Coffee & Credentials
Who: Annie, Radek What: Sharing Resources When: Early Afternoon Where: M&M's Coffee Ratings: General
Creating a trail of evidence was exhausting. Annie had never been on this end of things before she knew the Bureau had been responsible for some less than stellar behavior in the past, but she had always run her operations clean, at least until she had tanked her career. This was different: creating a crime to cover up an even larger secret. She could do it -- she had blown through a lot of petty cash in recent days to assure her of that fact -- but it was taking its toll. Derek and the vampire mess he had helped drop in her lap had caused her to let just about everything else go by the wayside, including the meet Dr. Jeppersen.
Thankfully, she had at least managed to come up for air long enough to arrange that. She hadn’t quite explained that the Searchlight-area ‘field office’ was really just the spare room in her Bureau provided home, so she thought it best to meet first on neutral ground. There was a coffee place in town she hadn’t visited, and thought that would work well for the initial meet. She arrived early, not even rating a blink or two from anyone else present for her business suit or the obvious firearm beneath her jacket, and ordered a latte while she waited.
It had to be better than the swill at the Blindeye.
After his last venture down to the small town Radek decided to take his 1955 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing for a drive, mainly because it would be less affected by any ‘dust storms’ that might strangely eventuate, and it had been a while since he’d driven it any distance. The rare silver sports car zipped along very nicely and Radek tapped away on the steering wheel as he hummed to himself. He eventually throttled back down through the gears to slow down as he entered the town limits, very soon pulling to a stop outside the cafe. Making sure he had his phone in his pocket he swung the door up and stepped out of the vehicle, gently closing the overhead door before making his way into the shop. He ordered his coffee and looked around, spying the young woman who was the only occupant who could be the FBI special agent. As his coffee was being made he crossed over to her and asked, “would you be … Annie?” Given the size of the town and the ears that were around them he wasn’t sure if her actual occupation was common knowledge.
Annie stood and pasted on her most professional smile, offering her hand in greeting. “Dr. Jeppersen?” she asked, assuming she was right. It wasn’t as though many other people in the area would be able to greet her by name, even if they hadn’t met in person quite yet.
“I really need to apologize,” she went on quickly. “We had a recent break in an ongoing case that has had most of my attention. I hadn’t meant to put you on the backburner like this.”
Radek waved his hand and shook his head. “Not at all! No need to apologise, please,” he insisted, his accent softly audible as he took her hand and shook it. “And please, call me Radek, only my patients call me Doctor, and I sincerely hope you never require my professional attentions.”
Annie smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Radek,” she said amiably, and resumed her seat. She hadn’t quite known what she was walking into when it came to this meeting; she’d had so much dropped on her as of late that following the initial emails she had received, she hadn’t delved any further into the man’s background or even gotten a basic prep report for their meeting. Going in blind had never been her strong suit. At least his email had clued her in to what seemed to be a genteel nature.
“So,” she began. “What can I do for you?”
Radek sat once Annie had resumed her seat and leaned forward on his elbows, the excitement shining in his eyes whilst he explained to her what he had found in his ‘research work for the Bureau’, as they had originally outlined in the initial email from Booth. He listed a number of events and dates.
“These incidents I’ve uncovered, and events I have learned of along with the information collected whilst investigating further in the university archives, have shown a higher than average number of incidents of this type in area bordered by Searchlight, Colorado River, Henderson and Red Rock Canyon,” he summarised. “Clark County seems to be a ‘special projects’ type of area, and I would like to look through the files Special Agent Booth suggested could also add some information, and are in your jurisdiction.”
He suddenly realised the barista was calling out his name, or at least a convoluted pronunciation of it, and quickly excused himself, collected his beverage, and returned to the table.
Annie nodded as Radek spoke, suppressing a small smile. His enthusiasm for his work was more than evident and seemed almost infectious; it reminded her in a way of a few professors from her college years who had been able to get their classrooms full of 30-odd jaded students excited about history and art by virtue of their own love of the topic. It made her wonder if he had ever taught anywhere, be it in the medical field of otherwise; she got the impression he would have been a popular lecturer.
She sipped at her latte while he retrieved his order, nodding when he returned. “Clark County certainly does have its fair share of ‘special projects’,” she agreed. “My assignment here is heavily based in the area seeming to carry more than the typical amount of missing and endangered cases. The position was vacant for some time so I have been more or less starting from scratch, and I have a large collection of case files that might be of interest to you.”
She paused, drumming her fingers on the tabletop with a frown. “Just trying to figure out the best way to give you access to them.”
Radek nodded and took a sip of his coffee to give her time to consider the options. He knew how protective of their records the FBI could be, and how privacy was all the craze in this modern world. He also knew just how much more of a challenge it was for himself and others of his kind to remain in one place for too long, an immortals identity was harder to maintain even as the cries for privacy increased.
"Are they in written form perhaps? Or at least some of the older records?" he suggested. "Or have they all been digitised now? Perhaps the older records are stored somewhere?"
Annie gave an aggravated sigh. The paperwork had been a source of annoyance for her from the start. She knew she was being shunted into a deadend position, but it hadn’t occurred to her how much a mess had been left behind by the last of the Bureau’s prodigal children. Her office was stacked with banker’s boxes, many of them carrying the scent of too much time spent languishing in a damp file room; anything prior to 2001 was only available in antiquated hard copy, the earliest dating back to the 1930s.
“A lot of it hasn’t been digitized,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Unfortunately, the budget only allows for one agent to hold this position and the local field office is more of a checkpoint rather than a resource. My predecessor didn’t make any attempt to digitize any paperwork that predated his tenure.”
