Orientating the Board: Finding Next Steps
Kate took her lunch break as quickly as possible. She probably would have tried to put it off if her stomach hadn't started growling while she was working, so she had settled for eating as fast as she could. As soon as she was done, she raced back to her office.
Barbara and Renee were where she had left them, looking over all the papers Kate had managed to accumulate on Carmine Falcone at her desk.
"How's it going?" She asked. "Have you guys found anything that looks promising?"
"So far, the only thing I've got is an accounting firm that I'm 99% certain is a front used for tax evasion." Renee groaned. "This is going to take forever and we already have our regular work."
"I might have a lead," Barbara said. "He was really into history and antique collecting. There was one collector he worked with a few times, Lorenzo Moretti. Since he's leaning into the whole Roman thing it might be worth a look."
"Does he have any criminal connections?"
"Almost definitely, but more along the line of antique smuggling, which is something the rest of the Falcone gang has never really been involved with. Their smuggling is more along the lines of drugs and guns."
"We can at least go down there and check it out."
Barbara nodded and took out her phone. "I'll pull up some directions."
"Renee, are you fine staying here?"
"Not happy about it, but I guess someone has to keep looking through this if that lead doesn't pan out." She sighed. "I don't suppose you could ask your vigilante contact if he knows anything about him?"
Kate shook her head. "He's pretty new to stuff like organized crime. I don't think it's likely that he knows much about smuggling. But I can ask him next time he stops by."
"You don't have a way to contact him?"
"Not yet. He's been good about checking in so far but… Do you think I should look into getting him some kind of burner phone?"
"The only other option I can think of would be to put a giant sign on top of the station but I feel like that's-"
"Guys," Barbara suddenly interrupted. She held out her Wayne XO. "You should take a look at this."
-.-.-.-
"And so, yeah…Tobias, do you know what to do?"
Tobias shook his head as he looked at Dick, "Did you manage at least to track her down?"
"Yeah, her bluetooth was open so it was a simple enough matter to erase my picture - but now she knows and she's apparently been posting about her 'Talon' sighting all over Facebook so… crap." Dick shook his head and stared down at his feet. The two of them were sitting in one of the private study rooms and the Hangout where they could talk privately.
"You're probably going to have to lie low for a while and wait for it to die down. It should eventually; these sorts of rumors always do. There's a reason the Court of Owls is an urban legend." He frowned. "Though the video is a bit more than there usually is." He paused. "Then again," Tobias continued, "It is just her ranting at the camera about something she's seen that she cannot prove."
"There has to be something I can do."
"Maybe you can try to redirect people's attention. You in your pseudo-talon get up aren't the only interesting thing she saw. Ask some questions in the comments or make your own posts asking questions about the silver face guy. Get people to focus on him." Tobias browsed through her previous videos. "Or you could ask her if it's the plot for her newest project." His eyes smiled at Dick as he showed him the previous content. "She's a film student."
Dick brightened up. "So special effects and previous student films would be a thing! She could be just trying to drum up hype for her next upload so that her projects get more traffic!"
"You never fully explained who that was…"
"He's dangerous. But if we can stop him then it will all be fine."
"We? That's good. It's not a good idea to go charging into danger alone."
Dick could have pointed out that he had survived quite a while on his own. But it was true. He was only in as good a position as he was in because Tobias, the rest of the network, and the Waynes were helping him. But if the Owls came after him as they surely would after this then...Then, they would go after them as well. He still needed some kind of plan.
But maybe that was the point. He could ask for help. Maybe Bruce would have an idea. He could talk to him after he updated Kate about Falcone. Right, he needed to go update Kate and get the sword to some kind of forensics.
"Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Tobias. When I realized she had uploaded the video I kind of panicked." He stood up. "But now I have something of a plan so I should get to it."
"And I assume you're going to be taking that sword in a bag with you?" Tobias gestured over to where the sword Dick had taken off of Falcone earlier was resting on the table. He had got a large clean plastic bag from Tobias to wrap it in as soon as he arrived in order to preserve it as evidence.
"Right. Thanks for reminding me. Kate will want this."
AN: So! It's been a while! Sorry about that. I finished up my final exam season for my degree and ThreeBlackCats got her vaccination! That's one of us two! Regarding my final exam season? I passed! Just need to complete a couple of hours and I will officially have 'graduated'!
At least you got a quadriple upload? The schedule should be back to normal now, see you next fortnight for our next little arc. ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ It's gonna shift the field.
Thanks once again for reading! If you'd like to contact us via tumblr, my handle is eastoniablogs! Reviews appreciated!
Cheers,
East
