Participants:
| Scene Title | The Most Important Meal Of The Day |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Only five days into the job and Len is already stirring up shit. Some secrets are traded, while others are held close to the chest. Liz and Minea may certainly question ever bringing in the cowboy, who may be more than he seems. |
| Date | May 7, 2009 |
A Remotely Located Diner
Only a cowboy would find an out of the way diner like this one. It's a wonder that this place stays open. There is one customer sitting at the bar eating some eggs this early in the morning and another sitting in a booth reading a paper and drinking coffee. The meeting was set, at Senior Field Agent's request. Not for any other purpose than a man has to eat breakfast in the morning. Breafast is the most important meal and all that.
Len walks into one of the few places in New York he might actually look like he belongs. His attire today consists of a black plaid work shirt underneath his leather jacket, faded jeans and his everready cowboy boots. He dips his hat in greeting to the waitress behind the bar — places his high cholestrol order — and takes first booth he sees, removing his jacket before he slides in and waits for his agent and her contact to arrive.
"I didn't tell him that you were part of my phoenix source. just that you were my NYPD contact. If you want to tell him that your undercover with them, then I'm leaving it up to you. He just wanted a meeting with you" Minea runs a hand through her hair, looking over at the blonde. She's in her leather jacket turtleneck and jeans. not cowboy boots but close enough on her feet. "He's my senior agent. My boss. Dentons my Harvard. Hails from texas, talks like a good ol boy but I haven't seen him actually have that mentality and he's.. hell bent on getting Adam Monroe" Minea pushes the door open to the hole in the wall diner that Len had dictated the meeting happen at, holding it open for a liz. There's a dip of her head to Denton in the far back. "Cowboy troy back there"
Wearing a pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt beneath a black blazer, Elisabeth appears calm though she's a bit uneasy. This meeting makes her a lot nervous. "All I have are confidential informants in Phoenix," Elisabeth murmurs back to Minea. "And I have to admit, I'm not entirely convince Monroe's agenda is the wrong one. But we'll leave that aside for now." She glances at Min and smirks. "You realize you're the only Company agent I've ever thought had a rational view of the world, right?"
"Some might not think I have a rational view of the world Elisabeth. There's people you know who would sooner slit my throat and be rid of me rather than think even look at me because of my nine to five. you can't let him know that you know that I'm that kind of agent. We're homeland. Nothing more. Or it means visits from the memory fairy. Got it?" but that's spoken to just her and Elisabeth because she had asked for a really personal little silence bubble. "Besides, I may not agree with all that they do, but some of what they do is good. Just.." the words Len said came back to her mind. "Their execution of certain things may leave something to be desired."
There's a brief nod — Liz won't give Minea away. She offers a grin and murmurs, "That right there is why I trust you — you can see that in spite of the stated goal, the implementation is categorically not quite right." She winks at Minea, and then drops the bubble as they approach the table. "Morning," she greets the cowboy.
Well, now. Len stands up as the females approach his table. He might be a seasoned agent, but he's got the manners of a gentleman when it all boils down to the fact that his mama would tan his hide, even at 38 years old, if she ever found out he disrespected a woman. "Morning. Agent Dahl." He motions to the seat across from him. Might be best for them to share that one, since he darn near takes up his own bench hisself.
His cowboy hat is briefly removed, showing his bald head, before he places it back on, waiting to seat himself after they both taken their seat. He glances at Minea. "You can introduce me to your friend if you like. I hope you don't mind, I went ahead and ordered me some breakfast. Feel free to join me if you like. I can't seem to function to well without a good morning meal!" he says rather cheerful, mouth full of bright white teeth.
"Senior Agent Len Denton, this is Off… Detective Elisabeth Harrison. SHe's my contact in the NYPD. Elisabeth this is my boss. Well, the next one up the food chain. He's the one that I turned all the information that you gave me over to and he had a few questions for you" She's hungry too, not having stopped for any food along the way so the menu is plucked up to be perused while the two become acquainted.
Elisabeth turns over her coffee cup as she slides into the booth, a silent invitation for the waitress to fill it as quickly as possible. Though she has the menu in front of her, she doesn't really look at it right yet, offering Len her hand. "Nice to meet you, Agent Denton," she replies calmly. "I'll tell you what I can."
