Street Justice (20 page)

Mario asked in nearly a whisper, “Who?”

Russ looked up from the floor and looked at him, “Remember the paratroopers from Paani?”

“Yeah, those crazy bastards, what about ‘em?”

“Well, Johnny keeps in touch with me via e-mail. They are all down in California and they’re not doing much.”

“And as I remember being on the sharp end was way more important to them then rules and regulations,” Mario was nodding his head.

“They understand tactics and scouting plus have enough discipline to be effective.”

Jeff had been looking back and forth at Russ then Mario as they spoke like he was watching a verbal tennis match. He chimed in, “Who are we talking about?”

Russ looked at Jeff and said, “Johnny Stubblefield, Alex Hargrave, Kit French, Will Anderson and Nate McFarland. They were all paratroopers we worked with when we were based in Paani. They were a tight knit group, they had all grown up together in Southern California, all enlisted together and all served together. It is tough to do, all serving together, usually you go wherever the Army needs you, but these guys were a great team and in one of the few instances of smarts, the Army acknowledged this and let them stay together.”

Mario added, “Also, apparently there had been a few attempts to break them up, but the brass making the decision changed their minds at the last minute. If you believe the stories it was because the team worked together to find dirt--”

              Russ cut Mario off, “--or created or framed them for dirt…”

              “Yeah, or made up the dirt to black mail them to keep the team together. But they didn’t mind the sharp end, they liked the action, so after a while it was just easier to keep them together and keep throwing them at the worst spots. I think the brass was hoping they would get in over their heads and the problem would take care of itself. But these guys would come walking out of the desert a week later with a few new scars and a goat skin of fermented something.”

              “These sound like our guys,” Jeff said.

              “They are available and we doubt a few laws like drugs being illegal would bother them,” Russ nodded.

              “So what is the downside?” Jeff asked.

              Mario looked at Russ. His eyes held a weariness that seemed to weigh on him. The tiredness crossed the room using their eye contact as a bridge and infected Russ. His already melancholy emotion deepened to a depression but a depression resigned to action. In war, emotion often had to be felt on the fly. For safety, because of orders, or simply because of habit, there was little time to sit and be with your emotion. Instead, your body needed to load, fight, drive, run while your mind sat huddled within itself, trying to process highs and lows, wins and losses, courage and fear.

              “Yeah, I know buddy,” Russ commiserated, “But we have few options.”

              “Isn’t that always the case?”

              “Seems for us it is.” A silence hung in the air. Jeff looked back and forth between Russ and Mario wondering what had just transpired. Russ took long, slow, deep breaths. He thought about the choices that brought him here but before his introspection could devolve into reflection, he clapped his hands with a thunderous crash that caused Jeff to jump. He stood stiffly but methodically. Mario, a half beat behind him, rose as well. “Okay, so we commit to this course of action?”

              “We do,” Mario said firmly leaving no room for his statement to be interpreted as a question.

              “If this course of action is hiring your friends then yes,” Jeff said bouncing like a puppy with a ball. Russ cringed at Jeff’s seemingly incomprehension of what was to come. He had seem many young men land in Afghanistan with that look. He also saw too many of those same men go home in boxes. His body held the weight of knowing he was about to embark on a task that he did not want to do but that had to be done.

              “I’ll reach out to them, set up a meeting,” Russ said and headed to get a beer.

              Walking down the beige hallways, Steve thought about how much he missed sitting in the cramped car. The car was always a bit hot, cramped and smelled a bit. But the air in FBI headquarters was always a bit stuffy and uncirculated. While he could stretch his legs in the building, the problem was, right now they were stretching their legs on the way to talk to Sam. Sam had not sounded happy and Steve generally hated reports, typed or verbal, and this one was both. Of course, Steve had let Adrian do the typing part and would let him do most of the talking part too.

              Pausing in front of the closed door of Sam’s office, Adrian straightened his suit. He knocked on the door, then cocking an eyebrow toward Steve he asked, “You ready?”

              “I have faced a dozen men in a battle to the death, alone, after having been up for three days straight,” Steve said, then looking toward the door and back at Adrian, “So no, no I’m not.” He cracked a broad smile.

              Adrian went white, “Did you really?”

              “Come in,” they heard Sam’s voice from the other side of the door. Steve turned the handle and walked in past Adrian. As he did he cocked an eyebrow back at him and shrugged. Sam was sitting at his desk, fingers pitched in a tent, his face was red and he looked tense. A small man in a light gray suit sat in the corner of the room with a briefcase sitting in his lap. When both men were standing in front of Sam’s desk, Sam stood up. He did not ask the men to take a seat.

              “Gentlemen, do you know who this is?” Sam said, nodding at the man in the corner. The man looked up but made no other acknowledgement to Steve or Adrian. “This is Special Investigator James McCadney…”

              “You mean Internal Affairs investigator James McCadney,” Adrian said.

              Sam froze and tightened his lips to thin. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, “Yes, Special Agent James does work for IA. But let’s not let that distract us from why we’re here. I ask you two to take over a simple investigation, to find a few drug dealers,” Sam started. Adrian thought about pointing out that it was not so simple but thought wiser of it and kept his mouth shut. “So do you guys establish some surveillance, watch what is going on, where the money goes and get me a bust? No. You two get me exploding windows, a terrorized counter man and a warehouse employee who says you tackled him for no reason.”

              “He shot at us,” Steve said.

