As always, the characters here are the creation of their respective rights holders and the wonderful actors and actresses who bring them to life for us. Thanks for letting us play with, if only for a while.

Breaking Barriers Chapter 50

Elsewhere

Deputy Commissioner David Thomas sat back in his chair and sighed, looking out of the window in his 1PP office with a weary glance, taking in the setting sun, it was an appropriate metaphor he thought.

He'd parlayed money and family power into one of the more powerful positions in New York, as the Deputy Commissioner in charge of Internal Affairs in the NYPD he had an insight into everything that was going on within the Department, all of which gave him the inside track on ousting Reagan from the Commissioner's chair. He'd spent the last few years cultivating allies, people who were happy to support him with money and influence, knowing that in time he'd be their man in the right place to help them in return.

It was power and influence managed by the right people to ensure the right people got into the right places to ensure that things stayed the way they liked it, that was the way the game was played.

Unfortunately one of the people he'd cultivated had turned out to have tastes a little too perverse for safety. City Councillor Gain Syme, well more particularly his money and the influence in City Hall it had bought, had been very helpful in assisting his rise to his current position and would have been even more helpful supporting his bid for the Commissioner's role. Unfortunately since his peccadillo's had been exposed by an investigation into some dead kids not only was that influence as dead as Syme himself, he'd become a liability to anyone associated with him.

While not a total disaster it had probably set his ambitions back by several years, that meant he'd probably have to put off any shot at the Commissioner's job for at least another term, maybe two. Given how much time and effort he'd put into getting to where he was now he wasn't impressed by postponing his ascension for another couple of years.

The trouble was he'd made his fair share of rivals and a few outright enemies during his ruthless rise to his current position, people who would be more than happy to throw Syme's support in his face, tarring him by association with a man who fucked young children.

The situation was intolerable, he certainly wasn't prepared to let something as minor and as inconsequential as this get in his way, he just had to find a way out. He looked up as his chief of staff poked his head through the door and waved him in; Paul Donner had been with him for five years and was exceptional at what he did, ruthless and ambitious, he aspired to taking Thomas' role when Thomas ascended to the Commissioner's position, between them they could mould the NYPD to better reflect their point of view, weeding out those who didn't have a place in their Department.

Taking a seat Donner carefully spoke.

"What now?"

"With that case file out there, spelling out Syme's involvement, we can't move, it's too much ammunition for my rivals" Donner nodded slowly then spoke quietly; it was a point of personal pride that he never raised his voice, he didn't have to.

"Perhaps not" At Thomas' raised eyebrow he continued. "I've looked into the case and we may be in luck. The Russian at the centre of the case has died, he didn't survive a gunshot from one of the investigating detectives" Thomas nodded; he'd seen the executive summary of the shooting team's report, as Donner pressed on. "It appears the man was paranoid to a fault, dosing everyone he encountered with his poison. The antidote to the poison apparently died with him, meaning everyone implicated is going to die" Thomas nodded, seeing a glimmer of where he was going with this.

"Go on" Donner shrugged carefully as he spoke.

"With no one to prosecute there's going to be no case, which means no publicity about Syme's…habits" He shrugged. "With the case dead we can make sure the evidence of Syme's activities vanishes, it'll be a dead issue within six months, particularly if there's no evidence or file to back it up" Thomas thought that over before replying.

"That would mean we'd still be good for the next shot at the top job" Donner nodded and replied.

"Exactly, we make the evidence disappear and the problem goes away"

"I like it, but how do we make sure the files disappear?" Donner smiled carefully before answering.

"There is an officer in IA who has an involvement with this case, a Lieutenant Tucker…" Thomas interrupted irritably.

"Is this the same Tucker that Reagan chewed me out about yesterday, something about carrying on a personal vendetta against another cop" Donner nodded.

"The very same, he has a long-standing issue with a Sergeant Olivia Benson, a 16th Precinct SVU officer who was part of the Syme case, the one who killed that Russian in fact; they've crossed swords before but Tucker has never been able to find anything to support his contentions that she's dirty" Thomas nodded slowly, thinking it through.

