Entries tagged with case: whistleblower

Current Mood: apathetic
Current Music: walk on | u2

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giving up won't get you out

giving up won't get you out;
Luke gets shot on Saturday and is back at work on Tuesday. He feels everyone else's eyes on him as he walks through the fifth-floor bullpen toward his desk. The John Wexler case is all over the news and while no one knows that he was directly involved, everyone knows he was with Bryan at Wexler's party on Friday. They're all wondering what he knows and he's not going to tell.

Thanks to his unwillingness to wear a sling, no one can tell that he's been shot. The only way it's noticeable is if he takes off his jacket because the shirt doesn't obscure the bandage underneath. So of course Kevin walks into his office while he's taking off his jacket. "What happened to you?" his best friend asks, to which Luke only mutters, "I don't want to talk about it." He doesn't want to do anything but get back to work.

"You didn't come in yesterday."

"I had some things to take care of." Luke settles at his desk and flips on his computer to start going through his email. "Did you need something specific, or...?"

"I wanted to see what was going on with you." Kevin gives him an annoyed look because he doesn't deserve that kind of attitude for caring about him. "Which something obviously did if you're not willing to talk about it."

"Yeah, so the perfect course of action is to keep asking." Luke could probably just tell him and be done with it. There's no shame in being shot when their own boss showed him his bullet scar. But he knows Bryan doesn't talk about that either and so why should he. Especially when he's still working through his feelings about it. The physical pain is an annoyance; the experience of potential death and having to tourniquet his own arm in the middle of a shootout is something else. He had at least called Christie Ballesteros and made an appointment.

"I'm just saying that when you don't show up and Ryden has to handle your arraignments it looks strange. If you don't want to talk about it, fine, but you might want to come up with some kind of an excuse because people are talking." When you're a control freak who never takes days off, even one starts the courthouse rumor mill going.

"For the love of..." Luke grits his teeth and spits it out. "Someone shot me, okay?"

"What?" Kevin blinks like he's misheard. "Why are you here?"

"Because it's not serious." He gestures with his other hand at the bandage still concealed under his shirt. "As long as I don't move my arm too much, I'll be fine in a couple of weeks."

"How the fuck did you even get shot?" Kevin replies, then thinks on it for a second and remembers seeing Janet in the press conference on the news and puts it together. "Were you involved in the Wexler case?"

"I'm the reason there is a case."

There are a half-dozen other questions that come to Kevin's mind at that statement like any good attorney. But he doesn't ask them because he knows that either Luke won't answer or he shouldn't if he's a material witness. So he drops them and asks instead, "Are you okay? Really okay, not any of your typical stoicism."

"I'm working through it." Luke says. "Which is what I'd like to do, just work through it instead of having everyone worry about me or being left alone in my apartment, so if you want to support me... Just let me get back to this."

"Okay." Kevin agrees. "But if you decide you want to talk... I'm here." He turns to leave but pauses and lingers in Luke's office doorway. "Just tell everyone you had the flu. You'll get less sympathetic worrying that way."

Luke nods and goes back to checking his email. He has no intention of talking to anyone other than Christie, especially since Janet made him aware that everyone has to keep their mouth shut about the human trafficking side of the case. He's not going to jeopardize someone else's conviction just to get his emotions off his chest. But it is a step, however small, for him to acknowledge that he's not okay. That what happened has some kind of effect on him. He can admit that before he dives back into paperwork.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

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tomorrow is the only soul that knows

tomorrow is the only soul that knows;
Luke isn't sleeping when he gets the call from Janet. He'd tried but he was just laying in bed staring at the ceiling. He hadn't even undressed, just thrown himself onto the bed trying to get his brain to stop thinking. It hadn't worked.

He knew. They all had a sense when something was really wrong, one honed by years of experience and particularly now with taking on some of the biggest cases of their careers, and he knew this was wrong. He was trying not to panic knowing he'd gotten Janet into this. And she'd gotten Michael, and whoever else, and he didn't want this for any of them. He was supposed to protect her, not hurt her the way he had a thousand times before.

I got her into this.

The ringing gets his heart to stop racing. "Can you make it to the FBI office?" she asks. "I need you to come in."

"Yeah. Yeah, I can get there." He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, taking deliberately slow breaths. "Just let me get a shower." Luke hesitates then, almost afraid to ask. "Is it bad?"

"Yeah, it's bad." She replies. "I'll explain it when you get here."

Luke feels a wave of emotion hit him when he hangs up the phone. He's never been the stoic type but he can feel the frustration. What the hell did he actually see? How much further does it go? He's savvy enough to understand that in Washington almost nothing is ever simple and it's only been a few hours since he was walking through burned rubble where he'd been standing the night before. These are all the messy things that are normally neatly figured out and tied up before it ever gets to him. All he has to do is win the case. He doesn't have to live it.

He pushes himself into the shower and makes the drive to the Hoover Building. Michael's nowhere to be seen and Janet is working with someone else when Luke gets to the third floor. "What's going on?" he asks, which unintentionally comes out a little more defensive than he wanted it to.

