Participants:
Scene Title | From The Depths |
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Synopsis | The Company comes out to the scene of an accident to investigate presumed Evolved involvement, an element from the Department of Evolved Affairs isn't as thrilled with their work as others are. |
Date | March 24, 2010 |
Slate gray skies hang heavily overhead, and tiny flakes of wind-driven snow blown from the rooftops of adjacent buildings litter the skies with their stinging crystalline barbs. The wind is cold enough to steal a man's breath right out of his lungs, and this close to the East River, the chill coming off of the water sink into flesh and bone and threatens to never let go. Blue lights flash against a concrete and brick cityscape, plowed pavement scraped with ice and dusted with snow serves as the background for a construction crane's skeletal silhouette against that gray sky, a long pair of corded metal cables dangling over the edge of a waterside cliff where guard rails are smashed, dipping down into water below.
Coast Guard vessels are anchored just off the shore, blue lights flashing atop their small cabins, searchlights down on the murky and freezing water of the East River. On the shore at the parking lot, eight police cruisers are parked in staggered procession, snugly lined up between the brick facades of two crumbling and old warehouses with broken out and boarded up windows.
Traffic passes by on the adjacent street, while the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge to the north looms in stark, black lines against the jagged metropolitan skyline. In this bitter cold, steam rises up from a styrofoam cup of coffee in twirling fingers blown in the freezing wind.
The black sedan parked beyond all of the police cruisers is a non-descript car, no flashing lights, no liscense plate, no identifying marks of any kind. Having just closed the driver's side door, Agent Benjamin Ryans feels the sting of arctic chill against his face, and somehow the cold just seems a little bit less oppressive today than it did just a week ago. For a man who has had two decades of youth restored to him, this day could be worse.
Upon exiting the sedan, Agent Henry Webb could be feeling better, warmer, more comfortable than a 7am call to work because of a startling discovery in the waters of the East River by the NYPD. The crane looks to be operating, the noisy rumble of its engine rattling between the buildings. Through the swath of flashing blue lights, Henry can make out the flapping Police Line, Do Not Cross tape, bumble-bee yellow and black cordoning off an area of the parking lot where tire marks skid through a fusting of snow and move to broken guard rails.
The third and final clunk from a closing door comes from the back of the sedan, where forensics specialist agent Lashirah Lee emerges into the blustery winds and freezing cold of New York City's Red Hook neighborhood. The tire tracks paint a clear image of what must have happened here, but when the Company is concerned, nothing is ever as readily apparent as it seems. If Assistant Director Crowley wanted agents on sight at this investigation…
…there has to be a reason.
Lashirah keeps her mouth shut and her eyes open, even as she tugs a stocking cap out from a pocket and pulls it over her ears. A set of thin leather gloves join the hat as the newest additions to the cold weather gear. "So much for my day off." She grouses good-naturedly, even as she is obviously not been awake for long. A cup of mocha is removed from the roof of the car. It doesn't take Lash long to note the tire marks however, and to tilt her head one way, then the other, as they approach them.
"It is colder'n a witch's tit in a brass -brassiere-," says Webb. How does he manage to sound enthusiastic? But he does. He's bundled up in overcoat, watchcap, heavy gloves. The government man suit…..just not adequate today, oh no, precious. He's already doing the little shuffle-shuffle chicken dance you do when you're trying to keep your extremities from icing over and freezing off. "And I thought -Afghanistan- was bad." But he scuffs along towards the apparent crimescene, blue eyes streaming tears from the wind.
Fedora settled on his head, Ryans scans the scene around him curiously, shoes crunching under him as he starts away from the car, looking for someone in charge. "Webb." Is spoken in a warning manner. "Watch what you say around these folks, we want to look like professionals." His mood could be better. After having his daughter scream in the middle of the hotel hallway, after she saw him for the first time, he's a bit on edge. That had been only a short time before. The phone ringing not long after the door shut behind Lucille.
Leather clad hands are tucked into his pockets and he walks, trusting that the other agents would follow after. "Time to find out what happened kids." Even twenty years younger, he is still the same old man in his mind and they are merely children.
