Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“What can I do for you, Mickey?”

“Don’t let the doorknob hit me in the ass?” O’Hara said.

“No. What I said was ‘What can I do for you, Mickey?’ When I throw you out, I won’t be subtle. Is there something special, or do you just want to hang around?”

“I’m interested in the abducted woman,” O’Hara said. “I figure when something breaks, this will be the place. So I’ll just hang around, if that’s okay with you.”

“Fine with me,” Wohl said. He turned to Mike Sabara. “Mike, get on the phone to the Captain of Northwest Detectives, and the Fourteenth District Commander. Tell them that Commissioner Czernick just ordered me to stroke a woman named Peebles, and that before I send a couple of our people out to see her, I’m going to send them by to look at the paperwork. She’s—what the commissioner said was—being burglarized, and she’s unhappy with the service she’s been getting, and she has friends in high places.”

“Who are you going to send over?”

“Officers Martinez and McFadden,” Wohl said.

“Who are they?” Sabara asked, confused.

“Two of the three kids sitting on the folding chairs in the foyer,” Wohl said. “I’m doing what I can with what I’ve got. Then, the next item on the priority list: We need people. I would like to have time to screen them carefully, but we don’t have any time. A teletype went out yesterday, asking for volunteers. I don’t know if there have been any responses yet, but find out. If there have not been any, or even, come to think of it, if there have—”

“McFadden and Martinez used to work undercover for me in Narcotics,” Pekach said to Sabara. “They’re the two that found Gerald Vincent Gallagher. They’re here?”

“Chief Coughlin sent them over,” Wohl said. “To Special Operations, David, not Highway.”

“They’re good cops. Not much experience in Chestnut Hill…” Pekach said.

“Like I said, I’m doing what I can with what I have,” Wohl said. “As I was saying, Mike, get us some people. If you, or Dave, can think of anybody you can talk into volunteering, do it. Then call around, see if there have been volunteers. Check them out. Have them sent here today. Go to the Districts if that’s necessary. The only thing: tell them that if they don’t work out, they go back where they came from.”

“You want to talk to them?” Sabara asked. “Before we have them sent over here?”

“After you’ve picked them, I want to talk to them, sure,” Wohl said. “But you know what we need, Mike.”

Peter picked up his telephone and pushed one of the buttons. “Sergeant, would you ask Sergeant Frizell to come in here? And send in the three plainclothes officers waiting in the foyer?” There was a pause, then: “Yeah, all at once.”

“Now, I’ll be polite,” Mickey O’Hara said. “Am I in the way?”

“Not at all,” Peter said. “I’ll let you know when you are, Mickey.”

Sergeant Frizell, trailed by Officers McFadden, Martinez, and Payne, came into the office.

“What do we know about cars?” Wohl asked.

“For the time being,” Frizell replied, “we have authority to draw cars, unmarked, from the lot at the Academy on the ratio of one car per three officers assigned.”

“And then they’ll have to be run by Radio, right, to get the proper radios?”

“Right.”

“I want all our cars to have J-Band, Detective, Highway, and ours, whenever we get our own,” Peter said.

“I’m not sure that’s in the plan, Inspector,” Frizell said.

“I don’t give a damn about the plan,” Peter said. “You call Radio and tell them to be prepared to start installing the radios. And call whoever has the car pool, and tell them we’re going to start to draw cars today. Tell them we have fifty-eight officers assigned; in other words that we want twenty cars.”

“But we don’t have fifty-eight officers assigned. We don’t have any.”

“We have three at this moment,” Wohl said. “And Captain Sabara is working hard on the others.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Frizell said. “But, Inspector, I really don’t think there will be fifteen unmarked cars available at the Academy.”

“Then take blue-and-whites,” Wohl said. “We can swap them for unmarked Highway cars, if we have to.”