Legacy and Redemption (25 page)

“Drive carefully, sweetheart. Have a good night and say hello to the girls for me.” After the front door closed, Sharon Castillo looked over at her husband. “Can you believe she’s in college already?”

Louis Castillo shook his head then smiled. “And true to ‘
Cats in the Cradle
’, she’s borrowing the car keys.” He laughed. “How did we ever get so lucky? She’s such a good kid…woman, I guess I should say.”

Louie Castillo began loading the dishwasher as Sharon wiped down the dining room table. She turned towards him. “Just think, in a little bit more than two weeks, you can help me clean the kitchen every night after dinner.”

“Lucky me!” He paused and stood straight up, abandoning the dishes for the moment. “I can’t believe I’m retiring. It seems like yesterday we were sworn in.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m retired almost four years now.” She hesitated momentarily. “At least there’s no unfinished business. I know how that terrorist threat had been haunting you for months.”

“Yeah, thank God that’s over with.”

Louie Castillo closed the dishwasher and turned it on. It came to life with a loud humming and the sound of running water. The couple walked into the living room. Louie Castillo sat in the center of the sectional while Sharon sat just to his right. He grabbed the remote control and put on the television. As he flipped through the channels, Sharon placed a hand on his knee and inquired, “So where am I going to take you to celebrate your retirement? Should we go to Europe or should we go to a tropical island?”

Castillo reached over and took his wife’s hand. “You can surprise me.” He held it firmly yet tenderly. “Anywhere you want to go as long as we’re together, that’s fine with me.” He looked her in the eyes and asked, “What about Jess, will she be coming with us?”

Sharon snickered. “No. This is about you and me. We’re going after she goes back to college. When we get back from vacation, we should start looking into where we want to move. A lot of retired cops are moving to the Carolinas. They say it’s the new Florida. The warm weather should be much better for your knee.” Castillo flexed at as the mention of the old injury, temporarily alleviating the near constant ache.

A sudden look of recall came over Sharon. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Diana Collins called. She and Chris will be able to make New Year’s Eve after all. They were able to get a babysitter.”

“Great, it’ll be nice to see them. I’m looking forward to our New Year’s Eve bash.”

Sharon agreed. “Me too; with Chris and Diana that brings the total number of guests to twenty. You should be home early enough from the pension section to help me get the house ready.”

Castillo smiled; “Again…lucky me,” as he took her hand in his and gently gave it a kiss.

*

“Sooo, what are you getting me for Christmas?” Cathy Quinn bit her lower lip playfully as she asked the question.

“I’m not telling you.”

“C’mon Tim; did you get me anything yet?”

Keegan laughed off the question, got up from the couch, and went to the kitchen to liberate a couple of bottles of beer from the refrigerator. He sat back down next to her, opened a bottle, and handed it to her. He decided to flip the script on her. “What did you get me?”

She moved a bit closer clearly in a flirtatious mood. “You have me. What more could you want?”

Keegan expressed amusement. “Oh really! Well in that case, you have me what more could
you
want?”

She remained quiet for a moment, seeming to contemplate the question. She gave a very genuine smile. “You know what, Tim. I really couldn’t want anything more.” She gave him a peck on the lips and set her beer down on the glass coffee table in front of the couch and traded it for the ten day old newspaper. “I have a hero cop for a boyfriend. It even says so in the newspaper.”

Keegan was well aware of the article. He was proud, but at the same time felt a bit awkward. Quinn flipped through the pages until she found the article and read aloud:

Hero Cop Follows in Father’s Footsteps

Rookie Police Officer Timothy Keegan was transferred yesterday to the Joint FBI-NYPD Terrorist Task Force; the same unit where his father Lieutenant James Keegan was assigned to when he was murdered in the line of duty back on March 19, 1995.

The elder Keegan had single handedly broken up an assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade only days before his murder and was also credited with apprehending a sleeper cell of mid-eastern terrorists who were bent on blowing up the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in 1993.

James Keegan was assassinated when a car bomb was planted in his NYPD vehicle as it was parked outside of his Long Island home. The assassination was believed to have been in retaliation for breaking up the sleeper cell and thwarting the courthouse bombing.

In what can only be described as an outrageous twist of fate, the younger Keegan’s actions also prevented a terrorist attack by another mid-eastern radical. Keegan and his partner, Sergeant Thomas Galvin, shot and killed a suicide bomber the day before Thanksgiving in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Although there is no confirmation from any ranking government sources, there is speculation that this incident is what led to the take down of the entire cell as well as the recovery of nearly two hundred pounds of explosives.

When Police Commissioner Ray Santoro was asked about transferring a rookie to such an important assignment, he quickly shot back. “In the world that we live in today, we have to take any and all threats very seriously. We have the best of the best working in the JTTF. What Officer Keegan did, as well as Sergeant Galvin, potentially saved thousands of lives. Sergeant Galvin is already a highly decorated officer. As a matter of fact, he is one of the most highly decorated officers in the entire department. Keegan may be a rookie, but he clearly has the instincts. The kid has cop blood running through his veins. He’s a natural born cop. I don’t care if he’s a rookie or a twenty year veteran. We need the best cops in details like the Joint Terrorist Task Force to stop any further attacks. The kid proved his mettle…he’s a hero.”

Cathy looked Keegan in the eye and repeated the last two words of the article. “…a hero.”

Keegan feeling slightly embarrassed, “Yeah, I know what it says.”

“Can I ask you another question?”

“You just did.”

She smiled. “Wise ass! Why haven’t you cut the article out yet? You should put it in a scrapbook like your dad used to have.”