"Luke, I want to introduce you to Bradley Leonpacher," Janet says. "Brad is the Special Agent in Charge of criminal investigations in our Miami office. He recognized the other man in your photo."

"He's a document forger out of the Beach," the other man explains from where he's leaned over the bullpen table. "My guys found him booked on a flight from Tampa to D.C. three days ago. So far, he doesn't have a return ticket."

"How does that make sense?"

"It doesn't. That's what we have to figure out."

Janet exhales tightly. "There's something else I have to tell you," she says. "We found a body in the wreckage. We haven't been able to identify her yet but it looks like she died last night."

"Somebody was murdered?" Luke says. "Fuck. Is there any possibility Wexler paid Levko to have someone killed?"

"At this point, anything is possible."

"You need to fucking find him. And get a search warrant for his phone records. Find out how long these two idiots have been talking to each other. I'd say check the security cameras but those don't exist anymore..."

His thoughts are cut off when Janet pulls Luke into her office and shuts the door. She's going to be responsible for handling him. The same way he had to handle her during the Vincent trial. It's uncomfortable for both of them to have the tables turned like this. "I need you to step off," she tells him. "You're not a U.S. Attorney right now. You're a cooperating witness."

"Sorry," he mutters. "I just..." Luke doesn't like people telling him what to do and he'd never expected that label being applied to him but he knows Janet is absolutely right. He's the only proof that John Wexler and James Levko are connected. Without his testimony there's no reason to suggest that what happened Friday night was anything other than a coincidental tragic accident. And his connection to Bryan Alexander means that like it or not he has an in with that whole circle of people who are now either possible witnesses or potential roadblocks.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks Janet with a heavy sigh.

"I'm going to have to use you in this investigation. We might need you to ask some questions or look at a few things. But unless you're specifically told to, don't say anything about this. Lay low and stay around your apartment just to be safe. If you notice anything out of the ordinary then you call me immediately."

"Anything I can do to help." Luke doesn't hesitate in saying it. As much as he doesn't want to think about Miami thugs showing up at his building and as out of his comfort zone as he is right now that doesn't change his morals. He wants these people caught as much as she does. "I still say I should ask Bryan how he got to that party. I don't think he knows Wexler at all but just to eliminate the obvious conflict of interest."

"I don't think he's involved either." She agrees. "But do it after the news breaks so you have a reason to bring it up."

"At least I haven't pissed him off recently." Luke chuckles humorlessly.

He drops into Michael's chair and runs a hand over his face. When he'd been sitting in Las Vegas on his third cocktail he'd told himself that something had to change. It was impossible not to with everything they'd been through. The breakup, three high-profile prosecutions, two attempts on someone's life. He'd had a feeling in his gut ever since First National that there would be no going back but he'd never said it because he didn't want Janet to hear it. The idea that she could get back to normal was all the hope she had. He knew better. Now he was seeing it in front of his face. He couldn't be the same person he was before. He couldn't stand back and let her or anyone else do the hard work. He needed to get his hands dirty.

"You know, I wondered when this was going to come for me," he tells her. "After all the hell you went through. Michael dealing with his mom and all that baggage. Holden's nervous breakdown. I always thought that some day I wasn't going to be able to stay out of this."

"You did the right thing, Luke."

"That's not the point." He replies. "I'm a lawyer, Janet. That's the game I play. That's the set of circumstances I can control. It's not that I don't care about the investigative part but you can handle that. You're strong enough to look it all in the face. I just have to look at the photos when it's over. Maybe it's selfish but I liked having that layer of security." Past tense because it's not coming back.

"It's not shameful to be afraid of the things you don't know." Janet's tone softens as she watches the way his body language has collapsed. "I'd love to pretend all my cases were as safe and simple as they used to be. But that's not the path I'm on now. Through fate and probably my own inherited bullheadedness I'm the one who started pushing the limits. It hasn't gotten easier. I'm still nervous every time I step out of my comfort zone. But this is one of those times I have to face that. And you're strong enough to face it too."

"You're right." Luke twists the ring she bought him on his finger. This is just another giant he has to slay. He's just doing it from the other side. He glances up at her almost apologetically. "You don't mind if I'm not okay?" he asks. "I might make a complete ass of myself sometimes."

"It's okay not to be okay." She smiles thinly. "My therapist taught me that."

Luke chuckles genuinely this time. He's forcing his brain to reform this situation around the things that he knows and that he can control. Pushing the problem to fit into the box he can handle. "Okay," he says. "Do what you need to do."

Janet settles her hands on her hips and sizes him up. Now she has to be an FBI agent and not his friend of eleven years. "I need to take an official statement from you," she informs him. "Document everything that you saw and heard on Friday night."

"Sure."

She can hear the resignation in his voice. "You need a minute?"

"Yeah, give me a second."

Janet nods and walks out of the room. "Fuck Bryan for inviting me to that party," he mutters as soon as she's gone. He could have been at home working on his cases or at a bar somewhere completely safe and uninvolved. Now he has to get involved in political bullshit with the off chance that someone tries to put a bullet in his head. For all the arrogance that Luke puts forward at work he's still human. He's pissed off and he's scared.

