R.O.P.E. Squad 4 Department Undercover

Chapter One

Was it raining in his bedroom? Detective Jude Fox could see the drops of water before they fell on his face. He struggled to focus and could see the woman he was currently dating, standing over him looking down at him. Beside her stood the Commissioner of Police. They were both bundled up in bulky rain coats and scarves. The Commissioner of Police was holding a brightly flowered umbrella over both him and the woman standing beside him. She was the Mayor, Mayor Miriam Miller.

They stood together looking down at him as if he were some kind of garbage that was distasteful to their gaze.

Is he dead yet? asked the Mayor, Miriam Miller.

Not yet, replied the Commissioner of Police.

But soon? Miriam Miller bent closer and he could see the glitter of the gold heart locket necklace with the diamond inset, that he had given her on her birthday just two weeks ago.

Yes, soon, replied the Commissioner of Police. He put his booted foot against Jude’s side and nudged his body.

Good, my girlfriend Miriam Miller replied. Let’s go.

He could see the two of them walking away and it was as if his vision lengthened as they walked further away, and he could see that he wasn’t in bed at all. He was in an alleyway. He was sprawled on the concrete lane of the alley, and the rain was starting to pelt down on his face. The cold drops started to sting his face and even though it was uncomfortable, the cold shower brought him more fully awake.

He could see a downspout off of a building, about a foot away from him, and he could see that the rain gushing out from it was forming the puddle that he was resting in. He wondered why there were swirls of red in the water, then realized that it was blood and it was coming from him.

He could see by the light that was over an alleyway door, that he wasn’t in his usual night time sleep wear that consisted of jogging pants and a t-shirt. He was still in his suit and tie that he had started out the day with at work as a detective at the R.O.P.E. Squad Division of the police force.  

Someone else was in the alley now. Three men in raggedy clothes appeared, and they were each carrying bags of groceries. They came a little closer, then stopped and looked at him in amazement. The biggest man came closer to him and touched his neck to find a pulse. He rifled the pockets of the suit and looked at the watch on the wrist, checked the wallet and detective badge ID folder, and then fingered the gun in the shoulder holster. The big man left everything in place.

He’s still alive. Let’s get him up. We can take him to our place. Be careful, he’s badly injured. The big man half rolled the body and did a massive lift and the detective was on his feet. The detective reeled crazily against the big man. His body felt like there was no bone or muscle, no skeleton to hold up the flesh. He tried to move his legs to walk but his feet dragged along the concrete alleyway making scraping noises with his shoes.

Maybe we should just leave him here, said the third man. Call an ambulance. Or let him die and let the police cart him away and deal with him.

The big man barked out a reply. Do you seriously never think ahead? What happens if someone else finds him and calls the cops? If he’s alive by then, there will still be an ambulance with the EMT’s and the police and if he dies, the scene will be treated as a crime scene and our alleyway will be cordoned off with crime scene tape and there will be even more cops and crime scene people. The reporters and news people and gawkers who nose into everything will swarm this place too. Do you really want to be stuck in our apartment for weeks until the crime scene is cleared? Plus, the police will be knocking at our door and demanding to know if we have seen anything. They keep coming back. Believe me. We couldn’t hide you out here. We would have to move and find a new place. Do you see the problems that would bring? Besides that, your boss would have us killed. We would become a liability and he eliminates liabilities.

I never thought of all that. The third man shrugged.

Let me do the thinking from now on. Let’s get this guy out of the alley and then we can decide how to deal with him. We aren’t murdering anyone either. That will bring more disaster on us when we are so close to getting rich. I’ll decide how to handle this. Agreed? The big man looked menacing.

Both of the other men quickly replied. Agreed.     

It was just a short walk to the apartment where the three men lived. Their back door entrance was off the alleyway. They opened the apartment door and jostled the detective and themselves through the doorway. They shouldered the detective into the small living room and stood him up until they stripped off his wet clothes except for his underwear. One of them brought in a kitchen chair and they sat him on it first, then one of the men brought towels and dried him off, and a big bathrobe was wrapped around him and covered the detective with the softness and the warmth of it.

