Inside of a tony apartment complex....A complex near the waterfront in Philadelphia..
A crime scene.....
Several police photographers were taking photos of a surreal and gruesome scene...
I was on the scene...Holding my nose and staring at 12 bodies... 7 men and 5 females...all dead, three at the kitchen table, 3 on the floor in the living room....1 in the bathroom on the floor...and the other four on the floor near the bedroom...
I'm Assistant District Attorney Keith Wallace....I investigate Major Crimes and this was a major one..
"Oh My god...I've never seen anything like this in my life.."said Forensic Investigator and Deputy Coroner, Dr. Hazel Baylor...observing some of the bodies..
"No bones broken, no blood...No sign of trauma.."said my wife, Detective Carlotta Rodriguez-Wallace..
"Same with this one Top...and this one over here...No bones broken, no blood...No sign of trauma.."said her partner, Detective Tyriq Pile...
"Roger That...Same with these two....They look like they all went to sleep."said her other partner, Detective James "Jimmy" Barlow..
"Yeah and never woke up.."said Detective Edwin"Duke Baylor...
"Smell that? It's faint...but it smells like walnuts and ..and rotten eggs.."said Detective Sirena Pile...
"Smells like Cyanide....You're right ..It is faint...OPEN ALL OF THESE WINDOWS...EVERYBODY!"said Lt. Sissy Van Buren...
The windows were open and so were all doors...
"It looks like it was filtered into the Central Air System...but that it's not coming through anymore.."said Detective Tony Hopkins, who turned over two of the bodies...
Detective Angela Belton-Barlow turned over three of the bodies and looked at the face...The eyelids..
"Hazel,look at this....Look at the discoloration of the cheeks...They were poisoned.."said Angie..
''Wow!! We had just indicted them too! "said Detective James "Jimmy "Barlow..
"Boss Lady...I just looked at the computers..."said Carlotta
The hard drives have been wiped clean...All of them.."said Carlotta..
"Top is right....It's true...."said Duke..
"Somebody knew we were coming, but how?" asked Sirena...
"It wasn't us....I know my house is clean...I'll state my reputation on it...Somebody knew we were coming and they cleaned up......We thought these guys were running the operation...They obviously weren't."said Sissy...
''What are you going to do?" asked Angie..
"I'm calling Carol and Sharon...They have to know..."said Sissy...
'Why don't you uh investigate us...I volunteer to go first.."whispered Jimmy in his wife, Angie's ears...This was how they'd met...Years ago when we had a suspected leak and Angie was in Internal affairs...Sissy had asked her and another detective to investigate all of us.."
Angie smiled..
"I'm sure you would...Naked right?" she joked..
"Yesssss...I'll tell you anything you want to know.."Jimmy joked and kissed her cheek..
Angie smiled...
"Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu I think I'll take you up on that detective...Can I get naked too?" she playfully asked..
"Of course.."Jimmy Joked..
"Can we release the bodies boss lady?" asked Carlotta..
"Not yet...I want Carol and Sharon to see them.."said Sissy..
Lieutenant Tragg walked in with two uniformed policemen just then...He looked around...
"Oh My God....one,two three, four, five.....Ohhhhh and there is more...that makes six, seven,eight, nine, and is that three more in the hallway?" he asked.. He seemed to be amused..
"How is it that I knew you'd be here?" said Sissy....
"I heard a report on the police band that there was what looked like multiple deaths at this resident...I was just checking it out..." he said..
"And I suppose you want to take over the investigation?" asked an exasperated Sissy...
12 bodies and now Lt. Tragg...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooo, you and your elite detectives were the first on the scene,this is your case...Heh ,heh, Heh.." he laughed...
He wanted nothing to do with 12 open murders..
We all watched as all twelve bodies were taken out of the building as a huge crowd gathered and reporters..
None of us had any comments for the press...We left and got in our cars and pulled off along with the CSI people and uniformed police officers..
Lieutenant Tragg couldn't resist an attempt to take a dig at Sissy and her detectives...
"It looks like multiple individuals in the house were murdered....There is no suspect as of yet...IT just happened...I unfortunately am not on this case.."he said.
To which a reporter remarked..
"THAT MEANS IT'LL GET SOLVED!"