As the three agents make their way from the car towards the police barricade, they can hear the motor of the crane working, hear the groaning clink of those metal cables pulling up something from the river, and judging from the tire marks that something is likely obvious. "Sorry, I'm going to have to see some identification…" requests the bundled up NYPD officer on the other side of the police tape line, one gloved hand held out towards Ryans, Lashirah and Webb. Admittedly only one of them needs to supply the proper credentials to get the lot of them in, especially with the credentials they already have.
Just beyond the barricade, the Company investigators can see a police forensics team already photographing the tire marks, small numbered pieces of plastic set up as indicators as popping flashes illuminate the ground under the dusky light that struggles to pass thorugh the dense cloudcover overhead.
Oh, oh, oh, this is the part where we get to be -total- dicks with -badges-. Henry's really trying to put on his game face, but there's unbridled Christmas-time delight lurking just behind the 'I am a big tough marine no really' expression. "Of -course-," he says to the poor boy in blue, reaching into his coat slowly to produce his HomeSec ID badge, which he holds up to the NYPD officer, but does not yield. No touchin' the lucky charms.
Lashirah remains quiet as she examines, as best she can from the distance, the scene ahead. She mildly is amused however at Webb's reluctance to hand over IDs. Though she's thankful THEY did it and not her, because her ID would lead to more headaches right now then it's worth. Pulling rank on the NYPD isn't something she really looks forward to doing often.
A nice shiny new badge is produced from his inner jacket pocket and offered to the officer. It was necessary to get a new ID card after what happened, since he no longer looked like in the mug shot, though even with that the date of birth remains the same on everything. So that would be a shock to anyone still, but it is noted in the database.
"Lee." Ryans says softly, though she'll hear it no problem. "I want you to go see what their forensic teams are up too." His head turns to Webb. "Your with me."Then the senior agent's attention is back to the police officer. "Can you point us to the watch commander or whoever is in charge?"
"On it." Lashirah splits from the group, moving quickly, but carefully to find the lead of the forensics team and talk shop with them, and to look things over herself.
At the lift of the badge, the officer leans in and eyes the plastic ID card held in the badge folio and furrows his brows, nodding his head and lifting up the tape. "Alright, go on in. Agent Parsons with the DoEA is running the show now." The cop motions towards a man in a black longcoat buttoned up to the collar, cradling a styrofoam cup of coffee in boath hands that's watching the forensics team photograph the tire tracks. "You wanna talk to him before you go poking around at anything, alright?"
Giving Henry something of a cross look, the officer keeps the tape line held up for the three agents to duck under as they make their way past the police barricade and towards the scene of what clearly looks like some kind of accident. Beyond the broken metal rails, on the coast guard vessel parked in the river, dive teams are coming up from the freezing waters, removing scuba masks and unshouldering air tanks.
Making her way over to the forensics crew photographing the tire marks, Lashirah is greeted with a flash of surprise by one of the investigators, then a glance up over and past her towards Ryans and Webb, before returnign to work snapping shots at the tire tracks. It seems they presume that whatever she's here to do, they're not supposed to get in the way.
Ryans and his faithful hound of a partner Webb find themselves clearly under the scrutiny of the round-faced and severe-browed DoEA agent watching the investigation. "Woah— hey— hold on there!" He barks out, brandishing his steaming cup of coffee in the approaching agents' direction. "Who the hell are you— " he notices Lashirah over by the forensics team and scowls softly, flicking eyes back to the other two agents. "Who the hell are you two and what do you think you're doing?"
This time, it is Ryans's turn to take one for the team. Henry mutely lifts his badge like he's a Girl Scout come to take this year's order of cookies. And he's got the game face on in earnest - no hint of a corgi's delight in his face.
Lashirah delightfully ingores the scowling and other stuff going on. "Hi. Lashirah Lee, Forensics… you guys mind telling me what we've got so far, other than a motor vechile in the water?" She is already digging out her OWN camera to take pictures as well of the marked bits of evidence.
"Homeland Security, Senior Agent Ryans and Agent Webb." A thumb jerks at Henry when mentioning him, Ryan's expression is neutral under the brim of his, blue eyes shaded against the harsh morning sun. "We received a call from our brass to come down here." The skin at the edge of his eyes crinkles a bit as they narrow. "And you are?" He asks, brows lifting expectantly.