The big man gave instructions as they worked. They cleaned him up and bandaged where they could. Soon he was gulping hot coffee and then hot chicken soup broth and then they rolled him onto the living room sofa and covered him with a blanket, propped him up on two pillows, and turned the TV on to a late all movie channel. They hung his clothes close to the wall heater to dry.

Jude watched it all happen and was too weak to do anything to help himself. He could see by the clock on the TV that it was about Sunday 5 p.m. Which Sunday? What had happened?

The last thing that he remembered was leaving the R.O.P.E. Squad Division offices and going across to the coffee shop across the street. That was Friday at noon hour. The R.O.P.E. Squad division was a branch of the police department that was formed specifically to catch fugitive parolees. It was the Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement division. He had a lead on a fugitive parolee who was hiding in a central part of the city. He dimly remembered a car, a limousine, and getting into the back seat. That must have been two days ago. After that there was nothing.

Here’s a water glass and some water and two pain pills. The big man put it on the coffee table. I’ll help you take the pills now. Don’t worry, they are safe. I can’t afford to have you die while you are here. If you need to go to the bathroom now, try nodding ‘yes’ or shaking your head ‘no’ and I will help you get there.

Jude managed to shake his head. He also managed to put the two pills into his mouth and hold the glass of water himself while he washed the pills down. He could see the manufacturers mark and a number etched into the pill coating. He wasn’t used to taking any kind of medication and was surprised to feel a rush through his body that felt like a traveling river of pins pricking him under the skin.  

The big man took Jude’s pulse again and examined his eyes. No concussion. Lucky. Pulse is stronger too.

Will he need an ambulance? The other two men were hovering in the background. We can’t call the police.

No, we don’t need to call the ambulance or the police. He will live. The blood loss was from what looks like a knife slash just below his waist above his hip. It’s not deep enough to need stitches, it just bled a lot. There’s a bullet hole in his shirt, but he must have been wearing a bullet proof vest because he just has a couple of bad bruises on the middle and right side of his chest. We can look after him ourselves. It won’t interfere with our plans. He’s too beat up to be a problem. He won’t interfere with our plans. The big man pushed pillows under Jude’s head and shook out a light blanket and tossed it on top of Jude.

The big man turned a bit and pointed. The bathroom’s through there in that hallway. First door to the right. I’ll come and take you in there in about an hour. Meanwhile try to grab a nap. I’ll just be in the kitchen. The big man picked up the detective’s shoes and socks and went into the kitchen.

Jude struggled to stay awake. In less than a minute, he swirled down into darkness.

Chapter Two

Jude could smell coffee brewing and some kind of delicious food. At first he thought that someone, maybe his girlfriend, Miriam Miller, was making a late night snack in his kitchen, but then the events of the earlier day came flooding back in his mind. He was still on the sofa of the apartment of the men who had picked him up out of the alleyway, and he was wearing someone else’s bathrobe. It looked like it had come out of an expensive hotel. He tried to pull his thoughts together to focus on the present problem, but first he had to figure out what the problems were. He was missing the memory of the events of the weekend after Friday at noon hour when he had gotten into someone’s limo. That was the last thing he remembered until he had awakened in the alleyway with his girlfriend bending over him and hoping he was dead.

Who were these men that had rescued him? They didn’t seem the type to haul a semi-conscious bloodied beaten up man out of a back alleyway and take him into their own home. He had money in his wallet and a Glock 22 in a shoulder holster and an ankle holster with a Kahr P380 pistol. His R.O.P.E. Squad detective badge and I.D. was in his pocket too. It identified him as Jude Fox. The R.O.P.E. Squad was The Repeat Offenders Parole Enforcement division of the police force. All his possessions were returned to his pockets and his ankle carry gun and his Glock and shoulder holster were on the sofa’s side table by his head. No one seemed interested in taking them. The only thing that he would not be able to keep was the bloody shirt that had a large, ragged, bloody gash across the front of it, just below where his bullet proof vest ended. He remembered putting on the vest and wearing the vest when he went to the coffee shop across the street from the Squad office. There was some kind of hole in the shirt too. It looked like a bullet hole.

