14 Case 14 - Emilia's secret

"You sure, Ben?" Chris asked from the room next to the one Ben and Anna were currently sitting in with Ben fully dressed in sanitary clothes to keep the germs away from his recovering daughter.

So far, there had been no rejection of any kind, and Anna was well on her way to full recovery despite the inevitable continued stay at the hospital for another two weeks followed by a long recovery time of around three month to half a year before Anna produces enough blood and has a stabilized immune system.

What was concerning, however, was the constant prolonged absence of Emilia in recent times.

"Yeah, something fishy is going on," Ben answered with furrowed brows as he held his drowsy daughter's hand. "I have no earthly idea what, but she hasn't been here quite as often as I would have thought she would be this week. Yesterday, she wasn't here until way late into the night. I mean, she claims to be able to do remote work for her job in England... she can do that from here..."

"Well, I've seen the rings under your eyes. You're pretty stretched thin yourself. New job, the community center thing, coming here every single day. Can you blame Emilia for trying to go somewhere to recharge her batteries? You should do that too, you know?"

"Haley and I have been on like five dates, okay? I already feel horrible for enjoying myself out there instead of spending every free minute here with Anna," Ben countered in a tired voice.

"Just five dates? Didn't you start at the beginning of December? That's not how you keep a girl interested, Ben," Chris chided with a pitying look. Only she knew who the pity was for.

"What do you want me to do? I can't just leave Anna alone all day..."

"You can. They have staff here to look after her. And I'm not telling you to visit once a week. I'm telling you it's not all on you. I'm here too, no? Deacon brought Annie over the other day. I know this Phil dude has spent some time doing magic tricks for her from behind the glass door - the nurse I'm seeing at the moment told me... despite her 'weird' behavior, Emilia is here all the time, too," Chris argued.

After a short silence, Ben's phone that was with Chris outside started ringing.

"Says Det Murphy on the screen," Chris pointed out when she picked up the phone.

"Take it, put it on speaker," Ben instructed with a frown.

"*Hey, Weiss. Got some more bad news. The ambulance with Antje inside has vanished. Sudden radio silence, GPS disabled, and it never arrived at St Ambrose,*" Murphy said over the phone with a somber voice.

"Is Special Agent Bird informed?"

"*It's coming from him. One of his guys was on the ambulance and can't be reached either. We put out a BOLO ['be on (the) look-out'] for the ambulance, and we're monitoring ports and flight plan changes, but it's a big city.*"

"When and where was last contact?" Chris asked while still holding the phone.

"*That's a new voice. Who is it?*"

"That's Officer Alonso, Metro SWAT. She's with me at St Ambrose," Ben answered as he already tucked Anna into bed and started exiting the clean room.

"*Got it. About a mile out from the hospital a little over fifteen minutes ago. Since you mentioned earlier you're gonna spend the night, I thought you might be able to take a look around. I'll send you a map with their planned route and the location of the last contact marked on it. If you're available, check it out,*" Murphy ordered and hung up.

"You coming?" Ben asked as he put on his jacket with a serious expression, and Chris immediately nodded.

The two officers walked downstairs at a brisk pace, jumping several staircases to speed up the process and hopped on Ben's bike since it was readily waiting outside while Chris had her jeep parked in the hospital's three-story parking garage.

Ben didn't bring a second helmet, so he offered it to Chris and stepped on the gas - as much as you could on a bike that didn't have a gas pedal, only a clutch.

Quickly arriving on scene, Ben and Chris dismounted to look around the relatively deserted sidewalk.

"Over here!" Chris shouted from the other side of the road and pointed at an alley. Fresh glass shards that were neither dusty nor dirty, which meant they hadn't been trampled on or driven over for a few days, were laying near the entrance of it.

The two slowly made their way down the alleyway with guns drawn, but it was completely silent.

[Emilia Caster commentary scene change]

"This isn't broadcasted, right?" Emilia asked as she looked past the camera but received no answer from anybody. As if hearing someone confirm or seeing someone nod anyway, she still looked relieved and continued, "Ben and Chris came dangerously close to finding me today. Twice."

