Chapter Text
Saikhan is shooting them weird looks as they enter the building together, carrying identical bags. Whatever. Half the guys here bring their lunches in sacks, it’s not a big deal. Lin glares at him and he looks away, but it doesn’t wipe the smirk off his face. Asshole.
“Briefing room,” she grunts at him. “Bring a couple of other people. Uh… Minato, Hikaru, Lie Jie… Xinyi, Botan-”
“Botan’s out sick,” Saikhan informs her, and she growls.
“Find someone else then. An hour.”
She strolls into her office and slams the door shut. Saikhan’s gaze slowly drifts towards Mako, his eyebrow raised, but the firebender shrugs at him, dropping his lunch onto his table and heading to the break room. They’re gonna need coffee, and a lot of it, if they want to get through this morning.
She’s stewing over a map of the Downtown area when he turns up with the coffee. She takes it with a grunt of thanks as Mako starts looking over the map.
“They’ve struck an art gallery, a mansion uptown, and a Future Industries factory where they manufacture Satomobiles,” Lin recaps, and Mako groans, running a hand over his eyes.
“So that about narrows it down to every building in the Downtown area,” he surmises. Lin snorts, but then taps a finger on her chin.
“You know… not necessarily,” she muses. She flips through the stack of papers on her desk until she pulls out the inventories of all the things stolen from the previous robberies. “What do they all have in common?” she asks, pushing the papers over to Mako.
The Detective scans over the items and his brow furrows, drawing a blank. “Uh, nothing.”
“The Green Mantis art gallery, the Ou Yang mansion, and a Future Industries factory,” she repeats, slowly, in a manner that makes him think she might be trying to lead him to an answer.
“I… I mean, I guess these are all kind of… high profile targets. And other than the gallery, they make no sense with their old MO.”
“We need to disregard their old MO right now,” Lin tells him, waving a hand as though she’s physically dismissing the notion. “That’s going to draw us down the wrong path. You’re right. They’re high-profile targets.”
“So, I guess they’ll be looking for an equally high-profile target to strike at tonight,” Mako begins to stroke at his chin. There’s a little stubble there and he grimaces as the bristles itch his fingertips. He really should keep a shaving blade on him at all times, in case he ever needs to shave at work again. Lin shoots him a small smirk.
“Talk to Saikhan,” she tells him. “He always keeps a razor in his desk.”
Mako nods, feeling his ears heat a little, as he turns back to the map. He picks up a couple of pins from the pot on the desk and sticks them in a few places around the map.
“These places could be potential targets. Another art gallery, the museum of natural history, and a jewellery store around the corner that I’m told is very fancy.”
Lin raises an eyebrow at him. “Who told you about Ishikawa’s?”
He shrugs defensively as his cheeks, just recently cooled from thirty seconds ago, start to warm again. “Ah, Asami,” he answers, but the interested look on Lin’s face lets him know she doesn’t believe him for a second.
“They won’t strike an art gallery again.”
“Wait, why?” Mako blinks confusedly. Lin removes the pin from the art gallery and places it back in the pot.
“I think they’re deliberately trying to avoid hitting the same type of place twice. Otherwise, they’d have hit up the one in the Phoenix District. And there’s nothing of value in the museum, the new Fire Nation exhibit isn’t coming for another two weeks. I’d bet good money saying they’re going to hit up the jewellery store next. Good work, kid.”
Mako blinks and smiles a little. He’s not sure what he’s done, and he definitely didn’t figure out anything Lin hadn’t already thought of, but the praise warms him, nonetheless.
“Okay,” Lin clears her throat. “Let’s talk about strategy.”
“Who are you?” Lin grunts at the only other person in the briefing room as she strides in. She’s five minutes early, but the fact that nobody else she’d requested is here is mildly irritating.
“Uh, Dewei, Chief.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” she remarks. “You new?”
“Just out of the academy, Chief,” he nods. “I’ve learnt a lot these past few weeks.”
“Did Saikhan bring you in here?”
