Chapter One: Rooftop Negotiation
Author note: This story is part of the Magical Flashpoint Side Story series. It follows "Blessings" and comes before "Bad Cop, Good Cop". Spoilers for 03x04: Whatever It Takes. I am using dialogue from the episode.
This story started out as part of the main storyline, but as I look back at it, I've relegated it to the Side Stories, because, to a great extent, the episode this story is based on does not change. When I wrote this story, I was looking more at how Team One has changed from their canon counterparts than at how to change the episode itself.
So, for those of my readers who prefer original content to episode twisters, I made the decision to not frustrate you with this particular story and moved right along to "Bad Cop, Good Cop". But for those readers who enjoy hunting down the sometimes subtle changes in my episode twisters, I hope you have a good time with this particular story.
Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin.
This whole mess was starting to smell; as the saying went, something was rotten in the state of Denmark or, as the case may be, the Eastern Tech basketball team. Greg wasn't sure what was going on, but they had a missing victim who'd been attacked by his own team…the similarities to Sam's kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder by his former team had Parker and the rest of Team One on edge, though they were still as professional as ever. Greg led the school principal outside to speak with his team leader and keep the ball rolling on their cooperative efforts.
"Eddie," Parker called, attracting his team leader's attention.
Ed dismissed the constable next to him with a brief, "Thank you," and turned to the two new arrivals.
"Principal McKechnie, Officer Ed Lane," Greg introduced.
"Hello," the principal greeted the constable. The woman was shorter than Greg, with brown hair tucked in a bun. She was even stockier than Greg, with a full face, dark blue eyes, gold button earrings and makeup that sought, like most older women, to hide the inevitable signs of aging. She was brisk, business like, and professional, though Greg had a few…reservations.
Though she was the school principal, she'd gone out of her way to claim that basketball wasn't her sphere, as if preemptively disavowing any knowledge of wrongdoing in that area. Outside of her school, she wore a long heavy coat in deference to the weather, the coat's appearance reminding Greg a little of his nipotes' winter cloaks. Every so often, the pair did manage to remind their Uncle and Team One that once a pureblood, always a pureblood. Greg dismissed the errant thoughts to get back to business.
"Hi, ma'am," Ed returned, polite, but serious.
Taking the opening to get Eddie up to date, Greg continued, "I was just telling her that we got a lot of people looking for Carlton and Cory, but," he turned toward Principal McKechnie a bit, "we're gonna need some help from your staff."
Even as she nodded agreement, Ed was elaborating, "Right. We need to single out their friends, their teammates. That would be a big help. We're looking for background, gossip, anything that can help us find out where they ran to."
"Right," came the immediate agreement.
Parker picked the verbal baton back up. "Especially Carlton, because we have to assume that his mental state is fragile."
He knew Ed's attention had been attracted by something, the physical proximity and his 'team sense' picking up on Eddie more acutely, but he stayed focused on the principal until Ed's grim, "Boss, we got a problem."
Greg turned, following Ed's gaze and gesture upwards; behind him the principal gasped, "Oh, my Gawd."
Ed pulled out a pair of binoculars, unnecessary since Greg's 'gryphon vision' had already focused in and confirmed what they all suspected. "That's our guy," Ed announced.
Greg swallowed as his vision helpfully let him pick out the details of Carlton, standing right at the edge, less than a step from going over the edge of a rooftop three stories up. The boy, in a blue, red trimmed winter jacket, red and white canvas sneakers, and sporting a head of curly brown hair, looked like he was at the end of his tether. The odds of surviving a fall from the height he was at were not good, but to talk him down…would mean going up. On a roof. Three stories up.
Wordy surveyed the young man through his own pair of binoculars, listening to his boss outline the situation in his typically to-the-point fashion. "High school basketball star, abducted and assaulted by his own teammates."
"Now he's a jumper," Sam observed from beside his boss, "Kid's had a really bad night."
