Rank and File
By Chella "Klawz" Reaves

URL: http://www.yubrykon.com

E-mail: klawz_hangar@hotmail.com

Summary: A string of murders has feathers ruffled at Enforcer Headquarters. Can the SWAT Kats and Feral really work together on this case? And could Callie's new boyfriend know more than he's telling?

Date: Completed on October 31, 2002. It will need no updates.

Rating & Warning: PG-13 for violence. (Violence is mostly implied.)

Disclaimer: "SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron", its characters and concepts are copyright to Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Inc. and I have used them without permission. All concepts and characters not found in the show were created by me and I appreciate you asking permission or not using them! (I don't bite unless provoked. :) )

Author's Comments: This is the first fan-fiction I've written in several years (unless you count rpg-related fanfiction). The only reason I wrote it at all (since I don't read much of it anymore unless a friend tells me I should) is because the idea hit me up-side the back of my head and dragged me off by my hair and made me write it. Unless another fanfic idea does that to me again, or unless I'm highly encouraged, it's unlikely that I'll write another for awhile. I do hope you enjoy it, and I hope you appreciate the fact that this story is as close to canon as I could make it. :)

~Klawz

Deputy Mayor Calico "Callie" Briggs hurried down the sidewalk towards City Hall. Her car was in the shop - second time this year - and she'd had her taxi drop her off a few blocks away in front of her dry cleaner's so she could finally pick up that suit she'd had cleaned a month ago. Her schedule often had her working later than the hours the dry cleaner was open and she hadn't had the opportunity to pick it up before now. So she had her suit slung over one shoulder in it's plastic bag and her briefcase in the other hand.

You'd think that a woman in a bright pink dress-suit with a plastic bag 'cape' flapping in the breeze would be noticeable, but people keep walking right into me! Callie grumbled to herself and sidestepped another hurried pedestrian. Just to be safe, she looked ahead to make sure a super villain wasn't terrorizing the nearby area, causing the katizens' unseemly haste, but the lack of gunfire, screams, roars, and crumbling building materials reassured her.

Her sudden relaxation of her guard was immediately rewarded by someone smashing into her from behind. She had weak ankles, which couldn't handle the sudden shift in her balance - definitely not in heels! - and she fell to the sidewalk. Callie's briefcase dropped to the pavement and fell open, scattering documents. "Sorry!" the kat called over his shoulder, continuing on without a backward look.

"Ugh!" she groaned, hurrying to gather up the papers before they flew into traffic. Thankfully, the earlier rush had abated (Which means I'm late... not that the Mayor will notice, he never gets in until noon-ish anyway...), so the papers weren't being trampled.

"Here, let me help." Callie looked up, and a friendly-looking kat smiled down at her before he turned and began picking up the pages as well.

While his back was turned, Callie stole looks at him. He was of about average height and average build. His fur color was that grey-ish brown that was relatively common, and his hair color was a slightly darker brown. But his smile saved him from being just average. It turned his nondescript features into boyishly charming, and his grey eyes crinkled a little at the corners. He was about her age, and all-in-all, she thought he was rather attractive.

In the meantime, he'd gathered up the documents she'd lost and was now walking over to her. "Here you go, miss," he said, and smiled.

Grateful, and a little interested, she beamed up at him as she stashed the papers into the case and snapped the latches closed again. "Thanks! They say you can judge how a day is going to go by how it starts off - so I assume today's going to be horrible and I could use all the help I can get!"

He blinked a moment and then offered her his hand. "Glad I could help," he peered closer at her as he helped her to her feet and smiled. "I'm going to sound like an idiot if I'm wrong but... you wouldn't happen to be Deputy Mayor Briggs, would you?"

She grinned and picked up the dry cleaner bag, in a good mood, she quipped, "Depends on if you have a compliment or a complaint."

He laughed and made a shy, boyish gesture of running his fingers through his hair. "Well... a compliment. You probably hear this all the time, but you're prettier in person than on the news."

