Chapter 37: Speak No Evil

Linda sat in front of the many files that she had taken. Nothing so far other than the usual reports of violent crimes.

Every report from drug deals gone wrong to a single individual doing hard time for having a small amount of coke on them.

It didn't lead her to any new alley but a few made her question the authentication of the investigations that were conducted.

Every twist and turn were reminiscent of a detective novel. The hero detective senses something is wrong on the force and that not everything is what it seems. The detective scours every corner of the force to find whatever that's rotting the inside. It's only when the detective finds that rotten piece that they realize that this may have a dire consequence for the whole force. And only that does the detective find that they have target on their back because they're stirring things up. Friends become enemies and those closest to the hero are put in danger. Linda hoped that their would be a happy ending to everything.

Something hits her mind. Linda starts to wonder if she was looking in direction, not the bodies that were deceased but at another angle.

She went over and grabbed a stack of files that she had taken for personal reasons.

The files were marked 'Rhee, Sun Hi'. Their was quite a few of them. Linda had managed to find them under the juvenile crimes section. She flipped the first file and saw Sunny's first four mugshots, at the age eight. She had a bright smile, she was innocent back then. Her hair was down like all typical Asian kids had back then. She was so small and still had a heart. She flipped at age nine. Her hair and smile were the same but her eyes slightly changed from playful to full of malicious intent. Age ten, her hair was tied into a braid and the three photos she saw no longer showed a smile but a grin to a small toothy grin. And her eyes looked more serious. Age eleven spells something different. Sunny no longer smiled. Two photos stood out, her eyes looked serious and hard. The second photo had small bits of her face covered in band aids, Linda remembered that she had gotten into a fight with someone that day. Apparently Sunny had thrown a small rock at somebody and they got into a fight. Despite getting bruises Sunny managed to knock a couple of teeth out of that schmucks mouth. Age twelve, the same stone cold look. Maybe even colder than before. She had evolved from sweet and innocent; to cold, uncompromising and deadly. Linda didn't know how to feel after seeing the mugshots. She felt conflicted. Sunny was once a good girl, bright and bubbly, had dreams and a future that she wanted to achieve.

She remembered during elementary school, Sunny was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said that she wanted to be a firefighter. She liked the gear that they wore and that they helped people for the greater good. Linda lightly sighed, telling herself that was long ago. Sunny wasn't a kid anymore, now she was a wolf. A wolf who wouldn't hesitate to harm someone if they tried anything on her.

The next mugshot is the one that makes her body shake.

Age thirteen, that was a different one. Her eyes looked sad, scared and full of regret. Her hair was a mess, by the look of things it looked like she hadn't brushed it in weeks. She noticed that her eyes were red, Sunny must have done a lot of crying. She looked tired, the bags under her eyes told her everything she needed to know. The next picture that she see's makes the nightmare image she had witnessed come back to life. Linda shamefully looked away. She eventually forces herself to look and confront the nightmare that plagued her at night. Her right eye partially swollen, her face was bruised and covered in stitches around her face. Her left arm wrapped in bandages. Her ribs heavily taped. It was a miracle that she survived. Linda put the pictures aside and breathed, it was hard for her to see that. It made her feel horrible for leaving Sunny all alone, even if she did apologize to her, it was inexcusable. Linda couldn't forgive herself for the whole thing, she knew it was her fault for not being there for her.

She peered through the many crimes that she did as a kid.

Multiple counts of shop lifting.

Four counts of trespassing.

Four counts of underage drinking.

Three counts of making a criminal threat.

Six counts of assault.

One count of assault with a deadly weapon.

Two counts of destruction of property.

One count of joyriding.

One count of graffiti.

Suspected of three possible arsons.

Suspected of distributing bootlegged alcohol.

Suspected of selling firearms.

Five counts of possesing a concealed weapon.

Everything spelled like a badge of honor for Sunny. If she were an adult when these occured then she'd never see the light of day again, most likely ten to fifteen years total. Linda could remember every moment both her and her mother would go to pick up Sunny at the police department. While her mother gave her a talking too and Linda gave her a number of scoldings, Sunny simply treated it like a game and kept on doing bad things. She was so naive and immature back then, she had a lot of years of growing up to do.

She closed that file. A trip down memory lane that wasn't entirely pleasant.

Linda for years on end would blame her for everything. She always wondered where their mother went wrong. Their mother gambled, at first it was small and nothing serious. Then it grew into something that couldn't be stopped. Linda couldn't remember the many times their mother would get threatening phone calls, her mother would stall and just told them to be patient. She remembered that after Sunny was forced out of their lives, their mother would cry and cry asking where she was. And pleaded for her to come back. She could remember the look of anguish on her face.

They always said that things happen for a reason. This wasn't it though. There was no silver lining in this story.