Reagan had made it clear that Tucker had crossed a line; he'd been caught by Victoria Gates, the 12th Precinct's captain and a former IA officer herself, though back before his time heading up Internal Affairs. Her complaints couldn't simply be swept under the rug, not helped by the fact that she'd gone straight to Reagan himself, apparently they knew each other as fellow uniformed officers years ago. Normally Thomas would have made her pay for that little insult but he didn't need any more enemies right now, he'd take care of Gates after he was Commissioner, her and a lot of other cops who'd crossed him knowingly or unknowingly over the years.

"So you think we should make use of Tucker to clean up any loose ends?" Donner nodded once.

"Yes, he's stepped in it and his career's basically ended unless he's thrown a lifeline" Thomas nodded as he thought it over then looked up.

"Let's get Tucker in then" Donner gave a sly smile.

"He's waiting outside" Thomas smiled in return; Donner was as efficient as he was ambitious, making an excellent partner. He leaned over and picked up the desk phone, calling his executive assistant.

"Marcy, I understand there's a Lieutenant Tucker in the waiting area?"

"Yes Mister Thomas"

"Please show him in" 30 seconds later Marcy was closing the door as Tucker stood there.

"Lieutenant Tucker, have a seat" Tucker nodded warily and took the indicated chair as Thomas looked him over then spoke.

"I have Commissioner Reagan after your hide, apparently you let your emotions get the better of you and went off over at the 12th precinct house" Tucker held himself still as he responded.

"I was interrogating a suspect when Captain Gates inserted herself into my investigation" Donner spoke, his voice flat.

"You got caught" Tucker looked at him but kept his mouth shut, suggesting he wasn't a fool, after a few seconds silence Thomas spoke.

"Ordinarily that would see your career end here and now however Reagan's handed your problem over to me to resolve" Tucker nodded, obviously awaiting the bad news. "Basically I can see you kicked out of the Department just as soon as the paperwork's processed, but I can use my discretion" Tucker remained silent, eyes flicking between Thomas and Donner before finally speaking.

"Yes?"

"I have need of an officer in IA who will do certain jobs I need done with no questions asked" Thomas shrugged. "In return, if you do as I ask and deliver what I need, your career doesn't have to end here" Donner nodded.

"Play your cards right and you might just make captain" Tucker thought it over for all of five seconds.

"What sort of things do you want me to do?" Thomas smiled; it was what he'd expected.

"Anything I ask, basically Lieutenant Tucker, you don't just work for me, I own you" The room was silent as Tucker grappled with the implications of that statement before he eventually and obviously acquiesced.

"Okay, what do you want me to do?"

Olivia

I stormed back up into the bullpen of the 12th in as foul a mood as you'd ever want to see; Kate saw it as her eyes widened, obviously wondering what the hell had ticked me off. I wasted no time filling her in.

"The case files and all the evidence is gone from records" She frowned as she spoke.

"What do you mean gone?" I didn't mince words.

"Exactly what I'd said, gone, all the hard copy evidence, the signed depositions, the physical samples, the crime scene imagery, everything's gone"

"What does the records show, who had it last?" I shook my head angrily, that had been my first thought too.

"That's just it, the last person to have it was you, you signed it back in last night and the record's guy signed for it, no one's signed for it since but it's all gone" Kate's jaw snapped shut as she started thinking, after about 20 seconds she looked at me, anguish in her voice.

"Jesus, that means the chain of custody's broken, none of the evidence is admissible" I nodded as she pressed on, her voice changing as she thought it through. "Someone really wanted to kill the case" I frowned.

"Pretty much everyone who might want it gone is either dead or dying, so it can't be them" Kate was quick.

"Someone else wanted that case gone, someone powerful enough to make it vanish" I nodded and asked the obvious.

"But who?" Kate shook her head, her jaw setting as she thought about it, finally she spoke.

"I have no idea, yet" I knew that look; Kate wanted to know, needed to know, the same as I did.

We spent the next hour talking to the records people, they had no record of the file being checked out; someone though had waltzed in and walked out with three large evidence boxes with no one the wiser.

