A/N: I couldn't resist bringing back the White Bulls. It was a great plot idea that somehow went by the wayside in Season 2. Well, not in MY reality missy. The Bulls are back, and so the undercover Feebie plotline.

Thank you for all your lovely reviews! They mean the world to me.

Secret Agent Man

McCarty scanned the surrounding area but came up with nothing. He hadn't heard the shot that took out sniper on the fire escape, but dropped gun was hard to miss. The skin between his shoulder blades crawled as he continued to look, anticipating the bullet that somehow hadn't taken him out yet.

When nothing else happened, Jake realized that someone had to have been watching his six. It was the only thing that made sense. He wished whoever it was would give him just a brief flash and a wave, something to let him know for certain, but some of the more hard-core elements in the Bureau wouldn't break cover just to reassure their coworker.

McCarty reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He had to call this in, even though he was pretty sure that his tail had already done so. Just not to the New York City Police Department. Jake didn't know whom on the department to trust, at least not until he read the file Vannoy had given him. Maybe not even then, but it would give him a place to start.

Fortunately, McCarty mused as he dialed, he had other resources to call on. "Mike? Yeah, this is Jake. I need a clean-up crew at Bleeker and 5th. Uh-huh. Nah, the alley between. Got one down. I have to hand it to you, you were right. I'm glad you ignored my protests and put a tail on me. I don't know who my shadow was tonight, but I owe him one."

There was a brief pause, ending with McCarty moving to put his back to the bricks before replying. "What do you mean, there was no tail?"

Jake was a bit spooked, but not so much so that he couldn't do his job. After all, just because no one had been assigned to him, didn't mean someone in the Bureau hadn't decided to cover his ass gratis. It had been known to happen. Hell, he'd done it himself a few times.

Doubtless McCarty would hear from his invisible backup later. This wasn't the X-Files; there were no mysterious benefactors in the real FBI. Whoever had saved his bacon was going to make sure Jake knew where the debt was, in case they ever needed a favor. McCarty just hoped it wouldn't be too huge.

There were some things he would not do, despite being assigned to undercover missions like this one for the Bureau for the last five years. Somehow, some core of decency remained, even as he waded through cesspits of human excess. It was the last holdout of the idealistic young man who had gone into the FBI Academy with dreams of making the world a better place. McCarty had fewer limits than that boy had held, but more than most of his coworkers, despite everything he had seen.

Not that Jake had, thankfully, had his morals tested lately. He'd been working this particular case for over a year without being exposed to anything more than a regular cop would be. His conscience was considerably quieter than his boss had been about that though. His superiors wanted results, and he'd had damn little success. Joe Siri had either been clean, or far cleverer than he let on. Jake voted for clever.

After all, it wasn't until shortly before his retirement that any breaks had come his way. Partnering him with Pezzini was the best thing Siri had done for him. Sara was a real lightning rod for trouble, and she had come to the attention of Kenneth Irons. Men with that much money and power had their fingers into everything. Then there was the bad blood between Pez and the new captain.

Dante hated her with a passion, constantly making derogatory remarks about how she was like her father. Considering how Detective Pezzini, the father, not the daughter, had died, it was pretty easy to read between the lines of the report. Someone had killed him for pushing, for digging after something that his superiors had not wanted him to investigate. That someone might very well have been Bruno Dante, or someone close to him.

Now Dante had begun to sound out just where McCarty's loyalties lay. Those passing comments, occasional 'chats', and the hand on the shoulder for support when Sara was being difficult were all subtle enough. It was amazing how reasonable Dante sounded as he encouraged McCarty to betray Pezzini. If he really were a rookie, no doubt Jake would have fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

As it was, McCarty had played up his hesitance, knowing that Dante wasn't just angling for Pezzini's dismissal from the force. He was looking to recruit loyal men who thought they were doing what was best. Dante had that righteous aura about him. It was hard to explain, but over the years he had developed an instinct for the type of personality that would quietly abuse their power in the name of doing what was right.

The overt ones were caught before they did too much damage by Internal Affairs, but the subtle ones well, there was no easy way to find them. Even if you did, proving anything was amazingly difficult. They always had an infrastructure that supported and protected them. Sometimes that network of likeminded and corrupted souls extended beyond the force that created it and spanned generations, like the Skulls.

Jake was after the most elusive granddaddy of them all, the White Bulls. The word was the Bulls had existed in one form or another since New York had been granted its city charter. It had started small, waxing and waning with the fortunes of time until it had penetrated all strata of the city's political structure, which made it damn difficult to root out.

