Badge of Evil Read Free

crazy, that was fine with him. He’d happily wear those labels. He believed that every unconventional thing he did—even every mean-spirited, unpleasant rumor spread about him, for that matter—simply added to his growing legend.
    But this night in Bay Ridge was extraordinary even for Brock. They were going to take down a heavily armed terror cell. There were serious risks. ESU would have to work within the tight confines of a small two-bedroom apartment, and unexpected things, none of them good, often happen in small spaces.
    The commanders had made the decision to grab the suspects in the middle of the night to minimize the size of the operation and the upset to the neighborhood. With businesses closed, the streets deserted, and everyone asleep, the cops hoped to get in and out quickly and cleanly. Though they were taking a chance by not evacuating the rest of the building, they felt it was worth it. The ESU commander, a muscular, six-foot-three-inch hard-ass named Anthony Z. Pennetta—everyone called him Zito—believed he had enough intelligence on the apartment’s layout and what the suspects had going on inside to pull this off without endangering the neighbors or his men.
    With everyone dispatched to their posts, Pennetta had ambled over to Brock to exchange greetings before the action started. “Evening, Commissioner,” he said coldly.
    â€œZito,” Brock said, acknowledging the commander with a nod. “Nice night to make the world a little safer for democracy?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    The two men stood on the street, in the shadows, facing each other in silence. A fine mist was in the air. Pennetta wasn’t wearing his helmet and Brock noticed his hair was starting to thin. He almost smiled. Anything, no matter how small, that made Pennetta less perfect made Brock happy. He wasn’t really in competition with Pennetta—he was the fucking police commissioner, after all, and Zito worked for him. But Pennetta made him uncomfortable. He was too tough, too confident, too tall, too smart, and too experienced. He didn’t put up with any bullshit and he didn’t give any either. He was straight up, almost too good to be believed, Brock felt.
    Pennetta had been completely against Brock participating in the raid. So were his men. When Brock announced his intention in the tac meeting to be part of the team that would hit the apartment, Pennetta protested. Though he knew it was all about Brock grandstanding and getting post-raid face time on television, online, and in the papers, he tried to focus his argument on the safety issue.
    If Brock wanted to risk his own ass, that was one thing. But Pennetta didn’t want his men put at risk because the police commissioner was a reckless egomaniac. Hitting an apartment with five armed suspects inside required the kind of precision and coordinated teamwork that only comes from training together. “At crunch time,” Pennetta would tell his guys, “it’s all about instinct. You revert to what’s most familiar. You’re only as good as your training.” ESU A-teams would practice this kind of exercise as a unit as often as a hundred times a year.
    ESU was the police department’s equivalent of the Special Forces. They handled the most dangerous, difficult assignments. They were the NYPD’s elite—the fighter jocks, the fittest, best-trained cops on the force. They were mostly disdainful of other cops, whom they viewed as poorly trained slackers. They didn’t like bosses either (Zito was the exception), who, in their view, did little except get in the way and suck up the credit. The last thing Zito’s best guys, his number-one A-team, wanted to hear was that they had a new member, even if—especially if—he was the police commissioner.
    They had no choice, of course. Brock was the final authority. In addition, he was the one who had received the original tip about the