Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

Matt ran up the driveway. His leg was really throbbing now.

What the fuck am I going to do now? The revolver is empty and I don’t have any more shells for it.

He reached the van, out of breath, his chest hurting almost as much as his leg. The van was moving, trying to push the tree out of the way, burning rubber. There was the smell of antifreeze sizzling on a hot block.

He went to the front door and jerked it open.

The driver was slumped over the wheel.

There was a sickening bloody white mess on the windshield. A 168-grain lead projectile had penetrated the rear window of the van, and then the rear of the driver’s skull, with sufficient remaining energy to cause most of his brain to be expelled through an exit wound in his forehead.

Matt reached inside and shut off the ignition. Then he ran around the front, went to the side door, and pulled it open. There was something on the floor of the van, under a tarpaulin. He jerked the tarpaulin away.

Mrs. Naomi Schneider, naked, her hands bound behind her, looked at him out of wide eyes.

“I’m a police officer,” Matt said. “You’ll be all right, lady. It’s all over.”

Naomi started screaming again.

Beep Beep Beep.

Tiny Lewis opened his microphone and said, “Officer needs assistance. Shots fired. 8800 block of Norwood Street. Ambulance Required. Police by telephone.”

The first response to the call was from a Fourteenth District RPC. The second was, “M-Mary One in on the shots fired.”

The Honorable Jerry Carlucci, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, was returning to his Chestnut Hill home from a late dinner with friends. M-Mary One was the first car on the scene.

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, followed by Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., entered the Rittenhouse Square residence of Officer Matthew Payne. Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin was already there.

“Here’s the newspapers. The Ledger and the Bulletin,” Wohl said. “I bought five of each.”

“The Ledger? Why did you buy that goddamned rag?” Coughlin asked, surprised and angry.

“I think I’m going to have the Ledger story framed,” Wohl said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Coughlin asked as Wohl handed him a copy of the Ledger.

There was a photograph of Miss Elizabeth Woodham on the front page, in her college graduation cap and gown, three columns wide, with the caption, “Rapist-Murderer’s Latest Victim.”

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