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A Sniper
A Sniper
A Sniper
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A Sniper

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A Sniper

Thriller by Neal Chadwick

The size of this book corresponds to 224 paperback pages.

A mafioso is shot by a professional killer, his big busted playmate stands next to him and has nothing better to do than disappear with his expensive sports car. But this is just the prelude to an eerie series of crimes that don't seem to fit into any scheme. Jesse Trevellian, the investigator from New York, must take matters into his own hands.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 20, 2019
ISBN9781386382478
A Sniper

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    Book preview

    A Sniper - Neal Chadwick

    A Sniper

    Thriller by Neal Chadwick

    The size of this book corresponds to 224 paperback pages.

    A mafioso is shot by a professional killer, his big busted playmate stands next to him and has nothing better to do than disappear with his expensive sports car. But this is just the prelude to an eerie series of crimes that don't seem to fit into any scheme. Jesse Trevellian, the investigator from New York, must take matters into his own hands.

    copyright

    ACassiopeiaPress book : CASSIOPEIAPRESS, UKSAK e-books and BEKKERpublishing are imprints by Alfred Bekker.

    NEAL CHADWICK IS A PEN-NAME OF ALFRED BEKKER

    © by Author /Cover Tony Masero

    © of this issue 2016 by AlfredBekker/CassiopeiaPress, Lengerich/Westphalia.

    All rights reserved.

    Sync by n17t01 www.AlfredBekker.de

    postmaster@alfredbekker.de

    1. chapter

    H ey, shall we go on the ghost train?

    'Big' Jimmy DiCarlo - a small, wiry man in his forties grinned crooked with black hair combed backwards and a protruding chin. Are you kidding me or what?

    The tall busty blonde on DiCarlo's side toweredBig Jimmy by half a head.

    Five broad-shouldered men in dark suits secured Big Jimmy DiCarlo from all sides.

    Under the bodyguards' jackets, their weapons fired.

    Hey, what's up, Jim? asked the blonde now, sticking her arms in her provocatively curved hips. I was serious about the ghost train!

    She stretched out her arm and pointed to a flashing neon sign. Very Loud Screams From Hell was written there. Bone hands sticking out of the outer wall at irregular intervals seemed to reach for the passers-by and just made a group of teenagers screech. Jimmy DiCarlo curled his face and rolled his eyes.

    Francine, this is kid stuff, he complained.

    Oh, Jimmy!

    Yes, that's right!

    Secretly, DiCarlo already knew he had lost. He simply could not refuse anything to Francine - even if that meant that his image as a bone-hard captain in the syndicate of the Marini family from Little Italy suffered somewhat when word got around that he was enjoying himself in a ghost train.

    Francine laughed at him, challenging. Her voice sounded dark and seductive. Listen, Jimmy, this is Brooklyn - no one knows you!

    Jimmy DiCarlo's gaze was distracted by her deep cleavage and he involuntarily thought:"She has other advantages than a cultivated way of expressing herself. She wasn't the kind of woman he could have impressed in front of his uncle Harry Marini, the current head of the family business, but as long as Jimmy DiCarlo was only having fun with Francine and didn't intend to bring her to official family celebrations or marry her, that was fine even for the clan patriarch.

    It's a shame, said Jimmy DiCarlo, shaking his head vigorously,did you know that Brooklyn was still firmly in Italian hands in the fifties?

    Jimmy...

    It's true!

    You're just distracting, Big Jimmy.

    Bullshit!

    You are!

    Today, Russians and Ukrainians are in charge in Brooklyn - apart from the Heights. But you'll see, you'll see!

    It flashed in her eyes.

    If you let me get on the ghost train alone, I'll tell everyone Big Jimmy DiCarlo is afraid of ghosts.

    DiCarlo grimaced.

    Don't piss me off, baby!, he growled. But the way he said it already revealed that he would hardly be able to get really angry. You know how angry I can get, he said and tried to keep the corners of his mouth far enough down.

    You know I like it when you get angry, Jimmy!, Francine said with a laugh. Her flawless teeth flashed. Her hair fell far over her shoulders. With an inimitable gesture, she stroked a strand of hair from her face. Just the way she did it, Jimmy DiCarlo liked her.

    You've never seen this, sweetheart...

    Oh, no?

    No!

    Jimmy DiCarlo's facial expression changed abruptly at that moment.

    His trains froze.

    The eyes became unnaturally large and emerged from their caves. A mask of frozen horror was created within a split second. He raised his hand, like in an instinctive defensive movement.