She paused to sip her coffee before continuing. “I do have them in reasonable order, so if there were anything specific you were looking for, I could easily pull it. But if you’re looking to browse, I’m afraid I’ll have to bring you a box or two to go through at a time.” She offered an apologetic smile. “The ‘local office’ here also doubles as my home.”
“Oh! I am happy to browse through the files if you are happy to allow me to,” Radek responded. “But of course I would not like to be intruding in your home,” he added trying to think of an alternative that would be acceptable to the special agent. “I have a large home, with an abundance of room but it is in Henderson, and I understand if you would not be willing to allow the files out of your immediate control.” He looked at her, wondering how ‘immediate’ her control of the boxes would need to be. “You would also be welcome to access them at any time, should you require to.”
Annie shook her head. “Believe me when I say it's not a matter of trust,” she explained quickly. “Booth vouches for you and that’s enough for me. But it’s a matter of strict record keeping policy. I’m in a position where the records I have on hand are completely my responsibility and if word got out that I’d let them go to a civilian, I’d have my boss breathing down my neck in a heartbeat.”
She paused, trying not to overthink the issue. “There’s an attached shed on the property. Give me a week to get an alarm system installed and I can set you up with regular access. I can store everything there, except anything I have an immediate need to have on hand, and work on digitizing in my free time. How does that sound?”
“That sounds most suitable,” Radek replied, delighted an arrangement had been reached. “That will give me time to complete some work I’m doing at the university library,” he added, “including the information in a timeline I’ve been preparing as the basis for all of this. Your files, especially the older ones, could give insight into events that have occurred back in times when the main source of information has been through newspaper archives, which as we know can often be unreliable when it comes to details!” he grinned before taking a sip of his coffee.
There was that enthusiasm again; Annie didn’t bother to hide her smile this time.
“In my experience, newspapers rarely get even half the story right,” she said with a small laugh. There had been a number of operations she had taken in part of during her career that had been significantly downplayed in the media by design, and just as many overblown by ambitious reporters looking to make a name for themselves with inflammatory headlines. True investigative reporting seemed so easily overlooked; she couldn’t imagine how bad it had been as many decades back as Radek needed to look.
She finished her latte and tented her fingers around the cup. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Radek had been wondering if he would discuss the blade he had with the special agent. He'd been trying to figure out how to access the police evidence room but nothing had come to mind, other than finding someone who had an ability to be invisible, and he'd never come across such a being yet.
He nodded his head as he reached the conclusion that she would possibly be the best chance he had. "Actually, yes, there is. I have recently had come into my possession the broken blade of a dagger, a weapon that has been of great historical interest to me over many decades, stemming in no small way from their use in medicine," he started to explain. He frowned for a brief moment, getting his thoughts in order. Again, the enthusiasm for his purpose lighting the spark in his eye he explained about the design of the broken blade, the hollow, and the material, just leaving out how he'd actually procured it.
"So, you see, this is another of those objects that is odd, and believe me when I say I've never seen anything like it before, in all my years of research and investigatings." He looked at her before continuing. "I know the FBI had extensive libraries of pictures of all types of weaponry they have come across over the years, Booth had been able to help me with checking those, but of course the local police have records that are not passed on or shared, and I was wondering if you have any contact in the Police department who may be able to help?"
“I haven’t had much contact with the local police, to be honest,” Annie said, trying to think back over the few occasions where she had rendezvoused with local law enforcement. She stayed away from the LVPD entirely, but there had been one notable occasion when a preteen girl from Searchlight had disappeared for a few days. It had turned out to be a simple runaway case that was resolved fairly quickly.
They had found the girl hiding at her boyfriend’s family’s home in Henderson within a day or two.
“Sergeant Sal Addison with the local group is a decent guy,” she mused. “Locally we have the Las Vegas Metro police looking after things, he’s with them. I can shoot you an email with his contact information, if you like.”
“I would appreciate it,” Radek responded, smiling, glad to finally have some way of making contact. “Speaking of contact information, let me give you my card, which has my emergency telephone also,” he said, pulling the card out of his inside coat pocket. “I have two numbers, one is my general number, the other is for emergencies, usually medical, which will always reach me, even when I’m out of range,” he explained.
Annie thought it best to reciprocate and quickly pulled one of her own cards from the inner pocket of her jacket along with a ballpoint pen, jotting her address as well as her personal cell number.
“This is all my information,” she said, sliding the card across the table. “And my address, so you can come and go as you please once I get things set up.”
“Thank you,” he replied, accepting her card and taking a good look at it. “FBI Special Agent Annie Robinette, thank you very much, I appreciate your help. I think this will be good for the special project, that we will start to make some of the pieces of jigsaw start to fall into the places.” As it did when he was excited his language started to suffer in its accuracy.
Annie smiled as she stood, stretching a moment to work a kink out of the muscles in her back. She’d been riding a desk for so long that it was starting to wear her down; field operations had always kept her far more active. She would have to remedy that -- and maybe cut down on the Twizzlers.
She plucked Radek’s card from the table and pocketed it. “It was good to meet you, Radek,” she told him honestly. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, just give me a call.”
“I will, and I look forward to hearing from you when you are ready for me to start work on the files,” he replied, pushing his chair backwards as he stood, the sound of scraping loud in the small cafe. He looked around apologetically in case he’d disturbed anyone, then held his hand out to Annie. “And thank you again.”
“No problem at all,” Annie said, shaking his hand. At least, she reasoned, there would be ample opportunity to get the paperwork digitized and better organized. Perhaps Searchlight wouldn’t be such a dead end for her after all.