Overture (Earth Song) (3 page)

Victor wanted to leave, afraid of being caught at this strange site, but something made him stay. The approaching police car must have seen the unusual statue because its powerful spotlight suddenly illuminated him and the structure. He shielded his eyes from the glare and turned away.

“Hey, what the hell is this thing? What are you doing out here at this time of night?” Victor turned to see the cop car parked only a few yards away. Both the officers were standing in front of their vehicle and taking in the scene.

He just shook his head. “There ain’t no way you’re gonna believe me.”

Lieutenant
Billy Harper tried to ignore the sounds of screaming and crashing from the Monday morning battle upstairs as he browsed the Times and waited for his coffee to cool. If it was just a Monday morning thing he wouldn’t mind so much, however the Parkers only fought on days that ended with the letter y. Eight years with the NYPD had taught him the futility of calling anyone to deal with domestics. Twenty million people lived within twenty-five miles of where he drank his coffee. At this moment there were probably a half million loud arguments going on.

His
coffee finished, he folded his paper under his arm and headed for the door of his tiny one bedroom Bronx apartment. “Have a nice day,” he said toward the raging argument upstairs as he locked the deadbolts and trotted down to the bottom floor. Outside his unmarked unit waited where he’d parked it. There were a lot of cops in this city who couldn’t take a unit home. If they did it came back in pieces. Billy had lived in this neighborhood most of his life and knew his neighbors well. They watched out for him and he watched out for them. If anyone messed with his unit, it would be a mistake.

“
Morning, Billy!” called a familiar voice from the brownstone two doors down.

“
Good morning Mr. Nebowitz, how are you today?”

“
Better than yesterday. You be careful out there!”

“
Always, Mr. Nebowitz, always!”

Once
in the car, he signed onto his computer and logged into service. As usual, there were a hundred or more duty assignments available for a Lieutenant in the NYPD Criminal Investigation division. He closed his eyes and stabbed one of the red, or high priority, calls and read the data. Breaking and entering was the complaint. As the computer printed out a hard copy of the case report for his clipboard he started the car and headed uptown.

Billy
had been investigating every manner of robbery and petty larceny for five hours straight and was looking for a bite to eat when he spotted a familiar face. The marked unit was parked next to three others at a midtown intersection so he pulled up to see what was going on.

“
Oh shit, the fuckin’ brass has arrived!” one of the men moaned in mock disgust.

“
Better polish our badges,” another officer said and fished a napkin from his pocket to rub his already spotless shield. These were men that Billy had come up with and they all knew him either personally or by reputation. He was one of them who had just happened to change his shield to gold.

“
What’s going on boys, get tired of beating up school girls?”

“
Yeah, we couldn’t find any around so we started working on pretzels instead.” Billy laughed and accepted a coke with a fresh pretzel. “You been listening to the radio lieutenant?”

“
No, been too busy chasing snatch and grabs in the Korean district. What’s going on?”

The
men showed him the portable TV they had all been watching. He stared at the pictures while ravenously devouring the pretzel. Central park was surrounded with dozens, maybe hundreds of police units including tactical vans, special services, and what looked like an FBI team. “They find a high profile stiff?” he asked the men. None of them had a clue, and that in itself was a major statement. The only phenomenon documented to exceed the speed of light was a rumor in the NYPD field service.

“
Hey lieutenant, you got the gold shield, why don’t you tell us?” He considered getting on the phone to make some inquiries, but decided it was better to be direct. Tossing the remnants of his pretzel into a garbage can he climbed into his unit and checked for duty assignments in Central Park. Sure enough, there was a call for a lieutenant in Criminal Investigation. He waved to the men and drove off toward Central Park.

By
the time he arrived, the single FBI unit he had seen on TV had grown to a dozen. In addition a pair of heavy lift helicopters was dropping in a huge trailer bristling with antennas onto the grass. His fellow NYPD outnumbered the government agents by at least a hundred to one. He only added to the crowd.

“
What are you doing here, Harper?” asked a captain in homicide. “Just looking for whoever is in charge, I answered a call unlike most of the blue shirts here.” The captain chuckled and pointed out an NYPD tactical truck parked a short distance away. “Thanks, captain.”

“
Oh, and Harper? It’s Assistant Chief Niedelmeir.”

“
What? Where is Chief Anderson?”

“
Back in the hospital, had another heart attack.”

“
Crap. I love the old man but I’m beginning to wish he’d either die or retire.” Too late to cancel the call, he steeled himself and headed for the trailer. Inside he found the assistant chief of police in his element, surrounded by sycophants, totally confused and quickly issuing meaningless orders to make himself sound important. Harper surveyed the group of officers and found someone he could deal with. “Captain Panini,” he said to get the woman’s attention.

The
captain of criminal investigation, Central District, looked up from her cellphone and smiled when she saw him, then she looked at the assistant chief and frowned. “It’s not very smart for you to be here, Billy.”

“
Just responding to a call.”

“
I’ve heard that before.”

He held up his department issue Blackberry so she could see his duty assignment flashing with her name over it. “Just like old times,” he said with his most disarming smile. A shadow of a smile raced across her face. That smile hinted of some past moment of joy. Just as quickly it was replaced with a frown of consternation.

