"Trust the system."
I've never been comfortable around Cops. I respect the work that the Federation Security Agency – Fed-Sec – does to keep the Federation safe, but as a reporter, my role is to tell the truth, no matter what. Like any other trade, Cops protect other Cops. When Cops are exposed as doing bad things, other Cops step in to cover it up to protect the larger brotherhood of the badge, and that's not something that should never be allowed in any free society. Walking past so many cops made me nervous, and I kept brushing my hair, like it was getting in my way.
But that said, my respect is earned through actions. And Special Agent John Liley, Fed-Sec Major Crimes Unit, has always held my respect, because his actions have always been guided by integrity and justice.
I took the information that The Source had given me and went to see John on a cold morning in late September. Off duty, John has a passion for woodworking and could probably earn a decent living selling the handmade chairs that decorated his office. I sat down and sipped on a coffee he made while he looked over the data I provided.
It took him ten minutes to get through it, and the first thing he did when he finished was hit his comms panel to call his opposite number in Cybercrimes. "Yelena? John over at Major Crimes. Can you come by my office for a second? I got something you need to look at."
I protested, wanting to protect my source, and myself, by making sure we kept the number of people who knew about Blackjack to the barest minimum. John just smiled at me. "Relax. I've known Yelena for a decade. Besides, she's a Deltan. If anyone can keep a secret, she can."
Yelena arrived a few minutes later. She ran the cypher key, confirmed it was legit, and then excused herself barely five minutes later. John and I sat in silence for a long time before he spoke again. "Good God Kirin. I thought taking down the NBS was gonna be a tough job."
John's signature case had been the takedown of the New Berlin Syndicate on his hometown – or is that home dome? – of New Berlin on Luna. The NBS had their hands in everything from kidnappings, extortion, drugs, smuggling, virtually any perversion of civilized behaviour you can think of.
And it wasn't just the fact that the NBS preyed on his home dome. Both John's father and grandfather – respected Fed-Sec agents in their own right – had tried to bring the shadowy group down in the past, but the Syndicate always seemed to be one step ahead of the law.
"It took me a year of undercover just to get inside," John explained to me, showing off the wood frame he made for the presidential commendation that he got for cracking the case, "It takes a lot of effort to get inside something like the NBS. Three months just to identify who's the right guy to talk to. Then another three months doing bag work. Running deliveries, collecting debts, menial muscle work. I slept in some pretty rough beds and spent my days around some pretty rough people. The wife hated it, and I don't blame her."
John keeps going as he sands down a new chair. Woodwork helps him focus his thoughts. "Once I proved that I could get things done and satisfied the mid-level guys that I wasn't a cop, I finally got into the top level and got my own crew. That's when we started to really do some damage. It's like an onion. You peel back the skin layer by layer until you get to the core. While I was building my crew's rep on the streets, the team started busting the other crews in New Berlin, eliminating the competition for me and hurting the NBS right where it hurt most."
John gets slightly less confident as he finishes his story and keeps sanding his chair. "Finally, a year after we started the operation, I caught my break. The man who runs the NBS is only known by a code-name, 'The Broker.' And the Broker was smart. He never met personally with his crews. In a year undercover, I never once saw his face or even spoke to him directly."
"Everything was done by two or three intermediaries, and it was always in-person meetings, never over subspace, nothing on paper. One day, I was told that the Broker had noticed my good work and decided to see if I could handle something real."
"NBS had cut a huge deal with the Orion Syndicate. They were offering a hundred grand in gold-pressed latinum for six cases of phaser rifles, top shelf units straight from Sestra Defence. I was supposed to handle the buy. I'd meet with the Orion contact, he'd verify the rifles, I'd verify the money, we part company, the NBS is a hundred-grand richer, I'd take ten grand off the top, and I'd be the go-to guy for the Broker moving forward."
"Obviously we couldn't let the Orions get away with that kind of firepower, so my team set up the sting for that day."
John wipes the sawdust off his desk and continues to explain. "It was a big sting-op. We had to bust seven different cells, and to make sure that the NBS didn't warn each other, we had to take them down at the same time. That's obviously a little bit out of our scope, so I had to bring in Starfleet Security and the New Berlin Police."
"Imagine what a nightmare that is. Coordinating 500 officers from three different agencies, all with their own ROEs and such. I'm surprised that it didn't go worse than what happened."
I asked him what happened, and his face went very dark all of a sudden, but he still kept sanding his chair. "We had OPSEC locked down, or so we thought. But somehow, someone got a tip off to the Orions that we were coming. I just pulled up to Tannenberg Square, and I was on the horn to the tactical guys making sure everything was set up. The Orions pulled up across the square, and they just started shooting."
"It was bad," John says with a deep sigh, "Saturday afternoon, so of course the square is packed with shoppers and buskers and the like. We didn't have time to set up a perimeter or call for backup, so me and twelve guys from Tactical had to square up with twenty Orions wielding top-shelf phaser rifles."
"Seven agents took hits. No one from Fed-Sec died. But thirteen civilians did before we shut them down. Just normal people, families out shopping, people on their way to work. I'll always consider my job a failure if an innocent person dies on my watch."
"And you know what the hell of it was?" John says to me, almost with a relief that's strange to hear, "I never did catch the Broker. He wasn't even there, and by the time we beat the location of his safe house out of the Orions we caught, he was long gone. I don't stress about it though. People like that can't run forever. Sooner or later, he'll show up again, and I'll be the guy to slap the cuffs on, with pleasure."
You could hear the guilt under the smile. Obviously not finishing the job his dad and granddad started still hurts John, even if he'd never show it on his face.
I'm sure at this point all my readers are asking why I feel the need to review John Liley's greatest hits collection. If I can beg your indulgence, I asked the same question myself.
"If what you've told me about Blackjack is true, Kirin, and if we're gonna pull this off, we can't drop the ball like we did with the NBS. This is going to have to be perfect on every level. And whether you like it or not, you're in all the way on this too."
So, there I was, sitting across the desk from a Cop who makes chairs on his off time, dragged into the middle of the most sensitive, most dangerous criminal investigation ever conducted in Federation history. I can't say the idea was driving me crazy.
And John laid out his strategy with that damn smile on his face.
"I'll agree with your Source that we can't count on the fleet for any help just yet. So, I'll have to run this on the outside for the time being."
How exactly did he plan on running things without support from Starfleet, I asked?
John laughed. "That's the easy bit. I'll handle that like I handle any other robbing bastard. Follow the money. I've got enough here that I can get my Robbery-Homicide guys to start running down leads on his assets. If we tighten up the purse, that'll force him out in the open and give us a chance to take him down without any shootouts."
It sounded easy enough when I heard it, but John quickly reminded me why he was the Cop, and I was the reporter.
"That's about where the easy part ends, Kirin. If this package you've shown me is any indicator, Blackjack's got a lot of fingers in many, many pies. Once we start closing down the money trail, this could get ugly real fast. Reporters, Starfleet officers, Marines, judges, cops, hell it wouldn't surprise me if he had a Council member or two on the take."
"Anyone whose wallet is about get lighter, or who's dirty secrets are about be aired out, is gonna come after us, hard. I can assign a protection detail to you if you want, but this is a completely different ballgame you're playing. You ready for this?"
Was I ready? I'm still not sure. At best, if this went wrong, my career would be trashed. At worst… I'd be dead or locked up in Rura Pente. And I'm not nearly as strong as Mike Bagsley.
I nodded, but I still felt some apprehension. I asked John how he could be so confident. And one more time. He smiled that damn smile of his.
"Trust the system Kirin. Always."
Trust the system? I wish I could.
─•~:~•─
