It's 4:00 AM, and I'm still up running on caffeine with a 9:30 class tomorrow morning, but hey, it's only history, right? I can always sleep through that. No problems there….
Disclaimer: any inaccuracies regarding documentation available, etc. at the University of Denver's Penrose Library or the Denver Public Library are completely unintentional as I have never been to either place (in fact, I've never been to Colorado, period) and based the information used in this chapter on my experiences with the library here on my own college campus. But, that is why it's called fan fiction right?
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CHAPTER 6Ezra sat hunched over the computer terminal, his attention focused completely on the screen before him. He had been here for hours, diligently searching through mountains of information for what he needed, slowly working his way through the bureaucratic red tape and the various firewalls and other protective measures designed to keep people from doing the very thing he was doing at the moment.
While JD was the indisputable master when it came to all things computer, Ezra was no slouch himself and a fairly efficient hacker in his own right. The skills proved to be the veritable cyber lock pick he often needed to obtain the evidence he was seeking while undercover, and he worked to keep them sharpened and honed.
They also proved useful in other ways. In Atlanta, he could not depend on his co-workers to provide the crucial information he needed to protect himself while undercover, and as at times his very life depended on the knowledge he gained, he had learned to obtain what he needed himself. It was just another area in which he had to watch his own back, having no support and no one to fall back on when things went sour.
And it was another area in which he had been pleasantly surprised when he first came to team seven.
He had been shocked the first time he went undercover for Larabee. When he had received the assignment, he had automatically assumed he would be doing his own research, as he had always done in Atlanta. But the others had not forced that job on him. They had diligently and painstaking researched, checked, and double checked all their sources to make sure they provided him with accurate information. For the first time in a very long while, he had exactly what he needed, when he needed it, and had not been forced to improvise on the fly.
And this had been the norm for every case proceeding.
But even as he was bountifully grateful for their help, he still kept his own skills in practice, the tiny voice in the back of his head constantly reminding him that it wouldn't last forever, that eventually he would screw up, like always, and they too would feed him to the wolves like everyone always eventually did.
It wasn't so much that he expected them to fail him, an eventuality that he prepared for by keeping his distance and forming no attachments—no, it was that he firmly believed that he would fail them.
Because he always did, no matter how hard he pushed himself for perfection, no matter how hard he worked and strived to be the best at his job. It was an indisputable fact—He, Ezra P. Standish, was a screw up. And he would, he knew it; eventually, he would let them down and be left alone in the cold once again.
It was only a matter of time.
"But not this time," he vowed fiercely to himself. This time had too much counting on it, too many people's lives in the balance.
He was not going to fail this time.
After completing a bountiful brunch, he and Alex had headed to the University of Denver's Penrose Library, at her suggestion. Ezra had needed a public terminal with unlimited access to state documents, and a way to remain anonymous while he performed his research. She had informed him that the university library was a depository for federal documentation, and was also connected to the state network, including the federal building. He would have perfect access to what he needed, provided he could get around the various blocks on the system, which he assured her he could do easily.
Another plus was that during the semester, the campus library was open much later than the public library further downtown. And it had computer cubicles to provide the students privacy as they worked.
All in all, it was exactly what he needed.
They had reached the large building around four then split up, he entering the structure and she leaving to complete a few errands. It had been ridiculously easy to con his way into the computer lab and gain access to a computer, and he had set to work immediately. Ally had promised to return by eleven—it was now fifteen minutes till. Ezra rubbed his eyes tiredly and stretched while glancing around the room, noticing for the first time that he was completely alone. He looked down at the pile of documents beside him and straightened them into a neater stack. It had taken a lot of effort, but he now had plenty of evidence to work with and a place to start. He looked up as the door opened and Alex slipped through quietly. She had her jacket wrapped snuggly around her, and her cheeks were pink from wind exposure. She carried a large paper bag in one hand and the ever-present black back pack over her shoulder. She set the bags down in the floor beside him. "You about finished here?" she asked.
"Quite." Ezra sat back and tapped the small stack of papers. "Here it is—a listing of all properties held by Fieldman Contracting and Construction, as well as financial statements for the last year," he smiled at her smugly.
"Great," she said as she pulled over a chair from the nearest cubicle and sat down on it. "So what did you find out?"
He pointed to the screen. "On the surface, the company is very much on
the up and up. Business is doing
well. They made a modest profit last
year and the year before that. They keep
all their taxes up to date, follow all appropriate safety measures, have excellent employee benefits."
"But…" she prodded.