“
The old times weren’t that fun, Billy. Are you here to do a job?”

“
I said I was, didn’t I-“

“
What the hell is he doing here?” demanded a voice from across the trailer. Harper didn’t have to look to know it was the assistant chief.

“
He responded to a call I put out,” Captain Panini told her superior.

“
You called him, of all people?”

“
No sir, I just called for an investigating lieutenant. I had no idea he was in the district.” The assistant chief walked right up to Harper, standing no more than an inch from his nose. Harper looked down at the shorter man and noticed he was going bald. Niedelmeir was giving Harper his best intimidating look, making the veins stand out on the assistant chief’s neck.

“
None of your bullshit, you hear me, Lieutenant? I get at least a recommendation a week from IA to have you investigated.”

“
Then investigate me sir,” he said casually, “I bleed blue and my sheets are clean.” The other man’s veins stuck out a little farther and Harper just couldn’t resist pushing a harder. “When’s the last time you’ve had IA investigate you,
Assistant
Chief Niedelmeir?”

“
Get him out of my TacCenter!” roared the diminutive man and turned away. A flock of his toadies surrounded him to ask for advice and Harper turned back to Captain Panini.

“
You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?” she said.

“
Little toad gets on my nerves. Well, don’t want anyone to think I’m just here to chat with my wife, I better get to work.”

“
Don’t worry about anyone thinking that,” she said and took his Blackberry. She linked it with hers and in a second he had the details of his assignment and she handed it back. “What they will think is you came here to insult your ex-wife’s new husband. Now please leave before I enter a reprimand in your file.”

Harper
slammed the trailer door a little harder than necessary on the way out bringing conversations to an abrupt halt and startling a few people. “Never could figure out why you married that man,” said a nearby female sergeant working on a laptop computer.

“
Well, sometimes we make mistakes,” she said, looking from the door to where her husband was busy trying to control an out of control situation.

Harper
walked the mile to where his suspect was waiting. He took his badge out and flipped it open for display in his breast pocket. The open show of his ID made passing in and out of police lines much easier. He had trouble as he approached the edge of the North Meadow and ran into the perimeter set up by the FBI. “No local law enforcement is needed here,” he was informed by a uniformed, armed and armored federal agent. Harper eyed the fully automatic battle rifle and the bandoleer of magazines with curiosity.

“
You got King Kong in there?” he asked.

“
Just go around, NYPD. If we need any doughnuts, we’ll dial 911.”

Years
of experience working with the feds had taught him the futility of continuing this little game. With a smile and a nod he continued around the cordon the feds had set up. Something big was going on, that was evident. NYPD had been relegated to crowd control, which was becoming typical anytime something big happened.

After
circling the North Meadow he reached a cluster of marked cruisers and a gathering of uniformed officers. As he walked closer, he could see in the back door of one of the units a thirty-something black man with dreadlocks and a haunted look on his face.

“
Morning gents,” he said as he approached, “what do we have here?”

“
How ya doing, Lieutenant? First unit on the scene nabbed this perp; figured he might have something to do with all this. That unit is in with the feds and hasn’t come out. They left this character with us and we don’t know what to do with him.”

“
What’s the collar for?”

“
Nothing that we can tell,” said another officer. “Ran his rap sheet and he’s got a long page. Mostly possession, snatch and grab, one count of GTO, that’s about it. I can’t see this character being involved in anything that would bring Uncle Sam down here in force.”

“
What does he have to say about this?” Harper asked.

“
Nothing, he just talks to himself, smiles like a lunatic and laughs.”

“
Really? Let’s see him then.” The uniformed officers lead Harper to the man sitting half out of the back seat of a police car. He wasn’t cuffed; he’d already been searched and had no history of violence. As Harper approached, the perp looked up and smiled.

“
Greetings on this most special day, officer!”

“
Sure, soon as the brass shows up he’s Mr. Talkative!” laughed one of the uniforms.

“
Greetings to you sir, I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

“
Go right ahead.”

Harper
had to smile at the man’s unusual demeanor. “What happened last night?”

“
One of the Angels of God came to Earth.”

“
Is that so?”

“
Yes! It brought forth a shining Portal for us to travel to Heaven!”

“
And what part of the Bible is that from?” The man looked confused, glancing around like he was searching for something missing from his mind.

“
I don’t know; I wasn’t religious until tonight. Hell, I don’t even think this is in the Bible, but it has to do with God.”

“
What makes you so sure?”

“
Because I saw an angel!”

“
Really? Can you describe this angel?”

“
Sure, it looks like one of those creatures from mythology, you know? The ones that are half horse and half man?”

“
You mean a centaur?”

“
Yah man! A centaur, I was trying to remember what they was called. Who woulda’ thunk that angels were centaurs?”

“
So what makes a centaur an angel?” Harper asked.

“
When they are real, for one thing. And when they bring a Portal to Heaven, for the other.”

“
What Portal are you talking about?” The man turned and looked in the direction of the fed’s cordon with a big smile.

“
I saw the angel create the Portal from a column of stone, it inserted a glowing rod and made it flow like water. Then it removed the rod, walked through the Portal and returned to Heaven! But it will be back, I’m certain!”