The Crime Beat Boxed Set Read online

  The Crime Beat: Episodes 1-3

  New York, Washington D.C., Miami

  A.C. Fuller

  Vivid Books

  Contents

  Episode 1: New York

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Episode Two: Washington, D.C.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Episode 3: Miami

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  FREE PREVIEW of Episode 4 of THE CRIME BEAT

  Author Notes, October 2019

  The Crime Beat: Complete Series List

  About the Author

  Other Books By A.C. Fuller

  About Gary Collins, Consultant on THE CRIME BEAT

  Episode 1: New York

  1

  Sunday

  The old man’s life flashed through his mind as he methodically unpacked the rifle. His calloused hands had aged, but the muscle memory created by hundreds of repetitions still lived in his fingers. Laying the base of the weapon on his lap, he attached the barrel, locked the takedown pins into place, and affixed the scope. Finally, he rested the spiked feet on the soft tar at the edge of the townhouse roof.

  His back ached. Sharp pulses of pain coursed through his right knee. But the pain was worth it. His shot would change the world.

  Gritting his teeth, he dropped to his stomach and took in the crowd. Six stories down and across Fifth Avenue, a couple hundred people had gathered on the wide marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to greet the arrivals of celebrities and billionaires with ooohs, aaahs, and countless photos. This is what America has become, he thought. A handful of elites hoard the wealth and the sheeple snap pictures and praise them for it.

  He scanned the crowd and whispered the twenty-nine words in a hoarse monotone. “An international brotherhood, united by General Ki for a singular mission: to end the great replacement, to restore the sovereignty of nations, to birth a new era of freedom.” He’d repeated the words dozens of times each day for a year. Today he would do his part to put them into action.

  A blur of faces met his eye through the rifle scope, but Raj Ambani’s face wasn’t one of them.

  Staying cool in stressful situations is what makes a sniper a sniper. Fifty years back, he could make a kill shot in less than a second without noticing the bombs going off around him. Floating in the zone, he called it. His primal energies focused on the target, his vision like a laser, sound muted so he barely heard the crack of his weapon as he pulled the trigger. Just silence and a man going limp, dead before hitting the ground. Back in the shit, if a bomb or an errant batch of napalm was going to land on his head, it was better to be oblivious anyway. Better to lock in and make the kill.

  At his peak, he could touch a man half a mile away. He’d trained on a Remington M40, a modified Remington 700—one of the most popular rifles among hunters and the weapon of choice of Vietnam-era snipers. But this rifle was a custom job, state of the art and heavier than the M40 due to the oversized suppressor. Its barrel was even coated with a polymer-ceramic protectant that prevented corrosion and wear over time. Not that it mattered. He would use this gun only once.

  The late afternoon was cloudy and unseasonably warm for mid-December in New York City—between fifty and fifty-five degrees with no wind. His wrinkled hands were more prone to shake now, but the shot would be easy enough. No more than three hundred yards and at an angle that made him almost feel sorry for his target. Almost.

  Eye in the scope, he moved from person to person. A pair of young girls aimed phones at the crowd. A fat man craned his neck for a better view. Reporters jostled for space before a velvet rope that protected a red carpet running up the center of the steps. A black limousine—its extra large wheel wells and sturdy tires suggested it was armored—stopped between the rope lines in front of the red carpet.

  The man slowed his breathing as he lightly touched the trigger. It was all about control. Any elevation of his pulse could throw the shot. He’d taken metoprolol for his heart for years, experimenting with the dose until he’d found the perfect balance. The beta blockers would have disqualified him from competition shooting, but he wasn't here to collect trophies.

  His index finger was sweaty inside the leather glove. Leather was hot and cumbersome, but prints could bleed through latex and cloth often left traceable fibers.

  The hairs on the back of his neck tingled and the world around him fell silent as the limo door opened. With a long, slow exhale, he allowed most of the air to leave his chest. A tall brunette stepped out of the limo and waved to the crowd. The crowd cheered.

  The old man inhaled. It was only some self-absorbed movie star, filming herself with a cellphone as she walked the red carpet. Not his target.

  Moving his eye from the scope, he glanced up and down the street. A white SUV limousine turned onto Fifth Avenue a block away. It slowed and stopped in front of the Met. He trained the scope on the license plate: @3COMMA.