The kid nods, and Lin notices he stands a little straighter. He’s nervous. He should be. Why Saikhan would bring a rookie into this is beyond her. Are they that short on Detectives right now?
“Well, okay,” she clears her throat. “Mako will take you over the details of the case later if there’s anything you miss. Just, uh… try to keep up.”
He takes a seat as the others start to filter into the briefing room. Mako hands her another cup of coffee as he passes, and she nods to him in appreciation. She takes a sip and resists the urge to down it. She is getting too old to be staying up half the night like she had.
“Alright,” she nods, turning to the board. “So, here’s the plan.”
It’s quite simple. They wait in a Satovan outside Ishikawa’s, wait for the crew to break into the store and block the front, with another crew, led by Lieutenant Minato, covering the back exit. Saikhan and the rookie will be left to get the getaway driver, and backup will be waiting around the corner.
It seems far too simple to her. Even given the sloppiness of the last couple of jobs, this feels like child’s play when it comes to catching a man who evaded her and all her predecessors for nearly three decades. What in the name of the Spirits is this man playing at? For someone called ‘the Phantom,’ he’s leaving a ridiculous trail at every scene. Is he just toying with them? But his behaviour is so erratic that it would suggest desperation. A headache is beginning to throb behind her eyes and she presses a thumb to her forehead, sighing as she downs the dregs of her coffee.
“You look like shit,” Saikhan comments, a touch of concern in his tone, as their underlings filter out. Lin shoots him a glare, but he just rolls his eyes. After nearly 20 years on the force, most of them working under her, he’s more than used to her shit.
“How sweet,” she comments dryly, pushing past him to head down to the records room. There are several things about this whole affair that just don’t add up and it’s bugging her.
(It’s Mako’s case and she’s supposed to be letting him handle this but there is something about the Phantom that she just can’t ignore. Maybe it’s the thought of the sense of achievement she’d feel if she managed to catch the man her mother never could.)
She nods to the officer on duty, who lets her through to the room, and it takes her a good few minutes to find the file. It’s thick, paper yellowed and fragile, like it might fall apart if she touches it too heavily. The older reports are duplicated, copies in the tactile script that her mother most assuredly never met - she always had an annoying memory and an extreme aversion to paperwork (although Lin could hardly blame her). She easily pulls the box off the shelf and heads back up to the floor.
Mako’s asleep at his desk. Lin rolls her eyes and slams the box down on his desk. The boy’s head shoots up from the desk almost comically, as he slurs, “I’m awake.”
Lin frowns down at him, unimpressed. “Go home, kid. I’m gonna need you in good shape for this evening.”
Mako frowns. “What- no- Chief, I’m fine, I swear-”
“You fell asleep at your desk,” she tells him. “After four cups of coffee,” she gestures to the stack of mugs that she’s lucky she didn’t knock over. “Go home , kid.”
“You could do with some sleep, too.”
She doesn’t know if the familiarity is because he’s tired, or because of what happened last night, or both, but it makes Lin bristle as the guys at the desks near him stop writing, stop moving, stop breathing.
“Going home,” he nods, standing and grabbing his coat off the back of his chair.
She scowls at the look Saikhan shoots her, snatching the box up from Mako’s desk and glaring at her secretary as she stalks back into her office.
Her fifth cup of coffee is being placed on her desk within four minutes.
As loathe as she is to admit it, the kid might have had a point. She wakes up to her secretary shaking her shoulder, a hot tea in one hand. Sighing, she blinks the film from her eyes and accepts the mug, stretching the cricks out of her neck and shoulders. She turns back to the report she’d fallen asleep reading.
The kid who wrote this is relatively new to report writing, and it shows. It’s very light on details, and she’ll have to schedule a meeting to stress the importance of accurate and detailed report writing because she’s going to have to send someone else down to take more accurate statements. This, quite frankly, is a mess.
All she can tell is some butchers on the outskirts of town have had their warehouses broken into and some kind of goods stolen. And sure, it’s a theft, and it’s unlikely they’ll ever be able to find the stolen goods, but if you can make a mistake on an easy case like this, you can make a mistake on something far more complex and it’ll have much more disastrous results. She sighs and casts the report aside, resolving to handle this later. It’s nearing sunset now, and she should be heading out to the meeting point.
