First Encounter, First Case
Disclaimer: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego franchise. The characters Harold "Hal" Olden and Joseph Corso (name borrowed from Titan AE) are my creation. Ivy is 27 in this fic and Zack is 23. The weapons I describe are on Mel's Sniper Page or elsewhere on the web.
~ ~ ~ ~
6 May 2000: One of ACME HQ's newest features, a rose garden that had been planted a decade ago was in full bloom again in the spring when a new partnership was formed. The petals were in a profusion of reds, pinks, and whites amongst the green leaves as Ivy Darren walked through it to meet her new partner. From the file she had read about him, he was currently an active member of the British Special Air Service on secondment (exchange tour) in America. Somebody in the British government had the idea of sending one of their SAS operatives to assist members of US Army Delta Force members in training US law enforcement agencies in improving their counterterrorism abilities.
She could see two men standing in the rose garden, talking. The one wearing the woodland DPM (Disruptive Pattern Material) uniform of the British Army had his back to her. The red haired and bearded man wearing Oakley sunglasses she recognized as Major Joseph Corso, Delta Force, the Army's super secret counterterrorist team. He wore civilian clothes and had a beard because many of Delta's missions required them to pose as civilians.
"Speak of the devil." She heard Corso say as Ivy approached.
The British soldier turned around and the look on his face was as if he'd seen a ghost. "Lieutenant?" Corso asked, "Do you know each other?"
"No sir." Ivy replied.
"Yes sir." The British soldier replied, then caught himself, "My apologies sir, no we don't."
"Very well then." Corso replied, "Detective Ivy Darren, this is 1st Lieutenant Harold Olden, British Special Air Service. He's been assigned to you as a new partner."
"Call me Hal. Pleased to meet you." Harold said, formally as they shook hands. Ivy could feel a cold sweat on his hand and the haunted expression on his face hadn't quite faded from his small black eyes which were complimented by his short black hair.
"Likewise." Ivy said, not understanding why the British officer she hadn't even met before seemed so uncomfortable.
"Well, I'd best head over to my apartment and get settled in. Here's my phone number if you need to reach me." Hal replied, "I live in Harbor View."
"Sure Hal." Ivy replied, handing him her phone number and address, "I live in Riverside."
~ ~ ~ ~
Harold Olden's Apartment; Harbor View.
Hal showered and threw on some civilian clothing, a light green collared button down shirt and a green Royal Marines t-shirt from his early days and a pair of jeans and shoes. It had really been a long flight out from Panama where he had been carrying out operations with a four man detachment from the Regiment before new orders came, assigning him first to Delta Force and now to ACME.
An odd combination, and a four year assignment to boot. He at least knew this assignment was coming, so he had a place to live and even a vehicle worked out. He had purchased a 1997 model desert tan Land Rover SUV which was currently parked in front of the apartment. He heard a knock at the door and answered it.
He saw his partner, the young woman with short auburn hair and brown eyes standing in front of the door. "Hey, I figured I'd help you move in." Ivy said, trying to be friendly.
"Sure, I could use the help." Hal replied as he opened another box and started to put a couple framed photographs in the living room. One of them was a picture of six men, one of them a young Hal, standing astride a steep hill wearing British issue camouflage trousers and boots and t-shirts of various types ranging from general issue green to novelty t-shirts.
"Those are my old mates that I ran Selection with." Hal replied, "From left to right, that's Lucas, Mike, myself, Jim, Mitch, and Chad. We were based in Tidworth, a garrison town, they were from the Army battalion across the street and we'd all gone in and decided to train for Selection together back in 1991."
Ivy put another picture up, this one of Hal and the one she heard him call Lucas sitting in the back of a flatbed pickup truck with a dead antelope in it. Both men had telescopic rifles. "That's from our tour in Kenya in 1990. That's where Lucas and I found out we shared the same dream of joining the SAS."
"What's with the antelope?" Ivy asked.
Hal gave her a half millimeter smile, with the genuine crow's feet showing it was a true grin, "Target practice, and for some fresh food. We were getting sick of our chef's cooking. Bloody ruperts had a fit over that."
"Ruperts?" Ivy asked.
"Officers. Anyone that's a second lieutenant or over is called a Rupert." Hal replied.
"But you're an officer. So you're a Rupert." Ivy declared.
"Correct, it's not always derogatory, either." Hal replied.
