The Traffickers

Book 9: Badge Of Honor

by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV

Genres: Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Philadelphia Homicide Sergeant Matthew Payne is paired with a Texas Ranger to bring down a murderer with Mexican cartel connections. The odd couple of the Philly cop and the Texas lawman must run down the killer and his gang-before the body count rises again.

Release date: August 4, 2009

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 544

Sample

I
[ONE]
7522 Battersby Street, Philadelphia
Wednesday, September 9, 1:55 A.M.

Tony Harris returned to his bed, silently cursing himself for not having hit thejohn before he’d crawled under the sheets two hours earlier. Harris—a thirtyeight-year-old homicide detective in the Philadelphia Police Department whowas slight of build and starting to bald—then clicked off the lamp on his bedsidetable. As he put his head on his pillow and sighed, wondering when—oreven if—he’d start to drift off back to sleep, a monstrous BOOM shook thehouse. It reverberated through the darkened room, knocking loose a pictureframe from the wall, its glass breaking when it hit the floor.

“Holy shit!” he said aloud, sitting bolt upright and clicking on the lamp.He looked toward the front window.

What in hell was that?

Did a damn gas leak just blow up the middle school?

Austin Meehan Middle School was a half-block down the tree-lined residentialstreet.

Harris quickly got out of bed, crossed the room, and pulled back the curtainto look out the window. On either side of Battersby, the Northeast Philadelphianeighborhood had a series of nearly identical, neatly kept comfortabletwo-story brick duplexes with large lawns. The homes—some of which nowwith their lights flicking on—had stone façades on the front and garages in therear, on a common alleyway. Because Harris’s garage served more as a storageunit than a car park, he left his city-issued Ford Crown Victoria sitting at thecurb in front of his house.

It took Harris no time to locate the direction of the source: In the sky someblocks to the east, he saw a bright glow that he recognized as that from an intensefire.

Maybe a gas station on Frankford went up? he wondered as he automaticallystarted picking up his clothes from the chair where he’d tossed them at midnight.He quickly pulled on his wrinkled pants and short-sleeved knit shirt, then slipped on socks and shoes. He watched as the glow from the fire seemedto pulse even brighter, as if the fire were being fed more fuel.“Jesus!” he said aloud.

Harris double-checked that he had his wallet and badge and pistol, thenran down the stairs as fast as he dared and out the door.

He drove the Crown Vic up Battersby, turning right onto Ryan Avenue, thenfollowed it the seven blocks to Frankford Avenue, where Harris could clearlysee that the intense glow was to the south. He was about to make the turn whenhe heard the wail of sirens—and then the huge horns blaring—of two firedepartment emergency medical vehicles. The red-and-white ambulances flewup on the intersection, braked heavily as they lay steadily on their horns, thenaccelerated through it.

Harris checked for any other vehicles headed for the intersection. He sawthat it was clear and turned to follow the ambulances.

As he went south on Frankford, the sky became a brighter orange-red mingledwith black and gray smoke. And then, down on the left side of the street,he saw the first of the flames. They were coming from the back of the PhillyInn, an aging two-story motel that had been built long before Anthony J. Harrishad been born at Saint Joseph’s Hospital.

He pulled into a parking lot to the north of the motel, to where he had abetter view of all the activity. He also enjoyed more than a little of an olfactoryassault from the awful smell filling the air and now entering the car via thedash vents.

That’s the smell of burning wood, for sure, and plastics.But I’d bet that’s also a bit of human flesh . . . you can damn near taste it.

Philadelphia Fire Department Engine 36, from the station just up Frankford,already was on the scene. It had hoses snaking everywhere and the firefighterswere laying down an impressive amount of water. Other firemen weregoing door to door, methodically clearing the motel’s rooms and herding whatpeople they found inside to a parking lot to the south. Doors that no one answeredwere busted open with twenty-eight-pound metal battering rams andthe hammer-headed pry bars called Halligans.

The pair of ambulances that had flown past Harris at the intersectionwere parked close by, their paramedics pulling out equipment—first-aid kits,backboards—with a well-practiced efficiency. A minute or so later, Engine 38 came roaring in from its station a mile away on Old State Road—followed byan articulated ladder fire truck, which Harris thought a bit of overkill for alowly two-story structure.