There’s a twinge in her side as she stands and she groans, her hand coming up to cup it involuntarily. She really ought to stop falling asleep at her desk like this.She reaches around to grasp the backrest of her chair and twists her back in the other direction, letting out a sharp, relieved breath as several cracks bounce off the walls of the room. Lin stands and shakes out her back, and her movements feel a lot more smooth than they had a second ago. She thrusts her arms out and bends her armour onto herself, checking that everything is in working order before stepping out of her office and locks it behind her. She’s a little late leaving for the rendezvous, but she’s confident she’ll still arrive in plenty of time.
Casting her eyes across the bullpen, she sees that most of the night shift are now filtering in, some loitering in the doorway to the breakroom and around each other’s desks. There are some murmurs and shifty looks towards the desk that’s Mako’s during the day, and Lin looks over to find Dewei hunched over, scanning a piece of paper and muttering to himself. She frowns and walks over to the Officer.
“Did you not leave with the others?” she asks, and the man visibly starts.
“Chief!” he exclaims. “Oh, uh, no- they went to get dinner, but I wanted to read up some more.”
He gestures to the notes in front of him. They’re a mixture of Mako’s hurried scrawl and a neat script she doesn’t recognise – presumably Dewei’s.
“Your son came back an hour ago, gave me a few pointers. This is my first big bust and-”
Lin doesn’t hear the rest of the kid’s words because they’ve slowly faded out to white noise. Her what? The rookie realises he’s said something wrong, because by the time the bullpen filters back into existence, he’s watching her with a wary look.
“My what ?” she manages to spit out eventually, and she sees the colour drain from the poor officer’s face. But clearly, he doesn’t hear the subtle threatening undercurrent to her words, because firmly lodges his foot into his mouth.
“Oh, I- uh, Detective Mako, Chief.”
Lin pins the officer with a glare she would normally reserve for perps and watches the lump in his throat bob as he gulps, visibly shrinking.
“Detective Mako is not my son,” she grits out through her teeth. “Get your coat, I’m leaving in five whether your ass is in the seat or not.”
With that, she turns and heads for the exit. Somehow, this is Kya’s fault. The woman had spoken this ridiculous idea into existence and now it even follows her to work. She testily opens the door to the Satomobile and throws herself into the driver’s seat. A part of her hopes that this will be the last she hears of it, but she knows the encounter is bound for the station rumour mill. It’ll soon be everywhere.
Less than two minutes later, Dewei straps himself into the passenger seat, and they drive to the rendezvous point in uncomfortable silence.
Something is off about the Chief as she and Dewei arrive at the van. She doesn’t look at him more than necessary, and her words are shorter, more abrupt than usual. Mako likes to think he’s starting to get a pretty good grip on figuring out the Chief’s moods, but this one has him stumped. The way he spoke back to her earlier might have annoyed her, but she doesn’t seem angry, or frustrated. It’s a mood he’s never seen the Chief in before. A part of him feels like he should pull her aside; check in on her. A bigger part of him realises that this weird day aside, this is his Chief he’s thinking about and any attempts to ask about her wellbeing will not end well for him.
“Report,” she says, pulling Mako out of his thoughts, and he launches into the brief observations they’ve made so far.
“Owner locked up about twenty minutes ago. Street’s mostly been quiet given that it’s a commercial part of town. Only thing of note is a Satomobile that’s passed by three times. They didn’t seem lost – slowed down as they drove past the store each time. The undercover officers you dispatched at lunch said they’d seen the same Satomobile a couple times since they arrived, too.”
The Chief nods, but she’s not looking at him. Instead, she’s sat on the bench and looking into the viewfinder of the periscope attached to the Satovan.