Emilia furrowed her brows and continued, "After I've been let go for my indiscretion, my newest job wasn't particularly nice, though I was starting to be influential enough to choose my missions. I didn't want to take this one with Anna in the hospital, for example. However, now that I had to take it, I didn't want Ben to know. And I definitely didn't want anyone other than Ben to know. I just want some more money to care for Anna... it can't all be on Ben..."

[Commentary ended]

"Murphy, we found the ambulance. Driver, paramedic, and agent are still onboard but unconscious. Antje is gone," Ben advised as Chris called another ambulance for the people they found. "There's a single gunshot hole in the car's body. No blood, casing lying in the car. It was the FBI guy's gun that was discharged."

"*What the fuck is wrong with this girl in particular?*"

On the complete opposite side of the alley, unknown to Ben and Chris, someone was staring at them from a dark old van that looked abandoned.

-----

With Antje gone through such dubious circumstances, this case once more became even more weird. Special Agent Bird got nothing out of his subordinate either other than that the agent got off a single shot before falling asleep as he aimed at the back door that was opened.

The ambulance was stopped by a homeless woman who claimed to have a friend in urgent need for first aid and then they all went to sleep - likely through a gas container that delivered a sleeping agent into the car. No evidence for that had been found, however.

The security surrounding the thirteen girls still admitted at St Ambrose was increased even more. Thankfully the first group of parents had arrived after they took the first flight to LA they could find, others would arrive later for those able to afford it. It eased Ben's guilty conscience for leaving them without an adult able to understand them greatly - despite having sacrificed several hours just to speak to them.

Antje's parents weren't among the first group and the other parents hadn't heard anything from them either. They were by far the richest, though how they got to their money wasn't known by any of the parents or the girls.

[Haley Dunphy commentary scene change]

"I mean, I wish Ben had more time for me. But then I go visit him in the hospital because I really, REALLY wanted to see him and I knew whenever we met, he had Anna on his mind. Where else to go other than the hospital then? And what do I see? A dozen girls who just suffered through hell and Ben right there with them, calming down parents and those girls whose parents didn't come. Speaking a language I didn't understand with such ease... those poor girls crying in his arms."

Haley smiled wryly as she looked at the camera.

"All I wanted to do was jump his bones right there. It was so hot. And then he takes me up to his daughter and we were spending time with her and all I felt instead of horny was... happy? Well, until Emilia joined us."

[Commentary ended]

"What happened to you?" Ben asked in curiosity as Emilia stepped into the room.

"Some idiot clipped me," Emilia explained with an annoyed look.

She wore a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt, but there was a scrape on her cheek and the more Ben looked, the more he was sure that she had bandages on her arm and something sticking to the side of her torso, like a big bandaid or something similar.

"Did you get it checked downstairs?"

Emilia gave Ben her best reassured look and explained, "Yeah. They cleaned it and taped it for me."

She lifted up her shirt a little and turned her hip to show a bandaid as big as her palm. Her cheek already had a strip going over it, which he could clearly see.

[Haley Dunphy commentary scene change]

"Are you even allowed to have such a toned stomach as a girl? Ugh. I hate that I understand why Ben boned her. I knew it before already. She's absolutely gorgeous. But who just has a six-pack like that?"

Haley sighed in frustration.

"Ugh, now I'm horny again."

[Commentary change: Emilia Caster]

"I'm an idiot. Sure, I actually went and got something checked downstairs as a cover. But I walked into that room with a gunshot wound to the arm and a deep cut on the torso like I'm James Bond. Why is Ben such a caring father that he has to be there so late at night? I just wanted to pass out next to my baby in peace. Ugh, I'm NOT mad at him. I'm not mad at HIM. Getting Antje out of there was already a freaking miracle, but this mission was a train wreck from beginning to end."

Emilia gave the camera flat stare.

"I'm given instructions to find some ass-clown named Anders in a 'waffle bar' of all places and the idiot confuses me for a hooker despite me being in my 'mommy outfit' just because I talked to him while waiting for my food. I'll never get how the enemies of the Smits thought of such an elaborate plan just to have it executed by such a mouthbreather. How could he fool them to begin with? Was he a good actor or something?"

