Skin the Wolfe continued

This is the continuation of "Skin the Wolfe".

According to forum rules I will post chapter by chapter with at least 24 hours in between.

I will also copy-past a review from one of the readers on CSI Talk, but who left it at FFnet, where I cannot reply to her directly, because her e-mail adress somehow disappeared.

[Quote from Jilly on FFnet] "
You fic is one of the most excellently written stories I have ever come across. I found it today and read then entire thing. Your writing is very descriptive and never skips over important parts. I have always considered Ryan to be a part of the team, maybe not at the center, but included nonetheless. After reading this story I'm quite angry at Horatio, Calleigh and Eric and doubt that I will see the show the same Way. Your knowledge on politics, the French police system and the Russian mafia were quite instructive. I love your writing style and can't wait to read the next chapters. There are two things I would suggest, one as a critique, and one as a request. The first is that you have another person read over your chapters before you post them, as a few grammatical errors and phrases lost in translation hindered comprehension slightly. I could proof-read for you, if you like, but I understand why you might not want someone else reading your work. In that case, I would still suggest having another person read over your work, as I know how irritating it can be to reread something you have written. The second thing I would like to ask is as a suddenly avid reader: more angst! Your portrayal of the team's treatment of Ryan has awakened a dark side in me and I want them to feel guilty for how they acted. Horatio, Calleigh and Eric should get what's coming to them! Thanks for listening, and for writing such a consuming piece. I have read most of this fic on TalkCSI and I hope you continue posting there, although, if you do not, I will certainly continue to follow the story on this site.
If you do wish for me to proof-read your fic, you can email me at . I promise I would never mess with the content, and I would only fix grammer or idioms."

[Reply from Griffon] " Jilly, I very much appreciate your review and proposition to proof-read.English is not my native tongue and I am aware that there are shortfalls in grammar and idioms. Habitually I write technical stuff in English, which is quite another cup of tea then a novel...and much easier to produce! If you send my a private mail via FFnet or -if possible- via CSI Talk, so we get in touch, I will forward you my chapters happily before posting them! Thanks again for the offer.
Concerning the second 'request': More angst! Most certainly there will be. But it takes time to develop angst and lay out the cards in such a story. I hope that you will find satisfaction with the next upcoming chapters, even if Eric and Calleigh might fell rather less guilty then you may wish.

Cheers
Griffon

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chapter 23 - Setting the Trap

Chapter 23 Setting the Trap
*
Ivan Sarnoff sat all by himself on a sunny spot in the prison yard, where they'd allow them to spend their days, when it was too hot to keep them inside the cells. He turned another page of Boris Akunin's high-flying thriller "The Winter Queen"-"Azazel", a book that had been nominated even for the British Dagger Award in Crime Fiction.

Babushka habitually chose good books for him. She had kind of a flair for what would take his brains off BunkerHill and his other troubles. Akunin, whose real name was Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvilin wrote not only thrillers that were worth being read but also a chronicle on Japanese literature, Ivan had enjoyed reading when still free in his movements and pasttimes.

He put a reading mark into the book, closed it carefully and turned his eyes towards the evening sun. Thanks to the discreet cellphone, Ramona had managed to get into the prison, he had done a honorable day's work. Ramona's new house and all conveniences going with it had been quickly handled. It was his money, not the 'Bratstvo's' and nobody would ever ask him to account for it. Besides he'd managed to make a rather good deal with his French counterpart Alexandr Rossinski over some Ground-to-Air missiles of interest to several drug corporations in Central America.

He was rather favourable to sell the stuff off to the Columbians. They paid well for quality and never troubled him afterwards...Ivan shook his head: Once he'd sold some hardware directly from the ex-Soviet Union to a cartel in Panama and these buggers had had the cheek to ask him for maintenance of the stuff....as if ever an illegal dealer in military equipment would have provided any kind of maintenance contract to an illegal buyer of said equipment!

Ever since Pineapple Noriega the Panameans had been a bit over the edge! He'd solved that problem by drowning the last intermediary in provenance from Panama City within the groundworks of a residence at Corral Gables their construction company was building for some rich bloke. He had felt like Al Capone, right in the 1930ies after this....

Ivan stood up and walked over lazily to a group of his men. One of them - Petja Kamarov- would be out within the next 48 hours. He was small change and of no importance to the 'Bratstvo' and he was only in Bunker Hill for petty theft. But he was good enough to carry a message to Danilenko and Nevzorov! Ivan Sarnoff had been ok with the Mistral Ground to Air, Jarovsky wanted so desperately for his Columbian client.

But he was rather more enthusiastic about the other offer from Paris: These small-size, high-performance raders were really a deal. He did not intend to equip their boats between Miami and Cuba with these fancy toys. He could not care less if one or another of these boats were occasionally caught and grounded by US Customs. He had been thinking about something completely different...something that might mightily embarrass his sworn archenemy Lieutenant Horatio Caine and the entire MDPD! Some tiny little radars together with a pretty set of Mistral ground to Air....all for himself!

Ivan liked Alijosha Danilenko's machiavellistic plan to take cruel vengeance upon Caine and his CSIs and he was thoroughly enjoying Step One and the actual, ongoing "Wolfe Hunt", but he desired something more visible....something that would not only show the Lieutenant and his pack with whom they had taken up a fight....and ground-to-air missiles of the Mistral type linked with high-tech radar systems were frightful weapons...especially against flying targets, like the recce helicopters of the MDPD would be quite a show....

**
Horatio Caine had left Frank Tripp together with the French police woman Regine Marais. It was a good idea to allow these two to familiarize with each other and the different working styles of their law enforcment organisations.

He was convinced that Frank would do a marvelous job as liason with the French. The old copper had the sharp wits, takt and an unfailing feeling for necessary action. He could also be trusted to keep the whole business as low level and discreet as possible.

