Wanted dead or dead
Headquarters Board Room
January 15th, 2004 – 9:31 am
Shane hadn't wanted to go there this morning, alone for the first time since Mexico, without her brother, her partner. It was a meeting to discuss an ulterior case that had come in the day before, something only a handful of them knew about, and only another handful would after today. She had left Sheldon somewhere in the lounge with a few of the other guys, joking about things she didn't understand, ranking tits and playoff scores. He didn't seem to be too worried about what he was here for, and that in less than four hours, he'd be no more an agent than he would be a man with good eyesight.
Stepping inside the glass door to the sound proof board room, Shane caught Jack's smile from the head of the table, requested a coffee, and took a seat beside Carter and Andy, the OPS. There was a folder waiting for her to open, documents, photos, an ID card or two, and tickets. She already knew what was about to happen, and that by the end of the day her bags would be packed and she'd be eating airline peanuts on her way to god knows where…Florida. Crap. It wasn't that Shane didn't like the idea of some sun after all the ice she'd had to deal with the last few months, it was more or less the issue of what had previously come of another Florida case. A few broken leg bones if she remembered correctly.
"Shane…how's Sands?" Carter leaned over from the right side of the table, handing her a coffee and appearing almost concerned. Sands, Shane and Carter had known each for quite a long time, worked together enough to grow attached to concern and the sound of each others voices.
"He's ok I think. Still hasn't registered to him."
"What's he gonna do now?"
"I don't know." She responded quietly, taking a sip of the hot coffee and then looking up as Jack's cough brought the group to attention.
"Alright my little fiends, let's make this a quick one. It's Florida, a weapons ring. A few counts of drug sales, untaxed strip club on the beach and a giant investment in a little home-grown institution known as…the Tampa Bay Bucs. Sound familiar to anyone?"
"They kicked Oakland's ass last week." Andy chimed in, with a few of the other surrounding male agents chuckling. Shane as usual, was the only woman in the room, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"Well…the reason their kicking ass, probably has something to do with the trainers they can afford, thanks to the in cash flow. This fucker has apparently become their unofficial god on the sidelines, providing whatever they need…getting his cut at the end of every win. Good news is though…we're not strangers to him."
"We're not?" Shane asked biting down on her pen. "Who the hell is he?"
"Shane, that's the reason I'm putting you on this one."
"It is? Why?"
Jack relaxed in his chair, and pushed another folder across the length of the table to fall under her fingertips, Carter, Andy, and the others incorporated into the meeting stared from one to the other. "Does the name Jimmy Tuzla still mean anything to you?"
Shane stopped. Her mind wired itself into basic instinct mode. And from there her head cleared out into a white canvas of thought, of pain, of a dozen screams, of her brother's face.
"Where's Tommy…" He stuttered through the rain, his gun sliding between his fingers but caught with a full grip as he pushed through Shane's hands and across the metal plated side of the roof, "Where the fuck is he…where's Tommy?!"
"Jeff, don't…Stop!" He didn't, he only kept walking, kept barreling through with the blood from a fresh bullet wound trickling down from his shoulder, another from his chest. Sands knew he couldn't stop now, he had to find Tuzla, and he had to find his partner, his best friend.
"Tom! Tommy, come on man!" He continued shouting as Shane jogged yards behind near the stairwell of the roof, tears mixing with raindrops on her cheeks.
They had only managed to get up two flights before they had heard the uncountable gunshots from above, knowing that they should have never sent Tom in alone. He was trained, he'd been in the force almost three years now, but this had been different for some reason, there had been tension before. He was on the roof, his boots slipping against the water marks and puddles, turning the corner of a few elevated walls, until he came to the last corner, bolted across the open tar, and turned. "Tommy!"
He only yelled once more, his gun drawn out in front of him, legs straddled to hold the weight of any bullets that would come to him, but there was nothing. Only red water fading into black concrete, Tommy's hand laying flat against the ground with a gun thrown out of it carelessly, and no movement. Nothing.
"No! Fuck…fuck! Shane…Shane!"
"Shane?!" When startled out of her conscious thoughts, she saw Jack again, his eyes waiting for a response she clearly knew.
"Sorry…I just…yes. Yes, I remember him." Her reply was tired, haggard, demonic almost, as if she could draw her gun on a photo of the man at any second and feel nothing but satisfaction.
"I thought you might. He's your guy."