Eyes shift to the crane, watching as it continues to work. "As for what we are doing here?" His head and then his gaze flicker back to the man. "Doing our job."
"Homeland Securit— " Agent Parsons breathes out with a gloved hand briefly moving up to his brow before snapping away. "No, no I didn't get a call about any of you people coming down here. I take it you're special investigations?" Which is a covery way of saying he knows what the Company is and isn't impressed. "Look this is Department of Evolved Affairs territory, I don't care what your bosses said when they asked you to come down here and shove your heads up my ass, but we've got this covered." A sharp, irritable look is fired towards the crane operator and the DoEA agent lifts a hand into the air. "Are you sleeping? Are you a-fucking-sleep!?" He shouts in a high-strung manner, waving his hand back and forth. "Get the fucking car out of the fucking water maybe today?"
A sharp glare comes back to Ryans and Webb, and a hand is waggled in Lashirah's direction. "Get your little nosy rat out of my people's work, we've got this under control. So if you wanna' just step back and nod your little fucking heads and write down in your reports whatever the hell you do fine, but you don't talk to anyone, you don't touch anything and you don't— "
The crane groans and creaks, and agent Parsons flicks a look back over to the crane operator with wild eyes, about to lay a tirade of frustration down upon the man, until the sound of rushing water comes splashing from the river, and whatever it is the crane had been lifting starts to emerge. What comes out of that river may have at one time been a car; it's hard to tell now. The forensics investigators turn towards the noise of rushing water, watching as a tan sedan is dragged up out of the water, looking more like a crushed cigarette pack than a vehicle anymore.
The car doesn't look like it was in an accident, it looks like the hand of God reached out from the heavens and squeezed it into a cigar-shaped crumple of twisted metal. All of the glass is shattered on the vehicle, tie frame is twisted and the roof is caved in. The entire car is crushed inward, smashed to a single wreck. With the water trickling out in ice cold streams, the crane operator brings the vehicle around, lowering it on to an open area of pavement. As the car is being lowered, the driver's side door falls off from the side, smashing to the ground with a clatter, and the mangled, water-logged corpse of a man comes tumbling out, legs crushed and trapped inside, pulpy flesh pallid and preserved by the cold water.
"Jesus Christ…" Agent Parsons breathes out, one gloved hand coming over his mouth.
There is some irreverent and intensely stupid frat-boy comment on Henry's lips, hovering nearly as t angible as a spit-bubble. But….enough years in the Corps will teach you when you may and may not mouth off safely. This is one of the latter occasions. All he does is breathe out slowly, like a man trying to ease an arrow out by pulling it through. "Singh," he says, and it's almost a sigh, under his breath.
Dispassionately voiced, even as Lashirah looks up like the rest of the Forensics team she is mostly mixed in with. (Too late on the talking bit.) "Well, don't see THAT every day…" She tilts her head. "Tan Sedan… Make no longer identifiable. squashed by a rather uniform exterior force into a cylinderical shape, with at least one passenger inside." She'll deal with the nightmares later… Even as she heads towards the car and body. After all, she's far enough away that she arguably wouldn't have HEARD the angry DoEA agent. And nobody has YET to claim Lash is 'Homeland Security'. Which should make life even more interesting in a few moments if the others have their wits about them to inform the poor man that she ISN'T their 'rat'. And he is damn glad she wasn't in range to hear the comment.
The sound of a digital camera's flash going off repeatedly is all the further comment she makes so far, photgraphing man, car, and and disaster.
There is that calm patients on Ryans face as he listens to the little man sputter on about jurisdiction and such things. It kind of goes in one ear, but he lets it go right out the other. "Until my people tell me to leave, Agent Parsons, I and my agents have an investigation to perform. Webb, go talk to the witnesses, some of the other officers." The smallest hint of a smile touches his lips, but it doesn't reach his eyes, eyes not leaving Parsons as he gives Henry that order.
That's about the time the car is lifted from the water, the Senior Agent turns to look in the direction of the crane. "I do not think that he can help that poor man now." His head turns to look at Parsons, brows lifting some. "That looks like my jurisdiction to me." His body turns slightly towards him then. " If not, care to explain to me when the Department of Evolved Affairs decided to take over what my department has been doing for many years longer?"
