'We've just finished going over the rest of Raglan's phone transcripts, we'll need some help to get the rest for Spitzer, Cowlan, Elliott and Attwood done,' Adam continued as they assembled in the conference room, and Beckett and Ryan could only stare as he took his seat. 'What?'

'Delancy must want these guys as badly as we do, if we have those transcripts that quickly,' Ryan said with no little amount of surprise.

'Like I said,' Montgomery told them, 'Delancy is a street cop at the core, not a politician. If he were, he'd have made Chief of Police long ago.'

'Uh, sir?' Esposito looked at Montgomery as he sat down and rolled up his sleeves beside Adam. 'Again not to be rude, but don't you have work to do?'

'I report to the very man who is on our side, Detective Esposito. This is where I need to be until this case is resolved.'

They combed through the paper work, reading through page after page and making highlighted notes, setting aside the calls that were priority. Finally, when they heard the little timer go that Beckett had set on her watch to take a breath, they all sat up straighter, stretched and looked around the room.

'Anything yet?' she asked, looking at Esposito who had taken Elliott's calls.

'A little thing.' He handed around a page with a short highlighted phone-call. 'It's from Spitzer, asking him if he had a nice holiday, had some good desserts and Elliott replied he did, Camilla is such a good baker especially with Swiss chocolate.'

'That's code if I ever heard it,' Beckett scoffed. 'Another word for baker is chef and a chef is a cook, one of the most common words in narco jargon. And Swiss chocolate? More than like that means his foreign bank account.'

'Agreed. Who's Camilla?'

'Yet another question in this shit-mess,' Ryan groused.

'Ryan, you didn't find anything?'

'Not yet. What about you, Beckett?'

'Cowlan was a very bad boy,' she commented. 'He called a Nicolas Goddard, said he needed a deer-hunter for the urban jungle. He'd make sure the deer was penned in and he would know the moment when to hunt.'

Adam wheeled over to the computer, searched the name and pumped his fist. 'Yahtzee! Nicholas Goddard, ex-Marine, received one combat medal and three commendations for his sniper skills.'

'Let's see the picture?' When Adam turned the screen to face her, Beckett felt a little chill as she replayed the scene from the parking lot at Rikers. 'That's the guy I saw this afternoon at the prison. We need an APB out on him, stat. Wanted for threatening a police officer and possible racketeering.'

'On it.' Montgomery left to do just that, while the others looked around as they tried to sort out their brains from yet another avalanche of information.

'I think you're right, Ryan,' Beckett commented. 'We have to go through the chain of command, which means we look for the people on Montrose's murder.'

'Why Montrose?' Adam asked. 'Why not Timo Ross and Mike's involvement there?'

'That's the second branch of this, the original was my mother investigating Moore's arrest for a murder he did not commit. So we work back another layer from that, who did kill Montrose and why.'

'We know the who, it was the trio of Cowlan, Spitzer and Raglan.'

'But Roman said that another man ordered Cowlan out of the warehouse, and that it was this other masked man who capped Montrose,' Esposito said, thinking on the recorded conversation. 'He's the one who actually did the deed.'

'And why wear a mask unless...unless the other conspirators didn't know who he was either and he wanted to keep his identity a secret too.'

'Makes sense, so we're back at the original question. Who do we take as our crack in the dam?'

'I think I can answer that,' Ryan said, scanning a file. 'This is Elliott's service record, says he was shot in the knee while a known drug lord was resisting arrest. Guess who that drug lord was?'

'Tell me it's Julio Robinson and I will kiss you, bro,' Esposito told him.

'In the neighbourhood known as El Rey or Caballo Blanco, but the government says he was born Julio Escalante Robinson. Errh!'

Ryan squawked and made a face like he'd swallowed a mouthful of vinegar when his partner reached over and gripped his head in his substantial hands and gave him a hard kiss, like Michael and Fredo in The Godfather Part II. 'What was that for?'

'I told you if it was Julio Robinson I'd kiss you.'

'That's a saying, like bite my ass or- no don't even think about it!'

'Yeah, I'd rather save the nibbling for Meredeth.' Esposito gave them a wink. 'She's got better tits than you.'

'Gentlemen.' Montgomery walked back in. 'Why are we talking about breasts, fascinating a topic as that always is?'

Beckett instinctively folded her arms over her chest; she was suddenly aware of being the only woman in the room. 'We've found a tangible link between Elliott and Julio Robinson,' she told him, and detailed Elliott's shooting.

'I remember that, it was one of the first major attempts to bring in Julio Robinson but he skated, though God knows why when he shot a cop.'

'According to this, there wasn't enough hard evidence for a conviction, which means Julio had grease in the right places to make sure he slid through. Plus George Elliott stayed on the job, moved to Records at the seven-two.'

'The inside paper man,' Montgomery concluded and tapped the file. 'He'll be the first one to roll.'

'But he wasn't part of the murder of Montrose,' Adam, started, then stopped, frowned and went back. 'Wait. Wait, Montrose requested information Robinson, right? Who his contacts were, previous arrest records, and that would have gone through Elliott.'

'He's our man,' Beckett said definitively, then frowned. 'Sir, just to play devil's advocate, how do we bring him in? We have no proof he is actually tied to Raglan's murder.'

'Exactly how you know you will. Wanted in questioning over possible connection between Mike Doran and John Raglan's deaths. He'll know he's screwed if we have enough to pull him in for questioning. Go pick him up,' Montgomery told them. It took them about three seconds to spring to action, and when Adam remained seated poring through sheets, he leaned over and said, 'When I give my men orders, they are followed, Brennan.'

Adam's head whipped around. 'Sir?'

'Your team is going into the field. Get your shit together and roll out.'

'Yes sir, of course, sir, right away, sir.'

Adam nearly upended his chair in his haste to get out the door and fought the blush when he saw the other detectives strapping on their Kevlar. 'I don't even have a weapon,' he said lamely, then felt his eyes go wide when Beckett handed him her clutch piece.

'Montgomery issued a temporary carry license for you when he officially reassigned you as a civilian consultant to this case.'

Adam felt a lump lodge in his throat, cleared it lightly as he clipped on the holster. 'What, and the best I can get is this Noisy Cricket?'

'You're worse than those two,' Beckett said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the Ry-Sposito monster, who were checking their Glock magazines. 'You ride with Espo, Ryan rides with me.'

Elliott lived close to the seven-two, which made sense; the man had a bum knee very similar to Cam George's injury so mobility was an issue. That meant the Kevlar and using Adam and Ryan as back-up on the ground was probably overkill but Beckett was taking no chances. She had her hand on her weapon as she pounded on the apartment door.

'George Elliott, NYPD open up! We have some questions for you!'

The door opened, and a dull grey eye peered from the minuscule crack. 'Yeah?'

'We need you to come downtown to answer some questions regarding the death of John Ragl- no, no, no!'

The eye disappeared and Esposito kicked the door wide open, tackled Elliott who was going for the fire escape on the far side of the living room. The two men crushed the coffee table like it was made of Popsicle sticks, and Esposito slapped his cuffs on the man.

'What you think, Beckett does that count as resisting arrest?'

'I didn't kill John,' Elliott spat viciously, 'but you get me a deal, I'll tell you who did.'

Beckett gestured with her weapon for Esposito to back off, and she lowered her face near Elliott's. 'My name is Detective Kate Beckett. My mother was Johanna Beckett. You remember that name? That name means you get no deal, and you'll still spill your guts to me.'

'Bitch.'

'Damn right I am. Take him to the car, Espo.'