A door opens to a dark room, walking inside we’re greeted by Katarina who looks around it to see several agents inside, they huddle in groups as they go over information with each other. She walks over to a federal agent named Mason.

“So, how did it go?”

At a table, he’s listening to a recording with a one ear headset on as he glances over towards Katarina who seems to raise her eyebrows.

“Weren’t you listening?” She responds.

Mason doesn’t respond as we hear some of the audio bleed out from his headset.

“If I can’t help fix the system, at least I can help a friend” a voice says.

Mason closes his eyes for a moment, he turns to Katarina who begins to sit down right next to him as he hands her a series of files. Looking at them, she reads the title, Heishehui Societies of California.

“The structure is a lot more complicated than we originally thought.”

Katarina opens the file as she scans through them.

“What do you think of him?” Mason asks, pointing to a screen in front of him. On it, we can see camera footage of John and Jamar sitting at a bed from the perspective of the kitchen.

“Hard to tell.” She responds.

“What about your own people?” Mason continues.

“I don’t know. They don’t seem like the type. Jamar’s been running a clean ship, I find it hard to believe that he’d suddenly join hands with the Cartels or Triads, they’ve always been about helping the community.”

“It’s an expensive operation to run isn’t it? Something like drugs could help fund it.”

Katarina shakes her head.

“No, he hates them, always talks about how it ruined the community.”

Mason thinks to himself as others listen in.

“Then why do all this now?”

“Anything about the cancer that John has?” Katarina asks. An agent looks over at them.

“We have an official report from the VA on it, a request from a John Fray matching his description, it was a claim for treatment of Type 3 Lung Cancer.” The agent says walking over with a file.

Mason takes it as he looks over it. Putting it on the table.

“Looks like it was rejected on the grounds that there was no way to prove it came from his time in service.” Mason clicks his tongue.

“Guess it explains why he was coughing so bad.” An agent replies.

Mason nods.

“This would definitely be a reason why they’re doing all of this.” He continues.

“So what should we do?” Katarina asks.

“Let it play through and see where he goes, maybe we’ll be able to map out more about the triad before having to make an impression.”

“Wouldn’t this be the best time to recruit them in?” Katarina responds.

“No, not yet. He needs to see what it’s really like. Right now he’s probably done at most maybe a few jobs for them. He still hasn’t seen what they’re capable of.” Mason says.

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“What about my sister and her friends?”

“Keep it on a need to know business, as far as we can tell, besides Jamar, none of them have any connection to this, it’s best if we keep it that way until we know more. Anyways, you learn anything new about him?”

“According to my sister, John’s an ex-delta force team leader. He was on the same fireteam as Jamar until he left for school, as for the rest it’s as he said, became a CPA then got cancer. ”

“Delta Force? Now that’s something.” Mason says as he gets up to write something on a board.

“Hello? Is this Club Feugo?” Jason can be heard saying.

The others listen in as they hear Jason scribbling things down on something as he talks, on the screen we see as the camera points out towards the apartment entrance away from anything meaningful.

“Name’s John Fray, did some work for Club Amor and was wondering if you had anything that you needed some help with.”

“Ah, sorry. We’re not interested, don’t call back.”

“Sorry.” John says as he hangs up the phone. He looks down at his notes as he begins to scan through his phone, we see them on the screen. It’s a list of several clubs, he takes a pen as he crosses a name off the list as he seemingly goes through them. Some of them already have notes listed beside them.

“Quick, someone take a screenshot of that.” Mason says.

“What’s he doing?” An agent asks.

“Looking for work, obviously.”

“But like that?”

“What else is he going to do? Not like he’s been in the business long enough.”

“I got it.” An agent says.

On the screen, we see an image of the notebook on the screen. On it we can see in more detail the names and notes that are heavily pixelated.

“Ugh, it’s too blurry. Run a handwriting recognition toolkit on it.” Mason says

On the screen the handwriting becomes more legible. A few things stand out on the note sheet. The names of the Clubs and assumed associations to gangs and groups along with relationships to other Clubs.

“Looks like he’s been busy.” An agent says.

“It matches relatively close to what we have on many of them already.”

“Have the others look through and see if there’s anything different.”

“Right away.”

On the other end, John sighs while getting off the phone again.

“Thank you for your time.” John says.

He reaches into his pocket as we see him pull out a small business card, on it the company name, Club Amor. The screen stays like this for a while.

“Is it frozen?” Mason asks.

“No, it looks like his hands are still moving.” Katarina responds.

Jason looks back to his notes, next to a club name, he writes the word maybe.

Lifting up his phone, he calls another number.

“Bear’s Den.”

“Hey, name’s John Fray, looking for work, got any?”

“John Fray? I heard of you. Maybe some other time, I’ll let you know if we have anything. This number work for you?” The voice responds.

“Yeah.”

“Great.” The line hangs up.

John looks over at his notebook, this time he stares at the club name, Bear’s Den, he hesitates to drop the name, then writes beneath it call back.

The agents all watch the scene in silence.

“Who would’ve thought that being a street samurai was this hard.”

“Eh, most end up dead after their first job.” Mason replies.

Looking over at the business card that’s laying on the notebook, John picks it up, there’s a number on it, staring at it, the phone can be heard ticking away.

The phone rings as John drops the card.

“Club Amor, your wish is our desire.” A female voice picks up.

“Hey, put your manager on the line, tell him it’s John Fray.”

“One moment please.” The voice suddenly changes to a more professional etiquette.

The line goes silent for a bit.

Then the sound of the line being picked up can be heard.

“Mr. Fray, how can I help you? I trust you’ve thought about the business proposal?” A familiar voice asks.

“Yeah, when can we meet?”

“How does tomorrow morning sound to you?”

“It works.” John responds.

“Great, see you then. Oh and will we be expecting a plus one this time?” The line drops.

“No. Not this time.”

“That’s fine. See you soon.”

Katarina looks over a Mason.

“Think they know?”

“No, they’re just being cautious. Signal inside will probably be cut, but we should be able to figure out bits and pieces once Fray exits and meets with others.”

“So that’s it, huh?” An agent says.

“Now, we wait.”