She put her sister's file away and focused on the task at hand. How Wolf and his posse were involved in a possible conspiracy. Every alley that was looked into just seemed to give her more questions than answers. Then it finally hit her in the head like a rock. A case that took place in the city four years ago. She remembered it well. The name of the perp was Rudy McLeod, twenty two years old, from Carcer City. He was in charge of a major distribution network from the Los Santos to the Midwest. A pipeline of sorts. He had a long list of priors from intimidation to extortion. McLeod was in the city for business. A local chemist had called him up and from wiretaps learned that he had proposed an idea, he was making a new brand of methamphetamine; one that was stronger and potent. The stuff would be made in a special lab that was hidden. All the chemicals that were needed, they were easily obtained via through the local company; all that was asked was a share in the profits; which was guaranteed. The raid went smoothly. Everybody went down, McLeod was caught in his hotel room while "entertaining" a guest. The photo on the newspaper was him being escorted in his bathrobe was classic. Linda remembered that everybody in the narcotics team gave themselves high fives for a week. The chemist in charge of making the stuff though went missing. It was assumed that he skipped town. The chemicals, along with the money, were confiscated and locked away. Everything was good up until a string of incidents occurred.

The chemist who ran, was found in an abandoned trailer in Murrieta Heights with his hands zip tied behind his back and shot in the head at point blank range. McLeod himself was denied bail, oddly enough he was stabbed to death in his cell; a blow to the narcotics team. Months of hard work down the drain. Then comes another incident. The money and the chemicals went missing, even though they were in the police lock up. Worse was an officer, who sadly was two weeks away from retirement, was killed while guarding the place. Everything was chaotic. But then Linda remembered directly that it was the Task Force who were the first ones at the scene and were the ones who found the officer lying dead on the floor. And their press conference on how they were going to arrest the one who killed their fellow officer. Everything about it felt suspicious, certain detectives in the homicide division and narcotics division began to wonder if the whole thing was an inside job; as no one could have could opened the door without an access code. Any type of evidence that was there originally, just disappeared.

Linda began to wonder, what if they were the ones who did this?

What if the Task Force were the ones who committed those crimes?

What if they were the ones who stole the money and drugs?

Then it finally dawns on her. Everything that was rumored and said about them, was true. It wasn't just these cases but a bunch of others that had they're name to it. But there was more to it, her instincts tell her to look in that other direction. Linda scoured through the files to find more information. Nothing but the usual. She wonders if she should try electronically.

She turns on her laptop to access the files from the department. Her computing skills were good at amateur best, she hopefully tells herself that she doesn't leave a trail to follow back to her. Linda bypassed the firewalls to gain access. After a moment she's in.

She starts browsing through the departments files, she goes to the source; the Task Force's data base.

ACCESS DENIED

Reads the screen "So you want to play it like that" Linda mumbled as she manages hack through the wall.

ACCESS GRANTED

The site had numerous programs on it, the one she was looking had to be somewhere. Her eyes focus on the programs in front. She looks around but finds nothing, then she see's something that catches her eye. The file was marked 'Special Projects'. Linda clicked on it, hoping that it would give her some answers. The programs brought up a list of audio recordings and numbers, they looked like case numbers. Linda hits the first recording.

"Hey, what's goin' on?"

"Listen man, we got a problem"

"So hit me with it"

"There's a motherfuckin' snitch in the group"

"The fuck you talkin' about?"

"Man I heard from this contact with the police, we got some indictments comin' our way! He says he knows who it is!"

"Who?"

"Man you wouldn't believe it"

"Come on motherfucker, who?"

"Lil' Chris"

"Lil' Chris? For real? That motherfucker's a snitch? Man, you fuckin' lyin'; he can't be a snitch"

"Dawg, man, I ain't lyin' about this. Remember that thing a few weeks ago, ghetto bird and those motherfuckers came in when they had the shit"

A brief pause is heard then shuffling.

"Damn, fuck, can't believe it man"

"Whatcha wanna do?"

"When they comin'?"

"Shit, like around the end of the week"

"Alright, listen, we got to take care of this, fast. First things first, we got to take care of Lil' Chris"

"We creepin' up on him?"

"Yeah, make sure that shit is done as discreetly as possible; dig?"

"Yeah, I dig"

"Handle this motherfucker"

Linda stopped the recording. "Jesus" she breathed, it finally made sense but something else was missing. She clicked on another recording.

"Narcotics division, Detective Johansson speaking"

"Hey, it's Enrique"

The man breathes hard like he was running scared, like somebody was chasing him.

"Enrique? What's wrong?"

"Listen, I just took a knife to the stomach; somebody jumped me"

"Shit, are you alright?"

"No, shit, they've been chasing me; I think I lost them. They were expecting me"

"What? What do you mean expecting you?"

