Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All the Cause of Death canonical characters used in this fan fic are the property of Electronic Arts and/or other designated copyright and/or trademark holders.
Chapter 5: The Next Step
Back in the security room, Mal asked tightly, "So how long have you two been running your little jewelry-middleman fencing operation? You've got some amazing luck, not having had a gun pointed at you until now."
Gary had the good grace to seem embarrassed. Evan slumped in a chair, leaning his head on his hand as he placed his elbow on the long table near the TV cameras.
"About a year now. Also, to tell you the truth, Fallon, I considered bringing you in on this eventually, as a backup to Evan," Gary said.
"And since he told me he gave up a full-ride scholarship to earn some money to help his sick brother, that's why you thought he'd be the best henchman for your little scheme until things went sideways tonight," Mal concluded. "And by the way, this here is how cops usually end up busting criminals. Someone gets hurt or passed over or even just gets into a dispute, they go ratting to the cops and we swoop in, boom!"
Evan groaned. "Gary? I gotta see a doctor. I don't feel so good."
"Sit tight, buddy. I'll drop you at the hospital." To Mal, Gary said, "Evan hides the cables for the TV cameras in my office. We'll get them for you when I get the kid outta here."
"Make sure he says he got into a fight with a homeless guy when he was on his way to work," Mal pointed out. "And by the way, is this kind of armed meeting what I've gotta look forward to on a regular basis?"
"Look, this was supposed to be a low-risk, high-reward operation, all right?" Gary said reasonably. "Andrew hands me the cash when I give him the jewelry. I take my cut for Evan and me to look the other way, then the rest goes into the air vent in the men's washroom. The smuggler swaps with the jewels each week, and it's all supposed to go like clockwork. I might've been pretty active in my younger days, Fallon, but I'm not gonna get physical with a gangster if I can help it." Gary spread his hands and shrugged slightly.
"The air vent?" Mal grunted. "At least it wasn't the toilet tank where any janitor could get into it."
Evan turned pale. "I think I might've had a concussion."
"Damn it, I gotta get Evan out of here. I can't authorize any extra pay for all this hassle, but I'll give you two some of my cut from the cash I got. Mal, just do your usual patrol and just tell anyone who asks that Evan went home sick 'cause he ate something funny. We'll figure things out later.
"And figure out a camera or something for the air vent in that bathroom. I want our butts covered when the guy comes again, or if a new guy uses it. I don't like not knowing what's going on under my own damn nose," Gary declared.
"As long as I don't have to watch guys doing their business over the crapper just to keep track of the smuggler," Mal replied.
With that, the men left the room, stopped at Gary's office, got Mal the cables he needed to hook back up, and then Evan left with Gary to go to the hospital. Mal returned to the security HQ, got everything put back the way it needed to be, then dug around and found a small portable fish-eye camera with a radio transmitter; the flat digital-recorder box just needed to be plugged in somewhere, and the camera itself was about twice the size of a quarter, and could be stuck to practically any surface.
Attaching the camera to watch the area above the stalls in the bathroom was a piece of cake; he just had to slip in from the other fire door and watch for Colleen, who he could just see from that angle. She went through the door in the back of reception, which let him slip in unobserved and mount the white camera in a spot which gave a good angle of the ceiling's air vent. He'd only see someone's hands, but that'd be enough.
Inside, he'd tested the air vent grille himself, and found that with a dime and a couple of minutes of effort, he could easily loosen the two screws that held it in place. The vent itself bent at 90 degrees an inch above the ceiling and provided a perfect flat spot for someone to put a package. Mal put everything back the way it was, and went to find a place to plug the recorder in. Deciding the best way would be to tell a half-truth to Colleen, he met up with her at reception.
Colleen smiled brightly. "Hey, Mal! You're late, you know. It's two o'clock. You usually get up here around twelve-thirty or one."
Mal smiled in return. "Yeah. My partner, Evan, he got sick and I told him to just take off home. He'll square it with our boss later."
"Oh no!" Colleen's mouth turned down. "I hope he's okay."
"He should be," Mal allowed. He held up the box. "Listen, I need a favor. We think someone's moving drugs through this hotel and I've got a recorder box here. I let myself into the hotel room we think he's gonna use and put a radio transmitter camera in it."
