Deadly Assets (Badge of Honor 12)

Now the view of the immediate area looked like a war zone.

—

After the shots had been fired, and Reverend Josiah Cross and Tyrone “King 215” Hooks had been whisked behind the red door of the ministry by deacons, those in the crowd who had not fled for their lives then set about trying to destroy everything in their path.

As police officers—ones in uniform and at least ten others in plainclothes, having slipped over their coat sleeves elastic armbands embossed with representations of the blue and gold police insignia—attempted to control the raging crowd, the protesters began throwing anything from bricks to metal pipes to glass bottles.

With that, the officers moved in and started handcuffing the worst offenders, then taking them to the nearby white panel vans that had just begun arriving.

A chunk of jagged concrete taken from a pothole on Twenty-ninth Street struck one of the horses of the Mounted Patrol Unit. Hit between its left eye and ear, the horse reacted violently, roaring in pain as it reared up on its hind legs, throwing the officer from the saddle. The enormous animal shook its head, then became unstable and crumpled to the ground, landing on its side on top of the thrown officer.

About the same time, the stage and the posters showing those killed in Philadelphia were toppled, then set afire.

The yellow rental van with the vinyl sign promoting FEED PHILLY DAY was broken into, first the cab and then the cargo box. When they found that there was nothing but empty cardboard boxes in the back, they attempted to steal the entire van, and when that proved unsuccessful, they threw a flaming poster on the fabric seat, setting it on fire.

Two other protesters, meanwhile, ripped the rubber hose from the gasoline tank that was used to fill it, then stuffed a Stop Killadelphia! T-shirt in the opening,

waited a moment for the cotton to become saturated with gasoline, then set the makeshift wick aflame.

The entire truck cab was engulfed in flames a minute later, and then the front tires caught fire, the burning rubber sending up an even denser black smoke.

After turning over two cars parked along Twenty-ninth Street and setting them aflame, other protesters tried moving toward the PECO van parked nearby, but were turned away by uniformed officers who were forming a loose but effective perimeter.

A dozen units of the Philadelphia Fire Department, engines and ladders and medic units, swarmed in to reinforce the two fire trucks and ambulances that had been pre-positioned for the rally.

Police cars—at least fifty, their emergency lights flashing—were visible as far as the eye could see.

—

“We’ve been damned lucky there haven’t been flare-ups in other parts of town,” Mayor Carlucci said.

“And that’s my point: We cannot afford for it to get any worse,” James Finley said. “Something has to give.”

“Such as?” Carlucci said.

“There needs to be a real sacrifice,” Finley said, “one from a public relations standpoint. One of the police department appeasing the citizenry.”

“Such as?” Carlucci repeated, his tone angry.

“You said Matt Payne doesn’t need this job,” Finley explained. “Can’t he be convinced to fall on his sword—”

“What the hell!” Carlucci blurted.

“For the greater good.”

Carlucci’s face turned red.

“That is outrageous!” he said. “Payne has done nothing wrong! I won’t stand for him being railroaded out. He’ll be made a scapegoat over my dead body.”

Carlucci looked between Stein and Finley.

That wouldn’t disappoint you in the slightest—you would get me and Payne out.

Is that what you’re going to report to Francis Fuller?

Five-Eff and Payne are not exactly the best of buddies.

“It would be symbolic,” Finley said. “Symbolism is good in a crisis.”