I do not own FF7 or any of its characters.


The following morning passed fairly uneventfully. Reno and Rude were late to arrive again, and though this was unsurprising to Tseng or Elena, the latter still shook her head in disbelief and gave Reno a look as the red head ran past her. It was only when she sat down she noticed the thin Turk had snatched her coffee off the desk as he'd passed.
Reno heard the young blonde shout after him, something about him being a theiving something or other... He chuckled and drank it down quickly, he hadn't had any breakfast since Rude had pressured him to get dressed quickly. Normally he'd have been annoyed at being rushed but for some reason he felt completely fine about it today.
Maybe it was the sex from last night and he'd gotten a load off his mind, or maybe it was the name 'Dellora' which might provide some answers about Shinra killers, but no matter. He now felt that the ball was finally rolling along and they were moving with it.

The two burst into the Directors office, well to be fair Reno did the bursting in and Rude simply sighed and shut the door with a mutter of apology at the startled raven haired superior who frowned at the interruption.
The Director closed his eyes and Rude could almost hear the man silently counting down from ten as he struggled not to lose his temper at Reno's habit of just entering without knocking. After the lull the Director opened his eyes and rasied his eyebrows.
"An hour late?" he inquired politely, if a little more stiffly than usual.
Reno was about to open his mouth but Rude placed a hand on his shoulder and walked over to the desk.

Wordlessly he leaned forward towards the Director, the younger man frowned but leaned forward to hear what the bald Turk had to say. From the doorway Reno scratched his head and watched with curiosity, he saw the large mans lips moving as he whispered something into their superiors ear and then the raven haired Turk leaned back with a suspious look on his face.

The pair looked at each other for a moment, trying to see if Rude had been pulling the others leg, then the Directors sharp gaze shifted from Rude's impenetrable shaded eyes to Reno's baffled face and the question was answered for him.
"I see." The Director said finally and looked back at the bald man "Well... I understand. But no more being late whilst this case in ongoing you two, am I clear?"
The big man nodded once and Reno replied "Yes Sir."
"Good. I need you to speak with Elena, she'll inform you of what I want you to do." Tseng told them as he rose from his chair.

"Whoa, hold on Sir!" Reno said as Tseng opened the door "Elena's giving us our orders? What about you?"
"I have my own lines of inquiry to persue today A meeting with Reeve Tuesti of all people." the dark haired man replied as he walked past the red head.
Tseng paused in the doorway, his voice was level and calm "Submit to me any findings in your reports, and please continue your investigation as you have been so far. Those are my orders for you today. If you need me for anything, I have my phone on me."
"But Sir, what are you going to-"
"I know you'll take the initiative if you turn up anything important, all I ask is to be informed as soon as humanly possible about what you've found and what course of action you intend to take on the matter." the other man continued, ignoring Reno's attempt to cut in with questions.
"I... yes Sir." Reno faltered and took the hint that Tseng had told them all he was going to for the time being.
"Good. Hopefully I won't be long. Go and see Elena." the Director left the pair in his office and walked away to go to his meeting with the head of the WRO.

Reno stared at the door for a second then looked at Rude "So what did you say to him?"
The other man shrugged "I told him we were late in because we didn't get enough sleep last night, thats all."
"Really?" Reno looked at the shaded man for a moment then his gaze went to the door "So what do you think he needs to see Reeve about?"
Rude shrugged, he didn't know and there was no reason to worry about it, Tseng wasn't the impulsive type.
Clearly the Director had a plan and Rude simply accepted that they weren't going to be let in on whatever that plan was until he saw fit to inform them about it.
Of course, Reno wasn't like that...
"Lets go talk to Laney then." Reno opened the door and headed out to find the blond haired woman "Hey if she's got standing orders then maybe she's knows something about it!"
Rude sighed and went after him. Trust Reno to be impatient, he thought to himself.

The pair found Elena frowning at a monitor at her desk.
"Hey Laney!" Reno chirped and leaned over "Tseng said you had something for us?"
The woman brushed hair from her face and looked at them "Yeah, he wants you to go back to Reynold Banks apartment and snoop around again."
Reno sighed "There isn't anything there. We got the guys name but there's nothing else to find in that apartment."
Elena grimaced "Hey quit complaining, you two are lucky! I've got to do this!" she threw her hands at the screen with a look of disgust "I've got to track down the money sent into some bikers bank account and see if I can come up with anything like the name or company of whoever paid him. Do you know how annoying it is to have to sit at a phone all day and ask the same questions three before you get put on hold and tranferred to a guy who apologises because he can't give us a name without the proper credentials and authorisation of a WRO officer?"

