Disclaimer: If I owned them, I'd get to play with the hat.
Chapter 6 - Interception
To Fraser's great relief, Xu dropped the kittenish attitude she'd been playing up throughout dinner with the Scardina family. As soon as she'd led Fraser back to their shared bedroom and closed the door, her face and posture were all business.
"We need to check in with Corporal Dolenz." she said briskly. "It should be safe right now. I swept the room for bugs while you were conferring with Vecchio outside." A frown furrowed her brow. "We'll have to check again any time both of us have been out of the room. The device to check for bugs is in my bathroom kit. It's the pink one. It's amazing what the tech boys can hide equipment in these days." This brought a smile back to her face and a deep red blush to Fraser's as he guessed what sort of pink item the bug detector might be concealed in.
Xu dug her cellphone from her handbag and dialed the number for Dolenz's secure line in his Toronto office.
"Corporal Dolenz. Yes, it's a pleasure. No, not too bad. Quite a long drive. Constable Fraser was charming company."
Fraser listened to Xu's side of the conversation and detected nothing unusual before she passed the phone to him.
"Corporal Dolenz needs to speak to you." she said.
Dolenz checked in that Fraser was as comfortable as possible and still a go on the operation, then asked how the first day of establishing his cover with the Scardina family had progressed.
"It would seem that Marco Scardina accepted that I was corrupt." Fraser assured Corporal Dolenz. "However, he seemed quite dubious about the reasons for my disloyalty to the force."
"As expected." Dolenz replied. "I'd be suspicious if he wasn't suspicious. What about Vecchio?"
"Ah, well. Scardina seemed to accept Detective Vecchio's cover without question." Fraser said.
"I told you'd we'd have no problem there." Dolenz crowed. "He's perfect for it."
"Detective Vecchio is a fine actor."
"That's not what I meant. I mean, with his background, it's more surprising he's clean." Dolenz retorted.
Fraser's temper flared again as it had when Dolenz had first described the reasons why Ray would fit in well. Was his friend and partner never to shake the stereotype? Not even after all it had cost him, seeing his childhood sweetheart gunned down in front of him? Again Fraser was humbled that Ray would come here now and make this pretense when his heart must be sore at even associating with yet another soulless mafioso.
"Sir, I must protest. As I've assured you, Detective Vecchio is a good man. One of the best." Fraser said.
"I hope so. I'm counting on it." Dolenz said, his tone unusually emotional. "I won't lie, that's a dangerous job that you're doing, and however it came about it is for the best that you have someone other than Xu to rely upon."
Dolenz switched back to a businesslike tone. "Now, you're to contact me one more time tomorrow, then it's up to you when it's appropriate to check in. Understood, Constable?"
"Understood, Sir." Fraser said. He was concerned about the lack of trust that Corporal Dolenz had just admitted toward Xu, but it was too late to question it.
"Let me talk to Xu again." Dolenz said, and Fraser handed over the phone.
After Xu ended the call, Fraser abruptly realized that she was standing uncomfortably close to him. Clearing his throat, he took a step back. She swayed forward, a motion that managed to look unstudied.
Fraser stepped back again and found himself up against a chest of drawers.
"I'll just - I would like to take a bath now, and retire to bed, if that won't inconvenience you. Of course, I'll sleep on the floor." he said.
"Come on, it's early yet." Xu said. "There are much more exciting things to do than sleep, although a bath sounds promising." Her small hand came up to touch the neckline of his soft, red sweater. Fraser stilled, repressing a shiver as he remembered the unwanted sensuality of that touch, and the play of a deadly knife, his own hunting knife, in the deceptively fine-boned fingers. He felt a mix of horror and loneliness, and sheer pity for the life Xu had lead that taught her to use her body and other people's needs to get what she wanted.
"Xu." he said gently. "You don't have to do this." He took her hand off his sweater and held it for a moment before letting it drop. "If you want a second chance, if you want to make amends, this isn't the way to go about it."