    In the middle of his forehead a small red dot formed, which quickly became larger. Francine let go of his arm and cried out in horror.

    Jimmy DiCarlo staggered for a moment before he fell to the ground and lay motionless. With a muffled sound his lifeless body bounced off the asphalt and remained lying in an unnaturally dislocated position.

    The bodyguards only noticed with a delay of one to two seconds what had happened.

    They tore out their weapons, ducked down and stared around searching. Two of them leaned over their boss lying on the ground to protect him.

    Shit, man! shouted the taller one, crouching in a crouched position next to the motionless man lying there.

    He just found DiCarlo dead before he got caught.

    A hit in the torso let him slump over his boss. The bullet went through his body and tore a bloody hole where it left off. The smaller of the two bodyguards got a head hit, which killed  him instantly.

    An attack from nowhere - without even a hint of a defensive chance.

    Francine stood there for a few seconds rooted and with her mouth open. She seemed completely frozen and hardly dared to breathe. The shock was written all over her face.

    Within a few moments the other bodyguards also sank down. Even before they really understood from which direction they were fired at them, there was a jolt through their bodies - as with puppets that were taken out of play at their strings. Their bodies then clapped lifelessly to the floor. None of their weapons had fired a single shot to ward off this attack.

    A completely silent attack.

    No gunshot sound could be heard. Passers-by stopped, realized only with a delay of several moments what had happened and then scattered in panic.

    Screams yelled with a delay of more seconds and proliferated in the crowd, like in a domino effect.

    Only a few moments later, this scream swelled to such a deafening noise that even the stomping music from the loudspeakers of the rides was drowned in it.

    THERE IT IS! MILO said and reached out.

    We were in a hurry.

    It was late afternoon when Milo and I reached Jamaica Bay Fun Park in western Brooklyn. It was located on the site of a former shopping centre that had not been able to prevail against the tough competition. It was highly doubtful whether this would be any different with the rides that now advertised for customers on the Spencer Drive site. When Disneyland for the poor, the local media had already mocked the park, which was probably mainly frequented by families living in western Brooklyn and the neighboring communities of Long Island.

    It was hard to believe that anyone from outside would get lost here. The big wheels and roller coasters, with which one could enjoy oneself here, were simply not technically seen innovative enough.

    My colleague Milo Tucker and I had to park the sports car provided by the FBI in a side street and walk to the scene of the crime for the last five minutes. It was an indescribable mess. All access roads to the park area were hopelessly congested.

    The last few feet are the worst again, I said.

    It's a fight, Jesse!, my colleague Milo Tucker returned.

    Colleagues from the New York Police Department tried to coordinate the confusion of panicked passers-by who wanted to leave the site as quickly as possible and the police and emergency service vehicles as best they could.

    We had already been informed what the Jamaica Fun Park was all about.

    Jimmy DiCarlo, a sub-boss of the Marini Syndicate, had been murdered with almost half a dozen bodyguards and we had reason to believe that this was part of a wider clash between different groups of organised crime. Money laundering, drugs and weapons - these were areas in which we know the Marini family did business. And with great success, because Marini had quickly pushed his way up the hierarchy of the New York underworld.

    But the competition wasn't asleep.

    A total of three other sub-bosses of the Marini Syndicate had been killed in recent months. No one could believe in a coincidence anymore, especially since the same weapon had been used in all three cases.

    It looked like Jimmy DiCarlo was number four on the list of this unknown killer cleaning up the New York underworld.

    Just wondered who he was doing it for. The whole thing was probably to be seen as part of a much broader confrontation of various syndicates that fought uncompromisingly and to the core to knock out the competition.

    The colleagues of the City Police had cordoned off the actual crime scene. Milo and I were stopped.

    I took my ID card and presented it to my colleague.

    Jesse Trevellian, FBI, I introduced myself. This is my colleague Milo Tucker. Captain Rick Donovan of the 102nd Precinct has requested us.

    Glad you could make it. They are eagerly awaited, said the officer.

    Unfortunately, we didn't make it sooner!

    I can imagine. At this time of the day, when you're on the road from Manhattan, it's devilish.

    You can say that again!

    The officer pointed with his arm and said: Go left at the hot dog stand to the ghost train. That's where it happened.

    I nodded. Thank you.

    A little later we had reached the actual crime scene. In addition to the uniformed colleagues, there were about a dozen officers from the 102nd precinct. In addition, there were the investigators of the Scientific Research Division, the central identification service of all New York police units, whose help was also frequently used by the FBI.

