Monday, October 27th, 2011
11:42 AM, 1st Avenue - 34th Street Pier
"What was it that you wanted to discuss earlier?"
Beckett glanced aside at him in the passenger seat, blinked twice in confusion at the traffic ahead, and then twinged with belated recollection. "Dammit," she expelled softly. Rick hummed with amusement, prompting another darted glance from her and a chiding, "Hey, I would've remembered if someone had kept their hands to themselves."
When she'd gotten stripped down to her underwear and bra in the locker room earlier, he'd eased on in again with those large, warm hands and painfully communicative eyes to wordlessly coax her into a seat upon the bench. Then he'd crouched like a dutiful knight before his queen and dressed her, piece by piece, in the articles of ESU gear. Minus about a dozen pounds of menacing hardware that the others were loaded down with. They only needed twenty minutes to get ready. It sure felt like longer.
"Maybe I would've," Castle began airily but paused in consideration of a decent retort as the line of traffic ahead stacked up beneath a red light. "If," he continued before losing all momentum, "you had honestly wanted me to. Clearly, you didn't. Or are you in the habit of wearing black underwear with lace accents on police raids?"
The detective's eyes gaped and her mouth opened as if to berate him. It hung wide for an idle second. Then she let her lips curve and the whole expression slyly opened up into a full-length, flashing grin complete with a lusty wink. She slowly touched a finger to the tip of her nose. You got me there, handsome.
Man, the look on his face. She'd managed better only minutes ago, but it was still good.
"Keep it up, lady," he warned peevishly alongside an uncomfortable shift in his seat. "You're gonna get it." The fact that her companion was rattled enough to forsake proper grammar for an informal contraction elicited the same glee as putting a dart through a balloon at a carnival. He pretended not to notice while she chortled over her prize.
The man's ire, clearly exaggerated, was not unwarranted. Far from it.
After they finished changing, the two of them had joined a cluster of mixed personnel outside the pair of roll-up metal doors of the precinct's motor pool. A caravan of varied unmarked vehicles was idling in the sprawling, underground garage, waiting for a proper gathering before it would hustle them all to the 34th Street Pier. As the others present milled about or gabbed, Kate had feigned a yawn, leaned aside to where Rick stood at her right against her sedan, and murmured close to his ear, "Hey, I was thinking: when we get off this island later? I'm gonna drag you into the closest quiet corner we can find and suck your dick until you forget your own name."
The author's surprised gape had been complete. The sheer, staggering absence of knowing what to say or do that had been written across his face was the funniest thing she'd seen in a long time. What really made the moment shine was having managed to contain her amusement. One lasting look into her determined hazel eyes elicited a deep furrowing at his brow and a soft grunt as if she'd elbowed him in the gut again.
"Well, you've certainly blown one organ," he'd mumbled dazedly while cradling a palm against his head, and she'd almost died.
Heh. Poor guy. To say that turnabout is fair play on the issue of flirtation would be remiss. Rick was very good. Disarmingly imaginative and absolutely fearless in the comfort of experience that shaped his own sexuality. Even so, Kate stood on advantageous high-ground. He simply wasn't accustomed to being the one chased around or leered at by her. It didn't take much to render him momentarily startled or speechless. Even amidst this gloomy and darkly disturbing day, she was compelled to shine for him when possible.
That wasn't all about fun and games. The man's easily garnered surprise was amusing, charming even, but it was also a rather pointed indication that a long road lay ahead in making him feel secure and comfortable within the confines of her love. Time was the only surefire cure. Time and the steady administration of her dirty-minded approximation of medicine.
An unexpected side-effect of that prior teasing was that no one else had been allowed to accompany them in her sedan. Castle had tersely refused any attempted occupancy, though with each refusal his gaze hardly seemed to leave hers. She'd held his awareness in kind with a barely-concealed, predatory smile. No charming new mercenary buddy. Not even Ryan and Espo were granted seats, both of whom she'd actually needed to talk to. Oops. Over-shot a bit there, yeah. Live and learn.
Presently, now more than halfway to their next transitory destination, Kate slowed their progress to keep a small berth between them and the dark SUV ahead. They did have more to talk about than getting into one another's pants. He was right. Now that the proposed dialogue had found its way back to the forefront of her mind, playfulness waned some. With a clearing of her throat, she finally said, "We really shouldn't be doing this."
Rick's eyebrows soared while he shot her an alarmed glance.