Xu's mascara tinted lashes fell over her eyes, and her head bowed slightly. But Fraser thought he caught a flash of anger on her face before her cultivated expression of remorse settled.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I do find you very attractive and I had thought - but it was not appropriate - I do apologize and you need not sleep on the floor." With a wry smile she looked up again. "I promise I won't bite."
Fraser had no doubt that she meant that literally.
"No, Xu, I would rather sleep on the floor." Fraser said, and Xu turned and stalked off, opening her suitcase and beginning to unpack.
Fraser's code of honor, old fashioned though it might be, did not encompass sleeping in the same bed as someone who had attempted unsuccessfully to seduce him, outside of any improbable body-heat sharing necessity. He'd not been terribly comfortable in the company of women before Victoria. And after Victoria, how could he trust himself? He had failed and fallen and how could he trust that he wouldn't make the same mistakes again if he gave temptation one single centimeter?
No matter the compassion he felt for Xu after hearing her story, the revulsion he felt for her actions in the service of her spymasters must continue to outweigh it for the sake of his sanity. He had long years of practice overruling the hopefulness his ignorant body felt at the prospect of physical companionship, release. And even the poorest philosopher must see the falsehood of the whispers the dark part of his mind made. No, just because Victoria had been corrupted and he had loved Victoria did not mean he was doomed only to seek the comfort his heart cried out for with someone who had already shown him the deepest corruption of her soul.
He would not punish himself for the mistakes with Victoria by handing his body over to one who had taken pleasure in seeing him suffer. Poetic martyrdom was as self-indulgent as the romantic streak that got him into the mess with Victoria in the first place. A disciplined attempt to remedy the wrongs that he'd done, particularly to Ray, and to the people he'd let down by not being the exemplar of the law that he strove to be, was a much more pragmatic and appropriate response to the guilt he carried.
A bath and an early bed time on the adequately uncomfortable floor sounded like just the thing.
-=-=-
The second day of the operation, the first full day that Ray and Fraser were to spend undercover, started slowly and continued at a glacial pace that was almost calculated to drive Ray Vecchio crazy with waiting.
Ray rose at his usual time and found that breakfast was available in the kitchen. The Scardinas had staff, minimal, but nevertheless present, to take care of pesky details like food and laundry. Ray didn't feel much like eating but the coffee was truly excellent. He found Fraser standing outside on the generous back porch of the sprawling old house, watching fields that to Ray appeared still and empty.
"What's up?" Ray asked.
Fraser blinked. "Birds. Primarily the North American Crow, or Corvus brachyrhynchos. A large gathering, what one would call a murder, hunting insects in that field." He nodded toward a field some distance from the house. "There is an Inuit myth that the Crow stole daylight and brought it to the people of the North-"
Ray scrubbed at the back of his head with his hand. Fraser was on a roll, and could keep going for hours if he wasn't interrupted. "That's great Benny, but I meant, what's up with the Scardinas? What's going on today?"
"Oh." Fraser's mouth snapped shut before he could discuss the similarities and differences between this myth and the rather more gory Greek myth of of Prometheus.
"Apparently the Scardinas and Xu are discussing business today, and we aren't included in that particular inner circle." Fraser said. "Marco Scardina, who seems to be a very early riser, indicated that we're free to entertain ourselves as we see fit. I was planning on going for a long walk."
Vecchio left Fraser to his walk. The clock in the kitchen showed that he had at least four hours to pass before he could even cut into the boredom with more food. He cajoled another cup of the excellent coffee out of the cook, and spent a brief time flirting with the woman, but she had a lot to do to feed a household of the current size of the Scardina's meeting, and Ray soon got out from underfoot.
One of the rooms of the house was an old-fashioned parlor, featuring a joyless selection of leather-bound books. chintzy but overly-loved couches, and, Ray found after poking around, a selection of games. He very much doubted that there was anyone about who wanted to join him in a rousing game of Uno, but there were a couple of packs of playing cards, and the first pack he counted through had a full complement of fifty two cards and two jokers.
