Chapter 5

Underground Criminal Movement

Seifer kicked an apple core from where he'd dropped it onto the floor and watched it careen in to the bin. A report of a missing girl had been filed that morning, but that was as much as he knew, as no one had been bothered to come and tell him about it. But the way they were flapping around in the room next door made Seifer anxious to know what was happening. But the disturbance seemed not to be about what he thought, and soon a junior officer hurried into his office.

"Sir, a partial finger print has been found on hammer!"

Seifer widened his eyes in surprise.

"When?"

"Just now, Sir."

"Are they finding leads?" Seifer asked, knowing too well that it was too early for that.

"No, Sir, they haven't found anything yet," the junior replied, in a voice that was out of breath. Seifer nodded and sent him back out.

His peace was again broken as seconds later another officer crashed into the junior on the way out, and bustled into the office. Seifer looked up into a face he knew well.

"Good news about the print, hey?" the man asked, pushing files into a filing cabinet drawer.

"Maybe we'll actually get a lead on these bastards," Seifer said, staring at the fax in his hand. "Is there something else?"

"We have General Caraway in the interview room. It's his daughter that went missing last night," the man explained. Seifer grimaced.

"Shit, I'd hoped I'd never have to see him again," he admitted, getting up from his chair. "Is he waiting, Smith?"

Smith nodded curtly. Seifer bit the inside of his mouth and headed towards the door.

"SIR! SIR!" shouted the strange girl with the silver hair. Seifer searched his memory for her name but he'd forgotten it. "The diamonds have been found in Balamb. A man has just been brought in."

Seifer stared at her in disbelief. For ages they had nothing on the thieves, and now all the evidence was coming in at once.

"Excellent. Put him in room three until I'm ready to interview him," Seifer said authoritatively, walking away with a new spring in his step. Smith followed him into the room where Caraway waited and shut the door behind him.

"Good morning," Seifer said, taking a seat in front of the general. "Long time no see."

"And I would have liked to have kept it that way, but unfortunately, I had no choice but to see you," he replied haughtily. Seifer smirked.

"How's the army these days?" he asked as he readied a pen and paper.

"Much better without you in it," Caraway shot back, his short temper being shown. "I made the right choice to kick you out of it."

Seifer glared at him before clicking the pen so that the nib appeared at the end of it.

"Shall we?"

"My daughter is missing, and I want you to find her. We leave in a week, and I need to get back to work, so there can be no delays," Caraway said, folding his arms.

"Oh no, we wouldn't want you to miss your flight, would we?" Seifer said, disgusted. "Rinoa Heartilly is her name, correct?"

"Come on man, you know it is. Look, I'm willing to pay whatever you want, I just need her back," he said, annoyed.

"Why the hurry? From what I remember you two weren't ever very friendly," Seifer said, trying to squeeze as much personal information out of him as possible. You never knew when it could all come in handy.

"That is none of your concern. Rinoa has a pressing engagement to attend to, and I will not allow her to miss it!" he almost shouted, as if Rinoa's disappearance was Seifer's fault.

"Is that why she ran?"

"I do not need to tell you this," Caraway said determinedly. When it came to keeping up appearances, he always made sure he maintained an appearance of harmony within his family life, even if the reality was the opposite.

"Ah, but you do. I must now ask you to tell me everything that happened. Every detail, you understand?" Seifer said, ready to jot down anything. Caraway frowned.

"This goes no further than this room," he warned. Seifer pushed his note pad to Smith and concentrated on asking the questions.

"Of course,"

"Yes, we had an argument. Rinoa is to marry a man name Lieutenant Harden, but she is...reluctant. She left the house taking her bike with her. The next thing I knew there was a car screeching, and when I went outside to see what had happened, she was gone."

"And the car?"

"Gone too."

"I see. Smith, get team A ready and send them to the place Rinoa was last seen. You'll need to find that on the map. There may be tire marks, and I will need copies of these," Seifer ordered. Smith nodded and left the room.

"I have your word that you'll find her?" Caraway asked, showing a real concern for the first time. Seifer looked down at his hands.

"You know I'll do my best," he replied. Caraway sneered.

"So, you will punish me for not promising her to you? Seifer Almasy, your brief army career was never going to be anything but brief. Your best is not filling me with confidence. You better not screw this up like you have the diamond robberies," Caraway said spitefully.

"I think that is all," Seifer said, refusing to retaliate to the attack. "You can show yourself out."

Once outside of the room he began to breathe steadily again. But there was no time to relax, as a man was waiting in room three to be interrogated.