Watching Webb be ordered to talk to some of the other offers, Parsons' brows scrunch together and he flashes a livid look to Ryans, movingo ut in front of him and tapping two fingers against the agent's chest. "Don't you pull that years of service bullshit with me, Ryans." There's a narrowing of Parson's eyes, silent for a long time as he watches the other man's expression, before breathing in deeply and slowly exhaling a breath as he backs away. Ryans was completely right, the DoEA was only an oversight comittee and civil management. Rolling his tongue over the inside of his cheek, Parsons nods his head once and waves Henry and Ryans out to take a look at things, but the tension is still there.
It's evident that he doesn't like being told what to do, and quite likely that he doesn't like the Company either.
When the forensics team sees Parsons finally done trying to chew off Ryans and Webb's heads, one of the male members of the team approaches Lashirah. "Coast Guard dive team found the car, a neighbor called after hearing gunshots out here at about three in the morning, the water's so damn dark down there it took three hours just to find the wreck of the car and another hour to get it up out of the water." Motionign to the tire tracks, he angles his head over to Lashirah.
"From the looks of it, the car just skidded across the parking lot, we think it was speeding down the road," a motion with his pen out to the street, then following the tracks, then finally to the rail. "But… speed didn't break the guard rail, and— " he looks up to the car with a shake of his head, "it sure as hell didn't do that."
"No, it sure as fuck did not," says Henry, and his eyes are pale, perturbed. "Telekine of immense strength, maybe. Or a metal manipulator," he opines, before looking to where the witnesses are assembled, and crunching in that direction.
Lashirah simply looks at the guard rail, then the car, then the body. "Quick worker, at any rate. The car was still in one peice where we saw it skidding, unless I'm misrepresenting tire marks… which means the car left the road… there." She points with a gloved finger towards where the tracks stop. "Was picked up… and … tossed through a gap made in the guard rail by a similar process? Where is the peice of guardrail that broke?"
"Don't let the youthful exterior fool you, Agent Parsons." Ryans says mildly, knowing full well that word spread like a wildfire in a prairie field, as to what happened. There is no waiting for a witty response from the DoEA guy before he moves towards the car, eyes on the victim. "Or Gravity Manipulator," The Senior agent supplies to Webb's retreating back, brows dropping some.
He remembers talking to one, but this doesn't seem like something that kid would do. Didn't seem to have the personality for it. Too naive.
"Lee!" He barks out, his voice carrying easily, glancing her way and then jerking his fedore topped head at the car and victim. "Talk to me."
"It split right down the middle," one of the forensic investigators comments to Lashirah, walking over to the guard rail. "It bent outward from the force of the impact, I'm not sure what caused it though, if it was the car or— there's no paint scrapes on the metal. Normally if you have a vehicle impact, there's all sorts of markings on the impact site that come off of the automobile. There's none here, so this— maybe it was just— " The forensics investigator shakes his head slowly, "I don't know. I didn't— train for this sort of thing." The world has made it decidedly difficult to ascertain the truth of a crime scene when an uncategorized myriad of Evolved abilities are at large.
One of the other members of the forensics team moves over to the car, crouching down by the driver and leaning inside the vehicle. He removes a pocket recorder and presses down the record button before he begins talking. "Victim is a caucasian male, estimated age… early to mid thirties." There's a squint, eyeing the interior of the car. "Legs crushed by the front console…" Lashirah notices immediately one small detail this investigator glossed over, the driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but that's all she can see from her distance to the car so far.
The only witness being questioned by the NYPD is a middle-aged hispanic man bundled up in a heavy jacket and scarf for the cold weather. The bubble-design of the vinyl fabric and green coloration kind've makes him look like a big turtle. Cradling a coffee cup in his hands, he shakes his head to the officer and glances over to Henry. Seeing the look, the offer turns around and quirks a brow to Agent Webb. "Can I help you?"