"Going to the island," the detective clarified and tamped down the urge to scowl when he looked momentarily relieved. Knowing that they only needed time to adjust did not diminish the sting of seeing the man turn gun-shy like that. One step at a time, Katie. "It's not even about where we're going," she continued. "I wanted us to have a chance to talk before working on any new cases. I should've come see you a week or more ago, damn it. It's just...what you told me earlier this morning? I'd noticed that too. Last time we came together after being apart for a while, the work seemed to help you find solid footing. I thought that kind of traction might be helpful for you again."
"We seem to be finding our stride just fine," Castle observed with an eyebrow slanting in mute accusation. Amusement and affection hid behind the thin veil of feigned petulance for the torment she was inflicting upon him today. Heh. That wounded semblance gradually sobered into genuine neutrality. "What's on your mind?"
"Oh, I'm sure you already have an idea." He didn't voice a denial, which made her breathe a bit easier. No effort was made to hide. For a couple that had spent years dancing around their obvious chemistry, they were getting pretty good at candidness. "Honestly, we should've had this conversation a long time ago—after the warehouse with Lockwood. Things ended up working out fine then. So well, in fact, that I was able to forget about the conversation it made me wanna have with you."
Richard shifted in his seat again with evident unease. "Did Gates put you up to this? Or Rendell?"
Beckett rolled her eyes and glanced out the side window while they waited for a green light to get the caravan of vehicles moving again. "No, but I'm sure they're worried too. They have the right to be." Her attention went seeking only to find his likewise cut adrift from her and staring out the passenger window. "There's a reason team-members don't usually get involved with one another."
Still the writer deflected the heart of the subject she was trying to aim them at. "Are they going to try to split up our team?" The way he asked prompted a small swell of pride. It was posed as one seeking clarity of a potential challenge, not as a preemptively defeated concession to one.
"Not unless we make it a problem." Kate finally reached out to curl her grasp around his left forearm. That drew his gaze. Clear, sky-toned-hues jerked to their physical connection before lifting to meet her earthy-toned pair. "I'm not asking if this is going to be one, okay? I think we both know that it will at some point. And that's okay," she soothed before returning her grasp to the wheel. "No one expects our dating to not make waves here and there. It doesn't automatically disqualify our partnership. We can still do both if we can be professional." She faced forward again as traffic moved but rejoined his lingering attention when the brevity of the light locked them into a holding pattern again. "Now, uh, part of that professionalism necessitates asking you about this. So, please just let me." She said as much and yet prevaricated afterward with a moistening of her lips before diving on in. "I need to know that you still have faith in me to do this work."
"Beckett, of course, I—"
"Don't," the detective interrupted. "Don't toss it out there thoughtlessly. I need the truth, not some knee-jerk denial. I'm not talking about critical thinking in the casework or the confidence needed for leadership. I heard you earlier; I know we're good there. This job goes beyond either of those things." Traffic eased forward again, sending them bumping further along 1st Avenue. The East River Promenade was visibly deserted on their right, a grayish span of openness in the pallid midday light. "You saw me," Kate stopped, swallowed thickly. At her peripherals, his visage hadn't wavered. She started again from a slightly different angle. "When you see someone the way you saw me in the cemetery...in that state of, uh, vulnerability...it can change your outlook on their capabilities." He tsked in disgust and sat up straighter in obvious protest. She found herself sitting more erect in kind and resumed before he could interrupt. "It's not an insult, okay? I wouldn't take it as one if you had any doubts."
The silence that exuded from his side of the car seemed to be threaded together using sewing needles and razor blades. Several distinct, cutting seconds passed and each felt like a wound. "I really hope you posed that scenario the way you did for my benefit—needless as it was. Because if I thought you really believed that getting shot by some coward hunkering in the grass a hundred yards out was a commentary on your capability as an officer…" He didn't finish except to shake his head and face forward in his seat.
Phew. "Okay then," she replied quietly, "that answers that."
"Do you have any other foolish questions?"
Her cheeks burned even though he hadn't laced the inquiry with genuine disdain. "Th-there's more to this subject than just my half of it, yeah. You know what I'm talking about." That was why she'd brought up the scenario with Lockwood. Maybe that night didn't ordinarily stand out for him the way it did in her memory. That would make sense; he hadn't seen himself the way she had, straddling an adversary beaten bloody with one brutal fist poised to keep right on hammering away. To the author's credit, he had stopped himself before administering lethal or even lasting damage. But the look on his face at the time…
That encounter was before the trauma of watching her get shot. Before he watched her flatline on the way to the hospital. Twice.