But, hell. Can’t blame them.

Everyone loves a little adrenaline rush, especially these guys getting to play withall their toys.

And this damn fire seems to offer plenty of excitement.

It’s got my pulse beating. No way I could go back to sleep now.

Harris noted that the Philadelphia Police Department was well represented,too. Cruisers practically surrounded the place. There was even a flatbed wreckerfrom the Tow Squad, which was being waved toward the back of the motel.Harris looked to where the wrecker was being routed and saw a half-dozenfirefighters working feverishly at an SUV. It was on the backside of the motel,at a room with its door blown outward, where the flames appeared to be thehottest.

And where the blast took place.

The firemen were in the middle of a row of vehicles parked outside themotel rooms, and were inserting a heavy fire-resistant blanket in through theframework that once held the SUV’s front windshield.

The wrecker raced up to the back bumper of the SUV, and a heavy-linkedstainless-steel chain was quickly slung from the SUV’s bumper to a tow hookbolted on the front frame of the wrecker.

The driver ground the gearshift into reverse and carefully took up the slackin the chain. At a firefighter’s rapid hand signals and shouts of “Go! Fuckin’ go,go, go!” the diesel engine then roared and the wrecker started tugging the SUVaway from the fire.

The wrecker didn’t slow until it had slid the SUV practically in front ofHarris’s Crown Vic, leaving a trail of black tire marks across the parking lot.

That’s one of those really fancy Mercedes-Benz SUVs.

What the hell is it doing here?

And how the hell is it connected to that explosion?

There’s absolutely no question it has to be. . . .

One of the emergency medical vehicles then pulled alongside the passengerside of the SUV. Floodlights mounted on the side of the unit were switchedon, brightly illuminating the SUV. Two firefighters almost instantly appeared,carrying a heavy metal device with hydraulically powered pincers that Harrisrecognized as the Jaws of Life. The rescue tool proceeded to cut the right side of the Mercedes to pieces as other rescuers worked feverishly from inside theleft-side doors to stabilize whoever was unlucky enough to be in the vehicle.There suddenly was more shouting at the motel, and when Harris turnedhis attention to it he saw the impossible—a man on fire came staggering outof the motel room that had the blown-outward door.

One fireman rushed to the man. As he tackled him to smother the fire, afire hose was trained on the both of them, instantly flooding the flames. Thenthe fireman stood and seemingly effortlessly slung the man over his shoulder.He ran with him—slipping twice—to the second ambulance, where the paramedicswaited, ready to go to work.

Forty-five minutes later, twenty minutes after the motel fire had been broughtunder control if not put out, Harris watched the emergency medical personnelremove from the SUV someone they’d strapped to a rescue backboard. Thevictim looked to Harris to be a young woman. She had IV hoses dangling fromher arm and wore an oxygen mask.Five minutes later, the doors of the ambulance slammed shut, and its sirenwailed as the unit began to roll. As if on cue, the other ambulance did the sameonly a minute later.

Harris scanned the motel and saw that the firemen were putting whatHarris thought of as their toys back in their trucks. And he saw that the yellowand black police line—do not cross tape was being strung up, signifyingthe scene was being turned over to the police.

Well, now that all the excitement’s over, Harris thought, reaching for the doorhandle, professional curiosity overwhelms me.

[TWO]
The Philly Inn
7004 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia
Wednesday, September 9, 1:15 A.M.

Forty minutes earlier, Becca Benjamin, despite having to wait in her silverMercedes-Benz G550 at the back of a lousy Northeast Philly motel, had justreminded herself that she could not believe how much her luck had changed.Becca—a trendy twenty-five-year-old brunette with olive skin who wasfive-foot-seven and just under 140 pounds, having recently started winning her battles to keep the bathroom scale from tipping 150—not only had reconnectedwith her prep school boyfriend two months earlier but they had foundthat they still enjoyed what first had brought them together: partying, mostlybooze-fueled but with the occasional recreational drug.

