21 Case 21 - Nipping a budding drug lord

LA: <Events before The Rookie S1E12, Modern Family S9E13, SWAT S1E10>

NY: <Events 99 before Brooklyn S5E11, sometime Suits S7E12, 1.5 years after Castle S8 finale>

The driver of the van opened the doors at the back of his car and immediately took out an uzi as he looked down the alley for movements.

"NYPD, drop your weapons!" Ben shouted as three men dragging wooden crates up the stairs outside the basement exit came up to that same van that parked right next to the staircase.

The armed driver swung around to Ben's voice and pointed the gun in his hand up, but Ben was quicker and shot the man twice. Shoulder and hand, the man was dealt with as he dropped to the floor screaming.

At the same time, the man furthest down the stairs let go of the wooden box and as it crashed down the steps he had already dragged it up on, he pulled out a pistol and wanted to point it at Ben but couldn't since the detective moved behind the van for cover.

The man's eye level, however, was roughly on Ben's feet, so he took aim but was interrupted when Castle had received Ben's signal and threw the flashbang.

Ben ran once more as he aimed at the man who had dropped the crate and shot him twice.

The other two let go of their crates to shield their eyes, which resulted in the other two crates crashing down the stairs. The two men at the bottom were immediately taken out - one shot, one stuck under a crate, screaming in pain with a few broken bones as they were laying at the bottom among the broken boxes, but Ben didn't relax.

He couldn't.

The two men at the bottom laid there with dozens of rifles and a sea of bullets.

As such, Ben dragged the man at the top of the stairs out of the line of sight of the bottom of the stairs, disabled him with a shoulder throw, and cuffed him with zipties immediately.

"Next one, Castle!" Ben shouted, and the writer threw the flashlight close to the stairs.

With a clank as it hit the floor once, it fell down to the bottom, and both men lying at the bottom shielded their eyes. The bang they feared never arrived, but Ben jumped over the railing when he peeked and saw they weren't looking.

He disarmed both injured men once more by grabbing one of the rifles in their hands and kicking the weapon of the other man out of his hands as quickly as he could, then Ben cuffed them before they could pick up another gun.

Castle eventually walked over to the staircase after he heard nothing but muffled moans of pain and gingerly looked down before he finally relaxed and began joking.

"Impressive work, Benjamin!" Castle praised with a big grin, but before he could walk down the stairs to help Ben bring up the criminals, a man leaned in from behind the basement door and aimed his gun at Castle.

Before the criminal could take the shot, Ben had already aimed and shot twice. First shot to the weapon, second shot to the wrist.

"AAArgh," the mystery man cried out sharply, and Ben immediately bolted toward the door, gun drawn.

Inside, Ben's eyes widened. There was a hidden freight elevator with a small packing operation for drugs just behind a corner. Plus, there were 9 corpses just lying there that definitely weren't his kills.

Hector Fisher sat against the wall, clutching his bleeding arm as he shot Ben a venomous look.

"You'll pay for that," Hector spat, literally.

"Okay buddy," Ben quipped, kicked the gun away, and roughly cuffed Hector without caring for the bleeding wound.

The LAPD detective opened his two-way radio and began his report.

"Hector Fisher is in custody. Weapons secured. Code 4 at the basement exit. I was able to intercept Hector trying to flee the scene in a van, weapons and all. Five men in custody. Get CSU down here. Hector's drug operation is partly working out of an old freight elevator down here... and there's 9 corpses..."

"Holy... shi..psicle," Castle exclaimed as he entered the basement.

"Why are you down here? Weren't you just almost shot?" Ben asked with an exasperated look. "And really? Shipsicle?"

"You said Code 4. I heard it clearly," Castle defended and looked around like a kid in a candy store, ignoring Ben's quip.

"Are these rival gang members you had to eliminate, and you needed the guns to arm yourself for war after the inevitable blowback?" Castle excitedly asked Hector after he was done examining the whole room.

Hector ordered Castle to step closer so that he could whisper the answer in his ears, pretending he couldn't say it out loud in front of Ben and Castle, like the maniac he was, did as told.

But Hector merely used the opportunity to spit at Castle.

