"When I was scouting St. Martin's Bank the other day, I saw a woman who looked exactly like the girl in that photo. I assume that's your sister, Mia?"
Lawson pointed at a framed picture of Dom and Mia hanging on the cafe wall.
Dom let out a visible breath, the tension leaving his shoulders.
"You've got a sharp eye, Jack. Yeah, Mia took a job at St. Martin's. She wanted to be our inside man and gather intel."
"Mr. Toretto, tell Mia to stop snooping immediately," Lawson said, his tone dead serious. "She just needs to put her head down, do her job, and act as our eyes. Nothing more."
Dom nodded firmly.
"Understood. I'll make sure she knows."
With that settled, the tactical briefing wrapped up. Lawson and Donnie walked out of the Toretto cafe together.
"Donnie, one last thing. Do you have a way to rapidly crack a massive volume of safe deposit boxes?"
"You want to open all of them?"
"Not all of them. I just need to find the bearer bonds Francis Ricci stashed, along with some ledgers."
Donnie thought it over for a second.
"I might be able to use a handheld rotary saw to cut straight through the locking mechanisms. But I'll need to run some tests first to make sure it won't trigger any secondary internal alarms."
"Do the tests. As soon as you have a confirmed method, report it to Mr. Lawson."
Lawson had originally planned to hitch a ride with Donnie since he hadn't driven today, but right as they reached Donnie's car, Lawson's burner phone buzzed.
Not wanting Donnie to see the screen, Lawson made an excuse and walked away down the block.
He answered the call.
"Hey, Auntie wants you to come home for dinner."
It was Neal's coded signal. Lawson immediately dropped the "Jack Cole" act and replied in his real voice.
"Sorry, Peter's not here."
"Lawson, I need to see you. We need to talk face-to-face."
"No problem. Where to?"
"The roof of the building at [Address Redacted]."
Lawson frowned at the address. It felt weirdly dramatic. Why were they meeting on a random rooftop like they were shooting a scene from The Departed?
He hadn't officially joined the Bureau yet, had he?
Still, Lawson didn't object. He doubted he was about to hear the "Goodbye, Police" soundtrack start playing.
Quickly swapping his face back to his real identity, Lawson made his way to the rendezvous point.
To ensure he wasn't followed, he intentionally left the Dodge Viper parked blocks away and ran a brutal, multi-block countersurveillance route before entering the building.
But ironically, Lawson wasn't the one being followed. Neal was.
Up on the roof, Neal was sitting on an AC unit, smoking a cigarette. He looked like he'd been waiting a while.
"Lawson. You're late."
"Can't be helped. The Bonanno civil war is heating up. My position is getting sensitive, and I'm pretty sure someone is watching me."
Neal nodded. He'd been keeping tabs on the Bonannos and had a decent grasp of the pressure cooker Lawson was currently sitting in.
"Is it serious?"
"Manageable. As long as you don't keep calling me out for meetings every day."
"Lawson, once you see what I brought, you won't complain about this meeting."
"Oh? Is that right?" Lawson looked highly skeptical.
Smiling smugly, Neal unzipped his leather briefcase and pulled out a manila folder.
"Take a look at this."
Lawson opened the folder. Inside was a complete, official FBI Probationary Agent personnel file.
It had his name, his photo, and a perfectly fabricated employment history. The only things missing were his signature and the final Bureau stamp.
"This is..."
"Your FBI credentials," Neal said proudly. "All you have to do is sign your name and get the final stamp, and you are officially a Probationary Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Lawson genuinely didn't expect Neal to actually pull this off. He looked up, his tone half-joking.
"This isn't a forgery, is it?"
Knowing Neal, faking federal documents wasn't entirely out of the question. The guy wasn't exactly a boy scout.
"Absolutely not! I swear to God, it's 100% authentic!"
Lawson wouldn't believe Neal if he swore on his own mother's life, let alone God's.
"Alright, Neal. Just remember: if you're playing me, you will never get another scrap of intel from me as long as you live."
"I'm telling you, it's real! You have to trust me!"
Lawson slid the papers back into the folder and handed it back.
"I'll reserve my trust for when I see the badge. Was there anything else?"
"About those ledgers you mentioned..."
"I've got a solid lead on their location," Lawson said, cutting him off. "But the location is... awkward. I'm working on a solution."
Neal's eyes lit up. He threw out a probe.
"Awkward? Maybe the FBI can help solve that problem!"
"The FBI can't help me with this. Francis Ricci hid the ledgers in a place that only he can access. And since he's currently dead, that makes things complicated."
Lawson's riddles frustrated Neal.