He drow over to the Miami premises of the U.S. Treasury, hoping to get hold of Special Agent Peter Eliott and convey to him the part of the French bounty, they could not exploit directly. Horatio understood completely what Commander Regine Marais explained concerning the whole 'Bratstvo' business in real estate fraud. Already the history with the boat slids hat put a flea to his ear, but they had been too much entangled with the three homicides to even consider the other details of their prime suspect's criminal activity.

Horatio took his time on the way to the Treasury premises. He was considering his options with Eliott, especially what deal he could strike with the IRS and that would profit his lab. He could either come up with some request immediately or just give away the evidence and cash in later on the gracious gift!

Unsurprisingly, Peter was in his office. While occasionally out in the field and in for some action, most of the IRS work was closely linked to papers and financial analysis. Horatio took the leisure to observe Eliott for a while. The man was bend over something that looked like the printout of an analytic table, rubbing his tired eyes with the knuckles of both hands and giving a deep, rather desperate sigh. It did not look as if the special agent was finding what he wished to see on the paper snake. The CSI boss knocked softly at the open glass door to drag Special Agent Eliott from his seemingly hopeless situation.

"Would you care for a break and a cup of coffee?" He suggested.
Special Agent Eliott gave Horatio a happy smile: Also it was completely out of character for Caine to just drop by the IRS premises and ask a buddy to go out lunching, Peter was more then willing to abandon his analytical tables for a bit. He had been trying to figure out for the last three days, if the rather sophisticate bookkeeping schemes of a fashionable private dental clinique in Downtown Miami were out of bounds and to be considered tax fraud, but had not yet come to a conclusion. Everything was very well done and very tricky...

"H., you just save me!" He replied cheerfully, taking his documents off his table and securing them in a drawer, which he then closed carefully with a small key. "Let's go down to the cafeteria!"

The two men found themselves a table in a small alcove away from prying eyes and Horatio went off to buy the promissed coffee and a plate with assorted sandwiches. Peter Eliott, in the meantime, was looking with great curiosity upon an implement Caine had brought and which was as much out of character with the CIS Lieutenant as the whole 'Invite you for a drink'-thing: A dark brown leather briefcase....a rather heavy looking leather briefcase for that.

Six coffees and three hours later, Eliott's curiosity was satisfied. The Treasury agent was going to the documents Horatio Caine had brought like a child through its gifts under a Christmas tree, his eyes gleaming greedily, as he turned the pages.

"That is...." He almost chocked on his short sentence, not even taking his eyes of the papers to speak to Horatio,"...absolutely incredible! They have managed to run this scheme with an offshore company and then simply forget, that at the level of the notarial act -offshore or not- they are liable to pay Florida taxes on the surplus beyond 25% of a property's estimate worth! This is....completely stupid."

Horatio nodded. When Regine Marais had explained the real estate fraud, he'd also been slightly surprised to see Sarnoff make such a basic mistake within the confines of a very cleverly set up business. He wondered, if the IRS investigation would turn out some bodies to be processed by the CSI Crime Lab.....the bodies of the Miami lawyers, Ivan's offshore had hired to work the real estate deals. It was a possibility he had to tackle with Peter Eliott, too before handing the French bounty completely over to the colleagues from the Treasury. But first he had some explaining to do.

"Listen Peter, we got this from the French Police - namely the Organised Crime Unit of the Paris District Police - who accidentally stumbled over it when checking out a suspect. While they questionned the suspect, their CrimLab ran analysis on his BlackBerry and somehow managed to hook right into an IT network that had been set up for Ivan Sarnoff's Miami branch of the Russian mob."

Horatio had been mulling the subject over and discussed it with the Paris Prefect De Kersausson beforehand. Telling the others, that the Paris CSI and CrimLab found the evidence linked with Sarnoff and simply handed it over to their Miami CSI and CrimLab counterpart seemed credible enough. The Europeans, considering the evidence to be irrelevant for the federal police, but interesting at the local level, since it was real estate tax related, would probably take the shortcut to just give it to a direct counterpart, hoping the counterpart would know exactly whom to involve at the local level. And his story worked out right!

"What do they want in exchange?" Special Agent Eliott enquired.
"A bit of assistance in grounding one of the Russian mob, with whom they have problems in Paris and who shipped off some stuff, that's illegal in France but legal in the US to our mobsters. No big thing really! The MDPD Chief has alredy cut the deal with his counterpart in Paris."

"Well,..." Peter Eliott gave Horatio Caine a broad smile, "...you say thanks to the Paris CSI from Miami's IRS. We appreciate their gift and I shall see to it, that we squeeze the Miami branch of that mob like Florida Juice Oranges. You know, Al Capone went down for tax fraud too, and this is perhaps better then nothing! I am always surprised to see how painful it is for people to be separated from their money....as if they were loosing some beloved relative!"

Caine gave Eliott a rare smile. "You say it Peter! Keep me posted please and.....be careful with the lawyers who have created this mess. I do not care to have several gruesome bodies down at the morgue of the Lab and my CSIs running havoc all over Miami to find out who cut the legal beagles to pieces...!"

"Will do, H.!" Eliott replied cheerfully. He was tremendously keen to take that huge and heavy leather briefcase up to the third floor and into the bosses office. This was blessed ground for the treasury and they'd joyfully walk on it and reap a nice harvest for Uncle Sam's bank account.

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chapter 23 continued - Setting the Trap

Chap. 23 continued

***
Commandant Francois Delveaux had a team of six highly experienced police officers on Alexandr Rossinski. Three more and the Russian translator were hunched inside the surveillance vehicle on the Avenue Foch, right in front of Rossinski's company's headquarters. They had mobilised another eight officers from Jean Paul Moulin's RAID team. These men were on call and would go wherever required, as soon as the surveillance vehicle would inform them about whatsoever interaction between Rossinski and his soldiery.

Another officer, a female expert sleuth - Pauline Lamperière - hovered in the disguise of a hooker close by the place where Poniatowski was staying as Tim Belkin, waiting for his next contact with Rossinski. Serge had not been informed that he had a shadow for protection and the "hooker with the police ID" had formal orders to not intervene, no matter what happened. She was only to contact the HQ and report.