Keegan had thought about that, but decided against it. He wasn’t sure why. It just didn’t feel right to him. “Yeah…maybe I will.”

He took a sip from his beer and muted the television which had been tuned into the New York Islanders game against the Boston Bruins. “You know what really bothers me about the article?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “The way that even the newspaper doesn’t say for sure who was responsible for killing my dad. Read it again.
The assassination was
believed
to have been in retaliation for breaking up the sleeper cell and thwarting the courthouse bombing.
”

He shook his head. “Something just isn’t adding up. Louie is putting me off at work. For some reason, he doesn’t want me to see the case file. I can’t find it on my own. I don’t even know where they store case folders from last year, let alone two decades ago.”

After a long swig from the bottle of beer, “I swear that they’re hiding something from me. I was so frustrated that I went ahead and filed a
FOIL
petition a few days ago. Louie told me not to rely on how long the NYPD
Patrol Guide
says it takes to clear. He said it could take a real long time since my dad’s case had to do with national security. I’m getting sick and tired of hearing that term.”

Quinn, clearly trying to sound comforting, “Give it time, Tim. I’m sure Louie wouldn’t steer you wrong. What did Sergeant Galvin say?”

“He told me that I need to stand down. I told him that I thought Detective Castillo was stonewalling me for some reason so I went to see the Commanding Officer.”

“You approached Inspector Talbot about this!?”

“Yeah, he said…”

Quinn interrupted, “Timmy, we’re rookies. We can’t make demands of full Inspectors! No wonder Sarge told you to stand down.”

Keegan shrugged his shoulders and picked up the newspaper. He pointed at the article. “Cathy, I’m a hero. Like you said, it says so right here. I might as well get whatever mileage I can out of it.”

“Tim, my dad always tells me you can go from hero to zero real quick on this job, and that the job has a long memory. Don’t burn any bridges. You know Sarge has your best interest at heart. Listen to him.”

“I know Cathy, but I just want to know the truth.”

“Have you ever considered that the terrorist may be the one lying and everyone else
is
telling you the truth?”

Before Keegan had a chance to respond, the television caught his eye. The words
Special Report
filled the fifty-two inch screen. Keegan quickly unmuted the television; they ceased all conversation and watched in silence. A sinking feeling came over Keegan. Anytime he saw a special report, he flashed back to the day when he was only eight years old and the special report had detailed the execution of his father. Since that day, Special Reports had a way of unnerving Tim Keegan.

The words faded away and the newscaster appeared on screen with a photo off to the side. The photo depicted terrorist mastermind and the man at the top of the FBI’s ten most wanted list—Sheykh Muhammad Hajjar. Keegan turned up the volume:

The reporter, with an unyielding look on his face, began the report. “We are getting word tonight that United States armed forces have located and killed terrorist mastermind Sheykh Muhammad Hajjar. Hajjar is suspected as being the leader of the attempted terrorist attacks which had been planned for Thanksgiving weekend in numerous cities across the country only two weeks ago. Sources say a six month long investigation led American Intelligence teams to a cave sixty miles east of Kabul, Afghanistan where Hajjar was reportedly running an Al-Qaeda training camp. At approximately three eighteen pm local time, the US military deployed numerous unmanned Predator Drones over the camp dropping a total of twelve, one hundred pound,
Hellfire Missiles
. The missiles hit their targets, neutralizing all enemy combatants, which consisted of nearly four dozen members of the Taliban. A team of Navy Seals was deployed on the ground shortly after and recovered the Sheykh’s body. A White House spokesman has confirmed that Muhammad Hajjar was among those killed. The President will be holding a news conference within the hour. We will bring it to you live.”

“Holy shit!” Without so much as another word to Cathy Quinn, Keegan withdrew his cell phone from his belt and made a call.

“Hey Sarge, did you see the news!?”

After a brief pause, “Six month investigation, my ass! This is exactly how they said it would go down.”

Keegan realized that he may have said too much as a look of recognition came across his girlfriend’s face.

“Yeah…all right Sarge. I’ll speak to you more about it tomorrow.”

He hung up the phone and reluctantly looked askew at Cathy Quinn.

She stared speechless for a moment; the silence was awkward. She finally broke it. “This has something to do with your trip to Chicago, doesn’t it?”

“Cathy, I…”

“You helped track down Sheykh Hajjar and stopped the rest of the suicide bombers. It all makes sense now, your transfer, the article…everything.”

Keegan said nothing, but he could feel his face grow warm. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He knew that he was bound by the affidavit of confidentiality, and as much as he wanted to confirm her suspicions, he knew that he couldn’t. He was starting to hate the affidavit of confidentiality as much as he hated the term ‘national security’.

Quinn continued when Keegan never responded. “No wonder the Police Commissioner called you a hero. You really are one!”

Keegan chose not to respond to the allegation. Instead, he stood up with his cell phone and walked towards the bedroom. “I have to call Louie.”

*

“Okay, Tim. I’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll talk about it more in the office.”

Louis Castillo, clearly agitated hung up the phone. He set his glasses down on his nightstand and rested his head in his hands.

Sharon slid closer to him on the bed and rubbed his back. “What’s going on, Louie?”

“It’s Keegan. He just saw the newscast about Sheykh Hajjar and he’s excited…and he should be. It really was his presence that led to everything. The problem is that this just opened up a huge can of worms for me. He went on about how everything panned out and how the job owed him the truth. Maybe I should just come clean.”

Sharon shook her head adamantly. “Louie, you’re two weeks away from retirement. You’re not about to tell anybody that you were part of a large scale conspiracy and risk your pension! Wait Keegan out, stall him for a few more weeks. Once you’re out the door, whatever he finds out he finds out.”