Homicide Division

Los Angeles Police Department

Los Angeles

            "Chris is clear, and his family by default." I crossed three names off my list. "There's Allison and her family, and I can't reach them, but they haven't been in town since graduation, and I don't remember for sure if I told her. Which would leave…"

          "Nobody except your employer," Sergeant Friday finished. "Which would be hell to prove."

          "Yeah, except thankfully I have some allies in high places that could help me out." I was waiting for the callback from Lex, and when I got it I was going to ask him to bring Jack and Mason in on the deal. With the two of them on my side, I could probably get Alberta Green reassigned to Toledo if I tried hard enough. "I won't say it's a sure thing, but I trust the people I need to go."

          "Which people?" Detective Smith asked me.

          "My boss and his boss. Special Agent Jack Bauer, Agent In Charge for CTU, and District Director George Mason, Senior District Director for CTU." I exhaled. "They're the ones who might be able to get past the op levels. After that I don't know. If I were on the other end of this I'd use a deniable operator, and that means there's no record of their ever operating for the Agency." I backed away from the white board we'd been using and sat on the edge of Detective Smith's desk, resting my chin on my knuckles. "What bothers me is that my field service record doesn't show any cause for alarm. I work with personnel and I know when a loyalty test might be needed, but I haven't done anything wrong."

          "Maybe you didn't have to," Sergeant Friday hypothesized.

          "Maybe I didn't." I answered my ringing cell phone. "But that's what I'm going to focus on. Lex, tell me you've got something."

          "I briefed Jack this morning. He and Mason are on it right now."

          "Well, that saves step two, which was telling you to get them on it. What do they think? Did they say?"

          "Jack wants to break something and Mason's disgruntled again."

          "I'll take that. Keep me updated the moment something breaks."

          "I always do."

          "And I thank you for that." I hung up, then looked to my police partners. "They're on it already. My partner briefed them and they went into instant action."

          "You've got good superiors, Agent Frederick," Sergeant Friday quipped.

          I smiled slightly. "Yes, sir, I do. But it'll take them most of a day or two to find out the truth."

          Detective Smith nodded. "In that case, why don't you try to get some sleep?"

          I woke up three hours later on the lieutenant's office couch. Thankfully, there hadn't been any nightmares about anything. I hadn't dreamt, period, which was odd because I usually do. Admittedly, sleep made me feel better, or it made me feel less like a paranoid special agent running on empty. If my next act had been to watch another re-airing of Can't Hardly Wait on USA it would've been just like high school, but I stood up, stretched tired limbs, and walked out back onto the floor.

          Detective Smith and Sergeant Friday had been busy since I'd been passed out. They had the white board not covered with a list of names that didn't mean anything anymore, but possible angles as to how and why the situation could've gone down. This included both scenarios with me either being the catalyst or the blowback to the Chris Fisher murder. I sure hoped as hell that I was the blowback, not for my own cleanliness of conscience, but just to think that his death hadn't been just some statistic somewhere, destined to fade into a land where there couldn't be justice for his fatality.

          "Feeling any better?" Detective Smith asked, reaching over to his desk to grab another sheet of wire copy.

          "Define better," I quipped. "Okay, slightly better."

          "Good."

          "What have you got?"

          "Theories and more theorizing."

          "That's where all good research starts, right?" I continued, walking over to join both men and observe the board. "Well, social research at least."

          "And what are you studying?"

          "Criminal justice and criminology. It used to be my minor back when I was a communications major, but when I abandoned all hope of a normal life four months ago I switched over." I smirked slightly. "Don't be too surprised."

          "You're showing me you can never be too surprised," he said, handing me a dry erase marker.

          On the way home, I took Derek home with me. Looking over my shoulder the whole way home, I explained to him the seven principal rules of engagement against Code Fives, the same seven rules Michael had explained to me and the CTU squad only two months ago. Knowing Michael, now that he knew, he would either alert the CIB team back in London or he would choose to handle the matter himself, and he would be interference. I had to get things moving before they got complicated and that included educating my allies. Derek seemed to take this in stride, but then again his eyes told me he'd seen a hell of a lot, including his supposedly dead twin brother.

          The apartment looked small: a kitchen/living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. It's not really that small. There's a door in my room everybody thinks goes to a closet, but it actually goes to a workout room. That had been Leticia's idea when it became apparent that she would be witnessing some truly spectacular kickings of my ass as well as some hopefully stellar ass-kickings on my part. I thanked her for that a lot, because I usually trained every Wednesday and Sunday night. While Detective Smith looked some stuff up on my computer, I opened the door and showed Derek the hidden realm.

          If he was going to fight these guys he'd have to be ready, and I could stand being sharper myself. Since Leticia was working late tonight I had the ability to turn AC/DC up as loud as I wanted, which I promptly did. This song I had heard somewhere in Empire Records and it just screamed slaying anthem. On that note, Derek and I got to work. He was a fast learner without that much to learn, having lived dangerously for some time now, but you could never learn enough to take on the night. I figured that out when I was bleeding in the passenger seat of a Toyota.

There ought to be a law

There ought to be a whole lot more

Tell me who can you trust

If you want blood, you got it

If you want blood, you got it

Blood on the streets, blood on the rocks

Blood in the gutter, every last drop

You want blood, you got it

Yes you have

It's animal

Feeling like a Christian

Locked in a cage

Thrown to the lions

On a second's rage

Blood on the rocks, blood on the streets

Blood in the sky, blood on the sheets

If you want blood, you got it

I want you to bleed for me

If you want blood, you got it

          I'm not made to be a hero. I was sweating, and pummeling the punching bag for nine minutes straight – two plays of that song – had hurt my knuckles pretty good (although I had been hitting it harder than usual in an attempt to take out my frustration). I forced air into gasping lungs and tried to corral my increasing heart rate. As a fighter, that was my weakness: I needed to be able to shut down physically as I could mentally, and just acquire my target.

          I looked across at Derek, who had been going after the other bag with a pretty good vengeance. Something told me he'd only improve with a weapon in his hands, from the stories he'd told about being able to use anything as a weapon. That was a tenet of combat I'd tried to learn myself. Guns jam and devices break. In the end, all you have is yourself and anything you can get your hands on, and Derek seemed to know that. He was developing a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, but his eyes were daring me to keep going.

          Nodding to him, I stepped out of the room and back into my bedroom. At my computer, Detective Smith shot me a glance.

          "What the hell are you two doing?"

          "Getting ready for the fight. There's going to be one, you know." I figured not telling him about the Code Fives would be a good idea. He might believe me because it was me, but he wouldn't accept the idea for sure, so I bypassed that. Instead, I reached under my bed, felt a rubber grip, and grabbed the object in question before heading back to the training room.

          Derek was waiting for me. I didn't actually say anything, just walked over and handed him my gun. He knew what to do with it. We all knew what to do with it. The question is if you can remember when somebody's lunging right at you. That, you never figure out until it happens. But something told me Derek had already figured out the answer I had missed. Maybe he might save a life instead of costing one.

          We didn't have much time left to find out which, and he knew it.