Detective Fusco – Person of Interest
"I think we should look at Detective Fusco again, his partner Riley's gone and he's alone and more vulnerable" said Crockett of Internal Affairs to his boss. Beckett scratched her chin, thinking "What do you say, Tubbs?" she asked the third man in the room. The dark-skinned Tubbs considered and replied "Sonny's gut has always told him that Fusco is dirty but nothing's stuck so far. Fusco and Riley had a pretty good clear-up rate, not just their own cases either. They passed on plenty of tips to other detectives, inside the 8th and outside too, and most of the time they were good".
"Yeah I know" responded Crockett "From that point of view they're better than average cops, excellent even. But something's not right; to supply that volume of tips they must have informants all over the city but their official list is tiny. If they aren't funding the intel from the department budget what kind of favours are they doing in exchange? If they are paying, where's the money coming from? They can't be using their own money – why would they? Their clear-up rate is good because they often arrived just before or just after something went down, I don't believe that they are the NYPD's genuine psychic cops"
Tubbs picked up the thread "Some of the cases were major league corporate things which my buddy in the Fraud Squad says can take months, even years, to sort out. Fusco and Riley could bring in the perp within a week, plus they'd have emails and financials so the DA could build a solid case. You don't get that kind of information from a nickel-and-dime, street-corner hustler which most informants are"
"There's the woman too" added Crockett.
Beckett raised a quizzical eyebrow "Woman?"
"Yeah" said Tubbs "Fusco has been seen several times with a woman described as being Middle Eastern or Arab in appearance. Mean looking. Maybe he's getting friendly with jihadi types"
"Come on Rico" burst out Crockett, in the unusual position of defending Fusco "There's nothing in Fusco's background to say he's political. I may think he's a dirty cop but he's not a traitor. She's probably a girlfriend or even a hooker"
"Think about it Sonny" urged Tubbs "If a guy like you think Fusco is gets religion, he's going to get it hard – after all he's got a lot to make up for. Something like Islam would be just the thing for him. If he's secretly converted then he's probably anxious to prove himself, ideal recruit for some terrorists"
"Ok" declared Beckett "You've got 2 weeks to get something, do you want any sort of surveillance on him? I'll arrange the paperwork if so"
"Thanks boss" said Crockett "We'll talk to technical services and see what they advise"
ooooooooooo
Two days later Crockett and Tubbs, closely followed by McGarrett of the technical department, came into Beckett's office "We've got something" announced Crockett.
Beckett had a soft spot for the normally reserved McGarrett and greeted him warmly "Hey Steve, what drags you out of your lab?"
"It's our fault" replied Crockett "We talked to Steve and we decided to install a camera and audio in an ornament on Fusco's desk. Steve, tell her what you found"
"Well" said McGarrett with an unusual, for him, air of excitement "It was really Danny, not me. Anyway we sent Danny down to the precinct when Fusco's shift had just ended; he took the ornament and found a quiet corner to install the equipment. When he took it apart, there was already a device there!"
Beckett sat up straight "You mean Fusco is under surveillance by someone else?"
"Looks like it" joined in Tubbs "Either the feds or a third party. If you can make some calls to find out if it is the feds, I guess we'll have to back off. If it's a third party spying on the NYPD we need to involve them and maybe Homeland Security, bearing in mind this Arab woman who's on the scene"
"Maybe it's not Fusco" said Beckett thoughtfully "Maybe it's the squad room in general, they could've picked his desk just because it's in the right position. Either way we need to know if the feds are involved; if they aren't they need to know what we know"
"An alternative" said Crockett "Is that Fusco uses the device to communicate with this third party – maybe he's in on it although there's nothing in his background to suggest he's anything more than a rogue cop despite what Rico thinks"
"Steve, could Danny make anything of this thing he found? Do they know he found it?" Beckett asked with concern.
"We figure they don't know" said McGarrett decisively "I talked it over with him and these two and we're pretty sure that the device was offline as Fusco was out of the office. Danny did the right thing and put it straight back on Fusco's desk without changing anything. The parts are standard so there's nothing useful there. What's really interesting is the signal that it's sending which Danny's managed to hook into and monitor. He doesn't want to do much with it in case it alerts whoever is at the other end but he says it has some heavy-duty encryption, not really FBI style, so we tend towards the third party angle"
"If we need to, Steve, can we trace where it's going? Discretely of course" asked Crockett.
"If it is the feds, they may not want Steve and Danny interfering. We don't want to expose two of our back-room boys to any turf war, you know the feds can get tetchy" cautioned Tubbs.
"Good point" agreed Beckett "I'll make those calls, see how things lie. Don't do anything, Steve, until we find out one way or the other"
"I'm hoping that it is the feds" said Tubbs "Third party involvement would be a whole new can of worms"
"Either way I guess we're out of it" said Crockett in a dejected voice.
ooooooooooo
The following day Beckett called the three of them, plus Danny, who she felt deserved to hear as well, into her office.
"I've got good news and bad news" she said "The good news is that it is the feds. My liaison in the FBI looked it up on their database of ongoing federal enquiries and there's an operation covering the whole precinct rather than Fusco himself. The bad news is that it's flagged to stop anyone else, like us, launching any parallel enquiry. I guess so we don't scare off anyone"
"What's the operation?" asked Tubbs curiously.
"They couldn't tell me" replied Beckett "Said it was marked 'national security' and a need-to-know basis. I would suspect they were being difficult but my liaison seemed genuinely surprised that a bunch of New York cops rated such a high level of secrecy. Sorry Sonny, you'll have to find another bad guy"
"Damn" said Crockett "Sometimes I think Fusco has a fairy godmother looking after him"
In the corner the camera blinked in agreement.