Case 26 - Acting as Robin Hood

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

NY: <Events 99 before Brooklyn S5E11, Suits S7E12 & 1.5 years after Castle S8 finale, around the time of Law&Order: SVU S19E12>

[Flashback: LA, Fall 2014]

Two days after he woke up to those Brian and Roman fellas dropping off the new bike for him, Ben found himself on a cargo plane going to the East Coast on Martin Kraft's orders.

The container site he had built up was abandoned because of the heat it might attract after the terrorist attack by Shaw and his group and put as is on a bunch of trucks, ready to be dumped somewhere else that was hidden. The impromptu docking bay they had constructed for drop-offs by boat could be rebuilt anywhere on the West coast.

"Fuchs. You're about to wire up a few stash houses on bosses orders. But not ours, your expertise has been sold to the Southern Front," a state-side subordinate of Greif, Johan Hauser, aka the right hand of Martin Kraft responsible for logistics in the White Front told Ben and moved away to talk with the other two stowaways that were part of the White Front.

Ben looked up the Southern Front and found it was a standard issue white supremacist gang cultivated in California prison led by a guy calling himself Midas.

After reading a transcript written by Martin for him on a secure platform he had created for the front, Ben learned that Martin engaged in a profitable business agreement with the Southern Front. They had a gross turnover of several hundred million dollars a year with over a thousand members and were apparently the seventh biggest gang in the US. They had slowly started expanding from the center of their operations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Oregon.

Martin wanted to use them as guns for hire for jobs that he didn't want to waste his own manpower on... and therefore, Ben was told to install backdoors into their operations as stealthily as possible.

Which was a tight rope to walk. If he did it too well, Martin would become suspicious. If he did it the exact same way as he did in White Front stash houses, he could expose his own duplicity. But Ben had already planned for it, thankfully. The mirror in the deep web that received all the videos was accessible for Martin from the very start. And, Martin would never find out that the FBI also had access to it. Ben created a portal for just Martin, where the man not only had two-factor-authentification but also a biometric lock as one of the two factors. It was still new technology at this point, and Martin trusted it greatly.

Every other IT guy in Martin's employ had assured him that he had the only admin access and could revoke the access of anybody else - Ben included. Only a very sophisticated piece of malware uploaded to the platform that the FBI then unwittingly downloaded would ever reveal the truth. But Ben checked that periodically, and Martin had no reason to be suspicious so far - Ben wagered.

As they landed in Florida, Ben overheard the group saying that two girls wanted to break away in LA when he was fighting those mercenaries and went into hiding, but one of the girls betrayed the other and led her right back to her captors in the White Front.

Martin was apparently eager to let her suffer a little before selling her away.

[Flashback ended]

Ben watched two FBI agents take away Bruna into witness protection - or rather the precursor to it.

"You okay?" Rosa asked next to him as they watched the agents load her into a car.

"Just thinking about when I heard she tried to escape," Ben countered with a solemn look in his eyes. "It was the same day I got my bike, if you believe it..."

"We're going for the next one. You stay here and help Rollins figure out our next move," Lieutenant Benson ordered while pointedly looking at Ben.

With a small shake of his head, Ben patted Rosa's shoulder and walked toward Detective Rollins' desk.

She gave him a reassuring smile and comforted, "She's just a little agitated. Lieutenant Benson lives through the victims. It's a big part of what makes her such a good detective."

"No worries, I can take it," Ben waved away and busied himself with one of the files.

"It's not your fault, you know," Rollins offered in a quiet voice. "You didn't take them from their homes and sold them off like cattle."

"Not to sound like a narcissist or anything, but I never thought it was my fault. It was Martin and his gang of animals. I wish circumstances were different, but they aren't. So I'll do anything to help them now that I know their fate."

"I heard Bruna say earlier that all the girls they held loved you?"

Ben shook his head and sighed.

Rollins quickly placated, "Sorry, didn't mean to open old wounds..."

"No, it's okay, Detective Rollins. It's just... I've told this so many times now that it's getting a little dry. I ordered all the girls into my room as often as possible. And when they did, I dressed their wounds, gave them good food, and allowed them to take long showers. I slept on the floor or on a chair and asked them to tell the guys I was good at what I do to uphold a certain image among the ranks."

Rollins looked at him with a lifted brow and attempted to joke around, "Are you any good?"

Ben let out a small laugh and merely said, "I'd like to think so."

Filing for two more warrants and updating the files with their research, Ben was eventually ready to go home. The detectives who went out to rescue another girl succeeded, but this one Ben only knew by name, and he had never interacted with her. As such, he was glad to see her released, but he had no special connection that warranted him staying and consoling the girl.

Just as he decided where to go after work, Ben received a phone call from the FBI agent who picked up Bruna. Apparently, the girl was insistent that he would visit her, so Ben complied.

There was one more thing to resolve for her anyway.

Ben eventually reached a four star hotel in Manhattan upon receiving directions from the agent. After clearing his arrival with the front desk, Ben confidently entered the elevator, but before the door fully closed, a hand held it up, and a gorgeous raven-haired beauty entered at the last moment.

