he heard the captain's words and couldn't believe his ears.

"Get them out of here," the captain was shouting. "Confiscate all of their equipment and get them out of here!"

"Sir," Jackson said. "We can't confiscate their equipment. We do that, and we will be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Sir, that will completely blow up in our face."

"I don't care," the captain shouted. "Get them out of here and confiscate everything!"

Jackson turned and started pointing at various detectives and officers, "Get the media out of here now. Tell them it's for their own protection and we'll explain later. We just got a credible threat to the area and we need them safely away from here. That means out of camera range. Hell, take 'em back to the staging area we just used. Whatever. Just get 'em out of here immediately."

Jackson turned around and shouted, "Code nine, everyone. Code nine. Lock this whole area down immediately."

Code nine was a common radio code used to refer to a roadblock for automobiles. However, in various situations, it had also been adapted as a code that meant for officers to completely secure and lock-down an area. This meant only NYPD personnel were able to freely move through that area. Anyone else would be immediately secured wherever they stood, and a nobody-in/nobody-out policy went into effect. Tonight, word of the code nine quickly spread across the entire scene via word of mouth, as the officers were trained to do. During situations like this, they tried to avoid saying much of anything over the radio in order to prevent news media and nerds with police scanners from overhearing them.

As word reached the detectives inside the motel room, Eva turned to Jimmy and asked, "What happened now? Bomb threat? Hostage situation? I thought we wanted this to be public."

"I don't know," Jimmy said, while slowly looking around the room. "Hey, does this look like a meeting for a bunch of drug dealers to you?"

"No," Eva said. "Honestly, it looks more like a honeymoon suite or a Valentine's Day getaway. Uh-uh, Jimmy. I don't like this very much… We just found a man and a woman alone in a motel room that looks like something from a romance novel."

"Shit. The motherfucking DEA played us," Jimmy said. "He as much as told me why he was giving me the information. They needed Preston on ice to buy them some time for an op that they're working on. This whole thing had nothing to do with his crew. The information about a meeting was just bait. They knew we'd rush in here and take down Preston. They fucking played us just to buy themselves some time."

Curtis Jackson stuck his head into the motel room and said, "Uh… You guys are going to want to hear this."

As Eva and Jimmy came out of the room, they noticed a circle of people gathering around the precinct captain. He was announcing to everyone that, "…need to take great care with this situation. I don't know about the guy over there in the back of that patrol car, but the woman with him has been released and, for all intents and purposes, she was never here. She was never taken into custody because she was never here. If anyone ever asks you anything about tonight — I don't care if it's your husband or wife, your mother, your priest, or even your damn partner… If anyone ever brings up this subject with you, you don't know anything about any woman being here or being arrested."

One of the detectives in the circle spoke up, "Captain, if you want us to keep a lid on this, you're going to have to trust us a little. Just what are we protecting, sir?"

The captain looked down and, even in the darkness of the motel parking lot, everyone could see his skin once again turning ash gray. He slowly raised his head with a ghostly look on his face and said, "That woman was Evelyn Dattilo."

"Who in the hell is that," someone else asked.

In a hoarse whisper, Eva said, "That's the wife of the Chief of Police."

Jimmy felt dizzy again, his legs threatening to crumple beneath him.