Delveaux himself was working the rogue Customs offical, they had caught so easily following the first encounter of Poniatowski and Rossinski. The man was sweating and fidgeting in his chair at the Custums Headquarters of the Charles de Gaulles Airport. Delveaux had presented him with crushing evidence and a subtle choice: He could either take the risk and play along or lose his job and go to prison for two years. Two years was not a heavy penalty, and on proper conduct, the man would be out after 12 months on probation, but Delveaux had taken upon himself to describe what happened inside penitaries like Fresnes that were completely saturated with prisoners and had four people instead of one to a 9 square meters cell....promiscuity, violence between inmates, rape....The Customs official, slightly overweight and soft looking was exactly the guy, hardened criminals would target immediately, if he went into Fresnes!

"But they will hurt me and my family if ever they find out that I helped you..." The man replied. His was clearly panicking. The veins on his temples were throbbing painfully and a slick stream of sweat run down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.

Delveaux crossed his long legs and gave the Customs official a hard, uncompromissing look. "Then you better be careful! Play it well and you shall get out of this alive and kicking and I will put in a good word for you with your superiors! At 58 years of age, pre-retirement on about 70 % of your pension seems better to me then 24 months in Frenes and no pension at all, should you ever manage to leave the prison alive.."

They would not do such a thing to that poor bugger. Francois knew, that worst case, the guy'd get a kick in the ass and no pension, but without any criminal record and 35 years of honorable services to France, the punishment would be light for this type of white collar crime.

France had relatively few prisons and the few they had were already overrun with real criminals. Bad guys who'd done real harm to real people. Tribunals were as overburdened as prisons and most judges would simply condemn the guy, then let him go on probation: He'd killed nobody, raped nobody, done no bodily harm to anybody and would not be considered dangerous to his fellow citizens.

But fortunately the Customs official did not seem aware of this fact! He cowered and accepted Delveaux's terms.

The commanding officer of the Organised Crime Unit instructed the slug carefully and reminded him, that he was not only watched by his Russian friends but also by his new friends from law and order.
****
Claire watched Ryan sleep peacefully under her soft cotton blanket on the terrace. He looked so desperately young and fragile in his sleep that it almost broke her heart to weak him for lunch and the two uninvited guests who'd presented themselves just in time for melon with ham, green buttered asparagus, salad, cheese and raspberry tart at Saint Nom. She settled down gently by Ryan's side.

Unable to have children of her own for medical reasons, she'd adopted him together with Paddy immediately some 15 years ago. He had been a sweet teenager; gentle, well bred and good natured and after an initial short phase of distrust and fear, he'd taken to her wholeheartedly and adopted her for the mother he never had had. And while he had grown from a teenager into a man over time, he had never changed his attitude towards her.

She placed her hand softly onto his cheek. Ryan definitively felt like a hedgehog with almost four days worth of five o'clock shadows, but he looked rather better and felt slightly cooler then a bit earlier today. She decided, that instead of telling off JP and Delveaux, she'd put two more plates onto the table and invite the rascals to stay.
"Ryan,... " she said gently, caressing his cheek.
*****
Erwan de Kersausson dismissed the supervisor, who had reported to him on the progress mad with the Russian mobster Belkin. He called his secretary for some fresh coffee and settled down comfortably with the interrogation transcriptions.

While de Kersausson had been expecting the man to be rather open and straightforward, considering the rather lavish offer, they had made to him in exchange for his insider informations on the Ismaiylovskaya, he had not expected the man to be so open and straightforward: Belkin had been already transferred from the holding premises into a comfortable and cosy safe house on the outskirts of Paris and the renewed visual and accoustic stimuli may have accelerated his need to confess. De Kersausson was slightly surprised, that the Miami branch of the Ismaiylovskaya had been creating such an extricate plot just in order to get at this Lieutenant Caine and Ryan Wolfe's colleagues.

He thanked his secretary for the coffee and asked her to call in his two most ancient and trusted Divisionnaires.

Two hours and a thorough brainstorming later, Prefect de Kersausson had made up his mind: They would be obliged to slightly adapt their plans to the new circumstances and Padraig O'Briain's son would probably change sex and buy himself an airticket to the Kerguelen Island close to St.Helens in the middle of nowhere to escape this project....but apart these two minor inconveniences, the overall idea looked fine to him.

Padraig O'Briain had called him early this morning, informing him that the Russians had managed to buy literally the entire leftover Mistral stocks from the Serbs in former Yougoslavia and were very keen to sell them at a nice price to the best bidder. He had also told him, that his trusted source in Moscow was relatively certain, that they would try to sell them off to one of the Central American drug cartels via the Miami branch of the mob. And his country wanted their military hardware back most desperately. The Mistrals had been stolen some ten years earlier from a French storage facility and trafficked into a bloody civil war in the Balkans. They had found the trace of their ground to air missiles thanks to the snapshots of a French war correspondent in the Balkans but had been - as of now- unsucessful in getting them back.

And de Kersausson knew, that his people were a little bit more tense over the lost Mistrals, then the Americans over the lost Stingers in Afghanistan. It was probably easiest to somehow encourage Rossinski to ship the hardware off to the US, lose one of the missiles to the Americans and hopefully recovering the rest of the dirty dozen courtesy Miami MDPD. Anyhow, it was less risky for their country to see the sophisticate ground-to-air missiles disappear in a CIA-sponsored research facility in El Paso then to face them on the killing grounds of Afghanistan, where their soldiers were posted together with the coallition forces of the NATO countries. He gave his telephone a loathsome glance, accepted, that the next phonecall could not be avoided, dialled the number of his correspondent at the French MoD and waited for the man's secretary to put him through.

