Like Father, Like Son
part two

*****

Boston Police District Nine

"I’d been under with Cahill O’Connor for about a year when Ted Figrello was killed," Marcus said. He stared at the tabletop and refused to meet their eyes.

Bailey felt almost as though he was interviewing a suspect. Marcus sat at one end of the table alone. The rest of the team sat around the sides of the table at a slight, but perceptible distance. He hadn’t wanted to bring this back to the station, but hashing it out on Patrick O’Doyle’s doorstep wasn’t really an option.

"I was afraid they’d find me out, too," Marcus continued quietly. "But they didn’t. Not long after that the OCB started getting outside intell on the Outfit. It was old stuff. Old names, old dates, old bodies… but combined with what I was giving them they were able to start connecting a few dots." He shook his head. "The Organized Crime Bureau wouldn’t tell me where they were getting their info, but as I got deeper into the mob’s trust I realized that Cahill knew where it was coming from… or who. They all did. And at the beginning, before they realized just how badly he could hurt them, they treated it almost like a joke." He stopped and finally looked up at Bailey. "They actually thought it was *funny* that this guy had made it right into the middle of the FBI without anybody noticing until a spiteful little bureaucratic nobody accidentally ferreted him out."

"The FTX," George murmured. "Bihar’s crusade."

"And John’s been moonlighting for the OCB all this time," Bailey said. He couldn’t keep the sharp bitterness out of his voice. He had trusted John. He couldn’t believe that the man had kept this from him for so long.

"No," Marcus said. "He broke with them long before you guys blew my cover."

"How did they know?" Sam asked softly. "How did O’Connor know who he was?"

Marcus laughed without humor. "As far as I can tell, they’ve always known who he is. Pat’s ‘renegade’ son, they call him." He looked away from them all again. "They knew all about him, about Sam, about Frances… They’ve had somebody on him for years."

"Handleman…" Bailey said.

Marcus’ eyes rose to meet Bailey’s stare. "I’m sorry," he said. "I couldn’t figure out… didn’t figure out who he was until it was too late. If I’d known…"

"If you had said something about…" Bailey began.

"About what?" Marcus interrupted him. "Nobody *ever* officially told me who John was. What was I supposed to do? John didn’t trust me then. Maybe he still doesn’t… but he sure as hell wouldn’t have listened to me back then if I’d told him that the Outfit had somebody watching him…"

"You should have said something…" Bailey insisted.

"You should have asked John more," Marcus countered.

The two men glared at one another. Bailey broke the angry silence.

"So, where does that leave us now? Who has John and what do they want?"

"I’m not sure," Marcus said slowly. "But I’d bet on Cahill. He must be afraid that John still knows more than he’s telling. Maybe he thought he saw a chance to make a point or…"

No one said the words aloud, but they hung there just the same. Or Cahill had decided to remove the problem once and for all.

"Why O’Connor?" Sam asked. "Why not his father?"

"Pat has his share of little dark secrets. He might even be behind all this. But over the years he’s learned how to cover his tracks. He’s gotten a lot more hands-off in his deals. Cahill still does things the old-fashioned way; up close and personal. It’s much easier to trace things back to Cahill and he might just be starting to worry."

"But if what John knows is so old…" Sam began.

"He’s been digging."

Bailey turned to George in wonder. The man’s head was bowed as he stared at his own folded hands on the table.

"He mentioned to me once… after Bihar uncovered who his father was… that he wondered if O’Doyle ever tried to keep tabs on him. Later, he asked me to keep him up-to-date on anything that turned up on O’Connor. He just said that he thought O’Connor might be trying to expand into Atlanta. Every time I came across something he’d be pretty scarce around the office for the next few days," George said. "If I’d known what he was going to do… How far he was going to…"

"He’s been connecting a few dots on his own," Marcus said.

Bailey ran his hand across his face and tried to focus on the immediate problem, not the myriad of tiny deceptions that had led them here.

"If O’Connor took him," he asked, "where would they go?"

"A thousand places," Marcus said. "Whatever he plans to do, it won’t take long. Get the local PD to give me a dozen men and I can run down a few of the most likely spots, but…"

"George, start checking the hospitals."

*****

"You’ve got to be kidding me," the captain said in disbelief. "We call in you Feds for help and now you want *us* to loan *you* officers to track down your own agent? What about our case? We *know* we have a serial killer on the loose. How do we know your agent doesn’t just have a dead battery in his cell phone?"

Bailey struggled against the urge to put his fist through something. Satisfying as it might be, he thought, it would be counterproductive. Instead he took a deep breath and began again. He couldn’t afford to vent his anger on this guy until he had the manpower he needed to follow up on several of Marcus’ most promising sources.

After several more frustrating minutes of debate Bailey headed back to the office where George was running a constant scan on hospital admittances. As he passed the open door of the break room he noticed Sam sitting alone on a tattered sofa. She looked up quickly at his entrance with an expression in her blue eyes that he didn’t want to see. A pain he couldn’t ease; a fear he couldn’t dispel.

