Campanelli: Sentinel (13 page)

              “Well then,” Frank said giving Williams a casual up-and-down appraisal, “I guess I’ll keep this guy…”

              “Thanks, pal,” Marcus shot with a crooked grin.

              “…and reassign…four to ‘Sentinel’,” he finished as more of a question.

              “Frank,” the OCD Chief answered, “I am sending you a list of men that I have handpicked from various OCD departments. I want you to go through it and edit that list in any way you see fit, accommodating any of your homicide squad detectives that you wish.”

              Campanelli was taken aback by the sudden confidence and the realization of the heavy burden. His
CAPS-Link
acknowledged the receipt of the Chief’s file. All he could do was nod in response.

              Earl Sebastian smiled. “You haven’t quite grasped what this all means, have you, Captain Campanelli?”

              “Sir?”

              “You are my second in command of the Sentinel Task Force. It is
that
important to the mayor, Campanelli.”

              “Umm, thank you, sir,” Frank whispered.

              “Don’t thank me. It’s going to be more work without extra pay or promotion,” Sebastian added apologetically. “The City of Chicago is counting on you. First priority is to find Antony, gentlemen,” the OCD Chief finished. Standing, he and Vanek shook hands with Campanelli and his partner and dismissed them.

              Frank and Marcus left the room without looking back and strode to the elevator. Neither said a word until they had entered Frank’s cruiser and closed the doors.

              “Well, holy shit,” Williams said plainly, looking straight out the windshield.

              “You said it.”

              After a moment of continued introspection, Marcus said, “What’s your stakeout plan for Beritoni’s place.”

              “I’m thinking about that,” Frank said as he lit a cigarette and powered up the cruiser. “First, we have breakfast.” He turned the car in a tight U-turn and sped to
Tam’s Place
.

II

T
he cleaning crew entered the building at their usual Wednesday morning shift time. The two new faces on the detail mattered not to the veterans among them as the job had a high turnover rate. Their supervisor and building manager led the two newbies to her office, apparently for orientation as was her usual course of action. The crew went about their daily tasks and quickly forgot about the new men.

              The building manager, a demure woman in her fifties with sun-dried wrinkles that made her appear even older, closed the door behind the men and went to her desk. Accessing her computer, she brought up a diagram and turned the monitor for the men to see.

              “Okay, Mister Beritoni’s residence is on the fortieth floor. This unit here,” she explained in her gravelly voice.

              Detectives Hank Lyman and Daryl Davies leaned in to see the screen. They liked the setup. Each unit had a unique shape, with closets or bathrooms jutting out into the hallway, giving them plenty of hiding places.

              “Are any of the residents home at this time, Miss Erichs?” Lyman asked.

              “Call me Mildred, sweetie,” the old woman beamed and checked her watch. Though certainly old enough, she was not equipped with bio-electronic implants. “As far as I know, pretty much everyone is in the office by now. There are a couple of housewives that live on that floor. You know the type, they haven’t worked a day in their lives, I’m sure. But, they won’t give you guys a second glance, trust me.”

              “Thank you, ma’am,” Davies responded with a slanted grin.

              “That’s not what I mean,” Mildred Erichs said in a humorous tone. “These ladies wouldn’t notice anybody that wasn’t dressed in anything less than a ten thousand dollar suit or drove something that wouldn’t break a bank. You should be free to plant whatever little do-dad’s you want.”

              “Can you give us a printout of the floor and label it with the residents’ names and vacancies?” Lyman asked.

              “Sure,” Erichs responded, spinning the monitor back her way. After a few taps of her finger on the screen, an eight by eleven inch sheet of crisp white paper slid out from the desktop terminal. “Here you are. Oh, and please be sure to take your time shampooing that hallway carpet. It picks up a lot of stains from all those rich folk parties.”

              “We sure will, ma’am,” Daryl promised sarcastically, though it was completely missed by the building manager. The tall detective smiled outwardly, but behind the expression, the man seethed with irritation.

              “Enjoy your day,” Hank Lyman wished as he tugged his partner from the room.

              “I’ll shampoo
her
ass,” Daryl whispered once they had put some distance from the woman’s office.

              Lyman smiled, “Don’t worry about it, let’s just get this done and us outta here.”

              “Fine by me.”

              The detectives were dressed in gray coveralls and appeared to be just like any other employee of
The Park Monroe
’s maintenance crew. They retrieved a cleaning cart from the basement equipment room and rode the elevator to the fortieth floor.

              The door opened and the men quietly stepped out. Lyman consulted the printed layout and pointed to the entryways to the first two units. The one across the hall belonged to their prime suspect, Beritoni. “This is it,” he whispered lowly and stepped to the front door soundlessly.