But he looks through the window and sees Janet. Luke reminds himself that she's been through a hell of a lot worse and she's always shown up anyway. If she can actually be shot and suffer the way she has and keep going he has no right to complain about this. He swallows those emotions down and goes through the door. It's time to put the new Luke Cameron to the test.

Current Mood: nervous

Entry tags:

one too many parties

one too many parties;
Luke Cameron has never liked parties, and that's almost his downfall.

He likes social situations well enough, but at a bar or in his apartment, where people are genuine and there's actual conversation. He hates the work parties, where everyone's putting on a front and trying to get something out of somebody else. Parties like the one at John Wexler's estate that his boss has dragged him to, which is why he's taken his beer and wandered out onto the patio.

He rubs at his forehead with a bored sigh. He gets it; Bryan goes to these parties because he's trying to keep a profile in the political world, and he brings Luke because Luke is his favorite son. Luke understands Bryan wants a friend and so he keeps his bitching to a minimum. But on this specific night he's had enough and he's going to finish his drink by himself, in silence.

Maybe it's because he's alone but Luke glances around the expansive backyard. Even in the dark it's impressive. But on the other side of the patio, illuminated just enough at the fringe of the lights, he spots Wexler in mid-conversation with somebody else. Luke doesn't think much of it until he sees Wexler handing the other man what looks like a stack of cash. That's not something usual at these types of parties, especially when Wexler is supposed to be raising support for a senator's re-election campaign. Something's wrong and Luke knows it.

He has the common sense to slip his cell phone out of his back pocket and take a furtive picture. He knows exactly who to ask about his suspicions and he knows that she'll answer. No matter what the state of their relationship, even when she's pissed at him, Janet always takes his call.

He dials her from his car when he's on the freeway back into the city.

"Why are you calling me this late?" she asks.

"Because I need to see you." Luke exhales tightly. "I think I've just seen a crime."

He could tell her over the phone but he wants to do it in person. He wants to look her in the eyes and have her tell him that he's either full of shit or that she believes him. Luke doesn't care which but he needs that face to face affirmation. He explains the basics and then forty minutes later he's interrupting her evening to show her the photo. "I have no idea who the hell that is," he says of the other man. "But that's definitely Wexler and he handed this guy a stack of cash."

"Maybe he owed someone money. He wouldn't be the first political player with a gambling debt," Janet replies, rolling ideas over in her head. Luke has a point about it being strange to have cash exchanging hands at a party where business is done by check. Especially outside which suggests that Wexler didn't want other people to know about it. "But who invites their bookie to a party? Unless the guy invited himself."

"I don't know that either. It just didn't sit right with me so I thought I'd ask you. Can you make inquiries without pissing someone off?"

"I can try." She bites her lip. "I can at least try to clean up the photo."

Because asking questions around John Wexler will naturally arouse suspicion from Wexler or his broad circle of associates. She knows that from her experience handling the Wallace case and other politically connected fraud stories. Janet appraises Luke for a moment. She's asked him to do her a favor before with looking into Kyle Seaton, so she owes him one. And she shares his instinct to err on the side of caution rather than risk letting a bad guy get away. She can take a few minutes to soothe his nerves after almost eleven years of friendship.

"I'll take this into work in the morning," she promises. "See what I can do and I'll text you if I find anything. Why don't you go home and try not to think about it."

"Trust me, I'm already asking if I just confused myself because I was drinking." Luke chuckles ruefully but he knows one drink isn't enough to impair his vision or his judgment that badly. He does give his ex-girlfriend a small smile. "Thanks, Janet," he says honestly before he leaves her to the rest of her evening. Holden won't be thrilled that he interrupted and Luke wants to calm down before he gets too paranoid. With everything he's been through recently his brain is now just expecting worst-case scenarios.

He's not expecting Janet to wake him up three and a half hours later. "Get dressed," she tells him. "I'm picking you up in twenty minutes."

"What happened?" he asks although he's also not arguing with her, already climbing out of bed to grab new clothes. One thing he learned over their almost six-year relationship was not to argue with Janet when she has that tone to her voice.

"The Bureau just got a call. John Wexler's house just blew up."

Luke is wide awake now. "What?" he says, doing the math in his head that he knows she's already done. He witnesses a suspicious transaction with a mystery man at Wexler's home and less than five hours later the house goes up in flames. "That sounds like insurance fraud."

"If what you told me is right, I think so. I'm going to jump this call and find out." Janet affirms. She can go down to the scene and see if anything supports Luke's theory but if she's going to repeat that theory to other agents she ought to have her witness there to prove it. And if this does look like fraud then it automatically becomes a financial crimes case anyway. The uneasy feeling in Luke's gut is a full-blown knot now. Anytime politics is involved it makes any of their cases turn into a firestorm.

"Janet, I'm sorry," he feels compelled to say. "If I've gotten you into something."

"You don't have to apologize. This is my job," she reminds him. "But I hope your investigative skills are as good as your instincts, because you're in this now." Now he's not just a prosecutor, he's a potential whistleblower—and if he's not careful, he could be a target.