Chapter 5
Olivia crept across the gravel drives that led to the storage warehouses, secretly allowing Munch to get ahead of her so he wouldn't notice when she slipped off. Elliot had instructed Olivia to investigate the offices, but still fresh in Olivia's mind were the eight hours spent on cracking this case. She veered off her intended path and made a beeline for the entrance to the factory grounds.
It's late, and Morozova should be getting to work soon. Of all people here he knows something, and even if he doesn't we can nail him on those damn fires.
Olivia continued quietly, her feet brushing across the few frail pieces of grass that struggled through the barren soil. She could see the small building in which Morozova should be right now, but just then a persnickety voice pricked her ear.
"Olivia, what's your status?" came Cragen's dusty voice.
"Err, I'm approaching the offices right now," Olivia stammered, not wanting to draw Cragen's disapproval. She would let him judge her actions after they were complete. Granted, that was not the most judicious policy, and it was one that had almost resulted in disaster before.
Olivia's mind flashed back to the time when the captain had ordered her to tail a suspect, and by a coincidence their ADA Casey Novak had joined her in the supposed-to-be routine operation. Really Casey had just wanted a cup of coffee and some fresh air, and Olivia enjoyed the company. The two were sitting in the squad car when Cragen radioed them and told them to back off the target, back off he insisted. Olivia could remember his words vividly, and then, as the radio returned to static Casey's adamant cry "but I wanted a high speed chase!"
Olivia had looked at her doubtfully but then Casey shouted "look!" pointing ahead to the target. The car had just pulled up to a bank and a hooded individual carrying a stuffed duffel bag dove into the car. "Shit!" Casey cried again, "Olivia it's a heist!"
"I see that," Olivia said, throwing the car into gear. "I'm sorry Cragen, I can't back off now." Olivia jerked the car out and sped forward, cutting through traffic, slamming the squad car into the front of the criminal's car just as it was pulling out. Olivia's car continued forward, bashing into the back of another parked car and spinning around into the middle of the road, blocking its traffic along with the target car. Olivia jump out gun raised at the bank robbers, while they pulled guns out themselves. Casey, caught in their crosshairs simply sat in the passenger seat and whimpered pitifully.
It turned out that the hooded 'bankrobber' had actually been Elliot Stabler, hence Cragen's orders to back off. As guns were raised perilously between the cars Cragen's voice cut through the radio static in harsh chastisement, "Olivia I told you to back the fuck off!"
Luckily, Elliot pulled his mask off and put a gun to the back of the driver's head and demanded that they surrender. Being caught in such an inauspicious position, they acquiesced. Olivia was wrought with compunction, and after handcuffing the perps she rushed over to her still terrified lawyer and consoled her softly.
"It's okay honey, it's okay," Olivia soothed, "it's all over now, let's go get you that coffee,"
"Olivia who the hell are you talking to!" blasted Cragen's shrill voice from the radio. "All you're getting is back into my office pronto!"
Right, that is an experience not worth repeating thought Olivia as she approached the entrance terminal of the factory yard. Angry grumpy Cragen no fun. Mansuetude is supposed to be the quality of old men.
"All right, entering the offices now," she said into her receiver, just for safe measure. Olivia reached the check-in building which was bordered by two long retractable gates. She pressed her back to its wall, listening intently to the interior.
Nothing. Well, only one more thing to try.
Olivia spun around and burst inside it, sweeping her gun around in a circle.
Still nothing, damn. I may as well look around while I'm here.
Olivia glanced around. A monitor of security cameras, one displaying Munch's creeping form. A tabletop area spread with folders and logs, and a waste bin over laden with fast food wrappers. Not much here Olivia thought.
"Um, may I help you?" an uncertain voice started.
Olivia rounded, shocked, and her right arm flew up instinctively in a potent hook, catching the unsuspecting man right in the face and knocking him backwards. Olivia eyed him for a moment, and against all odds decided that the dimwit she had just clocked was indeed Peter Iscanyth, or Igor Morozova as he was really called.