              Davies took a moment to listen next to the front door of the unit opposite Beritoni’s. Both detectives had augmented their audio receptors to maximum.

              “
There’s someone here
,” Lyman sent to Davies’s implant in text.

              Daryl nodded, stepping further into the hallway and rounding a corner to listen further up the way. As he did, Lyman retrieved a device from his pocket and crouched to the floor. Setting the snake-like item onto the carpet, he connected his implant with it and sent it cautiously forward.

              “
I hear one residence with a holovision
,” Davies sent to Lyman, who needed not reply. Daryl returned to Beritoni’s front door, saw what his partner was doing and nodded in approval before setting off in the other direction to listen for others.

              The snake was six inches long but only a millimeter tall in order to slide through the gaps underneath doors. Nonetheless, Hank Lyman had to force the tiny spy device just to make it part way inside. It slithered and thrashed under his direct control and, even though the detective had set his audio receptors back to their default levels, he could hear the articulating metal scraping on bottom edge of the door. Lyman winced at the sound, certain that if someone were at home that they would have heard it as clearly. For several seconds, he and the spy device went completely still.

              “
What’s your status?
” came a message from Captain Campanelli over the
CAPS-Link
. He and Williams had set up shop in an empty office in a building on the corner of Dearborn and Adams which faced the west side of
The Park Monroe
. Campanelli quickly discovered that the windows of Beritoni’s condo had been decorated by “hummers,” small electronic devices that created vibrations against a pane of glass. This would disrupt any vibrations created by a human voice and muddle what the laser microphone could decipher. Eavesdropping on the residence was out of the question.

              “
Feeding the snake under Beritoni’s door. It’s stuck, but I’m working on it
,” Hank sent back.

              Daryl Davies returned to Lyman’s side and dropped to a crouch to take in what was happening with the reptilian-modeled device. “
Quiet that thing down
,” he sent to Hank.

              Lyman halted the device’s wormy movement and shot a look at his partner. “
How else
am I going to get it inside?
” he sent.

              Thinking quickly, Davies remembered the carpet shampooer. Holding up an index finger for Lyman to wait, Davies stepped to the maintenance cart and removed the semi-autonomous machine from it, set it upon the floor and activated it. The short round robot whined to life with a scream like a tiny jet engine and, with the use of radar and cameras, found its location and went about its business. It spewed carpet cleaner from its underbelly and spun up the rotating bristles, working the foamy cleanser into a thick lather. The machine was designed for completing the job quickly, not quietly. It would cover the metal scraping sounds from the snake easily.

              Davies checked the time. It was close to ten-thirty in the morning. The carpet monster would take close to thirty minutes to complete the task unless they aborted it. Daryl looked to Hank and smiled, receiving a thumbs-up from his partner.

              Lyman knew to step away from the door, as the noise might attract whoever was inside to the peephole. Keeping the snake’s view in a small rectangle at the upper middle portion of his sight, he stood and backed quickly around the corner.

***

              From the glass embossed tower two blocks away, Campanelli and Williams kept their eyes trained on
The Park Monroe
. It seemed pointless as they could do nothing other than watch for movement on the drapes of Beritoni’s residence, but they watched anyway and waited.

              Frank sighed as time ticked by. It should not have taken more than a few minutes for the snake to slip in and search the residence, but because of the low clearance of the condominium’s high quality doors, the mission was already past the ten minute mark.

              “Well, at least if he is inside, there’s no place for Antony to go,” Williams commented.

              “There is if he shoots his way out,” Campanelli countered. “If he finds out that we’ve discovered him, it’s up to Lyman and Davies to take him down and Antony
will
go down shooting.”

              The thought had occurred to Marcus, but he simply had not wanted to vocalize it. “Should we get over there?”

              Campanelli sighed again in contemplation. “We just don’t
know
if he’s there.”

              “I don’t know, Frank,” Williams went on, “over the last year I’ve grown to trust your hunches.”

              Campanelli turned his eyes to his partner and, thinking about it, understood the strength of his instincts. Nodding, he said, “Let’s go.”

***

              Lyman sent to Davies and Campanelli: “
Snake is free of the door and I’m working it
along the hallway
.”

              “
Williams and I are on the way now to back you up
,” Campanelli replied.

              This message sent a chill up Lyman’s spine. The Captain of Detectives must be certain that the cop killer was in the lawyer’s house or they would have stayed where they were. He thought about asking if they had received more information when he noticed the snake’s camera view shudder. He commanded the device to stop and, realizing that the evenly timed shaking was becoming stronger, lifted the head of the snake and craned its neck in all directions.

              “
Footsteps
,” Hank Lyman sent to Davies in an audible message. “
The occupant is on the move
.”

              Davies acknowledged and forwarded the update to the Captain and Williams.

