Authors: Joseph Badal
CHAPTER 31
At 7 p.m., Rolf Bishop called the private surveillance team leader, now stationed outside the Bartolucci estate. “You and your men can stand down. Payment has been wired to your account.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
Bishop had already hung up.
S.W.A.T. team commander Linc Brand pored over the architectural plans and aerial photographs Tim Morton had provided. A seven-foot stone wall surrounded the property. There appeared to be wide-open fields of fire north and east of the house. The mansion had been built close to the south and west walls. The south wall bordered the Chestnut Hill Cricket Club’s golf course and the west wall separated the Bartolucci grounds from an adjacent estate. The north and east walls fronted on city streets. Brand sent one of his men out to reconnoiter the area. He reported back that the neighbors on the west were in the British Isles and their home was empty, other than for a caretaker in a carriage house behind the main house.
The city’s best S.W.A.T. team reported to police headquarters at 8 p.m. and took seats in a briefing room. When Brand entered the room, he sensed his men’s excitement and nervousness. He briefed them on the operation and then answered questions. Afterward, Brand ordered his men to prepare their equipment and weapons.
Rolf Bishop, now in the back of a limousine on his way from D.C. to New York City, congratulated himself on the mastery of his plan and the sale of his fairy tale. The CIA Black Ops unit believed David Hood was a long-time mole for the Russians. He had fabricated a file on Hood that made him appear to be the personification of the anti-Christ. There was mention to them about a DEA undercover agent. The members of the assassination team had put aside their usual cool detachment. This had become an emotional issue for them. If Hood was on the Bartolucci estate, Bishop was confident the team would take him out, if the cops had not already done so in the orchestrated confusion of the raid.
And it sounded as though Morton had done a great snow job on the Philadelphia mayor and the police. All in all, Bishop was hopeful, despite the problems he’d had in eliminating David Hood.
At 11:30 p.m., Police Commissioner Sullivan established a perimeter around the area, which extended for two blocks in three directions from the Bartolucci property. Four street cops had been stationed on the golf course behind the estate’s twelve-foot-high back wall, the highest wall on the property. At 11:35 p.m., Brand and his S.W.A.T. team assembled on an open field across from Wissahickon Park, near Chestnut Hill Academy. The black S.W.A.T. van was parked on the street next to the field. Brand checked the equipment and weapons of all twelve of his men. He again went over the tactical plan.
“Okay, people, listen up. We’ve reinforced our team with four snipers with infrared scopes. I want you guys over the wall and in place before the rest of the team goes in. Position yourselves at the edge of the tree line and try to pick off anyone who’s a threat. The electric company will cut power at exactly 00:15. When the streetlights go off, it will take one minute for the estate’s generators to kick in. That should be enough time for you snipers to get into position and for the rest of the team to get over the wall. When all the lights around the estate go back on, you’ll be vulnerable, so the snipers will immediately shoot out the security lights.
“Once the security lights have been shot out, Atkins and Villanucci will crash the front gate and subdue the guard there. Doherty will run across the lawn with the cable cutters and disable the generator. Lovett, you’ll go with Doherty and cover his back. When the generators are disabled and the house goes dark, that’s the signal for the rest of you to move across the lawn. This is where it will get tricky. More than likely, some of the guards will be inside, along with household staff, the DEA undercover agent, the Bethesda cop, and who knows who else. Let’s hope that most of the occupants are asleep.
“Remember, guys,” he concluded. “There’s an undercover DEA agent in that house. You’ve seen head shots of the man, so let’s bring him out alive. Let’s not get trigger happy.” Brand looked at his watch. “All right, I’ve got 23:57. Let’s load up and get this show on the road.”
Tim Morton, with Rolf Bishop’s black ops team, was now parked midway along the service road beside the third fairway of the golf course, half-a-mile behind the Bartolucci estate. They had already subdued the four police officers at the back wall, chloroforming them, tying, and gagging them. The team leader opened the sliding door and the team piled out. The driver and Morton stayed in the vehicle and drove away. A helicopter then landed where the van had been and the four men climbed aboard.