"So you're an ex-Royal Marine, eh?" Ivy said, grinning at him, "Maybe sometime we can go to the gym and see how you fair against a colonial and a woman."
"Maybe, but I'd not want to bruise you too badly." Hal replied with an equal grin.
"Arrogance. If that's anything you British are afflicted with, terminally, it's arrogance." Ivy replied.
"Said the pot to the kettle. You Yanks often think you can change the world for the better." Hal replied as he put up another photo, "Somalia in 1993, the entire post Cold War era...."
It was a photograph of a man in his early thirties with a mustache and a flinty eyed, steely visage. A classic warrior from his chiseled face to his black hair, he wore the dress uniform of a captain in the Royal Marines.
At Ivy's curious look Hal replied, "That's my father. He was also an SAS operative."
"How does he feel about his son following his footsteps?" Ivy replied.
"I'd guess he'd be proud. My family says he's dead, my mother having remarried some time ago after he had been reported missing in Oman back in 1975." Hal replied, "I was only four years old then. I followed his route as best I could."
Hal's face wore a stony mask but the sadness from twenty-five years ago was still in his eyes. He put up a map of the world in his bedroom. It had colored tacks in it of the colors red, white and blue as well as a couple clear tacks in the Middle East.
"The white indicates places I've served, the red places I've lost mates of mine, the blue places I'd served after 1991 where I joined the SAS, and the clear were a couple leads on my missing father, which turned out to be false." Hal replied.
Ivy looked at him with genuine sympathy, "Hey, I know it's rough to lose someone you love."
"I never even got to say goodbye. I was born when he was on a short furlow from Oman and I only saw him sporadically for the next four years." Hal replied.
Ivy said, "C'mon, let's take a break. I know a couple good places to eat around here, you must be starving."
"I'm quite famished, actually, having lived on airline food flying from Panama for hours." Hal replied.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mother Earth's Chinese Restaurant, Chinatown.
"So let me get this straight," Hal said, "You're a black belt in a number of different martial arts, can fly or drive almost any vehicle to name, and on top of that have solved some of crime's toughest cases. Looks like you'd be material for either the CIA or MI-5."
Ivy laughed lightly, "Yeah, I've heard that from Corso too many times. I don't think I'd like being a spook too much. They're a...."
"Loveless bunch of wankers." Hal replied.
"Exactly, but not my first choice of words. I was trying to be diplomatic." Ivy said as their main entrée came to their table.
"The best Peking duck I've had in a while. It even nearly compares to the stuff I'd had when I was in Hong Kong three years ago." Hal replied.
"So you were a sharpshooter with the British Marines?" Ivy asked.
"Yes I was." Hal replied, "I got paid to shoot people for a living."
A waiter that had overheard the last sentence looked nervously at the pair and asked, "Excuse me sir, can I get you anything."
"No thank you my friend." Hal replied, with a grin. The boy looked scared of Hal as he muttered an apology and walked away.
"What was he so scared of?" Hal asked.
"You're the one who said, 'I got paid to shoot people for a living,' Figure it out." Ivy replied.
"Oh Christ, I don't go about putting holes in random people." Hal replied, "I put holes in terrorists and other nasty characters that deserve it."
~ ~ ~ ~
Somewhere on Fisherman's Wharf.
The world view through the scope of a sniper rifle was a narrow view at best. Not that it mattered to the man hiding high atop a building overlooking San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. His field glasses were roaming the busy square, looking for a single target.
He could have easily killed any number of people down below him without breaking a sweat. His marksmanship was just that damn good. He held the silenced SVD Dragunov sniper rifle steady. The laptop computer at his side was plugged in and he sent a single anonymous e-mail out to every police agency in the area. As the message confirmed send he drew a bead on a single man in a business suit carrying a briefcase walking down the street. He centered the Dragunov's crosshairs on his head, drinking in the intoxicating power over life and death he held but careful not to let it overwhelm him, lest he let his guard down.
He squeezed the trigger slowly, breathing out evenly and rhythmically as he lay on his belly, hidden well back in the shadows of the room of the abandoned building. He didn't shoot from next to the window, for only an amateur would do such a thing. Many a novice sniper had fallen for such simple mistakes. But not him, not this man so close to godly status as he.