  That was it. The custom plate matched Raj Ambani’s Twitter handle, and he’d had to look up the meaning. Two commas in your net worth meant you were a millionaire. Three meant you were a billionaire. It wasn’t enough to brag about his wealth, Ambani had to promote his Twitter account in the process.

  He exhaled, letting his chest sink into the roof, waiting for the rear door to open. Everything dropped away except for his eye in the scope and his finger on the trigger. All sound around him faded.

  The rear door didn’t open. Instead, a portly driver emerged and waddled around the limo. He opened the rear door, his wide back shielding Ambani as he got out.

  The .50 BMG round could easily pass through the fat man and take out the target behind him. But that wasn’t part of the plan. Too risky.

  He could wait. It had been fifty years since his last kill. And at seventy-three years old, this would likely be his last.

  He wanted to savor the moment.

  Halfway up the
steps, Raj Ambani turned to face the reporters who’d followed him from the limo. “This evening is not about me, but I’ll take a few questions about IWPF. If they’re not about the cause we’re here to support, I’ll head inside.”

  A young woman shoved an iPhone in his face, its screen displaying the wavy red lines of a recording app. “The deal with X-Rev International? Is that going through?”

  Ambani stuck his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants. He was thirty years old and slightly built, his black hair slicked back and parted in the center. One of his companies had developed an early version of the recording app the reporter was using, and, despite her annoying question, he had to smile at seeing his work in action. Plus, he was in his element, as comfortable with the press as he was in the boardroom. He turned his unflinching smile on her. “Thanks, Sophie, but—again—IWPF questions only. Please.”

  “I’m a business reporter,” she countered. “I have to ask about the merger.”

  He’d done enough interviews to know he could ignore questions he didn’t want to answer. “The IWPF is an organization I’m proud to support. I’ve teamed with donors from the financial and tech sectors to establish an international legal team dedicated to protecting the wildlife of all nations, and of our precious oceans. The fifty-million-dollar fund will allow IWPF to blaze a trail in international law, creating protections for animals in an increasingly global society. As our economies and production bases become more interdependent, so must our conservation efforts.”

  A stocky male reporter elbowed his way to the front. “Raj, if we promise to get our science editors to write about…” He glanced at his notes, “…IPWF…or whatever…will you comment on the X-Rev merger?”

  Ambani frowned. “It’s I, W, P, F. The International Wildlife Protection Fund. And no, not today.”

  Ignoring a torrent of shouted questions, Ambani stood motionless on the steps. He scanned the crowd for an environmental reporter to call on. His limo pulled away below, and he wished he was in it. No matter how much good he did with his wealth, reporters only cared about how he’d gotten it, and how he was trying to get more.

  He raised both hands, silencing the reporters. “No more questions. It’s a beautiful Sunday evening in Manhattan and we’re about to give fifty million dollars to an important charity.” His white-toothed grin widened. “Come bug me about X-Rev on Monday morning if you must. Inside there’s a glass of champagne with my name on it.”

  The thought of champagne made him salivate. He allowed himself one glass per week, and tonight was the night. Ambani loved New York City around the holidays, and he looked over the crowd to take it in. Across the street, twinkling Christmas lights decorated a Red Maple in front of a beautiful old limestone townhouse. A pair of pigeons emerged from the tree and flew south. He breathed in the cool air, which carried a sweet-smokey scent from a nearby roasted nut cart. Life was far from perfect, but it was beautiful.

  As the birds disappeared into the evening, an unexpected movement pulled his gaze to the roof of the townhouse. A second twitch of motion focused his attention on what appeared to be a man with a black rifle.

  As he watched Ambani watch the birds, the old man whispered. “An international brotherhood, united by General Ki to carry out a singular mission: to bring an end to the great replacement...” Ambani looked up at the roof just as he reached the end of the words. “...to restore the sovereignty of nations, to birth a new era of freedom.”

  His forehead was like a target. Wide and brown against the backdrop of cream-colored marble. The world dropped away. Everything except the target, his right index finger, and the words. He let his breath out slowly. He grew still. He was floating in the zone. Ready to kill.

  Ambani’s eyes widened as he saw him, but it was too late.

  The man pulled the trigger once. A hissing pop came from the gun.

  His target went slack before anyone heard the shot. The round could penetrate a truck engine at close range. His shot had entered clean, piercing Ambani’s forehead and turning his brain to jello on the way out, leaving a fine, red-mist plume. He never knew what hit him.