Olivia leapt outside and grabbed the man's shirt slamming him against the wall of the building. "Well hello, Igor," she said sinisterly, "would you like to tell me where our friend Fin is?"
"Er, who?" he said in confusion, his hands trembling.
"Talk now or talk later, it's your choice."
"I honestly don't, wait, you're, you're one of the detectives I talked to aren't you?"
"Yes I am, and another one of us detectives has been missing for a few hours, last seen here. What can you tell me about that?"
"I really don't know! I've only just arrived, my shift starts at eight!"
Olivia decided against further questioning. Her free arm flew up and sent the man's body limp.
SVU SVU SVU
Casey Novak left the prescient briskly, breathing a little heavily after descending the five flights of stairs to the ground floor. She sported an economical bag containing the most vital papers for her cases, and wore a black skirt and a light blue blouse.
The trim lawyer hailed a cab and directed it to 10th Street where she had agreed to meet Alex Cabot for drinks at a bar they visited frequently.
"You know, I'll give you my number if you need a ride home too," the cab driver said seductively as Casey paid him.
"No thanks, I'm meeting," she hesitated, "a date." What was the risk of a little lie, she thought. Besides she had to start getting creative with her excuses, she was hit on a lot due to her stunning looks.
"Hey Alex," she said moments later, entering the bar.
"Casey, it's been so long!" Alex exclaimed, smiling widely in greeting. The alibi that she was meeting a date was truly a lie, but now that Casey considered it Alex was pretty good looking, she was sure that she was the object of no more than a few other hungry and searching eyes. But no, what was she thinking, it was just a thought, just an innocent thought. But to tell the truth, Casey had thought the same thing the last time she had seen Alex. In fact, these thoughts had been secretly creeping in upon her and had become more noticeable in the last few years. Casey shook her head and took a gulp of her foaming beer.
"Yeah, I'm knee deep in a pretty rotten case right now actually," she said, trying to take her mind off such things.
"Oh yeah? What is it this time, sex slavery? Child trafficking? Serial rapist?"
No, nothing egregious like that," Casey said chuckling, "rotten as in corrupt. Some highfalutin business tycoon with backdoor business deals. He even seems to smell of mischief. If I gave you a lineup and said point me out the unscrupulous sycophant you would nail him right away."
"Oh, one like that huh? An infinite burden to prosecute and little glory to convict. But at least the newspapers get to play the shame game afterwards, that also really seals the deal."
"Like hell, they're dirty bastards too. The funny thing is, the whole thing started with some girl accusing the businessman of abuse, probably just to win some of his money, but in her defense I came across some loose ends in the man's pocketbook. One thing led to another and here I am, working late again." Casey sighed, setting her glass down lugubriously.
"Oh yes, I've had plenty of those. At least the majority of your cases are still full of racy details, most of mine are more like that awful one you have now. Mounds and mounds of papers." Alex raised her hands in mocking despair, and what fine hands they were, Casey thought. Those thin fingers, and those slender, gracile arms, and her lean torso and golden hair. Er, stop it! Casey commanded herself again.
She had never had very much time to devote to a romantic life, and therefore had not devoted much thought to it. College had been a four year barrage of work and more work, and law school was just a sinister aggravation of that routine, if that was possible. Casey had never had time to devote to boys, being perpetually drowned in stacks of legal papers. But now Casey wondered if the real reason was rather that she was not that attracted to men after all…
"Yes, not to mention I miss the indecency of SVU criminals," Alex said looking back at Casey. "They were always so much more fun. Even my own clients would sometimes blatantly ask to sleep with me, now its just all a sly veneer plastered on to try to impress me. Just a circus of sybarite charlatans. It's not even entertaining."
"You're not saying that you actually miss being hit on by rapists and murderers, ADA Cabot?" Casey teased, but immediately regretted it, after noting the cause of her wanting to do so.
