Bunraku

Disclaimer: As much as I wish Law & Order: Criminal Intent was mine, it is not. But since the actual writers and producers won't get Bobby and Alex together, it's up to us, the fans, to do so.

Chapter 1: Wake-Up Call

A man walked into a bar. This late at night, there were only a few people still there, most of them sitting quietly, nursing liquor and contemplating their individual lives.

The young man rubbed his eyes as he took a seat at the bar, as far from any other patron as possible. The bartender, a young woman with sleek black hair in a long ponytail, finished pouring a beer for a man at the end of the counter, then came toward the newcomer. "Usual tonight, Victor?" she asked.

"I'll just get some coffee right now, Molly."

"Coming up."

He watched her as she turned away to pour the coffee. He was going to miss her; she was the best view in the bar. "The boss wants to talk to you before work tomorrow," he mentioned.

"Did he say what about?" she asked as she set the mug in front of him. She sounded unconcerned. The bitch was a good actress. He wondered what her real name was.

"I'm sure it's nothing bad. Maybe there was a complaint or something. When do you get off work?"

"Half an hour," she answered, glancing at her watch and stifling a yawn.

Victor nodded to himself, thinking about the weight of the concealed gun in his jacket. Half an hour: how long she had to live.

Alex Eames twitched as the insistent ringing of her phone yanked her from sleep. She glanced at the glowing numbers of the bedside clock and groaned. It could only be work. "Eames," she said into the phone.

"Good morning, Detective," it was Captain Ross's voice.

"Doesn't feel like it. What's going on?"

"There will be an FBI agent stopping by your house in ten minutes. I wanted to give you a head's up."

She sat up in bed. "FBI? What the hell is going on?"

"I'll explain when we get there." He hung up.

A little less than ten minutes later, Eames' doorbell rang. She pulled herself away from the calming gurgle of her coffee maker and answered it. The square of light opened into the early morning, revealing Ross and a man she didn't know.

"Detective Eames, this is Special Agent Hadrian King." Ross didn't look any happier about being up this early than Eames was. Less, in fact. Which concerned her.

Agent King, a muscular man of average height with crew-cut black hair and a dusting of freckles, didn't look particularly enthusiastic either. "I'm sorry to get you up at this hour, Detective Eames, but when I explain the situation I think you'll understand."

She grudgingly invited them inside. "Would you like some coffee?"

The FBI agent nodded. "Yes. Thanks."

"I've already had my maximum dose this morning, thank you," said Ross.

Eames tried to guess why Ross and an FBI agent would pay her a secret visit at three a.m. Her tired mind couldn't even posit an unlikely explanation. She handed Agent King his coffee and waited expectantly.

He leaned forward, his hands wrapped around the mug resting on the coffee table. "Last week, we lost contact with an undercover officer in Atlantic City. On Monday her body was found at a garbage dump, shot execution-style in the back of the head. She had been working at a bar that belonged to one of the most dangerous gangsters in New Jersey."

She glanced at Ross. "And what does that have to do with me?"

"To avoid having the undercover officer recognized by the local criminals, we brought in a cop from out of town. Her name was Margo Suzuki. I understand you knew her?"

Eames sat up straighter, frowning. "She was a rookie in Vice right before I left. I helped train her. She was a good kid; I'm sorry that she went out that way. But I still don't understand why this couldn't have waited."

"The man she was investigating is named Bob Dwight," King continued. "I believe that should also ring a bell?"

She tensed at the name. "I met him when I was working undercover in Vice. I was doing a prostitution sting when he asked me if I wanted to make some extra money doing some delivery jobs for him. I told him I'd think about it. After clearing it with my captain, I went to work for Dwight. We didn't get anything useful out of it. And I left without blowing my cover." She was beginning to see where this might be going, and she didn't like it.

"If Dwight found out Margo was a cop and had her killed, he's going to be on the lookout for more undercovers. We've got to take him down, and we think it would be easier if we had someone on the inside, someone he already knew and wouldn't be as suspicious of."

"Me."

King nodded.

"When I knew him, Dwight was a small-time pimp and drug dealer. How'd he get the FBI's attention?"

"He owns a casino and hotel in Atlantic City that he uses as a front for a prostitution ring, as well as the headquarters for a counterfeiting operation. He has his hands in a number of drug rings and shady land deals, and recent financial transactions Margo reported make us think he's about to expand, maybe out of state. Not to mention, he killed a cop."

"I get it," Eames nodded. "But why all the secrecy?"

"We think there's someone in law enforcement leaking information to him. We keep setting up raids that he keeps finding out about in advance, and we believe that's how Margo's cover was blown, which means his source may be in the NYPD. We need to make sure no one outside this room finds out who we send in next. I needed to brief your captain, of course, because if you had stopped showing up to work without explanation it would have been too suspicious. If you agree to help us, we'll leave for Atlantic City this morning."

Eames looked to Ross again. He didn't meet her eyes. "I need to talk to Bobby. I need to explain this."

"Bobby?" King looked questioningly at Ross.

"Her partner, Detective Goren," he explained.

"No," the FBI agent said. "We can't let anyone in on her assignment who doesn't absolutely need to know."

"If I can't talk to my partner about it, I'm not going," she insisted.

Ross turned to Agent King. "If you're worried that Goren will let it slip that Eames is undercover, don't be. For various reasons, he doesn't have many friends in the NYPD. And he's dealt with this kind of thing before."

"We don't have time to brief him. We need to leave as soon as possible."

"I'll talk to him today," Ross assured Eames.

"Promise me," she said, "that you'll tell him this wasn't my idea, and that I have to do this for Margo."

He nodded solemnly.

"Okay." She turned to the FBI agent. "I'll go."