Which was met with guffaws of laughter...
Lt. Tragg was not amused.. "WHYYYYYYYYYYY YOUUUUU!" he snarled and went after the reporter...He was restrained by the two uniformed officers with him and some other reporters.... II-
THREE WEEKS BEFORE-
Like I said..This case was beginning where it should have ended...It began three weeks before..
I walked into the new CID headquarters with DEA Regional Director, Carol Redding...
"This is our new digs Carol."I said.
She looked around..
"Niccccccccccccce....My husband told me you guys have your own building now...I knew I'd get around to seeing you guys.."said Carol Redding, who was once a Detective on the Philadelphia Police Force, before she went to work for the feds...
"Carollllllll, Long time no see Missy...Welcome to our humble abode.." said Sissy...
"Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy girll, Your new building looks great....I'm jealous....I'm in a pre Korean War Building myself.."laughed Carol Redding...
"We have this floor...The FBI and ATF are upstairs...and there are bedrooms above their floor...So that we can stay if we are working on a big case.."said Sissy...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh just like your cold site, "Cop Land" said Carol..
"Exactly and we have two interrogation rooms...One on each floor.."said Sissy...
"How secure is this place?" asked Carol..
'Well unlike our old headquarters..We have an administrative staff that we vetted ourselves....As well as uniformed officers that we hand picked and vetted.." said Sissy...
"That's great....but I need a big favor from you guys that calls for you using your old safe house.."Copland."said Carol...
Sharon walked downstairs just then..
"Hi Carol....I briefed your guys upstairs.." she said.
now all we need is your permission and go ahead..."said Sharon..
"What's up?" asked Sissy...
'Several large legitimate drug companies have been plagued with what is called "Ransomware" Somebody has hijacked their computers and have been demanding they supply someone as of yet unknown, Opiates of all kind...Legitimate Opiates...That are being sold on the Black Market...I've got DEA Agents already over at your cold site and Sharon is handpicking her best FBI and ATF agents to join them...There is one empty floor yet.....This calls for you and your team Siss...You guys are the finest investigators I know...Sharon agrees...We need your help.." said Carol..
"Well ,it has been quiet around here...I'm in...We are in.." she said..
And so...We moved into our old headquarters....The Super secret hotel, purchased by the government
that had been turned into a makeshift police station or headquarters...
Sissy's husband purchased groceries and brought his new grill...as well as beer and we moved in within days...
Tyriq and Sirena moved in ....Their three babies were vacationing with their grandparents...
They were followed by Angie and Jimmy...
Duke and Hazel... Of course
Carlotta and
and myself..
Our cold site..
was full to the brim with law enforcement....I mean every room was occupied and we worked around the clock, sometimes in shifts...
Our best Cyber experts were trying hard to trace where the ransomware was coming from....
In the coming days...Carlotta, Angie and Sirena went deep undercover at
the three major drug companies that were victimized by the ransomware
and putting aside the opiates..
Carlotta posed as an Office Manager at one location...
While Angie ingratiated herself with the General Manager of another....Within days ,he was in love with her and giving her the run of the office and factory...
The same was the case with Sirena , who had done the exact same thing at the location she was at...
Hop was a warehouse manager.....So was Jimmy..
The five of them got license plate numbers of mysterious cars...they got photos of ledgers containing financial information....They discovered two sets of books at all three places... and photos of the trucks and vans loading up the opiates...
Tyriq and Duke ran down the information and began to come up with names....Names of people here to for unknown to law enforcement..
They gave their information to Sharon and Carol...who ran it down....They turned up the name of our 12 suspects...7 men and 5 women...None of whom had a police record, all college graduates or close to graduating and all doing business with the local drug crews....
We estimated these 12 were pulling in millions..
Our guys found the base of the ransomware...
"They use a secret messenging service which according to the screen, they
route through 17 proxy servers , over 100 firewalls to a central server
with an encrypted code..It was hard to run em all down, but we think we have.."said Sharon, after three weeks of work...
"Can you break it?" asked Sissy..
''We did...and not only that...We've pulled the number and the ip address..."said Carol Redding..
"We blocked them from discovering us and kept them from putting a remote access tracker on us until we discovered where the information was coming from and could copy it.." said Sharon...