He felt the rifle buck and recoil with a silent thump thanks to the suppressor at the front of the SVD's barrel. He saw the business man slump forward as blood spurted from his head and he fell to the pavement. The sniper calmly broke the weapon down into components, placed them into the padded briefcase he carried and put the laptop inside as well. Walking off from the crime scene, he tarried to make sure he left no evidence and placed the errant bullet casing into his pocket, walking out amongst the crowd below. He saw a red corvette pull up and saw an auburn haired woman and a black haired man step out. The latter he knew very well, indeed he had once been the dark haired one's former student. He walked off into the streets of San Francisco undetected.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mother Earth's Chinese Restaurant
Ivy's cell phone rang as she opened her fortune cookie, "Ow! Damn! Hello."
"Ivy," said a voice on the other end of the line, "It's Zack. There's been a murder committed on Fisherman's Wharf. Chief wants you and Hal on it."
"I'll be right there. Damn." Ivy replied, "Heck of a first day, isn't it?"
"I'd think so." Hal replied, laconically as they climbed into Ivy's corvette and drove off towards Fisherman's Wharf.
~ ~ ~ ~
The body of a corporate lawyer named Christopher Osborne, 29, lay sprawled and bleeding on the pavement. Hal put on a pair of latex gloves after Ivy elbowed him, reminding him of that part of the procedure. He grinned sheepishly as if to say, "I knew that."
Ivy rolled her eyes in response as they examined the corpse. "Bullet through the head, caliber unknown." Hal said, "I'd say judging by the size of the hole it was made by a thirty-caliber rifle of some sort."
"Very astute, but how did no one hear the shot? The witnesses said that he just fell over dead one moment after just walking along." Ivy replied.
"Silencer or sound suppressor, I'm guessing he used a telescopic rifle for greater accuracy, because this shot to the head is a very difficult one to attempt past 100 meters with open sights." Hal replied.
"Motive, since our victim's a lawyer, I'd definitely say there's no shortage of people that hate him. Now why would someone want to kill him that's another story." Ivy replied.
Ivy's cell phone rang and Zack was on the line, "Ivy, I think this information might be important. Every police agency within the county limits has gotten an e-mail from a fellow calling himself GrimReaper94 with the message saying, 'The chase begins. Catch me if you can.'"
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: Will try to update as much as possible, this was from C.J. Sandiego's suggestion that I stick to the story's timeline a little more. And if a certain immature brat wants to flame on the ages of Zack and Ivy, she can damn well stow it.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego franchise. The characters Harold "Hal" Olden and Joseph Corso (name borrowed from Titan AE) are my creation. Ivy is 27 in this fic and Zack is 23. The weapons I describe are on Mel's Sniper Page or elsewhere on the web.
~ ~ ~ ~
6 May 2000: One of ACME HQ's newest features, a rose garden that had been planted a decade ago was in full bloom again in the spring when a new partnership was formed. The petals were in a profusion of reds, pinks, and whites amongst the green leaves as Ivy Darren walked through it to meet her new partner. From the file she had read about him, he was currently an active member of the British Special Air Service on secondment (exchange tour) in America. Somebody in the British government had the idea of sending one of their SAS operatives to assist members of US Army Delta Force members in training US law enforcement agencies in improving their counterterrorism abilities.
She could see two men standing in the rose garden, talking. The one wearing the woodland DPM (Disruptive Pattern Material) uniform of the British Army had his back to her. The red haired and bearded man wearing Oakley sunglasses she recognized as Major Joseph Corso, Delta Force, the Army's super secret counterterrorist team. He wore civilian clothes and had a beard because many of Delta's missions required them to pose as civilians.
"Speak of the devil." She heard Corso say as Ivy approached.
The British soldier turned around and the look on his face was as if he'd seen a ghost. "Lieutenant?" Corso asked, "Do you know each other?"
"No sir." Ivy replied.
"Yes sir." The British soldier replied, then caught himself, "My apologies sir, no we don't."
"Very well then." Corso replied, "Detective Ivy Darren, this is 1st Lieutenant Harold Olden, British Special Air Service. He's been assigned to you as a new partner."
"Call me Hal. Pleased to meet you." Harold said, formally as they shook hands. Ivy could feel a cold sweat on his hand and the haunted expression on his face hadn't quite faded from his small black eyes which were complimented by his short black hair.
"Likewise." Ivy said, not understanding why the British officer she hadn't even met before seemed so uncomfortable.
"Well, I'd best head over to my apartment and get settled in. Here's my phone number if you need to reach me." Hal replied, "I live in Harbor View."
"Sure Hal." Ivy replied, handing him her phone number and address, "I live in Riverside."