Anna's mother gently placed a finger over the wound on her cheek before sighing.

"How unlucky do I have to be that Ben's case is the one I'm working? And then some asshole drops a crowbar, and suddenly everyone looks at me in that hangar before I can close in? And THEN, of all people, Ben arrives, and I can't get Antje out unnoticed after the two bleeding idiots drove off into the desert? We're not even done in this shitpile. No. I need them to take her to the hospital because she was fucking shot by a dude who just sprayed his bullets left to right like a sprinkler. Then a god damn FBI agent sits in on the ambulance when I want to get Antje back and shoots me just as I open the door after I thought they had all already fallen asleep."

She groaned in frustration and continued, "The Smits were concerned their little girl wouldn't be safe in that hospital despite my assurance that I could care for her safety, so I bring her to this helicopter that flies out into the desert where a private jet is waiting to bring her back to her parents. How they will explain that to their girl or to the other parents or the police I have no idea. But I'm guessing a few more people will have to die."

A short moment of silence hung in the air.

"With resources like this, why wasn't there a bodyguard on the ferry going to Spain in the first place?" Emilia shook her head. "I'm just a mercenary with no prior contact to the Smits in this so I wouldn't know... and I don't want to hear it either..."

[Commentary ended]

Two days later, a day before Christmas Eve, neither the FBI nor the LAPD had found a lead on Antje. It was as if she had been swallowed by the earth. All the other girls from her hockey team were already back in the Netherlands or still on a plane, and Vice Detective Murphy went on Christmas break - which meant Ben was more or less idle as he just tagged along with whoever rolled out.

Late at night, however, he was dressed up in a suit Haley had picked out for him. A three-piece dark olive green suit with elaborate, miniature stitchings in triangle formations and a muted maroon tie that fit perfectly with Haley's own maroon colored dress for the evening.

"And you're sure I can just come here?" Haley asked as she bit her lip outside the imposing Metro SWAT headquarters. "This seems awfully official. What if I embarrass you?"

"The mayor knows my name, and they can't possibly demote me. Nothing you can do is gonna have a negative impact on me," Ben answered with a smug smile, so Haley hit his arm.

"You're supposed to say I can't embarrass you!"

"Lay off the sauce and don't touch a gun," he began to explain but stopped when Haley glared at him. "No worries, Haley. Just be yourself. You're a social butterfly with likability oozing out of every por- oozing out of every one of your super tiny invisible pores."

"Awww, nice save at the end," Haley gushed as she preened with a big grin and took his arm into hers.

The two entered the venue, which was a donation rally for the elite of the city to give money to a children's hospital in LA. Mumford's team and Hondo were all dressed up in their SWAT gear and were showing the millionaires around - though live ammo was nowhere to be seen.

"Ben, you made it," Captain Cortez greeted as she walked toward him in a gorgeous black dress.

"This is for a nice cause, and my face being here could mean we get a few more thousands. I wouldn't miss it," Ben responded and turned to Haley. "Haley, this is my sort-of-boss Captain Cortez. Captain, this is my girlfriend, Haley Dunphy."

"Sort-of-boss? Ugh, Ben... You look lovely, Miss Dunphy. Ben is a great catch if he isn't messing around like an idiot. At least he is a lovable idiot. You're a lucky woman. Enjoy your night."

[Haley Dunphy commentary scene change]

Haley sat there with a blush and a wide smile.

"He introduced me as his girlfriend to every single person at that party. This commissioner dude, who everybody kissed the ass of, the tech millionaires that asked to put his face in their games or videos or whatever, those creepy real estate ghouls, and all his colleagues. Oh my god. The butterflies never stopped," Haley explained with a sweet smile and a rather excited, high-pitched voice.

[Commentary ended]

Ben, Haley, and Hondo just came back inside from showing Haley 'Black Betty', SWAT's black tank car.

"And you're not freaking out whenever you're shot at? I mean, I get the car is like a tank or whatever, but isn't it... creepy anyway?" Haley asked with furrowed brows. As impressive as it all looked, seeing all the preparations they made for getting shot brought a dash of reality and understanding to Haley. Ben could get shot every single day at work.