Seems timing is everything as two plates of food make it to the cowboy. He has to push a few things out of way to make room for it. Seems the cowboy eats hearty. Eggs, bacon and sausage, toast and hashbrowns and even a bowl of grits. Len picks a piece of toast up and takes a bite, swallowing before he asks. "Detective Harrison, it is nice to meet you. I see that Agent Dahl has made you quite aware of what it is we really do around here, so I am not going to insult your intelligence by trying to pull the sheepskin over your eyes, and how about you give me the same courtesy and I think we'll get along just dandy." he grins his big Texas grin. It seems the Texan is far more perceptive than one might think at first glance. He takes another crunchy bite of his toast.
Minea's on the bacon sausage and eggs bandwagon too, placing her order with the waitress before the talking starts up again. "Bubble" A gentle reminder to Elisabeth to silence their table. The last though, that Len spoke gets a raise of her brows before she falls silent.
Waiting only long enough for Minea to give her order to the waitress, to give her own to the waitress, and allow the cups to be filled and refilled, Elisabeth raises the silence bubble as soon as the waitress is a step away from the table. The ambient noise just vanishes, and she looks back at Len. "Gotta tell you having Homeland and/or the Company actually treat any cop like an intelligent being is a refreshing change of pace," Liz tells him tartly. "What is it that you'd like to know?" she asks as she doctors her coffee into sweetness and light oblivion and then sips from it.
Noticing the already silent room grow even more silent, Len glances over at the detective. "Well, that's a nice little trick right there." He's eating while waiting for responses, not wanting his meal to go to waste. Another Mrs. Denton punishable offense. Really it was only a matter of deducing that there's no plus side for Harrison to give Dahl the information without really knowing what she does. It was an educated guess that paid off, it seems. He also notices the lack of a real answer to his query, but lets it slide for now.
"This seems like an awful lot of information for an NYPD Detective to uncover all by his or herself. Before I can act on any of this information that has been given to me by Agent Dahl, I need to know the source." He holds up his hand before an answer/denial/angry storming out occurs. "I am not necessarily looking to but into your confidential business, but you might take a look at it from my angle. I am told of this nice little science fiction story about time travelers and am supposed to put my confidence on blind faith alone. I may have a nice pair of cajones, but I am not sticking them out there to be snipped off, if you catch my meaning."
"Shit liz, you actually had to say that you know what I am" Memory fairy visit for sure. Minea looks over to Dalton. "Gods honest truth, I never told her. Was her damned contacts who somehow figured it out" Minea wants that on the table right now. They are a secret government agency…
Noticing the already silent room grow even more silent, Len glances over at the detective. "Well, that's a nice little trick right there." He doesn't seem at all concerned, nor judgement about the fact that Liz knows about what they are doing, so Minea's protest and decree go unmentioned. He's eating while waiting for responses, not wanting his meal to go to waste. Another Mrs. Denton punishable offense. Really it was only a matter of deducing that there's no plus side for Harrison to give Dahl the information without really knowing what she does. It was an educated guess that paid off, it seems. He also notices the lack of a real answer to his query, but lets it slide for now.
"This seems like an awful lot of information for an NYPD Detective to uncover all by his or herself. Before I can act on any of this information that has been given to me by Agent Dahl, I need to know the source." He holds up his hand before an answer/denial/angry storming out occurs. "I am not necessarily looking to but into your confidential business, but you might take a look at it from my angle. I am told of this nice little science fiction story about time travelers and am supposed to put my confidence in it based on blind faith alone. I may have a nice pair of cajones, but I am not sticking them out there to be snipped off, if you catch my meaning."
Glancing at Minea, Elisabeth quirks a faint grin before looking back and telling Len, "To be fair, she didn't tell me anything at all. At this juncture my assumption is that all Homeland agents assigned to the PD are Company people — it must have something to do with how fast people disappear on their watches." Her tone is calm, but there's an edge to it. The disappearing people thing really pisses her off.