              “Not him,” Sam said, “Him we do have. But we’re here to understand how and why he felt the need to shoot at you. The three of them are claiming that you entered the store and threatened them. KeiVarae, that is the name of the shooter, says it was self-defense. Grant, the guy at the counter is supporting the fact you intimidated them. Charles the poor boy who fled out the back says he was running because you two pulled guns and you forcefully dragged him back to the shop and intimidated him.”

              “Sir, Charles did give us the name of the man in charge of the whole drug operation. How innocent can he be?” Adrian asked.

              “First, he only said anything after you told him that you would throw his grandmother in jail, which you can’t do, and you sure can’t intimidate suspects like that. Second, the name he gave you…” Sam paused and looked over at James.

              James spoke a decibel lower than Sam, but his voice was steady, “Carl Marfori.”

              “Yes, Carl, checks out as a nice middle-class, business owner, who votes, pays his taxes and goes to church every Sunday. So Charles just threw a name at you and you two bought it…”

              “Well, let’s take a deeper look at Carl and take another run at Charles,” Adrian offered.

              “You will do no such thing,” Sam shouted. Sam rarely raised his voice. He looked back over his shoulder at James, “First, let me say that Charles is filing harassment charges. Not only can we not use anything he gave us, you two will be lucky if I don’t knock you back to filing paperwork for what you did to him…”

              “What?” Steve stammered, his eyebrows raising in shock, “We only talked to him.”

              “You threatened his grandmother, a kind, happy old lady.”

              “But sir--” Adrian started.

              But Sam cut him off, pointing a finger and getting right in Adrian’s face, “No ‘but sir.’ This will not fly in my office. The second thing is, you will not be looking into Carl Marfori. I have looked into him. I reiterate, he’s a boring, middle class tax payer. Nothing interesting at all. It seems Charles sold you a load of crap and you bought it. He could have told you anything, knowing you were chomping at the bit for information, and you would buy it…and you did.

              “So let’s summarize. You guys started a shooting match in a shop that only had a large sheet of glass between it and a civilian population. You then used excessive force to chase down an innocent worker. Once you hauled the poor guy back to the scene of the catastrophe, you harass and intimidate him until he gives you the name of some nice guy, most likely his parents neighbor.” Sam finally stopped to take a breath. His face was red and perspiration coated his jowls.

              “Sir,” Adrian started hesitantly. When he was not immediately cut off he continued, “I think that is a very slanted audit of what happened. We were following what we felt at the best course of action while in the situation.”

              Steve jumped in, “We observed Charles going into the store and dropping a gun. We thought he might be robbing the place.”

              “Yeah,” continued Adrian, “We just went in to look around, make sure everything was okay and KeiVarae comes out shooting. Check the surveillance tapes.”

              James spoke up, “We can’t. The tapes were not recording last night. It seems someone forgot to start them.”

              “Or they were deleted because they did not want to provide evidence,” Steve mumbled.

              In a sharp voice, nearly as loud as Sam had been speaking, James spat, “I have had enough of you antagonistic attitude toward members of this community. You are lucky all I am here to do right now is listen, if I had my way, I would have you brought up on charges for abuse of power.

              “You knew Charles worked there. He says he did not drop a gun but his wallet. We can’t search the place because we have no probable cause. We have multiple witnesses that say you came in the store not asking if everything was okay but threatening you were going to shut them down if they didn’t pay you protection. You threatened and harassed good people. If it wasn’t for Sam’s assurance that you two have a long history of being good agents, that you two will be immediately pulled from this case and that both of you will immediately be given some time at your desks to reflect on how you interact with the public, I would be filing those charges. Be thankful Sam is protecting you.”

              The room sat in silence. A faint tick could be heard as the wall clock counted off the time. No one moved. Finally Steve stood up and said, “I’m a contractor, not an agent, you can fire me, but you can’t make me sit in time out. I’m out of here.” He nodded to Sam, then Adrian and left the room without looking at James.

A few second later Steve heard the door open and Adrian call out, “Wait up.” He jogged to catch up with Steve. “Steve, wait up.” He grabbed Steve by the arm. Steve whirled and stared at Adrian.

“What?” he demanded.

“What are you going to do?” Adrian asked, “Leave? We haven’t finished our job.”

“Apparently I have finished my job. I am a contractor, I only get paid if I am working and since everything we have been working on is now off limits, I guess that restricts what I can do, down to nothing.”

“So you’re just leaving?”

“Actually, what I am going to do is go to your desk, sit down and check out funny pictures on The Chive. Once I am calm and relaxed, and James the jerk off has left, I am going to go talk to Sam about what we can do. If I still don’t like his answers then I’ll leave.”

Adrian let go of Steve’s arm and nodded, “Seems fair but I’d like to make a suggestion.”

Steve started walking down the hall in his typically purposeful strides, “Yeah, what’s that?”

Adrian fell in behind him and stayed silent for the few moments it took them to arrive at Adrian’s desk. Steve sat in Adrian’s chair and swiveled to the computer. Adrian reached over Steve and into a desk drawer next to him. Retracting his arm he pulled a bottle of Smirnoff vodka out, “I suggest we have a drink.”

One corner of Steve’s mouth cocked up, “Adrian, you know drinking is strictly verboten.”

“What are they going to do? Suspend me? Seems like they already have.”

“Well, I was always taught by my Estonian grandfather, that if it isn’t 100 proof then it isn’t vodka, but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Are we drinking it straight?”

“If you can handle it.”

“If I can handle it,” Steve laughed. Setting the bottle on the desk, Adrian removed his suit coat, threw it onto the desktop in a rumpled mess and hustled off to get a couple of cups. Steve spun the chair to face the computer and typed in Adrian’s password.