    Two of the Coroner's dark vans had somehow managed to get as far as here. Probably a third car would have to be called to remove all the bodies.

    We were presented with an image of horror.

    The dead had already been packed in body bags and prepared for transport to forensic medicine, but all over the asphalt traces of dried blood showed that something terrible had happened here. Chalk markings showed us where they had been.

    Captain Donovan was a redheaded, somewhat corpulent man. I knew him briefly. We had met from time to time when he was still a lieutenant and deputy head of the second Homicide Squad of the 12th precinct in downtown Manhattan. Meanwhile, he was captain and had taken over the Homicide Squad of the 102nd precinct as chief after the previous incumbent Captain Zach Gonella had died in a shooting.

    That was about nine months ago.

    Hello, Jesse! he said and greeted Milo. After we established the identity of one of the victims from his papers, we immediately realized this was a case for you.

    So?

    After all, DiCarlo belongs to the Marini Syndicate and there is a connection between this murder case and organized crime.

    I nodded. Someone seems to systematically take out Harry Marini's underbosses one by one, I noted.

    He nodded. Gangster war. Everybody's talking about that right now.

    Yes - and probably just the beginning, Milo interfered.

    The circumstances of the crime speak for a professional killer, Donovan said. None of the bodyguards could get to safety. "Until we find out the caliber, you'll have to wait a little longer.

    I bet the results match the facts we know from the other cases in this series, Milo believed.

    Donovan scratched himself at the short shorn red hair of the back of his head. I assume you've got something like the overture to a full-grown massacre going on.

    The only thing that surprises me is that Marini's reaction so far has been very calm, my friend and colleague Milo Tucker returned. In any case, we are not aware of a comparable death rate among the members of the competing syndicates.

    Donovan grinned crookedly.

    Marini may be looking to maintain his image as a clean businessman and not be associated with this bloody swamp - but at some point he will have to fight back if he wants to retain authority in his own ranks.

    Where was it fired from? I asked. For a moment I wondered how well Donovan knew about Marini. Most of what was previously known about Marini's organization could be accessed by all police units via the NYSIS data networking system - including the chief of a Homicide Squad in Brooklyn. Finally, even a good fight against organised crime was of no use if those who were first to the scene of the crime did not recognise the link that a homicide had to certain areas of organised crime. Repeatedly we had lost valuable time of the FBI, because the explosiveness of an action on site had not been recognized fast enough.

    Donovan really couldn't be blamed for anything in this respect.

    He had been more than vigilant and had been astonishingly well informed about the background.

    Donovan stretched out his arm and pointed to a twenty-storey building, the shell of which was completed and bordered directly on the grounds of Jamaica Bay Radio Park. We're assuming there were shots fired from that building up ahead. Anyway, it has to be this way.

    I looked over and pinched my eyes together.

    Must have been a good shot - from a distance!, I noticed.

    That's an estimated four hundred meters - if fired from one of the higher floors - even more, Milo said.

    If the guy used a sniper rifle, that's a normal distance, Donovan said.And the killer must have been a sniper. The shots were fired very quickly and he had very little time to aim. The killer only needed one shot each to kill DiCarlo and his men.

    That fits the pattern, I noticed, changing views with Milo.

    In the previous murders of members of the Marini Syndicate, the same weapon had always been used. A special rifle type MK 32, which had only been produced in relatively small quantities. The SWAT commands of some major cities used this weapon. In addition, they had briefly considered acquiring the MK-23 for snipers in special units of the Army and Navy. Malicious tongues claimed that this had failed because of the competition's better relations with the Pentagon.

    In any case, I made every bet that this murder was also committed with the same MK-23 that had been used to commit the previous murders of Marini syndicate subordinates.

    Of course, we could expect confirmation of this only after the ballistic investigations had been completed.

    Jimmy DiCarlo was accompanied by a young woman, as several witnesses have testified, Donovan reported. A kind of man's dream made flesh. We made a sketch, Donovan sighed audibly before continuing. She's disappeared."

    Let's see how quickly we can find them if we put them on BOLO, I said.

    Donovan's cell phone rang right away. He repeatedly saidyes and finally ended the conversation again. Then he turned to Milo and me.

    That was Lieutenant Grosvenor. He thinks he's found the shooter's location.

    Let's take a look, then, I suggested.

    Donovan ordered one of his detectives to cover

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