He sounded like he meant it, and Callie tried not to blush. Deputy Mayors didn't blush after all, they were always in control of their emotions. Okay, so she wasn't always in control of her emotions, but she was too old to blush at a compliment. "You're too kind," she said, and hurriedly changed the subject before she could feel too awkward about her response. "You didn't give me your name, though."

"Grendel Burbank." He seemed to note her glance at her watch and said, "I'm probably making you late for work, aren't I?"

Callie gave him a guilty smile and diplomatically said, "Well, I was late already without having run into you." She didn't really want to be on her way just yet, though her practical- dependable side started reciting all the reasons why she should leave. You don't know anything about him. You've got work to do. You're never late - the receptionist will think you're sick or something's wrong and she'll call the Mayor and Manx will get upset and likely walk a hole in his carpet as he jibbers with the responsibility of actually being the mayor for the day, and by the time you calm him down it'll be tee-time and you'll have wasted most of the day...

Ruthlessly, she countered herself with, Ah, but Grendel Burbank looks like a nice guy. He's well groomed, his clothing is neat, clean and respectable. He sounds intelligent and he's got a nice smile - how many guys have I run into in this city with anything approaching that combination? Well, okay, the SWAT Kats, but they're not exactly dating material - as romantic as the idea is, I don't think I'd stand to have a relationship with a guy who wore a mask all the time, and if the relationship progressed to the point where he let me in on his secret identity, I'd worry too much about him going off and saving the city - and offended if he didn't share! And there are some of the lobbyists and reporters - but dating one of them would be a bad career move, since I'd be accused of favoritism or giving inside reports. And then there are some nice businessmen and Enforcers, but they're both often workaholics and only one workaholic per relationship has a chance of working...

He smiled. "So I'm just making you more-late. How about I walk you to City Hall, then? One of the perks of my job is I rarely have to start at a specific time, so you won't be making me late for anything." He grinned at her to show his comment was in good humor, and she nodded and smiled back, adjusting the plastic dry cleaning bag over her shoulder as she reached for her briefcase. "Let me carry that for you," he said, plucking the case out of her hand and making a fluid hand gesture to indicate she should lead the way.

Callie smiled and started towards City Hall. "What do you do, Mr. Burbank?"

"First off, call me Gren, please," he grinned over at her. "Pretty ladies calling me 'Mr. Burbank' makes me feel like I'm in a doctor's office. And I'm a freelance photographer."

That means he's consistently unemployed, her practical-sensible side muttered smugly. No it doesn't. And it wouldn't matter if it did. She responded and aloud she said, "Like landscapes or portraits?"

"Mostly portraits. And if I'm on the scene of Something Interesting (capital S, capital I), I take photos and sell them to one of the local newspapers. Not something I'd like to do full- time, though, so it's mostly private commissions of modeling portfolios or family portraits and the like."

"That sounds great. It's not often that an artist gets to do what they like for a living."

"Yeah, I guess I am lucky that way. How about you? What's it like working with the Mayor?"

Callie laughed, trying not to let even a hint of scorn creep into it. It wasn't that Mayor Manx was a bad mayor, he used to be quite a good one, in fact... until he lost is wife. After that, he buried himself in his golf hobby and simply hired competent Deputy Mayors to do his work for him. Callie herself was his sixth - none of the previous could handle the strain. One of them actually had a heart attack in the office and two others quit after contracting terrible ulcers. One would think that Manx would prefer to just retire, but the thought of that seemed to terrify him. Callie guessed that was because he'd have to go live in his mansion alone, rather than breaking his day into public appearances and golf. And she supposed she understood it, if she'd been in the same situation, she wasn't sure she'd handle it much differently.

She realized that he was waiting for an answer and smiled over at him. "Well, if I didn't like the job, I would certainly have moved on to another job or another city with the same job. Bossy women like myself need something to do, and running a city is one of them."

Gren laughed. "Oh, I don't think 'bossy' is the right word, here... Must be exciting, meeting all those people. Reporters like Ann Gora, great military men like Commander Feral - and the SWAT Kats."