              Lyman’s heart felt as if it skipped when the camera view went black. His first thought was that the device had been discovered, but the screen lightened a second later. Hank spun the device around and followed the movement. He quickly found that the screen had been blackened by the passing feet of the occupant. He ordered the snake to move fast in pursuit, backtracking over the area that it had just slithered over. The view stopped shaking a moment later. Whoever was inside had come to a stop.

              “
I have someone
,” Lyman sent. His heart was pounding with adrenaline as he placed his hand over the firearm tucked underneath his coveralls.

              “
We’re almost there
,” Campanelli replied.

              Lyman nodded at Davies, who, like himself had placed his back against the wall outside Beritoni’s front door. The droning of the carpet cleaner was maddening, but it was at the southern end of the hall, too far away to stop manually without leaving his partner and neither detective had thought to get the machine’s command codes to control it via implant. In any case, Lyman was too busy guiding the snake to do anything else.

***

              Campanelli and Williams left the cruiser at the curb and ran into the building’s Monroe Street entrance, where there was direct access to the elevators. Flashing badges at the private security personnel seated comfortably at their monitoring station, Frank’s loafers slid to a hissing stop upon the polished marble as his outstretched finger punched the ‘up’ button. Williams was just behind. The doors of the elevator to their left silently opened and in a shot, they were inside and on their way.

***

              The snake’s camera lens was pinhole tiny and as a result, the viewing area was narrow. Nonetheless, as Hank Lyman thought the command for the device to raise its front end up in a posture resembling that of a striking cobra, he angled the head to the right and around the corner. To Lyman’s dismay he found pants crumbled around the ankles of the feet that had nearly stomped on the little spy. Tilting the head up, bare skin was found there, folded around the white porcelain fixture.

              “Ugh,” Hank spewed. Daryl Davies frowned and jerked his head as if to ask what was wrong. Lyman waved it off. He simply did not wish to explain it. The device was recording its findings anyway.

              Tilting the camera even higher, the snake found the face of the toilet’s squatter. It was a man, unshaven and disheveled. After another moment, the man’s head turned toward the camera as he reached for toilet paper and stood. Lyman winced in embarrassment, but the gesture meant nothing as the view was internal, not something he could look away from unless he shut down the snake.

              “What?” Davies whispered as loudly as he dared.

              “It’s him…it’s him,” Lyman answered and once he had confirmed it, he shut down the connection expediently to keep from seeing more. “
We have Antony confirmed inside the
residence
,” Hank composed and sent to Campanelli and Williams.

              “
Wait for us
,” his captain ordered.

              “
No problem
,” Lyman replied. “
We might want to give him a few more minutes to wash up
.”

              A scant few seconds later, the elevator doors slid open revealing Campanelli and Williams. Both had their weapons drawn. Frank stepped to Lyman’s side of the hall.

              “
Where is
he?
” he sent in text.

              “
The bathroom
,” Lyman replied in kind, “
just beyond the front door and to the left
.” The man’s expression made the unpleasantness evident.

              “You’ve got positive ID?” Frank asked aloud.

              “Yeah,” Hank answered.

              “Williams,” Campanelli hissed over his shoulder and pointed at the door. “Get ready to take it down.”

              Marcus nodded and stepped to the door, careful to remain out of the peephole’s range.

              Looking to Davies, Frank sent audibly, “
Ready on the EMP?
” Davies nodded and brought it into view. He had retrieved the nonlethal weapon from the maintenance cart as they waited for their backup to arrive. Campanelli urged Davies to follow Williams with a hand gesture. “
Get low and
stay down. Knock him on his ass as soon as you see him
,” he directed.

              Williams checked the doorknob and was not surprised to find it locked. With a police issued passkey, he waved it over the lock and it clicked free, though far too loudly to be missed by anyone inside so close to the front door.

              Campanelli need only look to Lyman to get his message across. Reestablishing the connection with the snake, he saw that the cop killer had heard the lock. Antony hurriedly replaced his pants and flew from the bathroom. In doing so, he stepped upon the spy device, destroying it.

              Lyman nodded vigorously to confirm to Frank that their element of surprise was gone.

              “Now, Williams!” Campanelli shouted. Davies lay flat on his stomach and aimed the pulse rifle ahead.

              Marcus turned the knob and shoved the door hard. It swung soundlessly until it had gone fully open, banging into the foyer wall behind it.

              Davies saw the running figure of a man in black pajamas scramble down the short hallway. He wasted little time pressing the trigger.

             
Thwump
!

              The electromagnetic pulse slammed into the criminal’s upper back and head, sending him tumbling headfirst to the floor where, upon contact with it was carried into a clumsy forward roll. Antony came to a stop just inside the dining room/living room and, without wasting a second, hopped up and scampered to an unseen room to the left.