“You men have the opportunity to right a lot of wrongs tonight,” the leader told the others. “I want everyone in that house dead, but I especially want that traitor Hood killed.”
APRIL 26
CHAPTER 32
Ever since Gino had moved David and Peter to his estate, he’d assigned three guards to rove the estate’s grounds. Each was armed with a 9mm pistol and a shotgun the Sicilians called
Il Lupo
. Each man also carried a radio transmitter/receiver to stay in touch with the house, where David currently manned the command center. The third guard was also armed with two additional weapons—a pair of one hundred-fifty-pound Anatolian Shepherd guard dogs. Alert, intelligent, and naturally protective, these animals had been imported from Turkey, where they traditionally protect livestock from wolves and other predators. Dark-gray colored, they were almost invisible at night, despite the fact each stood thirty-two inches at the shoulder.
At precisely 12:15 a.m., an electric-company supervisor tripped a switch on a junction box that served a four-square-block area around and including the Bartolucci property. All of the security lights on the estate went off, along with every other light and electric appliance in the four-square-block area.
The two guard dogs had shown signs of agitation for several minutes before the lights went out. They now whined and tugged at their leashes. Their handler had taken his cue from the dogs and become especially watchful. When the lights went out, the dog handler used his radio to warn the other guards he was about to release the dogs. He gave the two other guards thirty seconds to retreat to the front of the house, then released the animals, which raced into the tree line. From the way the animals zeroed-in on one particular spot, the handler knew something or someone had penetrated the grounds. The dog handler radioed the house.
When the call came in from the dog handler, David was with two of Gino’s men in the small room off the kitchen that served as a communications center. The two men rushed to the front entry.
S.W.A.T. Officer Guy Allen sensed movement to his left. As he reacted and turned, a snarling mass of fury hit him in the chest and drove the air from his lungs. All Allen could do was roll into a fetal position, protect his face and throat with his hands and arms, and try to catch his breath. The animal bit Allen’s arm, shook it for a couple seconds, and then ran off.
Officers Warren Doherty and John Lovett sprinted across a wide expanse of lawn toward the generator when a dog ran Lovett down from behind. When he fell, his forehead struck the butt of his assault rifle, knocking him out.
The two dogs—silent, dark specters that caused havoc among the S.W.A.T. team members—raced back into the trees. Even those snipers who
thought
they saw one of the dogs couldn’t fire their weapons for fear they’d hit one of their comrades. Two of the snipers climbed into trees, while a third scaled the wall back out to the street. Suddenly, the generators kicked in and the entire estate lit up like a football stadium. The snipers were no longer in position to shoot out the pole- and building-mounted security lights. One of the cops saw the dog handler run toward the tree line, shotgun in hand. He fired at the man who dropped as though he’d been poleaxed. The man screamed like it, too.
Two of Bartolucci’s guards who had retreated behind a ten-foot stone pillar at the mansion’s front entrance opened fire in the direction of the flash from the cop’s weapon. This forced the S.W.A.T. team members to shoot back while hunkered down in the trees. But with the dogs creating confusion in the police ranks, their aim was less than true. The situation was bad enough when the lights were on, but when Officer Doherty belatedly cut the cables to the generators, all hell broke loose in the sudden darkness lit only by gunfire.
One of the dogs attacked another cop, who raised his automatic weapon, fired, and wounded the animal. But several rounds from his rifle went over the hurtling beast and hit one of the S.W.A.T. team members square in the chest. His bulletproof vest saved his life, but the force of the bullet knocked him unconscious.
The second dog went for the throat of another police officer when a nearby teammate ran over and tasered the animal.
Gino’s two guards who’d been in the communications center with David had run out the front door and fired pistols at weapons flashes that came from the far side of the yard. They were out of range of the intruders and only succeeded in creating more confusion. The rate of gunfire accelerated dramatically. Shotgun blasts echoed like thunder off the walls of the estate. The police officers’ silenced rounds added to the mayhem as they ricocheted off concrete and stone surfaces, sounding like high-pitched fireworks.