"To give you a little context to work with," Elisabeth tells the man, "I've been a cop a long time, with a two-year hiatus right after Registration became mandatory." It ought to be obvious why she might have done that. "Like all cops, I have a network of informants on the street, and during that two years I was a teacher at Washington Irving. Which, in case you didn't know, is the high school that most of the 36 attended before it was attacked by the group now known as the Vanguard. A lot of those kids, many of whom are actually still scared stupid of Registering, thanks to the shit their comrades did, still trust me — maybe even moreso now that I'm a known Evolved. So occasionally when they hear things, I hear them too. In addition to that, in the past six months, there've been a metric ton of Evolved incidents in this town, and as part of SCOUT I've been part of any number of them. I hear things, I watch a lot, and certain people who want better for the people of this country have decided that I'm worth taking the chance on passing info too." Elisabeth shrugs a little. "Fat lot of good it did during the whole bridge/ConEd/Vanguard thing — not a single damn person in law enforcement listened."
Stacking one plate on the other, practically cleaned off now — then the empty grits bowl on top of that — he pushes the dishes to the edge of the table so they can be picked up. He opens his jacket and pulls out the file and tosses it on the table.
"The level of information listed in this folder far exceeds common informants and former high school students. I'm willing to level with you — if you are willing to level with me."
He retrieves a toothpick and uses it for a moment, "Agent Dahl comes to me with tales of a Company throw down coming up and the lot of us are going to jail. As powerful an organization as I /know/ you know that this is, I am finding my ability to suspend my disbelief, hampered by the lack of facts and a gut instinct that I am not entirely being leveled with here." He glances from Agent Dahl to Detective Harrison. "Now, I am within my power to weed out my honorable agents and put them on some of this to see what we can find out, and ensure those who are /not/ on the level can be brought to justice. But I can't based on this highly convenient information that's been pushed towards me from unknown sources."
Eyebrows shoot to her hairline, and Elisabeth gives Len a look of absolute stun. Not because she didn't know the information (though it could easily be passed off as that), but because she didn't give Minea that information. And that means someone else did, and Liz has no way to know what Minea told Len about who told her what. FUCK. She slants a look at Minea, and right about now? She wishes to high heaven that she was a telepath!!
"Well, sir," Elisabeth finally says, "I can tell you that the intel you've got in your hands definitely didn't come from teenagers. I don't know anything a Company throwdown, but I do know that we've got approximately six individuals on the loose who've apparently come back from a future timeline…. and they're right pissed off at some people. Niles Wight, for example, is — so far as I'm aware — currently sitting in a Company detention cell. If his future self is to be believed. And the future version of him has been killing off associates who allegedly testified against his release in the future. That's about as much as I could gather before he tried to electrocute myself and FBI Agent Ivanov the other night."
"Denton. She doesn't know everything you did. I wasn't kidding when I said I pieced it together from various sources" and Liz hadn't told her that Wight was killing off people who testified against him… So liz was holding out on her too." Minea drinks her coffee, glancing between the two.
The look given to Dahl is meant to hush her. Believe it or not, this hick does know what he's doing, even it at the moment it doesn't entirely seem to make one lick of sense. "Listen. I said I was going to level with /you/, Detective Harrison. And see? We're getting down to the heart of things now. Seems like everyone needs to do a little more sharing now, because we are not going to be able to do a dang-gum thing if our horse is pulling half a wagon. So we take our half a wagon and put it with your half a wagon and perhaps we can finally get somewhere. Am I making myself clear? Everyone's running around with their secrets, and yet we got supposed time travelers running around killing folks."
With a faint shrug, Elisabeth says mildly, "Which is exactly what I told Agent Dahl. Though I didn't find out exactly why the people in question had been attacked until after I spoke with her last. The most recent victim was able to write out some information for me — she couldn't talk to me, her throat had been slit." She pulls her elbows off the table as the waitress returns to drop hers and Minea's orders on the table — Liz herself only ordered a blueberry muffin. "I also found out that in addition to Niles Wight, one of the other travelers is Tyler Case. Who is also in Homeland or Company custody, last I knew." She leans her elbows on the table. "Most of this is in the reports that I file at the precinct, however, so you could just as easily have checked there. Why don't you tell me what it is you actually want to know, and I'll tell you if I have the information you want." Or not, but well… he'll have to make his best guess if she decides to lie to him.
Minea follows that visual order, and starts in on her food, shutting her mouth.
Len's hand moves up to smooth over his gotee for a few minutes as he contemplates Elisabeth Harrison for a moment. He leans forward in the both, both of his elbows settling on the table surface as he does so.
