Choke Point by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

While he didn’t want to believe it, Zafar Mazouzi knew the chances he’d been blown by Hasidim Trebba were pretty good.

What troubled him more than that, however, was that Trebba would actually think his comrade stupid enough not to know it. Trebba had always been a loyal friend, but Mazouzi knew he was crooked like so many other men. That he would betray his old friend wasn’t something Mazouzi had ever thought he’d have to worry about.

Until now.

Their friendship hadn’t been any accident. Mazouzi had already been on the force about four years when they met. He could recall Trebba’s first day on the job, a fresh-faced rookie straight from the academy—what had passed for a police academy, back in those days, was laughable even by today’s standards—filled with questions and idealism. It hadn’t taken a young, impressionable type like Hasidim long to fall into the ways of so many other Maroc cops, and Mazouzi couldn’t really say he blamed Trebba for going along with his brothers.

Graft wasn’t as uncommon in police departments around the world as most wanted to pretend. Favors of every kind went on all the time, most of them within that blue line, sure, but it happened with much more frequency than most wanted to admit. No police department in any country on Earth could declare itself completely immune from corruption; if it could there wouldn’t be any need for internal affairs or any of the other half-dozen units known by other names that policed the police. The sad part was that corruption and graft were oftentimes as much a part of an internal-affairs unit as they were a problem for standard cops.

Then again, such activities were still a very small part of a much larger organization that tried to portray a pure image, unspotted and unblemished by the stain of improprieties. The very idea stank in the nostrils of the politicians who knew better, at least the ones who weren’t neck-deep in corruption themselves, and they were typically the ones who liked to go after the unjust among the ranks of the police.

In all of this, it wasn’t as if the law-enforcement community in Casablanca was any worse or better than other departments of similar size and construct. At the end of the day, the department had many excellent officers among its ranks. For the most part they went out on the streets and did the best job they could with limited resources. Budget constraints were the worst enemy of police officers everywhere, and it was these kinds of things that had led to widespread graft among the cops. Hell, what cop didn’t take everything from the free meal to the free blow job; it really wasn’t harming anybody and it kept the playing field somewhat even.

It wasn’t until one cop betrayed another that things turned ugly, and Mazouzi knew just by the look on Trebba’s face that his longtime friend and partner had betrayed him.

They agreed to meet in a small, remote restaurant on the southeast fringe of the city.

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