Solitaire wasn't Ray's game. As much strain as it was to pretend to be something he wasn't, Ray still didn't hesitate to suggest a game of poker when Two-lips and Toe walked into the room.
Keeping up his cover wasn't as difficult while playing poker. It was a bluffing game, and Ray could bluff with the best of them, and bullshit with the best of them, and feeding Two-lips and Toe a line of the highest grade BS proved almost entertaining. It was still not entertaining enough that Ray didn't feel a constant tension tingling down his spine.
-=-=-
Kowalski hated this part of his assignment. Waiting around. The big boys (and apparently, girl) were talking behind closed doors and the hired guns could go piss up a rope. Great. He couldn't stay inside. It was bitter cold outside, but not far from the house there was an old wooden fence and someone long ago had set up tin cans along it for shooting practice. Ray took a savage satisfaction in blasting the hell out of every single rusted can, then putting them back up on the fence and repeating the performance. It was a waste of ammunition, but the Scardinas sure had plenty of that around. It would have been more satisfying with the MP7 Paolo gave him, but Paolo wouldn't stand for the noise, so it was a silenced pistol instead.
Kowalski finished his second round of letting off steam when he felt eyes on him. He pointed the pistol at the ground and turned to see who'd set off the internal radar that had kept him safe more times than he cared to count. The Mountie, the dirty one, was standing there, decked out in designer jeans and a leather jacket, hair blowing hatless in the frigid wind just as if it were spring already. Ray bared his teeth. Mikey wasn't supposed to be hostile to these people, so he'd make something like a smile and the guy would just have to deal with it.
"Wanna shoot?" Kowalski offered. Might as well see the Mountie's mettle. He didn't look like a hit man. If he was as much of a pussycat as he looked, Joey was going to be in shit with his old man and Paolo for bringing him along when they needed a real professional.
"I should like that, thank you." Fraser said. He felt the tension of the day acutely, and even a long, solitary walk hadn't taken the edge off the creeping feeling at the back of his neck that all was not as it should be. Focussing his attention on one single objective, hitting the target, should help clear his mind of the unneeded distraction of being constantly on edge. It wasn't strictly legal for him to shoot using the other man's gun without at least knowing that the weapon was licensed to him, but for the sake of his cover he could hardly put up a fuss on that account. Bending a statute to appear to be a man comfortable with breaking the law made Fraser feel oddly guilty. But his ability to be true to himself had been hampered since the moment he'd given in to Corporal Dolenz's coercion and agreed to take on the undercover role.
Ray handed Fraser the pistol. Fraser took the proffered weapon and checked that it was loaded correctly. Ray set the cans back up on the fence.
Fraser stood with his feet slightly apart. It really wasn't challenging shooting, and he was supposed to be here as a crack marksman. With that, he calculated that he should hold back nothing. Taking one steadying breath, he quickly shot all of the cans off their perch.
"Not bad," Kowalski said. "I'd like to see how you do from farther away. You wanna put money on me shooting better than you?"
Before Fraser could catch himself he replied, "Oh, thank you kindly, but I never gamble."
He reproached himself immediately but it was too late to take the words back. The twitchy blond bodyguard was staring at him quizzically, his eyes drilling into Fraser.
"Okay. Whatever." Kowalski eventually said. "No bet, but I got nothing better to do than waste Mr. Scardina's ammo, so if you don't mind a friendly competition...?"
He bared his teeth again in the vicious mockery of a smile that Fraser found disconcerting and yet compelling. This man seemed something other than the common line of mob thug, and he'd had first hand experience of what those men were like.
"I don't see why not." Fraser agreed.
Each man determined to take the measure of the other.
-=-=-
Lunch put an end to the 'friendly' poker and marksmanship contests, and Ray Vecchio gravitated back to Fraser, nervous about his sometimes naive partner wandering alone among these sharks. He hadn't voiced his suspicions about Mikey to Fraser, but whatever the blond's game was, Ray would rather he didn't play it with Fraser as a pawn.
