and he was flying high by seven. That night, he broke my mom's cheekbone. He cut her eye and could have put it out. My father wears this stupid signet ring from St. John's. The Redmen now the Red Storm, you know. I went to my grandma's shed that night and I found more money. I couldn't believe it. There's so much money there, all cash."

Veronica Macdougall reached under the table and she hoisted up a powder-blue backpack, the kind kids wear to school. She opened it. She pulled out several stacks of bills and showed us the money. Her face was a mask of shame and pain.

"Here's ten thousand four hundred dollars. It was right there in my grandmother's shed. My father put it there. My father was in on that kidnapping in Washington. He thinks he's so goddamn smart."

Only then, once she was finished telling us what her father had done, did Veronica Macdougall finally break down and cry. 'I'm sorry," she kept saying. 'I'm so, so sorry." I think she was apologizing for what he had done.

Chapter Eighty-Four

I believed her, and I was still reeling from hearing Veronica Macdougall's chilling confession about her policeman father. An intriguing question was whether the crew of Brooklyn detectives had 'masterminded' the earlier bank robberies, too. Had they murdered several people in cold blood before they attempted the Metro Hartford kidnapping? Was one of the detectives the Mastermind?

I had plenty of time to think about it during an interminable day of politicking and infighting involving the FBI, the mayor, and the New York police commissioner. Meanwhile, the five Brooklyn detectives were put under surveillance, but we weren't given the go-ahead to bring them in. It was frustrating, maddening, like being stuck for a day on the Long Island Expressway in a traffic jam, or on a New York subway. The detectives' attendance records were being checked against the days all of the robberies took place. Credit and spending checks were run on each of them. Other detectives, even snitches, were quietly interviewed. The money found at Brian Macdougall's mother's house had been retrieved and it was definitely part of the ransom.

As of six o'clock, nothing had been decided. None of us could believe the delay. Betsey surfaced briefly and reported that no progress had been made so far. Around seven, I went and checked into a hotel for the night.

I kept getting angrier and angrier. I took a hot shower and then I leafed through a Zagat's guide, looking for a good place to eat downtown. Around nine, I finally ordered from room service. I'd been thinking about Christine and Alex. I didn't feel like going out. Maybe if Betsey had been available, but she was tied up, raging against the machine at Police Plaza.

9flQ

I propped myself up in bed and tried to read Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane. I was on a string of books that I'd enjoyed lately: The Pilot's Wife, The Pied Piper, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Lehane.

I couldn't concentrate. I wanted to take down the five New York detectives. I wanted to be home with the kids, and I wanted little Alex to be part of our family. That was the one thing that had kept me going strong lately.

Finally, I started to think about Betsey Cavalierre. I had been trying not to, but now I remembered our 'date' in Hartford. I liked her it was as simple as that. I wanted to see her again and I hoped she wanted to see me.

The phone in my room rang around eleven o'clock. It was Betsey. She sounded tired and frustrated and decidedly non-peppy for her.

'I'm just finishing up here at Police Plaza. I hope. Believe it or not, we're set to take them down tomorrow. You definitely wouldn't believe the bullshit that's gone on today. Lots of talk about the detectives' civil rights. Plus the effect on morale inside the NYPD. Making the arrest "the right way." Nobody's willing to say that these are five very bad actors. They're probably killers. Take their sorry asses down."

"They're five very bad actors. Take their sorry asses down," I said to her.

I heard her laugh and I could picture her smile. "That's what we're doing, Alex. Bright and early tomorrow morning. We're taking them down. Maybe we'll get the Mastermind too. I have to be here at least another hour. I'll see you in the morning. Early."

Chapter Eighty-Five

Four o'clock comes very early in the morning. That was the hour we were scheduled to hit the homes of the five detectives. Everything was set. The politicking was done; at least I hoped it was over.

Three-thirty comes even earlier and that was when we met somewhere in Nassau County out on Long Island. I didn't know much about the area, but it was upscale and pretty, a far cry from Fifth Street and Southeast. Someone on the team said the neighborhood was unusual because a lot of cops and also Mafia people lived there in apparent harmony.

This was a federal case and Betsey Cavalierre was officially in charge of the arrests. It illustrated the regard in which she was held back in Washington, if not in New York.

"I'm happy to see that everybody is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning? Night? Whatever time zone we're in?" She offered up a joke and got a few smiles from the troops. There were about forty of us, a mix of police and FBI, but the Bureau was definitely in charge of the morning's raids. She divided us into teams, and I was in her group.

Everybody was ready, and incredibly pumped-up. We drove to a split-level house on High Street in Massapequa. No one seemed to be up in the suburban neighborhood. A dog started barking in one of the yards nearby. Dew glistened on every manicured lawn. Life seemed good out here where Detective Brian Macdougall lived with his battered wife and bitterly angry daughter.

Betsey spoke into her Handie-Talkie. She seemed extremely cool under fire. "Radio check. Then, "Team A, through the front door. Team B, kitchen. Team C, sun porch. Team D is backup … Now. Go! Take him down!"

The agents and police detectives swarmed toward the house on her signal. Betsey and I got to watch them quickly move in. We were Team D, the backup.

Team A was inside the house fast and cleanly.

Then so was Team B. We couldn't see the third team from where we were parked. They went in the back.

There was shouting inside. Then we heard a loud pop. Percussive, definitely a gunshot.

"Oh, shit." Betsey looked over at me. "Macdougall was waiting for us. How the hell did that happen?"

There were several more gunshots. Someone yelled. A woman began to scream and curse. Was it Veronica Macdougall's mother?

Betsey and I jumped out of the car and moved quickly toward the Macdougall house. We still didn't go inside. I was thinking that four other houses in Brooklyn were being hit right now. I hoped there wasn't more trouble like this.