"There's always something that can go wrong. But we're out there as a team. We're highly trained. We prepare for all those different possible circumstances as best we can. So we just have to trust in all that."

"Yeah, you know the saying 'what doesn't kill us makes us stronger', right? If we're talking about Weiss, he's already building up his own lead resistance like it's going out of fashion," 54-David - Officer Stokes chimed in with a shit-eating grin as he was close to them.

"You're a real jokster, Stokes. Beat me in a four shot shoot-out at the gunrange once, and I'll let you badmouth me," Ben quipped back with a roll of his eyes.

"Heh, beat me in literally anything else at the range, and I'll stop," Stokes 'shot' back and walked back to mingle with the rich guests to make them donate some more.

"He might be joking, but please stop catching bullets, Ben. You're too good a cop to lose early," Hondo interjected as he patted Ben on his shoulder and walked back to elicit some more donations on his own.

"I agree. You should stop getting shot at," Haley added with a vulnerable expression once the two were alone.

Ben shrugged with a helpless smile, "I'll tell the bad guys."

Haley sighed and changed the topic, "What's this about that four-shot thing anyway?"

"Oh? I, uh, kinda have a magic touch," Ben answered vaguely.

"Don't I know it," Haley whispered into his ear as she stood on her tip-toes and bent him down a little.

"That too," Ben agreed with a grin. "But outside the bedroom, I'm pretty okay with a pistol. I have this thing where I'm doing way above average on my first four shots every time I concentrate. It's why I have a nickname around here..."

"How does that make you a 'Benny'?"

Ben was caught off-guard by the question before he laughed a little and replied, "No, it's 'Wundershot'. Mumford, the old SWAT guy, he calls me that all the time."

"Ohhh, I thought he was German and talked to you or something," Haley sheepishly admitted.

[Haley commentary scene change]

"I hate the idea of Ben getting shot at. I mean, the scars are kinda hot and all, but that's besides the point," Haley spoke with a frown.

"Though, if all those buff dudes gave him such a special nickname, it should be, like, fine, right?"

[Commentary ended]

"Detective Weiss. How are you liking your last assignment? I heard your last case was a big one?" Hicks asked as he made the rounds and stopped near Ben and Haley.

"Well, it was only a sort of help mission since it was federal from the very start. But yeah, fourteen abducted teenage girls... terrible first case if it wasn't for the fact that thirteen of them were safe and sound... largely."

Hicks nodded and dispersed some wisdom, "Cases like this will stay with you for a long time. It's how you know you're still human inside. Don't lose that. By the way, FBI reached out to me earlier today for an update to call off the BOLO. Antje Smit is alive and back with her parents in Rotterdam. I thought you should know."

"She is? That's amazing news! Why wasn't I informed? Did they say how it happened? Ransom, mercenaries, anything?"

Hicks looked at Haley, the only civilian with them for the moment, and eventually responded anyway, "Interpol said she arrived on a private jet and was transferred into the tender care of one of the best surgeons in the Netherlands, who took the week off suddenly. The hospital he works at got an anonymous six-figure donation on the same day."

"Man. If we knew what really happened with that girl and her family, we could probably sell the movie rights or something," Ben mumbled with a tight frown.

"They sell flowers, by the way. Tulips mostly. The Smits, I mean," Hicks added with a skeptical look as he walked away. "If that isn't a front for drugs, smuggling, or money laundering, I don't know what is."

"Are you sure you don't want to work in something less exciting?" Haley asked with a small, sad smile.

"Eventually, I will. Until then, I'll help people," Ben replied and squeezed her hand in reassurance.

Just then, Captain Cortez' phone, as well as the phones from Mumford's team, started ringing. The universal sign for a SWAT request.

"Ben! With me to command," Cortez shouted over as Mumford, Hondo, and the rest of the geared up SWAT officers made their way to 50-David's Black Betty to roll out.

"Uh, stay close, don't take out your phone and, uh, try not to talk when it sounds like orders are going out?" Ben whispered to Haley and made her follow along instead of leaving her with the guests.

In an open room with large TVs on one wall, doors and windows to every important facility in the building on the others, and a two PC setup right in the middle, Ben got to work at one such computer.