It brought Lanie's words back to mind for the thousandth time since hearing them: He was like one of those animals you read about, driven savage.
"You're the best man I know," Beckett stated quietly. She winced, wishing it was possible to take that back. Veracity soaked every syllable like moisture in a sponge. It still sounded like pandering.
"Wow," Castle issued flatly with a half-turn to look at her. "When you said everyone looks like a murderer to you, that was no idle observation, was it?"
"Anyone would be when someone they love is on the line," Kate returned a bit sharply. "Don't think for a fucking second I wouldn't be on your behalf. The difference between us is that I went through a lot of specialized training designed to help me tamp down those initial emotional reactions and think first. I... Dammit. I don't really know how to describe it for you. Imagine if you were given one, maybe two full seconds of logic before that rush of adrenaline and emotion demanded to take over. That's what years of experience and continued training have purchased: a couple lousy seconds. Not much at all when you think about it."
"They matter." The other's tone and posture didn't broadcast any willingness for agreement. Only the words themselves conceded as much. "They do. Two seconds could decide the difference between me attempting to help arrest someone who hurt you, or ending them."
Kate reached blindly out and found his left shoulder around which to curl with a sliding squeeze. "Cops don't end anyone unless there's no other choice. You know what I mean," she added when he furrowed his brow in a show of doubt. "Obviously, shit happens. I'm not saying it doesn't. In fact, that's one more detail working against us right now. That's what Rendell and Gates are wondering to themselves when they think about us: if other cops who date each other can't control their emotions in high-tension situations, how can we expect a civilian to do it?"
"NoBro is abandoned."
Beckett stared back at him with blank disapproval. He knew damn well she wasn't talking about the island. That operation was already in the process of happening. It was as good as done. It was relevant, sure, but her concern was focused on cases and events that loomed in the days farther ahead. They needed to be ready for any blowback they might take for being a couple in the field.
"Okay, well, what if I could get certified in the same training?"
Better, she mused approvingly but still shook her head once with a quivering of her hair in its bun. "It isn't a class they teach openly like that. This kind of stuff isn't something you put in the hands of people who might abuse it. Trust me, you don't want to start from scratch at the police academy simply to prove your worth and get it."
"What?" he fired back with a narrowing of his eyes. "You don't think I could handle the obstacle course? I'm buff."
Beckett snorted against her will. That was a quintessential example of what he did—what he was—for her and so many others: a glimpse of light when things turned dark. The woman gave a sideways assessment of him, head-to-toe, while moistening her lips again. "Yeah," she confirmed with a deceptively conversational tone, "you are one finely honed model of masculine might."
"Oh my, yes," he growled throatily. "Talk alliteratively to me, baby."
Kate laughed aloud. Even on the worst days, I swear… No one watching would ever guess where they were headed. Maybe they should have been showing more respect for their impending destination, but… So much time had already been lost. One life was all they had together.
"I'm not looking for a neat and tidy solution," she managed at length. "I didn't bring up either subject now because I expected you to be able to do that. There isn't one. Not really. I just want you to try and keep it in mind as we go, that's all. We're under the microscope. More so than normal."
A wordless sound of concession emerged from the passenger seat. They were silent for a few minutes afterward. Maybe he was processing the conversation again in his mind too. Eventually, his voice arose again tinged with curiosity. "Speaking of police academy days, I heard your strife with Lieutenant Dickson goes back that far. You two came up through training together, huh?"
Thanks for nothing, Espo. Beckett sighed inwardly. She wasn't surprised. I can't expect you not to go looking for the story at this point, can I? When they paused at another red light, now less than four blocks from the 34th Street pier, she gazed aside at her partner. "It's a touchy subject. No, no," she added, "we can talk about it. Those first few years after Mom died? They were bad, obviously. In a way, they honed my focus to a razor edge. The training itself? I killed it. I was like a machine and the NYPD was my solitary function. Things were, um, a lot messier on the personal side of the line. Dad was drinking. My impatience to be able to hold Mom's case file in my own two hands was nearing critical mass. I managed to get myself into some pretty surreal situations." She looked away with another girding breath inward.
