| Feb. 21st, 2005 @ 12:52 am Major Crime Unit Briefing |
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It was dead in the office when Frank arrived. He checked his watch to see if he had somehow gotten there ungodly early but nope, same time as always. He walked up to one of the lingering members of night shift who was putting in some over time and asked what was up. His answer was ‘big meeting, didn’t you get the memo?’. Yeah Frank probably had gotten the memo but he had also probably just as promptly as it arrived lost it among his thousand other daily pieces of paper. Reports, on-scene arrival forms, plan drawings and info from the lab rats, warrants, statements- a lot of trees gave their lives everyday for the Homicide Department. He merely scowled at the graveyard junior detective and stalked off to the briefing room, stopping at his locker just to quickly grab his duty belt and badge.
He wasn’t late when he arrived, everyone was still milling around socializing, sipping coffee, laughing and sharing horror stories about their last few cases. A computer attached to a projector and a screen were set up at the front of the room. Oh goody, a slide show! Just what he needed first thing in the morning. Frank noticed some familiar faces and some he barely recognized. In such a big , busy city it was rare for the Major Crimes detectives to all be gathered in one place at the same time. There were detectives from Homicide, from Narco, from Vice, this was big whatever it was. He noted that the female detectives and the males had naturally separated themselves out on opposite sides of the room. It was funny, for all the so called progress with women in law enforcement the two sexes still preferred their space when give the choice. He noticed Det. Salas and Det. Sevilla were chatting to a female Narco he vaguely recalled, well that was two from his department and division. John Hagen, also in the same division of Homicide a he, was across the room sifting through notes and gulping from a truly massive travel mug. Frank didn’t really like Hagen, mostly because Horatio didn’t really like Hagen and Horatio was Frank’s best pal. Now if you could say anyone was actually friends with H, Tripp wasn’t sure since the man was an enigma. Still he considered Horatio his buddy and therefore his friends were also his own friends and his enemies were also his own enemies. Frank knew that John had been Ray’s partner back in the day and suspected part of the hostility between H and Hagen stemmed from that but he didn’t know the whole story and he wasn’t about to pry. In John’s defence Calleigh Duquesne did like him so he couldn’t be all bad. Calleigh was a good judge of people Frank had found over the years of working with her, plus she had her choice of any man in Miami. The blonde was smarter than she looked, he had made the mistake of misjudging her in the beginning but she really did have good people sense and good people skills. He had the people sense but the people skills were rather lacking. He wasn’t about to make any special efforts to improve his social graces either. He was a detective, not Dr. Phil.
The room fell to a hush and the staff scrambled for seats when a parade of senior officers and supervisors entered. A couple of division OC’s, a few of the Major Crimes ‘lieu’s, the Sergeant of Detectives-Homicide, some CT bar-shouldered cop with an automatic shotgun slung over his back which meant Special Ops. It was like the Fourth Of July parade or something. Yelina, part of the Homicide-Narcotics Joint Task Force, went and sat up at the very front with a few of the other inter-division task force leaders. Frank, just a plain old pavement-pounder, took a seat far in the back.
Special Ops officer ‘Captain shotgun’, Frank hadn’t paid attention to his actual name, addressed the room first
‘Alright ladies and ladies....’
The middle aged detective rolled his eyes and groaned aloud. A wise guy, fucking great. The CT went on to explain the situation and show some slides of victims and scenes, some crates of drugs marked with a logo of a phoenix, chemical make up charts of the Phoenix Cartel cocaine which had some sort of unique compound of hydrobutinepharimawhatzit or something which Frank paid little attention to. Cocaine content=unique, that’s all he needed to know. Finally went up a few photos of suspects. Some were enhanced surveillance photos snapped from a distance, others were mug shots. He noticed the info on the mug boards: Miami, Las Vegas, New York in the US, Cali City and Port Authority arrests Columbia. In other words big time drug lords and big time trafficking. CT Shotgun finished up his spiel and stood off to the side. His sergeant was next up and this time Frank paid more attention. He reviewed some of the scenes and victims from the Special Ops officer’s presentation in greater detail. Explaining how some of the murders had been attributed to local gangs but were probably part of something much larger. He focused the peculiar execution style of a point blank shot to the left eye. ‘Messy’ was all Frank could think and he was glad it was the CSIs who had to bag and tag all the bits of skull and brain and label every drop of blood and not him. The Sergeant of Detective’s tone darkened, he began to explain how in each of the home cities for the Phoenix Cartel it was suspected that dirty cops were assisting. In Miami they had been following a trail of several suspected cops with ties to the cartel, one of which had been eliminated sometime ago. No name was mentioned but a knowing silence swept over the room. Some IAB investigations from other cities were brought up but no specifics. Yelina Salas was the final speaker, on behalf of the Narco-Homicide Task Force and she outlined Miami‘s plan for dealing with the rising power of the cartel and their increasingly brazen disregard for the law. She also expressed how fighting this group would require the cooperation of the other cities as well as the law enforcement agencies in her native Columbia. Frank jotted notes, the brass was making a big deal over a couple of drug shootings so this had to be truly deep to warrant such a response.
After Yelina finished up the divisional lieutenants broke off with their respective staff and Frank went with his own Lieu. They rehashed the briefing, Adell asked a few questions but Hagen and Yelina seemed strangely silent. Frank just reviewed his own notes. His LT asked him what he intended to do but all Frank could say was he would do the same he always did, his job. He wasn’t going on some wild goose chase all across America for some coke pushers. If a body ended up on his watch, he’d deal with it, otherwise not his problem. It earned him some glares but he shrugged them off.
“I’ve got a wife and three kids expecting me to come home. I sure aint going out looking for trouble.”
That was his excuse and with it made he stalked off to his desk, not dismissed and not caring about that fact.
He poured over his notes from the meeting, he might not make any effort to be a part of it but it was his responsibility to be read up if it did end up on his doorstep. He reviewed:
Major drug cartel eliminating the competition
Labelled the “Phoenix Cartel“ because shipments have an emblem of a phoenix on crates
Suspected upper level members have jewellery with the phoenix on it and some of the pushers and shippers have tattoos with the same emblem
Known cells in New York City, New York; Las Vegas, Nevada; Miami, Florida; and Cali, Columbia
Miami is the suspected point of origin of the cartel
Several police officers and detectives are suspected of being dirty and involved with the cartel
The cartel has inside knowledge of how police and detectives do their job and the tools they have
Drugs sold by the group appear to have a chemical marker in their content
Members seem to have no fear of the police at all
Victims are shot point blank in the head in the left eye, sometimes something with the phoenix emblem is left behind at the scene
Miami PD is attempting to put together a plan and inter-state task force to target this group before their power gets too great
Frank had a gut feeling this was going to become his business whether he wanted it to or not. And he really, really didn't want it to. |
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