When a familiar voice answered on the other side of the line, de Kersausson did not spend too much time with explanations and politeness. He came straight to the heart of the matter.
"I believe, we found your missing Mistrals, General! " He said softly, " And we may have an idea, how to recover them, without too much of a turmoil...."

Hardly an hour later, Prefect Erwan de Kersausson had concluded his business with the military, instructed his secretary to book him onto the next flight to Miami, called his superiors at the Ministry of the Interior to get their green light and told his wife that she should not expect him back home before the next weekend.

He rubbed his well-manicured hands contently, waited for his car and his driver to arrive and decided, that he'd be better of doing some work on the terrain then to sit and rot in his lavish office.

*****
Alexandr Rossinski smiled. " I believe that you better take care of this issue immediately!" He told the man on the other side of the phone line, "...or else your superiors will be enchanted to learn that you not only took our money, but also provided a set of end user certificates for naval radar systems that were most definitively not destined to the Australian Coast Guards!" He lightened another Benson&Hedges with his silver and laquer Ronson, drew a deep breath and continued. "....and I do not care what you tell your friends in the Air and Boarders police and how you manage to find out, what I ask of you, but tomorrow morning at 9:00 I shall have my reply or else you will find yourself in big trouble...."

When his counterpart at Airport Charles de Gaulle winced and squealed into the receiver, Rossinski gave a content nod. He knew that the customs official, they had corrupted so skillfully, would obey and provide them with the required informations concerning CSI Ryan Wolfe's whereabouts on the soil of France.

Even if the man had travelled with a European Union passport - a possibility Rossonski did not exclude due to the information from Belkin concerning his speedy crossing of the French boarder - the French Police of Air and Boarders would have nonetheless scanned the document. It was not impossible that a citizen of the US had a second European passport. Americans could hold dual citizenship with France without any problems, but also with the UK, Irland or Italy. Neither of these double nationalities would prevent them from working in the police forces or government agencies. And more often then not the US would not even be aware of the second passport. Rossinski supposed that CSI Wolfe was such a double national!

He passed a quick phonecall to Tim Belkin, informing him that he could enjoy himself for another 24 hours and that they were hard on the heels of his target. It would not be long before they could tell him where he would find this cop Wolfe from Miami and then they would figure out together, how to make him disappear discreetly.

When he placed the receiver on the telephone, the Russian translator in the surveillance car on Avenue Foch gave a tumbs up to the police officer from Organised Crime who kept him company. The tiny listening device placed by Commander Poniatowski was not transmitting wonderful quality, but it was more then sufficient to keep track on the mischief of the Paris Branch of the Ismaiylovskaya Bratstvo. Other the incriminating phonecall to a corrupt French customs official, the tiny little bug had already given them the names of several of Rossinski's business associates and a fair idea concerning his overall time schedule.

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chap24-Between a Rock and a Hard Stone