~ ~ ~ ~
Harold Olden's Apartment; Harbor View.
Hal showered and threw on some civilian clothing, a light green collared button down shirt and a green Royal Marines t-shirt from his early days and a pair of jeans and shoes. It had really been a long flight out from Panama where he had been carrying out operations with a four man detachment from the Regiment before new orders came, assigning him first to Delta Force and now to ACME.
An odd combination, and a four year assignment to boot. He at least knew this assignment was coming, so he had a place to live and even a vehicle worked out. He had purchased a 1997 model desert tan Land Rover SUV which was currently parked in front of the apartment. He heard a knock at the door and answered it.
He saw his partner, the young woman with short auburn hair and brown eyes standing in front of the door. "Hey, I figured I'd help you move in." Ivy said, trying to be friendly.
"Sure, I could use the help." Hal replied as he opened another box and started to put a couple framed photographs in the living room. One of them was a picture of six men, one of them a young Hal, standing astride a steep hill wearing British issue camouflage trousers and boots and t-shirts of various types ranging from general issue green to novelty t-shirts.
"Those are my old mates that I ran Selection with." Hal replied, "From left to right, that's Lucas, Mike, myself, Jim, Mitch, and Chad. We were based in Tidworth, a garrison town, they were from the Army battalion across the street and we'd all gone in and decided to train for Selection together back in 1991."
Ivy put another picture up, this one of Hal and the one she heard him call Lucas sitting in the back of a flatbed pickup truck with a dead antelope in it. Both men had telescopic rifles. "That's from our tour in Kenya in 1990. That's where Lucas and I found out we shared the same dream of joining the SAS."
"What's with the antelope?" Ivy asked.
Hal gave her a half millimeter smile, with the genuine crow's feet showing it was a true grin, "Target practice, and for some fresh food. We were getting sick of our chef's cooking. Bloody ruperts had a fit over that."
"Ruperts?" Ivy asked.
"Officers. Anyone that's a second lieutenant or over is called a Rupert." Hal replied.
"But you're an officer. So you're a Rupert." Ivy declared.
"Correct, it's not always derogatory, either." Hal replied.
"So you're an ex-Royal Marine, eh?" Ivy said, grinning at him, "Maybe sometime we can go to the gym and see how you fair against a colonial and a woman."
"Maybe, but I'd not want to bruise you too badly." Hal replied with an equal grin.
"Arrogance. If that's anything you British are afflicted with, terminally, it's arrogance." Ivy replied.
"Said the pot to the kettle. You Yanks often think you can change the world for the better." Hal replied as he put up another photo, "Somalia in 1993, the entire post Cold War era...."
It was a photograph of a man in his early thirties with a mustache and a flinty eyed, steely visage. A classic warrior from his chiseled face to his black hair, he wore the dress uniform of a captain in the Royal Marines.
At Ivy's curious look Hal replied, "That's my father. He was also an SAS operative."
"How does he feel about his son following his footsteps?" Ivy replied.
"I'd guess he'd be proud. My family says he's dead, my mother having remarried some time ago after he had been reported missing in Oman back in 1975." Hal replied, "I was only four years old then. I followed his route as best I could."
Hal's face wore a stony mask but the sadness from twenty-five years ago was still in his eyes. He put up a map of the world in his bedroom. It had colored tacks in it of the colors red, white and blue as well as a couple clear tacks in the Middle East.
"The white indicates places I've served, the red places I've lost mates of mine, the blue places I'd served after 1991 where I joined the SAS, and the clear were a couple leads on my missing father, which turned out to be false." Hal replied.
Ivy looked at him with genuine sympathy, "Hey, I know it's rough to lose someone you love."
"I never even got to say goodbye. I was born when he was on a short furlow from Oman and I only saw him sporadically for the next four years." Hal replied.
Ivy said, "C'mon, let's take a break. I know a couple good places to eat around here, you must be starving."
"I'm quite famished, actually, having lived on airline food flying from Panama for hours." Hal replied.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mother Earth's Chinese Restaurant, Chinatown.
"So let me get this straight," Hal said, "You're a black belt in a number of different martial arts, can fly or drive almost any vehicle to name, and on top of that have solved some of crime's toughest cases. Looks like you'd be material for either the CIA or MI-5."
Ivy laughed lightly, "Yeah, I've heard that from Corso too many times. I don't think I'd like being a spook too much. They're a...."
"Loveless bunch of wankers." Hal replied.