"I went to a meeting on the esquina (corner), I was supposed to meet some people there but nobody showed up"

The man known as Enrique breathes heavily. He's still scared.

"Somebody got the jump on me and they got me with a knife, but I managed to shoot the fool"

"Goddammit, okay look, where are you?"

"I can't say, alright"

"Hey look I can help you but you got to tell me, otherwise I can't help you"

"Listen, somebody must have told them I was working with you"

"What the fuck are you talking about? Nobody knows you're working with us"

"Well what the fuck do you think happened, their ain't no way in hell they could have known"

"Just tell me where you are, I'll send you a car"

"No, listen...I need to stay out of sight for a while, I need-I need you to find Jasmine; I need you to get my girl to safety. Just protect her"

"Don't hang up, tell me where you are"

The line clicks and goes dead.

"Fuck"

Linda leaned back in her chair. Her mind racing in a million different places at once. She's hesitant to listen to another recording but decides that this will be the last one. Before she clicks it, Linda noticed something; it was a badge number. It read 4962. She recognized the number, it belonged to Officer Christina Mackle. She was two years into her career. Graduated from the local community college with a degree in liberal arts & literature. She was ordinary and mousy, she was a competent officer above all else; why is there a wiretap on her phone?

Before clicking the audio Linda decided to take a small detour. She peers into her file, everything from date of birth to previous jobs. There's a part that's been marked confidential and needs a password. She does her magic and hacks in. "Oh my god" Linda looked what was in her file. It turned out that Officer Mackle was an Internal Affairs informant, they recruited her during her time at the police academy. She was deep cover, some of the things that she did netted some dirty officers along with drug scores and cash. Linda remembered that she was shy and really wouldn't talk much. Linda also remembered that she invited her to lunch once but it got awkward; she kept on fidgeting and playing with her food. She didn't even take a bite. She avoided eye contact. All she ordered was a refill of coffee. Thinking about it now maybe it was still an undercover assignment. Or maybe she was scared of someone finding out her secret.

Mackle would have the unfortunate luck of being killed during a routine patrol. Somebody ambushed her squad car and wrecked in a spray of automatic gunfire. It was so sudden like that. Looking at it now, Linda wondered if Mackle felt scared. Scared of what though?

Maybe she got cold feet and wanted out? After all could anyone blame her. It's one thing to be a snitch but a cop informing on other cops, especially if they were dirty cops, were doubly dangerous.

Or maybe, just maybe, somebody did find out and took their revenge against her?

She goes back to the audio. Their were two sets of recordings, they were a week apart.

She clicked on the first one.

"Internal Affairs Bureau, Lieutenant Daniels speaking"

"It's Christina, Officer Mackle"

Mackle sounded worried.

"What's wrong? Christina?"

"Look I-I want to know if I can stop doing these assignments"

"Why?"

"It's getting dangerous, okay. Somebody keeps calling my house and hanging up. And I think somebody's following me"

Her breathing became nervous.

"Does anybody know?"

"N-No! I mean I don't think so"

"Maybe you're imagining things, stress getting to you"

"This isn't stress asshole! Their's nothing funny about this!"

"Okay, okay I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it"

"Look when I agreed to work for IAB you said that it was for the greater good, this isn't what I had in mind!"

"Calm down, okay. You came so far these last two years, you got to hang in there a little longer"

"Get me out, that's all I'm asking. I can't keep this up. You know what crooked cops are like, if someone, anyone finds out what I've been doing..."

"Christina, no one is going to find out, okay. You just to hang in there"

"Just get me out! Can you do that? Yes or no?"

"I'll see what I can do"

"You better be straightforward with me, remember whose life is on the line"

Linda stared at the screen. Mackle was scared alright. If somebody was calling her house and hanging up then she had every reason to watch her back. It might explain why she was so nervous all the time. Mackle wasn't much of a talker, let alone, Linda can't remember her ever mentioning a boyfriend or something. She mentioned she had relatives living in Alderny but nothing more. She was just like Linda in a sense; they were both dedicated to the job. But neither of them had a life outside of the department. With eight years under her belt Linda wondered if she could have turned into what Mackle was. Not an informant but lonely. She was living alone and hardly did anything other than work. It was a wonder that Linda didn't take the easy way out and shoot herself.

She hovers the mouse to the second recording. This one was dated the day before her murder.

Linda clicks on this recording.

"Daniels speaking"

"It's me"

"Christina, listen...um I don't know how to put this"

"Did you get me out?"

"Look it's not as easy as it sounds..."

"Don't bullshit me, you said you would get me out"

"I'm trying okay. It's really hard, certain people don't want you to get out"

"Are you serious? Do you think it's funny that I'm doing undercover jobs and putting my fucking life on the line?! Tell me that's its' funny!"