"Ready to play Good cop-Bad cop?" Smith asked as they walked down the corridor towards the said room. Seifer grinned.

"Always," he replied, pushing open the door. "Mr. Cray, how nice of you to visit us!"

Mr. Cray was a small, oily haired man, with a nervous look about him, and a glint in his eye that showed he'd betray his friends for a large enough sum. Seifer liked men like this. They were easily bribed, and then placed in prison for accepting a bribe.

"What do you want?" he asked, edging backwards in his chair. Seifer relaxed into his.

"Your recent stock of diamonds is rather exotic for a fishing town, wouldn't you say?" Seifer said, under questioning eyebrows. The man looked up, worried.

"I bought them legally, so you can't get me for anything," he said confidently.

"Tell me who sold them to you, and we will see that you will get off lightly," Seifer said, standing and leaning over the table intimidating. Cray looked down at his hands.

"I can't tell you," he replied shakily. Seifer sighed and straightened up.

"If you do not, you will be sent down for withholding evidence, and not to mention the number of other petty offences you have no doubt committed."

"Eighteen unpaid parking tickets, two allegations of assault, two attempts at mugging...quite a long list, Mr. Cray. All of them add up to years behind bars," Smith warned.

"I can't tell you. You don't understand; it's not just the thieves, there's a whole load of them. They'll kill me!"

"Who? Who will? Tell us and we'll get you into safe housing," Seifer shouted, frightening the man.

"Cid Kramer. But you won't find him. I can't tell you anymore, but he sold me the diamonds. I dunno where he got them," Cray blurted before lapsing into silence. Seifer breathed a sigh of relief. Some people were cowards when it came to lying, and thankfully today, he had just met one.

"Smith, see that Mr. Cray is placed in a cell until arrangements can be made. You are to remain in this country until you are given permission to leave it? Is that understood, Mr. Cray?" Seifer asked. Cray nodded, thankful to be leaving. "Good."

Seifer quickly mad his way back to the main briefing room and called a meeting.

"As well as fingerprints, we now have a link to the underground criminal movement. The UCM, as we will refer to it as, has been linked to a man called Cid Kramer. You there," he said, pointing. "Find out all you can about this man. As for the rest of you, reopen all the previous unsolved diamond robberies. The answers are in there somewhere."

Two hours later, the team Seifer had dispatched to collect a skid-mark returned with an unusual finding. The tire mark was almost exactly identical to the one left outside of the Golden Jewel. Previous assumptions had now been confirmed. There had been more than one of them.

The car had continued its journey after shaking its police tails, and had somehow collided with Rinoa Heartilly on its way. Being on the run, the driver would have not been able to report what had happened and had most likely taken the girl with him. Finding Heartilly would take them to the thieves and finding Cid Kramer could bring the whole thing down.

Selphie held the bullet up to her eye and frowned. She'd been polishing them for the past half hour and was annoyed that, even though she was only doing it because she was bored, they had not yet become shiny.

"Oh, I'm bored, and these things suck," she complained, throwing the bullet back into the box. Quistis rolled her eyes as she sat by her computer reprogramming maps and coordinates. "What you doing?"

"Moving the car swap ten miles north," she answered quietly, more aware than Selphie that Rinoa was dangerously close to them. "Keep your voice down."

"Oh, but I'm bored!"

"Then go and modify something. You always like doing that. Go put an acid spray onto that shotgun or whatever," Quistis said, hoping the girl would leave her alone before she made her bored also. Selphie groaned and wandered away.

"I'll make some cookies!" she called back.

"You do that," Quistis replied half-heartedly as she wrote a long instruction for the computer. "Come on! Work or I'll kill you!"

Rinoa watched as scenes of a high speed car chase zoomed across the television screen. It was footage of a diamond burglary that had happened a few nights before.

"Wow, did you see that?" Rinoa asked, excited as it showed shots of Zell's bike jumping from the bridge. Zell shifted in his chair and pretended to be amazed. "I wonder what happened to the rider. Do you think he died?"

"I hope not," Zell mumbled, watching as the chase was played again in slow motion and the voice-over commented on good handbrake skills.

"I wish I had a motorbike," Rinoa said dreamily.

Squall had only been asleep a few hours, but when he awoke Cid's raid was the only thing on his mind. Somehow he had to tell the team without making the Heartilly girl suspicious. Perhaps the best way of doing this would be to get rid of the girl for a while, but the question was: how?