Not to mention dangerous. McCarty glanced up at the still form on the fire escape, wondering if this meant that he was closer than he thought. Had his cover been blown, or had the assassin been following Vannoy? Christine had been involved in this longer than she had been his contact, and she hadn't exactly joined voluntarily.

Vannoy had told him that it all began when she went to her boss, concerned with conflicting reports and accounting discrepancies. He had been unable to explain everything away, and maybe she should have realized even then what was going on, but she hadn't.

A week later, Christine had been pulled over. Since she had been speeding 'a little', she hadn't thought anything of it. The officer asked her to step out of the car and informed her that he suspected she was under the influence. He searched her, pretending to pull cocaine out of her pocket. The uniformed officer smiled and shook a finger at her, then leaned in close and said, "See how easy it would be to find yourself rotting in jail? It will happen if you keep poking your nose where it doesn't belong." Then he stepped back, touched the brim of his hat and said, "You have a good evening ma'am."

It had terrified Vannoy for a while, she had kept her head down at work and asked no questions. Then she got mad and began copying the conflicting data, collecting names, and waiting. She would happily have turned State's Witness earlier, if she'd known who to trust. Instead she was selling the information so she could get out of town. Jake, not knowing who to trust either, couldn't begrudge her that. He would have to check in with her once the cleaners had arrived, make sure she was ok.

As if his thoughts had been a summons, a beat-up green garbage truck pulled into the mouth of the alley and rolled down to where he was waiting. Two burly men, one white and one black, in city coveralls clambered out of the cab. Jake grinned to see two familiar faces hiding under fake facial hair. Johnson, normally bald as an egg, was sporting dreads under a dirty yellow, red, and green Rasta cap. His partner, Anniston, had sideburns that Elvis would have envied.

"You'n must be the luckiest sumbitch I ever saw," Anniston's southern drawl more pronounced than usual. Maybe it was the sideburns?

"Tell me about it." McCarty invited as he moved out of the way and let the two forensic experts get to work.

Johnson picked up the sniper rifle with a pencil through the trigger guard and bagged it. He held it up to the patchy light, getting a better look at the weapon. "I have to agree with 'The King' over there."

"Thank you, thank you verra much. A-huh." Anniston paused in his climb up the fire escape to swivel his hips and belt out the Elvis byline.

"This is serious hardware, look at all the custom work on this baby." Johnson ignored the showboating, his attention captured by the gun. Coated with nonreflective paint, it was a little pocket of deadly darkness, and it fascinated him. He continued to study it, knowing he had a bit of time while his partner took pictures and made measurements.

"Quit playin' with the toy an' get your butt up heah. I ain't hauling him down all by my lonesome ya'll." Anniston called down when he had finished.

"What did you find out?" Jake asked as he leaned against the brick of the apartment building, keeping an eye out for possible witnesses.

"Boy was a professional, ain't nothin' on him. Sorry. Mebbe when we take a closer look, back't the lab we'll find something." Anniston grunted as he shifted the corpse. Dead weight was exactly that, and getting it into position for a two man carry was a bit of work.

"Shit. Well, it was too much to hope for some answers that easy. This assignment has been a royal bitch." Jake shrugged, glancing up, before returning his attention to watching.

Ten minutes later, the body was safely packed in the back of the 'truck' and the site had been sterilized. McCarty knew they didn't need him any more, so he waved goodbye saying, "See you guys later, I'm gonna check on my contact and call it a night."

The two 'garbage men' waved back as they climbed into the cab. Jake turned back toward the alley and gave a more respectful salute. He knew his tail was still up there, he could feel their eyes.

Up in the shadows of the roof, Nottingham quirked one lip and gave an ironic little wave back. The evening had been very informative. Even with the ridiculous disguises, Ian knew federal agents when he saw them. The fact that he had not made McCarty earlier bugged him, but the other man was clearly very good at what he did. That aura of innocence, those guileless questions, and the sheer stupidity McCarty could project had fooled him.

Had. Now Nottingham knew what he was looking at, and had an idea what must be in that folder. The FBI had been working for years at breaking the White Bulls, but had never managed to penetrate the ring of secrecy surrounding its members. Had McCarty succeeded?

Once McCarty put those files down for the night, Nottingham would have himself a little look. If the information was damaging enough, he would inform Irons and sever all connection with the group. He may have to eliminate the links, but with the exception of Joe Siri, the idea did not bother him in the least.