Under Cortez' eyes, Ben and one of the support officers on duty started pulling up the necessary info as they established an open channel to Mumford's team. The address, related 911 calls, and anything they could find out started appearing on the screens one after another.

A patrol officer had responded to a suspicious gunshot sound call in a warehouse district. The moment he arrived, people started shooting at him, and the scene escalated into a full-out gunfight with half a dozen confirmed gunmen at what appeared to be a casita.

As Ben concentrated, he quickly found out who owned this 'casita' - illegal underground bars that dealt in drugs, betting, and alcohol, cash only - and forwarded the latest blueprints to the computer 54-David, Officer Stokes, was manning in Black Betty. Already, his connections to Vice turned out to be a great boon as he knew where to look.

Cortez looked impressed the entire time as Ben presented all he found in neatly arranged windows on the large screens for her and didn't even mind that Haley shouldn't be there with them by any stretch.

"How are you typing this fast in so many different windows?" Haley whispered in Ben's ear a minute before the team arrived on site, and Ben was done finding out everything he could.

"Haley, I've seen you text. Are you really impressed with my typing speed?" Ben whispered back, and Haley just grinned at the covert compliment.

"Nice work, Ben. But head in the game. The team's about to land," Cortez both praised and reprimanded. Haley straightened up and took a hurried step back, mindful not to distract Ben again.

From there, the open channel was hectic for a moment as the team was in an active gun fight with several armed individuals. Haley flinched at every shot she heard.

Eventually, they learned thanks to Hondo that the gunfight was about a sack of gold that belonged to a cartel boss called 'El Malo'. Ben had already researched the name since chatter on the street named him as the one running the casita, which meant they also quickly learned that someone robbing this ruthless cartel boss would result in a long list of casualties if it wasn't stopped.

"Ben, you're not on duty, and you have no obligation to stay any longer. Thank you for chipping in when you did," Cortez eventually told Ben when the crime scene on the other end of their comm channel turned quiet for a while, which meant they were securing the scene and the evidence - nothing they could help with from the HQ.

"Sure thing, boss. Glad I didn't drink anything. Hicks took Commisioner Plank with him to the crime scene to impress him, right?"

"He did," Cortez confirmed with a nod and a raised brow.

"Then my job impressing people today is done. I got a $50k donation from a real estate dude who thought I'd lose to him in armwrestling and another $180k donation because that Singh dude wants to use my face in his next video game for whatever reason. Haley charmed $50k out of the pockets from some lecher, too, so I'm thinking we did pretty well. I'll come in tomorrow morning to check on the teams. I bet Hicks is gonna call in 20-David squad just to butter up Plank some more," Ben offered with a smile as he walked to Cortez, gave her a small, friendly hug goodbye and excused himself together with Haley.

[Haley Dunphy commentary scene change]

"I'll be honest. I thought I'd get those fifty thousand. But the kids are so, uh, important, too. And my boyfriend Ben made it up to me without even knowing anyway," Haley sheepishly admitted with love-filled eyes, giggling when she said the word 'boyfriend'.

She smiled for a moment before she started to blush.

"Man, my boyfriend is so hot when he concentrates on something. Can't he just do that instead of going out in the field to get shot at? Watching him find out everything about this shooting just based on an address was like a magic trick happening right in front of my eyes..."

Just then, Phil leaned in from the background, "Did you just say magic trick, honey?"

[Commentary ended]

-----

Reluctant to peel himself out of bed with a very naked Haley present, Ben made his way to Anna anyway as he left his now-confirmed girlfriend sleeping in the house. She had a little more to drink than most because of her nerves and let loose quite a bit once they were home.

At the hospital, he made a few calls as he spent time watching his daughter getting a check-up from one of the doctors. He learned that 20-squad was indeed called in that very night, and they managed to find 'Reya', one of the 'fichera'/casita girls, that they were still interrogating. Big bounties for anyone involved with the robbery were getting issued according to most CIs.

When Ben finally reached SWAT HQ, Deacon managed to get the whereabouts of Diego Pascal, one of the thieves that robbed El Mano, from this Reya girl. 20-squad was about to roll out.

Next chapter