Rude frowned behind his shades and patted her shoulder gently "Let me take a look..."
Reno frantically made guestures trying to silently dissuade Rude from offering to help - he was bored enough with paperwork without adding that kind of monotony to the dull task of writing and filing reports!
Rude ignored him and looked over Elena's shoulder at the screen which had a list of bank account details and employee names alongside figures paid in for various dates. "See what you can find via electronic tranfers to his account" he advised Elena "and don't do any phonecalls until you've singled it down to the smallest number of potential companies or indivduals who paid large sums of money."
"I have." she said "And so far all the big payments in his account are outgoing not ingoing. All the money he's been earning went on doing up his bike or just the usual stuff like fast food, rent and clothes."

Reno poked his head over and looked at the list, Elena was right.
"Hold on" the red head asked "What if he was paid on the spot? Like a cash in hand thing?"
"Nope." Elena shook her head "Tseng was pretty thorough with his questioning, the guy told us everything. He didn't meet anyone in person, he just got a phonecall with the details and half the money was transferred in advance to prove the funds were available." at Reno's skeptical look she got defensive "Reno! The man had to be admitted to hospital after Tseng was finished with him!"
Reno whistled softly and revised his opinion. He frowned and stared at the screen "So where's that money gone then? Even if it was tranferred afterwards it would still show up as a lump sum..." He mused and looked at his partner "Well Rudey, any suggestions?"
The bald Turk sighed "Yeah, first we go to the apartment whilst Elena checks the system again and then all three of us can go speak with that biker in the hospital afterwards, nicely of course."
Reno grinned "Good idea! Laney gets out of here for a bit, we don't have to do any reports - everybodys happy! So can I do the talking when we meet the biker?" he asked.
"No!" both Rude and Elena snapped at him.
Reno chuckled at them "Kidding! Come on Rude."


Rufus Shinra looked out the window. He saw Reno and Rude driving off and then he turned his gaze down to the cup of tea in his hand. The dark brown liquid showed his reflection for a moment then it rippled at he rose the steaming cup to his lips as he sipped at the contents.
Last night, before sleep had finally taken him, he'd been thinking about everything that had been transpiring in the last few days and what he was going to do in a few days time. Then a disturbing idea had started piecing itself together in his head like the edges of a jigsaw puzzle.

Very soon he was going to personally demolish the symbol of Shinra's power over Midgar with the push of a button and the collapse of a grandiose structure that had taken years of hard work to build, in a very public event and in such a dramatic fashion the President might was well announce to the masses 'The old regime of my company is officially over - and to prove I'm not bluffing people, watch this!'
But why do it now, expecially when there was a killer on the loose? Why not wait until they'd caught the killer, and what was so important about that event that he had to make a personal appearance?

To the people who'd survived the calamity of Meteor and then the later events of Geostigma and Kadaj, the removal of the tower was proof that Shinra wasn't running the show anymore, Shinra was history.
From the perspective of the WRO, their need for Shinra to personally remove itself from the public memory so that things could move on and the WRO could estalish itself as the new government structure with minimal resistance was something Rufus could easily understand. But why so insistent that he was there in person...?

He couldn't shake the suspicion that part of the reason he had to do it himself was so that the WRO could use him as bait. This meant that the WRO knew something about recent events that the Turks were unaware of and they hadn't informed Rufus about it which meant they didn't want him to know.
Unfortunately the only person in the WRO who could control the withholding of information to him was Reeve Tuesti, the man who was in charge of the WRO and the man who had made that request to Rufus to demolish the tower personally not the other day. This was bad news indeed, he might not be able to trust Reeve.

Rufus had thought about it last night as he lay in bed, he imagined if he was in charge of the WRO trying to solve this case and he'd posed the problem to himself:
You discover a woman has been murdered a few days after she'd been reported missing. You've got a public that expects you to deal with the matter efficiently to prove that no one is above the law and to do that you need to bring the killer to justice, but you don't have any leads and you can't risk looking incompitent in front of a nervous public after all that's been going on in the last few years.

So what are your options?
You can admit the truth to them, admit you don't have any leads and then risk the fear and uncertainty of the scared masses rejecting your promises that you can will them safe, or you can lie to them and try to fix it quietly without anyone being any the wiser...