The memory of donning a bullet proof vest, just before he went to the coffee shop, flashed through his mind again. It was there for a few seconds, but when he tried to concentrate on the memory, it vanished.

The men who had rescued him seemed like petty criminals, maybe a gang or part of a gang who lived in this apartment together. They were like the type of criminal that he usually dealt with who hated everything about him, especially the fact that he was a police detective on the opposite side of the law. There was a lot of conversation and arguing in the kitchen, but when everyone came back into the living room, they just went on watching the TV or drinking coffee as if the detective was part of the group now.

The big man came into the living room with a big bowl of food and a large mug of coffee. Here, try to eat this food. Eat as much as you can and drink all of the coffee. It has a couple of teaspoons of sugar in it to restore some of your energy. The coffee pot is always on here. There’s more if you want it. The food should help with that too. It’s a beef stew with a chunk of hot bread with lots of butter. It has mostly vegetables and a light thickened broth, and some good beef, so you should be able to eat it all. If you want more, just say so. There is more coffee and bread too. Do you think you can feed yourself?

The detective sat up shakily and at first the room swirled a bit, then tilted and then straightened up and his vision steadied. He started to eat and forced himself to eat slowly and to pace his eating by taking huge gulps of coffee with the food. The food was delicious.

The big man changed the television channel to a local news channel then went back out into the kitchen. The injured detective watched the television news as he ate. He swallowed with a gulp when he saw his girlfriend the Mayor, Miriam Miller, appear in a live news appearance while she was holding a news conference with the Commissioner of Police standing beside her. 

All three of the men who had been finishing eating their meal in the kitchen, joined the detective in the living room to watch the news conference with him. There were some delays as they waited for the Mayor’s news conference to start, so the big man brought in more coffee and settled in the biggest arm chair after he had given everyone a fresh cup of coffee. They made jokes about the Mayor Miriam Miller, about her fabulous figure, and speculated about her performance in the bedroom and about her relationship with the Commissioner of Police.

The detective sipped his coffee and listened to all the remarks about his girlfriend. He was curious about how these criminals viewed the Mayor, but they seemed not to have any opinion of her, except for her sexuality and physical appearance. It was mostly the other two men, commenting, trying to top each other with their ribald references to what they would like to do with her. The detective was amazed that they were speculating about whether they would have sex with her, as if they had an actual chance to bed her, when it was so clearly impossible that she would have anything for them but contempt and distain for them and their chosen lifestyle. Their entitlement and arrogance amazed him.

The big man just listened and didn’t comment at all. The detective wondered why he wasn’t making the same lewd remarks as his henchmen.

The detective didn’t object to the comments made by the two men or defend her and confront the two men about them. Someone who stood over him as he was dying in an alleyway and said that it was good that he would be dead soon, was probably not your girlfriend anymore. He still had mixed feelings about objecting to the way the two men were still being gross about his girlfriend, because in ordinary circumstances he would object to the way these men were talking. Even if he didn’t know the woman who was being trash talked.  

The news camera pulled in for a tighter shot to focus directly on the Mayor. She stood behind a podium that had the seal of the city emblazoned on it. She was still wearing the gold heart locket necklace with the diamond on it. Her birthday present from him.

The big man turned up the TV volume to hear over the loud remarks that his two accomplices were making about the Mayor.

The Mayor started by saying, "I have asked for this press conference to clear up several rumors and false news items that the media and the press have reported about the incidents that have occurred recently in the last two days. First though, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families of the police officers who lost