Enemies Within. Don Pendleton

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       Chapter Four

      Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building

      Washington, DC

      Hal Brognola heard his cell phone buzzing, vibrating atop his desk. He picked it up and read the message on its screen. Detective Orley Pratt was calling from Newark PD Homicide.

      It didn’t take a mastermind to know the news wouldn’t be good.

      “Detective Pratt. Brognola here.”

      “I thought I’d better catch you early. Your department has a flag on Jesse Moseley, a junior at the Newark College of Engineering?”

      “Right. I take it, since you’re calling...”

      “He’s downtown right now. The city morgue.”

      “Not accidental, I presume.”

      “You got that right. Kid goes up on the roof of his apartment house last night to catch a smoke break. Somebody comes up behind him, hits him with a double tap up close, 9 mil, and then collects the brass.”

      “Professional,” Brognola said.

      “I’d say so,” Pratt replied. “Of course, the street dicks call it gang-related, drug-related, some kind of related. Nothing in his file suggests involvement, but it is Brick City, sometimes called Manhattan’s Sixth Borough. We’ve got Crips and Bloods, your Latin Kings and Trinitarios or ‘3ni,’ Dominicans expanding out from New York City. All of them are moving shit as fast as they can handle it. Beat cops call it an SCO—self-cleaning oven.”

      “Nice.”

      Pratt let that go, saying, “So the bottom line is, we’ve got nothing on your boy, either. Not even a street interrogation card, which makes—or made—him a rare bird for that preserve.”

      “Any contact with next of kin so far?” Brognola asked.

      “Sole living relative’s supposed to be an older brother in the Army, but we’re getting squat as far as any feedback from the Pentagon. I guess you wouldn’t have anything to share on that?”

      “Sorry,” the big Fed said. “It’s strictly need to know.”

      “And lowly cops don’t need. I get it. Same old story.”

      “If I could pass anything along...”

      “Yeah, yeah. Well, let me pass this on to you. We haven’t publicized the hit yet, but it’s likely going to the media today, maybe tomorrow. If anybody comes around to claim the body, I’ll try to let you know in time for interception. Whether it helps or not, I guess I’ll never know. If nobody shows up, the city carries out cremation after ninety days and bills the taxpayers. The ashes go to Woodland Cemetery, with a plastic label that’s supposed to last five years or something.”

      “Not the best sendoff,” Brognola said.

      “It’s all you get when no one gives a damn. Be talking to you later,” Pratt told him. “Or maybe not.”

      “Thanks for the heads-up, anyway.”

      “I’d say it was a pleasure but...you know.” The line went dead and Brognola shut off the link.

      Professional. A double tap...collect the brass, Brognola thought. That fit the Ranger style, far as it went, but why would Darby’s AWOL team take out Lieutenant Moseley’s brother if he had no part in their subversion? And why would he, with what appeared to be a spotless record and his future goals apparently laid down?

      Brotherly love?

      The big Fed hoped it couldn’t be that simple, but you never knew. And if Jesse had been connected to his brother’s group somehow, they’d lost another chance to crack the case before it all revved up and went to hell.

      The setback Bolan and Grimaldi had reported out of Maryland was bad enough. One innocent civilian dead, two others critical, and all they could report as “good news” was that they’d avoided contact with police. Shit happened, and Striker was a human being, sure, albeit head and shoulders taller than the rest Brognola had been privileged to know. Still not infallible, of course, and he was hustling to play catch-up after someone slapped the first ball from his hands.

      Two watchers on the home of Walton Tanner Sr., and the way they had reacted to exposure meant the members of the AWOL Ranger team were keeping tabs on family. Had they come gunning for the ex-Marine and been cut off, compelled to flee? If so, had it provoked the hit on Jesse Moseley in Newark—and had the whole unit, including Jesse’s brother, signed off on the execution?

      If they hadn’t...well, it just might be a crack susceptible to leverage, but that meant getting close enough for piling pressure on. And how would they accomplish that?

      Frowning, Brognola grabbed his cell again, secure as any phone could be these days, and hit speed dial.

      Gaithersburg, Maryland

      Six former US Army Rangers sat around a dining table in a drab, low-rent apartment two blocks south of Frederick Avenue, the main drag running generally north-south through the middle of the state’s fourth largest city, linking Gaithersburg to Frederick, Rockville and Washington, DC. Secure in anonymity for now, they had already scanned the place for bugs and had an audio jammer running just in case, generating random masking sounds that would desensitize microphones they might have missed, rendering them useless for recording.