In the end, Jack turned out to be the winner. He casually handed five bucks to the sneaky Tim. Angela, using her smaller and more agile frame to her advantage, was the first to catch up to Brodman through the dense crowd. She snatched a wooden carving from a nearby street stall and hurled it at the back of his knee.
Seconds later, three large men piled on, pinning Brodman to the sand.
"Wow, that's gotta hurt."
The rest of the gang strolled over to watch. Jack put on gloves and a face mask, then took a heavy backpack from John—that bag had been one of the reasons Brodman couldn't run very fast.
"No vials, but there's at least $300,000 in here."
"So this is your reward for bringing the virus from Hawaii to Los Angeles, Dr. Brodman?" As soon as Hanna and Chen Hao dragged Brodman off the sand and cuffed him, Karen grabbed him by the collar, and his face instantly turned ashen.
—
The NCIS and Five-O teams took the suspect back for interrogation. Jack stayed behind to handle the wrap-up. He hadn't seen his old friends in L.A. for a while—this was a good chance to catch up.
Brodman looked like your classic cowardly sleazeball. A little pressure and he'd probably spill everything. NCIS wasn't LAPD—they weren't going to let him lawyer up.
But the main reason Jack stuck around was because he'd noticed something was off with John. He'd picked up on it yesterday too.
"What's going on with him?"
Tim looked puzzled when Jack asked. "Not sure. He was just elected union rep. We gave him a little gift to celebrate yesterday."
"Wait, John Nolan? Union rep?" A big question mark popped up over Jack's head. "If I remember right, Smitty the old slacker's been the union rep at Wilshire forever."
Angela rolled her eyes. "Well, some of the new folks wanted to see changes this year—and John actually won. But I did see him having a brief chat with the union president after work yesterday. Didn't look too promising."
"Not promising is one way to put it. More accurately, our dear union president brushed off my proposal with a string of carefully crafted diplomatic nonsense."
John had clearly overheard them and walked over to explain.
Jack's grasp of everyday knowledge had pretty much caught up with the average American by now, and he gave John a big thumbs-up.
"So you became union rep and on your very first day you couldn't wait to make your big... 'proposal'?" Jack said, wiggling his index and middle fingers in air quotes.
"I ran on a platform of change," John said, a bit sheepishly. "I wanted to actually do something. I figured I could use your advice, Jack." For a middle-aged guy, John could be almost childlike at times.
Jack glanced at the time. "OK, if Captain Bradford doesn't mind, why don't we all grab lunch together? Everyone still hang out by the old food trucks near the park?"
"Of course. That Mexican chicken wrap is still the best," Angela said with a nostalgic smile, as if they were back on patrol again.
Half an hour later, they were back at that familiar park with the same simple folding tables. Jack greeted several familiar faces from Wilshire PD, grabbed a tray of food, and rejoined the group.
"Tim, double cheese for you. Angela, no hot sauce. John, diet cola. Lucy, all-veggie, no chicken. Wow, this feels surreal—like a flashback to the old days."
Angela waved him off. "You say it like we're all ancient."
"No, love keeps you young. Even the lines on Tim's face are fading," Jack teased, deliberately nudging Lucy closer to Tim as he sat beside her.
She hadn't been around in a while—he'd heard she was back at Wilshire. Her wedding to Tim had been in the works forever, but still no date. Who knew what they were waiting for.
Lucy stuck out her tongue at him and leaned into Tim with a sugar-sweet smile. "I'm prepping for the detective's exam, so Tim chivalrously agreed to postpone the wedding."
"You? Detective?" Jack looked at Tim suspiciously. "If you don't want to get married, just say so. No need to push her into a challenge like that."
"Go to hell," Lucy said, playfully punching him. Then she turned to Tim with that nauseatingly sweet look again. "It's something I want to try. It's part of my career goals."
Tim looked at her with affectionate pride. "I believe in her. The exam's not going to be a problem."
Jack shook his head, mentally shoving aside the 5,000-word outline he'd just drafted for The Bossy Captain and His Sweet Little Wife, then turned the conversation back to John's dilemma.
It wasn't complicated. Before officially becoming union rep, John had done his homework. As a frontline officer, he'd analyzed Wilshire's dispatch records and reached a conclusion.
"At least 40% of our calls are related to mental health issues or psychological disturbances. But our officers have almost no crisis intervention training—except for that criminal profiling workshop you and your BAU team gave us back then.
So I proposed we allocate part of our relatively healthy budget to provide officers with that kind of training and also support community mental health outreach programs. That way we could maybe—"
After listening, Jack already understood where he was going. "You think this could indirectly reduce the pressure on officers answering those calls?"
John immediately lit up. "I knew you'd get it! I actually got the idea from you!"
Jack raised a hand to stop him. "But have you considered what happens if the project actually works?"
"Huh?" John looked completely lost. Even the others, who hadn't been paying much attention, were suddenly curious. Jack's answer had clearly thrown them.
Jack dug deep into his limited stash of political savvy—whatever he'd picked up from Zoe and Maureen—and patiently explained.
"I believe Wilshire's budget can support a small mental health training initiative. But that doesn't mean every LAPD division has the same funding.
If a city councilmember sees your program succeed, next year they might propose reallocating LAPD's budget to fund similar mental health efforts in the community instead.
Securing funds from city council is one of the union's top jobs. Are you planning to use your momentum after unseating Smitty, who held the rep spot for twelve years, to take down the current union president too?"
"Uh… I hadn't thought that far," John admitted, stunned.
At that moment, Jack's phone buzzed. A message from Danny—they'd gotten results from Brodman's interrogation. He needed to return immediately.
Jack took a few big bites of his chicken wrap and gave John one final suggestion. "Instead of cutting into someone else's pie, why not bake your own? Try finding a sponsor."
"A sponsor? I don't know any rich philanthropists," John said, baffled. Sure, he knew a few wealthy folks—like that high school buddy with a mansion in Beverly Hills—but something like this would take more than a few thousand dollars. No one's going to fork that over without a reason.
"Go talk to the Wolf brothers," Jack said, too pressed for time to play coy.
Shangri-La was registered in California. A legitimate local business. Backed by a powerful local family like the Andersons, yes—but also in need of good relations with institutions like LAPD.
Even though Jack had been out of L.A. for a while, the ties his old friends had made through him were still intact. Captain Grey and the Wilshire crew often dropped by the Wolf brothers' ranch on weekends or holidays.
Even Angela had their housekeeper watch her kid from time to time. John, the nice guy, was even closer to Braxton.
Shangri-La didn't dabble in shady business, but as a local business, tossing $50,000–$100,000 a year to LAPD in sponsorship was well worth it.
Jack hadn't thought of it before, but now that John wanted to do something meaningful for his colleagues, Jack—once an LAPD officer himself—wholeheartedly supported it. It was a win-win.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
Every 100 Power Stones = 1 extra chapter on Saturday.
Every 5 reviews = 1 extra chapter on Saturday.