"Sorry, had you shouted, I could have pressed the door button," Ben apologized and gave the woman a small nod.

"No worries," the pencil-skirt wearing office lady waved away.

"Here on business?" She eventually asked as the elevator started moving up.

"Hmm, you could say so. And you?"

"Family reunion," she answered with a small smile. "I'm a little excited. Never met her before because my father never told me about it."

"Good luck then. Family is important, no matter the shape it comes in," Ben wished and exited on the floor he pressed.

The woman stayed on the elevator because she still had one more to go and watched him walk out with a beautiful smile on her cherry red lips.

At the correct suite, Ben knocked and provided his name. Bruna quickly ripped open the door despite the protests of the two agents present.

"Hey, you asked for me?" Ben cheerfully inquired with a mockingly added bow.

"Yes, I need a friendly face, or I'm not sleeping on my first night in freedom!" Bruna exclaimed and dragged Ben inside.

The two agents gave them some space after Ben provided his identity and took seats near the door once more.

Bruna, however, dragged Ben to the balcony door near the bed and sat him down.

"Before you say anything. There's one last gift I can give you," Ben offered after he quickly made sure they were out of earshot of the agents. "It's important you hold onto this when I'm done and tell nobody. I hope you can remember the password I'm giving you later."

Ben showed her a USB drive with an intricate casing that doubled as a necklace.

"I swiped this from Palert's desk earlier during the raid when we freed you and took his second key when it was taken as evidence but before it was cataloged. You don't deserve to live in poverty after what you went through, so I'm giving you a headstart," Ben whispered conspiratorially.

As Ben got to work on his own secure laptop and used everything he learned about barely legal and definitely illegal online banking during his undercover time at the White Front, Bruna watched the numbers fly across the screen mutedly.

Palert's personal accounts and his ill-gotten gains from illegal smuggling operations were in the millions, and Ben was able to sell it all off and funnel the funds into different accounts in the span of half an hour. One of them accounting for 10% of Palert's networth was given to Bruna, the rest was donated to charities after getting filtered through several different bank accounts in countries that wouldn't budge upon receiving warrants from the US.

Palert's wife would be left with their material assets like the houses, the paintings, and bonds the criminal CEO held in paper form, so Ben didn't feel bad about leaving her penniless either.

The only thing he didn't like about doing what he was doing was essentially bankrupting the shipping company of Palert since they relied heavily on his cash infusions that Ben suspected to be part of a money laundering scheme. Quite a few people would be out of a job a month from now.

After covering his tracks as best as he could, Ben loaded up a second USB drive he brought along and made it a secure token for Bruna's new bank account.

"$11.3 million should suffice to live a life in comfort, I hope. I could give you some investing tips if you want it?" Ben inquired in a low voice as he handed Bruna a leather thread necklace that held the USB token. "Sorry, had I known who I would need it for, I would have gotten something less rustic and more elegant."

"No, is perfect," Bruna whispered as she held the necklace close to her heart, and tears started running down her cheeks.

"Now tell me, what do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to learn how to kill people and travel the world," Bruna confidentally asserted with a bright smile as her demeanor turned a full reversal.

"Please, Bruna... I told you not to tell me this stuff. I know I just committed quite a few crimes in front of you, but I'm still a police officer..."

-----

After a few hours of talking with Bruna until she was tired, Ben found himself walking to the elevator once more. As he waited for it to come, he suddenly heard the sound of high-heeled shoes from behind him.

He turned around and found the lady from the elevator ride before, walking toward him with a pleased smile on her face. The LAPD detective wasn't quite sure why she was on this floor when she drove up one additional floor before, so his vigilance increased a little - for Bruna's safety.

She eventually stood next to him and noticed his hand resting near his hip suddenly instead of just being stuck in his coat pockets and quickly disarmed him with a warm smile.

"Thank you," she whispered as she turned to him as unthreateningly as possible.

"Hmm?"

Before he could react, the gorgeous lady pressed her soft lips on his. Unsure of what happened and fighting every instinct that screamed at him to keep going, Ben pushed her away.

"Sorry lady. You're very pretty, and I would certainly go ahead with whatever you're offering, but I'm already spoken for," Ben excused with a heavy heart as the woman gave him a mischievous smile.

"Not many men would dare push me away, Benjamin," the mystery woman quipped with a fake tear in her eyes she wiped away.

"You have me at a disadvantage, I don't know your name," Ben countered as he took a step back.

"Gisele," she offered as she turned to look down the hallway. The elevator arrived, but Ben didn't yet enter it. "Gisele Yashar. And you've saved my sister's life."

She shoved him into the elevator as he looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.

His brain didn't restart until after the elevator reached the ground floor.

[Ben Weiss commentary scene change]

"Hot damn! I lived through some serious secret agent stuff my old innocent self would have never wanted to live through, but I never had this happen. She must have listened in the entire time I talked to Bruna from one floor up?"

Ben incredulous smile slowly turned into a frown.

"Wait. She listened in the entire time. She knows I plundered Palert's accounts..."

Ben stood up from the chair he was sitting on and started pacing back and forth before he mumbled, "... shit."