Colleen gasped. "Is it dangerous?"
Mal shook his head. "No. I used to be a cop; usually people doing courier jobs like this don't want a firefight. If they think anything's sketchy, they'll just take off. So worst case, the SFPD just doesn't get their footage of a room used as a dead drop."
"Well, okay. Do I need to do anything?" Colleen frowned.
"If you could just let me in somewhere there's not a lot of traffic, I just need to plug this in somewhere and retrieve it every shift to transfer the video."
"Oh! That's easy," Colleen assured him. She gestured him around the counter, letting him behind the reception area. "You see the computer here? And that absolute rat's nest of cables? You could probably just hide it behind the computer here."
Mal grinned. "Perfect. Just don't tell anyone else about this, okay? We're trying to keep it all hush-hush."
"Okay!"
It was a few minutes worth of work; once that was done, the unobtrusive box, plugged into a power outlet, looked like just another piece of hardware.
Colleen grasped his arm. "Can you, y'know, take a couple of minutes?" She bit her lip.
"Well…" Mal averred.
"C'mon. You look like you could use the distraction." She winked. "You seem kinda stressed." She rubbed his shoulder, which, now that he realized it, did feel pretty tense.
"Same room? 1121?"
Colleen peeked at the room bookings. She nodded. "See you there."
.oO[CoDCoD]Oo.
The next day, Gary told Mal to come in at ten. Evan was in his office and the bruise on his head looked better. "Guys, I'm sorry again for what happened last night." He planted a stack of twenties in front of Evan and another stack in front of Mal.
Evan reached out and shoved them in his suit pocket, clearly at ease with the idea.
Mal hesitated. Taking a bribe was another thing he'd absolutely drawn the line at. You just didn't let someone's wealth influence you as an officer of the law.
Gary frowned. "What, not enough for you, or something?"
Mal reached out and reluctantly snatched up the money. "It's fine." He wouldn't do a thing with that cash, he promised himself. He'd just secret it away and forget about it.
Still a little heated, Gary's voice was a bit louder than usual as he continued. "So, is the camera set up?"
"Yeah. I'll pull the recordings every shift. I'll try to fast-forward through them when I'm waiting in the TV camera room. Anyone whose hands go up to the vent, we can backtrace from the timestamp to the video recording on the camera in the hallway just outside. But that won't let us catch the smuggler, though it'll tell us who he is if we want to burn him later. Can you put a GPS tracer on the money?"
Gary didn't look too pleased. "I guess. I'd rather not have him catch on, though. But he's gonna likely do the dead drop during the day, mingle with normal hotel traffic." He sighed. "Now, Evan. You wanna tell us what you want to do?"
He shifted in his seat. "I think I want out. I've got enough money I'd rather do something else. I promise, I'm not gonna tell the cops, but I didn't sign up for getting bashed on the head before I even got past a door."
"Fine. That's two weeks of notice, and I'd appreciate you coming in and doing the shifts until you're officially due to quit. Mal, you're my new sidekick. You get Evan's cut from now on, as long as you handle the dead drops and whatnot. Now get out of here and deal with the shift change."
After that, catching the smuggler was a piece of cake. Gary had gotten a GPS tracker with an altitude meter. It moved from the bathroom about twelve hours before the next regular meeting with Andrew the fence.
As soon as the elevator hit the ground floor, he and a couple of security guards detained him (Gary had told the guards Mal's story, which was that he was under suspicion for moving drugs; after securing the man in a lockable room, he waved them off and told them he'd deal with the SFPD himself). The man turned out to be an Algerian who'd been pilfering occasionally to resell the real jewels privately.
Andrew, for his part, had grinned quite nastily upon finding out the smuggler had been successfully picked up earlier that day when Mal presented him; Gary had wisely stayed away from that meeting. The fence's goons bundled the Algerian into the van, after which he tossed an envelope on the floor of the loading bay. "For your trouble. You see what happens to loyal people and to double-crossers. Don't be a double-crosser."
Mal ripped open the envelope; Andrew had deigned to give them extra money. In the end, he and Gary split it 50/50 and agreed not to look gift horses in mouths.
