Capítulo 3: Case 03 - The world moves on
<Sometime after SWAT S1 Pilot and The Rookie S1 Pilot>
"Oh? Shoot!"
"Well, Sergeant Spivey is retired now, but he filled out a glowing report in your name for how you handled and effectively ended your undercover mission. 'One of the greatest shots in the LAPD,' he wrote. So you have free reign to join Metro SWAT in any capacity you would like if you manage to reach the health and training requirements," Grey narrated as he opened up a folder.
"Sgt Spivey? And what's with that evaluation? I barely fired four shots..."
"The stiff old coot who pocketed your letter after destroying a mailbox," Grey explained with a grin. "And don't sell yourself short. Nobody would have wanted to take those shots, but you managed to divert a rifle shot and disarm a man dual-wielding guns while a kid was in the line of fire."
"Of course, that's just the most exciting offer. As Captain of Mid-Wilshire, I would like nothing more than offering you a job back at our division. You could become a regular officer going on patrol, though brass asked me specifically to have you consider the detective career path. The heads of Vice and Gangs-Narcotics, especially, have asked for you by name. Your undercover work has led to many high-profile arrests."
"Aww, Robbery-Homicide aren't fans?" Ben joked with a smile now that he knew his efforts weren't in vain despite the dubious circumstance of Agent Ford never officially filing his undercover work.
"They didn't want to clash heads with Metro SWAT. They're offering you direct detective liaison if you don't want to be full SWAT. You'd technically be RHD, but work for SWAT. A dedicated detective position to run point for them with all the other divisions, task forces, and agencies."
Ben furrowed his brows and asked Grey unsurely, "Such a thing exists? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the catalog five years ago."
"You're right. It wasn't. Still isn't, son. But things change, and your undercover work got some very serious people under investigation. Plus, never forget that you went undercover a year before the body-cam program was introduced. You got a lot to learn again. It's 2017 now."
Captain Andersen spoke up once more and asked, "While on that topic, what did you want to do before you decided to go undercover?"
"Huh... tell you what - SWAT wasn't in my sight. But undercover work wasn't either. This was supposed to take a few months at worst... You have my file now, right?" Captain Andersen simply nodded at Ben's question. "Then you probably read why I wanted to become a cop and what degree I got."
"Well, what did a young officer who joined to protect the innocent people caught in crossfire want to do with a bachelor's in computer science with a forensics focus?"
"He wanted to stick it to his dad, who chose to end his life as a graduation gift. There was some anger involved, ma'am," Ben answered with a sigh that sounded weird and throat-y thanks to the remaining hoarseness. "My dad never said I shouldn't become a cop instead of following his footsteps to become a doctor. He did some research for me, too. Psychology, criminology, or political sciences. Those three or nothing else for a successful career, he told me."
"How does computer sciences play into that, then?"
"I wanted to study anything but those three. And there was this case just around the time I graduated. A young girl who posted pictures on facebook, which ultimately led to the NYPD finding her just as her captor was about to behead her. That's when it hit me: social media would only grow more important in our society. I got a lot of catching up to do in earnest because five years changed a lot of things, but I saw firsthand just how criminals can use social media to their advantage. There's so much convenience in it all. It's frightening."
Both senior officers nodded with heavy expressions. For all the good it did with creating income for younger generations and helping connect people, social media could do a lot of harm.
"I'm not smart or educated enough to design algorithms to filter complicated amounts of data or anything related to that, but I hoped I'd learn enough to properly interpret data presented by someone smarter than me. I wanted to be able to find angles to help those who ask for help silently with a picture instead of a 911 call. Forensics for social media wasn't a thing in 2009, though, so I got the whole package and did my bachelor's in Computer Science at UCLA and with digital forensics as my main focus," Ben finished his explanation. "I had enough violence for a lifetime these past years. So, I'm not about to join a SWAT team straight-up. But I'm still young enough that I want to be out on the streets, helping kids and their families live a life in peace."