Lee sighs, then nods as she heads over towards Ryans. "It's preliminary, there's parts left out, yadda yadda. Rough estimate? Given I haven't seen any casings found yet, I think the 'gunshots' weren't 'gunshots' at all… Maybe tires deflating rapidly, or bolts from the guardrail getting forced loose by something with a rather incredible amount of leverage and force. Car left ground… didn't roll or we'd have more marks, and roll damage doesn't look like THAT. I'll check records when we get back for IDing the body. No idea what he died from exactly yet, but 'trama' is a fairly safe bet."
She pauses and looks at the water. "Someone speeding down here, after all the snow lately, without a seatbelt on. They were desperate to get away from, or to, something. Might be able to digitally recover the license plate numbers by unwarping them." She looks about the scene again. "…Whatever pressed on that car did so fairly evenly across the entire surface of the viechle. Like a line of gravity. Or the muscles of a throat. The front and back aren't dented up enough for it to be a single point, or it'd look more like a basketball then a cigar…"
"Homesec. Here to talk to the witnesses," Henry's tone is gently apologetic. "Not here to piss on your cornflakes, my hand to god." He looks to the man with the coffee cup, expectantly. "Well, sir, what did you see?"
Nods a short and quick as he listens to the Company's forensic scientist, eyes roaming over the vehicle and the body. He's seen worse and it is not the first time he's seen a dead body, so nothing really shows on his face. "Well, now we know why Crowley was so insistent that we get down here." He finally pulls his attention from the car to punk girl next to him. "So would you say something like the hand of God reached out and lifted this car and crushed it?"
"So we are definitely looking at someone Evolved." Eyes go back to the car, lips pressing together briefly in thought before saying. "And rather powerful I would say, if it happened like you said." He reaches into his coat to fish out a small notebook to write down what she said.
Lashirah ponders. "Well, I can tell you that whatever happened to it, it wasn't natrual… and unless it had help, it also split a guardrail in half… those guard rails can take an INCREDIBLE beating you know…"
The NYPD detective by Henry just shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head, moving out of the way of what has clearly become a federal investigation. The witness, sipping from his coffee with both hands wrapped around the cup glances out towards the car, head shaking. "I tells you like I seens it." He says with a tilt of his head to the side, waving one hand out towards the car. "I live across the street, an' this mornin' I got my ass woken up by these four loud pop pop pops!" The heavily dressed witness slurps at his coffee again, eyes rolling and head shaking.
"So's I hear gunshots out here sometime, but I call me the cops every one've 'em. So's you know, I call the police and then come on out here. But me, I was watchin' from my window, 'cause ain't nothin' better t'do an' I sure as hell wasn't goin' back to sleep after that." Pursing his lips, the witness flicks eyes over to Henry, nosr rankling att he cold. "So I hear all this shoutin' goin on outside, and I see this guy and this little kid runnin' away from the parkin' lot. Mnhmm, they was just runnin' an' they went down that way…" He motions with his coffee towards the south side of Red Hook, "but I didn't see which ways they went after that."
While Henry is questioning the witness and Lashirah is discussing with Ryans what happened, one of the NYPD forensics investigators is going through the corpse's pockets, removing a wallet from within and opening it up. "I've got an ID," he calls out, holding up a license, while another forensics member photographing the back seat leans in towards one of the broken windows.
"Sir," he calls out towards Ryans, who is ostentably in charge here now, "there's firearms in the back here."
"The people running away…..could you see any details?" persists Henry, jamming his hands in his pockets. "How old the man was. Was the child male or female. Hair color, anything like that?"
Lashirah sighs. "Work calls." She says as she digs into her pockets and pulls out rubber gloves to go over her leather ones. "Alright, get the piece tagged and dusted. Oils might not have washed off completely yet." She walks over not to the one at the car, but the body. "Let me see that ID." she digs out a small flashlight from her jacket pocket as well, a mini-maglight, which she uses to check to see if the license was obviously altered or not before actually bothering to read it.
"Get to it, Lee. See if you can get the ID run by the NYPD, that would be excellent." There is a small smile afforded the forensics agent, before Ryans moves to get a peek at those firearms himself, a finger pushing the hat further up on his head. Eyes narrow slightly as he looks in the window.