  Before the body hit the ground, the man was taking the gun apart.

  Shrieks filled the air as his senses returned to him, but the words moved through his mind, drowning them out.

  A minute later, he slung the rifle bag over his shoulder and hobbled toward the ladder on the back of the townhouse. For the first time, his wrinkled face broke out in a wide grin. He’d done his part. The small part he’d been called on to perform. The small part in a worldwide pact that would usher in a new age of freedom.

  2

  Jane Cole was pissed. She’d been pissed at the world for three years, but right now her boss was catching the brunt of it.

  She slammed a fist on his desk, rattling a jar of pens and knocking a wire-bound reporter’s notebook off the table. She regretted it immediately, but was burning too hot to apologize. “The weeks before Christmas are especially tough.”

  Max Herr grabbed his notebook from the floor, then kicked his feet up on the desk, lacing his hands through his thick white hair. “No problem. I get that you’re passionate about this issue. We’re on the same side here.”

  She needed this job, and the two vanilla lattes she’d chugged before the meeting were doing nothing to calm her. From anger, she had only one place to go. With the flick of an internal switch, she sighed and her anger morphed into numbness. Her thoughts became white noise—static with a frequency between the crackling of a radio and the gentle whoosh of the cosmic noise app she used (with half an Ambien) to fall asleep each night. She flicked this switch a few dozen times a day. It kept her sane.

  Max squinted. “Jane, are you okay? The story was good, but I’m catching hell for it. I know you’re passionate about this, but—”

  She shot out of her chair. “You’re not?” The static was gone. The numbness disappeared. The anger was back.

  Herr held up his hands. “I’ve greenlit more stories on police brutality than any editor in the city, but I’m more passionate about accuracy.”

  “My story was accurate. Every word of it. Robert Warren smashed a suspect’s face into the metal grate of his cruiser. That. Is. Fact.” She shook her head and flopped into the chair. “Didn’t you tell me when I started here that every negative story I wrote about the department would get pushback?”

  Herr stroked his bushy white beard, nodding. “I’m getting more than the usual pushback. Warren called twice today, three times yesterday. His name was on the list for detective. He can kiss that goodbye.”

  “Good!” Jane snapped. “Brutal cops shouldn’t get promotions.”

  Herr shook his head. “No, they shouldn’t.”

  Going emotionally numb gave her power. The static darkness erased the pain but left her perceptive, allowed her to see others clearly. His terse answer made her wonder whether he truly agreed with her. She could read most people within three minutes. But she’d never been able to read her boss. He didn’t look at the floor when he spoke. He never raised his voice when he lied. He had no discernible tell. His affable smile and white hair and beard reminded her of a kindly old wizard from the movies. It was a face that allowed everyone to believe he was on their side. In truth, the only side he was ever on was that of The New York Sun, the newspaper he’d run for the last ten years.

  Since she couldn’t read him, she kept pressing. “Max, he smashed a dude’s face after arresting him. What more do we need to know?”

  “All I’m asking is that you flip over some rocks to see what crawls out. I’m sure you got the facts right, but sometimes the facts are different than the truth. Got it?”

  Cole relented. “Just because Warren calls three times a day doesn’t mean he’s innocent.”

  “Not only Warren. I’ve gotten calls from two others I trust. They say Warren is one of the good guys.”

  She waved a hand at him. “Cops protect their own. Always have. Especially against journalists.�
�

  Herr sighed. “You know I am still your boss, Jane.”

  “For now.” She stopped halfway to the door of his office. “I remember when I could actually hear and smell the person I was reporting on. Now?” She waved her phone at him. “I’m a damn stenographer. I copy Twitter statements and hope someone calls me back. We break one story based on actual sources and the entire department comes after us. Makes a woman wonder whether there’s any room to be a real reporter. I just don’t think there’s a point anymore.”

  Herr looked concerned. “A point to what?”

  Through the windows of Herr’s office, Cole gestured at the expansive newsroom, where a few dozen reporters, interns, and tech people typed at laptops, scrolled on phones, or talked quietly. “This. Any of it. Anything.”

  “I worry when you say things like that.” He shook his head. “That and things like the little ‘For now’ comment you snuck in a moment ago. You survived four rounds of layoffs because you’re brilliant and you write well. You’re the only woman leading a crime beat at a major New York City paper. I know the last few years have been…”