"But there are some small inconsistencies. Such as this commission they completed last June." He rifled through the pages beside him before pulling out a few sheets to show her. "This statement," he handed her a paper, "shows a materials estimate and construction cost projection for an office complex in Aurora. The materials sheet shows that the project was estimated to cost a total of seven hundred and fifty thousand, not including engineering costs."
Alex whistled lowly as she glanced over the page in her hand. "That's a lot of money."
He handed her another sheet. "This is the final report given to the company that owned the new building. It states that final costs totaled six hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars, a full sixty-three thousand under budget."
She glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. "I bet the company was very happy," she remarked dryly.
He nodded in agreement. "I'm sure. This statement," he handed her a third page, "is Fieldman's official report, showing that the final costs were seven hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, or thirty-three thousand under budget."
Alex's brows furrowed. "That's thirty thousand short. What did they spend the extra money on, and why did they absorb the cost themselves, especially if they were under budget to begin with?" she asked.
Ezra smiled his approval. "My question, exactly. Which led to a further study of the expense accounts during construction." He pointed to a column on the Fieldman report. "It shows here that the company hired exactly twenty-two men to complete the project. However," he pointed to a similar row on the other report, "this page says that twenty men were hired. That's two men unaccounted for. Now at approximately fifteen dollars a man per hour, ten hours per day, five days per week, and a total construction time of twenty weeks, the extra funds come to thirty thousand dollars."
"The amount of money the company was short." Alex studied the pages then looked up at him with a frown. "So why did they hire the extra men?"
"Ah, but look at this." He handed her another sheet labeled Employees.
She scanned the details then paused at the end before looking back up at him with wide eyes. "There's only twenty men listed here."
Ezra's smile widened and he sat back in his seat. "Exactly."
"A typo, maybe?"
"One would think that, and indeed, that is probably what the company's accountants assumed as well, seeing as the bank records are in accordance with the report shown to the hiring company." He crossed his arms, his gold tooth glinting in the fluorescent light from above.
"Alright. What am I missing, then?"
He pulled one of the ledgers from the briefcase and flipped through it until he came to the page he was looking for. "This is a record of a transaction of illegal armaments bought from a small arms supplier in Indonesia in June. Notice the total expenditure," he pointed to a red line at the bottom of the page.
She leaned over to see what he was alluding to and a slow grin spread across her face as she read the amount. "Thirty thousand dollars." She met his eyes. "The exact amount the company was short and the amount it cost to hire the two extra men—all in the same time frame. But how did they explain it away?" she questioned.
"Like you pointed out, it was probably assumed to be a typo on the Fieldman report, seeing as how the bank statement agreed with the second report," he explained as he flipped a few pages over. "However, according to this ledger, the purchased armaments were sold a month later to a small rebel force in South America. At the same time, the company completed a second project in Boulder, estimated to cost nine hundred thousand. The final expenditures of that project were nine hundred and fifty thousand, according to the report Fieldman gave the hiring company, giving them a total of fifty thousand over budget. The Fieldman report, however, claimed that final costs were only ten thousand over budget, thus over-charging the company forty thousand dollars."
"But when the bank statement showed up, it agreed with the Fieldman report," Alex interrupted.
Ezra nodded with a quick smile of approval. "You're catching on."
"So why didn't the other company put up a fuss?"
"The hiring company is a foreign corporation, headquartered in—"
"No, let me guess," she interrupted. "Headquartered in the same foreign country as the rebels who bought the armaments."
"You got it." He sat back and stretched his arms behind him, intertwining his fingers at the base of his skull, a smug grin hovering on his lips.
She sat back and let out a small breath. "So even though the reports didn't match, no one suspected anything because the bank statement always agreed, and the total amounts always came out. But if they were using the company to move their illegal money, why didn't the bank catch on?" she asked.
"Ah, but there's the clincher. If you'll take note of the appellation of the banking institution utilized by Fieldman, you'll see that they used Weston Banking and Trust to hold their funds." He caught the confused look starting to form on her face, and explained further. "Weston Banking is a small institution here in the Denver area. It used to be a large conglomerate, but over the years has suffered financial troubles and is now just a small chain of poor little banks in the less appealing areas of the city."
Alex furrowed her brows and leaned forward on her knees. "I can see that it looks odd that such a successful company would be using a rundown and dying bank to hold its money, but I don't see what you're driving at."
"Oh, that's right," he remembered with a snap of his fingers, "you had no idea whose demise you witnessed back in the hangar yesterday, did you?"
Alex shook her head. "All I know is that his name was Chester Banning."
Ezra raised his forefinger into the air, like a professor about to prove an important point. "Ah, but you see, Mr. Banning was employed as general manager of the Purgatorio branch of Weston Banking and Trust."
