Author: Sam

Story: Speed Trap: 6 of 23

Series: Speed-Burn

Setting: Early January, 2005. New York City.

Note: none

Feedback: Yes, please? Especially constructive. samwise_baggins@yahoo.co.uk

Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/samwise_baggins/index.html

“What do you mean you’ve hired a new lab tech? Mac, we don’t need a tech, we need investigators!” Stella Bonasera had her hands planted on her hips, glaring at her supervisor and partner, Mac Taylor. Normally she respected the man, even loved him… he was her best friend after all… but this was too much.

She’d fought him over the horse and later regretted it, because it had shown his compassion coming back after four years of deep mourning for his loss. She stood by him when he’d declared the sleepwalker hadn’t been a killer but an erstwhile rescuer, because she trusted his instincts, though he rarely allowed intuition to guide a case. But this was too much. To hire a man who looked more dead than alive, who apparently didn’t have enough money to feed, let alone dress himself… that was beyond compassion or good intuition; that was just plain insane.

When the stoic man didn’t answer her, she switched to an exasperated, pleading tone. “Come on, Mac, talk to me.” Stella dropped her hands from her hips to plant them firmly on the edge of Mac’s desk, leaning towards him in her need to connect with him, to understand this out-of-the-blue decision. Calm blue eyes met fiery green ones, and Stella had to reign herself in further, standing up, getting out of his space.

Finally, Mac spoke, his voice as calm as his demeanor. “I had no choice, Stella.” He stood, walking around his desk, past the surprised woman, and to the clear wall overlooking the trace lab and its lone occupant, Danny Messer. Without turning, Mac continued, but his cool attitude subtly changed as he spoke.

“I received a direct order to hire him, sight-unseen.”

Stella watched, incredulously, as Mac turned his back to the view and looked straight at her. “I don’t like it, but I have no choice. I want him kept under constant watch; the minute he doesn’t work out, I’ll tell the agency and make them put him somewhere else.” There was steel in the ex-Marine’s tone, and that soothed the irate woman more than the explanation. Mac was looking out for the lab, not getting sentimental.

The circumstances, however, bothered her, and she couldn’t resist probing further. “What agency, Mac?”

“The FBI.”

It hung between them, that single phrase, those two words. It explained much, but nothing at all. And it was quite obvious that Mac wanted to chafe at the orders placed on him… would have chafed for any other organization. He respected the government; however, thus he would obey without protest, unless, of course, the crime lab was threatened.

“FBI.” Stella frowned thoughtfully and glanced towards the lab below, seeking out the new man, Joe Avery.

He was just coming out of the locker room, dressed in one of their jumpsuits. The man had black-brown curls that hung below his collar. He needed a shave and his skin had the pallor of the recently ill; in fact, his flesh gave the impression of hanging from his lean frame due to extreme weight loss in a very short period of time. His gold-rimmed glasses were incongruous on his face, as they looked too expensive, too new to be on this otherwise worn-out individual. He moved slowly, like a man far older than thirty-something, stopping every few steps to regain his breath.

Stella pulled her eyes back to Mac’s face with a frown. They wouldn’t have long to talk before Joe made it up to the office, and she wanted as much information as she could possibly squeeze out of her long time friend.

“Why would the FBI order you to hire this guy? They can’t just…” Her eyes widened and she quickly looked down at the slow moving Joe then back at Mac. “Is he Witness Protection, Mac?”

Mac’s silence was her answer and she sighed. “Well, putting him in the middle of a police department would certainly protect him, but we need people qualified for the job. He’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

The crime lab supervisor merely moved back around his desk and reached down, rotating the open file for his partner to see. Stella bent to look at it. Her eyes devoured the information there, an increasing frown marring the striking beauty of the native New Yorker. “His qualifications are… impeccable.” There was hesitancy in her voice; it was standard practice for the FBI to make up a background and qualifications for their relocated witnesses. It didn’t mean he could handle the job, though. The program had been known to fail before.

“What I want to know,” Mac’s quiet voice cut through her thoughts and drew her eyes to his once more, “Is why he’s in the program. Some people are innocent victims, witnesses to horrible crimes. They need hiding and protecting.” Mac frowned towards the man now slowly climbing the stairs to his office and Stella’s eyes inadvertently flickered down to Joe then back to Mac. “But there are more people in the program that are criminals who struck a deal. They turn against their buddies and get a new identity so they can turn state's evidence.”

Stella watched the disapproving look that came over Mac’s face as he went on, “I don’t like making deals with criminals. And I don’t like the idea that I’m harboring a possible criminal in my lab.”

She had to agree with Mac’s sentiments; a criminal-turned-state’s-evidence was not a good person to have in a criminalistics lab. Something tugged at her mind, though, and she found herself once more contradicting her colleague. “Look at him, Mac. He’s hardly a bank robber or drug dealer. I’d say he was hurt recently and is in protection so he isn’t hunted down again.”

Watching the emotions play across Stella’s face, Mac found himself having to agree. Something about the man said he was a victim of some sort. But a stock broker turned against Enron or a man nearly killed by an angry wife didn’t strike the detective as possibilities. Joe carried himself with an easy grace, despite the painfully slow movements. It was evident the man had a certain pride in himself, a pride often carried by those who were confident in what they did and how they behaved. This man was no middle-class white collar worker caught in a situation beyond his control. He seemed more likely to be a… what?

Mac looked back at the man and wondered, feeling different scenarios and rejecting them just as quickly. He didn’t seem to be a drug dealer turned against his cartel, there was nothing of the sneaky, manipulator about him. He couldn’t be a bank robber or other kind of hard core thief; they only wound up in the program if they had serious gang or mafia connections. Mafia, then? No, there was nothing Mafia about this nearly broken man. So what?

The questions were too many, and far too important, to just blindly trust the Feds. Mac might hold loyalty and service high, but he also didn’t like the idea that someone may have made a bureaucratic error that could endanger his lab and his city. He needed to check this guy out and it needed to be before too much damage could be wrought.

Quietly, he spoke once more to the woman beside him. “I’m going to check him out, Stella. I want him watched until I can clear him. If they put a witness with the police, they should be able to tell the supervisor that he’s clear of any crime.” After another long pause, he said, “Let’s show him around; see how he interacts with everyone.” He didn’t quite sound enthusiastic about the idea, but he had to do something with the man until he could investigate him.

Before Joe could reach the door, Mac strode over and opened it, knowing that Stella would be close on his heels.