"Hey!" Castle complained, and just then, the police from the raid upstairs poured down with Amy in the lead.

"Are you okay, Ben?" She asked worriedly.

"Yep, Castle and I took them down before they could take any shots," Ben explained with a reassuring smile.

Rosa looked around outside the basement door, saw the hundreds of bullets and dozens of weapons, and muttered under her breath, "That's hot."

"How'd you manage that?" The SWAT team leader curiously inquired after seeing the tell-tale signs of a flashbang going off.

Ben pointed where the SWAT officer was looking and said, "I took down the driver because his back was towards us. The three gophers had their hands full, but the one at the bottom let go of his crate to get his hands on his gun. I had Castle throw the first flashbang that had the other two let go of their boxes after it went off so the bottom two crashed down with the boxes as they were blinded. The one at the top of the stairs was an easy takedown with his hands over his eyes, but the bottom two were now armed more than I could care to shoot out. On my command, Castle threw a flashlight I had given him, and as I hoped, the two at the bottom feared a second flashbang. I jumped the railing and disarmed both a second time. Hector over here thought himself clever and wanted to shoot Castle as he stood at the top of the stairs to see what had happened. Still not sure why he didn't run."

"I can confirm, it looked like an action movie," Castle cheerfully chimed in as the other officers started moving the wounded criminals Ben had taken down toward the street to get medical attention.

"Hector isn't worth a deal, but maybe his men know where the weapons come from. Not many people sell such quantity. Make sure Hector here can't tell his cronies to shut up about it," Ben advised as he walked over to the corpses together with Rosa.

Both put on gloves and started rifling through their pockets to look for IDs after taking photos and quickly learned the name of 2 of the corpses. Rosa got on the phone with Jake back at the precinct and had him run possible gang affiliations... though, Jake was cursing nonstop on why he wasn't invited on such an 'epic bust'.

In the meantime, the accompanying DEA agents got busy in the freight elevator, confirming that MDMA pills were indeed packed here for customers.

Half an hour later, Captain Holt arrived on the scene to congratulate Amy on such a successful arrest since she was lead on the case. When Holt arrived next to Ben and Castle, who had since put on their warm coats again since it was absolutely freezing down in the basement, he praised Ben as well.

"Not many officers I know could have taken down this many criminals so cleanly. Good job, Detective Weiss," Holt claimed as he offered Ben a handshake.

"Thanks, I'm just glad we got this many weapons off the street together with the drugs. Let's just hope solving those nine homicides will be just as straightforward," Ben stated with a small smile. "And, of course, we find where they got the pills they are packing here from."

"For now, that is the DEA's problem," Holt argued as the two watched the DEA agents catalog everything they found in that hidden elevator.

-----

Castle had followed Ben to the 99th precinct where Jake had reprimanded his wife for not taking him with her for the raid and after some laughs and paperwork that Amy mostly handled on her own, he took Ben with him to his home.

Beckett was already waiting there after she got off work and was playing with their baby together with a redheaded woman in her early 20s.

"Ah, Benjamin! Meet Alexis!" Castle cheerfully introduced as the two men entered the writer's luxurious home. "My firstborn!"

"Dad..." Alexis complained with a roll of her eyes. "Hi Benjamin..."

"Hello there, Alexis," Ben greeted with a cheerful smile.

"Oh, what got you in such a great mood?" Beckett asked as she walked over to hand over the baby to her husband.

"Benjamin here took down half a dozen armed gunmen, stopped a giant weapon load of weapons from hitting the street, discovered 9 bodies, and got a big drug supplier off the streets! And, he totally saved my life!"

"It was 5 criminals, the weapons were already on the street, the bodies were there by accident, and the supplier was our goal from the start... we were there with SWAT and everything..." Ben humbly deflected before he looked at Castle to say, "I did, however, save his life because he couldn't sit tight behind the dumpster when the scene wasn't secured."

"It smelled terribly! Plus, we totally worked together on that with the flashbangs!" Castle indignantly argued back, ignoring his wife's narrowed eyes and hurrying toward the kitchen to start dinner.

"Don't bother hiding in the kitchen, I ordered food!" Beckett shouted and ran after her husband.

"Thanks for taking care of my dad," Alexis offered with just Ben and her standing at the door.