Yet another room in the house was set up as a television room, and Two-lips found a college football game, which satisfied everyone but Fraser, who had the good sense to mind a look of warning from Ray and sit quietly to endure it, and Ray's snide comments about the preferability of football to hockey.
The brewing tension of the long, slow day came to a head at half time. Fraser didn't understand quite what sparked things, but evidently Ray Vecchio said something that the man known as Mikey regarded as a deadly insult toward one of his favored players, following a series of sniping comments back and forth by the two men. Possibly, Mikey was still unhappy about being outshot by Fraser earlier.
Vecchio was on his feet and headed to the kitchen for beer when he threw the insulting comment over his shoulder. Mikey propelled himself upward, already swinging. Two-lips and Toe seemed happy to watch, getting to their feet with hollers of encouragement, but Fraser took no such pleasure in seeing Ray Vecchio block the thrown punch and start swinging back.
"Ray!" Fraser said, quickly rising and moving between the two combatants. He felt a loose blow to his shoulder and remembered his father's sage advice about not getting between fighting dogs, but he could not allow his friend to put himself in danger. Fraser grabbed Ray Vecchio by the shoulders and gently propelled him backwards, while looking over his shoulder into the frustrated face of Mikey.
"Whatever Ray said, I am sure he didn't mean to cause offense." he assured the angry bodyguard.
Mikey dropped his hands to his sides and backed off with an angry expression.
"Yeah, whatever." he said, and turned sharply and walked out of the room.
Vecchio glared at his back, but then grudgingly returned to watching the football game, his silence a rebuke to Fraser for interfering.
Ray Kowalski stalked outside berating himself. No matter how much the dirty cop might piss him off just by breathing the same air, there was no excuse for losing his temper that badly. The case was getting to him. Posing as the violent Mikey was not so subtly influencing his thoughts and feelings, for one thing. On top of that, the Mountie was completely unnerving, unreadable and dangerous because of that. Kowalski thought he would have liked the guy, if it weren't for the whole 'working for the mob' part. But that made no sense, it just didn't read right with the Mountie's overall aura of wholesomeness. If undercover work wasn't disorienting enough, dealing with this weird situation was putting him over the edge, and Kowalski focussed on deep, calming breaths. He just couldn't afford to lose it like that again.
-=-=-
Dinner was quieter than the previous night, with Kowalski sulking at one end of the table and Vecchio frigidly silent at the other. The Scardinas seemed relaxed but subdued after a long day of talking business. Fraser was relieved not to have to do much to keep up his part of the cover, though, in an uncomfortable repeat of the night before, Xu was flirty and physically demonstrative. Fraser played along to the best of his ability, feeling his face turn a glowing red at more than one instant.
Fraser and Xu were able to report afterwards to Dolenz that the day had been relatively uneventful. Fraser didn't think Vecchio's little altercation needed to be shared with the smug corporal.
"This is your last scheduled contact." Dolenz reminded Fraser unnecessarily. "Stay safe, and don't contact me again until you have information about the planned hit to pass on."
Joey, Two-lips and Toe bursting through the door of the bedroom two hours later, while Fraser was sleeping, at the same time as Mikey and Paolo kicked in Ray Vecchio's door, probably wasn't the way Dolenz wanted them to stay safe.
Fraser sprung up from his resting place on the floor, placing himself between Xu and the door, a bewildered expression turning to resigned calm as the men pushed into the room. He was shaking the heaviness of sleep off, but had no real chance to react before the action was upon him.
Two-lips wrenched Fraser's arm behind his back. Fraser fought the hold, throwing his whole body into resisting. Fraser watched with horror as the burly Toe subdued Xu, who was fighting like a wildcat, to put her in the same restraining position. It was a moot point, because Joey Scardina was right in front of Fraser with a gun, a sneering laugh coming forth at Fraser's struggles.
"Calm down, or your girlfriend gets ventilated." Joey said. "A little birdy tells us you're here for a double-cross. You're gonna answer some questions, before we show you what traitors get.
