The drive was silent, even the gangbanger kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t hard, the sack over his head, zip ties on his wrist and Stillman’s shotgun pressing up against his stomach were probably factors. Werner kept the sirens off and Born to be Wild turned down to a whisper while he tapped his thumb on the steering wheel along to the beat. They were stopped at a red light but he could see the scene farther down the street. The light turned green and he eased into the gas, letting go a breath. Not one day into the mission and they already were experiencing hang ups and casualties. A lone beat-cop was hard at work standing alongside Dan and he put a hand up and took a step toward Werner as he got out of the car. “Sir, stay back!”

“I’m Agent Blythe. I’m with Special Agent Allen over there.” He nodded to Dan, hoping the officer would be a good boy and let him carry on. He even flashed the laminated DoD ID he had on him.

The officer nodded after a moment of consideration, “Okay.”

He stepped past the officer and stood with his hands on his hips next to Dan. The Suburban’s front was crumpled, but not quite as destroyed as the Corolla. The matte black paintjob and limo-tinted windows brought back memories. [i]Same fucking car,[/i] Werner thought.

“These guys tried to cut you off?” He asked, noting the damage to both vehicles. “What happened?”

Dan shook his head upon seeing Werner, relieved to see him, but also in a way saddened - the man's appearance, in a way, meant that this whole thing was not a dream, and in fact had really happened. He sighed, and began to speak.

''Yeah, yeah, they were following me, and braked in front of me when I tried to swerve away... I got them, but, fuck. They got Rosa,'' Dan spoke, almost sounding like a confession despite his monotonous manner of speech. ''Damn it.''

Stillman peeked his head out the window. “Hey, Werner! You still want me to watch this guy or can I come out?” [i]”Damn, he looks busy.”[/i] He whispered in the gangbanger’s ear, “You wouldn’t try to fucking run, right? I mean, I’ve never ran someone over with a car.” It was a lie, he absolutely had, “But you know, sometimes you just can’t hit the brakes fast enough.” He patted the man’s shoulder, “Think about that while I’m talking to that nice officer over there!”

He stepped out of the car. He stepped next to Werner, “Rosa’s gone? And you’re still here, guy?” he said to Dan.

Werner narrowed his eyes and raised a hand at Stillman, looking to Dan with his lips drawn thin. He didn’t read Dan as the type to jump into arguments, but seeing the blood on the inside windshield of the Corolla and the other gangmember dead on the ground, adrenaline made you do some brave and stupid things. “Take me to her.” He said, nodding to the car.

What Dan brought him to didn’t look like Rosa. He hadn’t known her for a long time, but he still bowed his head, closed his eyes, sighed. It was the entire trio of grief-filled movements for a stranger. It made him wish he could push Black and get some sense into him. Made him wish he could scold Rosa over sticking with a partner for this very goddamned reason. It made him wish he was in Dan’s spot earlier, could put the front-sight over the gangmembers’ throats and pull the trigger. But Rosa would still be dead. All this time, though, he almost forgot Dan was the one living this. A sidelong glance at the man who was a shade paler than he usually was told him everything he needed to know. He laid a gentle hand on Dan’s back, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s done. It’s over, you did what you had to.”

Stillman tried not look at the body. He wasn’t normally sickened by the dead, but when it was a woman he had trouble not getting pissed and he didn’t feel like now was a good time to strangle Dan. He swallowed down some rising bile which just made him more pissed. So he did what he usually did when he was about to do something rash, he counted down from one-hundred by seven. After reaching fifty-five, he said stiffly, “I’m sorry for your loss.” 

Werner slipped a hand in his jacket pocket and pulled the flask free, taking a swig as he turned away from Dan, then another before he pulled out his phone and sent the text the rest of the team wouldn’t like to read, [i]‘Rosa is dead. Stay in pairs, we travel in packs here on out.’[/i]

''I suppose I did.''

Dan was quiet again, not feeling like looking back into the trunk, where a disfigured dead woman laid as a testament of his fuck-ups, he opened it for Werner once again and looked away. After Werner had examined Rosa, or what was left of her in there now, a phone vibration titillated Dan, and he pulled the gangbanger's phone from his pocket in rage, only to realize that it was his own phone that had vibrated.

It was Werner's warning. The fact that such a warning came so early into the investigation, the fact that such a thing came at all, made Dan feel like they were fucking things up big time. He looked back at Stillman from the edge of his eyes for a moment. No wonder. 

“We’ll have the Suburban towed back to Dust Plains. You can ride with us,” Werner said, looking back at Dan, “Don’t mind our guest in the back.”

As if God had seen it fit to bring the night crashing all the way down, sirens blared in the distance and soon enough, the police cruisers and first responders were rounding the street corner.

Stillman made a tsking sound, “Man, of course we’re in the one county where cops actually respond on fucking time. You know, in New York, it’d take three hours for anyone to give a shit.” He recalled that cops often called areas he had lived in self-cleaning ovens, otherwise known as violent areas that if left alone would sort themselves out.

“Yeah, well,” Werner shrugged, watching the squad cars skid to a halt and immediately start setting up the yellow tape while the EMTs rushed to declare the corpses legally dead, “New York is a long ways away, bud. Looks like someone wants to talk.” He noted a man in a suit that screamed ‘I was bought at Men’s Wearhouse and never taken anywhere to be tailored’ with a face that said ‘I don’t get paid enough for this shit.’

He stepped up to the man in question wearing his best mask of professionalism. “Yes, sir?”

“Just what the fuck is this? I get a call from Officer Sarkovsky over there about gunshots, dead bodies and a collision. I get a call from before that from Albright talking about Feds showing up to a scene that isn’t explicitly Fed jurisdiction.”

“Every kidnapping is to be treated as if it’s related to the drug war down here. One of my agents just got fucking nabbed by MS-13 and you want to jump down my throat over jurisdictions?” He could feel his face getting red. “Just what do you want to know... [i]sir?[/i]”

The Detective’s frown grew a couple millimeters deeper, “I just want to know what the fuck is going on here.”

“You folks don’t have the clearance. I will tell you that those guys-” He pointed a finger at the near-destroyed Corolla and its occupants- “are very much part of the reason me and my team are here. The near four-fold amount murders, kidnappings, human and drug trafficking are very much part of the reason me and my team are here. We’re not here to clean up Tucson like the fucking Justice League.”

He spun on his heel and whistled for the others to form on him while he dialed Foster. Steve answered, sounding just as enthused to be on the phone with Werner as Werner was to be on the same line with him. “What is it?”

“We need a tow truck. Suburban had an accident, bullets were traded, I’ll tell you when we get back.”

“Alright, it’s on its way. Just try not to turn this into the wild west, Blythe. This isn’t Somalia.” Foster said, and Werner could hear the man’s eyes rolling.

“I know this isn’t a fucking cowboy mission, I got you what you wanted there and I’ll do it again here. I’m bringing a plus one, by the way, me and Black’ll work him a bit. He’s got a story to tell and I know it, only one reason he had a whole lot of drugs.” Werner said.

“Right, yeah, just get here. No more fuck-ups, I’m sorry about Rosa, but no more.” Foster  scolded.

“Yeah.” He hung up, turning to Dan and the others, “Let’s go.”

As Dan ducked back into the driver’s seat of the car he took a moment to rub at his face. Even he was wondering if half the cuts and abrasions were from Dan rear-ending the Corolla, but the guy didn’t need him accusing him of anything. Stillman returned to his place next to the gangbanger with Dan on the other side of Stillman. The five of them in the car zoomed off into the night after a long, long bout of awkward silent contemplation before the tow-truck showed up.
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http://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/1770 - Werner flash badge