Involuntarily, Wordy shuddered, remembering how, not so long ago, it had been Sam who'd been a jumper. The brunet wasn't sure which was worse: jumping when you were technically mentally incapacitated or jumping when you knew exactly what you were doing. To avoid thinking about it more, the husky constable moved in front of Sarge and Sam, tilted his head to the side and observed, "Whatever's going on between him and his buddy Cory put him up there."
Sarge disagreed, though there was a note of apprehension in his voice. "No, the beating was a catalyst. It takes more than one incident to drive somebody to suicide."
"You said his grades were falling, too. Right?" Sam again. "That's another flag."
Wordy, already pulling out the climbing gear, cringed as his Sarge announced, "Okay, the beating was obviously premeditated. This kind of abuse has happened in their locker room before. So I'm gonna go up there, I'm gonna talk to him." With the Sarge's fear of heights, he was gonna go up there?
Ed was clearly okay with the idea; he'd already moved onto more practical concerns. As he focused in on as many details as he could, he addressed their tech, "Spike, subject's on a flat roof, covering what looks like a terrace up there."
"Copy that. Roof access is to the north, above his position. There's a fixed ladder to descend to get to our guy," Spike informed them.
As Spike briefed them, Wordy hauled two full bags of gear to his sergeant, giving Sarge his best encouraging look. "Full climbing and safety gear," he announced, putting as much confidence in his voice as possible.
A faint smile; Sarge seeing at once what the brunet was trying to do. "Thanks, Wordy."
Wordy moved back towards a good lookout position as Spike came over the comm again. "Boss, Jules has got the night janitor at the main entrance to take you to the roof, and get this. Sidney traced our anonymous 911 call to inside the school. 4:23 A.M. That's got to have been the janitor."
"Okay, let's go see the night janitor," Sarge remarked grimly. "Coming through."
As both Sarge and Sam headed for the entrance, Wordy looked down from his binoculars to watch them go, shoving any unease in the deepest, darkest corner of his mind that he could find. With Sarge's 'team sense', Team One had another way to support their afraid-of-heights boss and Wordy intended to use it.
Ed stayed on business. "Okay, school is canceled. Let's keep the perimeter tight. Let's keep the gawkers moving. And let's lock this building down, please. Lou, coordinate with the uniforms on that."
"Copy," Lou agreed over the comm.
Sam jogged to keep up with his boss; Sarge sure could move when he wanted to, despite being a bit shorter and not quite as athletic as the sniper. Even as they raced up the stairs, Boss had enough breath to question the janitor. "What's your name?"
"Doug," the janitor replied shortly. He was lean, taller than Sam, and wore his blue janitor's uniform fairly well. Curly brown hair was cut short and fell to the nap of his neck; already it receded a bit on his forehead, though he compensated with small sideburns. He was clean shaven, with features just as lean as his frame, and blue eyes above a narrow nose and mouth.
"Doug what?" Sarge persisted.
"Doug Saunders."
"Why didn't you identify yourself when you called 911?" Boss demanded, going straight for the throat.
The janitor, still moving quickly, waffled. "Uh, I saw a kid get beat up, I made the call."
Sam followed up. "You knew who they were. You could have saved us valuable time."
As they reached the first door, the janitor protested, "Look, this job's about all I got, okay?" He focused on the door, not looking at either officer.
"And why would your job be affected?" Sarge asked, pushing but not.
Finally the man looked up, trying to affect an air of nonchalance that both saw through in an instant. "Well, maybe it wouldn't, I don't know, but you don't interfere with basketball at this school."
Sam's eyes narrowed in suspicion, wanting to follow up on that interesting little tidbit, but his boss shifted gears back to the potential jumper. "All right. Take my friend down to the terrace underneath the kid."
Sam forced himself to just follow the janitor and not look back as his boss hurried out onto the roof, towards the jumper. Sarge was tough, he'd be all right.