"I suppose so," she said, looking thoughtfully at City Hall as they approached. "I never really thought of it like that. They're just people, like you and myself."

"I didn't quite mean it in that way. Perhaps 'interesting' is more the word I meant. You come in contact with them almost daily. You must have gotten to know them on a more personal level..." His eyebrow lifted, a silent prod for her to share.

Callie shrugged, "Ann and I meet at some social functions. It's difficult to have a more personal relationship - like being friends - because of her job, though. She can't help but fish for more information if she smells a story. Commander Feral..." She paused to control her slight sneer, "He lives his job more-so than Ann. If his underwear isn't strictly regulation, I'd be surprised."

Gren laughed again and Callie grinned back. "As for the SWAT Kats... well, it's hard to be friends with people who wear masks and you only see them when something chaotic is going on...."

"But you are friends?" he asked, tilting his head to the side and walking up the steps of City Hall with her.

Callie smiled. "Yes, I'd have to say that despite how unusual it is, we're friends."

He smiled and motioned to the front doors of the building. "Well, we're here, Ms. Briggs. I'm sorry you're late, but hopefully you didn't find the company too distracting."

"Call me Callie. And, no, the company was welcomed."

Shyly, he handed her the briefcase and smiled. "Then maybe you could stand to share my company again? Say, for dinner sometime?"

Callie brushed her blonde hair out of her face and smiled back. "Yes, I'd like that. Why don't you call me sometime and we'll try to work out a time?" She fished around in her jacket pocket until she came up with a business card, which she handed to him. "If I weren't so late, I'd give you my home number..."

He took the card and pocketed it with a smile. "I'll call this afternoon sometime, then."

"Looking forward to it, Gren. And thanks for the help earlier." She gave him a little wave with her fingertips, her hands otherwise full, and slipped into the building.

She was right about one thing, and wrong about another. It did take her most of the day to calm down Mayor Manx. And she was wrong - deputy mayors did blush.

Gren called, and Callie had a wonderful time talking with him. She agreed to a date the following evening and he suggested one of the classier restaurants in the city. The conversation meandered for awhile and she thought it was one of the more interesting and amusing she'd had in years.

Eventually, the conversation made its way to slightly more serious topics. Gren asked, "So, if you don't spend after-hours time with Commander Feral, Ann Gora, or the SWAT Kats, who do you spend time with?"

Callie laughed softly and looked down at the speech she was editing for the mayor during the conversation. "Occasionally some of my college girlfriends and I will go out for drinks and a movie. I date sometimes. There are the office parties... But I suppose that's not what you really mean. I'm afraid that my job makes it difficult for relationships like that to develop, and my college girlfriends are workaholics like myself." She put a smile in her voice, to make it clear that she had no real regrets.

"Surely there can be friendship without having to go to the movies or have drinks or spend a lot of time with someone. You mentioned earlier that you considered yourself friends with the SWAT Kats, and you don't see them as often as it seems like, right?"

"That's true," Callie mused. "Then, I suppose I'd have to say I'm friends with Dr. Sinian - the museum curator. She's a very pleasant person to be around and I very much respect her intelligence. Whenever I see her at public functions I seek her out so I'll have someone intelligent to speak to."

When she didn't continue, Gren gently prodded her again. "And no one else? You've only mentioned women so far..." there was a teasing note to his voice, "Are we males unfit for your friendship? Are we only useful in the dating sense?"

Callie laughed and shook her head, even though she knew he wouldn't see it. "You know that's not true! Let's see..." Her eyes fell on her desk calendar and she was reminded that she had to pick up her car today. She laughed. "Well, I just noticed I'm supposed to pick up my car today at the garage. I think of the mechanics there as my friends. Though..." she looked at the clock and frowned, "I think they'll gladly renounce it if I'm late. And it's going to be impossible to find a cab at this hour!"