They had first dated nine years ago when in the Upper School at EpiscopalAcademy. She had been a voluptuous sixteen-year-old in IV Form (tenth grade)and J. Warren Olde, known as “Skipper,” then eighteen and in VI Form (senioryear), had begun flirting with her in the back row of an International Politicsclass. He was taking it for the second time, having yet to meet even the lowestthreshold of the academic standards for passing the required course.

Skipper had a slender athletic build—he was a star player on the academy’schampionship lacrosse team, a midfielder who seemed to float effortlessly fromone end of the 110-yard field to the other—and stood five-ten. His sandy hairwas cut to his collar, with long bangs that he regularly swept out of his eyes.He was genuinely gregarious, quick with a laugh. And Becca, herself outgoing,had been immediately taken by his attentions.

Their relationship had lasted, though, only until the end of the school year.It had been a wild ride—literally—as an inebriated Skipper, driving Becca homeafter a graduation party, had misjudged a Dam View Road curve—actuallywound up going down an estate’s driveway at a high rate of speed—and put hislittle Audi in Springton Reservoir. Becca wound up with a broken collarboneand a trip to the Riddle Memorial Hospital emergency room in Media.

The Benjamins and Oldes—both families of significant means and, accordingly,connections with which they arranged to get the incident forgotten inthe legal system, if not in their own tony community—were not amused. Hisparents declared Becca a wild child, albeit one in a woman’s body, while herparents deemed the older boy a bad influence, unfit for their impressionablesweet sixteen-year-old—and thus absolutely off-limits.

Neither Becca nor Skipper was thrilled about the forced separation. Butthen, while Skipper’s angry old man was still dealing with the lawyers and havingthe sports car fished from the reservoir, Skipper’s mother had sent him offearly to the small private university he’d been set to attend in Texas—her almamater in her hometown of Dallas. And so neither teenager had been preparedto fight the inevitable. They’d agreed to stay in touch, but even that turned outto be short-lived. They simply lost contact.

Then, two months ago, at a Fourth of July party on the Jersey shore thrownby a mutual friend from their prep school days, they’d run into each other.Becca had first noticed Skipper—who’d been standing beside the beer keg cooler on the beach—mostly because he wore, in addition to flowery Hawaiianstylesurfer shorts and aviator-style sunglasses, a frayed straw cowboy hat and awhite T-shirt emblazoned with a running red horse and block lettering thatread s.m.u. mustangs lacrosse.

They had found that their outsized personalities were still in sync—withtheir appetites somewhat matured—and they damned near immediately pickedup where they’d left off years before.

The party was back on.

Now Becca sat in the front passenger seat of the boxy Mercedes SUV; she’dhad Skipper drive because she’d been shaking too much from the drugs. Shehated that downside, which included her being stressed, as she was now. Butshe told herself there was no question that the upside’s euphoria was worth it,not to mention the added benefit of a killed appetite that helped her finallylose—and keep off—those damned ten-plus pounds.

Despite the night, she stared through dark bug-eyed sunglasses at the moteldoor to Room 52. Then she punched the map light switch in order to read herwristwatch. The white-platinum diamond-bezel Audemars Piguet had cost herparents more than most of the battered work trucks and cars parked near theMercedes were worth, never mind the six-figure sticker of the SUV itself. Her armtwitched a little, but she could tell by the position of the watch’s hands—therewere no numbers, just four dots of diamonds, twinkling in the map light, torepresent the 3, 6, 9, and 12 on the face—that it now was just after one-fifteen.

Her hands and feet were cold—another side effect from the drug—so shesat with her feet tucked under her thighs, her arms crossed, with her handsresting and warming in her armpits. She wore cream-colored linen shorts anda tan silk blouse that was cut low in the front, revealing her ample bosom,which now was rising and falling more rapidly than normal.

He’s been in there fifteen minutes.

He said it’d take only one: “In and out, baby.”

What’s taking so long?

Is he okay?

Should I go in?

Hell no, I shouldn’t go in—who knows who’s in there?—and I sure as hell don’twant to go in that fleabag room.

But what if he’s not okay?

What if—

Her cellular phone, resting on her lap, simultaneously vibrated briefly andmade a ping sound, announcing the receipt of a text message.“Damn!” she said, startled. It caused her to uncross her arms and kick outher feet.