Chapter 24 Between a Rock and a Hard Stone
*
Aliosha Danilenko was back at his company headquarters after the rather lavish luncheon with Nevzorov and Jarovsky. He liked Jacob's idea to give that PI Leo Rossi's CSI Files a closer scrutiny, even if he did not approve of killing the rogue in order to lay hand on the incriminating information concerning Lt.Horatio Caine and some members of his team.
He decided to give Nevzorov a short call and advise him to forbid Jarovsky to kill that PI. He might be more useful alive then dead in the future and they had sufficient financial resources to afford top class intelligence. While Danilenko approved of Ivan Sarnoff and loved him like a father, he was rather of the opinion that their organisation would do better, if they'd distance themselves as soon as possible from acts of violence and reorient themselves to more profitable, less visible and white-collar criminal activities. He'd been very fond of that real estate fraud with the boat slips in Miami's most lavish marinas and had been slightly upset, when Ivan had compromised it by beating Nathan Madden to death, dropping his bloody body into a dustbin next door to the Aegaen Fighting Club and thus bringing Lt.Horatio Caine and his team onto the plan! Now it where Caine and his CSIs who were making their lives difficult.
Danilenko gave the set of gloves with the reproduction of CSI Wolfe's full set of fingerprints a thoughtful glance. They were ready, together with his service side arm and could be used at any moment, as soon as Timofeij Belkin had solved the issue over in France.
In the meantime, waiting for Belkin's reporting back from a hopefully successful mission, it would perhaps be a good idea to spend his time in a productive manner and bring a first grain of discord and strife into the remaining team of Horatio Caine. Fortunately not everybody in this Crime Lab was incorruptible and beyond reasons for doubt and beyond the little mole, he had inside the lab he had also incidentally hired a man, who had been an integral part of Caine's team for years, before getting himself fired on a charge of credit card fraud and usurpation of identity.
Danilenko had not hired Dan Cooper on purpose. It had more been an accident, already time before Horatio Caine had first stepped on the toes of the Ismyaiylovskaya's Miami branch. Cooper, the jobless and a bit desperate after a rather rough run in with his former colleagues over a practical and very dangerous internet joke he had played on CSI Dusquene, had applied for a programmer's job in Danilenko's company and Danilenko's Human Resources Manager had found the ex-lab technician's CV rather exciting.
Cooper -most certainly- was not aware of the fact for whom he worked and whose money paid his weekly salary and Danilenko rather preferred to keep it like that, but he wanted nonetheless to exploit the man's knowledge of the internal structures of the CSI. He called up Coopers HM file on his computer and went through the info. The guy performed well. He was a clever IT wiz and did a great programming job on their project with the US MoD. It would not look suspicious if he'd call the man into his office, putting the lure of promotion and better money in front of him and then take him out for a drink "to discuss the details" and ....press him like a lemon for info.
Human Resources had noted in Cooper's file that the man had a tendency to being very chatty and something of a rumour monger with his working colleagues. This together with the practical internet joke on CSI Dusquene some two years ago indicated to Aliosha, that the man would talk in order to make himself interesting and important. He rang his secretary and quickly instructed her to find Cooper and send him upstairs.
Hardly an hour later, when they headed towards a bar at Miami Beach, Danilenko knew that he had been right in his appreciation of former MDPD CrimLab technician Dan Cooper. All it had taken to make the guy literally spill out "secrets" and tell the life stories of all his former colleagues including confirmed and unconfirmed rumours and juicy details was the suggestion that it could be a good idea to try and develop a scientific police program based upon the facial reconnaissance program they were developing for the MoD and that he -Danilenko- was considering making Cooper the new Program Manager together with a promotion and salary rise!
Already in his office, Aliosha had learned several very spicy facts concerning CSI Dusquene and her father - lawyer Kenwall "Duke" Dusquene. Duke was obviously not only a notorious drinker but also had had several serious run ins with the law for driving in a state of inebriety.
Once -according to Cooper- "Duke" Duquesne had even been suspect in a involuntary homicide. CSI Dusquene's old man had shown up at the CSI offices firmly convinced that he might have killed someone when he was in his car. Caine had helped his little favourite immediately, launching all the lab's resources to figure out the puzzle and try to innocent Calleighs father. This close run thing obviously had not sobered up "Duke" Dusquene and according to Cooper he still had his habit and liked to go to a certain bar in Miami to indulge in Whisky and other strong brewages.
Aliosha had the strange feeling, that it would put a lot of spice into the Miami CrimeLab and the remainder of Horatio Caine's team minus the Wolfe in Sheep's Clothing, who was actually running from Tim Belkin, if "Duke" Dusquene would turn up once again, convinced to have committed an involuntary homicide with his car after a nightly drinking orgy. Such a show would be relatively easy to set up -without hurting or killing someone - and could be highly entertaining to watch. He bought Cooper a couple of drinks, listened to the rest of his CSI gossip, congratulated the man to his promotion and their new common project and finally disappeared into the night -leaving a rather inebriate Dan Cooper behind - in order to set some things for Calleigh and Kenwall Dusquene into motion.
For the show had to go on...until they could do some nastier things to Lt.Caine and his little pack.
**
Dr.Padraig O'Briain was not surprised when he saw the black Renault Laguna of Prefect Erwan de Kersausson drawing into their drive way. Before rising up to one of the highest positions in the French Police Forces, Erwan had been a real cop and done years and years of field work.
The man who left his service vehicle and came over to their lunch table once again resembled that copper, Paddy had first met and befriended twenty years ago and under very sinister circumstances. O'Briain did not doubt in the slightest, that the energy and spring in de Kersausson's step and the malicious smile over his habitually stern and serious face were closely related to their earlier little telephone conference and the information he had given his friend and protector. Valodija Tiomkin had already confirmed the quantity of the Mistrals and Padraig knew, that they were offered for sales via the Paris branch of the Ismaiylovskaya.
This confirmation brought probably an entirely new perspective to their business with the mob.
Claire gave the prefect a friendly smile, motioned him over to their table and hurried into the kitchen to get another plate, glass and knife and fork for the unexpected visitor. She was rather satisfied with the positive change his little nap and the news from Moulin and Delveaux together with her tasty food had wrought on Ryan. Even more first hand information and the feeling of being kept involved would rather keep him quite and cosy at home then make him take his French badge and the Glock and try going out with the guys.
***
"I think..." Delveaux concluded his long explanations, "..that your problem with the mob and your decision to come and see us for help was about the cleverest thing you could have done, Ryan!"