Gren chuckled. "No worries on that. I have a car, and if you can suffer me playing knight-errant for you again, I can swing by and take you there." Callie thanked him and he said he would be there in a few minutes. "Just look for the red car." They hung up and Callie gathered her things together and went downstairs to wait.

It was only a few minutes later when a sleek and sporty red car pulled up and Gren hopped out. "Your chariot, m'lady," he quipped. Callie was impressed, though she tried not to show it. She hadn't thought Gren was quite that successful.

"Nice car, Gren," she said, as she climbed inside. She pretended to look him over and said, "Hmm.. you appear to have all your arms and legs attached..."

Gren laughed as he pulled away from the curb. "Yeah, it would have cost me an arm and a leg, but I know someone and they got me a great deal. Which garage are we going to?" Callie gave him the directions. "No sweat, the Red Herring and I will get you there before you've had time to settle in."

She gave a little gurgle of laughter. "The Red Herring? You named your car?"

He looked over and gave her a pattern-card expression of good-humored sheepishness. "Doesn't everyone?"

"But why the Red Herring?"

Gren shrugged, smiling faintly. "Well, the car is very red, and I love fish. Put it down to my sense of humor and my stomach." He slanted a look at her as if to see her reaction, but Callie only continued to laugh as they pulled into the garage's lot.

They climbed out and Callie noticed an eager blond kat in the garage coveralls hurry on out to meet her. "Miss Briggs!" he said, then did a double-take at the car and shot what seemed to be a suspicious look at Gren.

"Hi Chance! This is Gren Burbank. He gave me a ride here."

Gren gave Chance a considering look and said, "And I'll be taking her out to dinner tomorrow."

Callie blinked at the smooth delivery of the line. It was almost like a gauntlet was thrown down. And by the way Chance bristled at it, he thought so too. Thankfully, Chance's shorter, slimmer partner Jake ambled out, using a rag to wipe his hands. "Hi Miss Briggs!" His dark, canny eyes slid over to Gren and Chance, who were giving each other a stare-down. "Who's your friend with the nice car?"

Gren broke eye contact with Chance and grinned over at Jake. "Like 'er? Great gas mileage and a dream to drive."

Jake gave Chance a quelling look before he said anything. "Looks great. If it ever gives you trouble you know where to come. Chance and I love working on great looking cars. Speaking of, Miss Briggs, yours is ready."

Callie gave Jake a look that she hoped silently conveyed her heart-felt, sincere thanks for diverting Gren and Chance. He smiled shyly back and lead the way into the garage. Callie followed him, wondering why the two had set up each other's hackles. She told herself it was probably because of some guy thing she wouldn't understand, decided that was rational, and let it go.

Chance Furlong eyed the other kat warily. Gren Burbank gave him a cool look in return. The moment Callie's back was turned, Gren's cheerful facade fell away. Chance would bet that this was the real face Gren Burbank wore. Cold, calculating and smug.

"I don't suppose you have any... objections to me dating Callie...?" Burbank asked, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting his weight - this whole posture said, But if you do, what are you going to do about it anyway?

Objections? Of course he had objections! There was no way this smooth, smug SOB should be allowed near Callie! But... he couldn't say that. Callie was a grown woman and could take care of herself. Chance fought down his natural reaction and didn't speak until the fur on his arms had stopped bristling. Affecting a nonchalance he didn't feel, Chance shrugged and smiled. "Hey man, she's not my little sister."

Gren narrowed his eyes and frowned suspiciously. "You seemed to have a problem with it a few minutes ago."

Chance twisted his red cap backwards and shoved his hands into his back pockets. "I thought you were someone I didn't like when you first showed up..." Chance drawled, letting his eyelids droop in a lazy manner. "Knew a guy, once, who looked a bit like you. Treated his girlfriend like she wasn't worth anything. Told him that if I saw him again, he'd have to re-learn how to walk... Took me a minute to realize that it wasn't you." He paused, inwardly surprised that he'd just said the truth.