"You don't need to worry about me thinking less of you, Beckett. You should also know that I'm only asking for what you're ready to share. That's no less than what you gave me. There's time available to us now. Use it if you need it." Only a man who believed in things like magic, fate, and happy endings could convince himself that they would ever feel entirely secure given everything leading up to where they sat. Part of her loved that he could maintain such optimism. She wished she shared it.
"Look at me," Beckett instructed with a downward cant of her head to indicate herself. "What kinda trouble would you expect a younger, dumber version of me to get herself into?" It wasn't fair to spin the conversation around on him like that. Own your shit like a woman, Katie.
"Men," Castle answered readily. "Sex." No hesitance. No tone of judgment either. He was blessedly matter-of-fact. Her wide-eyed stare elicited a frown from the other as if the answer had been obvious. As if it would've been the most natural pitfall for anyone to tumble into. "What blunts our pain better than meaningless base pleasure? Don't forget: you're talking to a man who built something of an empire upon the back of depravity." He glanced away with a shake of his head. "That wasn't all about opportunistic press coverage and book sales."
"Still, it's a rather predictable story in my case, don't you think? No," Kate added swiftly with a wince. "Sorry. That's not me laying a trap for you. Forget the implied question mark. It's the truth. Even in my mind, the behavior is more than a little cliche."
Traffic crept onward, but they barely moved before having to wait again while the trickle of unmarked police vehicles ahead either deposited passengers at the street or nosed down into a parking area to do the same. It was swiftly becoming chaotic. The pier was a public ferry landing with bi-hourly service to Long Island City several times a day, hence the crowd of civilians complicating their effort. It could have been a worse throng. Showing up half-an-hour before the ferry's next departure had given them as clear a window to work with as could be expected in such a crowded city. The sight of fully outfitted ESU members moving with a purpose dispersed more gawkers than it invited.
"I didn't sleep with Dickson," Beckett clarified at length. "I think that's what pissed him off more than anything: the fact that he was one of the exceptions."
"Whoa."
Kate winced again sharply. "Shaddap," she grumbled. "There were lots of exceptions, damn it. I just mean—" A passing chuckle from the passenger seat stopped her in the middle of explaining. Good. He knew better. That or he simply wanted to believe in better on her behalf. No doubt that generosity was a little more than she deserved this time around. The detective didn't have the heart or will to drag his mental image of her through the mud. "Uh, anyway, he tried and didn't take the rejection well. A weird version of a rivalry blew up into a bit of a thing and it got pretty ugly. Other people ended getting dragged into our drama. We're lucky neither of us ended up getting kicked out or stamped with something on our files that would've stuck to our careers. If all of the facts had come to light at the time, neither of us would've graduated."
"A career," her partner replied mildly to himself. "He certainly built one of those. Isn't he a little young for a Lieutenant?"
Grateful for the slight shift in topic, Beckett took a cleansing breath and nodded once. "He is, yeah, both in age and in terms of experience on the force. I won't say Ethan hasn't earned it. The guy's a prick, but he knows what he's doing most of the time. I will say that he's a better bureaucrat than a cop. That grief we gave him about the press earlier was no idle cheap-shot. He wags that tongue way too much. It's cost him cases in the past. Somehow that weasel managed to close a few high-profile ones. A bit of luck and having the right friends has kept him in or near the limelight, which is right where he wants to be to flex those political aspirations of his."
"It wouldn't surprise me if Gates had pulled similar strings," her partner issued while the line moved forward again by a few car-lengths. The dock was teeming now. Only a few officers wore their NYPD windbreakers or Hi-Vis yellow rain gear, but people were starting to leave regardless. Closer up at that point, they could see passing faces pinched and eyes that were widened in the broadcast of apprehension. ESU had that effect on folks. "She can say whatever she wants about looters and manpower deficiencies. The fact of the matter is: this case is going to get a staggering amount of print and air-time."
"What better way to confirm her appointment as Captain of the Twelfth than closing a case like this?" Kate nodded to herself. "Good for her if that's true."
"Yeah, well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Hey—over there. L.T. is trying to flag you down." A lift of his proud chin indicated the 5'7" officer standing slightly off to one side of the cars passing through ahead. He was rolling his wrist, guiding them closer with the whitish glare of a flashlight.
Beckett rolled down her window and stopped alongside. "Hey there, hunk. You headed our way?"
L.T. snorted audibly, unimpressed. Castle exhaled a clipped note of mirth in appreciation. Victory. "Beckett. Hey, Castle. Go ahead and unload here. I'm taking this unit straight back to the House. It's already too crowded here. People are bugging us with dumb questions."