"No! No! Just calm down! I told them everything, they said that they need one more piece of information and they'll cut you loose"

"No, no fucking way! I'm out! I'm out! I'm out! I'm done with this shit! Find yourself another ear to use!"

"Christina! It's not easy! Believe me I tried to get you out but you know how they are!

"Fuck it! And fuck you! You spineless fucking fuck! Bye!"

"Christina! Christina! Damn it!"

Linda stood there aghast. Mackle really did want to get out. The thing about Internal Affairs was that although on the surface they cared, but below the surface they didn't give a damn about the officers they used to build a case. Most cops who were involved with Internal Affairs., willingly or unwillingly, usually had to watch their backs. Some ended up quitting the force to save their own skin. While those who were crazy enough to stay in, usually would be told that they weren't welcomed in the department; usually in the form of a dead rat in their lockers. Whatever Mackle found must have been important. Internal Affairs information would be harder to get as their servers would be tightly guarded and wouldn't be as easy as breaking into as the previous server. It didn't matter though as Linda had all the information she needed. Something suddenly catches her eye. A file that was marked as 'Sensitive' was seen in the lower right hand corner.

It was zipped up. Luckily she had a special program to open it.

The program unzips the file. Linda opened it and saw what kind of information it was.

"What the...?".

They were pictures of Sunny. Everything from her walking down the street to her eating lunch and hanging out with her friends. A video of her hanging out at the beach that one time with her friends. It confused her at first. "Oh my god...!" it finally dawned on her what was really going on. The Task Force was targeting Sunny. To think that she stumbled onto the recordings was one thing. But now she saw what was really going on. Every case that the department took, the Task Force was selling information to the gangs and their leaders. Worse they were responsible for people dying. This would be scandalous if anyone found. But it got more personal now that they have her sister in their cross hairs.

Where they planning on indicting her? Or where they plotting to kill her?

How far they would go is the one thing that concerns her.

Everything starts to weigh down on her. Her body shakes with unease.

She goes to her closet and looks at her uniform. Eight years of hard work. Eight years of scrapes and brawls. Eight years of taking down some of the heaviest hitters that the streets had thrown out. It all boils down to this. Nothing could have prepared her for this. Linda knew that she couldn't take them on her own, if she was going to do something incredibly crazy then she knew that she would have to work with Sunny to make that happen. The dice are set to be rolled in her head. If she were to gamble with danger then she knew that she had to take that chance and roll the dice. Once the dice are thrown, she'll have to move fast. Because once it happens there was going back.

This was, for all purposes, for the greater good.

...

"I can't believe it, you're actually doing it" Hicks gave a surprised look "Yeah, it uh wasn't an easy decision to make" Linda patted her hands together "You're actually going to leave the department" "Yeah, just something I really have to do".

The captain was stunned; a girl who could have a great sergeant. Or even the Chief of Police. She was actually leaving the department.

"What's really going on? It's not like you to quit, you're police to the bone" Hicks questioned "Well, I heard those private security jobs are paying pretty well and there are a lot of rich scumbags who are loaded and need protection" Linda happily said "This doesn't make sense, why are you really leaving...?" Hick looked serious "I figured I need to spend more time with my sister, try to rebuild what we had before" "Cut the bullshit, you're not really fooling me" Hicks crossed his arms "Is this about Wolf said to you?". Linda looked her shoulder, almost as if the predators were watching her "If that were the case then I would be dead...like Mackle" "What happened to Christina was horrible," he looked away "but we can't dwell on that". Their was a silent moment.

"Like I said, it wasn't an easy decision to make" Linda almost wanted to cry "This is something I want. It's what I got to do".

"Alright, if that's what you want then I'm not going to stop you" Hicks was reluctant to let one of the best officers go "Thank you, it was really nice working with you" she praised "You know you have to fill out a bunch of forms to quit but-" "But...?" "But I'll fill something out and I'll make it work from there" he states "Okay, see you around" Linda said her goodbye "Listen, you're always welcomed back here; in case if it doesn't work out. In the world I mean" "I know but trust me, it's going to work out and it's going to be alright".

After getting into the elevator Linda felt unsure if this was the right thing but their wasn't time to second guess things.

Ding!

The door opens to the department parking lot. She sprints to her blue Emperor. Then she heard a sound coming from behind. She pulls out her Taurus from her holster, pointing at the shadows "Who's there?" her voices echoes through the lot "Show yourself", nothing but silence. Her nerves are on alert. It was paranoia but this wasn't the good type of paranoia. She put the gun back in the holster. Linda opens the drivers side and takes her place. She takes a quick breath.

"You know this would have been easier if you had just taken my offer".

Linda screamed in horror as his hands quickly reached from behind and covers her mouth. She struggles but it was futile.

Within a day or two her car will be reported to the impound lot.

Chapter 38 is coming soon. Rate and Review.