Fallout
Chapter 10
Tanisha has stood in a lot of lines in her life. Sometimes it seemed like she lined up for everything. But this line is different. Harper drilled her until the last minute on how to stand, where to look – and not look. But most of all, she listens. Everyone buying pills says something different. But they all work in the same three words somewhere. She has to say blue, stone, and ick. Ick, a fish disease, is a piece of her aquarium cover story. That part will be easy. But she'll have to be careful with the other two words. As she waits, she keeps repeating her story in her mind.
Tanisha also listened as Harper and Lopez debated giving her an earpiece or a wire. But in the end, they reluctantly decided that Elijah could easily have bug detectors in the store. And if his dealers detected a signal from Tanisha, it wouldn't just blow the operation. It could mean her life. Her mentors won't be far away, but inside Stone Castle, Tanisha's on her own.
She tries not to babble as she describes creating the perfect environment using blue stone and gravel and how it broke her heart when her fish developed white spots from ick. She doesn't know if the clerk is buying her story, but he offers her capsules to put in her tank – at five times what antibiotics should cost. She tries not to be overconfident before the lab analyzes her purchase. But she's pretty sure she scored.
Harper provided the car Tanisha slides into in the parking lot. According to Nyla, the vehicle was confiscated from a drug organization in Northern California, one unconnected with Elijah Stone. Tanisha hopes Harper is right, but in any case, she won't be driving far. She'll be meeting up with Lopez and Harper a few blocks from Stone Castle.
Lopez grabs the pills as soon as Tanisha climbs into a van with Harper at the wheel. "Let's make sure we document the chain of custody. Then we'll drop these by the lab before we take you back to the academy."
"And that's it?" Tanisha asks.
"Until you hopefully identify these in court, yes," Lopez confirms.
"Believe me," Harper calls from the driver's seat, "the less exciting the assignment, the better."
The Journal of John Nolan
"I don't believe it! The union discovered that the software they used to tabulate the votes came from a supplier the Russians hacked. So, the election committee declared the results null and void. Now I have to go up against Smitty all over again. And this time he's really determined to stick it to me.
Aaron Thorsen says we have nothing to worry about, but I'm not so sure. When it comes to being underhanded, Smitty has years of practice. And I still have my thoughts about his involvement in La Fiera's escape. So does Lopez.
However, Wesley's problem matters more now. Lopez and Harper ran their sting at Stone Castle, but they don't have the lab results yet. I think Angela checks every half hour, if not more often. I can understand that. Wesley's life is on the line. Little Jackson's might be too. What could be more important than that?
Wesley is keeping his head down. As long as Elijah doesn't ask him to take on another dirty case, he'll be fine. But Elijah's out of patience. If Wesley makes a wrong step, it could be his last.
Even with all of that going on, I'm beginning to plan for Christmas. Or maybe I want to think about the holidays because everything else is so crazy. I'd love to do it all, with a big tree, lights, the whole shebang. As a member of the National Guard, Bailey is concerned with her comrades in arms who can't be with their families when Santa takes flight. She's working on a project to send care packages. It includes turning her adventures in the kitchen to making cookies. She'll be doing a lot of the baking at the firehouse, but some of it here too. She's already started. She'll only let me taste broken treats. However, even by just sampling the crumbs, I'm sure that any service member who receives Bailey's creations will have something to celebrate.
I haven't been back to writing this in a while, and so much has happened in the meantime. First of all, Lopez finally got the lab report on the pills her protégé bought at Elijah's front. It's a new variant of a drug called Flakka. Lucy gave me a short course on the neurochemistry of how it works, most of which I don't remember. But the effects are something like PCP. Victims get inflated feelings of strength. Unfortunately, those can be followed by psychotic behavior, aggression, hyperthermia, coma, and sometimes death.
Since the stuff isn't officially a Schedule 1 drug, the legal situation for selling it gets tricky. But with hospitals reporting a rise in mortality from the crap, the D.A. is going full bore after sellers. That put the clerk who sold it in a bad situation. The LAPD's buyer carefully asked only for legal antibiotics, not for any other type of drug. That rules out entrapment. The possible fatal outcomes put the seller in line for ten years in prison.
Then Elijah hit Wesley with one last chance to save himself and his family. He was supposed to get the clerk off. That meant that Lopez had to make sure she flipped the suspect before the case ever got to court.
I saw the video, and I don't know if Angela could have done a more masterful job. She gave the prosecution a witness against Elijah on a silver platter.
Unfortunately, that made Elijah even more furious at Wesley. Before anyone could pick him up, he and his lieutenant went after Wesley and not just with baseball bats but with some heavy hardware. Bradford said the last time he'd seen weaponry like that was in the army.
But Wesley made himself as ready as he could. He planted a bug in his office and rigged a hidey-hole. On top of that, Lopez gave him a com to keep in his ear at all times. She didn't even want him to take it out in the shower.
Half the division was ready to rush in on Angela's signal. Fortunately, the cops in the area didn't have to go far. As it turned out, Tim and Lucy were the first ones in, just as Elijah was pulling Wesley out of his sanctuary. Harper and Thorsen weren't far behind, and I made it there too.
Now Elijah needs an excellent lawyer, and to say the least, Wesley isn't interested in the job. Angela was nervous that the judge would grant bail. However, in light of Elijah's threats against her family, especially baby Jackson, the bastard will be locked up tight until he goes to trial. In the meantime, the detectives will be doing their best to take down the organization Elijah left behind. Stone Castle wasn't the only source of the Flakka derivative, and hospitals are still seeing patients who took the poison.
Having Elijah behind bars is probably the best present Wesley and Angela will ever have, but they're still planning on doing up Jackson's first Christmas in a big way. I think Jane Evers will have a hand in that.
I'm getting serious about my own plans. I'm looking forward to a celebration with Henry, Abigail, and of course, Bailey. The Christmas season is a busy time for firefighters. Dry trees and overloaded circuits cause enough trouble. And alcohol-fueled merriment doesn't help either, for firefighters or, for that matter, cops. Still, I'm hoping we'll have our moments, however and whenever we can grab them. I'm just praying we don't have to cuddle in a hospital bed again.