"Great," the woman emitted dryly while rising from her sedan. The unfamiliar burden of the tactical gear made her movements sluggish and a little clumsy. It wasn't doing any favors for her battered body. A glance across the roof revealed her partner experiencing similar awkwardness. "You'll adjust to it soon enough."
"You've got some time for that," L.T. informed them before slipping into the driver's seat. "Maybe another thirty before the next train of personnel rolls in. Damn," he added in complaint while adjusting the seat forward. Shorty-pants. Kate elected not to tug on that particular string of banter. The door thudded closed. He frowned up at her and Castle when the author stepped into view at her left. A couple silent ticks came and went. "You two keep your heads down out there."
"You said 'head'."
The officer snarled wordlessly in feigned disgust and pulled away.
"You are on fire today," Castle observed amusedly. Broad shoulders quivered while watching the sedan make its way haltingly towards the main street again.
"And you thought I was the bad influence," Beckett returned with a tug that straightened the set of his tac-vest across the waist. She patted his chest and walked off with an extra bit of oomph thrust into the natural rocking of her hips. Esposito and Ryan were visible talking together near a couple taller piles, painted white like the rest, which arose to one side at the mouth of the pier. Neither seemed to have spotted them yet. "Hey." That did the job. "What'd you two do, fly here?"
"We were in the lead car," Espos said.
"Since we had to be," Ryan added with a stare at Castle.
Her partner made a flawless show of innocence. "Huh? Who said you had to be?"
Beckett cut in before that spark could ignite a fresh round of wailing. "So! Rendell gave the go-ahead for you two, huh?"
"Personally," Espo confirmed while crossing of his arms at his sternum. "He seemed surprised that you were only asking for the two of us."
"Who else would want in on this?" Ryan asked with a discomfited noise. "The speil he gave us about what he'd do if we spoke to the press, even by accident? I think it took years off my life."
"Point is," the Latin detective intruded again with his gaze still on their leader, "I think he expected you to put together more of an actual task force."
Beckett arched an eyebrow. "Me and my shiny gold badge?"
"Rank didn't stop you from handing out pointers to everyone else getting their shit together."
She winced and shifted her stance with some discomfort. The woman was keenly aware of her partner's focus at her left. He wasn't peripherally visible. She could feel it nonetheless. "He mentioned that? Jeez. Who's blabbing? I offered a few suggestions is all. Most of it was me nodding. Though I do nod my head like a boss," she touted with a shift of her focus to Castle in a smartass show of seeking confirmation. He was already nodding in agreement with amusing readiness. Always available to be her back-up.
Neither of the men before them so much as cracked a smile. Hmph. Waste of our comedic genius.
"It's Gates' moment in the sun," Beckett stated dryly, "not mine. Speaking of which, this is a good chance for the rest of us to get a sense of how she's going to steer this ship and adjust to her particular style. I hope you'll both spare some attention for that, huh? I'm still playing catch-up over here."
"Yeah, yeah," Esposito drawled. "You can copy our homework, slacker."
A ripple of amusement toured their small group.
Then Ryan, half-turned to view their crowded surrounds, asked, "Where do you want us to start? You want the focus on Finch, right?"
"Right," Beckett confirmed evenly. Her voice lowered some unconsciously as if diverting attention from the island itself would somehow invite a sudden spotlight of disapproval or incredulity from cunningly hidden superiors within the crowd. "He took a boat to NoBro, but it hasn't turned up yet. Give that they found his camera on his person during the body recovery, I don't hold out much hope that he left anything particularly important on the vessel itself. Still, it'd be worth a look. I'm more interested in getting a description of it so we can talk to the guys on Riker's Island and see if they noticed it coming or going. We also need to have it dusted by CSU. If someone else moved the boat to strand Finch on that island or took it themselves to escape the crime scene, they might've left prints."
"Good thinking," Castle murmured, maybe unwittingly. His head was bowed in contemplations of his own design.
"Uh, it's a long shot. Water is hell on evidence. You can get his address from Dickson," she informed the boys. "Castle said he's local, so it won't be a long trip."
"Manhattan even," the writer interjected. "Beyond that, I don't know."
"If there's time after locating the boat, or if you can't find it in the first place, head back to Finch's and start building us an image of his life to work from. After Castle and I get back from the island and debrief we'll jump in with you and split the tasks from there."
The pair of detectives before her, both looking notably more chafed by the bitter wind blustering in off the river by then, consented with respective, succinct replies. "You two try to stay dry out there," Esposito added before they walked away. The comment didn't strike her as being dirty until she saw them fist-bump right before vanishing among the throng. Grrr.
She imposed the rule right then and there. I will not fuck my boyfriend for the first time on Corpse Island. I will not fu—
"Why hey there you two," a familiar drawl emitted.
Beckett whirled and found Logan Devereux standing before her and Rick. Jeez. The swagger on this guy. Even the way he stood irritated her a little: hands casually perched at his waist, thumbs tucked. The slightly displaced fabric offered fleeting and meager glimpses of the man's oblique muscles where they slanted inward along that classically masculine V-shape. There was an oddly playful cant in the weight distribution at his hips. Fuck your hips, cowboy. I mean, wait. No. The opposite of that. The southern man's good ol' boy charm danced in gas-flame eyes and stretched wide at his lips with a brilliance and perfection that must haunt the nightmares of orthodontists everywhere.
That, in turn, pulled across her patience like a bow being drawn across the strings of a violin. Except the note produced was more of a shriek.
Castle, looking for all the world like he was trying not to laugh, slipped between her and the mercenary with a voice strained by humor, but nonetheless welcoming. "Hey, man, let's go acquire some coffee for the road. Uh, river. We'll be disgustingly ingratiating. Plus, I'll probably never get a chance to wear this outfit again," he added while pair strutted off together, "I wanna see what kind of discount it nets me."
First he threw himself on a grenade for her by taking the chair next to Ethan and now this?
That beautiful man was getting laid tonight. Come hell or high water.
"Beckett."
She turned again at a more relaxed rotation. The sound and sight of the Connelly brothers didn't command the same upheaval. On the contrary, they presented a magnificently effective wall blocking the wind from buffeting her where she stood. "Hey. I was just about to go looking for you two."
"Did you see the updated roster?"
"Yeah, ten of you guys, huh? That's better than the six we thought we'd be going with."
Ulan nodded agreement. His brother gave a guttural hum of concession and added, "Still not ideal, but I'll take it."
Kate shook her head, bemused. "You really think someone or some group is lurking out there?"
Eamon shrugged those burly shoulders and rubbed at a smooth-shaven jaw. "We think the body count suggests someone made a bloody little home for themselves. They made themselves comfortable. They redecorated." Kate shivered briefly and didn't count it a result of the cold. "We don't operate the way you and yours do anyway though. Do this gig long enough and you realize that it often comes down to the math. Skill matters. Steadiness under fire matters. Yet we lean heavily on basic geometry to define our grids and sweeping patterns. For example, it'd be easier for you to cover a ninety-percent cone stretching outward in front of you rather than the full one-eighty frontal, right? Right. So you bring another body along and split that demand in half, and so on and so forth. You carve up the pie until there are no blind spots. Ideally, you have enough to provide some overlap. We look for those utilizations of perspective within the dimensions of every area of engagement. The bigger that area is, the more people you ideally want to make the numbers add up. That's how you optimize everyone's safety—not just ESU's, but whoever we're stacked up against too."
Kate stared blankly. She looked from one to the other and said, "I rocked English in school."
Neither man laughed. They didn't even smirk. She grinned anyway and turned to her right some to hide it. Damn. My writer has spoiled me. "Uh. Anyway, we don't know what's waiting for us out there yet. I'm hoping all of you guys are going to end up being a woeful stroke of overkill."
"Likewise," Eamon agreed aloud as both of them nodded.
"Well, I expect you recall why I was coming to find you two. You mentioned something about seeing Logan's skill for myself?"
Eamon's jaw shifted side-to-side before he nodded again. She watched as he unzipped one of the pockets of his vest and withdrew a cell phone from its water-resistant confines. "We had the same concerns as you initially," he rumbled while poking in a password, "so we emailed a couple friends who in turn put some feelers out for us." He shifted to stand at her right instead while still working at the cell. She grimaced some as the wind pressed into the opened gap to get at her. "I didn't get much back. He's a ghost. That's no easy feat in these modern times, which probably says plenty all on its own about him. Ah, here we go."
She leaned right to look at the phone from over the other's left arm. It was a media program and a video was cued up with the screen currently black.
"What you're about to see is a video that was taken during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. It was shot at a private party hosted at some military bigwig's mansion on the city's outskirts. He'd set up a firing range in his backyard for personal use but, since they were around, he invited some of the competitors from the sport shooting portion of the Games to enjoy his hospitality."