It’s a new prototype of Asami’s, something that Future Industries and the RCPD have been collaborating on. He’s never been in a van that’s had one before and he and a couple of the other detectives had taken turns looking into it gleefully as they arrived. He’s been itching to have a chance to try it out, after hearing about other detectives singing its praises.
There’s a period of waiting where Mako finds himself getting restless. A radio sits by the periscope, occasionally crackling to life with reports from around the city. Other than that, there’s silence in the van. It’s a taut, anticipatory silence, everyone waiting to spring into action. Dewei’s leg won’t stop jiggling and Lie Jie’s incessant gum chewing starts to get to him and he wonders how the Chief hasn’t snapped yet. She seems to be singularly focused on the periscope, as though she can see and hear nothing else.
When he’s about to turn around and scold his fellow detective, the Chief finally speaks up.
“Satomobile’s pulling up.”
She stands and Hikaru takes her place at the periscope as the rest of them shuffle towards the back of the van, waiting for the signal.
There’s absolute silence for about thirty seconds, no one daring so much as to even breathe as they stand at the doors. Then Hikaru gives the signal and they’re bundling out of the van.
Saikhan and another detective break off and head for the getaway vehicle. Some of the detectives hang back to bring up an earthen perimeter as he, the Chief and a couple of others filter in the front door one by one.
The would-be thieves freeze for a moment as the Chief barks at them to get on the ground. Within the blink of an eye, one of them is grabbing something from his belt. He throws it to the ground and smoke fills the air. Mako coughs, immediately bringing his shirt up over both nose and mouth. All he can hear is confused yells and the sounds of shuffling, and spirits, wouldn’t an airbender be handy right about now?
There’s the creaking sound of earth rising, the scraping sounds of metal being bent, and Mako’s trying hard to focus as he hears a painful cry and someone shoulders their way past him. He makes an attempt to grab the person, but he finds the floor underneath him moving and the guy is gone. He hopes someone outside will manage to catch the escapee.
The air is beginning to clear, and Mako blinks rapidly, trying to focus on the scene in front of him. Though his eyes are still watering slightly from the irritation, he can just about see three perps are caught in carefully constructed tent-like structures. Mako hurries forward, ready to slap some cuffs on them, when he hears a groan from the floor. Looking down, he sees the Chief curled up, her hand clutching her shoulder which should not be bent that way.
“Officer down!” Mako calls out, falling to his knees and coughing on the last word. There’s still some smoke in his lungs and he can feel his throat burn. He knows absolutely nothing about first aid, but he’s determined to at least make sure it’s nothing life-threatening.
“Chief, what-”
“Don’t worry about me,” she grunts. “Secure the perps.”
Mako nods, getting to his feet again and placing cuffs on the perps’ wrists, reading them their rights with one eye on the Chief.
The new kid, Dewei, approaches the Chief. Mako’s about to call out to him, to tell him that’s probably not a good idea, when he sees the glowing blue hand to the rookie’s left and he pauses.
Huh. He never would’ve guessed the rookie was a waterbender.
“Keep that away from me,” the Chief growls, obviously having seen the same glow Mako had.
“Uh-” the man hesitates, before straightening his spine. “With all due respect, Chief, I will not. I’m a healer trained-”
“-I don’t give a crap; you’re not healing me-”
“ Trained, ” Dewei cuts across, and Mako flashes his eyes at the rookie in warning. Never, ever , talk back to the Chief, but Agni , definitely not when she’s in pain . “-by Master Katara.”
The Chief pauses for a moment then, and she purses her lips, letting out a quiet hiss. “Shoulder is dislocated. Might’ve bruised my hip,” she grunts. Satisfied, the man kneels beside the Chief and gets to work.
Saikhan comes through the door to assess the situation, and judging by the grim look on his face, he’s not bringing good news.
“One slipped past us,” he says bitterly as he frees their perps from their earthen holds. “Get these guys into the van.”
He stops and kneels by the Chief, raising an eyebrow at the rookie currently attending to her. Leaving his superiors and the rookie be, Mako starts to bring the perps out to the van, aided by a couple of other detectives. A crowd is starting to gather now, with a couple of beat cops setting up a police line. A man, who Mako thinks might be Ishigawa, is speaking to a couple of uniforms at the perimeter, so Mako approaches briskly.