She quickly glanced at the phone’s screen, thinking the text might be fromSkipper. She saw—barely, as her sleep-deprived eyes had trouble focusing onthe backlit small print—that it was from her girlfriend Casey, who was askingwhere r u??

Becca threw the phone onto the leather-covered console between the frontseats and sighed loudly.

She looked back at the motel door, wondering if she should shoot Skippera text message. Maybe something along the lines of WTF???

Yeah, Skipper—What The Fuck?

The only movement she saw was from the motel room curtain, which waspulled closed over the open window and gently swaying, as if being blown bya breeze.

She crossed her arms and tucked her feet back under her and closed hereyes. After a while, she glanced at her watch again.

One-thirty!

That’s it. I’m going in there.

She had just clicked off the map light and reached for and found the buttonthat would release her seat belt when the door of Room 52 swung open. Outcame Skipper Olde, holding a white handkerchief over his nose and mouth.Olde wore a baggy navy blue T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals, and hisaviator sunglasses hung from the front of the collar of his T-shirt. At twenty-seven,he still had his athletic slender build and his sandy hair collar-length,but no bangs, as he was thinning noticeably on top.

He pulled the motel door shut, then stuffed the handkerchief in his pantspocket. He glanced at the Mercedes, and Becca saw him flash his usual happy-go-lucky grin at her.

He quickly walked to the driver’s door of the SUV and got in.She then hit the button that simultaneously locked all the doors.

“What happened?” Becca said softly. “I was worried. I was just about tocome after you.”

“Sorry, baby. They were having a little trouble in there.” He reached intohis T-shirt pocket and pulled out a white plastic bag, heat-sealed at each end,that was about the size of a single-serving sugar packet. “I should’ve broughtthis out to you first, then helped them.”

She pulled the bug-eyed sunglasses from her face and slipped them up onthe top of her head.

Skipper Olde placed the white bag beside her cellular phone on the leathercoveredconsole. She looked at it, then at Skipper, then nervously glanced outthe darkened side windows, then the rear ones, to see if anyone was watchingthem.

“Go on,” he said, smiling. “It’s yours.”

She smiled back weakly, then leaned over in her seat and kissed him quicklyon the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said, picking up the packet, then biting off a corner andremoving the cut stub of a plastic drinking straw from it. She looked at Skipper.“What about you?”

He looked a little embarrassed, then nodded toward the motel room.“I had a bump when I first went in. And there’s more cooking. That’s whatthey were having trouble with.”

He nodded at the pouch she held and said encouragingly, “Go on, baby.It’ll take your edge off.”

She smiled slyly and said, “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Becca Benjamin—who at age fourteen had been the Commonwealth ofPennsylvania’s top Girl Scout cookie salesgirl, which she later listed underaccomplishments on her University of Pennsylvania application to theWharton School’s master of business administration program—straightenedherself upright in her seat. With the effortlessness of one who’d had somepractice, she cupped the white packet with her hand so that it could not beseen, then took the straw stub and slipped an end in the hole she’d bitten, thenplaced the other end halfway up her right nostril. She pinched her left nostrilclosed and snorted.

“Shit, that burns!” she said after a moment, vigorously rubbing the outsideof her right nostril after removing the straw.

But Skipper saw that she was smiling.

He also saw that all of the off-white powder had not been fully ingested.Some, mixed with mucus, was trickling toward her upper lip. With a fingertip,he wiped it from there, then licked it off his finger and grinned at her. Sheshook her head in mock disgust.

His cellular phone rang, and when he looked at its screen, he said, “Damn!”then answered it by saying, “Sorry. Running late. Give me ten minutes. It’s stillin the office safe.” He listened for a moment, added, “No, no, I want you tohave it before Becca and I leave town,” then hung up without another word.He put the phone on the center console.

“I need to go inside and put together some more,” Olde said as he openedthe driver’s door. He looked back in at her, said, “I’ll be right back, baby.Promise.”

She held up her left index finger and said, “Wait a sec.”

She then snorted through the straw again, working it around the packetas she did so. Then she held out both to him. “Don’t need this empty bag inmy car.”

