The Lion's Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

just a little suspicious. Clue Number Two was that Schmuck and Putz
requested
me on this team for my homicide expertise. I was meaning to ask Dom Fanelli how he’d heard about this Special Contract Agent thing. I’d trust Dom with my life and I have, so he was okay on this, and I had to assume that Nick Monti was clean. Cops don’t screw other cops, not even for the Federal government—
especially
not for the Federal government.
    I looked at Kate Mayfield. It would really break my cold, hard heart if she was hooked up with Foster and Nash to do me.
    She smiled at me.
    I smiled back. If I was Foster or Nash and I was fishing for John Corey, I would use Kate Mayfield as bait.
    Nick Monti said to me, “This stuff takes some getting used to. And you know, about half the cops and ex-cops who sign on here leave. It’s like we’re all one big happy family, but the cops are like the kids who didn’t go to college, live at home, do odd jobs, and always want to borrow the car.”
    Kate said, “That’s not true, Nick.”
    Monti laughed. “Yeah, right.” He looked at me and said, “We can talk about it over some brews.”
    I said to all assembled, “I’ll keep an open mind,” which means, Fuck you. But you don’t want to say that because you want them to keep dangling the bait. It’s kind of interesting. Another reason for my bad manners was that I was missing the NYPD—The Job, as we called it—and I guess I was feeling a little sorry for myself and a little nostalgic for the old days.
    I looked at Nick Monti and caught his eye. I didn’t know him from The Job, but I knew he had been a detective in the Intelligence Unit, which was perfect for this kind of work. They supposedly needed me for this Palestinian homicide case and I guess other terrorist-related homicide cases, which was why I was given a contract. Actually, I think they have a contract out on me. I said to Nick, “Do you know why Italians don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
    “No ... why?”
    “Italians don’t like
any
witnesses.”
    This got a big laugh out of Nick, but the other three looked like I’d just had a brain fart. The Feds, you have to understand, are so very politically correct and anal retentive, so very fucking frightened of the Washington Thought Police. They’re totally cowed by the stupid directives that come out of Washington like a steady stream of diarrhea. I mean, we’ve all gotten a little more sensitive and aware of our words over the years, and that’s good, but the Federal types are positively paranoid about offending anybody or any group, so you get stuff like, “Hello, Mr. Terrorist, my name is George Foster, and I’ll be your arresting officer today.”
    Anyway, Nick Monti said to me, “Three demerits, Detective Corey. Ethnic slur.”
    Clearly Nash, Foster, and Mayfield were somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed that they were indirectly being made fun of. It occurred to me, in a sensitive moment, that the Feds had their own issues with the NYPD, but you’d never hear a word of it from them.
    Regarding Nick Monti, he was about mid-fifties, married with kids, balding, a bit of a paunch, and sort of fatherly and innocuous-looking, the kind of guy who looked like anything but an Intell man. He must have been good or the Feds wouldn’t have stolen him from his NYPD job.
    I perused the dossier on Mr. Asad Khalil. It appeared that the Arab gentleman moved around Western Europe a lot, and wherever he had been, some American or British person or thing had met with a misadventure—a bomb in the British Embassy in Rome, bomb in the American Cathedral in Paris, bomb in the American Lutheran Church in Frankfurt, the ax murder of an American Air Force officer outside of Lakenheath Airbase in England, and the shooting death in Brussels of three American schoolkids whose fathers were NATO officers. This last thing struck me as particularly nasty, and I wondered what this guy’s problem was.
    In any case, none of the