“You the shop owner?” he asks the worried looking old man, who confirms. Mako nods to the beat cops, who let the man under the tape.
“I’m Detective Mako,” he introduces himself. “We managed to catch most of the thieves, and there isn’t too much damage inside. It doesn’t look like they’ve taken anything, but the crime scene team will be here soon and they’ll have a better look at things. If you could provide us an inventory list, it would be greatly appreciated.”
He leads the man into the shop, to the Chief, who is looking a lot better for the in-the-field healing session. He tucks this bit of information away for future reference, and makes a mental note to make sure Saikhan knows, too. The Chief nods to him, then starts talking to the old man, as Mako heads back out to the van.
Lin can’t believe she let one get past her. The smoke hadn’t phased her in the slightest, her seismic sense allowing her to map out her surroundings with ease, but she hadn’t counted on such a skilled earthbender being part of their team. By the time she’d trapped and located three, he’d already struck, a blow to her knee and her shoulder bringing her down and letting him barrel past her. At that point, there had been a series of failures that let him get away, and she notes it as something to review when the case is closed. A breach like that could lead to something very dangerous indeed, and while in this situation she doesn’t think the perpetrator would harm civilians, she can’t be so sure of the next time.
She sighs roughly as she leaves the interrogation room. The guys in there are young. Smug. And they won’t say a word. They’re going to be going away, but there’s technically nothing that can tie them to the other crimes apart from suspicion, so unless they find some evidence, they’ll be doing minimal time. And although they’re young, dumb idiots, they’ve clearly been told that the less they say, the better off they’ll be, because neither she nor Saikhan can get a peep out of them.
And the Phantom?
Nowhere to be seen.
Mako’s eyes flick up to hers quickly and keenly as she re-enters the bullpen, but his face falls only moments later, realising the interrogation hadn’t gone well.
“We’re back where we started,” she grunts to him as she passes, striding into her office and slumping down in her chair, letting out a groan as her hip and shoulder twinge.
The rookie did a good job, she has to admit. But the older she gets, the harder it is to do away with the aches and pains that have built up over the years. She needs a long soak in a warm bath and a good book to take her mind off things. Yawning, she looks down to her paperwork, and begins to write out her report.
It feels like only moments later when Mako shakes her awake. She notes dimly that he shakes her right shoulder, either accidentally or knowingly choosing the one that wasn’t injured.
“Chief,” he murmurs gently. “You should go home. Get some rest.”
Lin swipes a hand over her eyes and squints up at him, before pulling her reading glasses off her face and letting her eyes refocus. She looks at the clock, then back to Mako.
It’s late, but all things considered, not unreasonably so. Still, she supposes, she didn’t get much sleep last night and she’s been injured. Looking down at her report, she frowns. She’d not written much more than a paragraph before falling asleep.
“I need to finish my report,” she tells him curtly, picking up her pen again, and ignoring the sharp pain that shoots down her left arm as she does so.
Somehow, though, Mako sees through her, and gives her an unimpressed look. “Chief, you’ve got the best memory of anyone I’ve ever met. You’re not going to forget any details between now and tomorrow morning. And if you do, there’ll be a dozen accounts of the same incident. You can do it tomorrow.”
He doesn’t tell her again, knows he’s toeing a line and that might just take him over the edge. But she sighs, setting down her pen. Lin folds her glasses and places them back in their case before standing, stretching out her back and feeling her joints pop as she does so.
“Finish your report and then head home,” she tells him firmly. “We’re not going to get anything new done tonight, and we’ve got more time. He’ll need to recruit a new team. I want to see you well-rested tomorrow morning, Detective.”
He gives her a nod, turning and leaving the office. Lin’s shoulders slump as she heads to the coatrack to grab her jacket. She’s not exactly sure when Mako made it into the ranks of people that could get away with bossing her around, but it seems like he’s there.
Surprisingly, she’s okay with that.