The two men entered the third-floor apartment, where two bodies lay in the hallway leading to the living room. Both had handguns holstered at their waists, but neither had managed to draw them.
Passing through the living room, they found two more bodies slumped against a wall in one of the inner rooms. These two also had handguns holstered, but like the others, they hadn't drawn them in time.
On a table in the room, traces of white powder remained. Jack, who had recently dealt extensively with drug cases, only needed a quick sniff to identify the substance.
"Impeccable coordination," Jack remarked, motioning for Danny to stand by the living room window while he positioned himself at the kicked-in front door, preparing to reconstruct the scene.
"First, they kicked down the door, pointed guns, and shouted, 'Police! Don't move!' The two guards standing by the hallway complied and raised their hands.
"Then, two others entered through the window from the living room, launching a surprise attack from the side. They opened fire, and the line of fire avoided their teammates—very professional."
Jack stepped forward to the room's entrance, facing the two drug dealers who were killed inside. He mimicked the gesture of raising a firearm. "The two dealers in the room didn't dare draw their weapons either. They instinctively backed against the wall and raised their hands. They were then executed, and the cash and drugs from the transaction were taken."
He turned to Danny, puzzled. "Why do you think there were at least four people? Did any nearby cameras capture anything?"
"This godforsaken place? Even if there were cameras, they'd have been destroyed," Danny said grimly, clearly already having asked the same question and received an unsatisfactory answer.
"I deduced it based on standard police operation protocols. Kicking the door and subduing the two guards in the hallway would require at least two people to ensure they complied and raised their hands.
"And the two entering through the window also needed to coordinate. If there had only been one person coming through the window, it wouldn't make sense for both guards to have gunshot wounds exclusively from the side. For safety, the team at the door would likely fire simultaneously as well."
The logic seemed sound. Jack glanced again at the long table in the room. The white powder's drag marks suggested the table had held at least two large duffel bags. Considering the volume of the deal, the cash alone likely amounted to over $10 million.
Even if the entire $10 million was in $100 bills, it would weigh over 100 kilograms. Carrying that, along with the drugs, would be difficult for just two people. Four people, however, would be the perfect number—two carrying the loot and two covering them.
"God, spare me. Danny, did you ditch your good work partner to cheat on her with this guy?"
Danny's NYPD detective partner, Jackie, entered the crime scene with a notepad, joking as she walked in. Seeing Jack, she grinned and made light of the situation.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. We're work spouses for life—only on the job, of course," Danny joked back. He had, in fact, sent Jackie off earlier to allow for a private conversation with Jack.
"Any witnesses among the neighbors?" Danny asked his partner.
Jackie's initial grumbling had evidently been about this. "Not a thing. Aside from the two who said they heard someone shout 'Police! Don't move!' no one else dared look outside. In a place like this, even the cockroaches scatter when they hear the word 'police.'"
"Let CSI handle the rest." Jack didn't hold out much hope. Whether the perpetrators were dirty cops or not, their methods were highly professional. The evidence they left behind would be minimal.
However, there was one thing CSI could do—analyze the bullet trajectories from the victims' bodies.
The following morning, in Frank Reagan's office.
"Yes, this is Reagan. Has IBIS (Integrated Ballistics Identification System) produced results yet? Okay, got it. Thanks, Mike. Keep this confidential for now."
Frank Reagan hung up the phone, his brow furrowed deeply. He sat in silence for a moment before pulling two cigars from the box on his desk. He tossed one to Jack and lit the other for himself.
"The CSI lab says the bullets were fired from handguns that were part of a batch of confiscated weapons from within the NYPD—guns that should have been destroyed long ago."
He exhaled a heavy cloud of smoke. "To be honest, I don't even know who to trust anymore."
Jack lit his cigar without comment. There was no need to agree aloud; such sentiments were best left unsaid.
Frank's sense of disillusionment was understandable. At the time of Joey's death, Frank had already been the NYPD commissioner. The death of his eldest son, whether an accident or not, would naturally have prompted a thorough investigation by Internal Affairs.
Perhaps Frank had been negligent in this matter, or perhaps it never occurred to him that anyone in his department would dare harm his son. Regardless, the experienced commissioner had failed to detect anything amiss in the Internal Affairs report.
This realization was deeply unsettling. Did this mean that Internal Affairs—tasked with maintaining discipline within the NYPD—might also have members of the "Blue Templar" among their ranks?
On further thought, this seemed plausible. If the "Blue Templar" didn't have insiders within Internal Affairs, any whispers of wrongdoing would likely have reached Frank's ears long ago.
As the two men sat silently—Frank behind his desk and Jack on the sofa opposite, both smoking cigars and lost in thought—the door suddenly knocked.
Frank's secretary, Baker, opened the door and immediately began coughing, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the smoke. She quickly walked to the window, opened it to let in fresh air, and glanced at the two men with mild surprise.
She had seen Jack before and knew his identity. However, this was the first time she had seen her boss smoking cigars with someone in his office while looking so serious.
"What's the matter, Baker?" Frank stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray.
"DEA Operations Chief Dorne is here to see you. He says he has important information to share about last night's drug dealer ambush in Harlem." Baker spoke from near the window, waiting for the autumn breeze to clear the room of smoke before closing it.
"Let him in," Frank said, gesturing for Jack to remain seated when he saw him preparing to leave. "Since this concerns last night's case, you might as well stay and hear what he has to say."
A moment later, Baker led in a burly, bald Black man.
"This is Special Agent Jack Tavore with the FBI. He was involved in last night's case," Frank introduced the two.
"The Jack Tavore?" Dorne, the DEA chief, seemed to have heard of Jack and looked at him with a mix of surprise and intrigue. "The DEA owes you a big one."
"That was the result of collaboration between many departments," Jack said modestly, given that he was the youngest and least experienced among the three. Dorne looked to be in his forties.
After some brief pleasantries, Dorne hesitated slightly before explaining his visit. Frank, sensing his apprehension, assured him that Jack's presence was intentional, prompting Dorne to reveal the details.
". . . That's the situation. The perpetrators are highly likely to have police backgrounds. Among the victims in last night's 'massacre' was a DEA informant. We suspect someone using their position as a police officer accessed the informant to obtain intelligence about the deal."
"Do you have evidence?" Frank asked, his expression unreadable.
Dorne nodded. "As we speak, surveillance recordings are being processed and copied. You'll have them shortly. We've identified one voice belonging to an NYPD officer, but we haven't pinned down exactly who it is."
"Only one? It's obvious this was a group effort."
Frank shared the current state of the investigation with Dorne, omitting any mention of the "Blue Templar." He openly admitted that there were bad actors within the NYPD and that Jack's presence was related to this issue.
"How much money was involved in this deal?" Jack asked, recalling his conversation with Danny the previous night. If one of the victims was a DEA informant, they likely had detailed knowledge of the transaction.
"Based on prior transaction records and our intelligence, approximately $12 million in cash, along with an equivalent value in pure heroin," Dorne said after a moment's thought, offering a staggering figure.
"That's quite a retirement fund," Frank said with a cold snort. Adding in Danny's confirmation of the Brooklyn South case from last month—another black-market hit—the perpetrators had raked in over $30 million in less than two months.
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