"You found him?"
"Yeah, he's been hiding out in Florida under the name…Freddy Braxton, a real stiff business guy, man about town, walks with an iron fist down there."
"Down where, exactly?"
"Uhh…well, he's got a beach house near the causeway in Tampa, and a condo on Clearwater Beach about an hour away where he owns a beach resort, night club, a few restaurants. You fly down tonight, and I'm sending Carter and Fruit Loop over here with you." Processing the information she was gaining, she glanced down to the folder again, seeing a few more names, a few locations, entrepreneurships, dates, numbers, cash amounts, all whizzing around inside of her mind. She heard the sound of a bullet in the back of her head, and heard the sound of Tommy yelling for help, then the sound of Jeff the day, only two months before, he'd done the same. Both times, she had done nothing for them, she'd let them down.
Looking up once more she smiled, to Carter who nodded with care, then to 'Fruit Loop' which on a good day was just Andy Miles, and then back to Jack, the man she knew was sending her into this thing with the intention of getting revenge for herself, for Sands, for the friend they'd both lost too soon. Shane knew she needed this, they all did. She'd go to Florida, soak up the sun and lay a few rounds between the heart valves of a man who had left the Hanson's high and dry a second time. Now all she wanted to do was find her brother.
"Do a good job princess, and the office in Boston is yours." Her promotion, something she'd wanted for a year or more, something that would land her in an equal position to Jeff. Not that it really mattered now; she wasn't doing this for a leather chair and desk overlooking Fenway Park. She had other intentions, all of which would have to be put to use with a few broken rules in their midst.
"We'll get him Jack, I swear it."
North New York Harbor – sunrise
June 4th, 1993
Windows were fogged on a hot, New York morning. One sheet held the naked skin of their bodies together, woven into the second level bed facing out across the field of water between Manhattan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Lily's arm was draped tiredly around Jeff's waist where the sheet finally began, his skin moist of simply laying with hers, fingertips tapping at her back. His breathing was paced, but she thought he was asleep by the peacefulness of his body under hers, no movement, no sound. They had almost made love, consummated all that they were, and it had very nearly touched everything she'd imagined it would and more. From that moment until the end of eternity she was supposed be his, at least in one sense of the word. Had she actually given him her innocence and done all she could to prove her womanhood to him, given him the evidence that she was ready to grow up and old with him, then she might have felt differently, the waves and sunrise might have looked prettier to her. But instead they mocked all they had become. In three short months she would start at Boston College, while he finished his final year in the Academy with Tom. And then, she dreamed, she might find the strength and guts to finally just do it, really be together with him. But dreaming was always short lived in Lillian Hanson's mind. It was a fleeting act.
As she felt him wiggle beneath her slightly, she looked up from where her head rested over his heart, and traded the view of the orange ocean sunrise, for his eyes. He was so different in the mornings, so vulnerable, his short fluffed hair an even worse mess, drool at the corner of his lips that she kissed away, two small silver rings implanted in his left earlobe, and the aroma he shared with her, of sweat and dried cologne. When finally he was able to hold his gaze long enough to realize it was morning, he ran his hand through her tangled hair, and spoke.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"I couldn't."
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he leaned up on his elbows as she sat still in the middle of the bed, looking out at the distant waves, and the buildings shadowed through the small curtain of the bunk. She seemed lost to him, inhibited, not the adventuresome Lily he knew so well, but one who appeared to be swallowed whole in the vastness of a new place, of a regret. Silently, he rubbed the small of her back where the curled ends of her hair met with a faded cluster of freckles. She breathed in, and exhaled deeply at the touch of his hand. It felt so foreign to her all of a sudden, as if by not making love to him as promised had changed who they were, the trust was gone in her eyes. His trust for her words. Eventually he sat up behind her, his lips meeting the soft billow of hair at the top of her head, while his arms wrapped tightly around her entire form, drowning her in sticky warmth.
"Tell me what's wrong." He whispered in her ear, her face emotionless but thoughtful all the same.
"Nothing, everything's ok."
"Yeah right, you don't really expect me to believe that shit."
"Really. I'm fine. I'm just…"
"Just what, baby…?"