Finally we ended up back in the Homicide break room as Kate made us coffee.

"It has to be someone inside the Department, they couldn't have got into that part of the building otherwise, especially out of hours. With Gates' okay we'd got Tori to look through the access logs, all she'd turned up had been a single suspicious visit late last night, someone using an un-allocated Internal Affairs identity card had swiped in and out after 11 last night.

There was no doubt they were our thieves, but we had no way of knowing who it was. An IA flag had immediately suggested Tucker but this didn't feel like him, he was by the book to a fault and rigid as fuck, stealing evidence wasn't his style plus he had nothing to gain from it.

We'd kicked it upstairs to IA but they'd come back after two hours to tell us that ID hadn't been issued, whoever had used it wasn't an IA member; I'd tried to ask who could have authorised the card but run into the usual IA wall of silence, getting the 'sorry I can't help you' run-around, making me slam the phone down hard.

"No luck?" At Kate's words I looked up and shook my head.

"They say it wasn't one of them and they won't tell me how one of their IDs got issued to a ghost and then turned up here" I sat back and ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

"A dead end, it involves IA but no one knows nothing" Kate nodded wearily.

"Normally something like this, if we'd not found anything, would be kicked to IA for an investigation, particularly with a high-profile case hanging on it, but with this case…" She frowned. "There's going to be no one to prosecute and handing it to IA…" She left that thought hanging as I grimaced.

My eyes dropped to my computer screen and noticed that the blue bar on one particular part of my desktop had filled up. I clicked 'close' and removed the memory stick from the port, getting up and walking over to Kate's desk where I placed a 64 gig USB stick on the desk top then pushed it her way. She looked at it then up to me.

"What's that?" I kept my voice down.

"A copy of all the evidence we had, I made a working copy of everything we had scanned or on file, it's not the physical evidence but it's everything else" Kate nodded, looking from the memory stick to me.

"This stuff's not admissible in court, why give it to me?" I grimaced as I replied.

"Someone wanted that file gone badly enough to steal it out of our records area, did it without a trace, someone's really, really motivated" I shrugged with a nonchalance I didn't feel" "I want you to have a copy just in case" Kate's eyes narrowed as she spoke.

"In case of what?" I knew she wasn't going to like what I said next.

"In case something happens to one of us" Her eyes widened.

"Jesus Liv, that's a bit extreme!" I glanced around and kept my voice low.

"Keep your voice down Kate" She nodded and looked round to see if anyone had heard her as I pressed on. "Is it, really Kate?" I shook my head. "Someone had enough power to get into records to steal all the evidence, to basically make the case go away, without that we can't proceed, it's dead in the water" I shook my head at the sheer audacity of the thief. "If this was a case with a victim to testify and someone to prosecute that right there would be a massive red flag, but with no one to charge and prosecute there's damn all interest in it so they can make it just vanish and the brass either don't know or don't care" I could tell Kate wasn't sold so I pressed on, making my case.

"Look Kate, someone powerful made that vanish, made the whole damned case vanish, when you think about it, it's not all that far away from that to making other things go away too" I frowned. "We both work the streets; that places us at risk" "Kate peered up at me.

"Jesus, you're serious" I looked round once; taking in the floor, no one was paying any attention to us and nodded.

"Hell yeah, a shot in the dark on an investigation and one of us goes away, if we keep digging it could happen again" I shrugged. "The nature of the crimes we do makes us both targets, and it doesn't cost all that much for a ganger with a gun"

"You're actually serious" I nodded as she realised I was, I had my suspicions and wanted Kate to be careful, if that meant maybe overstating things, then so be it.

"You better believe it Kate. Someone wanted this investigation shut down, someone powerful enough to fake an IE pass and get away with it scot free, if we make too much noise about this, well we might just end up a loose end that needs to be dealt with too" Kate tipped her head down to look at the USB before sweeping it up and into her jacket pocket.

"I'll keep your copy but I think you're nuts"

"Better alive to be nuts than not" She looked up to regard me as she spoke.

"Paranoid much?" I wasn't having a bar of it.

"Like the saying says, it ain't paranoia if they are out to get you"