[Commentary ended]

Ben's hand hovered over the floor button where he had just come from, but his inner conflict ended with him deciding not to go up again.

Stepping out, doing a 'Robin Hood' for someone who suffered under a human trafficker or deliberately aiming for a fatal spot in a gun fight was entirely different from murdering in cold blood.

He couldn't go up and put the secret back in the box. His best bet was staying as far away from this Gisele as possible.

-----

The next morning, at the 16th precinct, Ben was stopped by Lieutenant Benson near the elevator.

"We need to talk," she ordered and dragged him into an office.

"What is this about?" Ben curiously inquired.

"Where were you yesterday after 11:30pm?"

The LAPD detective lifted a brow and thought about it for a moment before saying, "I left the hotel where Bruna was put at around 11:15pm. I took a cab. Getting to my temporary home took me until around 11:30pm, I guess. I stayed there until I came here. I can give you the cab driver's license and plate number?" Ben suggested with furrowed brows.

"Why do you know the license and plate number?" Benson asked with a bewildered expression.

"My first NY residence was bombed. Literally. I take no chances," Ben replied with a shrug.

"You were part of that serial bombing case?"

"Yep. Beginning to end. Even made one of the arrests myself and stopped one of the bombs going off," Ben confirmed, and Benson looked impressed for a moment.

"Alright. Back to last night. Can anyone confirm you were at your home?"

"Hmm, the building I reside in has a doorman. He could likely confirm that I didn't leave through the front door after turning in for the night. My girlfriend back in LA could confirm I was in my apartment until 1am. We were on a video call until I fell asleep," Ben pondered out loud as he gained a wry smile. "Now tell me what I missed?"

"Bruna Yashar escaped FBI protective custody after both agents were shocked into unconsciousness at roughly 11:30pm," Benson explained. "And Oscar Palert died in his hospital bed an hour later. We also found out an hour ago that all of his accounts were completely drained."

"Uh, well, I have no answers for that," Ben lied despite having answers to at least two of those happenings.

He didn't know how Palert died, but he knew where the money went, and he had an inkling how Bruna 'escaped'. The answer to the last question, of course, was Gisele.

Benson looked at Ben with narrowed eyes for several seconds before dropping the matter.

"Deputy Chief Dodds told us we were swamped with the cases you brought, so we're not solving the death in our own precinct. We're getting help from the 12th for the homicide of Oscar Palert. I'm told you know the two detectives that are coming over."

Someone knocked on the door, "There's Detectives Ryan and Esposito here to talk to you, Lieutenant?"

"Show them in," she ordered bluntly.

"Ayo, boywonder's here again!" Esposito cheerfully greeted Ben with a fist bump.

"Nice to see you again, Ben," Ryan greeted with a friendly smile.

"Aren't you two a little late if the murder happened around midnight?" Ben quipped with a grin.

"We weren't called until an hour ago. Just came back from the hospital. Apparently, we were only second choice," Esposito glumly stated as he gave Benson a fed-up look.

Ryan still greeted her with a friendly tone of voice, and Esposito did so, too, after the two had a little stare down.

Benson sent them on their way with an annoyed expression and had Ben accompany them on their investigation. She didn't seem to like Ben very much.

"So, what do we know?" Ben asked as the three made their way to the motor pool.

"Cameras turned off in the entire tract, duct tape over the mouth, shot to the abdomen. He died after suffering several minutes of excruciating pain," Ryan read out from his notepad.

"Shot in his bed? From how far away? Gunpowder on the blankets or burns from the nozzle?"

"Neither," Espisto replied tersely.

"So someone shot him from, I don't know, the door? Why? They went to all the trouble of taping over the mouth? And then they walked back to do a precise shot like that from far away?"

"Yeah, that's what I can't wrap my head around either. The cameras, the shot, and the tape suggest they knew what they were doing. It was a professional hit. But even then, there was no need to shoot from far away," Ryan wondered out loud as they got into their car.

"So, no leads?"

"There's still the traffic cameras at the entrances. They aren't controlled by local security, so they aren't tampered with like the one inside hospital security," Esposito claimed and started the car.

-----

Ben clearly recognized Gisele with a surgical face mask entering the hospital, or rather he heavily suspected her to be the pretty nurse with the ponytail and model figure that entered the hospital around midnight and left around 4am.

But something told him he could trust Bruna's safety with her, and he didn't want to jeopardize that by giving up her sister who took her out of that hotel room.

Yet, that was twice now that Ben bent the rules or broke the law. And that made Ben skittish for a while.

"That's a dead end. Face mask completely conceals her, and she's too far away from the camera to get a good look on her eyes. All we can tell is that she's pretty, wears scrubs, yet fits nobody from the nurse staff who is unaccounted for, and was in the hospital during the window of opportunity. Plus, we can't even be sure it even was her. No way to find the murder weapon either," Esposito commented with a sigh.

'Good,' Ben thought with conflicted feelings. 'Or is it?'

As he followed Ryan and Esposito, Ben eventually settled on thinking, 'I gotta stop before this seeps into my regular police work...'