"Kinda had to. Nobody wanted to take responsibility, so I was put on lookout with him," Ben quipped with a grin and took off his coat.

Alexis already heard about Ben from her stepmom Beckett, so the two started talking about LA, but they were quickly interrupted by the doorbell.

"Oh? That's a little quick for the food," Beckett wondered and cautiously looked through the door spy to see who it was.

"Martha?" The NYPD Captain asked as she opened the door with a surprised look.

"Hello darling," Martha - Castle's mother and Alexis' grandmother - greeted as she stepped inside and took off her expensive-looking, gigantic fur coat. "Ah, the cold is so dreadful!"

Alexis cheerfully walked over to greet her grandmother, who was working as a life and acting coach, and led her towards Ben and Castle near the kitchen. The mystery writer had just finished pouring Ben something to drink.

"Mother!" Castle welcomed with a confused look. "Weren't you supposed to be in Hawaii?"

"Is that any way to greet your mother?" Martha shot back in mock hurt. "Where's the 'glad you're here' or the 'how was your flight?'"

"Well, that's not really how our dynamic works, mother," Castle mumbled under his breath, but nobody paid attention to him outside Ben, who was being looked up and down by Martha.

She turned to her eldest granddaughter and asked, "Is he your new boyfriend? He looks like a catch! Was I interrupting you introducing him to your father?"

"What? Nonono," Alexis denied in a fluster.

"New nanny for my other granddaughter?" Martha asked as she looked toward Castle.

"Uh, no. I don't think I could afford him," Castle denied as well. "She couldn't be in safer hands, though, after what I've seen today..."

Martha frowned a little and finally turned to Beckett, "New hire at the precinct?"

"O in three, Martha," Beckett quipped with a cheeky smile.

"Tell me then, kiddo," Martha demanded as she stepped next to Ben and ordered her son to get her a glass of wine.

"Hi there, I'm Ben Weiss from LA. Your son knew my parents, and I'm in town for a month," Ben greeted as he held out his hand.

Martha reciprocated the handshake and scrutinized Ben some more.

"Your face is oddly familiar. Ever starred in a movie or something? You certainly have the looks for it," Martha commented in a spirited voice.

"Uh, I've been told I look like the actor who played Draco Malfoy, but other than that, no. Only chance to see me on TV is through the news," Ben joked with a small shake of his head.

"And that's where you saw him, mother. He's that LAPD officer who was shot in the heart back in August," Castle chimed in as he handed his mother a glass of wine that was swiftly taken by Alexis with a sweet smile, so Castle poured another.

"Oh my!" Martha gasped. "Tell me everything!"

Ben did just that, though he kept some of the more tragic parts out of it as the five ate. Eventually, Martha couldn't take it anymore.

"You have to sell the movie rights to your life! Oh, such a tragedy!" Martha belted with a concerned look. "Tell me, do you have any older mother figures in your life that someone with my gravitas could star as?"

Ben laughed a little but quickly stopped when he saw a frightened Castle shake his head with wide eyes. Apparently, that wasn't a joke.

"Afraid not, Martha. I did have a grandmother who passed away while I was undercover, and I loved her dearly, but she didn't take my father's passing too well. So seeing me was always painful for her, and we mostly talked over the phone," Ben offered with a sad smile.

Martha spun that into a grand role anyway, though mindful not to antagonize Ben with her tale - they quickly changed the topic with Castle's help anyway. Something to take Martha's thoughts elsewhere.

"You work in LA, any celebrities you know? Actors, maybe?"

Ben thought a little and answered, "I went to high school with all three Olsen sisters and graduated with the twins because I skipped a grade... but we weren't particularly close. Other than that... I know a few of the Lakers players, but not enough to call up to meet. Oooh, I know Rhodes! Natalie Rhodes!"

"The actress who played Nikki Heat?" Alexis asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah, her. Oh, but she probably doesn't like me if she remembers me. I, uh, was the arresting officer when she was driving under the influence after a movie premiere together with my TO," Ben sheepishly admitted.

"Alright, different actor then. Anyone else we might know?"