"What have we here?" The older Company agent murmurs slightly, a glance goes to the body. "And who are you, sir?" Well aware that this man can't answer back.
"Ain't got no clue, the street lights out here don't work no more so it was darker than my ass," the witness crudely comments, slurping at the cofee again. "Little kid though, they was both wearin' winter clothes, but I'm pretty sure the guy with the kid was wearin' a ski mask." There's a firm nod of the hispanic man's head as he drinks from the coffee again, slanting a look at the car. "You think some'a them Ee-Voh terrorists did this? I heard on the news that them's Ee-Vohs are gettin' all sick and stuff, I don't wanna catch me no Ee-Voh flu, that shit's gon' be nastier than bird flu man."
While Henry does his best to deal with the witness, Lashirah and the forensics team are taking turns analyzing the car. The identification card pulled out from the wallet depicts a man that— all comparisons considered— looke remarkably like the driver and is a State of New York driver's license.
WILLIAMS
HAL R.
44 Douglaston Pkwy. Douglaston, NY 11363
Looks like the deceased lives out in Astoria, Queens. Not too far away from where he's died. In the back seat of the car, there's a single pump action shotgun that rests on the leather interior. Meanwhile, the forensics team hands off the wallet and continues checking in to the vehicle itself.
Henry mutters something noncommittal, at that. "How big a kid do you think?" he asks, one final question, face scrunched up against the cold.
Lashirah hands the license back to the team member after both photographing it and reading the info into a pocket recorder of her own. She then moves to poke at the various structural bits of the sedan… "If this is new enough for airbags, I want the recording box out of it examined for acceleration data." She frowns as she tries to determine what she can about the car, shining her flashlight into the front seat area.
"A shotgun." The Senior agent murmurs, glancing at the guy photographing. "You have an extra pair of gloves?" He asks gruffly pulling back from the car, nodding his head at the car and the gun within. "Better yet, reach in there and grab that and tell me if it has the numbers on it still."
Stepping back so one of the forensics guys can do that, while Ryans himself shoves hands into his pockets to warm up his cold fingers. No matter what your age, it's freaking cold out there. In fact, he can't exactly feel the tip of his nose anymore.
"I dunno, maybe ten? Hard to tell, they were pretty far away. My neice, she has two ten year old's though so's I've seen little ones that size a lot. Seemed about right, but maybe I'm wrong? I don't know, he wasn't a teenager though, not tall enough, maybe came up to the other man's elbow?" While the witness may not think much of his testamony at the time, there's a considerable size of information there above and beyond anything found solely at the scene of the incident.
Inside the automobile thorugh the open door, Lashirah's squirrley examination of the vehicle's interior notes an odd point; The driver's legs aren't under the driver's side of the car. Looking at his positioning, he may have been in the passenger seat when he died, from the blood stain on what remains of the passenger side door, and his body being draped across the front seat.
Curiously, something else catches Lashirah's attention, tucked into the jacket the corpse wears. Carefully unzipping the coat with gloved hands, she's able to reach inside and pull out a ski mask that was rolled up in a breast pocket. The forensics team members shake their heads at the discovery, while a loud clank comes from the back of the car. Another one of the team has taken the liscense plate off, and is now stepping down ont he plate trying to flatten it out and get a look at the numbers, photographing them for running thorugh a database later.
Another forensics team member comes inside the car, photographing the position of the shotgun before climbing in and taking it out, turning it around in gloved hands and examining it before offering it to another investigator who places it insize of a large and sealed plastic bag. "Filed off, sir." The investigator states to Ryans.
"Any other impressions? Anything else you noticed - sound, smell, intuition?" asks Henry, desperately. He's blowing on gloved hands, and shifting his weight from foot to foot.
The gears in Lashirah's head turns… and there's an oh shit. "WEBB! RYAN! We got something!"
"Not surprising." Ryans rumbled softly, leaning to get at the filed off numbers, before Lee's calling him. "Thank you." He offers to the investigator, quickly straightening the Fedora on his head, before stepping away and over the forensics agent. "What do you have, Lee?" A glance goes to the ski mask and he glances back at the shot gun. "A shot gun with the numbers filed off and a ski mask. This man was up to something, I am curious if running his name might bring up a criminal record. A robbery gone wrong maybe?"