''Which means we got them..We got them cold.."I said.
"Prepare warrants Keith, for Wire Fraud, Extortion by electronic communications,Conspiracy to traffic and distribute controlled substances..among other things..."said Sissy.,..
"As usual, your guys did incredible work....Once the Warrants are signed...They can move in and take them down..."said Carol...
III-
It should have been that easy...Our entire operation was top secret...No one knew where we were or what we were doing...
At our main headquarters,Lt. Tragg just couldn't leave well enough alone..
He paid our office a visit everyday and to his dismay...We weren't there...The Desk Sgt. could tell him nothing, because he didn't know where we were...All he and the uniforms we left behind knew was we were working on a big case...
"They give them a brand new building...Brand new building and they are never around..."he bellowed..
He was jealous that Sissy and her detectives got a building of their own....It ate at him...But collectively they had a very high clearance and conviction rate...Nobody could argue with that...
Now after the discovery of the bodies...Sissy addressed her detectives..
"I know you guys are clean...I know it...but I'm going to have IA investigate us all ,myself included before we continue...and then the Feds are going to investigate everybody in their house...There was a major leak...."said Sissy.
"And that leak had to be to whoever killed those people....Somebody else is involved in this.."said Carlotta..
"Carlotta is right..Somebody we didn't detect.."said Angie..
''Somebody behind the scenes.."said Sirena
"This really looks bad....I did the autopsies..All of them were poised by a Cyanide gas...A gas that was filtered in through the Central Air in their apartment complex.."said Hazel..
"Ohhhh man...We aren't dealing with a run of the mill killer here.."said Tyriq..
"We got a smart one..."said Duke..
"Wow, and whoever has a headstart on us.."said Jimmy...
"There's a chance we may never crack this.."said Hop.
Sharon and Carol walked in just then..
" All of my people are back in regular rotation.. I told them that they may be getting interviewed by our Internal Investigations Unit..."said Sharon..
''Same with my people..but I think we are all clean...I mean we were together around the clock...And my guys and your guys worked so hard.."said Carol...
"But somebody knew and we were compromised..."said Sissy..
"Look, most of your team was undercover ,deep undercover...and they never got made....And everybody else was in 'Copland' a cold site...No communications could be traced...They didn't even know we were on to them...How could anybody of known we were coming?" I asked..
"I don't know...but all 12 of our suspects are dead and every computer in that apartment's hard drive was wiped clean....
We recovered all of the Opiates ..or what was left that wasn't already sold on the street." said Sharon..
''And we raided the warehouse...
Arrested 28 people, but they were mules..They don't know who they were working for ,outside of 7 or 8 of our suspects...."said Carol..
"It's quite clear that these 12 people weren't actually the boss...They were working for someone else.."said Carlotta..
"Top is right...We never did identify the boss...and out of all the information we have...Whoever the boss is ,is not named in anything we have..."said Duke..
''We broke up this operation, but whoever was running it, is in the wind."said Tyriq.
"Those Bank Accounts where the money was being wired and funelled are already closed and empty."said Sirena..
"Maybe there was no leak...Maybe there was a double cross..Maybe they had made as much money as they were supposed to make and they settled things up..."said Angie..
"And just in the nick of time.."said Jimmy...
"Leaving us with 12 dead suspects."said Hop..
''That's right and that's too many bodies to ignore...We've got to crack this case guys.."said Sissy..
Sissy was already thinking about Lt. Tragg and COMSTAT meetings....He was going to grill her mercillessly as long as these twelve murders remained unsolved...Never mind his countless screw ups..He used those meetings to demean other Lieutenants and Sergeants....They despised him and the fact we had to go to those meetings...but such was life...
"Well the good news is, we are all going home tonight..A nice meal...some sleep in our own beds...We'll start fresh tomorrow."I said.
"Ohhhhh papi, you are always so hopeful."said Carlotta leaning her head on my shoulders...
and giving me a sweet kiss...
"Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm,I hope there is more from where that came from.."I moaned..
"Of course....A lot more..."she whispered...
We kissed a little longer....
But in the back of my mind....In all of our minds...There was the matter of Twelve bodies, Twelve suspects...It should have been the end of a long case...instead, it was the beginning of another one..
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