Free Deadly Assets by W.E.B. Griffin

Friend,” its plaque read—of a uniformed Philadelphia policeman holding a small child on his left hip in front of the Roundhouse.
    Two uniformed officers of the Mounted Patrol Unit were across Race Street, standing by in support of the half-dozen uniforms of the Civil Affairs Unit who were on foot and creating a safety zone for the protesters, in effect defending their First Amendment rights of assembly and freedom of speech.
    Payne watched as a young woman with a little girl—the latter licking a candy cane; they had just left Franklin Park—walked up to the officers on horseback. The woman then spoke to the closer of the two, and after he smiled and nodded, she lifted the toddler onto her shoulders so the girl could pet the horse’s rich brown mane. The young woman then held out her camera and snapped a photograph of them, with the smiling officer looming in the background.
    â€œDick, you’re right,” Payne said into the phone, “if you don’t try, you don’t get. Maybe we’ll get lucky if the CI is really onto something. Go find this guy he says wants to talk and bring him in. Lord knows no one else is talking about who took out Dante.”
    He paused, listened, then said, “Okay, and have Kennedy do his dramatic routine when you’re slapping on cuffs, so all those watching from wherever they’re hiding don’t miss it.”
    He listened again a moment, chuckled and replied, “Yeah, right. Nice try. If all else fails, I am not going to ‘just shoot the knucklehead,’ as much as he might deserve it,” then broke off the call.
    The use of confidential informants was strictly regulated by Police Department Directive 15. First and foremost among its rules was that there had to exist an absolute professional relationship between an officer and a CI.
    The CIs were paid for tips that, it was hoped, led to arrests. Money was also made available to them for street purchases of, for example, drugs and firearms—and even of, say, the renting of a row house needed for an undercover operation. Because these funds over time could run into the tens of thousands of dollars, procedures had to be followed to ensure that the police officers kept a distinct arm’s length from the informants.
    There’s more than the usual BS going on with this,
Payne thought, taking another sip of coffee.
    Why wouldn’t McCrory’s CI just tell them what the other guy knew about the drive-by?
    And why does this guy say he needs to see me?
    He slipped the phone into his pants pocket. His Colt Officer’s Model .45 ACP , snapped into a black leather shoulder holster, hung under his left bicep, and his shield—Badge Number 471, which had been his father’s—was midway down his striped necktie, hanging in its black leather holder from a chromed bead chain looped around the button-down collar of his stiffly starched white shirt.
    The Colt did not technically meet Philadelphia Police Department regulations. When Payne had begun carrying the semiautomatic, during a stint with Special Operations, .38 caliber revolvers were still the department-issued sidearm. Payne disliked wheel guns in general and .38s in particular. He argued that the smaller caliber did not have the stopping power of a .45 bullet and that the Officer’s Model carried more of the powerful rounds and could be reloaded more quickly.
    Because of the nature of Special Operations cases—especially its undercover work; Payne made the point that the blued steel .38 caliber revolver screamed “Cop!”—the department had made an allowance for him.
    After Payne left SO, if anyone asked about the .45, he waved the allowance at them, arguing that his Colt had been grandfathered. That particularly annoyed those who—wrongly—believed it was another case of his connections getting him preferential treatment.
    But what really annoyed them even more was that