"I'm certain there's plenty of divisions who could profit from your wealth of hands-on experience. Have you already made a choice outside of 'not active SWAT'?"
Ben shook his head, "No, ma'am. That liaison thing sounds like I could do a lot of good. But I'd like to sleep on it, maybe ask my new friends at SWAT outside the door. How long until you need a decision?"
Sgt Grey answered, "You got two more weeks, boy. The week you should have woken up was the soft deadline we were given. Don't sweat it if you don't know yet. We can always have you man front desk until you're done thinking on it."
Ben began to laugh, "You'd make poor old me with a hole in his heart sit at a desk getting yelled at by people with missing cats?"
"You'd rather man the armory?"
"Nah, I'm good. Anything bigger than a pistol freaks me out still," the sole patient in the room quickly denied.
"You got some weeks of physical therapy ahead of you. So unless you transfer, the front desk beckons you anyway," Captain Andersen joked with a small smile. "And don't forget, you still need to cram for the detective's exam if that's your choice. Though, your special circumstances allow a little wiggle room for your exam. And then there's the fact that you'll be on sick leave for another month and a half."
That was Sgt Grey's cue to pick up the bag he brought and placed it on Ben's lap.
"Some reading material. Don't curse us for forcing you back into work, though. LAPD needs you," Grey quipped with a wink of his own.
"Thank you, Captain, Sergeant. I truly mean it," Ben replied with a touched expression.
"Welcome home, Officer Benjamin Weiss. Detective Romero will be over tomorrow morning to get a full statement, but thankfully, your letters were very detailed and insightful. You didn't leave many gaps. A union rep will likely come with a lawyer to confirm all the details once IA is done with you. Then, there's a mental health evaluation lined up for you. I'd like for you to take it while still in here. Doesn't have to be today or tomorrow, though."
Ben solemnly nodded, "Thank you, ma'am. Whatever is needed."
"Ha, 'whatever is needed'! What a good little soldier," Grey repeated with a big laugh.
As they left, they greeted a small gaggle of SWAT officers outside. They had already made themselves known by loudly talking and joking with the officers outside the room. Daniel 'Hondo' Harrelson, Christina Alonso, Victor Tan, and Dominique Luca shared some pleasant greetings with Andersen and Grey, then came inside Ben's patient room.
The first to shake his hand was the sole asian-american of the team, Tan. Ben had learned all their names thanks to his talks with Chris yesterday.
"Hey, thank you so much for saving my life," Ben greeted with an affectionate smile. "And thanks for getting the point about the ink. Can't wait to leave that life behind."
"Nah, it was nothing, man. You did plenty life-saving yourself," Tan humbly waved away.
Next to greet him was Luca. The blonde third-generation SWAT officer immediately went in for a fist-bump into shoulder-to-shoulder-bump as if they had been friends all their life. A pleasant feeling, all things considered.
"Man, those were some crazy-ass shots you landed. If we didn't round up all those low-lives because of you, I'd say you wasted your life in that undercover mission," he said as he still held Ben's shoulder.
"Truly. Nice shooting, man," Hondo said next as he pried Luca away in a playful shove to greet Ben properly.
"Ah, half of it was the adrenaline, and the other half was me finally wanting out of that op," Ben replied while looking away in embarrassment. He didn't get many compliments in the testosterone charged environment of the far-right extremist terror cell slash weapon smugglers.
"Hey, Ben," Chris greeted next by giving him a short hug, and immediately, all the three male SWAT officers looked like they found the next great gossip material.
"No wonder you're not giving Street the time of day," Tan teased.
"Can't believe young Chris already found someone. They grow up so fast, man," Luca said while wiping away a fake tear.
Hondo joined in by copying what 'Deac', aka 30-David, aka David Kay did at the mission, teasing his young subordinate to make her feel like part of the team.