.oO[CoDCoD]Oo.
Natara Williams got off the plane in San Francisco, and the first thing she noticed was the lack of humidity on the West Coast. The next thing she noticed was that people seemed to feel more relaxed. They walked more slowly than she was used to; she found herself overtaking people regularly, almost fairly whipping past people as she threaded her way to the luggage pick-up area.
There, she had to wait a few moments until bag after bag started to move past her on the conveyor. She found her luggage, and made a note to herself to double-check the shipping depot for her parcels so she could get them into storage after she got a car.
The information desk at the airport yielded the names of some cheap motels in San Mateo, and she left in a taxi, ending up at the nondescript motel that looked like a faded relic from the Route 66 era of motor transport in the USA. She paid the driver, then checked in and got a room for a week. The room she was in had the barest of essentials: a bed, an old TV, and a washroom. At least the bed wasn't lumpy. She looked out the window; it was late evening, and the sun would go down in another hour.
Blaire had been good as his word, and a nice fat check had landed in Natara's mailbox three weeks after she'd resigned; she promptly deposited it, then gave notice to her landlord, spent another week finalizing her moving plans, then bought her plane ticket. That said, the money wouldn't last forever and she was determined not to have to run to Neha or her father for more.
Natara sighed; it had been a long day of travelling, and she still wasn't quite used to the time zone difference. She would get an early night tonight, then work on her future tomorrow.
.oO[CoDCoD]Oo.
Apartment: check.
Parcels to be delivered to said apartment: check.
Car: maybe.
Job: working on it.
A few days later, Natara regarded her to-do list as she sat in a coffee shop, her laptop open in front of her, and a steaming mug off to her side at the table. She circled the "Job" line on her piece of paper several times. What was an FBI profiler to do if she couldn't get a job in law enforcement? There had to be something that could use those skills, although not quite in the same way.
At least getting an apartment in Berkeley, having had the cash to put up the necessary deposit and first month's rent, had been a piece of cake. And being near rapid transit let her avoid needing to worry about a car – yet.
With a sigh, she returned to her laptop and cruised the online help-wanted ads. Nothing seemed particularly attractive, until – wait. She peered at the screen again. An import-export business in 345 California Center wanted a specialist in preparing customs documentation. She grinned and thought, if anyone knows paperwork and government bureaucracy, it's an FBI agent. She had her resume prepared already, so in just a few minutes she had a cover letter ready to go. She sent both in to the e-mail address of the firm, called EK Enterprises.
After a few more minutes looking for other jobs that weren't basically minimum wage data-entry, she gave up, shut her laptop lid, and relaxed for a little while, sipping her coffee and surveying the people of San Francisco.
The next day, while she was busy setting up her new apartment, which was on the ground floor of a three-storey walkup, Natara's laptop bleeped, notifying her of an e-mail. To her surprise, the company wanted to interview her! She was told to come the next day at ten-thirty in the morning.
.oO[CoDCoD]Oo.
The imposing structure of 345 California Center loomed above Natara as she walked through the entrance and made her way to the elevators. She was due to meet a man named Claudio Alvarez, and from the quick research she'd done before going in, he was the owner of the company, which was a six-person firm, not including him. EK Enterprises appeared to be primarily a customs broker, given the small size of the company.
She swept in through the glass double doors and approached the receptionist. "Hi. I have an interview with Mr. Alvarez. Is he here?"
The young woman smiled and said, "Yes, he is. If you'll just take a seat in the waiting area there, I'll let him know you've arrived." She got out from behind the reception area and walked over to the man seated at a large desk in the open-air office back near the only door along the rear (she thought of it as the rear, in any event) wall.
Natara recognized the man from his picture on the company website. He was a dark-skinned man in his early 40s. She spotted one vacant desk in the corner, by the bank of windows which looked out over the streets of San Francisco. If she got the job, she'd have a lovely view every day.
The receptionist was walking back over to the waiting area, and the man got up from his desk. He looked up and saw Natara as he walked over. He smiled and extended his hand, which Natara shook as she stood up. His voice was deep and mellifluous as he said, "Ms. Williams? Please, come with me to the meeting room."
