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Office Special Agent Diana Barrigan
FBI Headquarters
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Kate Beckett checks in and gets her visitor's badge, but since she can't walk around unescorted, Diana volunteers much to Kate's chagrin.
After a minute, they enter a small room with a desk and a couple of chairs.
"Welcome to my temporary office," Diana takes a seat behind the desk, "Since, you're still a half-hour early, you can wait here until they call down for you."
"Why, so you can torture me some more?" Kate says sarcastically, taking one of the guest chairs.
"I admit that is fun," Diana chuckles, "So how does it feel to realize that after all this time that you're the plucky side kick, not the hero."
"What are you talking about?" Kate scoffs.
"Come now detective," Diana responds, "Did you think it was luck Agent Danberg went on the run when Sophia Turner framed him, turning up just in time to save the day?"
"You know about that!" Kate responds shocked.
"I was there," Diana recounts, "I was Rick's backup plan."
"Rick knew what Sophia was up to the whole time?" Kate's shock grows into anger.
"I told you," Diana replies, "He can see through all the layers of a person. He was convinced she had some agenda which is why he warned Danberg."
"Well, Rick is conspiracy prone," Kate jokes.
"Still in denial I see," Diana smiles, "But I'm sure Lois Lane didn't want to admit being so galactically stupid as to be fooled by a pair of fake eyeglasses."
"And here I thought Brits are supposed to be polite," Kate snarks.
"Native born American actually," Diana responds, "I can run for President."
The line sounds familiar to Kate but can't immediately place it.
"So, your parents are American," Kate suggests, "And you grew up in Britain?"
"Typical," Diana shakes her head, "So woefully ignorant of the history of the country that made your own possible."
"What?" Kate says confused.
"People of African descent," Diana explains, "Have lived in Britain for centuries though not as big a percentage of the population as here.
"Then again, England outlawed slavery in 1104 and only tolerated the slave trade because of the demand of wealthy colonists and English businessmen."
"I know," Kate responds, "And Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807, and the Royal Navy spent the next 60 years suppressing it.
"And Britain outlawed slavery across their Empire in 1833 with a stroke of a pen instead of four years of war. Rick put that in…Iron Storm…hold on…"
"Houston, I think have an epiphany," Diana chuckles.
"Nessa Holt," Kate recalls, "The FBI agent framed by the sociopath real estate tycoon who wanted in order to discredit the case against him."
"Derek Storm exposes the frame," Diana adds, "And then saves her life from an assassination attempt which pretty much sums up how I met Ricky.
"He did of course change some of the names and details in the case to protect the guilty who might sue."
"Great, another muse," Kate rolls her eyes.
"Hardly," Diana chuckles, "But he was fascinated by the story of how my paternal grandparents met in England during World War II.
"Grandpa was a University of Pennsylvania educated M.D. from Oklahoma, so naturally the U.S. Army had him digging ditches. Grandma was Brit of African descent.
"My own dad's job had my parents in New York New York when I was born. We moved to Manchester when I was five. I came back to attend Georgetown."
"And you say you're not a muse," Kate rolls her eyes, "That is world for word, Nessa Holt's backstory."
"Actually, Nessa Holt went to Columbia," Diana grins, "And her grandfather went to Harvard. But other than that, you're correct.
"But don't worry detective, unlike Sophia Turner, I won't try to shoot you in the back of the head. Ricky would never forgive me."
"I'll have to thank him," Kate snarks, "Right after I rip him a new one for discussing our private lives someone, friend or not."
"Are you saying you don't discuss it with Dr. Parrish?" Diana counters.
"That's different," Kate huffs, "She's a mutual friend."
"No, she's your friend," Diana responds, "She came as part of the Kate Beckett package along with Detectives Esposito and Ryan."
"That's not true," Kate scoffs, "They're his friends too."
"I guess you can't comprehend it," Diana counters.
"Comprehend what?"
"That outside of Alexis and his mother," Diana explains, "There isn't anyone important in Ricky's life that isn't connected to you."
"Tell me Agent Barrigan," Kate Beckett glares, "How many ways are you going to call me selfish and clueless?"
"I don't know," Diana responds chuckling, "You make it so easy to come with new ways."
"Glad I could be of help," Kate snarks.
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Homicide Detective's Bullpen
4th Floor
12th Precinct
New York, New York.
Detectives Ryan and Esposito sit talking across their desks in hushed tones, a study in contrast
Detective Kevin Ryan is a clean-cut Irish American. 5' 10", blonde, and lean with blue eyes, he's always dressed in a three-piece suit, the jacket always hung neatly on the nearby coatrack.