"Hmm, I don't doubt it, but I don't really put a lot of stock in someone's fame when I meet them at work. So, yeah, I talked to plenty D- and C-list celebrities over the years, but nobody worth of note in my book. I didn't work Beverly Hills or Hollywood division, after all... I guess my dad knew more celebrities than I did..."

"That he did!" Castle chimed in to help out Ben. "He was one of the surgeons who tried to save Bill Bixby's life, for example."

"Oh my, Bill was a charming man... his passing was regretable," Martha commented with a faraway look.

Castle listed some more old-timey actors that he knew Ben's father worked on - it was apparently a topic Doctor Weiss liked sharing when prompted by his wife, Ben's mother, while drinking.

Eventually, Ben interjected and admitted, "I mean, it's still not high on my to-do list, but I'll be able to rectify some of that in two weeks. Together with some colleagues from LAPD SWAT, I'm asked to work security at the Grammy's."

Castle was shocked and tried calling the mayor to see if he could get tickets for that as well, but the mayor had already exceeded the tickets he was allowed to hand out so Castle could only try getting in with some other means at a later time since Beckett chided him for getting up from the table for such a stupid reason.

Following that on the topic of celebrities, Ben pulled up a picture of weather man Rainer Shine, who looked like Castle and showed it to Alexis and Martha for a good laugh, and they joked some more on Castle's expense.

When the night was over, Ben had to promise to come over again before he flew back to LA, which he gladly accepted.

Waiting on a cab outside the luxurious apartment building, Ben pulled out his phone to check the cameras at his home. In LA, nothing extraordinary happened. His daughter was sound asleep, and Emilia was outside on the porch reading.

But when Ben switched to the cameras he had secretly installed in the hallway, the window toward the fire escape in his bedroom and the secret camera observing from the kitchen of his NYC apartment, Ben saw movement where there shouldn't be movement. The feed started from the moment a movement sensor was triggered almost an hour ago.

A masked person completely dressed in black had entered the apartment through the window despite the lock that was on it, Ben couldn't yet see how. He had a backpack with him and was planting something that Ben couldn't make out completely.

Yet, when the man rigged the front door with a wire, Ben's eyes constricted. Explosives.

The cab stopped in front of Ben, and he entered with a hand in his coat and on his concealed pistol. It wouldn't do if the cab driver was in on it somehow. He ordered the man to drive him all the way to his home in Brooklyn Heights while Ben kept half his attention on the driver while fast forwarding through the video of his temporary home.

When the cab driver dropped him off without any worrisome behavior, Ben inwardly wondered if he could trust the officers he came to know in New York and call them. But he uploaded the video feeds to a cloud storage and forwarded them to Hicks and Cortez in LA.

The two quickly called him as he stood outside the building and observed if there were people watching him.

"*Ben! What the fuck is that?*" Cortez immediately cursed entirely uncharacteristically.

"Hi captain. Those are videos from my apartment taken approximately 80 minutes ago," Ben whispered into the phone with his mouth hidden behind his scarf so nobody could listen in on him from across the street by reading his lips or pointing a parabolic mic at him.

"*You gotta call it in, kid. Bomb squad and all,*" Hicks ordered sternly, still watching the video on his computer.

"Can you forward it anonymously? You got some friends in high places at the NYPD, no?" Ben inquired as he moved inside the building on high alert.

"*What are you getting at?*"

"I don't know how anybody found out where I live so fast. I only made one arrest here in New York, but that was today. I met Christoph Kraft, but he assured me that he wouldn't move against me. That's a load of horseshit if he's a criminal, but with the US Attorney General's office breathing down his neck, I'm inclined to believe this isn't on him. But maybe it's on someone trying to pin it on him instead. And everybody I suspect that would have the pull to do that works in high places or has goons in law enforcement," Ben argued softly.

"*Do you have anyone you trust implicitly in New York?*" Hicks asked with a frown so deep that Ben heard it in his voice over the phone.

"Captain Holt of the 99th precinct is the closest to somebody I would trust together with Detectives Santiago and Diaz. Captain Beckett of the 12th precinct is a close runner-up, but I only met her today."

"*I know Beckett. I'll contact her and get some more people to trust in the know. Don't do something stupid,*" Cortez hotly ordered and hung up.