              Williams followed the first EMP blast into the condo. “Halt!” he bellowed as the murderer disappeared around the corner. Recalling the layout of the residence, Marcus knew that a bedroom with a closet and attached half bath lay in that direction. There were plenty of places to hide a gun. He scampered to the end of the hall, searching for anything that might have a reflection of his quarry. He was out of luck. His eyes adjusted to the dim, drapery suppressed sunlight, scattered in uneven golden thorns at their edges.

              “James Antony! This is the police! We have a warrant for your arrest and there is nowhere to go!” Frank Campanelli shouted from behind his partner.

              Williams got into a low crouch and peeked around the corner, looking into the bedroom doorway from behind a chair. He could see no one inside, but he verified the fact that there was no place to go.

              “Hold up, Williams,” Campanelli ordered in a whisper. He had rushed to his partner’s side, afraid that the ex-Navy Seal was about to charge in after their cop killer. Waving behind him, he called Daryl forward. “I’m going there,” he whispered and pointed to the end of the large couch near the windows. “As soon as I move, cover the doorway.”

              Davies nodded and prepared to move, tightening his grip on the EMP rifle and taking a deep breath.

              “
Marcus
,” Frank sent, “
if you see a gun and Daryl can’t get him, take the shot
.” Williams replied in the affirmative and without another thought, Campanelli darted to the couch, making sure to step heavily and loudly.

              As the Captain of Detectives suspected, Antony was armed. The criminal picked up the moving target heading for the flimsy cover of the couch, and followed it with the handgun. In so doing, he unintentionally exposed his arms to Davies and Williams. Antony was quick however, and discharged a shot from the antique revolver. The round sounded like a cannon blast in the close quarters, triggering the audio receptors of each policeman’s implant. Davies fired the pulse rifle, sending Antony’s hands into the doorjamb hard. The gun fell from his fingers and onto the carpet with the sound of muffled metal on wood.

              Antony dropped to the floor and screamed in pain. He cursed Williams as the big detective subdued him by kneeling upon his back, forcing much of the air from Antony’s lungs.

              “Cap’n? Cap’n?!” Davies shouted, keeping his rifle on Antony as Williams attempted to place cuffs on him.

              “Yeah,” Campanelli answered as he tried to get to his feet.

              “Are you hit?” Lyman asked as he sprinted to Frank’s side. He clumsily pulled at the round end table that the older man had dived behind, sending a lamp crashing to the floor.

              “No,” Campanelli answered as he regained his feet, “I’m fine.” Looking about the room, he soon found the expelled round, buried deep into the wall where Frank’s upper body had just been. He took a deep breath and blew it out hard.

              Williams got up from placing the cuffs and as soon as air returned to the cop killer’s lungs, he began to wail in agony. “My hand! My hand!” he yelled in between obscenities. Marcus pulled the much smaller Antony to his feet by his belt and collar. The big man had fifty pounds of muscle on his prisoner and almost a full foot height advantage.

              Antony howled again once he was on his feet. Frank became incensed by the fact that the same perpetrator had taken yet another shot at him. Campanelli rushed to the other side of the room and gave the killer of Officer Albert Kelly a right cross.

              Jimmy Antony lost consciousness, but did not fall to the floor, held firm by Williams. Marcus glared at his Captain for a few seconds, knowing that if the video of the attack was found, it would have been construed as assault. He manhandled the limp man upright like a marionette over to the couch and, aware of Antony’s broken left wrist laid him face down upon the comfortable piece of furniture. In a minute, Jimmy Antony groaned and awoke.

              “Jimmy Antony,” Frank began loudly, leaning down into the injured man’s face, “you are under arrest for the murder of Detective Albert Kelly and two counts of attempted murder of Captain of Detectives, Frank Campanelli. That happens to be me,
jackass
!!” he finished with a brief squeeze of the cuffed murder’s left wrist, now swollen and purple.

              “Frank!” Williams yelled over the screaming man on the couch. He grabbed his Captain’s left hand and stepped in between them.

              “Easy, Marcus,” Frank warned. “I’m just letting him know who he’s dealing with.”

              As Frank did appear to be calm on the surface, Williams released Campanelli’s hand and moved off with a nod. The look of concern did not waver, however.

              “Well, it looks like we can go after Giovanni Beritoni for harboring a fugitive,” Frank announced to the room, but focused on Antony. “Get him on his feet, Marcus. Let’s get him booked.”

              Marcus nodded and brought Jimmy Antony vertical. Frank turned to Davies and Lyman as his partner read the cop killer his rights. “You two stay here. I’m sending Chavez and Morgan next door to arrest Beritoni. In case he leaves the office and comes here, you two can bag him.”