Wolfe swallowed his last butter crusted green asparagus with a slight air of regret, watering it down with the last drop of the delicious, ice-cold sparkling Saumur, Paddy had sacrificed from his extensive collection of Loire wines and placed his knife and fork on the now empty plate. " At least, it was worth it!" He said with a twitch of dark humour in his voice.
Also he would most certainly not volunteer for another 12-hours encounter with some sadistic brute from Russia, he considered his considerable collection of colourful haematomas, welts and broken bones a rather low price for the benefits, they were now able to reap on both sides of the Atlantic. He turned to de Kersausson, who was still having a full plate of Claire's delicious butter crusted asparagus and tiny salted potatoes and was tucking in happily.
"And you really managed to make that Belkin guy crack?" The news, that the Paris police Prefect had announced a bit earlier during their luncheon had come as a great surprise to Wolfe. He still remembered that other Russian mobster at Marc Gantry's, who had not hesitated one second to kill himself, when Horatio saw his mob tattoo and stated the fact aloud.
De Kersausson nodded. "There is nothing worse then complete isolation and people who do not do, what you expect them to do, Ryan. It may be the most cruel and most efficient way of breaking a man....but it is perfectly legal. He agreed to cooperate with us completely and as we speak, he is in our safe house at Fontainebleau, spilling out all the secrets of Mr. Sarnoff's Miami organisation to my interrogators. We offered him a new identity and a new life in exchange....easy, since he did not commit any crime in France."
"So what are we going to do now." Ryan enquired.
De Kersausson smiled. "We are going to change our initial plans slightly....if you agree." What he had learned from the interrogators together with Padraig's intelligence concerning the stolen French Mistrals that were up for sale now had given him an exciting idea.
But the idea was perhaps a little bit more dangerous for the young man in front of him, then what they had initially in mind. He would first tell Wolfe about his discussions with his people over in the States at MDPD. Then he'd nudge the young police officer gently towards the "other" possibility to get rid of Sarnoff and the hit on his head.
While Padraig's case with Oleg Ivanov was hopeless -Ivanov sitting far away in Moscow and being surrounded by his entire soldiery and even out of reach for the law enforcement of the Russian Federation - Ivan Sarnoff was at this moment an inmate of a US Detention Facility and in a rather more vulnerable position.
He had already had a long discussion via teleconferencing with their legal attaché at Miami's French Consulate, Commander Marais and the MDPD police officer who obviously ensured the liaison with the American colleagues - Detective Frank Tripp. Regine had been enthusiastic and Tripp, while initially a bit sceptical had ended up accepting his idea as a potentially good plan, too and agreed to bring it up with Caine.
Ryan Wolfe smiled and rose an eye brow into an impressive high arch. "If I agree to what....?" He was no dunce and seeing an officer of de Kersausson's rank playing cat and mouse made his bullshit detectors going off and his adrenaline level go to unexpected heights.
The rush of adrenaline was wonderful. It worked better then the lousy Ibuprofen 1000 mg on his killer ribs. He felt suddenly able to breath and got the impression that even a cross country would be within the reach of the possible.
Dr.Padraig O'Briain frowned, when he saw his son suddenly so excited and de Kersausson so cheerful. He knew both men pretty well. "If he agrees to what, Erwan?" he enquired in a dark voice.
De Kersausson served himself more sparkling Saumur. Paddy's wine cellar had always been excellent and he would not deny himself this threat at such a decisive moment. "Well, Padraig....turn bad cop for the show! The French MoD wants their Mistrals back, Ryan wants to get rid of Sarnoff and I want Rossinski's business shut down for good....and all it needs to achieve our common goals is....a bad cop!"
Delveaux and Moulin swallowed. Both men looking slightly dazzled. They had been working their lines with Rossinski and Poniatowski since daybreak and had not been prior to the evolution with the real Belkin. They were still at the point, where Rossinski had agreed to assist a man in his plans to murder another man in front of a microphone and they were already more then happy to have the Russian mobster's words engraved in stone....or rather on the tape in the Organised Crime Unit surveillance van on Avenue Foch.
Ryan wanted to speak, but his father snatched his forearm hard and squeezed it mercilessly. "You shut up for the moment, boy!" He snarled at the younger man, his blue eyes having turned suddenly into dark storm clouds. "What..."He pronounced every word hard and clear, "..do you intend to suggest to Ryan?"
Erwan de Kersausson had known the former IRA Intelligence Chief for two decades and no gnarling and snarling of Padraig's could impress him. He had seen the man kill without mercy or a second thought and negotiate with even less retinue or scruples. But he also knew that Padraig was the most honest person he had met in his lifetime, even if his political convictions were discussable and his means to achieve his aims not always legal by French police standards. But politics had always been a dirty business and de Kersausson was capable to accept this fact. So he would play it straight and honest with Padraig...as always.
"Listen, you -better then anyone else around this table - know the rules of the Ismaiylovskaya! You and I, we both know, that it is impossible to finish them off for good, as long as the Russians do not get rid of Oleg Ivanov himself...and this is....if you ask me...a lost cause. Impossible! Ivanov has friends in high places and hands out money at a political level, you and I can only dream of. But they always played by their own rules and stuck to them."
Padraig suddenly understood with frightening clearness, what de Kersausson wanted to explain. " You will allow the French branch to make their deal and ship the Mistrals over to the US, Erwan!"
"I will, Paddy! The Americans have accepted to return the hardware, as soon as they lay hands onto the shipping."
"Which means, that Ivan Sarnoff will have to account for a monumental failure with Oleg Ivanov!"
"Exactly, Padraig....and you know how Ivanov handles such kind of mistake...he will let Sarnoff drop like a hot potato and whoever can off the rogue, will be most welcomed by the 'vozhd' to do so...."
Ryan shook his father's hand off. "And you think, Monsieur Le Préfet, that nobody in BunkerHill will even lift a finger, if someone -inside- will go for Ivan at this moment....."
"Exactly, son!" The prefect replied happily. He ignored the furious looks on the faces of Moulin and Delveaux completely. He was perfectly aware of the fact that neither found any charm in his project, but he could not care less. If they could kill off three flies with a single stroke, everything was good for him.
O'Briain exploded.
Ryan almost choked, when it became suddenly as clear as crystal what de Kersausson insinuated. "I am a cop, not a killer...." He said softly.
"You are most certainly not, young man!" De Kersausson said nonplussed, ignoring Padraig O'Briain's side show and his own officers' scandalised faces."...or else you would not sit here with me and discuss this project, but keep Mr.Sarnoff happy company at his state-founded vacation centre!...but I firmly believe that you are perfectly capable of killing a man, should need arise..."