He'd then run on the presumtion they'd tried to do the latter and worked out the angles from there, it had made sense:

You put out a newpaper report that tells about the tragic death of a woman whose been missing for a few days, saying she's likely been killed by fiends or some other monsters.
To the public its a tragedy; they think 'fiends attack a woman who is at the wrong place at the wrong time? Oh don't such unfortunate things happen to the wrong people... well, I suppose we have nothing to worry about really, lets all just be more careful how far out of the city we stray out alone in future and we'll be fine.'
Life goes on interrupted for a few weeks and ooh! Guess what? suddenly the matter is forgotten and is it just me or is life under the WRO a little better managed now than how it has been the last few years with all that chaos and violence? Yes, this is fantastic, much better!
With the public happy to hear the matters been resolved and a thorough investigation underway the murderer will surely lie low to avoid detection. Everything runs like clockwork for a bit whilst the officials hunt down a murderer that no one was aware even existed then without any trouble the matter's resolved and everybody wins.

Rufus had then considered what had actually happened:

The WRO try to cover up a murder to appease and calm the public, everything is going well until Shinra read about the death of one of thier own previous employees and decide to send in their own team to investigate the matter, a team that finds some disturbing clues that hint at the 'accident' being a murder.
Then that team discovers that the link to the murder was based on the fact that the woman worked for Shinra previously, just like so many people who live in Midgar used to! Well doesn't that mean that a large percentage of the population are now at risk of being murdered in their own homes?
Ah, and thats why its so important that no one knows about this killer...

Then the killer creates an explosion to destroy the evidence and hopefully stop the investigation in its tracks before anyone uncovers the real motive behind the attack.
Now whilst the WRO's investigation falters, Shinra hears of another murder and investigates the matter, the WRO hears of it and does the same thing.
Suddenly a fight breaks out between the contigent of WRO security forces on the scene and the investigating Shinra Turks and guess what? The one who's instigating isn't the Shinra team, but a high ranking officer of the WRO, and that person happens to be a woman with the same surname of a family that has a reason to hate Shinra more than anyone for wiping out its power base in Midgar!

Assuming everything he'd thougt was correct then this was very bad for the WRO... Rufus sipped at the tea again and he thought about the problem from the various angles.
Everyone knows you can't keep a good story from leaking. People know a bomb went off in a block of apartments, they know there was a scuffle between police and an investgation squad where Reeve Tuesti got involved and if they don't then someone is going to talk at some point and then people will start asking questions that the WRO need to have answers for and the people aren't going to be pleased when they hear the answers and start making assumptions.

Even the most loyal, law abiding member of the public would raise an eyebrow and say 'hold on a moment, what's the deal? One second ago you told us this was a tragic accident and now we find out a killers on the loose who might target any of us, and you've got a ex-convict with a grudge against Shinra spearheading the investigation! Exactly what is the WRO playing at here?'

The obvious and easiest solution was now very simple; catch the killers, do it quickly, prove you can do it. Tell the public the embarrasing fact you lied to them afterwards if you must, but reassure them that it was your plan all along and they'll go along with it. People hear what they want to hear so they'll forgive you.
So how do you draw in a killer who's targeting Shinra employee's...? Well what if you offered Rufus Shinra, the leader of Shinra as a target for the Shinra killers in a public area where the President has to expose himself?
He was the perfect bait to lure the killer to where the WRO can catch them and prove they weren't incompitent in front of an expectant public.
Rufus sat down and ran a hand through his hair. He'd sent Tseng to get some answers and he had every faith in his Director that he'd get some answers about of Reeve Tuesti one way or another.

Rufus steepled his fingers and mulled over the problem... he was going to be the bait for a trap was he? Well for all the risks that came with it he had to admit it was a briliiant idea, but just in case the WRO failed perhaps to be safe he'd better prepare some measures of his own.
A smirk crossed the face of the President, for all the trickery and cunning that these killers had shown so far, the time for secrecy was now ending.

Either they'd make a move on the day of the Shinra Tower's demolition or they'd be discovered eventually when Reno and Rude tracked them down through the killings. Either way meant they would be going up against the full armament of the WRO as well as the very best bodyguard and hitman squad of the Shinra Corporation.
Rufus almost felt sorry for them.


Please R+R, this chapter has been cut in half, the next part will follow shortly.