"I want to know the identity of the body this time traveling technopath has taken over. I want to know if anyone has had contact with the evicted technopath. I want to know why April Bradley was not taken into custody by a couple of your detectives when her fingerprints were found at a crime scene. And finally, I want to know what cowlick decided to postpone the processing of a suspected murderer of one of /my/ agents until he was released, letting him creep off into the night like a slithering snake." That should just about cover it. And the smile is no longer on his face as he makes that final request.
Yeah… this was a bad idea. Elisabeth's tone is calm and she gives every impression of telling the truth. "In the order in which you asked them: I won't tell you that at the risk of compromising my own investigation. Not that I'm aware of. I don't even know who April Bradley is, nor was it my case but I can look into the matter for you. And finally, I haven't a clue what suspect you're talking about — nobody in my house would knowingly let a cop killer loose, even one of your cops.""But if you give me a name, I'll assuredly look into it, since I assume you're referring to Kat Marks."
Ohh Minea's looking at Elisabeth now. They had Monroe? The rest of it all, she's remaining silent still, cutting her sausages and sopping egg yolks up with bread. Not the smoothest of meetings but..
What can you do? When asked what it is you want to know, you ask what it is you want to know. "I know you knew Katherine Marks. You may not know that Adam Monroe is her killer." he glances at Minea who was there before looking back to Liz. "I want that som'bitch like nobody's business. I ask that if you hear as much as a rumor about Mr. Monroe that you get in touch with us." Len removes his hat long enough to scratch a this head for just a moment, before replacing it. "Alright. I am not going to impose myself upon your investigation, but I will respectfully request any information you get on him /if/ you get him into custody. If he is a time traveler, chances are he's only a child in this day and age, perhaps early teens." Taking into account he could be a she. "Now, Detective Harrison, what is it you need to know from me?" They are sharing information, though he doesn't seem to take into account everything else he's already told her.
Elisabeth's expression is a chagrined one when Adam Monroe's name is spoken. Though she knows who he is, it's through Phoenix contacts. "The name isn't ringing any bells on anyone we brought in… but Robin Hood hit our computer systems one day last week, so it's possible Monroe was lost in the system, or if he did get run, we didn't have anything on him…" She pauses and looks right at Len. "Considering how close to the vest you folks have played Marks's death, it's not surprising. There's not even an APB in our system for the person who killed her that I'm aware." It's not a very subtle chastizement. "But you can count on the fact that now that I have a name, I'll be watching. If you could send me a picture and his stats, that'd help more. As to the technopath… I'll do what I can. I'm not averse to help where I can get it, sir… if I were, I wouldn't have called Agent Dahl. With Mr. Wight, we're clearly in over our head. I understand from Kat Marks that you have tranqs that actually might be of help to at least the SCOUT team. If you have the chance, that might be a real good way to help us out — give us something other than lethal response or our own powers, which may not work in a given situation, to bring people in."
"As I stated before, I am currently interviewing my agents to find out which ones are — wearing the white hats as opposed to the black ones." The analogy could be appropriate, if Len were not wearing a black one currently. "I have at least one candidate, other than Agent Dahl, who might benefit from being brought in here. And I am going to offer up Agent Dahl for whatever assistance you might need."
He stands and steps away from the table, reaching for the file, and his jacket. He slips on the jacket, tucking the file inside. "I am certain I can expect a certain amount of discretion on your part, Detective Harrison?" he grins again, that charming smile coming back on display. "I think we're going to make a pretty good team." he winks and dips his hat before stepping away and out of the diner.
There's a card left on the table, which a cell phone number clearly left for Liz.
Elisabeth takes the card and looks at Minea after he's up and away from the table. "Oh fuck me to tears…. MONROE was Kat's killer? Christ…." She sighs. "The only reason I even know we had Adam Monroe, by the way, is because of Phoenix files. Copwise, we had nothing on the man. And I didn't know he killed her, or I would have fucking well called you." She shakes her head, disgusted, and moves to slide out of the booth too. "I hope you're right to trust this guy, Min."
"Adam Monroe killed Kat and shot me three times only to pass along the message to leave him alone. Only Liz, he's the one who come up and started to fuck with us at the time" Mine gives a nod of her head to len, before her attention is back on Liz. "Tranq's. Bullets won't do shit with him. Regenerates like it's no ones business. Let me finish my eggs and we can go. I'll try and fill you in on what I can" There's a pause as her fork hovers. "Now you know why I asked if the underground would help me in a few months time"