mandatory recording | autostart | reason: inter-agency meeting in clean zone | office 00-A

.start transcript

FRANCISCO
Miller, and uh, Anderson, isn’t it? From the upstairs FBI Violent Crimes Task Force.

ANDERSON
Thanks for meeting with us. It’s just Sarah and Carl—we’ve met before on the range. I knew you had an office here; I didn’t know it was on the Secret Squirrel floor.

FRANCISCO
Yes, my part-time windowless den of gloom and cyber.

MILLER
That security is something else. I was half expecting Bruno to ask for a stool sample.

FRANCISCO
Most of it is to prevent your electronics from getting auto-hacked. We got a bit tired of buying everybody new phones when some bug in our sniffer bricked them.

MILLER
Sarah is very fond of her iPhone, so that’s good. It’s like her pet cat.

ANDERSON
Says the man who texts like a teenage girl.

MILLER
The girls call it snappn or insta. Text is now old school.

ANDERSON
There you go again, alluding that I’m old. Speaking of old, Daniel says you did us a big solid at the Chief’s house. We got a few questions about that.

FRANCISCO
Oh, it’s going to be one of those interviews.

MILLER
You would not believe the heat on this one.

FRANCISCO
I can imagine.

ANDERSON
Although there is not enough heat to expand the Seattle Violent Crimes department with more than two special agents.

FRANCISCO
Ouch. You two are it? For Seattle?

MILLER
Daniel has more budget than we do, and he’s just a geek with a gun.

ANDERSON
Hey, he’s a family man. And nice. Unlike you. Anyway, this is less of an interview and more of an SOP. So, let’s start with who you are. You’re a DoD Cyber dude, right? What is that, exactly?

FRANCISCO
To be blunt, the fun parts are classified, although, by the cell coverage maps of Bremerton, Whidbey Island, and JBLM on the wall, you can guess I’m involved with protecting our, um, spicier hardware. One example would be bad actors using hacks through the internet.

MILLER
Wha? I thought the spicy military stuff was all on a closed network.

FRANCISCO
Yeah, but the people aren’t exclusive to that net. Everyone’s on the internet, like your iPhones. Get it?

ANDERSON
Ooh. So, you’re into the cool stuff at DISA.

MILLER
Dee-sa?

FRANCISCO
Defense Information Systems Agency.

MILLER
Got it. I would look it up on my phone, but the guard pretending to be a receptionist took it.

ANDERSON
But one time, I saw you in a police uniform.

FRANCISCO
Gah, it's the annual uniform inspection day. My boss does it to make fun of me. I’m also a sworn officer, technically a Special Agent of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service under the Deputy Inspector General for Investigations.

ANDERSON
Ah, that’s why I always see you doing qualifications on the range.

MILLER
So, we’re all special here.

FRANCISCO
Almost as special as Sarah’s range scores.

ANDERSON
Hey!

MILLER
Not to white knight, but she’s hell on wheels with the M4 and MP5.

ANDERSON
Bah. What I really want for duty carry is a nickel-plated sissy gun, but that’s verboten.

FRANCISCO
All the cool toys are.

MILLER
So, back to SOP, how do you know Bryce Taylor?

FRANCISCO
Both through church and my wife’s old job. Bryce and Stephanie worked out of the same Sheriff's office.

MILLER
Which one?

FRANCISCO
Sammamish—the sheriff provides the town with police services.

ANDERSON
Your wife was a Sheriff's Deputy?

FRANCISCO
Yeah, after our youngest turned sixteen and didn’t need to be driven around anymore, she went to Burien and then specialized in S&R.

ANDERSON
Becoming LEO at her age must have been a big stretch. Commendable.

FRANCISCO
I wasn’t enthused about it, but she had a visionary plan to revamp S&R using a specialized dog breed, and in King County, the Sheriff does a lot of the S&R. It was going to be a direct partnership.

MILLER
You said, ‘old job.’

FRANCISCO
During COVID, she was forced out for telling the Chief he was retarded for making everyone mask and vax. Like, two days after her probation period was over. Sheriff Maxie didn’t back her play, and that was that. She left, and since she designed and paid for the dog, she took him with her.

ANDERSON
Oh, I like her.

FRANCISCO
Pish. I told her she could get away with not vaxing, and would a mask really damage her pride? Union rules protected her. She called me retarded, too.

ANDERSON
Girl Power!

FRANCISCO
Sad, really. She loved tromping in the wilderness with her tracking dog, and Sammamish loved having a cute, albeit older, woman with a handsome dog on all the websites.

MILLER
Insert some joke about telling a stubborn woman what to do.

ANDERSON
Don’t look at me when you say things like that, Buster.

MILLER
So, Bryce called you when Daniel said there were anomalies at the Chief’s house?

FRANCISCO
Bryce just went up and got me rather than calling. Yeah, Steph’s designer tracking dog and I went to the Chief’s house.

ANDERSON
What did you find?

FRANCISCO
A bunch of nothing.

MILLER:
Tell us about it.