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued:Chap24:2Between a Rock and a Hard Stone

Chap.24 continued

****
Frank Tripp had offered his arm to Commander Marais, as they strolled along Miami beach at a leisurely pace. He thoroughly enjoyed the company of the clever and cute lady, even if he was still trying to calm down his excitement over the highflying French project. First it had seemed completely nuts to him and he had been close to jumping from his chair and shouting at this tough-nosed Paris Police prefect with his perfectly neutral face and his perfectly manicured hands.
But after everything had sunk in, he had seen the beauty of the plan and the potential it had for both his people and the French. It was ravaging mad and Ryan would be completely nuts if he'd accept to play along....but it was...feasible and he had the strange feeling, that not only the Chief of MDPD would agree but also that Horatio would accept.
"As a matter of fact..." Regine said cheerfully in her beautiful, slightly accented Alto, "...all we need to do now is some solid ground work. If the timing is good, your guy will be in BunkerHill for a couple of days only and I am sure that the MDPD has a set of prisoners inside, who are more then willing to look after his ass, if you promise them some reduction in their sentences or ...certain creature comforts."
Tripp laid his huge, warm paw gently over Regine's long, cool fingers. " And we need to convince some journalist to play along and keep his mouth shut until everything is over!" He smiled like a huge, content tom-cat. He had already a tiny idea who this journalist could be and how to convince her to play with MDPD.
Regine felt very comfortable with Sergeant Tripp. In the short time they had been working together she had had an occasion to see not only his business face, but also some of his more private features: Honest concern, a good heart, a lively spirit and an enormous amount of humour and self-derision.
She liked the man a lot....much more then the self-possessed lieutenant Caine, who was so dead logic and so completely detached and who appeared to be nothing more then a high precision calculator without any human feelings. She'd been very amused to observe Frank and his internal turmoil, when Préfet de Kersausson had exposed his plan and she had found it endearing when the sergeant had discussed hard with the high police official in order to find out, if this curious plan would not turn out a double edged sword for that young CSI Wolfe in the end. She knew it was not.
Police forces all around the world operated in such a manner and police officers got infiltrated into prisons under fake accusations. Habitually, when everything was over and the ops had been a success, the authorities would see to it to have a prime time schedule on the evening news in order to inform the population and cite the heroic colleague with name and picture in order to rehabilitate him...anyhow, the memory of the average television news client was very short and while he'd be infuriated when hearing about a rogue copper and then very proud when learning about a hero, it would take him or her less then 24 hours to forget the whole thing completely and go on with their lives.
So all that this young CSI would basically risk were his life and health while inside the detention facility and some rather strange glances from unknown bystanders for a couple of days. And in the end, such a mission would perhaps even get the guy a nice promotion and a medal from the MDPD. And from what she'd learned from Frank about Wolfe, she did not doubt that the young cop was perfectly up to the challenge!
"What about diner now, Frank!" Regine asked her companion cheerfully. "I am famished after our long day's work!"
Tripp returned her smile. "But tonight you will allow me to take you out....no invitation of your Republic to the US....just a nice snack with ol'Frank in his favourite hangout!"
****
Ramona Sanchez was still hardly able to believe her good fortunes. She motioned to the broad-shouldered worker from the moving company to put the brand new flat screen television into the future living room, while trying to contain the enthusiasm of her two young brothers and brewing a comforting cup of tea for Marja Feodorovna who was completely exhausted and foot-sore after their extensive shopping trip. But the old lady was most certainly not tired. She was on her knees in front of a kitchen cupboard, arranging colourful, hand painted plates they had discovered and bought in a new Swedish shop in Coral Gabbles. Marija's little dog was standing by his mistress sight and making a hell of a noise, barking at the movers.
"Pete,.." Ramona called Mister Alex bulky bodyguard who had kept them silent and steady company all through their shopping day, "...would you mind to go and try to find some snacks for all of us. There must be something close bye. With al this havoc I will not get any further then brewing tea."
Piotr snatched the furious little dog from the floor, shushed it gently in Russian and left. He had enjoyed their day. It was much better to take care of Ramona and 'Babushka' then to do Danielenko's and Nevzorov's other biddings and he was very content that over the last few days he'd been demoted from his former position in the organisation to nanny with the girls. He tried to reason with Ramona's brothers, extracted them slyly from their new chambers with a promise of ice cream and left the mad house at a trot with all his little folks behind. He had already identified the small Italian food shop that sold take always a bit earlier and headed straight for the premises when he saw a light silvery grey hummer with the insignia of the MDPD CrimLab draw into the drive way right next to Ramona's. The red-headed driver was their arch enemy Lieutenant Horatio Caine. The man looked rather tired and worn.
Piotr entrusted the dog's leash to Pedro and took the hand of his younger brother Rodrigo. "Now we are going to buy some nice stuff!" He told the two children in his deep, accented voice, lowering himself to close the zipper on Rodrigo's sweater and throwing a discreet glance over at the Lieutenant's. The guy was scotched to his cell phone and Piotr tried to pick up on the conversation. But it was in vain. The man spoke quickly and his accent did not sit well with the Russian.
****
"The idea suits me, Frank!" Caine replied. "But I must think it through A to Z, discuss with the Chief and bring Stetler in on it. As to the press part...I agree with you. She may not be enchanted to do me a favour, but I believe that I can convince her to play along and keep her big mouth shut for once. Let's talk later...there is too much noise out here." He closed his cell and threw a curious glance at the movers next door. The comely house had been on sale for several months. It seemed as if the real estate agency had finally found a buyer who was able to pay the 90.000 US and the commission, notwithstanding the actual timid attitude of the banks. With the economic crisis hitting the country for over a year now, the market was overflown with property, even in relatively rich Miami-Dade country, but hardly a potential new homeowner could convince his bank to lend him money.
He leaned against the Hummer and watched. It was very nice furniture they were carrying inside. Obviously people with children. He saw two small beds and two pretty dressers, paint in blue and yellow go inside. A sturdy bloke, with a face only a mother could love was shepherding two boys with huge ice creams and a rowdy little, white dog into the garden. The children looked happy, well cared for and nice.
"Well, nature had mercy upon you!" He thought. " You must come after your mum and not your dad." He turned around, minding his own business and entered his own house. Even if he was rather far away from the MDPD and the lab, he liked it out here. It was a gentle and quite suburb with lots of greenery and several farms that sold their products directly to the neighbourhood. Behind his own garden, a whole bunch of smallish, long horned Scottish Highlands were grazing peacefully. His next neighbour farmed bio and sold wonderful butter and homemade cheese. Horatio decided to change and trot over to Tomlinson to buy some bottles of fresh milk, a loaf of dark bread and cheddar for diner. And perhaps a piece of poultry from Mrs.Tomlinson's backyard. The chicken were running free and fed on veggies and bio grain. They tasted good on the barbecue.
He was slightly fagged from the last few days and the turmoil with Wolfe, the Russians and the French and he had decided to spend a night in his own bed after having squatted without invitation at Ryan's for two nights. He also needed some change and a good shower before returning tomorrow to the lab.
He'd met Eric and Calleigh in a rush. The two having spend a very restful and uneventful Monday over unimportant stuff. BoaVista and Valera had been treating DNA on a paternity case and a troublesome heritage for the tribunal and the rest of his day shift had been mostly hanging around in their labs killing time. Horatio for once was more then happy with the lack of action. He could do with another few homicide-free days, he decided.
Frank Tripp had given him a hard bone to chew on and he had to mull over Rick Stetler and how to explain to him a certain amount of things. It was also important to make sure that none of his CSIs learned anything about the truth behind what was going on. Their rightful embarrassment and hopefully even anger would be an even better protection for their man then the most sensational television broadcast Erica Sikes could do, if he managed to talk her into this.
He took some money from a drawer and left his house through the backdoor. It was a most beautiful evening. He cut short over the prairie. The smallish Highlands were gentle beasts and did not even try and chase after the intruder. Before Tomlinson had had nasty Longhorns and it had not been an option to take this shortcut.
"Hello, M'am!" He greeted the farmer's wife, who was feeding her chicken in the yard.
"Good evening, Lieutenant Caine!" The young woman replied, cleaning her hands on her jeans. "As usual?"
"A bit more tonight." He answered cheerfully and stated his purpose. The M'am offered him a chair under an umbrella and invited him to take some ice tea, while she went off to fetch his stuff.
It would be interesting to see, how the French would figure out the time and place of delivery of their stolen Mistrals and the illegal radars de Kersausson had mentioned. Horatio had already spoken with his counterpart from Homeland Security and she agreed to give a helping hand with this case, including the return of the Ground-to-Air missiles to their rightful European owners. She had not been surprised at the French handing over intelligence so readily and striking a deal that at first sight looked more advantageous to the MDPD then to the European policemen who had done the groundwork.
Caine had learned from the Homeland Security special agent, with whom he had already worked a couple of cases that the CIA and the FBI -after 9/11- had decided to set up shop in France immediately and that the cooperation had been more then fruitful. She was not at all surprised to hear from Horatio how quick the French had been to react and to concentrate a high amount of forces from different agencies upon this case which involved the Russian mob.
He took a sip from his ice tea, mulling over the special agent's words. Somehow he did not want to have the French system - efficient as it might be - imported into his country, but he admitted rather frankly that it was occasionally an excellent thing to be capable to run such a highly elaborate set up along the finer limits of legality in order to destroy a clear and present danger.
******
After the first high flying emotions had passed, they had all listened very attentively to de Kersausson's explanations. While Frank Tripp had told Ryan that neither he nor H. had found his service weapon or cell in his house in Miami, he had not believed that Sarnoff's people would take the two items in order to launch such an elaborate and extremely sophisticate scheme against the CSIs. The French interrogators had learned from Belkin that besides killing Wolfe, getting hold of the CSI's weapon and the cell had also been part of his mission.
Belkin did not know the identity of the mob's mastermind, since their organisation was rather compartmentalized in its highest ranks, but he had been made aware of the full contents of the plan:
The 'Bratstvo' wanted to give the impression, that one of Caine's CSIs had turned rogue and was going after his colleagues one by one. This would not only get them rid of Horatio and his team but also throw an atrocious light upon the MDPD and its CrimLab in the eyes of the general public. In the end, such anti-publicity might be just good enough for some clever defence attorney to have Sarnoff's case reviewed in front of a court and if the associates of Ivan played their game cleverly, the defence attorney would challenge the evidence against their boss, which was mainly reduced to manipulating games of hazard and horse racing and the man could be free to go home within a nick of time, returning back to his mischievous deeds and association of dangerous criminals.
Ryan was very much conscious of the fact, that the black book they had taken from Ivan had been retrieved due to information obtained from Marc Gantry. Marc being his friend, but also having been successfully blackmailed by the mob to fix horses, having a history of drug abuse and gambling debts etc. and now out of reach for testimony could be brought easy to fall by a good lawyer and he himself -having been associate with Gantry, having been send off the CrimLab for a couple of months also for gambling issues and having first and foremost slowed down a murder enquiry and in this process tried to put false evidence upon an innocent was an equal liability. Even a mediocre attorney who was prior to these facts could get Sarnoff out of prison and the Miami CrimLab under a very nasty enquiry from either IAB or even the Feds!
De Kersausson was right: He had not much of a choice if he wanted this many-armed and multiple-headed Hydra retreat back into the dark cave from where it had cometh!
"Ok, I am in with you!" He told the prefect. His voice was firm and determined, but inside he trembled with fear.

