Hope

     Jack Dunagin cradled the phone in his hand and listened to the voice coming over the line but his mind was far from the conversation. His eyes were closed and with the other hand he rubbed his forehead as though trying to push something painful out of it. He was only on his second cup of coffee and he was feeling even less alert than he had when he arrived at the office only a hour before.

    The voice on the other end of the phone was calm, almost monotone, but the information it conveyed was anything but relaxing. There had been another assault downtown but the victim wasn't talking; he was frightened of something -- someone -- and that could only mean that some criminal organization was trying to muscle its way in to the City. But which one? The City was not a major metropolis, not a booming economy, not typically attractive to the major crime bosses in New York or Chicago. It was small potatoes, just an overgrown burg. Why would anyone want to create trouble here?

    But it was the fourth assault in as many weeks and he knew the Commissioner would be needing to make a statement to the press to allay the panic that would be erupting once the story hit the newspapers. Bad publicity meant trouble for the Commissioner in this election year, trouble he'd be only too happy to spread down the ranks until a culprit was arrested, or a scapegoat found.

    Laid out in front of him on his desk were the pertinent details of the assaults. Each of the victims were successful business owners with shops along Main Street. Each had been attacked in their shop after closing time. Each had been threatened with further violence but had not been able to identify their attacker ... or attackers. None had provided much in the way of details

    After the second attack, the Chief had added more men to the downtown detail, but that was about all he could do given the limited number of officers in town. Some of the men were working double shift in order to provide coverage, but so far nothing had been discovered. It seemed that the attacks took place at times and place where the police were not, and that bothered Jack. He knew all of the men at the downtown station, and most of the ones at the neighborhood stations; he couldn't believe that any of them were involved, but it felt a bit too coincidental.