W.E.B Griffin - The Traffickers

He started to stand up.

“Shall we go to the ECC?”

On the way upstairs, Payne tried to discreetly type a text message.

Byrth and Harris exchanged glances and shook their heads.

Payne shrugged sheepishly, but grinned as he continued thumbing the message: got your number from amy. that?s great news! why the change of heart? not that i?m complaining. can i buy you lunch?? dinner?? a vine-covered cottage on the side of the road??

Then he hit the SEND button.

[FOUR] Philadelphia Police Headquarters Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Thursday, September 10, 8:45 A.M.

Corporal Kerry Rapier was waiting in the Executive Command Center when Matt Payne, Tony Harris, and Jim Byrth entered. He was with a young man who had skin as dark as the Black Buddha’s. The young man was sitting in a motorized power chair.

The kid in that fancy wheelchair doesn’t look like he’s old enough to be in college, Payne thought.

He felt his phone vibrate. He read the screen:

Lunch? Dinner? Vine-covered cottage?

Methinks you might be getting a little ahead of the game, Romeo…

But… do I have to pick just one? (wink) -A He grinned, and sent: all three… might even throw in a white picket fence…

Payne hit SEND, then grinned again as he reread her message.

He realized he could feel his heart rate beating faster.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket as Corporal Rapier called to them, “Gentlemen, this is Andy Radcliffe.”

Radcliffe had a round kind face with gentle coal-black eyes. His full head of dark hair was evenly shorn almost to his scalp. He wore blue jeans that had an ironed crease and a white cotton button-down dress shirt that looked a size or so too large. The shirt also had been carefully ironed. His navy blazer was a little big for his narrow frame, and he had on athletic shoes.

Rapier went on: “Andy’s in his second year at La Salle, and he’s been interning here at the department. He and I have worked on projects this summer. He’s really good-”

Did Radcliffe just blush at the praise? Payne thought.

“-and, even more important,” Rapier said smiling, “he’s all that’s available right now from ISD.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to make do,” Payne said solemnly.

Radcliffe turned quickly to look at Payne, who calmed his fears by smiling.

Payne introduced the others, then said, “That’s one helluva wheelchair, Andy. It looks like a high-dollar office chair on a space-age rocket pod.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s pretty much as you describe. Watch.”

Using the joystick on the right armrest, he maneuvered the chair around the command center. It made a soft humming sound as he showed off, the joystick controlling speed and direction. With six wheels-four small ones in each corner and two larger ones directly below each armrest-the power chair could spin in its own space. And Andy had it do exactly that.

“Impressive,” Harris said.

Payne said, “Mind if I ask the rude question…?”

Andy shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. I got robbed three years ago. Was walking home-we live in North Philly-from work. I was bringing my mom and little brother dinner. I couldn’t outrun them. They got my wallet. I got a knife in the back. It nicked my spinal cord. So now I’m a sophomore at La Salle, doing a double major in computer science and criminal justice.”

Nice kid, Payne thought, genuinely impressed. He projects nothing but a positive outlook.

Not sure I could do that if I were in his shoes.

“Good for you, Andy.”

He shrugged again.

“What are my alternatives?” he said logically. “Sit in a corner and wither while I complain bitterly about the cards I’ve been dealt?”

Payne didn’t trust his voice to speak. He squeezed Andy’s shoulder and nodded softly.

After a moment, Payne turned to Byrth and said, “La Salle University is just west of Broad Street, a few miles north of Temple University Hospital where the shooting took place.”

Andy Radcliffe’s face lit up at the mention of that.

“We were watching that video loop,” he said, nodding at the flat-screen TVs. “That was one pretty cool foot chase, Sergeant Payne.”

Now Payne felt a little embarrassed by the praise. He nodded his thanks.

Radcliffe pushed the joystick so that the power chair spun, then moved with that soft humming sound to the command center’s control panel. Radcliffe popped the black-and-white surveillance video up on the main bank of sixteen sixty-four-inch flat-screen TVs.

“We’ve already seen Marshal Earp’s chase,” Jim Byrth said.

Andy Radcliffe grinned at the nickname.

He said, “I can’t watch it enough. You know, before I got robbed and all, I never thought twice about cops. Except to avoid them on the street. But the patrolman-Will Parkman? They call him ‘Pretty Boy’-the cop who got my case?”

Payne shook his head. “Don’t know him.”

“I do,” Rapier said. “Because of Andy, of course. Really good guy. Ex-Marine. Did some amazing things in Southeast Asia. Not just ’Nam.”

Payne nodded appreciatively.

“Anyway,” Andy said, “Pretty Boy-he’s not really pretty at all, you know, more like kinda dumpy, which is why they call him that-he kept coming around the hospital to check on me. Then he came by the house, made sure my mama and baby brother were…”

He looked away for a moment. He cleared his throat. When he looked back at Payne, Matt could see the boy’s eyes were glistening.

Tears. He’s holding them back.

“So, this Parkman, you’re saying, didn’t have to do what he did,” Payne said. “That he was a pretty good guy?”

“Yeah,” Radcliffe said. “Is. He’s helping out with my tuition at La Salle till I get on with the department here. He’s what some call an M amp;M.”

“How’s that?” Payne said.

“Like the candy. Hard shell on the outside. All sweet and soft inside.”

Payne grinned and nodded.

Obviously a damn good guy.

I should look into starting a scholarship fund for guys like Andy.

I’m embarrassed that this Pretty Boy Parkman’s already thought of it before me.

“Okay, Matt, what’s going on?” Rapier said. “What do we need to do?”

Payne explained.

Then Harris handed them the printouts from Stanley Dowbrowski.

“The Bulletin?” Andy Radcliffe then said.

“Yeah.”

At the main keyboard, he began typing. After a moment, the main bank of sixteen TVs showed an unusual Internet browser window. Then that window filled with the front page of the online edition of The Philadelphia Bulletin.

“A school buddy of mine works in the paper’s ISD. He’s also interning over at the FBI,” he said, and pointed his thumb back over his shoulder.

The FBI’s William J. Green Jr. Building was a couple blocks away, over at Sixth and Arch.

Andy Radcliffe then pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial key. When his buddy came on the line, he explained what they were trying to do.

“Can I access it remotely?” Andy Radcliffe said.

Then he tilted his head to hold the phone to his ear. With both hands on the keyboard, his fingers flew. The Internet browser window with the image of the newspaper then shrank to fit on only the left eight TVs. A new browser window opened on the right eight flat-screens.

The new window was mostly blank. There was a single box in the middle. He moved the cursor to it.

“Okay, I got it,” Radcliffe said, and began typing as he said “uh-huh, uh-huh.”

In the box a string of asterisks appeared, clearly obscuring the password’s string of letters and numbers.

Radcliffe hit RETURN and the box went away. Another flashed ENTRY SUCCESSFUL, then it went away and a new page appeared in the window. It was a tree of coded hyperlinks, the blue-colored links a series of alphanumeric file names.