An Ongoing Serial With Occassional Installments
This serial will/will not be updated with ir/regular frequency, depending on free time and inspiration. If you want to be informed each time a new installment appears, please email me with "The Raid" in the subject heading.
The raid was going to be sloppy, like always. Warren stood across the street as the SWAT team approached the door of the Brownstone on West 82nd Street. A couple of company spooks sat in a parked car and fumbled around with their laptops. Subtle, these guys. The SWAT drones blew the door off with a controlled explosion and Hermanegildo Chang, the man they were looking for, appeared through the smoke in a sleeveless undershirt, striped boxers, and dress socks held up by garters. M-16s were lifted, safeties clicked off, and orders were barked. Chang was not intimidated.
"What you doing? What fuck you doing, you shitty peoples?"
No, this was not going to be pretty.
They shouted at him that he was under arrest, that he should put his hands up, kneel, etc. Chang looked at them as if they were small boys that had broken his window playing stickball.
"You fuck my door, you suckers of the cocks!"
General silence. A crowd was beginning to form around the scene. The SWAT team waited for an order from their leader, who seemed about to cry. Chang scratched himself immodestly. A yelp went up from the car containing the two spooks. One of them had burned his finger trying to insert his cell phone recharger into the cigarette lighter.
What the hell was Chang doing in a neighborhood like this anyway? One of the FBI men had told him they believed Chang was being kept by a wealthy widow who had a large apartment on Central Park West. Chang as a boy toy, great theory. These people were completely incompetent. Osama bin Laden could set up a taco stand on the White House lawn and they'd buy burritos from him none the wiser. Nincompoops.
The confusion stalemate being played out in front of him was getting worse. A car squealed to a halt and a couple of thugs wearing ATF jackets joined the milling crowd of FBI, CIA, and NYPD. Chang snarled and belched. One of the SWAT team members lowered his rifle slightly and stifled a yawn.
"What a bunch of ungovernable pieces of chicken turd." Warren turned and was pleased to see Big Mike had joined him.
"Hey, Mike. Hear the latest FBI info on Chang?"
"That he's Flora Houston's boy toy?"
"Oh, I didn't hear that the widow was Flora Houston. That makes the story even better."
"You know her?"
"Not personally. Apparently she's sleeping with the woman who plays cello in Sari's string quartet."
"Hmm... Perhaps you should tell the FBI that. Sort of damages their theory."
"Let them figure it out for themselves. You know what they say about interference and jurisdiction."
"You sound bitter."
"Mike, look at this..." Warren pointed across the street. Chang had curled up on the brownstone stoop and was snoring loudly. The SWAT team had lowered their weapons and were looking around helplessly. The cops were on their radios, the spooks on their cell phones, and a couple of stiffs he hadn't noticed before and who were evidently Secret Service were talking into their sleeves. "Really, this wasn't necessary. If they had let us handle this..."
"The politics come with the job, Tommy. You know that."
"Sometimes I wonder why it's even worthwhile to have this job."
"You think about it too much. Now, take me. I'm philosophical about it. It's my job, I do it as well as they let me, I don’t worry about the larger issues, and I take satisfaction in the small pleasures the job offers me."
"For instance?"
"For instance, the knowledge that the dead baby alien that people pay 50 cents to see at Coney Island actually is a dead baby alien."
"Ahh, you're romanticizing it too much. You make it sound like the 'X Files'."
To be continued...