Detective Javier Esposito is an inch taller and with a more imposing frame he's maintained from his days as a special forces soldier. The Hispanic detective prefers a more casual look given the spring weather, polo shirt, jeans, and sneakers with light jacket is hung on the back of his chair.
They spent most of this morning talking less about homicide cases and more bantering about the possible apocalyptic scenarios they will face once their bosses return.
"Maybe we should put in for a transfer," Esposito suggests, "Gates and Beckett are going to be hell to live with after read that column."
"I think you're overreacting Espo," Ryan responds, "So what if they're mad for a little bit…"
Suddenly, their attention is falls on a group of uniforms and workmen milling around, moving boxes and furniture back and forth from the freight elevator.
Supervising the operation is Sergeant Anthony Renzulli.
"Hey, Renzulli," Esposito calls, "What are you guys doing?"
"It's called following orders, Esposito," the Italian American Sergeant responds, "You should try it sometime."
"Ha, ha sarge," Espo snarks, "And what do you have orders to do, turn the NYPD into furniture movers."
"Well, if you must know," Renzulli smirks, "We've been told to get the old Captain's Office ready to be used again."
"Old Captain's Office?" Ryan looks at Renzulli confused.
"Yeah, Ryan," the Sergeant responds, "Back in the day, right before Montgomery took over, there was a big renovation.
"I guess someone thought it was better to have the captain sit closer to the bullpen, and the old office was turned into a storeroom.
"So, it's going to be an office again?" Esposito queries.
"There's the legendary Esposito brains," Renzulli chuckles, "No wonder you're the pride of the Detective Bureau."
"Do you have to do it now?" Ryan has to raise his voice to be heard over the commotion.
"Orders came directly from the PC," Renzulli smiles, "I'm sure he'll be happy to discuss with you how inconvenienced you are."
"So, why are they turning it back it back into an office?" Esposito asks.
"I'm not the detective Esposito is," Renzulli snickers, "But I think they want it
prepared for a new occupant,"
"Did they happen to say who this new occupant is?" Ryan questions, getting feeling of dread.
"The Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Confidential Investigations," Renzulli says a little too happily for their liking.
"Never heard of that position," Esposito responds.
"Before your time," Renzulli replies, "It was phased out when Commissioner Henry Reagan forced out, but Commissioner Frank Reagan is reinstating it."
"And what does the ADC for Confidential Investigations," Ryan responds.
"Whatever the hell he wants I guess," Renzulli chuckles, "The position is the equivalent of a two-star chief."
"And why is an ADC being posted in our house?" Esposito demands.
"It so cute you think this is your house," Renzulli chuckles sarcastically, "You, Ryan, Beckett and the rest, you're just temporary renters."
"Just answer the question," Esposito pushes.
"It's the only way Castle would take the job," Renzulli smiles broadly, "This has been his house since he was nine."
"Castle?" both detectives say in unison as other detectives listening stare wide-eyed.
"Assistant Deputy Commissioner Richard Castle," Renzulli says proudly, "You'd better start getting used to calling him, Sir.
"But I wouldn't worry guys. It's not like you guys ever gave him a hard time or any other reason to use his new position to get payback."
The Sergeant then gets back to supervising the operation as all the detectives on the floor are still processing the information.
During the exchange, a stone-faced Captain Gates got off the elevator and heard the little exchange.
All eyes turn on her as she starts to walk by silently. She takes a quick glance at the commotion and continues to walk silently into her office, slamming the door.
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James Patterson's Private Jet
Enroute to New York City, New York
"As requested," Jackson Hunt confirms, "Any reason why you only asked for scans of routine stuff, printed out for old technophobes like me?"
"To paraphrase Alexis," Rick Castle answers, "I like to kick it old school to find clues. I may need you to get me a Great Dane named Scooby."
"Be serious Richard," Jackson narrows his eyes.
"Wow, I know that tone," Rick smirks, "I'm just used it coming from someone female, with red hair, and a unique fashion sense.
"Richard…"
"Okay, okay," Rick holds up his hands, "Bracken and Coonan were in heroin business together."
"How do know that?" Jackson counters, "There's not connection beyond Bracken hiring Coonan as a hitman, others did?"
"Timing," Rick explains, "Bracken used blackmail to fund his first Congressional run. After that he went to the usual sources for reelection.