Burbank gave Chance a long, considering look. Then he shrugged and gave one of his friendly, happy-go-lucky grins. "Hey man, I understand. Don't worry, I'll take good care of your friend Miss Briggs."

Chance was saved from having to make a reply by the arrival of Callie and Jake. She thanked them for working on her car and Gren for driving her, and soon left. Burbank followed immediately after.

Jake waited for the dust to settle and then looked over at Chance, raising an eyebrow. "What was that all about?"

Chance suddenly felt sheepish for his reaction. "He just.. rubbed me the wrong way, Jake." He shrugged and went into the garage's living room and plopped in front of the TV. He hunted half-heartedly for the remote. Just where did he stash it last time?

Jake followed him in and leaned over the back of the couch. Calmly, the orange-brown kat plucked the elusive remote from between two couch cushions, but didn't offer it to his partner. "If this is about him dating Callie... you should know better. It's not like you ever asked her out."

Chance growled in response and reached for the remote. Jake snatched it away and crossed his arms. "Look, Chance, you're my best friend - probably the best I ever had - and that entitles me to tell you when you're acting like a jealous jerk. If you and Callie were dating, I can see why you'd get your fur ruffled, but you have no reason to get mad."

The room was silent for a moment, and Chance didn't look back at his friend. Instead, he slumped over to lean against the arm of the couch. "Look... Jake... It's not that. You know that I know Callie and I'd never work. I like her. I admit I'm even over-protective of her..." He let his explanation drift off.

Jake waited patiently a few moments before asking, "Then why did you bristle up?"

The blond kat sighed and shrugged. "You know that girl I told you about?"

His friend laughed. "Which one?"

Chance gave him a small smile. "Katie Felis, the one I almost married before I joined the Force."

Jake walked over and sat on the coffee table, facing his friend. "Yeah, the pretty blonde. I remember meeting her - she was the one who joined up a few years after we did, right?"

The other nodded and rubbed a finger under the band on his cap, thinking and remembering. "Told you how my rookie year I was called out because her new boyfriend mistook her for a punching bag, right? Seems she told him that she was going to join up and he didn't think much of her independent thinking."

Jake nodded slowly. "Yeah... I remember. We were rooming at the base then and you came in, calmly punched a hole through the wall and then started shouting." Jake gave his friend a slight smile. "I think everyone in the barracks knew after that. I remember thinking that it was lucky that you kept yourself more or less calm until after you checked him into the brink and didn't let that punch go through the guy's face."

"Not that I didn't think about it," Chance said, not quite smirking.

"So seeing a blonde friend with another guy triggered the memory or what?" Jake asked, eyebrows raised.

The burly kat shook his head. "You know me better than that, right? No, Burbank kinda looks like the guy... Though a lot of people look like that guy. When I referred to the story, he didn't seem to recognize it as his own, though. And his name wasn't Burbank either."

"Maybe you should look up Katie Felis again, Chance. She might know where her ex is. It'll make you feel better to know that the real guy is in Timbuktu or wherever."

"Yeah.. Maybe I will."

A fat folder landed on his desk and Commander Ulysses Feral turned a baleful eye towards the origin of it. His niece glared back.

"Uncle-"

"Commander," Feral corrected her.

"Commander, I need to bring this to your attention. Over the past five years, at least twenty Enforcers have been killed or turned up missing -"

"Surely more than that, Lieutenant," Feral raised one of his bushy black eyebrows at his niece. She gave him another dark look.

"If I may continue, Sir." Feral nodded, inwardly amused, pleased that his attempts at nettling her weren't overly breaking her stride. "Sir, these deaths were not in the line of duty, all are unsolved, and all were killed in the same manner."

"And the missing? You know our job is a rough one. Some of the first terms just don't understand the work and danger involved. Rather than going through the nasty process of resigning their position through the normal channels, some of them would rather go AWOL and move to another city to get out of it. You know it's happened more than once. What makes you think the disappearances and the murders are related?"