"Hell, you see how many 'you know how much this watch cost me' or 'that Mercedes over there, yeah, that's mine,' or 'let me show you how a real businessman treats a woman' and tell me what you think."
Casey remembered the crude remarks of the unshaven cab driver and muttered her agreement. Maybe that was it, men just had gutter minds and gutter desires. She had never really met any that seemed even potentially able to actually care about a women. Maybe she was just spent on their insensitivity. Yet she never wanted to caress a man's hair as much as she wanted to caress Alex's right- Casey stop it!
"I'm beginning to think all men are like that," Casey said absentmindedly in distraction.
"Beginning to think?" Alex questioned dubiously. "Hell, I have yet to meet one man who isn't!"
By now the two were at least a little tipsy and Alex nodded slyly at Casey, saying "watch this." Alex turned from the window bar stool at which they had been seated and approached a nearby table, where three guys were sitting and talking raucously, a pitcher of beer emptied between them. Casey's eyes followed the lawyer's flowing body, her swishing hips and thin legs, her… "hey fellows!" came Alex's voice. Casey blinked, surprised out of her romantic reverie.
"Tell you what, if you guys honestly tell me what you think of me right now, I might just let you take me home tonight- but only one of you, only the one I think is the most honest! Now, let's hear it, tell me what you're thinking about me right now!"
The men's mouths hung slack jawed briefly but then one burst out, "hell I'd sleep with you right now lady, where's your house?"
The responses of the others were of a similarly base nature, and Alex just smiled reprovingly at them saying, "thanks, point proved." She turned away from their catcalls and rejected faces and rejoined Casey.
"See what I mean, dear?"
"Yes, I see your point," Casey said, although a very different point had been made in her mind. She was attracted to Alex Cabot. And there was no more denying it.
Alex turned and looked out the window wistfully, unaware the Casey was still eyeing her body out of the corner of her vision. Alex's gaze trailed after the disappearing cars that raced down the open air street, a disheartened gaze of a disenchanted romantic. However her frustration was not due to the insensitive character of modern men, modern men she was hardly interested in anyways, but rather to the actual nature of her sexual dispositions, and their seemingly hopeless nature. Or at least, highly impractical nature.
SVU SVU SVU
Fin's eyes opened groggily, his head hanging loosely across his chest. He blinked several times trying to regain his sense of reality, for the moment completely unaware of where he was or what he was doing there. Soon the acute sensation produced by his bound limbs informed him that he was being held hostage. He grunted in frustration, realizing that he could hardly move.
The room he was in was dark, but faintly illuminated. It was a large room, it seemed, or perhaps the word room did not do it justice. It was more akin to the interior of a warehouse, or some vast, open space. Fin was bound to a chair next to large crates and some heavy metal machinery. His mouth was gagged and he could now feel dried blood caked to the side of his head. He searched his mind for the recollection of how he had ended up here.
Yes that was it, the metalworks plant. He had been investigating it and had found the superintendent to be a spineless coward and decided to take things into his own hands. Fin remembered rounding the side of the building and spying a group of men unloading crates from a freight truck, crates just like the one in front of him actually. Fin remembered entering the building where there were being deposited from a side entrance and watching their delivery carefully. He had descried the name Imam Chemical Corp on the crates, and the men were obviously being secretive about the placement of the boxes. This was enough to arouse his suspicions fully, but his memories ended just as he pulled his phone out to call his partner.
I must have been bludgeoned then. Well hell, at least they know where I am, assuming I still am at the metal factory.
Just then Fin heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and momentarily his face was assaulted with a glaring light. After his eyes adjusted he managed to distinguish the face of the spiteful superintendent, although no longer were its creases etched with pusillanimity and fear. He had a menacing and bitter expression, an expression that announced that now he was in control. But Fin, who scared children, was not to be intimidated by some white collar bully. He stared belligerently back at his adversary, his eyes flaming.
"Haha," the man chuckled. "A fierce look, but it won't do you much good. You should spend the last moments of your life smiling, instead of being so down."