stakeout chapter 3
Sheriff's Conference Room
SCSD Headquarters
July 1, 1998
Wednesday, 9:00 AM
Gabriel stood at the podium, his hands gripping the sides while looking out at the men seated before him. Even though his police investigation and people skill were very good, public speaking didn't come to him easily. The group in front of him was small, but the briefing was still important.
The man sitting closest to him was Senior Deputy Peter Murray, Gabriel's training officer when he first went to Patrol Division. A tall muscular black man, Murray was the second oldest of the deputies he had selected for the unit at age 40. SWAT qualified and street-savvy, Murray was also the only other deputy present with a prior shooting. After stopping a speeder who he did not know was wanted for murder, a shootout resulted where Murray remained standing with a bullet in his armor and a glancing bullet wound on the side of his head and the speeder was dead on the ground. Gabriel planned to make Murray the second team leader.
Deputy Matt Parker, age 27 with blond hair and blue eyes, resembled the California surfer that in fact he really was during his time off. But on duty Parker was one of the hottest shooters on the SWAT team. He was one of only two people that could run the SWAT kill house exercises and get a perfect score. Parker would be the shooter on the second team.
Deputies Scott Kelly and Steve Angelo were to be the techs on the teams. Kelly had red hair and blue eyes, while Angelo had dark hair and eyes, but the two were so similar in height, build, and personalities (they looked like mid-twenties computer geeks) that people sometimes thought they were brothers. Even now, they were speaking to each other softly in techno babble that only they understood. The Twins, as they were sometimes called, were assigned to the Intelligence Division. Intel dealt with electronic surveillance, such as wiretaps, and also dealt with computer crimes and with analyzing crime patterns. Kelly had helped set up most of the slides and reports for the briefing, although the sensitive information and photos came from the sheriff himself.
Tim Harris was sitting toward the back of the room, twirling a pencil between his fingers. Tim had an idea as to what this meeting was about, but it was just the tip of the iceberg of information that Gabriel was going to reveal here.
At the far end of the table, chewing an unlit cigar, was Sheriff John Greer. The only other man in the room who knew the entire story, he looked grimly satisfied that his project was about to start. Tapping his wedding ring against the tabletop to get everyone's attention, Greer waited until all eyes were on him before speaking.
"I want to thank everyone for being here this morning. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the formation of a special unit. Everyone present is a candidate for this unit and it is hoped that you will all elect to volunteer to join. This unit will deal with suspects and crimes that are unusual, to say the least, and you were selected to possibly join with this in mind. If at any time during this briefing you decide you do not want to be a part of this unit, say so immediately and you will be excused to return to your regular duties." Greer paused and looked at everyone, seeing curiosity on everyone's faces. "You may start the briefing, Sergeant Martin."
Seeing everyone's eyes back on him, Gabriel forced a smile onto his face. "Everyone here knows what the difference is between a fairytale and a police war story is, right? A fairy tale starts out with 'Once upon a time', and a war story starts out - "
"'This is a true story,'" everyone answered in unison, some chuckling at the old joke.
"Well deputies, this isn't a fairy tale, it's a true story. Some of you already know parts of what I'm about to tell you, but now you are about to get all we currently know." Hitting the switches to turn on the slide projector and dim the room lights, Gabriel clicked a button to show one of the few subject photos they possessed, taken from a surveillance camera videotape.
Once the close-up of the snarling vampire was on screen, Gabriel continued to speak.
"Vampires are real . . ."
As Gabriel clicked the lights back on and turned the projector off, he looked at the men sitting before him. Except for the sheriff, Gabriel saw varying degrees of shock and wonder on everyone's faces but no disbelief. After all they had seen on the screen and on the street, they had no reason *not* to believe.
The sheriff's deep voice broke the silence. "Now you men know why this unit is being formed. Since you are all still sitting here, we can assume that you are still interested in joining the unit or are deep in shock."
There were some distracted chuckles, but everyone there was still mentally seeing the crime scene photos the thirty-minute briefing had presented. No one ever got used to seeing dead children and teens and there had been pictures of that.
"What I need now is for everyone to formally agree to be a member of the unit. We'll go around the room, starting with Deputy Murray. Peter?"
"I'm in." Murray's face showed a faint trace of shock from the briefing, but it was quickly replaced with determination.
"Count me in." Parker's surfer cool reestablished itself as he shook off the images in his head.
"I'm in." Kelly and Angelo spoke in unison, looking grim for once.
"I'm in." Tim Harris answered last, looking at the projection screen as though trying to see something in the white surface.
"Very well. For now, everyone take a ten minute break. We'll start going over details for the formation of the teams at . . . 9:45," Greer said, looking down at his wristwatch.
Everyone stood up and moved toward the door except for Tim. Walking over to the slide projector, he switched it on and advanced the slides until it got to the picture of Buffy Summers on the steps of Sunnydale High School.
"Hard to believe that that girl's been the one fighting this up 'til now, isn't it Tim?" asked Gabriel, standing behind him.
"That's not it, Gabe. You're not going to believe this, but I know that kid there." Tim pointed to the dark-haired boy standing next to Summers.
"How do you know him, Deputy?" Sheriff Greer came up behind Gabriel and looked at the screen.
"That's Xander Harris, sir. My nephew."
Gabriel and Greer looked sharply at Tim, then at each other before looking back at the projection screen.
Gabriel was the first to speak. "How well do you know him, Tim?"
"Not very well. My brother and I don't get along, so I only see Xander every once in a while. The last time I spoke to him was about a month ago."
"How do you get along with him, Deputy?" Sheriff Greer asked the next question.
"Pretty well, sir. I didn't get to see much of him because I was in the Army for most of his life," Tim replied.
Greer and Gabriel looked at each other again before Greer spoke again. "This may prove to be useful, Deputy. It is something that we would have to think long and hard about before we acted on it."
Tim turned from the screen and faced the two men. "Xander isn't a criminal suspect, is he, sir?" he asked in an even tone of voice.
"*None* of these teens are criminal suspects, at least in matters that are not related to the vampire hunting. Our intention is *not* to put these kids behind bars," Greer replied.
"I'm glad to hear that, sir. For a moment I thought you were going to ask me to infiltrate their group." Tim was still looking steadily at the two men.
"That thought did cross my mind, Tim," Greer admitted, using his name for the first time. "But there are other ways of getting information, and that is all we intend to do for now. Investigation and prosecution of this group is not an objective."
"Yes, sir." Tim relaxed slightly.
"Right now, our intent is to form and train the teams. Besides the supernatural events, you are going to deal with human suspects and crimes as a cover. That is where you come in are going to be of great help, since you have military and SWAT training experience," Greer continued explaining. "In effect we are setting up a stakeout unit that deals with street crimes, human and otherwise."
"How is Sunnydale PD going to react to SCSD coming in and playing on their turf?" Tim asked, curious.
"They're not going to like it but they no longer have any say in the matter." Gabriel replied for Sheriff Greer.
"Let me see if I have this straight. SCSD is forming a unit that will not only be fighting *vampires* but will have no immediate backup because the local agency is going to hate our guts for being there in the first place?" Tim watched as both Gabriel and Greer nodded their heads in confirmation.
Shaking his head, Tim reached over and turned off the slide projector.
end stakeout chapter 3