Greg swallowed hard as Ed's voice came through. "Wordy and I are standing by. Boss, I don't see you."
The Sergeant forced his voice to stay calm and steady as he descended the ladder, his knuckles white under his gloves. He was very careful to not look down. "You will in a minute," he reassured Eddie. To his surprise, his 'team sense' was radiating his team's rock-solid faith in him, that he could handle this negotiation, despite the location and conditions. As Greg's feet touched down on the roof surface, he clung to that faith and tried to imagine how he'd react if it was his nephew out there instead of a stranger. "Carlton?!" he called, more to announce his arrival than to negotiate; that would come soon enough. "Hey, just take it easy, okay? I just don't want to surprise you." Dropping his voice down, he murmured, "Hey, Spike. Night watchman's name is Doug Saunders. See if that raises any flags."
"You got it," Spike chirped, his absolute faith in his sergeant coming through in both voice and emotion.
Greg kept his gaze away from the edge as he started forward, grateful for the heavy bags and his 'team sense' keeping him grounded. Part of his mind was already gibbering in terror at being so close to the edge, the rest of him snarled at that part to 'shut up'; as always, it wasn't that effective, so Greg opted for plan B, ignore the edge as much as humanly possible. "Carlton? Hey, Carlton? Hey, buddy. I'm Sergeant Parker."
The young man had yet to even look up so Greg tried a joke, wincing as it fell flat, "You're a hard man to get a meeting with." Greg set the bags and climbing gear down, forcing himself to step over it and towards the edge a little as he called, "Hey, you mind just taking a step back from the edge there? All I want to do is talk to you."
Finally, Greg got a reaction as Carlton looked over at him and yelled, "Don't come any closer!"
"Okay," Greg agreed at once, backing up to his gear. "All right, I know you brought yourself up here for a reason, and we can talk about that, but first…" His fear of heights reared its head again, pushing the Sergeant into a move he cringed at later. "First, you know, we're pretty precarious up here, and I just want to make sure you don't slip accidentally, so I'm going to rig a harness for you, okay?"
He pulled a harness out of one of the bags and took a few steps closer to Carlton, holding it out for the young man to take. "Hey, put this on." As Carlton stayed still, not even looking, Greg, forcing the fear out of his voice, questioned, "No? You don't want a harness?"
"Stay away from me," was the only insight Carlton had on the subject.
Resigned to the fact that this wasn't going to be a quick and easy solution, Greg shifted back to his gear, talking as he worked. "Pretty good with heights, huh? Me, I'd rather be anywhere else, so I'm gonna hook myself in, okay? All right?"
Carlton didn't respond, his focus had gone right back to the edge and the action he was working himself up to.
Greg had pulled his vision back, but his hearing was 'up', letting him hear the conversation on the terrace below. Sam briskly ordered the janitor, "Stay where we can find you."
Greg silently approved of the order as Sam's bootsteps sounded, the younger man reaching his boss's position in seconds. "Okay, boss, I'm right underneath you," Sam reported.
"Stealth, Sam," Greg requested as he finished attaching his safety gear and tightened the straps. "I want to form a bond. I don't want him distracted. Stay in that position until I need you."
As Sam's bootsteps marked his movement, Eddie piped in from the ground, "Sam, the subject is ten feet south of you. Three, two, one. Mark." The bootsteps stopped.
Greg surveyed the young man and requested, "Okay, team, I need new ideas. Our boy is noncommunicative."
Jules called in first. "Judson and Antony are holding the party line. We got to crack this code of silence. Hey, maybe if they learn that their star point guard is suicidal, that could help."
Ed chipped in next. "Let's get Carlton's mother down here. I want her to paint a picture of every single stress that he is under. I don't care if he ran out of toothpaste, the boss needs to know it."
"That's affirmative," Greg agreed. The fear hadn't gone away, not in the slightest. But he had a job to do, he had a team watching his back and supporting him as best they could. Against that, fear didn't stand a chance.