"What do you mean, a place only he can access?"
"Neal, you know I can't give you specifics right now."
"Fine. You get your hands on those ledgers, bring them to me, and I will personally stamp this file and hand you your badge right in front of you."
"That sounds perfect, Neal! The only issue is... the methods I have to use to retrieve those ledgers might not be strictly legal."
Neal finally understood why Lawson was being so cryptic. But honestly, Neal bent the law to close cases all the time. He wasn't one to judge.
"How big of an 'issue' are we talking about?"
"Depends on how you look at it. Let's just say it'll make a bigger splash than the Pacific Standard Bank incident."
The Pacific Standard disaster had ultimately been pinned on Phil, Dennis, and David Abbott. Aside from the missing cash, the FBI considered the case closed.
"Lawson, just do it clean. Don't leave any loose ends!" Neal said, waving a hand dismissively. "In the eyes of the Bureau, as long as you don't get caught, it's not a crime!"
"Neal, hearing you say that takes a massive weight off my shoulders."
Lawson smiled.
But just as they were finalizing the deal, they both heard a heavy clatter coming from the stairwell door.
"Neal. What was that?"
"I don't know. Did someone come up the stairs? Fuck! Lawson, did you bring a tail?!"
If a mob hit squad caught an FBI agent meeting with an undercover informant, they were both dead men. The Mafia didn't leave witnesses for that kind of betrayal.
"Impossible!" Lawson hissed. "I swapped identities before I left, and I ran a full countersurveillance loop before I came up here! Nobody followed me!"
It made zero sense. He had left the Toretto cafe as Jack Cole, then swapped back to his real face miles away from Bonanno territory. There was no physical way the mafia could have tracked him here.
"Whatever! We need to move, now!"
They scanned the rooftop. There was an exterior fire escape attached to the side of the building, but it didn't connect directly to the roof. You had to drop down an entire story to reach the first metal landing.
For Lawson, that drop was a joke. With his current physical stats, he could drop three stories and walk it off.
But for Neal, a middle-aged, out-of-shape desk jockey? It was a terrifying leap.
"Neal, I'm out of here!"
"Hey! Lawson, you're just gonna leave me here?!"
"Neal, relax! Even if whoever's coming up those stairs is looking for me, they aren't going to do shit to you. You're a federal agent having a smoke on a roof. What's the crime in that?"
Neal instantly caught the drift.
It was universally understood that middle-aged men occasionally needed to find a quiet, depressing spot to smoke a cigarette and hate their lives.
"You make a good point!"
Neal immediately ruffled his hair, loosened his tie, and slumped his shoulders, perfectly capturing the aura of a burnt-out, depressed middle-aged man.
It was a shame he had shaved that morning; a little five o'clock shadow would have really sold the look.
"I'll contact you later, Neal!"
Without hesitating, Lawson vaulted over the ledge and dropped.
He landed heavily on the metal fire escape a floor below. The rusty metal shrieked and swayed dangerously under his weight, startling him, but he quickly found his footing and scrambled silently down the stairs into the alley.
Back on the roof, Neal lit a fresh cigarette and stared out at the skyline, looking utterly miserable.
The heavy metal door to the stairwell creaked open. Neal casually glanced over his shoulder, expecting a mob hitman—and saw someone completely unexpected.
Sean Arthur.
"What the fuck! Arthur? What are you doing here?!"
"Well, well. If it isn't Agent Neal. Fancy meeting you here."
Sean tried to play it cool, but Neal instantly put the pieces together.
Lawson hadn't been followed. Neal had been followed.
And he'd been tailed by his own goddamn colleague. The realization made Neal's blood boil.
"Fuck you, Arthur! You're crossing the line!"
"Neal, you stole my case right out from under me! You're the one who crossed the line!"
"Is it my fault you're too incompetent to close your own leads?!"
"Don't worry," Sean sneered, taking a step forward. "I'm about to find out exactly how you've been 'closing' them."
Neal realized Sean was trying to corner his informant. He immediately bolted for the stairwell, but Sean moved faster, physically blocking the door.
"Not so fast, Neal. We need to have a little chat!"
"Get out of my way! Go talk to your mother, you piece of shit!"
"I'm perfectly happy talking to you right now!"
And right there on the roof, the two Senior Special Agents started screaming profanities at each other like a pair of angry dockworkers.
---
Meanwhile, Lawson hit the pavement in the alley behind the building.
He was just about to blend into the street traffic when a beautiful woman stepped out from behind a dumpster, a revolver leveled squarely at his chest.
"Freeze! FBI! Put your hands in the air!"
She flashed her badge with her left hand, her voice trembling slightly.