Alex's eyes widened. "So he was not only doing the accounts for the illegal activities, he was also doctoring the bank statements!"
Ezra sat back and grinned. "Exactly."
"But this is all circumstantial. There is nothing directly tying Fieldmans to the illegal activity."
"That's where you are wrong, my dear." He turned back to the computer and hit a few more keys. "You see, the foreman of Fieldman Contracting is a man named Hulio Martinez. After a little more digging, I found that Hulio Martinez actually did not exist before 1991."
"So the name's an alias. Who was he, then?"
Ezra smiled as the picture he was looking for came up, and he slid his chair over to give her a clear view of the mug shot on the computer screen. "Tony Vitalis!" she exclaimed in surprise. She leaned back in her seat and let out a breath slowly. "Wow. So now we have Fieldman Contracting linked to a known criminal and arms smuggler, the same one you've been investigating. But we still don't have the storage spot, and we still don't have a link to Randolph."
He sighed. "I realize that. However, I do now have a listing for several properties belonging to Fieldmans Contracting. I'm sure that if we find where they keep their supplies, we will find the records to take us to Randolph."
"So what do we do next?"
Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose. "While we have documentation showing that Vitalis is linked to Banning via the illegal accounts, we have nothing proving that Banning was doctoring the bank statements of Fieldmans."
"So if you were to go after Vitalis now, you would get him, and maybe a few others, but the company could potentially get off," she frowned.
"Yes," Ezra agreed as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles while sliding his hands into his pockets. "And in order to shut the gun smuggling down, we need to fell the entire operation, meaning we must take down the entire company."
"So you need proof that the company accounts were indeed absorbing the illegal funds." Alex crossed her arms and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "And how do you propose to do that? You can't get a legal warrant to search Banning's office without contacting your boss, and you can't contact your boss without risking tipping off Randolph."
"I need to find the proof first and move it to a safe place from which I can retrieve it later under legal means," he noted.
"So you plan to do a little snooping in Banning's office without official permission," Alex stated. She gave him a questioning glance and a frown. "That's fine and dandy but for one thing. Vitalis knows that Banning double crossed him," she pointed out. "How do you know he hasn't already taken that proof?"
"Ah, but he didn't find out about Banning's deceit until late last night, which did not give him time to get back to the office. And the bank is in operation until seven tonight, being Friday night. The employees won't finish their duties until closer to eight, possibly eight thirty. Vitalis simply hasn't had the opportunity to remove to evidence. Tonight will probably be my only chance to get to it before he does, however," he explained.
Alex's frown deepened. "And what if he gets the same idea tonight?"
Ezra shrugged. "It's a chance I must take if I am to pull down the entire house of cards."
She could see the determined glint in his eye and sighed. "And I don't suppose there is a chance I could talk you out of this?"
He shook his head and smiled, and she sighed again with a shrug. "Well, then. I guess we're making a trip to Purgatorio tonight."
It was now Ezra's turn to frown. "I would prefer that you sit this one out, my dear. It could prove to be very dangerous."
She cocked an eyebrow at him, readying herself for an argument. "We've been over this before, Ezra. I've been living on the streets for quite a while now. Facing thugs with knives and guns is nothing new to me. And I'm not letting you go in there alone," she stated with conviction.
He studied her expression for a moment then sighed in defeat. "I don't like it," he complained.
She smiled at him. "I don't care if you like it or not. I'm coming. End of story. Now let's get out of here before Vitalis beats us to it while we stand here arguing."
Ezra let out another exasperated sigh and began gathering his supplies. "You are simply incorrigible, my dear."
Her smile widened into a grin as she stood to her feet and put her chair back where she got it. "I know. But, as the old saying goes, it takes one to know one."
He snorted, but smiled anyway. "You are quite correct." He shut the computer off and turned to her, motioning toward the door. "Shall we go, then?"
She nodded and reached down to pick up her bags. "Oh, wait!" she paused, "I almost forgot. Here, this is for you." She handed him the paper bag.
He eyed it curiously then looked at her. She motioned him to open it, and he reached to pull out a black, worn corduroy jacket, a pair of gloves, a pair of worn jeans, and a green pullover sweater, all in his size. He raised his eyebrow at her, and she shrugged, her cheeks flushing with color. "Well, it's winter! You couldn't run around in nothing but that shirt. Your southern blood would freeze! And since you don't know how long before you can go home, you're going to need another change of clothing. You can't wear what you have on forever."