"You make a hot ass couple. No disrespect, sir, ma'am," he said and immediately had Tan and Luca laughing like maniacs.
After some more good-natured banter, the three men left back to their station. Only Chris took the half-day off. The others simply wanted to pay respects to Ben, who woke up after all he went through.
"They are good people," Ben said with a smile as he watched the men close the door.
Chris nodded, "Yeah, the best."
"Listen, Ben. If you're up for it, Zofia would like to see you today. I talked to her over the phone, and she was crying the entire time after I told her you were up. Can you do that?"
"Is that why you suddenly took a half-day off?"
"Nah, I phoned that in at 2 in the morning after you kicked me out of the room," Chris quipped with a grin. "This is just a lucky coincidence."
"Alright, sure. I'm not getting more presentable anytime soon," Ben answered while inwardly wondering how much personal stake Chris had in a woman that was hurt for so long.
Chris and Ben talked for a little more until the officer left the room to go pick up Zofia. Zofia Nowicki, a young girl, sold into modern slavery by some human garbage in her home in rural Poland when she was just 17. She was the smartest of the three unfortunate women and managed to... 'scheme' her way into less abuse by forcing herself to be more pleasant.
Ben had secretly released four women in the five years of his undercover stint. But having to watch those that he couldn't release suffer was his second greatest regret he had in the last years. The three women, together with young Murat, were just the latest victims he could help. Much too late to his liking, as always.
As he was wallowing in his regrets, Chris and Zofia entered the room. Dressed in her thin cardigan despite the heat, Zofia ran to Ben and hugged him with tears quickly drenching the gown he still had on because he didn't have any clothes to change into yet. Grey would bring him something later after his shift was over.
"Hey, hey. Alles wird gut. Wszystko będzie dobrze. [All will be well,]" Ben whispered as he reciprocated the hug with tears of his own. He said these things not just for her but for himself as well.
A few minutes later, Chris, who stood far back with misty eyes herself, decided to break the silence and asked, "You speak Polish, too?"
Ben looked up and gently shook his head, "Nono. I merely picked up a few bits and pieces here and there. Zofia wasn't the only girl they... bought in Poland."
Chris began to see why Zofia would so desperately want to cling to Ben, but before she could ask further, Ben shared more of his story.
"Nothing stung more than seeing those pigs break these poor girls more and more. And I was right there and did nothing. I got a few of them out, sure, but I could never even follow up to see if I really helped them. It kept me up every single night," Ben muttered with a conflicted frown as his tear flow increased.
"You didn't do nothing," Zofia said in a muffled voice because her face was still pressed into his chest. "Everyone love when you order them to keep you company for the night."
Ben stiffened and looked to Chris to quickly shake his head. The young SWAT officer was about to form a very bad picture in her mind about the cop she was starting to think of as a friend, but stopped short as she saw his panicked expression.
"Come on, Zofia. At least say it all before there's misunderstandings," Ben quickly pleaded with his broken voice.
Zofia looked up and back to Chris and stopped hugging Ben to wave her hand to the policewoman, "Nono, Ben is good man. He make us take long shower and sleep in his bed then lie about what he did to us when other pig ask. He always sleep in chair. And then he bring good breakfast in the morning. Very sweet."
"We thought he is gay and shameful about it. He was always very quiet, so we never know," she continued with a proud voice with her slightly imperfect English, but Ben gained a wry smile.
'Well, better than being seen as a creep or, heavens forbid, rapist,' Ben thought as he closed his eyes and wiped away some tears on his face with a wry smile.
Zofia and Ben started speaking about everything that happened to Zofia in a mix of three languages with English, German, and Polish. Chris felt a little left-out as she didn't quite understand the whole conversation, but the image of Ben in her mind began glowing more and more as he showed true gentleness and compassion while speaking to the illegal immigrant that suffered so much.
