Badge of Evil by Craig Horowitz & Bill Stanton

2

"DAD. DAAAAAD. TELEPHONE!"

A. J. Ross was in the kitchen working on his third cup of coffee when he heard his fourteen-year-old daughter, Annie, yelling from her bedroom that he had a phone call. For a long moment, A. J. didn't move. He just sat there, staring blankly at the newspapers and listening to the radio. Actually, he wasn't really listening. A. J. had kind of zoned out until he was startled by his daughter's voice. "Believe me," he now heard morning talk-show jock Don Imus ranting about some poor slob, "that bucktoothed, beady-eyed, rodent-lookin' little weasel is gonna be sorry . . ." It was seven forty-five a.m. Fuck, A. J. thought, feeling as cranky as Imus sounded, no good ever comes from a phone call before breakfast.

A. J. was having a more or less typical morning. He'd gotten up at six fifteen a.m., showered, shaved, and dressed. Then he'd checked his daughter's homework and read the news. It was one of those mornings when the big stories were breaking online and the printed editions of the newspapers were irrelevant before they even rolled off the presses. BROCK LEADS RAID ON SUSPECTED TERROR CELL was the headline stretched across the top of theNew York Times website. CELL DAMAGE: COMMISH SHOOTS TERRORISTS, screamed the Daily News across its entire online front page. But it was thePost, as usual, that nailed it: BROCK KICKS ASS: COMMISH 4, TERRORISTS 0.

A. J. had more than a passing interest in the morning's stunning news story. In the media capital of the world, he was a franchise player, one of the best-known, best-connected journalists in the city. In ten years at New York, the thirty-eight-year-old had written seventy-five cover stories, won two National Magazine Awards, and always managed to score the big interview. Even with the decline in print sales in the digital era, his byline could still sell magazines, and it definitely generated page views. Though it was harder for any writer to have real impact, A. J. still produced work people talked about and people in power paid attention to.

"Daaaaaaaad. Daaaaa-aaaaaad!"

"Okay, okay," A. J. yelled to his daughter as he moved away from the table. "Hey," he said in a doleful tone of voice when he picked up the cordless.

"Morning, boss. Hope you didn't pull anything rushing to get the phone. Have you seen the headlines?" his assistant, Lucy, asked in her irresistibly throaty voice.

"I live in the suburbs, not Siberia. Of course I have. What'd you do, sleep in the office?"

"I was restless last night. I don't know, it was like I just couldn't get comfortable. So I got out early this morning, went to the gym, had a little breakfast, and got here around seven."

"I'm starting to worry about you, Luce. You need to have a little fun, relax a little, you know? There's not much more than headlines right now anyway. Everything happened too late. I haven't made any calls yet. Whaddaya hear from downtown?" A. J. asked as Annie came into the kitchen, dressed and dragging her school backpack across the floor. She pointed to her watch, indicating she needed to go. A. J. nodded, held up a couple of fingers, and silently mouthed the words "two minutes."

"So far nothing. There's a press conference at One Police Plaza at ten. Brock, the mayor, and Pennetta are supposed to be there," Lucy said.

"Zito? Man, they must've held a gun to his head. Well, they can make him show up but they can't make him talk. Actually, they'd never let him talk even if he suddenly wanted to. They're not sharing face time with anybody."

"Are you leaving now?" Lucy gently prodded.

"I'll get going right after I drive Annie to school. I'll meet you at One PP. I know it's early, but start making some phone calls on the suspects. Especially the one that's still breathing. And we need to find out where the hell the intelligence came from. Who tipped the cops about these guys?"