"He did the same when for his first Senate run in 1998, but in 2004, he miraculously raised millions, supposedly from small donors mostly from the Net.
"But for 2010, he turned to the classic big money donors. Contributions dried up, which was attributed to the financial downturn."
"It was also eleven months after Coonan snuffed it," Jackson adds, smiling.
"Fancy that," Rick smiles back, "But a year later, the contributions started coming back and steadily gaining momentum.
"About the same time, NYPD started turning up heroin with the identical impurity profile and chemical characterization as stuff seized in Coonan."
"A sitting U.S. Senator turned drug kingpin," Jackson chuckles, "Sounds like something from one of your books."
"My books?" Rick looks insulted, "This is something out of a TV show that uses former soap opera writers. But there is a real kingpin, Bracken's silent partner."
"But how do you know there even is a third man?" Jackson asks.
"Great film by the way," Rick comments, "One of the few Orson Wells pictures I actually like."
"Richard…" Jackson again with that tone.
"I thought about this operation," Rick explains, "I mapped out the talent and resources needed, and Bracken came up short.
"It started when I examined Coonan's charity to build schools in Afghanistan. The cover was so perfect that it even did build the schools."
"Bracken's a Senator," Jackson counters, "It'd be easy for him to get approval for a charity."
"To borrow a line from The Godfather, Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along."
"You realize I'm not the movie buff you are, right?
"Bracken could grease the wheels," Rick counters, "But planning and running so intricate an operation, no way."
"He's paranoid, a bully, a sociopath, and a coward both morally and physically. He's too incompetent and panicky to be successful.
"He risked murdering four people when he could have just had Pulgatti killed. Cops would have written it off as a mob hit.
"Even if Johanna Beckett was suspicious, she couldn't appeal without a client. All she would have had are conspiracy theories."
"You would know about those," Jackson teases, "Maybe Coonan set it up the operation and went to Bracken for help."
"Coonan was a thug," Rick counters, "He also grew up in Finn Rourke's territory where running drugs carries a death sentence.
"I read his Army file, besides lack the brains, he wasn't in the Mid-East long enough to get any experience or contacts."
"Then why involve Coonan at all?" Jackson asks, "Seems out of his league?"
"Convenience," Rick suggests, "Bracken likely put picked Coonan to run distribution as a financial incentive to keep quiet about the murders.
"Interestingly enough, since he died, the charity has still been operating. I understand some other NGO has taken over.
"Think Bracken whispered to someone that it'd be shame to lose a good program and taint U.S. efforts in Afghanistan?"
"State Department," Jackson concedes, "They've declared it clean of all bad apples."
"State monitored it for a while," Rick summarizes, "After the heat dies down, then business as usual."
"Why do you need my help again," Jackson chuckles, "And how do you plan to find this third may with these documents, some decades old."
"Joseph Rochefort," Rick recounts, "In 1942, he led the codebreakers that figured out Japan was targeting Midway so Nimitz could ambush them."
"I'm a spy Richard, I know the story."
"Rochefort explained his process," Rick continues, "Imagine you want to know the time and place of wedding without an invitation, so you look for clues not a smoking gun.
"You check bookings for caterers, florists, and bands which is similar to how I'll use those files to find Bracken's CIA partner. It's the real reason you're here, isn't it?"
"Richard…" Jackson is actually surprised.
"And if you came to me," Rick continues, "This isn't your run of the mill rouge agent looking to pad his retirement account."
"No," Jackson concedes, "Every time I get a lead, it just evaporates. Every time I find someone with a connection they disappear or worse.
"It has to be someone very powerful inside the Agency which is likely why you didn't want a targeted search, might raise a red flag. Good tradecraft."
"But you're wrong about one thing," Rick adds, "You're not looking for an active agent but someone who's been cast out."
"Cast out?"
"Have you ever read Milton's Paradise Lost?" Rick finishes his second drink, "It's a poetic telling of the oldest story in book, The Good Book"
"No," Jackson looks confused, "What's that got to do with this.
"In it, Lucifer declares after falling from Grace," Rick smirks, "It is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven."
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Author's Notes:
Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone on our annual holiday of eating, drinking, and shopping ourselves in a coma. I did it all :-)
Sorry, this one will be a little longer than most since I thought there should be more explanation.
I paraphrased the "Wow, I know that tone" line from Live Free or Die Hard (2007).
And yes, I paraphrased that last bit from Star Trek (1967), Season 1, Episode 22, Space Seed, the first appearance of Khan Noonian Singh.