Wordlessly, he took it and the straw, then got out and closed the door.Becca hit the master locking button for the doors as she watched him gointo the room. The motel lights hurt her dilated eyes, and she pulled the sunglassesfrom her hair and slid them back over her eyes.

Skipper’s cellular phone started ringing again. She grabbed it, then helddown the button on top labeled “0/1,” turning it off. Then she reached for theswitch on the door that manipulated her seat’s position, reclined the seat backalmost flat, and lay back while enjoying the sudden pleasant flood of warmththat the methamphetamine triggered by tricking her brain into creating thechemical dopamine in overdrive.

[THREE]
The Philly Inn
7004 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia
Wednesday, September 9, 1:40 A.M.

Skipper Olde unlocked and entered the motel room, which had the catpiss stench of ammonia and stank of other caustic odors. He put thehandkerchief back to his face and quickly stepped around a heavy cardboardbox that had been moved by the door. Then, tripping over the coil ofclear surgical tubing next to it, he let loose with a long, creative string ofexpletives.

That caused the two Hispanic males in their twenties at the stove of thekitchenette in the back of the room to laugh from behind the blue bandannastied over their noses and mouths.

And that in turn caused Skipper to bark, “Fuck you two and the cocksuckingdonkey you rode in on!”

Then he laughed, too.

The pair grunted and shook their heads, then turned their attention backto the stove.

Olde—stepping past the box fan with its switch set to high to help thewindow unit circulate the air, and causing the tan curtain to sway—lookedaround in an attempt to find an obvious path to follow to the kitchenette. Itwasn’t that the motel room was small. The problem was that the room waspacked, to the ceiling in places, with boxes and barrels and assorted materials.It was what could be described as a haphazard-warehouse-slash-makeshiftassembly-line.

The Philly Inn’s management advertised the facility as modern. But in factit had been built more than fifty years earlier and was an older two-floordesign—“low-rise,” its advertisements called it, playing on the nicer image thattended to come to mind with the term “high-rise.” It was of masonry construction,each of the 120 rooms basically an off-white rectangular box with aburgundy-painted steel door opening to the outside, a plate-glass window(with tan curtain) overlooking the parking lot, and, under the window, anair-conditioning unit.

In its heyday, the Philly Inn had served as short-term, affordable lodgingfor traveling salesmen who used it as their base on U.S. Highway 13—whichwas what Frankford was also designated—and for families who took their vacationsin Philadelphia, enjoying the historic sites and museums in the city, andthe entertainment of the various themed amusement parks nearby.

Each large room—all identical and advertised as “a De-Luxe DoubleGuest Room”—had a thirty-two-inch TV on the four-drawer dresser, a roundFormica-topped table with four wooden chairs, two full-size beds separatedby a bedside table with lamp and telephone (though the phones mostly wentuntouched, as an additional cash deposit up front was required to make localand long-distance calls). The mosaic-tiled bathroom held a water closet anda tub-shower combination. And taking up all of the far back wall was anample kitchenette with a three-burner electric stove and oven, a single sink,a full-size refrigerator, and a small countertop microwave oven secured to thewall with a steel strap so that it might not accidentally wind up leaving witha guest at checkout.

Depending on one’s perspective, the Philly Inn wasn’t exactly seedy. SkipperOlde himself had spent the night there more than a few times, though ithad been mostly out of necessity, as he’d been far from sober enough to drive.But it damn sure was sliding toward sleazy. It had long ago lost the steady business of the salesmen and families on holiday to the shiny new chain hotelsnearer Philadelphia’s Northeast Airport, mere miles to the north, and on Interstate95.

Now the Philly Inn had an entirely different demographic of guests, oneswho tended to stay more long-term. The motel had become temporary housingfor those who needed some really cheap—but livable—place to stay during theperiod, say, after having sold their row house and not yet able to move into thenext one, or while waiting for family members or friends who were receivingmedical treatment at the many nearby hospitals, such as Nazareth, Friends,Temple University, even the Shriners for Children.

The Philly Inn’s posted rack rate was still the same seventy-five dollars anight that it had been for at least the last decade. It was, however, not unheardof for management to agree to a negotiated rate of as little as twenty-five bucksa night, even less for those staying thirty days or longer and paying—usuallywith cash—each week in advance.