What she picked up is that Ben, likely to use Zofia as an outlet for all the grief and regrets he gathered for all the women he saw suffer in his undercover work, offered the young blonde a place to stay when she would get released from the clinic. Since she didn't want to go home to Poland, he even offered her to help her with paperwork and even education, should she want any. Zofia was in the right age to go to college anyway - even if it was 'just' community college.
Chris also picked up that Ben didn't really have a place where Zofia could come live with him either, but to bring the conversation to some lighter topics he started showing the two women some pictures of his dad's home in Brentwood as well as his wish to move closer to central LA near Wilshire.
'Brentwood would be way too far, I'd never make it to rolecall during emergencies,' Chris thought before shaking her head. 'Head out of the gutter, Chris. Can't just jump on the first nice guy who came out of a coma just yesterday. And a cop at that.'
In the end, Zofia and Chris spent almost seven hours - way past visiting hours - at Ben's room. There were a few more tearful moments, but Ben also managed to get a few laughs out of the women.
-----
The rest of the week saw Chris visiting him for at least an hour before or after every shift. He also talked with Internal Affairs and learned that he wouldn't get paid very much for the five years of undercover work since the FBI never officially filed for his role. That he was paid at all was because his old, retired CO insisted, and the union agreed readily.
The union rep that visited after IA managed to bump the salary up to almost twice than what the HQ had planned for him after the man heard of this 'huge injustice', but Ben didn't mind either way. Even the doubled sum was much less than what he would have made in five years as a patrol officer with possible promotions.
But as long as the money he wouldn't get didn't flow into the hands of some sleezy politician's direction, Ben had no real opinion on how much they would pay him. He didn't have any outstanding debts to pay either.
He wanted to know what Agent Ford was thinking much more. Why would he do this completely off the books? Why keep it all a secret? He doubted he would get answers from the FBI, but he would file an inquiry with them when he was released from the hospital anyway.
Ben made a few calls about homes and got his finances in order relatively easily. There was quite the nice sum waiting for him, so he had free pick for where he would want to live. A luxury that wasn't lost on him after seeing so much hardship undercover.
What he found was a two-story, three bedroom home in View Park north of Inglewood, east of Ladera Heights, and only a good 15-20 minutes from his old police station.
-----
Chris, like a lost puppy with nothing better to do, took yet another half day off to pick him up in the hospital's parking lot to drive him to his new house.
"Are you sure this is okay? You taking so much time out of your life to care for me? I can take a cab?"
Chris watched him walk to her jeep she was leaning against wearing his white LAPD logo shirt, shorts, and sandals that Grey had brought him and gave him a smile.
"I'm an adult, I can do what I want."
"Hey, I'm not complaining about the hot latina treating me like a princess, waiting on me in her chariot," Ben waved away with a playful smile.
His voice had gotten much better in the last few days and turned back to its slightly calming inflection. He wasn't going to be a singer in this life, but he could talk down agitated victims and perps alike rather well.
He threw the small bag he had with the books and one change of clothes into her trunk and shoved her a little playfully to get access to the passenger seat. True to the tomboy that she was, Chris shoved back a little, and the two were laughing and enjoying their banter as they were roughhousing it out in the parking lot.
What they didn't know was that someone took two pictures of their fooling around and would post them to the internet: 'Off-duty nazi cop assaults latina in hospital parking lot'. Neither of their faces were clearly seen, but it still forced the commissioner of the LAPD to change his stance on how to handle Ben's case.
With how fresh it was on his mind now that he re-read the case after the undercover cop woke up, the commissioner clearly recognized Ben from the tattoos, even if he didn't know who the woman was. The original plan was to keep Ben out of the press to keep connections and his cover intact for future assignments, but the blowback from the recorded video was too much after a SWAT officer had just shot an unarmed black teenager who thankfully survived.
But Ben would only learn all that a little later.
-----
When they reached his new home, they found a 'teenage girl' waiting in the driveway with her face in her phone and a middle-aged man with dark hair doing some last minute touches in the garage - which thankfully became quickly apparent. It would have been quite bad luck if he was a robber and had two cops walk in on him.