He escorted her to the one room visible in the office, a glassed-off meeting area which they entered through a door. Alvarez gestured Natara to a seat, then shut the door and took a seat near her.
"So, Ms. Williams. What do you think of the company so far?" He smiled disarmingly and leaned back.
Natara had already looked over the office, but she purposely shifted in her chair and cast another practiced eye over the office area through the glass. She turned back to Alvarez and said, "An interesting layout. Certainly quite different from the FBI's cubicle farms."
"Yes, you have that on your resume, which I've got here with me." Alvarez paused, then looked down at the paper briefly. "You worked with them for nearly six years. You have a degree in psychology. You were obviously an expert in the human side of things over there. What made you decide to change career paths?" He peered at her intently.
Natara took a deep, steadying breath. Apparent honesty, she kept repeating to herself. She knew, from long experience, that most suspects gave themselves away so easily; the best, the most challenging, were the ones who didn't try to put one over on their interrogators. They just made sure to so carefully shade their statements that you couldn't tell if they were lying or not.
So she, in all apparent candor, replied, "I felt it was time for me to step back from being around the high-pressure environment of studying the worst that humanity has to put on offer. I would rather now focus on a career that still uses my skills – mainly, the soft skills of navigating governmental bureaucracies – without the attendant danger or need to deal with criminals who could give you nightmares even if you weren't one of their victims."
Alvarez whistled. "Don't pull your punches, do you?" He pushed the resume away from him and folded his hands, resting them on the table. "So you see yourself as an asset to this company in the rather dry business of customs brokerage and navigating the treacherous waters of the Department of Commerce?"
Natara let out a chuckle. "I admit it seems a little odd for an ex-FBI person to seek boredom, but I'll take it over a shootout any day." (Careful! She didn't want to give away her relationship with Shawn Mallory.)
"Fair enough, Ms. Williams. Now, keeping in mind that some aspects of importing and exporting goods can be a bit troublesome, I'm particularly looking for someone who has flexibility, intelligence and self-direction – that is, they don't need me holding their hand every step of the documentation process." Alvarez pursed his lips. "You seem to have those qualities. So why don't I skip the rest of this ring-around-the-posey and say, 'you're hired'?" He stuck his hand out.
Natara grinned. "Fine by me, Mr. Alvarez!" She shook hands enthusiastically, only barely containing her mingled excitement and relief at landing a job so quickly.
"All right, then. We can't pay you as much as you may have made in the FBI, especially if you were in the higher civil service grades, but rest assured, you'll be paid well enough to live where you choose in San Francisco. Medical, dental – all that's included. You'll start as soon as possible, preferably tomorrow, but I can wait a day or two if you need to take care of any last-minute details, since I judge from your previous location you were, until recently, employed on the East Coast."
"Tomorrow is perfect," said Natara.
Alvarez got up, with Natara following suit. "Your desk is the empty one by the corner. I'll introduce you around properly tomorrow. There's already a computer there, but if you have any problems with it let the receptionist know. She's actually quite the computer wizard.
"So, tomorrow at nine in the morning. See you later. Ms. Williams."
Natara grinned and took her leave. As she left the elevator, she nearly bumped into a tall, brown-haired, fairly good-looking man. He barely noticed her, seemingly preoccupied with something, and Natara quickly apologized, thpugh she didn't think he heard her. She made her way out of the building, and headed back to the train which would take her over the bridge to Berkeley, and back to her apartment. At least now she wouldn't have to go cap in hand to her father for money!
As Natara sat in the BART train, she looked out the window as the train zipped into the tunnels under Berkeley. The sudden shift from light to dark felt like her life: one moment, she was in the thrill of the action, taking down suspects and getting inside their heads, and the next, she was going to be preparing report after report after mind-numbing report.
It was like FBI paperwork without any of the upside. Was this it? Natara wondered. Twenty-five or so years of her life devoted to never-ending mundanity?
The train slowed to its stop, and Natara got out of her seat and made her way to the exit, her feet feeling like lead weights had been attached to them.
Author Notes: Hope y'all readers are still interested! :) Thanks again to Ayala for help on this chapter.