She didn't know exactly what to say except the obvious, but she felt sure she could at least ease his mind going into her apology. Turning around to move into his lap, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and leaned her forehead against his. Twisting her face until she could capture his lips between her own, she pulled richly at them, tasting him for the first time in too many sleepless hours, the heat from his mouth filling her cold bones with oxygen. While focused on kissing him, she suddenly felt his hand reach her exposed breast and caress gently, the air catching in the back of her throat with a moan against his mouth. He'd touched and teased her body for months now, but at this very moment, after already nearly going off the deep end once during the night, it was the simplest stroke of his thumb over her taut nipple that drove her insane, that worried her. Every bit of her was sensitive to him, and she feared what would happen if she ever found herself in someone else's arms beside his, how she imagined she'd cry in such a situation.
"Jeff, I'm sorry we didn't--"
"Shh…I don't wanna hear it. I don't care. You mean more to me than that does." He dragged her down to his lips again, hungrily but not for what she had feared in doing on this night, for just her lips, her care.
"Lily…" He breathed against her lips as he tried to pull away from her animation. "Lil…"
"Yeah…" she returned, still devouring him, "What?"
"Do you know how much…I love you?"
Headquarters lounge – 10:31 am
Shane threw open the door to the room, the empty room from what she saw. There were a few leftover coffee cups lying around, a half eaten box of donuts, and a still burning cigarette. She didn't see Jeff, she didn't see anybody. The folder in her hands was growing tense between each finger as she turned to head back out of the lounge to find him, which is when she noticed a pair of mix-matched socks hanging off the end of a beaten old couch. Sliding away to the corner, she slowly came upon the view of him stretched out on the sofa, his hat pulled down over his eyes, iPod wires running the length of his body, and his boots kicked off to the side. Trying not to laugh at him, she only moved in to pull the ear buds from his head, and catch his eyes as he woke up violently disturbed.
"Shit…what?!" His glasses were knocked off as he sat up, leaving only the stitched scars and faded bruises across his implanted eyelids. It didn't bother Shane at all to see it, it had been a weeks now and she knew she'd seen much worse. Sands though found himself the victim of another dream, or was it a memory, of something too far gone to wish on anymore.
"Chill out, I just got done in the meeting." Plopping down beside him, she handed off his boots one by one to replace, and contemplated the best way to deliver the news to him.
"Get a new case?"
"Yeah."
"And…?" He asked annoyed, reaching out towards the open floor for his glasses as he rubbed his eyes. Shane looked down to her heels to grab them for him.
"Here," she said lifting them into his hands, while the name, the information, the case rolled around inside of her brain like a flame needing to be put out immediately. She hated keeping him out of the loop, but was already concerned about what would happen when she told him everything she knew. Part of her imagined him grabbing his gun for the last time and barreling out of the office on his own terms. And then part of her wondered if he would even care anymore, if he would only be numb to the hint, to the fact that the man who murdered his best friend and partner all those years ago, was still running around free.
"Shane, just tell me what the fuck is going on already?"
She had to, there were no options anymore. He deserved to know as much as her.
"How badly do you still want Jimmy Tuzla?"
Harrison's Shipyard – Boston, MA
March 1996
It was cold, even for March. The docks were covered in ice, sky grey, and as Tommy and Jeff stepped down onto the planks near the yacht they were tipped to, they were already warming themselves with laughter.
"Samaria…what the fuck kind of pussy name for a ship is that?"
"Florida criminals, man. You bring the code?"
"Yeah, here." Sands handed the crumpled piece of paper to Tom as they huddled near the door of the yacht's back entrance, shivering against the cold, and punching in the code number by number. They'd been on the same case for almost three months and were more than ready to get it over with. All they needed was documentation of Tuzla's operations, one sign of bad relations in the Boston community, just one sliver of evidence, and they'd been done. They'd gotten word of his yacht having sailed into the harbor the night before, and knew, that if they were going to catch him, it would have to be this morning while he was set to meet with the Corazon family of the lower east end. They got the warrant, the code from their inside source, and pushed their way through the door of the boat after Tommy ripped the lock off.
"Christ Hanson…" Sands chuckled, tumbling inside as Tom immediately began running through files, drawers, anything he could get his hands on, "…Somebody needs to get laid."
"What makes you think I'm not?"
"Uh…" He began, peeking inside of a stack of boxes near the couch of the lounge area, "Cause Paige moved out what…two weeks ago?"
"So."
"So…I know you. Haven't gone out since she left, and hookers…aren't really your thing, bud."
"Well some of us gotta have morals."
"Yeah, right." He laughed back, going through a pile of bank statements, contracts, all of which were under a woman's name, of little help or evidence to them, so he moved on. Tom had occupied himself in the bar, digging through countless drawers and cabinets for any sign of drugs, of which there was nothing. But as he searched, he decided to break the ice on a subject he knew Jeff was avoiding.
"I haven't heard from Lily in a few weeks." There was no response, and he knew why, but went on. "But she's probably busy with exams."
"Hmm." Sands responded, trying his damnedest to ignore the conversation. He didn't want to think about her; at least not anymore than he knew he had to, to save himself. So instead he maintained focus on the box of issued letter heads and faxes, wanting nothing more than to put the guy away and stop wasting his time.
Tom tried again to interject, "Harvard's just around the corner…" but Sands immediately broke into his friend's intervention with the flash of a paper, "Got it!" He stumbled over to Hanson with what appeared to be a list of names, businesses, sports creditors, as well as dozens of million dollar sums calculated. They knew exactly what it was, and heading back out of the yacht onto the dock, the only words exchanged for minutes were ones of relation to the case at hand. It wasn't until they made it down to the end of the pier that Tom finally spoke up again.
"Jeff." Sands turned his head slightly to see Hanson standing still at the edge of the dock, looking back at him concerned.
"What man?"
"What happened with you and Lily?" He didn't know how to respond, whether to repeat all of the comments that had been exchanged two weeks before, or to just leave him without a clue. He knew he owed him something; it was his sister after all, no matter how close of friends they were. But it wasn't an easy thing to do, to talk about what had gone sideways, or how, if he even knew himself. The decision hadn't even been his; it had in fact been the complete opposite of what she'd wanted. He was ready to marry Lily, he had planned to ask her after she graduated, buy the ring the day after she broke his heart. In the end of his debate, there was only one thing he could say to his best friend, his partner.
"You better ask her."
He could have sworn he'd conceived it in his mind. There was no way, that seven years had come and gone, his first career, best friend and partner, and now eyesight as well. And that to top the list of things that had entered his life and only remained for a shorter period than expected, that now, something was coming back, the last thing he ever imagined would. His head was whirling, spinning with flashes of light spinning out in his view of blackness. Dizzy and shaking his face, he pushed past where he felt Shane standing, and reminded himself of the lounge's layout, counting steps as he made his way to the small sink. In his entire life he'd only felt as sick one other time, and that, was entirely too different. This though, Jimmy Tuzla, he thought, Tommy…
And just as he whispered the name to himself, he felt the purging drain of something tickle his throat, and latched onto the counter for the sink, where he spit up more than he really vomited. He was choking, not puking. Choking on a dozen and a half reasons to not load Shane's gun and find his own cab. Choking on the memory of a cop taken down too soon, a boy taken from the people who needed him more than ever, a brother, a son, a friend who'd saved his own ass too many times to count. Shane came over to where he was, holding and patting his back while she asked if he was ok. He could hardly hear her over the sounds of guns and rain in his mind, over the images of Lily and Debbie Hanson on a cold day in March, a mound of dirt and a folded flag. It consumed him momentarily, and by the time he was able to stand up straight again and let Shane wipe the aftertaste from his lips, he was already formulating his plan.
"Why don't you sit down and breathe…?"
"No…" he replied, pushing his glasses higher on his nose and feeling along the edge of the counter until he could get past her again, "No time to sit Shy…we gotta go…"
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"With you genius, now get your shit. Let's go." She shook her head knowing he couldn't see her anyway, trying to discern why he thought Jack would ever go for it, or if he wasn't planning on telling the Agency, why he thought she could use the baggage of a blind brother. She didn't repeat any of these thoughts though, because she knew the consequences.
"Jeff you can't go on a case."
"Like hell I can't." Kicking open the door with his right boot, he waved his hand as invitation for her to come along, and with a roll of her eyes she did as she was told, knowing there would still be a debate on the subject all the way to the car, all the way to the apartment, all the way to Florida. More than likely…
Moving past him in the doorway and taking his arm in hers for assistance, for his eyes, she listened to his plan already playing out, the intricacies he'd thought up in mere seconds, a much better scheme than even she could have come up with on a three hour plane ride. She probably needed him more than he needed anyone else, and his personal experience as well as hers with the man in question, could not match a more prime case, and they would get him this time, at any cost.