FRANCISCO
I brought a field kit, ran a big sweep, and came up with bupkis. On one hand, Daniel was right—two separate camera systems, one CCT old school, go offline simultaneously. On the other hand, several UPS connected to computers, noting a power surge and a brownout. Daniel believed that it was connected to the girl’s disappearance.

MILLER
Do you have criminal investigation training?

FRANCISCO
Kinda. Only as it pertains to cyber crimes. But crime is a misnomer. “We,” as in the we with quote marks, consider the cyber, uh, issues, a form of warfare. So, while this skirts the edge of Classified, I have federal police powers mainly to reduce the time it takes to locate red hats on American soil. I’m a Guy-in-the-Chair, not a Field-Bro.

ANDERSON
Red hats?

FRANCISCO
Sorry, Red Hat is DISA-speak for hackers that go after military infrastructure or people.

MILLER
OK. Did your wife come along with you?

FRANCISCO
No, she was in Bellevue at a nerdy game con with the kids, followed by the mandatory-or-she-will-skin-you-alive Mom and Boys’ dinner.

ANDERSON
So, what happened after Daniel found the spaceship drawing and babysitter?

FRANCISCO
I was the one who found it. To me, it seemed off. Like, creepy off. Daniel immediately zeroed in on the grooming aspect of it.

ANDERSON
Daniel is a really smart dude. That’s exactly what it was.

MILLER
Yeah, he knows a surprising amount of domain in everyone’s department. What did the Chief and Bryce do after Daniel showed them the drawing?

FRANCISCO
I got the impression Daniel was running the show. Everyone had been up for, like, 24 hours or something. He told the Chief to dispatch a detective to talk to the babysitter. Bryce wanted to go, but the Chief sent him home to sleep. I then packed up my stuff and went home.

ANDERSON
All right. I’m curious—as a lifetime fed, what did you think of everything at that point?

FRANCISCO
I was legit creeped out.

ANDERSON
Like how?

FRANCISCO
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but after I saw that drawing, I wanted to go home and shower. And to think she really was kidnapped. Then, someone blows up the mansion and the babysitter’s shop with an upstairs apartment. I’m still creeped out—it’s like a bad 90s horror movie coming to life.

MILLER
Just between you and us, and only because this will hit the news soon—the babysitter and her family were not in the apartment when it all went up.

FRANCISCO
Holy crap. What an absolute crap fest this is.

ANDERSON
We’re guessing they high-tailed it to the mansion after the detective interview. And “crap fest” aren’t the words I would use, but close.

MILLER
Do you have any insight on why Bryce would not talk to us?

FRANCISCO
What? Why would he not do that?

ANDERSON
We don’t know. I know you guys aren’t close friends, but anything can help.

FRANCISCO
Well…

MILLER
You can tell us anything; we’re on Bryce’s side because there isn’t a side. It looks like Bryce uncovered a child sex trafficking ring among the rich folks. This needs to end with rich folks in jail.

ANDERSON
Assuming any are left after that explosion. And they need to rot in prison, not a quick death.

FRANCISCO
Bryce is a bit of an Alpha, yeah? So he’s not afraid of any alphabet boys. And if he isn’t talking, it’s because he doesn’t trust you—you as the government. Us. He’s a pretty smart dude. Maybe he saw something in the mansion that changed his worldview beyond the creepy child sex crime aspect of it.

ANDERSON
Oh, he saw something, alright. Like PTSD and not just from plugging bad guys “saw something.” I tried to talk to him on that aspect, and he brushed me off, but he’s obviously traumatized. I feel bad for him.

FRANCISCO
How does that work, anyway? I thought refusing to talk to the FBI was itself a crime.

MILLER
Oh, he’ll see us anytime we ask. And he brings along his lawyer. Some 6’6” dude that probably slurps roid for breakfast. And he and his lawyer plead the Fifth, and ex-SF-Lawyer-Man sits there like he’s contemplating throwing down just for fun.

ANDERSON
I tried telling him that he can help us unravel this network, but yeah, It’s obvious he doesn’t trust anybody.

FRANCISCO
Do you want me to talk to him? I might be able to convince him to cooperate.

MILLER
Tempting, but his lawyer will take any sworn officer speaking to him, active or even inactive, as a violation of this, that, and the other thing. We have enough trouble as it is.

FRANCISCO
Ah, you’re right. Got it.

ANDERSON
We don’t have any more questions—here’s our cards.

FRANCISCO
Hey, I’m lining up to retire with a double pension, and my civilian work has paid off in spades—let’s go to Dukes for lunch—my treat.

MILLER
Oh man, the Dukes oyster burger. We’re so in. Right? We’re in?

ANDERSON
Let’s have a couple of rounds and not talk about kid crimes or conspiracy theories coming true. Let’s talk about—guns.

FRANCISCO
My second favorite topic!

MILLER
What’s the first?

FRANCISCO
That would be God.

ANDERSON
What, your wife?

ALL
(laughter)

.end transcription | tags: fbi.anderson disa.francisco fbi.miller criminal investigation | deletion date: 09.23.2028