There still were quite a few couples or families staying as guests for days oreven as long as a week. But there were many more long-termers. These latterones were mostly transient laborers, men working in construction—you couldtell them by all their pickups in the parking lot late at night—and other seasonalwork, such as mowing the countless lawns of suburban offices and homes,and harvesting the fruits and vegetables of the farms nearby and the ones acrossthe river in New Jersey.

The motel management was as conscientious as it could be about keepingsome separation between the workers and the families, assigning rooms to eachin their own part of the motel and leaving vacant rooms between as a buffer.But as far as the owner of the property was concerned, none of that reallymattered. The reality was that the Philly Inn’s days were numbered. Its demisewas inevitable, and about the only real reason the damn place had not beenboarded up—or torn down completely—was that it could be made to show aprofit. Enough to cover the bills, from its utilities to the assorted taxes leviedupon it, which was not the same thing as saying that the motel did in fact earna profit.

Its owner—Skipper Properties LLC, of which one J. Warren Olde, Jr.,served as managing principal—had bought the place in a deal that includedtwo other aged motels and a string of laundromats.

Skipper Properties LLC already had plans drawn up to build fashionablecondominiums on the ten acres of land presently occupied by the Philly Inn.Being a self-proclaimed civic-minded company, Skipper Properties LLC wastrying to jump-start a gentrification of the area. It was arguably mere coincidencethat the company had also quietly bought up nearby parcels, includingpractically stealing a strip shopping center, to flip later at a huge profit.

Skipper Properties LLC announced that this so-called jump start wouldtake place just as soon as His Honor the Mayor of Philadelphia convinced thegoddamned lamebrain city council to come to its senses and grant said civicmindedSkipper Properties LLC the “fair and just” tax abatement and otherincentives that had been requested so as to make such a project viable—whichwas to say profitable—and build a more beautiful city.

There were secondary reasons that Skipper Olde was in no hurry to teardown the place—ones he certainly was not in the habit of sharing freely. Chiefamong these was that the inn was a mostly cash business now, and books wereeasily cooked when a lot of cash was involved. Also, most of the laborers livingat the inn and at the two other aged motels the LLC had bought earned thatcash by laboring for companies that were more or less indirectly controlled bySkipper Olde. Though, again, with Skipper not sharing such information freely,particularly with his silent partner-investor, and keeping those connections atarm’s length, few knew many, if any, of those details.

So, as far as Skipper Olde was concerned, the how and why of that, if sharedwith others, would only create problems for him. The bottom line was that thevarious companies had plenty of work for the laborers, and the laborers wereready and willing to do it—and for low wages. But they could not do so if theyhad no place they could afford to live on a semipermanent basis.Thus, the Philly Inn—the vote of the damned Philadelphia city councilnotwithstanding—was worth more standing as-is than demolished.For the time being.

Skipper Olde began blazing a path through Room 52 by pushing aside a stackof cardboard boxes—one box was labeled 4 ROLLS POLY TUBING, ALL-VIRGINFILM, USDA- AND FDA-APPROVED, 2-MIL 1-IN X 1,500-FT, the other BUN-O-MATICCOFFEE FILTERS—ONE (1) GROSS.

As he squeezed past a short wall of more than a dozen boxes stacked threeand four high, some imprinted with LEVITTOWN POOL & SPA SUPPLY. handlewith extreme care! HYDROCHLORIC ACID. 2 1-GAL BOTTLES, THE WALLWOBBLED.

He called out to the pair standing at the kitchenette stove: “Hey, you amigos need to move these. If this fucking muriatic acid spills, it’ll eat you tothe bone!”

He pointed to two plastic orange jugs, at the foot of the beds, that werestenciled in black ink hypophosphorous acid. hazardous! use only inwell-ventilated area!

“Same with that shit!” he added.

Then he worked his way around the stacks of clear plastic storage binscontaining various boxes of single-edge utility razor blades, some plastic gallonjugs of iodine, and heavy polymer boxes of lye.

At least that caustic soda is safe in those thick plastic boxes.

One clear plastic stora