Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This story is my submission to the 'Crime and Punishment 2024' event.
Aggressively Undercover
Chapter One:
The briefing room had slowly filled up, detectives and patrol officers filing in, many clutching bagels and coffee as they awaited the arrival of the Lieutenant.
New Yarmouth Police Department was small, but they liked to see themselves as utterly professional. Located in upstate New York, it was considered a small, safe city where it's residents could enjoy life unmolested by the type of crime and criminals their brethren in the New York City police department had to deal with.
Finally Lieutenant Dunne entered the room. He was considered by his colleagues as a good officer although lazy and often claiming sick leave for the mildest of illnesses. He swept to the front of the room, perching himself on the edge of the desk that stood there and waited, gazing out at the assembled cops until finally the buzz of conversation petered out into silence.
"Right, you should all know why you're here but to avoid any stupid questions, let me recap the situation," he paused for a moment allowing his glare to inform his audience that he hadn't the inclination to repeat himself, their complete attention was required.
"The Iron Celts motorcycle club," he continued his briefing, "started out legitimate and small, stayed small but moved into side businesses like smuggling and some protection deals over the last decade. Minor stuff and not something that we had too much trouble dealing with. Last year or so they've decided to embrace the drug trade. Meth mostly, running it for gangs across state lines and even down from Canada. The quantities are small so the bigger agencies aren't willing to devote time to it. They see this as strictly a local matter. The Mayor's running for re-election and he is looking for a win on the crime front to use for his campaign. So, he's been on the Chiefs neck, the Chief's been on my back and since all this rolls downhill, now I'm on your collective asses to get this done."
There was a low murmur of discontent, a few choice comments about politicians and re-elections and minding their own business before silence fell once more. Lieutenant Dunne stared hard at a few of the cops at the front of the room, those who had been working as the Department's Narcotics squad.
"Over the year we've been trying to catch these bikers in the act but so far, we've had no luck. No evidence means we haven't been able to get search warrants for their clubhouse, stop and search initiatives while they've been out on the road have yielded nothing. Now we finally got a judge to sign off on us getting some wires up into their clubhouse but there we got ourselves another problem." At this point he yielded the floor to Sergeant Kowalski, a bluff twenty-year veteran who rose laboriously from his seat at the front, turning to address the room.
"These Micks are low tech," he began, a few of the Irish American cops in his audience pulling faces at his choice of words. "We figured at first they were being cagey. No Internet, no laptops, no smartphones, nothing for us to track, trace or bug. Finally though we're now of the opinion that the Paddies are just too stupid to use them." This time the cops, who saw the emerald isle as their place of origin, in the audience glowered and grumbled audibly at Kowalski's commentary. The big man showed no sign of caring about his choice of words, ploughing on regardless.
"That's left us with the option of putting some bugs in the clubhouse itself. Since these guys figure technology ended with the combustible engine, we're pretty confident they don't sweep for bugs so once we get devices in place, we're golden. Getting in is the problem. Without cause, we can't just walk in officially and we tried every ruse we got, pizza delivery, department of health, fire marshal inspections. Either they can't get in the door or they are escorted the whole time by a member of the gang."
"What about breaking in?" One of the assembled cops offered a suggestion.
"We looked at that. Problem is there is always at least a couple of them on the premises. If we got caught, well... wouldn't look good having one of our own getting charged with breaking and entering. Nah we've tried stealth, subtlety and sweetness and nothings worked so far."
"So... thoughts?" Lieutenant Dunne asked, throwing it open to the officers assembled in the room. His face twitched as he watched the cream of New Yarmouth's police department either stare blankly back at him or down at their shoes.
"Uh, if sweettalking didn't work. Have you considered aggression?" A voice called out from the back of the room.
"Aggression?" Dunne replied. Slowly, every face, including his own, turned to look at a single figure sitting at the edge of a row of chairs, midway in the room. The figure, an African American woman in her early thirties looked up from the coffee she was holding to see everyone staring at her.
"The fuck are you lot looking at?"
Angela Abbott, known to her coworkers as Angie to her face, 'Angry Angie' or 'Triple A' behind her back, had been a cop for ten years.
She had begun her career as a patrol officer in New York City, moving to Robbery Homicide as a Detective before her natural leanings to action saw her transferring to the Emergency Service Unit. This is the NYPD's version of SWAT and Angie excelled in this role until her taste for aggressive tactics, her famously short temper and her poor social skills saw her Captain deciding she needed time off the 'frontline' of protecting and serving the people of NYC. A temporary transfer was arranged, and so for the last six months Angie had found herself kicking her heels in New Yarmouth's quiet police force.
Now she was standing in Lieutenant Dunne's office, Sergeant Kowalski leaning against the closed door.
"You understand the assignment then?"
"Sure, get in, plant listening devices throughout the clubhouse, get out," Angie answered.
"Without starting World War Three," Kowalski said from behind her.
"Good point Sergeant. No violence, you go in unarmed," Dunne said nodding.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Angie blurted.
"No I am not. This is undercover work, it might not be what you were used to doing back in NYC but the NYPD... our NYPD, the New Yarmouth Police Department, doesn't do mass shootouts with suspects. So it's this, or back to filing reports. You can always ring your Captain back in New York, see if they miss you enough to bring you home yet? Your choice."
"Fine. No guns. No violence," Angie said in irritated agreement.
"And you can't go dressed like that, you'll need to change into what you wear off duty," Kowalski said, looking pointedly at the tactical pants, plain dark t-shirt and combat boots Angie was wearing. A frown crossed her face.
"This is what I wear off duty," she answered.
"First fucker who makes a comment gets to collect his teeth in an empty coffee cup," Angie warned, raising a fist towards the cops gathered about her. The three members of the technical equipment department all clamped their mouths firmly shut.