“Cease fire!” Captain Brand shouted. It took almost thirty seconds to get them to stop shooting. Bartolucci’s men also stopped firing.
Brand had had enough of the circus this operation had turned into. He knew his team had suffered casualties and he was not about to have any more of his men wounded if he could help it. He called to his radioman, who knelt on the ground about four feet behind him in the trees inside the walls. Brand removed a bullhorn attached to a small pack on the man’s back. He hit the power switch and announced, “This is the Philadelphia Police. Throw down your weapons, walk out on the lawn, and lie down on the grass. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll order my men to fire again.”
One of Bartolucci’s guards yelled back into the darkness, “What kind of cops are you assholes? What gives you the right to come chargin’ in here?”
“You heard what I said. Either show yourselves or we open fire.”
“How do we know you’re really cops?”
Good question, Brand reflected. “I’m going to walk over to you with my arms over my head and without a weapon. I’ll come no closer than twenty yards and then I’ll toss my badge to you. If a single shot is fired from your side, my men will blow you and the house to pieces. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yeah,” the guard yelled.
As Brand unstrapped his equipment belt and dropped it, along with his weapon, his radioman looked at him and said, “No disrespect intended, Captain, but are you out of your friggin’ mind?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. This whole thing has seemed screwed up from the start. That guy over there sounds to me like he wants this over with as badly as I do.”
Brand walked into the open and approached the house.
“Over here,” a man shouted.
Brand walked toward the man’s voice and stopped twenty yards from a stone staircase. He tossed his badge case toward the steps. A man rushed out, picked it up, and ran back beside the staircase.
After only a few seconds, a man shouted, “It’s the cops, alright. Put down your weapons and come out.”
Four men showed themselves, placed their weapons on the pavement in front of the steps and assumed the prone position on the edge of the lawn. Brand then ordered his men forward.
David Hood had sprinted from the commo center to the stairs that led to the bedrooms on the second floor. Between the gunfire, shouts, and screams, it sounded as though a full-scale assault was in progress. The first room at the head of the staircase was Gino’s. He found Gino had already dressed. The two of them gathered up Dennis, Peter, and Jennifer, who were already out of bed and in the process of dressing.
“There’s no time to finish dressing,” David said. “We have to get out of here.”
“Who’s out there?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know,” David answered. “But I’ll bet Rolf Bishop had something to do with it.”
They all ran downstairs and quickly moved toward the rear of the house.
The gunfire out front had stopped, but then David heard the thrumming sound of a helicopter and the sounds of breaking glass from somewhere upstairs.
“Is there another way out of here?” David asked Gino.
“Yeah. Give me a second,” Gino said as he walked to a small desk in an alcove off the kitchen, took out paper and pencil, and quickly scribbled something. He put the paper in an envelope, sealed it, and pulled a piece of tape from a dispenser. He moved to the basement door and taped the envelope to the door.
“Come with me,” Gino said, as calmly as though he had suggested they all go out for a leisurely walk. He led them into the basement. In the wine cellar he pushed aside a wine bottle-laden rack that stood on hidden rollers and revealed the entrance to a tunnel. He urged them into the tunnel and followed, after he pulled the wine rack snug behind them.
The tunnel took them under the wall that separated the Bartolucci property from the adjoining estate and led to a door flush with the ground. Gino opened a latch on the door and said, “David, you need to put your back against it.”
David climbed three steps up to the door, turned around, stooped over, and heaved up against the door. At first, it wouldn’t budge. But a second effort did the trick. He pushed the door open, heard dirt slide off its surface, and then got a dirt shower for his efforts. He stepped out in the darkness and reached down to assist the others out of the tunnel. They were just on the other side of the wall, in a dense grouping of bushes and trees. Gino closed the door and kicked dirt back over it.