stakeout chapter 5

The Old Range Building

SCSD Academy

September 9, 1998

Friday, 8:00 PM

Gabriel Martin walked up to the whiteboard and turned to face the rest of the classroom. The assembled men quieted down on their own, knowing that the meeting was about to begin.

The Old Range Building was a part of the Sunnydale County Sheriff's Department Academy complex. With two classrooms, an armory and six outdoor firing lanes, it was too small and too open to the elements for the number of deputy sheriffs and recruits training and qualifying these days. A federal grant allowed the Academy to build a new range rather than have to repair and update the old one, so the building had sat unused.

When Gabriel needed a place to base the SEU, the Old Range Building came to mind. It met their requirements perfectly; it was private, it had an armory vault to store weapons in, and since it was on Academy grounds, it was secure from outsiders.

The firing lanes got extensive use when they first formed. Nowadays the teams used the lanes to practice for their official monthly firearms qualification and informal competitions.

One classroom was used to store non-sensitive materials, junk from the other rooms and even had a couple of cots when someone needed to crash for a few hours.

The other classroom became their bullpen; they held their meetings and briefings there when the need arose, but mostly it was a workspace where they could do repairs and maintenance on their gear and weapons. The Tech Twins set up their computers on borrowed desks alongside tables full of surveillance equipment. Gabriel also had a desk across the room where he did the teams paperwork.

The front half of the classroom was left intact, with chairs and tables for the team members to sit at and a whiteboard and lectern for the speaker, which was where Gabriel was now standing.

"Good evening. This is the weekly briefing for the Stakeout Teams." A normal enough greeting, only Gabriel delivered it in the worst Bela Lugosi Dracula accent they had ever heard, resulting in groans, the brandishing of a couple of crosses and various thrown wads of papers.

Gabriel stood there grinning until the ruckus died down, then continued to speak in his normal voice. "OK men, first we cover last weeks events. Gold Team first."

Peter Murray stood and faced the room. The two team leaders alternated running the briefings and this week it was Gabriel's turn.

"We've had a fair-to-middling week out there. Two tangos staked on the street, one in Gates of Paradise Cemetery, with locations are posted on the map. We also collared a human criminal during a decoy op downtown yesterday. I almost staked the guy before I realized he was human."

"How'd you know he wasn't a tango?" asked Gabriel, leaning against the lectern.

"Because when I spun around with my stake up, he was suddenly standing in a puddle and it wasn't raining." Murray waited for the laughter to die down before continuing. "Turns out that the guy was wanted for violating parole, so we booked him for that pending investigation for the other muggings in that area."

Gabriel nodded in approval. "Anything else?"

"That's it for Gold Team." Murray sat down.

"Blue Team?" Gabriel said next.

Tim Harris stood up. He was in charge of Blue Team when Gabriel wasn't there or when he was doing something else, like running the briefing.

"We had about the same week as Gold did. Three tangos, two in graveyards, one on the street, locations on the map. No human arrests this week."

Gabriel spoke before Tim could sit down. "Weapons?"

"Everyone has qualified with department issued firearms as of last week. Shooting for beers will be tomorrow at seven pm, before briefing. As always, low score buys the first round, with side bets both allowed and encouraged.

An evil chuckle came from Matt Parker. Both Parker and Tim shot well enough that they never had to buy the team a round, even though the blond surfer had lost side bets to Tim, the only team member to consistently shoot better than him.

Shooting for beers had been Tim's idea. An experienced shooter, he believed that you need to practice shooting under stress to prepare for a real life-or-death shootout. And as Tim had half-factiously said, what was more stressful than the prospect of having to buy beers for six thirsty cops?

"Intel?" Gabriel asked next as Tim sat down.

Scott Kelly stood up. "I've found a pattern of 211s/187s that match the Speedy Gas 187 last week. They've happened every couple weeks or so and have taken place mostly in the City of Sunnydale. One took place two months ago in an unincorporated area just outside the city where SCSD patrols, near the beginning of the spree. We have a partial description of a suspect, but it's only that of a white male, dark hair, stocky, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a straw cowboy hat. It was given by a citizen driving by one of the scenes just after the crime were the PD got lucky with the canvass."

Someone groaned out loud; not only was the description sketchy, it was one that would never stand up in court.

"Two more things," Scott continued. "One, the Speedy Gas 187 was the first one where the clerk managed to hit the 211 button in the safe before getting killed, so that's why we've never heard anything before now. Two, since one of the 211s was in a county area, we could force our way into the SPD investigation or start a parallel one if we want to."

Everyone turned to look at Gabriel, who was deep in thought. After a couple seconds, he looked over at Scott. "We have everything that SPD has, right?" Scott nodded. "Give me a copy and I'll go over it. If there is anything we can use, we'll open a parallel investigation but for now we don't have anything to do with SPD on this."

Scott nodded and continued. "The only other pattern I can pick up is that there is a gradual increase in the number of 'fights' and 'assaults' around the Bronze, that nightclub in Sunnydale. No deaths yet, but almost all of them involve neck wounds. We may want to keep an eye around that area. And finally, we're still staying away from those kids, the Slayer's friends. That's where we're getting our graveyard tangos, the ones that get away from them."

Gabriel nodded. "Thank you, Scott. And thanks for bringing up the Slayer, since I have new information about her."

Everyone sat up straighter. They hadn't heard about the teenaged female vampire killer since they first formed the unit in the beginning of summer.

"Sheriff Greer just passed me this info, who just got it from Intel Division. Buffy Summers is back in Sunnydale." Gabriel let that sink in, then continued. "Evidently, Summers heard that she was finally cleared by SPD of the homicide that occurred last June at the high school. She's back home with her mother, who has forced Sunnydale High to revoke her expulsion and readmit her to school. We've even heard that her friends are throwing a welcome-back party this week."

There was silence for a few moments before Peter Murray spoke up. "How are we going to deal with her if we run across her on the street?"

"For now, Sheriff Greer has ordered that we are to have no contact with her unless absolutely necessary. We want to see how she operates, for one thing, and we still need to keep this team's existence secret for now. Given her previous history, we don't know how she'll react to law enforcement. Granted, most of what we have about her we have from SPD and Sunnydale High records, but we still need to be prudent just in case."

Gabriel turned to look at Steve Angelo. "I know we haven't given Tech Support much to do, but that's now changed. Start plans for putting bugs in the school library. That's were they did most of their meetings before Summers had to leave town and they'll probably use it again. Obviously, we're not getting a court order for this, so we are going to use the data received as intel only, not for criminal prosecution. We also need for the bugs to not be traceable to us if discovered. Can that be done?"

Steve thought for a moment. "I can make bugs from scratch, no problem. They'll only know that they are made from store-bought components. You'll also want taps on their phone and computer lines, right?" Gabriel nodded. "That will be a little trickier. Give me a day or so to figure something out."

Gabriel moved back to the lectern. "OK then. Anyone have anything else?" No one responded.

"Blue Team will take Alpha and Bravo sectors tonight and Gold Team will have Charlie and Delta. Both teams will go past that Bronze place when time permits. If you get a feeling about tango activity there and there's nothing else happening around town, call in and set up a discrete observation post. In other words, don't park in front of the place." Everyone chuckled. "Don't go into the club unless we have to; we'll set up a recon later. Any questions?"

No one spoke. Gabriel grinned and said, "Let's be careful out there." This being said in his horrible Dracula accent, Gabriel manfully stood and weathered the hail of paper wads and groans of disbelief that followed.

end stakeout chapter 5