<Modern Family S9 beginning>
"Sorry, are you Mr Dunphy?" Ben shouted as Chris finished parking her silver jeep.
The man perked up and hurried toward Ben with a bright smile that only faltered for a short moment when he saw all the tattoos.
"Yes, yes. Phil Dunphy, at your service! You must be Benjamin Weiss?"
"Yep! Call me, Ben. So, what do I still need to do before I can release you from your duties?"
"Ah, let me show you around, then I get a signature, and you get the keys. I don't usually hand over a house that the buyer hasn't been in before. But I'll be out of your hair in no time so you can enjoy your new home with your partner," Phil quickly offered.
"Haley, I'll be inside the house! Don't get kidnapped and look up from your phone once in a while!"
Ben and Chris looked at each other with a smile before Ben asked, "You're not from around LA?"
"What? What makes you ask?"
"The reminding your daughter not to get kidnapped," Ben quipped. "How old is she? 17?"
"Huh? No, she's 24, my oldest. And yeah, well - we live deeeep in the suburbs near Culver City. So technically, we're true LA blood, you feel me?"
"Wait, what? How is she 24?" Ben shouted and ran to the window to look at the woman he believed to be a teenager still text outside. Ben and Phil talked for a little while about all his kids until the matter of Culver City was brought up once more.
Ben started snickering, "Culver City is LA to me. That's what? 30-minute drive from here? I'm from Brentwood, and that's even further out."
"Ah! I recently sold a house near Brentwood. Beautiful colonial five bedroom home with- no, don't let me bore you with facts about another home now that we are in your new one. As you know, I'm filling in for a friend who got into an accident two days ago. I don't usually help sell houses this deep into LA at this zip code. But it's how I managed to convince my daughter Haley to come with me. Dad's going to take her shopping after this," Phil explained with a bright smile. A 24 year old getting her Dad to bring her into the city to shop, you didn't hear that every day.
He started showing Ben and Chris around the mostly furnished home that even came with a surprise hot tub outside that he didn't know about, but when he showed a room that was perfect to be a kid's bedroom, Chris couldn't take it anymore.
She took out her badge and explained, "Listen, Mister Dunphy. I'm just an off-duty officer showing this felon where we will park his ass until the hearing."
Phil paled and lost his smile, looked at Ben's shirt, then at his face and back to Chris. He didn't even connect with the fact that the other realtor forwarded him paperwork with only Ben's name on it. With a shaking voice, he started apologizing, but Ben cut him off before he managed to say more than 'sorry'.
"Don't listen to Chris. She's just messing with you because everyone thinks we're newlyweds the moment they see us. Plus, she sucks at jokes. We're both police and I'm all inked up because I was undercover. They'll be gone in two months at worst. The tattoos, I mean," Ben explained with a patient smile as he patted Chris' head, but she shoved his arm away and walked out of the room with a playful huff.
After they were done with the tour, Phil and Ben were sitting at the counter of the beautiful open kitchen.
"Listen, Ben. I don't know what it's like to come from such a long undercover mission, but if you feel like you need someone to listen to you, I'll be glad to lend an ear," Phil said as he slided over the sheet Ben had to sign.
Ben furrowed his brows and asked, "Why would you do that? We barely know each other."
Phil gained a bright smile and answered with a lot of enthusiasm, "I could tell your stories to my son! Imagine how cool it is if your dad knows a badass undercover cop who was on a secret mission for so long! He's just graduated, and I need more material to connect with him! And don't get me started on having a friendly cop on the force! The street be real out there, you feel me?"
'Holy shit that charisma. Dude has some serious golden retriever energy like Luca,' Ben thought while outwardly already agreeing to exchanging numbers and staying in contact with Phil.
It never hurt to make new friends, especially since he barely had any after five years as a fake persona.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder