"I can't believe I have to do this." There was no question that Trevor was annoyed, and upset at the same time. "Anna, for the love of heaven, this is a conflict of interest. I am more likely to help you convict them than I am to defend them."
"I know it, and I wouldn't be asking you to do this if I had a choice, Trevor," Anna replied, "But if you drop it now, they will know that you are working with us and they will kill you."
Silence. Trevor gave her an exasperated look and shook his head. "This is insane," he said. "I know why you want to do this, but given the circumstances…"
"Delgado is afraid of me. I convicted him once, and I can do it again. That's why he wants me dead," said Anna.
"Yeah ,and until your little task force gets him hauled in, he might just get what he's looking for."
"I've already had this conversation with a number of people. I'd appreciate it if you didn't also insist on lecturing me too."
"If this was Jack McCoy's idea, I'll kill him myself, never mind this drug ring. He should know better."
"It wasn't Jack. It was me." Anna trailed off for a moment and then went on. "He'll be sitting my second chair."
A faint smile crossed Trevor's face at this, and he shook his head. "So it's official, then," he said. "You're really leaving me to play Madame Prosecutor?"
"It's not official. I've grown used to playing defense attorney, but I've always loved the other side of the aisle."
"And now that you're in love with a fellow prosecutor?"
"I'm sure you know how that works. Now, are you going to do this for me, or not?"
"You know I will. I just don't want to see you hurt by McCoy, or by this lot," said Trevor, reaching for the mug he'd left on the desk. Anna shook her head at him.
"Jack isn't going to hurt me again. We've talked, and I think we might have finally figured it out."
"So you're engaged?" Trevor asked, but Anna shook her head again.
"I don't know. That remains to be seen. Outside the DA's office, the two-seven, the Feds and the US Attorneys, you and Danielle are the only ones who know what's going on, but you're farther in than she is."
"What do you want me to do, then?"
"Just keep doing what you're doing until we tell you."
"I still think this is insane." Trevor took a sip from the mug and then continued. "How are you going to nail them?"
"They're working on a way. Meanwhile, we've got police in and out of this place, and Federal surveillance. You're safe and so am I," said Anna. "I just need you to trust me."
"I do." But the way Trevor said this told Anna that he wasn't sure and she sighed.
"If you want me to sit with you when Alvarez comes in today, I will," she said. Trevor stared.
"But he'll recognize you," he said. "No. I can't ask you to do that. I won't ask you to do that."
"You don't have to ask," said Anna. "I'm used to playing hardball. You know that."
"Yeah, well, hardball isn't supposed to get you killed."
"But the fact remains that it can." The cell phone on Anna's desk rang and she reached for it; Trevor got to his feet.
"I'll talk to you later," he said. "Keep me posted."
"I will," said Anna, and flipped the phone open as he left. "Hello?"
They had received information telling them that Delgado was due at a club opening. This didn't leave them with much time to get ready to go in, but as far as they were concerned, it was enough for them.
"I still can't believe I let you talk me into this." Nina looked down at the outfit she was expected to wear and shook her head. "You do realize that if he makes me, we're screwed, right?"
"He's not going to make you. He's never directly seen you.You'll be fine. Your partner, Agent Warren and I will be with you." Hunter trailed off for a moment and then went on. "If you manage to pull this off, you will be the first girlfriend he's had in thirteen years. Your task is to make him trust you."
Nina nodded, slowly, fiddling with her hair, which had only just been dyed blonde a few hours ago.
"Yeah, I get it," she said. "I need him to trust me. Then what?"
"Then Agent Holt is going to move in," said Hunter, "Once you're far enough that you know where his headquarters is, you'll be kept there."
"So, what, I'llbe part of this guy's so-called harem? If he tries to touch me, it'll all be over."
"Hold him off as long as you can. He'll allow you to have friends in and out. That's how we're going to bring him down."
"From the inside out." The door had opened without either Hunter or Nina noticing, Now, Andrea walked in, followed by Tallulah. Andrea continued as she closed it again.
"You," she said, to Hunter, "Done with the briefing?"
"Yeah, I'm done, andI'm leaving," said Hunter, moving to the door. "Detective Cassady, good luck."
And with that, he was gone. Tallulah and Andrea exchanged glancesand then looked at Nina.
"You don't actually have to be changed and on location for a few hours," said Andrea, "Do you need anything?"
Nina smirked. "A drink, maybe," she replied, dryly. "I haven't ever really done undercover like this before, I'm kind of nervous."
"You'll be fine," said Tallulah, "We'll be with you every step of the way. The only problem is that you'll have to stay within eyesight of us, so that we can give you the signal for when you're in. Delgado has a lot of tells that will let us know. If we see one, we'll be able to let you know."
"You know, for all you lot know about this guy, it doesn't feel like it'll be too hard to break him," Nina remarked, sitting on the edge of the interview room table.
Andrea snorted. "It's a lot harder than it looks. We know all about him because we've been following his organization for years, but he's elusive."
"So, I won't be wearing a wire, but everyone will be in the club with us, so if anything goes wrong, you can just move in," said Nina.
"Yeah, that's about it. You have nothing to worry about." Tallulah reached up towards her eye and shifted the color contact she had in so that it was in place again and then continued. "We've set it up with the club owners and they know we'll be there."
"Once we get you in, all we're going to need is the search warrants from the District Attorney's and US Attorney's Offices and then we'll be able to tap the phones and wire the place up," said Andrea, "That's my job. Guess you could call me the official tech dork of the task force, but there you have it."
There was silence for a long moment, before Nina finally broke it again, shifting in her position on the table.
"I never really liked the Feds before now," she said. "Guess it always just seemed like all you ever wanted to do was come in here and bowl over everyone and not even think about what was going on before you came around here."
"We do like to cooperate with the local authorities every now and then," said Tallulah, mildly. "Most of the time, they just get defensive. I'm glad we've found allies here. We definitely need them."
"If Delgado doesn't take the bait, then what's going to happen?" Nina asked. Both of the other women exchanged glances before looking at her.
"Then we're going to have to keep on trying again and again until he does. Either that or we're going to have to follow his lackeys around the entire city until they give something up or do something stupid enough to allow us to arrest them. We have jurisdiction everywhere, so if they leave the city, we can follow them," said Andrea. "That's what we're going to do."
It sounded simple. In all honesty, if they weren't currently trying to take on someone who could take them all out with a single word, it probably would have been. But the truth was that it wasn't, and that they were, and that no matter what they wanted, it probably wasn't going to turn out that way just because that was the way life was. Nothing ever turned out the way it was expected to.
"Have we heard anything from the courtroom side of things yet?" Tallulah asked finally, and Nina nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "Tori Harlan is going back down to North Carolina because they got evidence on another case tying to Delgado, and she'll be working with the team down there. Otherwise, they've got the search warrants waiting, all we're going to need is the signatures from a judge when we get what we need for probable cause."
Probable cause, however, was the last thing on Amanda's mind, as she stared at the paperwork that had appeared on her desk over the course of the past few days.
"You have got to be kidding me," she said, to no one in particular. "First I get pulled onto a damn task force because apparently, neither of the guys can function without a female presence, and then I am informed that Major Case just broke another one of their bigger cases, and now this."
"Mandy?"
Michael's voice broke into her thoughts as she trailed off, furiously, and fell backwards into one of the empty chairs in front of her desk. She turned to look at him.
"Look at this," she said. "It's freaking ridiculous. How in the hell am I supposed to focus on all of this when I have all of that to worry about? D'you want to explain that one, or am I just going to have to suck it up and find a way to deal with it?"
"You do have subordinates, the same way I do, y'know," said Michael, stepping into the office and closing the door behind him. Amanda gave him a look.
"I do not feel like shoving off my responsibilities onto my ADA's, thank you," she said, annoyed. "They have enough to deal with as it is; heaven only knows the Major Case Squad is a handful, but there you have it."
"Well, d'you know what this paperwork is for?" Michael asked, coming to sit in the empty chair beside the one that Amanda was occupying.
"Yeah," she replied, "I do. It's for all of this, the mess with the Feds, and the mess with that federal agent's murder, which, by the way, is solved, but not solved, because the two-seven still hasn't found Delgado and on top of that, we have families to worry about."
The underlying fear in this statement was not at all lost on Michael, and he frowned slightly.
"Has anyone been threatening you?" he asked, but Amanda shook her head, running a tired, frustrated hand over her face.
"No," she said. "No one's been threatening me, but I just can't help but wonder what's going to happen when it really starts getting down to the wire and there's nothing we can do except try to hide the ones that we love."
"Do you have someplace where you can send your kids until this is over?" Michael asked, and Amanda nodded.
"Yeah, I do," she said, "But it doesn't change the fact that they keep up with what's going on through the news, and they don't like it. My kids are already asking me if I'll just drop this so that nothing happens to me, and I can't, Mike, so what am I supposed to tell them?"
Silence. If Michael had an answer, it wasn't one that he wanted to give, obviously, and this bothered Amanda more than anything else. He was supposed to be the one with answers, she thought, almost amused by this. Somewhere along the lines, he had turned into the one that had an answer to everything, the one who somehow knew how to make everything right when it was all falling upside down.
Of course, the fact remained that they still both had lives of their own, never mind the fact that they were members of the Manhattan DA's office and therefore had no real time to worry about trivial things about personal lives, or so Jack had told them. They'd ignored that, mostly because they knew he hadn't meant it, and partly because they knew he had no room to tell them this in the first place. But it still didn't change the fact that there was too much to worry about it and that suddenly, it all felt like way too much to handle.
"I don't know," Mike said finally. "What I do know is that we're going to find a way out of this, and if the other side doesn't like it, well, they're going to be out of luck, because they messed with the wrong office."
"We've lost people to drug cartels before," Amanda pointed out, "It's not like it's the rarest thing in the world for these people to go after the ones who are trying to bring them down; look at how many lives this lot has already torn apart and tell me that they won't try to do worse."
"I can't, because I don't know," said Michael. "Odds are that they will, but odds are also that we'll be able to stop them before they do."
"How is it that you're so damn optimistic about all of this when things have been going up and down for so long that we're starting not to be able to tell which way is up anymore?"
"Because I don't want to think about what's going to happen if we lose this fight, and therefore, I'm not going to. It's as easy as that. Keep your mind on what you want, and maybe it'll happen."
"Life doesn't work like that, and you know it."
"And there's nothing wrong with a bit of faith in the way things do work."
"And if they don't work at all? Then what? We're chasing our tails here, and the Feds know it."
"If we were chasing our tails, they wouldn't be here."
The stupid thing about this case, however, was that it was quickly starting to turn into a game of political cat and mouse. The pressure was on the DA's office coming from the Feds to get the two-seven to find Delgado, but the two-seven was working on it. Apparently, however, it wasn't fast enough, which was why they'd been trying to bring in Major Case since the beginning, but as of yet, that hadn't happened. However, things were about to change.
"You wanna tell me why we're getting pulled in on something that the two-seven's supposed to be handling, or am I gonna have to go down there myself to find out what's happening?"
Detective Mike Logan crossed the crime scene tape that had been set up around the area of a playground on Staten Island and wandered over to where his partner stood, before continuing on.
"Tell me now," he said, "Do I want to know, or not?"
"Probably not." Detective Megan Wheeler motioned to the scene before them, and then to CSU before going on. "Two kids found this guy this morning. Apparently, he's someone important, or we wouldn't be here. CSU found this ID."
She held up a plastic bag in which was an open wallet with a photo ID clearly visible.
"A CEO," said Mike. "Lovely. Just what we need. Two-seven was handling something that had to do with drugs last time I looked. We'll need to ask Rodgers to run a tox screen."
"Already let her know," said Megan. "this guy was rumored to be running a front for one Lucas Delgado. A way to launder Delgado's drug money, I think."
"Figures," said Mike. "They earn it one way and make it look like they earned it another way, bunch of idiots. So, what draws our attention to this, besides the fact that he's a CEO?"
"I think it's just the fact that he's a CEO," said Megan, dryly. "We're probably going to have to talk to the two-seven about this, see if they know who this guy is and what he's doing in New York, since the driver's license says he's from North Carolina."
Mike frowned slightly. "North Carolina, huh?" he asked. "Heard Delgado came up from there, even though he's on parole. Two-seven and the Feds are trying to nail him for something bigger, though."
"Yeah, that's what I heard, too," said Megan, "We're definitely going to have to talk to them, now."
"They're about to go on an undercover run with the Feds, or so I heard from one of the guys over there," said Mike, "We're probably going to have to do it today unless they get delayed, but knowing the Feds, they're not going to let it happen."
Megan gave her partner a sideways look at this, and shook her head. "You have too many connections," she said, and walked off as a CSU tech waved her and Mike over.
"Found these in his pockets along with the ID," she said. "Dime bags. Either he was using, or dealing, or he forgot to pay someone off, but either way, he's dead."
"Yeah, that settles it," said Mike, shaking his head. "We definitely have to talk to the two-seven now."