"Oh? What a swell guy."
Eamon grunted and pressed play. It was either early morning or late afternoon. The lighting was poor and the grainy quality of the camera itself didn't help. She couldn't tell if it was from a cell phone or an actual video camera. The motion swayed as if the operator had tied one on before they started filming.
"Ugh. Me without my Dramamine."
"Better get on that," Eamon replied, "if we're gonna be sharing a boat."
A somewhat smoother panning motion revealed the exterior of a cream-toned and dark hardwood home with several lights aglow around a sumptuous deck and pool area. Music was playing, too tinny to identify. A couple dozen people were scattered about. Myriad ethnicities in varied attire. There were a couple time-jumps throughout it all from cessations of filming. Soon enough the display rotated to reveal the aforementioned target range. It stood a good ways back from the deck area itself, which made it difficult to make out details. The guy doing the camera work began talking. She picked out a few familiar words that placed the language as being Dutch.
"The quality sucks, I know. This was ripped from a youtube video a few days after it was recorded. I'm told it was grabbed about five hours after the video had been posted and that within another three hours the original was taken down from the site. No reposts or replications can be found now. It's gone except for the copies that were passed along and to a handful of hardcore competition enthusiasts who collect things like this. I don't know who posted it on youtube in the first place, but their aptly applied title for it was: The scariest real thing I've ever seen."
Beckett arched her eyebrows at that but made no comment.
"I also don't know what this cameraman is going on about. There isn't a lick of English on this track, not even from Logan, who features in it briefly. I'll skip ahead to that part in a moment, but first, let me show you one of these guys in action. Here," he added after moving ahead to about the ten-minute mark. Distinctive pops resounded while a slender Chinese man around her height stood shooting in the foreground of a wide-angle shot that included the target range in the distance. The targets being fired upon arose from a steel bar about twenty feet in length and maybe four or five in height. Every two feet along the bar arose a head-and-shoulders target silhouette wrought in some kind of metal, maybe tin. Very similar yellow-and-black paper versions were laid over them in turn. The guy shooting was good. Really good, actually. He fired two full clips before ejecting the second magazine and making the weapon safe. He joked with others off-camera while tending to the task.
"Damn," she remarked. "You can barely make the targets out. This would test me even if I were stone-cold sober."
"Me too, yeah. It did this guy as well. You can't really tell, but he missed four of his twenty shots. That's still great shooting, especially at that firing rate. Most of the others do notably worse. This guy's name is Tan Zonglang. At the time this video was taken he was widely recognized as the best shot in the world with a Glock. He placed silver in the fifty-meter shoot at the Olympics that year. He might've taken the gold if not for a weak trigger pull on his last shot. Anyway, fifty meters is just about right in terms of the distance to this target range. They didn't play by competition rules, though, because they were just drunk and goofing around."
"Rules-shmules," Beckett inserted with a feigned inebriated lisp and sway of her upper body.
Still no smiles. Sheesh. Tough pier. I really have been spoiled. Where's my writer?
"So, their rules, from what I'm told, allotted two standard ten-round clips with a ten-second shot window. You start safe, load-up, fire two full mags within the allotted gap, and then return to safe to stop the clock. Not a terribly abstract variation in comparison to the genuine article at the Games."
"I'll have to take your word for that. Ten seconds at fifty-yards though—wow."
Eamon nodded once at her right. "Only a handful of them manage to get off every shot. They added in penalty time for misses, so it was better to make every shot count than to fire off every available round. As you saw, Tan managed that feat, but not without penalties."
"Lemme guess," she deposited somewhat dryly, "Logan fires off a perfect score?"
Eamon eyed her askance with a level glance that made her decide to, ah, not be flippant anymore. She cleared her throat softly while the larger answered, "No, actually, he missed four times as well."
Beckett frowned, bemused. "He didn't win? Well, wait, jeez. Tying with a silver medalist is very impressive, clearly. That's more than good enough for me in terms of proving his skill set. Thanks for, uh, showing..." She trailed off at the end, stalled out by the unblinking gazes of her twin companions. "What?"
Eamon shook his head and brought the phone closer to his chest. After a bit of fiddling, he canted his head. She obliged the unspoken lure with a returning lean towards the show. On the screen, Logan was visible dressed in jeans and a green t-shirt. He was wearing a dual-holster shoulder rig.