He stood in shock for a moment, trying to comprehend what she had done and to figure out her angle, but for the life of him, he couldn't see any benefit she gained from her generosity. He looked from the coat back to her, and she shifted uncomfortably under his questioning stare. "It's not much. I picked them up at Goodwill after I got your sizes last night. They're used, but they're clean. I know you probably wouldn't be caught dead in someone's hand-me-downs, but it was all I could afford."
Ezra laid the coat across the chair and lightly lifted her chin up to look in her eyes, a gentle smile creasing his features. "Whether or not you will believe me, there has been the occasion in my youth when circumstances dictated that I make use of a hand-me-down or two, and while it's true, I wouldn't normally shop at charity stores, I understand the necessity and want to express my deepest gratitude for your thoughtfulness. But you didn't have to do this. I could have bought my own coat."
She shrugged. "You've got a limited amount of money that you'll have to live on until you can go home. And you were busy tonight, and needed the coat now. It wasn't a big deal."
His smiled widened as he reached for his wallet. "It was a big deal. And I'm sure your funds are much more limited than my own. Here, let me reimburse you."
"Oh no you don't," she protested. "They're a gift. You don't repay gifts. And when you're done with them, you can return them to the store to be sold again, or you can take them down to one of the missions."
Ezra frowned, pausing with his hand at his back pocket. "But—"
"Now, no buts," she said firmly. "I won't take your money. You needed the jacket, and I got it. It didn't cost me that much. If you won't consider it a gift, then take it as payback for lunch today. I wanted to kick myself all day today after suggesting such an expensive place, anyway."
"It was not expensive, and I did not expect you to pay me back. As I told you, it was my treat." He crossed his arms and fixed her with a glittering green stare.
She shrugged. "So, if you can treat me to lunch, I can buy you a coat. That is how the gift thing works, isn't it?"
He tried another approach. "It's not the same thing—"
"Yes it is," she cut him off. "And it's not charity when a friend does it for you. So take it, be grateful for it, and stop arguing about it."
"I am grateful for it, but you shouldn't have put yourself out. You've only known me for one day. That's hardly long enough to qualify us as friends," Ezra argued back.
"It is when you risked your life to save mine," she pointed out.
"I do believe it was the other way around." Ezra reminded her with a smirk.
"Exactly," she nodded with her own smug grin. "So I get to choose whether or not we can be friends. And besides, I'm sure you'll get the chance to save my life sometime down the road," she crossed her arms self-satisfactorily.
"But—"
"Oh, take the dang coat and shut up. We're wasting time standing here." She picked her bag up and started down the hall toward the stairway.
He shook his head. "Stubborn, cantankerous—"
"I heard that," she called back over her shoulder.
He smiled ruefully and fingered the coat. "She bought me a jacket," he finally relented with a shrug, and slipped it on. He welcomed the warmth and buttoned it up snuggly before placing the other articles back into the paper bag, stuffing the gloves in his pocket, and grabbing the briefcase. "Wait up!" he yelped and ran to catch up with her. "You're right. I'm being a complete cad. Thank you for the clothing," he offered.
She smiled. "You're welcome, friend."
He snorted and shook his head. "You don't know me well enough to call me a friend."
"And you don't know me, either. But I figure most friends start out that way. All it takes is for them both to be willing to learn."
He laughed aloud, and reached ahead to hold the door to the stairwell open for her. "Quite true, quite true."
They quickly walked down the stairs and out into the cold night. The sky was still overcast, but clearing, and there was a bitter wind blowing across the city. Ezra was suddenly very grateful for her thoughtfulness and quickly pulled on the gloves. He looked up to see her grinning at him, and he raised an eyebrow then looked down at the coat. "Okay. It's not quite so atrocious. Just please, don't—"
"Tell your associates. I know. You have a certain image to maintain," she smirked.
He smiled back. "Appearances are everything, my dear." His smile turned rueful as he again looked
down at what he was wearing. "Though, if
my mother could see me now, she would be simply appalled."
"Yeah, well sometimes practicality takes precedent over fashion," Alex pointed out as she hitched her bag further up on her shoulder.
He laughed. "Don't tell my mother that." He bowed slightly and motioned in a southerly direction. "Shall we depart?"
She shook her head and smiled at his antics. "We shall," she said as they struck out down the street. "Oh, and Ezra?"
"Yes?" he looked at her questioningly.
"Don't even think about trying to ditch me somewhere along the way."
He ducked his head for a moment, having difficulty understanding her firm conviction on the point, then smiled benignly. "I wouldn't dream of it, my dear. We are comrades to the end."
"Good."
They disappeared into the darkness.