"Exactly, but not my first choice of words. I was trying to be diplomatic." Ivy said as their main entrée came to their table.
"The best Peking duck I've had in a while. It even nearly compares to the stuff I'd had when I was in Hong Kong three years ago." Hal replied.
"So you were a sharpshooter with the British Marines?" Ivy asked.
"Yes I was." Hal replied, "I got paid to shoot people for a living."
A waiter that had overheard the last sentence looked nervously at the pair and asked, "Excuse me sir, can I get you anything."
"No thank you my friend." Hal replied, with a grin. The boy looked scared of Hal as he muttered an apology and walked away.
"What was he so scared of?" Hal asked.
"You're the one who said, 'I got paid to shoot people for a living,' Figure it out." Ivy replied.
"Oh Christ, I don't go about putting holes in random people." Hal replied, "I put holes in terrorists and other nasty characters that deserve it."
~ ~ ~ ~
Somewhere on Fisherman's Wharf.
The world view through the scope of a sniper rifle was a narrow view at best. Not that it mattered to the man hiding high atop a building overlooking San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. His field glasses were roaming the busy square, looking for a single target.
He could have easily killed any number of people down below him without breaking a sweat. His marksmanship was just that damn good. He held the silenced SVD Dragunov sniper rifle steady. The laptop computer at his side was plugged in and he sent a single anonymous e-mail out to every police agency in the area. As the message confirmed send he drew a bead on a single man in a business suit carrying a briefcase walking down the street. He centered the Dragunov's crosshairs on his head, drinking in the intoxicating power over life and death he held but careful not to let it overwhelm him, lest he let his guard down.
He squeezed the trigger slowly, breathing out evenly and rhythmically as he lay on his belly, hidden well back in the shadows of the room of the abandoned building. He didn't shoot from next to the window, for only an amateur would do such a thing. Many a novice sniper had fallen for such simple mistakes. But not him, not this man so close to godly status as he.
He felt the rifle buck and recoil with a silent thump thanks to the suppressor at the front of the SVD's barrel. He saw the business man slump forward as blood spurted from his head and he fell to the pavement. The sniper calmly broke the weapon down into components, placed them into the padded briefcase he carried and put the laptop inside as well. Walking off from the crime scene, he tarried to make sure he left no evidence and placed the errant bullet casing into his pocket, walking out amongst the crowd below. He saw a red corvette pull up and saw an auburn haired woman and a black haired man step out. The latter he knew very well, indeed he had once been the dark haired one's former student. He walked off into the streets of San Francisco undetected.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mother Earth's Chinese Restaurant
Ivy's cell phone rang as she opened her fortune cookie, "Ow! Damn! Hello."
"Ivy," said a voice on the other end of the line, "It's Zack. There's been a murder committed on Fisherman's Wharf. Chief wants you and Hal on it."
"I'll be right there. Damn." Ivy replied, "Heck of a first day, isn't it?"
"I'd think so." Hal replied, laconically as they climbed into Ivy's corvette and drove off towards Fisherman's Wharf.
~ ~ ~ ~
The body of a corporate lawyer named Christopher Osborne, 29, lay sprawled and bleeding on the pavement. Hal put on a pair of latex gloves after Ivy elbowed him, reminding him of that part of the procedure. He grinned sheepishly as if to say, "I knew that."
Ivy rolled her eyes in response as they examined the corpse. "Bullet through the head, caliber unknown." Hal said, "I'd say judging by the size of the hole it was made by a thirty-caliber rifle of some sort."
"Very astute, but how did no one hear the shot? The witnesses said that he just fell over dead one moment after just walking along." Ivy replied.
"Silencer or sound suppressor, I'm guessing he used a telescopic rifle for greater accuracy, because this shot to the head is a very difficult one to attempt past 100 meters with open sights." Hal replied.
"Motive, since our victim's a lawyer, I'd definitely say there's no shortage of people that hate him. Now why would someone want to kill him that's another story." Ivy replied.
Ivy's cell phone rang and Zack was on the line, "Ivy, I think this information might be important. Every police agency within the county limits has gotten an e-mail from a fellow calling himself GrimReaper94 with the message saying, 'The chase begins. Catch me if you can.'"
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: Will try to update as much as possible, this was from C.J. Sandiego's suggestion that I stick to the story's timeline a little more. And if a certain immature brat wants to flame on the ages of Zack and Ivy, she can damn well stow it.