 

this is the best novel i've ever read before.
i like your writing style a lot. really great storyline.
just can't wait for continue.
very powerful and awesome story. keep writing this way and good luck

 

Thanks a lot for reviewing. I am happy that you like my twisted plot and Mr.Wolfe and his associates, including Ivan . As a matter of fact, I can give you another chapter. Just finished hand still hot from the oven!

Cheers

Griffon

 

If you cannnot fit an enitre chapter into one post please provide a link to it in an outside source rather than double posting.

Thank you.

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chapter 25 - Dirty Business

No problem! My chapters are long and if nobody minds, I just post the links into FFnet.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5063041/27/Skin_the_Wolfe

Enjoy the story and please do not hesitate to review, if you like it.

Cheers

Griffon

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chapter 25 - Dirty Business

That sounds good to me. Ff.net is a pretty reliable source! It's a great story, by the way. I've enjoyed reading what you've posted for us so far. Which really is saying something because I'm usually not a Miami fan!

 

Re: Skin the Wolfe continued: Chapter 25 - Dirty Business

Thanks for reading and for your kind words!

I hope you will continue.....anyhow, it is not really a CSI Miami....:devil:, rather a OCU Paris meet a buddy who incidentally works in Miami and knows a bloke who owns the famous and invincible 'Sunglasses of Justice':guffaw:

And since neither of the boys who meet in Paris has these miraculous sunglasses, they decide after a couple of bottles of nice red wine and good food in a civilised environment to do some basic police work together and blow a Russian mobster on their way......

So...you can read the story even without being a fan of Miami:thumbsup:

 

well hi.
just read your last chapter and it was so good.
especially a little bit of Ryan's soul. now i'll love that boy even more.
thanks for this exciting story once again. i'll never stop to read this whole story again and again

 

Skippy, I am happy that you enjoy my tale and the adventures of our favourite CSI in France.

Today and tomorrow I am a bit burdened with writting serious stuff to earn my pay, but before the weekend I will post the next chapter....and I promise it will be exciting

Keep posted and have fun

Cheers

Griffon

 

jeeh
i'll be waiting