Two guns? Jeez. You really are a fucking cowboy, aren't you? She was far from impressed.
His hair was so blonde it shone almost white in the video. That backward-worn ballcap had allowed that detail to go mostly overlooked previously. Another man was present in the video, heavier set and shorter, Chinese as far as she could discern, wearing a nice pair of grey slacks and a white dress shirt. The two were arguing.
"If you watch the whole thing," Eamon observed, "it might make for an interesting lesson in the dynamics of etiquette between different cultures. The bigwig who threw this party was the same guy that Logan was working for at the time. He asked our resident mercenary there to join the competition on the lawn. Well, Logan refused. I don't know the language, so I can't say first-hand why. The guy who sent this to me said that a translator he knows determined Logan responded that he was hired to train Chinese police officers, not get wasted and entertain the man's guests. The others on the tape try wheedling him into participating, as you can see there, but apparently, our snowy-haired young man isn't one for casual showboating."
Beckett frowned. Deeply. That kind of modesty didn't align with any image she had conjured up on the man's behalf. Watching him on the video, politely restrained but adamant and gradually becoming annoyed, was somewhat jarring. The professionalism and restraint were equally unexpected.
She looked up when Eamon paused to skip ahead again by a couple minutes. While it was still paused, the ESU member turned somewhat with a squinting glance over the crowd and then refocused on her. "This next part is what I wanted you to see. By this point, the argument you glimpsed has gotten well out of hand. The Chinese guy, being drunk and maybe a little entitled in his own right, really loses his cool. I don't have a translation for what they're saying at this point. You don't really need one."
That was true enough. Upon the play resuming she could see that the party had dissolved into a widespread staring bout from the guests while the Chinese military officer or politician—whatever role he bore—fired off a stream of agitated abuse at his American employee. Within that shouted stream of verbosity, there was a moment. It was definitive and clear. She wanted to know what the bigwig had said after seeing it because Logan's eyes widened. Then they immediately narrowed into blades of enmity.
He turned without a word to advance, pushing between a pair of other guests who immediately scattered back and away along with several others. Grass rasped beneath each angry stride to the edge of the deck. Then he pulled one of the weapons from its holster, assumed a 'fighting' shooter's stance, and began blasting away. The draw itself was...frightening. Fast. Liquid. The gaps between the shots were chillingly narrow. She could hear the metallic backing of the targets pinging with every scored hit as the shooter swept across the line-up. It sounded like someone was battering out an enthused solo on a steel drum. It was as if time has gone slippery and couldn't maintain a decent grip on the infinitesimal scraps between each cracking report of the weapon. While she was watching it happen, half mesmerized, the mercenary started walking towards the targets and drawing the second sidearm. Doing so while still shooting and hitting his targets with the other hand. For several mind-blowing shots, the weapons bucked and roared with flaming gouts bursting from the muzzles in almost perfect tandem while directed at differing silhouettes. He finished the last half of the second pistol's magazine with such rapid trigger-pulls she couldn't manage a count. Then he slammed the weapons back into their respective holsters, snatched a coat angrily from the back of a lawn chair, and walked off screen. The whole thing was over in—what? Jesus. Twenty-seven seconds, with the dominant portion of that involving coming and going from the targets.
The silence in his wake among the other guests, including Tan, was goddamn bottomless. They just stared at the line of target silhouettes as if frozen in mimicked postures.
Beckett wasn't aware of holding her breath until a delayed gasp for air finally rattled her free of a fleeting paralysis and sent it gusting down into her lungs. "Shit," she expelled breathily as it fled. Then another, softer, "Holy shit."
"Yeah," Emaon rumbled. "My sentiments exactly." He slid the cell phone into his vest pocket.
It wasn't so easy to put away the images burned into her brain.
A/N: Generally speaking, dual-wielding firearms is complete and utter nonsense. What I described Logan doing in the video, however, is not fiction. The date, setting, and circumstances all are, but not the act itself. If you swap out the party crowd for merely myself and two others, I suppose the reaction of being frozen stiff isn't fiction either. There are people in this world who seem specifically born to do certain things. Mozart with his music. Michelangelo with his art. It is deeply chilling to witness first-hand the full, terrible aptitude of someone who seems born to handle firearms. I don't mean to be prosaic, but at the time, it was enough to make me question their invention.
I haven't had time to catch up with many of you individually lately, but I hope you know that it's always fun hearing from you. Thank you for reading!
