Every day for the following week I got a phone call from someone in the department's brass. And every day I met with someone at a different location. This strategic planning as they liked to call it was getting old real fast. It had to end and end soon. The days I worked with Faith I was fine but then there were the days I was stuck in anti-crime with Cruz. Hell, I had so much disrespect for the woman I couldn't even refer to her as Sgt anymore. She didn't deserve the title.

I realized something else during those days. The role of sergeant just wasn't my thing. Here I was in this mess as a result of working with Cruz and before that I was in knee deep whenever I was around Sgt Christopher. Nope. Sergeants just weren't my thing. I took that as an omen that I was destined to be on patrol for a long time.

Ten days after I agreed to accept the offer, I got another call. The brass had come to a decision. The point of the call was to prepare me. The only problem was I now knew when they would be taking her down. I still didn't know how. The idea that they trusted me to complete their dirty work but didn't trust me to know how was a slap in the face.

One afternoon, she walked into the evidence room and showed me the vast amounts of drugs we held inside the precinct.

"Evidence" she said. "After the trial, the son of a bitch gets a slap on the wrist and we put him back out on the streets. The confiscated drugs are back out there too.long before our perp."

"So what's the answer?" I asked, aware that this type of talk meant it was going to be a long day.

She had her own plans although at the time I wasn't aware of them. I was too focused on sticking with a plan of my own. Well, not my plan actually. If it were my plan, I would have known what it was. I was as in the dark about this as Cruz was. They were in the planning stages as they put it. Trouble was it wasn't being planned fast enough for me. Her one-woman crusade to rid the streets of drugs was going to get us both killed before I had a chance to take her down. She was out of control. Something had to give.

I called Lieu the next morning. He was concerned about how things were going between me and Cruz. I told him what had been going on, raising more red flags. He promised to talk to the Chief. In the meantime, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. That's how bad this was. I was starting to believe in this 'luck' thing. Of course I didn't share that thought with Faith. I tried not to share any of this with her but she'd take one look in my eyes and I'd wind up telling her everything. So, the end result was not only was I concerned with how this was playing itself out but now I had Lieu and Faith worried as well. Somehow I managed to keep all this from ma. I knew she was seeing Lieu and I had to hand it to the guy. I know my ma and being that I'm her favorite subject of discussion, it had to be hard on Lieu. I had missed two Saturdays with her now although Lieu was there. Still, it was only a matter of time before she started to ask questions. My life was a living hell.

One particular afternoon, Cruz and I raided a suspected drug house. We called for backup. Six uniformed officers arrived and we broke the door down. Inside the place looked like a pharmacy only no pharmacist was on- duty.our dealer had been tipped off. It was obvious from the state of things that he hadn't been gone long and he'd been in one hell of a hurry to get out of there. Had we gone around back, there would have been no need to break down the door. Swinging in the breeze was the screen door.

The next three days we repeated these raids, each time coming up empty. It was all just a little too coincidental for me.

After work one night I joined several others for a beer. Faith joined us that night too which would have surprised me except that I knew she was worried about me. The two of us were sitting alone at a table not far from Jimmy and the Squad 55 boys. They were discussing a fire. What caught my attention was one particular piece of information.the location. Cruz and I had been there earlier that afternoon. It had been just one of the suspected drug houses we'd been raiding with no luck.

"I swear half the neighborhood was outside," Jimmy explained.

"Taking advantage of a free buzz," D.K. added.

"Hey Jimmy?" I called out to their table. "That fire today.what happened?"

"I don't know exactly but we had quite an audience."

"Old brick building on 88th Street?" I asked.

"Yeah, we had a hell of a time getting inside. Place was a total loss."

"Any idea what started it?"

"Hey D K, you hear what the cause was of that fire.the drug house?" Jimmy referred the question.

"I heard it started in a bedroom.Mister Match meets Miss Mattress and poof."

"I don't believe it," I said shaking my head.

"Happens all the time Bosco," Jimmy commented. I knew it happened and it happened too often but this time it wasn't an accident. I was sure of that.

The next morning I called Lieu. We met over coffee. The word of the day was to be 'coffee'. We had coffee while I told him what I'd heard at the bar. We had coffee while we waited to talk to the Chief. We had more coffee while we waited to talk to the Fire Marshall. And when we finally got to talk to him.he offered us coffee.

After a few questions on our part and a few more on his part, he left the room returning soon after. We sat there while he flipped through a report; page after page after page. Finally he picked up the phone. A young guy, no older than twenty-two entered the office, handing the Marshall another much shorter report. He handed copies to the Chief and to Lieu. I glanced over Lieu's shoulder, reading his copy. After a minute or two, Lieu gave up and handed me his copy.

"Look it over Bosco," the Chief instructed. "I need to know if you and Sgt. Cruz were at any of these locations."

I took the list and scanned it several times. It contained addresses of fires that had occurred in the past week, all within the 55th precinct. When my eyes reached the bottom of the list, I started at the top again. This time I visualized where I'd been starting with three days ago. With an idea of streets and blocks in mind, I read the list again. I repeated it with the locations I'd been to two days ago and finally with yesterday.

The past three days, Anti-Crime had raided a total of twenty-six locations. Cruz and I had been involved in seven of those. Along with the one I'd overheard Jimmy discussing, five more appeared on the list. Cruz was six for seven. Her plan had changed. Instead of taking down the dealers, she was going after the drug houses. I knew she'd go to any means to get the job done. Burning the drug houses, now that might work and I knew exactly where she'd got the idea.

From what the Fire Marshall reported, the fires were believed to have started with a mattress and a match much like someone who falls asleep smoking in bed. It smolders for a while before taking on a life of its own. Outside the fire fighters battle to get inside, trapped outside locks, steel doors, and iron bars on windows. Hell, it would have been easier to break into Fort Knox. While the firefighters fought to get inside, the fire raged leaving nothing to file away in the precinct Evidence Room. No Exhibit A.no Exhibit B..nothing to put back out on the streets.

When you think about it, her whole mission from the start was to rid the streets of drugs. She was doing just that.ridding the streets of drugs.one building at a time. The only problem with our theory was we had no proof. What we had was a mentally unstable, vindictive officer, intent on revenge for her sister's death. She'd stop at nothing and the combination was almost as explosive as what was inside those drug houses. The war on drugs was about to take on a whole new twist.