"Sir, the ones who have disappeared have all been third or even fourth term Enforcers. There are other disappearances that I'm not counting since they are from first termers, though I think some of them may be related too. None of their family knows how to contact them, and almost all of them were reported as Missing Persons by their friends, family, or even landlords. Their apartments are sometimes ransacked in similar patterns to the houses of the murdered Enforcers, and this is why I think they're related."

"And why are you bringing it to my attention?" Strictly speaking, after all, it wasn't his job to worry about cases. He was simply to co-ordinate his forces and lead them on the field.

"Sir, I brought it to Steele and he refused to have anything to do with it." Felina's dark eyes snapped with repressed fury.

"You're personally involved, Lieutenant," Feral observed coolly.

Felina paused and took a slow breath. "... Yes sir, I am. I've known several of this madman's victims."

The way his niece's jaw was set, her lips thinned, and her strong fingered hands clenched, Feral knew there was more to it than she just 'knew' them, but he also knew better than to ask if they were friends, or even more than friends. He didn't want to think of his niece as old enough to date, it was hard enough for him to reconcile with himself her being on the Force at all. It was a pity that little girls had to grow up sometime.

"I'll forward the file to the FBI, Lieutenant. They may have similar cases on file." Feral finally said.

"Already done, sir. They advised me that they had a series of murders like these..." she paused then continued, "...which culminated in the murder of a high-ranking city government official."

Feral raised his eyebrow. "Are you implying that I might be in danger that's more than I can handle, Lieutenant?"

"No sir, I'm implying the mayor is."

Jake Clawson walked into the living room area of the garage just in time to see Chance set down the phone receiver. "Ah, did you call Officer Felis?" He asked cheerfully. Chance turned a blank face towards his friend and Jake noticed he was pale under his fur and his ears were drooped with distress. "What's wrong, Chance?"

The blond kat didn't respond immediately and Jake felt the pit of his stomach drop with dread. "She's.... dead, Jake."

"Dead??" Jake cried, shocked.

Chance's eyes were round with his own shock and distress, not quite focusing on anything. "Murdered... Two years ago."

The slimmer kat just stared back at his friend, too surprised to think of any sort of appropriate response.

Like Chance was a machine warming up, he began speaking faster and faster, finally leaping up in frustration and anger. "... I knew that I hadn't been keeping in contact, but I thought her family would have told me... Two years... Two years! I bet it was that guy! What's his name?? Argh!" He thrust his hands into his hair and tugged.

"Chance! Calm down, buddy, calm down!" Jake was uneasy to see his friend in that state. "You need more facts before you can start throwing out theories like that!"

Chance glared at his friend. "You weren't there, Jake! You didn't see the look that monster gave Katie when we cuffed him and put him in the patrol car!"

Jake gritted his teeth and responded as calmly as he could. "No, I wasn't. But it's been five years since that happened, if he was going to try something, he would have tried it before two years ago!"

"....Maybe," Chance replied, finally. His fists were clenched and the muscles in his forearms were flexing as he tried to calm himself down. Jake waited, inwardly worrying. Chance let his head fall forward in defeat. "...I wasn't there to protect her." He turned bleak eyes to his friend. "The woman I might have been married to right now is dead, and I didn't know. I never kept in touch. Maybe I could have stopped it..."

"There are probably dozens of close friends that either of us hasn't contacted in awhile, Chance. It's not our fault if something happened to them since the last time we've spoken to 'em. Even if we'd been there, we might not have been able to do a thing. You can't torture yourself with 'may haves' and 'maybes'. The best we can do is try to find out who did this to her."

The other was silent for a few minutes, and Jake heard his heart pounding in his ears. He wasn't sure what he'd say if Chance continued to be doubtful. Finally, the blond kat sighed. "You're right... So we'll have to get copies of the report."

"Right. Perhaps we can contact Lt. Feral and have her give us the file."

"And if not, we can always sneak in and steal them," Chance smirked.

Jake eyed his friend warily. "Yes. We can, but only if necessary."

Please continue to the next segment!

~K