Walking into the main warehouse, Squall saw that everything was much too calm for him to purpose something now, unless...

A new news bulletin began to play on the TV screen, and all attention was taken away from him and focused on the words the news reader was saying.

"Miss Rinoa Heartilly, General Caraway's daughter, has today been reported missing. She was last seen two nights ago when she left her house at around 3am"--a picture of Rinoa was then shown on the screen--"If anyone has any information, please go to your local police station."

"Oh, that's just great," Quistis moaned. "You couldn't knock over any old girl; it had to be the damn General's daughter!"

"She's gonna endanger us all! She has to leave," Zell said, speaking as if Rinoa was no longer there to hear him. Squall suddenly felt empathy for the girl. She hadn't asked for any of this.

"I'm not leaving!" she cried, stamping her foot, her little face contorted in anger. "I'll go to the police if you make me!"

Zell opened his mouth to shout back, but Squall cut him short.

"She's staying."

"She can't stay!"

"Err duh Zell, we let her go, your heard what she'll do, she rat us out," Selphie said appearing out of nowhere with a gun. Rinoa followed the gun with her eyes until Squall realised what she was seeing and ordered Selphie away.

"Where's Irvine?"

"Helping me fix the dent in your car!" Selphie hollered back. Squall sighed, if one man could defuse a situation like this, it would have been Irvine.

"Rinoa is going to stay, she has given her word that if she stays, she won't go to the police. Now forget what its saying on the news, I've got to speak to you all about what Cid said," Squall said trying to make everyone calm down. "Rinoa I need to speak to my friends, you can stay here," he ordered before walking away.

"Sorry," Zell muttered. Rinoa looked at him in surprise. "I was just scared the police would find you, and then us."

"Zell!" Quistis called, forcing him to walk away and leave Rinoa sat alone.

Squall and the rest of his team assembled in the room that they kept their cars in, it was cold in there, but it could not be helped.

"Alright, the next raid is going to be the biggest we've ever done," Squall said pulling out some papers from his pocket. "In two days time a new shipment of jewels is going to be brought in from Balamb, and placed in the Karter building."

"So far so good," Selphie said wiping her oil stained hands on her overalls. "I suppose we have to break into there right?"

"However did you guess?" Squall replied sarcastically. "Look, I'm not happy about doing this, but this raid could be the last. If we pull it off there is enough money in there for all of us and Cid's cut. We'd be able to do all of the things we've never been able to do before, and could leave his life behind."

"Oh, I'd buy a boat, and sail all over the world," Quistis said dreamily, her eyes became misty, and she stared at the wall as if looking out to sea.

"Well, I'd start my own car mechanics business in Fisherman Horizon, and I'd take every Saturday off," Selphie said joining Quistis in her dreaming. Squall rolled his eyes.

"For all I care you can buy cows and start a milkshake company. But what we need is the money."

"Ok, I'm in," Selphie said grinning. Zell agreed also, as did the rest, and so the devising of the plan fell to Squall, as usual.

Hearing the louder movements in the room next door, Rinoa panicked. Switching off the computer, she had just enough time to sit back in her chair in front of the TV before they all came back in. She gave them a small smile as they looked at her and then turned back to the TV in relief. What she had found was going to take a long time to get used to.

It wasn't until much later in the day that Rinoa ventured to speak about what she had found.

"Stolen diamonds hey? Pretty crazy," she said as she stared at the TV. The gang, minus Squall, all looked at one another nervously.

"Yeah, how about that," Selphie muttered stuffing cookies in to her mouth.

"Hmm, I wonder why the car they keep showing on the TV looks so much like the one you knocked me down with," Rinoa said sarcastically, her eyes darting in Squall's direction as she spoke. "Strange hey?"

"Stop it," Squall warned quietly. Rinoa laughed at him.

"I wonder how much they'd pay me for information..."

"You see that table," Squall said through grinned teeth. Rinoa nodded slightly afraid of him now. "There is a gun on there. I will take me less time to reach it than for you to reach the door."

Rinoa blinked at him, as Quistis tried to calm him down by placing her hand on his arm. Squall shrugged it off violently, and got up from his chair. He looked down at Rinoa for a second before walking away. Moments later they heard a motor start and what sounded like tires on gravel.

"Rule one here honey, don't piss Squall off," Selphie said bouncing off of her chair and walking the direction of where Squall had gone. "He's just running the engine," she told them all.

Irvine scowled.

"How come he can get it to run? I've been trying all day!"

Selphie shrugged and went outside to try and stop him leaving.