Wednesday 11:43 am

12th Precinct

Beckett stepped out of Gates office and looked around. Castle was huddled with Esposito at his desk, and Ryan was working at his computer. Demming looked up from the vacationing Karpowski's desk, and she motioned the Robbery Detective over. She swung by and told the other three men, "Quick meeting now" and proceeded to her chair.

They gathered at her desk. She turned to Demming and asked, "How many have you identified that had access to the ACT software?"

Demming responded, "I have found 47 people that had both the knowledge of the system and could have had access to ACT between the time the Gotham schedule was created and it was sent out."

Ryan looked surprised. "Forty-seven! Really? I thought it was supposed to be a secure system?"

Demming shrugged. "It's not a very popular job, so it's shared out a lot. There are a dozen of us that rotate the duty week by week, but there are a lot of others that know it because they have to maintain it, or input construction or traffic issues, or make last minute changes. It's also linked to the Sensys Traffic Control system, so all the systems guys over there have the password."

Esposito asked, "Can we narrow the suspect pool? Eliminate cops and techs with no access to the Mexican heroin, or knowledge of the National Guard armory robbery, or with an alibi last night?"

Beckett shook her head. "No, unfortunately. If there's a second cop involved, they could have pooled their knowledge. We'd eliminate our guy, when in reality he got the heroin or armory information second hand. I want to review the group of suspects with you, Tom, but I don't think we're going to get him that way." She looked at her junior partner. "Ryan?"

"Sorry boss, I came up empty. Looks like Ennis, King, and Crane were all contacted by the same burner phone yesterday morning. It's from a bulk account that was stolen last year, so it's completely untraceable. It seems the mechanic, Palappadous, has been receiving and making calls to that same burner phone for over three weeks. That phone is not in service at this time. No text messages or emails from anybody rang any bells. The only thing slightly off was Ennis spending an inordinate amount of time on some pretty raunchy porn sites."

Castle leaned forward. "Really? Which ones?"

Beckett snapped, "Castle!"

Castle smirked. "Hey, it's case related … kind of." He handed two files to Beckett. "I haven't reviewed them yet, but these are the two guys killed in the shootout with the MPs last year. All the different agencies spent countless time and energy trying to tie them to one organization or another, without success. They appear to be standard street thugs, with a list of strong-arm crimes on their resume. No help there. However….." He motioned to Esposito.

Esposito took Castle's cue. "Most of the arms and ammo from the third truck were returned to the New York National Guard." At Beckett's look of disappointment he added, "But! One of the bad guys was shot and killed in the rear of the third truck, and everything that had his prints or had blood spatter was entered into evidence. It's at the evidence warehouse up in Red Hook. The list includes Semtex charges, an M40A1, a few anti-tank rounds, and some other goodies."

"Okay, great. Take Ryan and see what they have and what they're missing. Don't let anybody know what you're checking out. Take a fingerprint kit while you're at it, maybe we'll get lucky. But whatever you do, stay off the radio! Cell phones only! If these guys have any brains at all, they're monitoring our comm."

"Ok, road trip to Red Hook. Come on, Kevin."

Ryan stayed seated. "Hold it, Javi. Beckett, I'd like to stay here if that's okay."

Beckett lifted her eyebrows. "Why?"

Ryan's face grew animated. "Well, since we're working on the premise we're dealing with dirty cops, I started thinking. Espo and I looked high and low for that damn tractor trailer, and came up empty. We shouldn't have, though. We checked EVERYTHING. So, what if the server crash that turned off certain cameras wasn't a server crash? So I checked. Sure enough, it looks like someone disabled specific cameras for last night, and they weren't reactivated until the server ran its maintenance routine at midnight. That's why I thought it was a server crash."

Ryan jogged back to his desk, and returned with a map of Manhattan. He laid it out on Beckett's desk for everybody to see. "I marked where the disabled cameras are located. Based on this, that armored car HAS TO be within this square." His fingers outlined a highlighted rectangle on the map.

Castle asked, "Can you tell who disabled the cameras?"

Ryan shrugged. "I have tech checking, but they say it's iffy. What I'd really like to do is see if I can identify the building they're using."

"Bro, that has to be, what? Four blocks by twelve blocks. Fifty square blocks? That's gotta be a thousand buildings, with lots of warehouses." Esposito shook his head. "Way too many to check, and they'd see us coming a mile away."

Ryan replied, "Actually, only about seven hundred buildings, and a lot of them are small stores or residential".

Castle smiled and leaned over the map. "No, wait. This might work. Wherever they took that semi, they'd need complete privacy. So the building would need to be empty, abandoned, or otherwise unused."

Beckett nodded, smiling for the first time since leaving Gates' office. "They would need to pull INTO a building, not back up to a loading dock. That would have to eliminate most of the buildings right away. That puts them on the first floor of a building with a huge garage door, and reinforced floors."

Ryan nodded. " Also, it would have to be fairly secure, no homeless people camped out, or windows to look through, and at least somewhat soundproof. If I can get it down to a handful of buildings, we can check them out ourselves."

Beckett's smile widened. "Good thinking, Kevin. Run with it." She looked at Esposito. "Can you take someone else to Red Hook?"

Esposito pointed to his favorite civilian. "I'll take Castle. He's good at diversions."

Beckett shook her head. "You can't have him. I need him here." They all looked at her, smiling. She rolled her eyes. "Not for THAT! Gates just told me that the Commissioner, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to saddle us with an IAD guy since we're looking at cops."

Esposito asked, "Who?"

Beckett checked the paper on her desk. "A Lieutenant named Clifford Robinson. Anybody heard of him?"

Demming looked like he'd just eaten something sour. "I have. I think he married the Commissioner's niece. Not only is he on my suspect cop list, he's a major douche bag. Word has it he went through seven partners as a beat cop."

Even Castle knew that was bad. That many partners showed a major problem, indicating anything from terrible hygiene or an abrasive personality up to and including dishonesty or cowardice.

Becket grimaced. "Gates said we have to take him, but not that we had to keep him. I was hoping we could give him a dose of 'Annoying Castle' and get rid of him."

Castle's whole face lit up. "Your faith in me is touching, Detective Beckett." He looked at Demming. "How big a douche is he?"

"Huge."

"Okay. Consider him gone." Castle glanced at Esposito, then asked Beckett "You're not going to let Esposito go alone, are you?"

Esposito announced, "No problemo! I'll grab Hernandez downstairs." Esposito was always mentoring younger cops, especially Hispanics. "He'll be thrilled to wear his civvies."

Beckett nodded. "Okay. Remember, stay off the radio." She turned to Castle. "Rick, before your victim shows up, do you think you could grab us some lunch?"

"No problemo!"