Lashirah points to the passenger seat, then the ski mask. "Our friend here… was in the passenger seat. Someone ELSE was driving. Who have we heard of lately, with ski masks, someone helping them, and using IMMENSE force to move things around with their heads near here?" She looks at the body. "I think we have us a case of crook killing crook…" She looks about. "
Belatedly, Lashirah adds, "No, not gone wrong. Gone right but a fight over the spoils?"
"Na man, I— " That last bit of pressing from Webb has the witness reconsider that dismissive comment. He stares down into his cup with a furrow of his brows, then looks back up to Henry. "Actually… now tha' you mention it? There was somethin' else. The guy— not the kid but the older guy— " the hispanic man's head cocks to the side, "he was carryin two big duffel bags. Like, one on each shoulder. They looked really heavy too, like he was just kinda' luggin' them aroun' and the kid wasn't carryin' nothin'. Seemed kinda' weird to me, yeah?" He all but confirms Lashirah's assertion.
Oh. Oh. This is weird. Henry mutters his thanks, pats him on the shoulder, and hustles over to his senior. "What've we got? Witness says he saw an adult and a kid fleeing. Both likely male. The adult hada ski mask, and two big duffles of equipment. Links in, dunnit."
Lashirah is already digging for her secured phone to call in to 'the office'. "How far you think you could get on foot right now, carrying a bank with you the hard way?" She asks the other two, keeping her tone hushed.
"Good catch." He murmurs, leaning enough that he can look at the position of the body as indicated. He's quiet for a moment and there is a short nod of his head, he glances at Webb listening to the report. "Very good catch. Looks like we looking at one of the men in the Flushings Heist, ladies and gentlemen." Ryans states firmly, a hand moves to clap Lee on the shoulder. "Good work, Agents."
"Though.." He lets his gaze scan over the car slowly, looking at the car. "…one has to wonder what the kid was there for." Brows furrow slightly in thought. "I hope it wasn't to do this." He hands spread a bit to encompass the car.
A glance if sent to the black haired woman next to her. "If it was not so cold I'd have Delgado come out to do aerial. Maybe this was planned, it would be a rather rookie move to do this and then — hoof it."
Lashirah frowns. "Assuming there were shots… who got shot at, and where are they?" She also asks, even as she hits dial for the secure line at Fort Hero. "Agent Lee for Officer on Watch." She speaks quickly and clearly. "Flushings Heist Telekinetic hoofed it from here after offing his partner, possibly with a hostage. He may or may not be wounded… and I'd argue that he is extremely dangerous even by our standards." She eyes up the car and tries to figure out what to file THAT under…
The correspondance on the other end of the line is quick to place in the information and dispatch it to the NYPD so that their patrol officers can get a good look at things, but with a presumed four hour head start, this may well prove to be a long foot chase after all. The snow blows strong and fierce from the drifts settled on adjacent rooftops, and that frigid wind is already freezing the river water on the crumpled wreck of a car. The corpse dangling out from within tells no tales, himself, but the ski mask and firearm are all indicative of exactly what Lashirah was considering… that the people here may well have been involved in a near million-dollar bank heist earlier today.
Far from where the Company agents are investigating the car, Agent Parsons stands scowling on his cell phone, eyes narrowed as he watches Ryans and the other after having taken over the investigation. "Lazzaro…" he speaks into the receiver, head shaking slowly, "I've got some badges from Homeland's violent evolved crimes department out here, it's Ryans." There's a snort of breath from Agent Parsons, who angles his eyes down to his feet, reaching into his jacket for a cigarette.
"Just thought you might want to know they've taken the Flushing bank robbery into their jurisdiction…" dark brows crease together, and Parsons tucks the cigarette into his mouth, lifting his hand up to snap his gloved fingers in front of the end, creating a briefly-lived spark and flame as he draws in breath, the ember on the end of the cigarette glowing brightly.
"Yeah…" Parsons breathes out smoke from his mouth slowly, "I wanna' make sure they don't cock it up. I was thinking…" he breathes in on the cigarette again, then sends twin jets of smoke out his nostrils.
"…maybe keeping an eye on them."