"Anything?" she asked

"We’re going to see O’Connor."

*****

Black and Tan Bar & Grill

"You have no right just barging in here!"

Bailey and Sam didn’t bother flashing their badges as they shouldered past the "security guard".

"Tell O’Connor that he has company," Bailey said. "I’m sure he knows what it’s about." He scanned the dark bar as the guard moved to block their path.

"You got a warrant?"

"You got something to hide?"

The bar was nearly deserted. The few patrons ignored the bristling hostility. They were either too inebriated or too intelligent to show any signs of interest.

"What’s the problem?"

Bailey turned to see a dark-haired man coming out of a back office. He recognized O’Connor from the surveillance photos.

"Where is he?" Bailey asked as he crossed the room.

O’Connor spread his hands. "Where’s who?"

"John Grant."

"Never heard of him. You got a warr..." His words were cut short as Bailey straight-armed him into the wall.

"Cut the crap, O’Connor. Just tell us where he is."

"This is brutality, Fed. I got rights."

"Brutality?" Bailey said. "Now, there’s something you’re an expert in." It wasn’t lost on him that O’Connor had called him ‘Fed’. Obviously the Bureau wasn’t the only organization with surveillance photos. "Don’t you ever wonder what it feels like on the receiving end? What’s the matter?" He pressed his forearm harder against the man’s neck. "You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?"

"Okay. Okay, back off. Maybe I have heard the name somewhere before." O’Connor’s hand rose to massage his throat as Bailey removed his arm. He scowled as the agent failed to back away. "Maybe I’ve heard about this Grant kid. A kid who didn’t live up to his heritage. We take family pretty seriously around here. If somebody tried to instill a few good old-fashioned family values in him…"

"Where is he?" Bailey snapped again.

"How should I know? He’s not my kid."

"Where were you at four-fifteen?" Bailey switched angles.

"I was here all afternoon. Fitz and Michael were here with me."

"Is that so?"

The security guard and bartender both nodded.

"Then you’re both going down with him," Bailey said. "If you didn’t leave here then somebody brought John to you."

"You know," O’Connor said with a quick, twisted sneer. "I don’t think that kid’s name was Grant, after all. Must have been thinking of somebody else. Sorry, Malone. I can’t help you."

Bailey started to move toward him again, but Sam’s light touch on his arm held him back.

"He’s angry," she said as they walked back to the car. Bailey raised an eyebrow at her tone. She sounded almost surprised.

"At us?" he asked. "Or at John?"

"Both… Neither." She wore a perplexed frown. "He seems... frustrated. I think he *does* know what happened to John," she said with sudden certainty. "But he isn’t happy about how it turned out. I think he may have been interrupted." She turned to him with a brighter expression than he had seen in the past several hours.

*****

St. Joseph’s Memorial Hospital

"Incoming!"

Dr. Angela Peterson looked up as another body was wheeled into the ER. She moved quickly to examine the very still man on the gurney. He was unconscious and blood drenched his dark hair. He had been worked over pretty good, she thought as she took in his injuries. She could see several obvious abrasions and it was apparent that he was going to have some fierce-looking bruises soon. The catch in his breathing made her wonder about broken ribs. She glanced at his sharply featured face as she continued her examination. She’d bet that underneath all the blood and bruises this one was a real looker.

"What happened to him?" she asked the EMT.

"Dunno," the man shrugged. "Dispatch got a call from down in the old Combat Zone. They found him in a parking lot. No ID," he added.

"Great. I guess we’ll just call you John Doe, sweetheart," she said to the unconscious man as she pried open one of his eyes. He stirred fitfully and opened both eyes on his own. They were a bright, clear blue. Definitely a looker, she thought again.

"John," he agreed in a blurred voice. "Not Doe."

"Okay, John," she smiled at him, "then who are you?"

He squinted up at her in an apparent attempt to concentrate through the pain. "Boston?" he asked.

"Yes, you’re in Boston," she said patiently. "Can you tell me your name?"

"D... not Doe... Doyle... O’Doyle..." He closed his eyes and slipped back into oblivion.

"O’Doyle?" the EMT said. He looked down at the man thoughtfully. "Interesting name to have in this town. Think he’s one of *those* O’Doyles?"

She knew which O’Doyles he was talking about. She read the papers. In fact, she could vaguely recall that one of them was up on racketeering charges again. And it looked like this time the charges might actually stick. She pushed open the neck of O’Doyle’s shirt and exchanged a quick, rueful glance with the EMT. There was the scar on the man’s right shoulder. An old, yet unmistakable bullet wound.

"A scar like that," she said. "Beat up like this and dumped in the Combat Zone." She shook her head. "I don’t like the odds."

*****

on to part three