Undercover in LA

UNDERCOVER IN LA
FIRST DRAFT

CHAPTER ONE:

It would seem to most people that the Los Angeles Police Department's Gang Unit isn't the place for four happily married women, but that's exactly what you would see the second you step foot into the building. The new Undercover Gang Unit was set up at the downtown branch of the LAPD. When this unit was started almost a year ago, Megan Parker was asked to head up this unique task force. She had made sergeant after just one year on the force, and just a year after that, was pinning her detective badge to her belt every morning before heading to work. Her first hire for the squad was Dani Santos, who had come up in the department with Megan, and was even her first rookie trainee after making sergeant. Dani was a tomboy growing up, she knew four styles of martial arts, and had learned how to shoot a gun by the time she was twelve. She seemed to have LAPD written all over her from that time on, and that's all she wanted to do. After hiring Dani, Megan chose her next two members off of applications and word of mouth around the department. June McAdams was still in blues over at the South Central district, and although she was still raw and uncut, she had the most drug busts in the district out of all active uniform officers. Megan's last crew member actually came on recommendation from the captain himself. Jillian Starr graduated from the University of Louisville with a masters degree in psychology and a bachelors in criminal justice. She had started her career working for the FBI, and continued there up until the day she took the job as the fourth member of this all female Undercover Gang Unit. These four women together represent the best there is to offer in the greater Los Angeles area.

It was the day this experimental department was to kick off, and Megan was so excited for this new venture that she had hardly slept the night before. She showed up at the precinct hours before her three chosen colleagues were scheduled to arrive. She walked into the building, gazing in awe around her, noting how much larger it was than the last precinct she worked at. Her eyes stopped on a nearby door, where she saw a sign hanging that states "Undercover Gang Unit - Ranking Officer: Megan Parker." She felt a slight smirk brush across her face as she thought about all she had accomplished, all she had gone through to make it this far. She slowly walked towards her new office, making sure to greet everyone she passed along the way. She entered to find the room almost completely bare with a few strategically placed chairs and a desk with a five year old computer on top shoved in the far back corner. Continuing further into the room, she removed her coat, setting it and her purse on a plastic chair against the back wall. The first thing she brought out of her bag was all her certificates, making sergeant, commendations, and her favorite, the certificate that was awarded to her for her role in the task force that infiltrated the Columbian cartel in the community, bringing almost a hundred members in, which eventually lead to convictions. Megan sat down at the computer in the corner and proceeded to check her e-mail taking special care to read the department wide bulletin announcing the Undercover Gang Unit, including Megan and the rest of her handpicked crew. The door banged open suddenly, and she swung around in surprise to find Dani posed eloquently in the doorway.

"Megan and Dani together again! I brought you a mocha, NOT from Starbucks I might add, the best way to start your day right." Dani said as she strutted across the room and handed her new boss the coffee she brought.

Megan stood up and gave her old friend a hug. "Thank you so much, you don't know how hard it was for me to sleep last night, I was so excited for all of this," she stated, looking around at the rundown back room that was home to the newest specialized unit in Los Angeles.

"This is quite... something. Yeah we're going to have to go shopping, get a couch, maybe a chair, just, something! It sure looks like they're real excited about this new unit, throwing us in some back broom closet where everyone can see us." She threw her purse on the couch and collapsed into the eighties style lazy boy chair in the corner of the room, breathing a quick sigh of relief.

"It doesn't matter little miss Dani, this is where all the magic is going to happen, and neither the location nor the decoration will change that. All that matters is that it's ours, and with it we will change history."

Dani laughed lightly at Megan's statement. "Don't go rewriting the high school textbooks just yet, we're still the experimental unit in this department. Who knows what will happen in ninety days," she said as she tossed a small stuffed animal to her friend. "This is a good way to start off our new career together."

Megan smiled as they remembered the good old days riding in blue up in Inglewood. Dani always had a slight obsession with stuffed animals and had a few sitting around on her desk at any given moment. She would change them out every couple of weeks, so her entire collection would have a chance to spend a little quality time with her at the precinct. There was one that never left her desk though, because it had a special meaning to her. It was a present form her husband, something he bought down at the hospital gift shop in a hurry when their daughter was born. Dani's husband Greg has rushed into the shop looking for the biggest stuffed animal he could find in the undersized store, which just happened to be a big pink and white penguin. Ever since he came running into the hospital room with that oversized gift, their little girl Maria has carried the nickname penguin.

The two sat and reminisced about those days for about an hour before the next member of thise crime fighting quartet, June McAdams, walked through the door. June had just moved to LA about a year ago, and spent a good portion of her life growing up in the heart of New York City. She was the youngest of the group and also had the least amount of police force experience, though she had good instincts that have been very hard to find in new recruits in forces around the United States, and not just in LA. June McAdams may not sound like a woman with a troubled past, though ask anyone who knows her, and they would bet you anything that she has done more than one thing that would make you blush. She was arrested when she was seventeen for vandalizing the school, and was given two options come time for the trial, go to jail, or join the marines, of which she close the latter. Those four years she spent in the service really did wonders for June. While serving in Iraq she met her future husband, and as soon as they made it back to the states they made it official. Her time in the service is what ultimately got her a spot working for the department.

June poked her head in the door timidly. "Hey, June McAdams, I'm sure you remembered me. Am I late?"

Dani smiled and jumped out of her chair, almost racing toward June with her right hand extended. "Nope, right on time! I'm Dani Santos, I'm sure you already met Megan, so glad to have you aboard June."

The three of them sat around drinking coffee while telling jokes and old stories, patiently waiting for the remaining member of the squad. June told her new colleagues about her first day on the force. She had been back from the desert for about 3 months when she started with the LAPD. After the orientation lecture, which seemed to last forever, she was finally paired with a sergeant for some real life training. The only bad thing about her new trainer was he seemed so old, almost as if he might not be able to hear a word she said, or might even fall asleep in the car. Of course, the sergeant had June driving the patrol car while he answered the calls on the radio. She was cruising the streets during a particularly slow patch in the day, when a call came in for their car. After a minute or two the sergeant hadn't answered the call, so she turned to look at him, and realized that he had fallen asleep. A giggle escaped her mouth as she told the other two about her sergeant snoring, and how his mustache looked moving up and down to the tune of his breathing. She had to reach over and wake him up, and it took him a couple minutes after he opened his eyes to realize where he was, and who he was with. The three ladies sat around laughing hysterically just as Jillian walked in the door. She was the most experienced of the quartet, as she had spent her ten year career working under the watchful eye of various FBI details. The other ladies turned to the door as Jillian sauntered into the room in an expensive looking three piece suit, her hair pulled back tight and high, heels so high most women wouldn't dream of walking in them, and the black, wide rimmed glasses atop her head finished off the look. Her briefcase was packed full of papers, and looked like she planned on coming in and running the entire precinct, instead of getting down and dirty with a new elite gang fighting unit in the heart of LA. This recruit would definitely need some fine tuning to get her up to speed with the perils of fighting crime on the street, but her book smarts outweighed the rest of the girls substantially. With her car keys in hand she walked to the back of the room where the other three sat and pulled up a chair, shaking everyone's hand and making her very formal introductions.

"Jillian Starr, I'm a licensed nurse practitioner with a masters degree in psychology, special agent in charge of the FBI's Behavior Science Unit for the past two years now, nice to meet you all." She had a big smile on her face, and it looked to the rest of her colleagues like she was genuinely proud of her accomplishments, and wasn't trying to boast to anyone.