Lawson recognized her instantly. It was Jane Banner, Sean Arthur's rookie trainee.
She was obviously acting as the backup net. Neal had been tailed by Sean, and Sean had planted Jane at the back exit to catch whoever Neal was meeting.
Lawson cursed Neal in his head. How the hell does a Senior Agent not realize he's being tailed by a rookie? Useless.
"Hey, take it easy, lady! We're on the same team! I'm an FBI informant!"
Jane recognized him too. She had seen him twice before, and his face was hard to forget.
"I know exactly who you are! And you're the one we're looking for! You're coming with me!"
Lawson studied her. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were wide. She was clearly a rookie, likely executing an ambush arrest for the very first time.
If you didn't know any better, you'd think Lawson was the one holding the gun, given how terrified she looked.
Testing the waters, Lawson took a deliberate step forward.
"And what if I decide I don't want to go with you?"
"S-stay back! If you take one more step, I swear I'll shoot!"
Her voice cracked. She was incredibly green. Lawson knew exactly how to play this.
Without warning, Lawson lunged forward, closing the gap in a fraction of a second, and slammed his chest directly into the barrel of her revolver.
Panicking, Jane instinctively pulled the trigger.
BANG!
Lawson's body jerked slightly from the impact, but his hands didn't stop moving. He smoothly disarmed her, snatching the gun right out of her grip.
"Lady, you really need to work on your trigger discipline. That's a massive violation of Bureau protocol."
Lawson spun the small, elegant revolver around his finger.
It was a compact model, designed specifically for female agents. The recoil was minimal, and it was easy to conceal. But the trade-off was stopping power. It fired a low-caliber round; unless you hit a vital organ, you weren't killing anyone past thirty feet.
Jane stood completely frozen, her mouth hanging open, staring at him in absolute shock.
"Y-you... you're not dead?!"
Lawson reached into the torn fabric of his suit jacket, plucked the flattened bullet out of his Kevlar weave, and flicked it onto the pavement.
"Bulletproof."
Jane snapped her mouth shut, her face draining of color. She knew she had completely botched the operation.
"You win."
Lawson glanced up at the roof. The gunshot was loud; it was going to draw attention fast. Sticking around was a terrible idea.
"Alright, lady. Since you wanted to take me for a ride so badly, let's go."
"Wait! You're actually coming with me?"
"Mmhmm. I've always had a hard time saying no to a beautiful woman... even when she's trying to shoot me."
He was going with her, but he was absolutely taking control of the narrative.
Being called beautiful by a guy who looked like Lawson caused a subtle flush to hit Jane's cheeks, despite the terrifying situation.
"Th-then follow me."
She led him out of the alley to an unmarked sedan parked on the street.
"Is this it?"
"My orders were just to bring you to the car. The Senior Agent didn't tell me anything else."
It was a smart move by Sean. Jane was so naive and easily flustered that if Lawson pressed her, she'd probably confess her deepest childhood secrets in under five minutes.
A few minutes later, Sean Arthur yanked the driver's side door open and practically fell into the front seat. He turned around, looking at Jane in shock.
"Jane! You didn't catch him?!"
The sedan had heavy, anti-glare tint on the back windows, so Sean hadn't been able to see into the back seat from the outside.
Jane looked utterly humiliated.
"Sir, I—"
Before she could finish, Sean got his answer.
Lawson silently rose up from the floorboards behind the driver's seat and pressed the cold barrel of Jane's revolver directly under Sean's chin.
"Surprise."
It was definitely a surprise. Sean froze completely, his eyes wide with terror. He shot Jane a look of absolute, terrified disbelief.
In that split second, Sean's entire life absolutely flashed before his eyes.
But a second later, Lawson casually pulled the gun away and tossed it into Jane's lap.
"Surprise. Did I get you?"
Sean sucked in a massive breath, his chest heaving. He genuinely thought he was about to get his brains blown all over the windshield.
In America, "accidental deaths" in the line of duty weren't exactly rare.
"What the fuck! Jane! Why the hell would you play a joke like that?!"
Sean's brain was still trying to process the adrenaline, assuming Jane had orchestrated the scare.
"Sir! Do I look like the kind of person who makes jokes like that?!" Jane practically shouted, looking deeply wronged.
That's when Sean realized the truth. Lawson had orchestrated the entire thing just to mess with him.
Sean swallowed hard, forcing a tight, nervous smile. "Funny. You're a real comedian, aren't you?"
Lawson leaned forward, resting his arms on the back of the driver's seat.
"Hey, don't look at me like that. You're the one who wanted to follow me into an alley. I'm just playing along."