And I don't care what the diversity police say, I think Benedict Cumberbatch was great in the role despite being a Caucasian Englishman.
Besides, Khan was genetically engineered. Who know what that will do to the finished product considering the first guy in the role was Mexican.
Furthermore, I paraphrased the "galactically stupid" thing from the TV Show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997).
A time traveling villain named Tempus used it to mock Teri Hatcher (Lois Lane) for being so easily fooled.
I still love that show even after finding out Dean Cain (Clark Kent) is a bit of a jerk in real life.
And finally, I paraphrased the Joseph Rochefort the stuff from how the actor who portrayed Rochefort explained how his people worked in the film Midway (2019).
Tradecraft is intelligence community slang for the techniques, methods and technologies used in modern espionage (spying) and generally, as part of the activity of intelligence assessment.
This includes general topics or techniques (dead drops, for example), or the specific techniques of a nation or organization (like the NSA eavesdropping).
NGO: Non-Governmental Organization is one formed independent from a government, typically a nonprofit entity active in humanitarianism or the social sciences.
There was a standing joke from the Second World War that sums up Diana's view, from Britons talking about Americans.
"I like the Yanks, but I can't say the same for those white fellows they brought with them".
This was based on well-earned stereotypes of the time that African Americans were respectful guests while Caucasian Americans were "over paid, over sex, and over here".
First, there is a lot of racism in the United Kingdom. I've worked with several people of color who lived there and who've had some horrible even life-threatening experiences.
Having said that, while the history of Slavery in the U.K. is shameful to say the least, but it's also incredibly confusing from a legal standpoint.
I can expand later if enough people want it.
In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson blamed "the Christian King" George III for the institution of slavery in America and a whole bunch of other things that made him a tyrant.
Parliament put in all the things that Jefferson accused the King of doing. George III was a sound constitutionalist. Ironically, if he had tried to restrain Parliament, then he would have been a tyrant.
I guess it was easier for Jefferson and Co. to blame the King since the opposition in Parliament was generally pro-American.
The next general election in Britain could remove the true perpetrators of the issues the founders railed against, and they'd look like idiots.
Actually, George III was the first British monarch known to oppose slavery beginning when he was still Prince of Wales.
He wrote an essay calling slavery "repugnant" and was scathing of the arguments to justify the trade.
So, I guess Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) seems to follow the line from the "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Anyway, slavery was made illegal in England around 1104 when it was not limited to any one racial group, but most slaves were Caucasians.
Unlike Portugal, France, and other European nations, Britain never implemented laws in relation African slaves.
The London government shamefully allowed its commercial ships to engage in the slave trade due to the demands of wealthy colonists and merchants at home.
But in Somerset v Stewart court case. The judge held that slavery had no basis in English law and was thus a violation of habeas corpus in the case of an escaped slave.
This meant any slave who made it to Britain could go to court and gain their freedom, and there was a strong abolitionists movement provided legal.
Under public pressure, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in 1807, which George III gladly signed.
Britain then used its power and influence to put on pressure other governments to follow suit and allow searching of their vessels.
The Royal Navy's West African Squadron spent 1808 to 1867 on anti-slavery patrols, freeing 150,000 Africans while losing over 17,000 men, mostly to tropical diseases.
And further public pressure convinced London to end slavery throughout the Empire in 1833.
They did compensate slave owners at British taxpayer expense mostly to avoid another repeat of 1776 by having the slave owners cry "tyranny" about abolition as Southerners would about 27 years later.
Finally, Britain never had any laws limiting voting based on race. There were plenty of limitations based on property and wealth until the mid-1800's as there were in the United States up until around the same period.
Charles Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780) was born in a slave ship on its way to the Spanish colony of New Grenada. An orphan at two, his owner gave him as gift to three English sisters in Greenwich.
When old enough, he ran away to the home of John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu who gave him shelter and taught him how to read and a job.
As he grew older, he left Montagu's employ to become a writer, composer, abolitionist, and eventually a prosperous shopkeeper.
When he who met the same qualifications to vote as any Caucasian, he became the first Briton of African descent to vote in a national election in 1774 and again shortly before his death in 1780.
Until the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the right was given and taken away legally on the whim of the Colonial and State governments.
The story of African slavery in Britain is tragic, but not as simple textbooks and commentors say especially John Oliver.
He's the former standup comedian and the Harry Potter lookalike who has a Daily Report like comedy/news show on HBO.
He's a Brit who seems to have not good to say about the history of his home country so we Americans can take comfort that we're not the only ones to have people like that.