Brian was glad to step out of the hospital building into the 'fresh air' of downtown Los Angeles. Not that it had been one of those very unpleasant , in a lot of pain, if I'm not here I might not make it-visits. The reason for their visit was actually a very pleasant one, yet the location made his skin crawl.
Mira had an appointment to discuss the babies birth with her surgeon and Brian was happy to come along. As excited as he was that their babies would be delivered in a few days as nervous was he about the whole 'becoming father' thing and opted to buy a pack of cigarettes while Mira was still inside.

All he was supposed to do was get the car and bring it to the entrance but his nerves were so raw that he felt the need to calm them with some nicotine.

The deep drag made him cough instantly but he sucked another one in right away and held it down just to relax.
Slowly he blew the smoke out of his nostrils before he turned to see who else was standing near the exit.
One guy looked pretty sick and an elderly lady was getting pushed in a wheel chair.
After a third pull Brian tossed the smoke and stepped of the sidewalk to walk over to Mira's car.

"Smoking will get you killed." Walter walked out from the hospital behind Brian and adjusted his sunglasses over his eyes, he was coming from a ruetine check up but still had the disgusting feeling of hatred for this place. "Never really liked hospitals, too white. Makes me feel like death is around the corner, or I might be walked off in a white coat or something." He shivered a little and smiled. "I'm glad to see you made it out of Japan alive. Have any of the charges stuck?"

Brian turned at the somewhat familar voice expecting to see a friend from former times or maybe an ex-colleague but the person next to him had his jaw drop. He never expected to see the guy again and against his will the hair on the back of neck stood up.

To hear that smoking would kill him was ironical since Walter damn near was the one who killed Brian.
He tried to remain as calm as possible without showing any emotion and took another drag before he put it our under the sole of his boot.
He heard him say something about death and hospitals and even though eh shared the feeling he shrugged.
"I get the same feeling when you are anywhere near me."
There wasn't a hint of friendliness or joking in his voice.
Secretly he hoped that the guy was close to his death bed if he was paying a hospital a visit. The man had screwed up his life so royally that Brian couldn't get over his anger. It was still brooding somewhere deep inside of him.

He started walking towards the parking lot while he answered. "Still awaiting the trial for some of the charges...in case you have a sudden desire to turn yourself in it's next week." If only he had a gun, he'd bring the man in himself.

"If I walked into a courtroom everyone there's life would be at risk from a CIA wet team giving them a house call." He shrugged and followed Brian, "I owe you a lot of explinations. I want to start off by explaining why I had to use you. When you were riding with Dom, you earned a lot of street cred and you played both sides of the coin like I do. Your moral compass is a metronome and mine is so screwed up I can't find my parking spot without a GPS. But I digress, you had a name and I didn't. I used you to broker the sales overseas for the supercars. I couldn't have my name on the reports for obvious reasons, I was hoping when the police showed they'd put you into custody and keep you state side and out of trouble with the buyers." He took a deep breath and adjusted his 40's style suit while checking his watch. "If the muscle man does his job he can pull in the buyers via interpol. More then half the cars had drugs and weapons smuggled in on them which violates customs of course as well as every arms statuates. There is a contact in the C.I.A who was my handler for all of this. He tends to set up situations like this. G-17 classified information though, the sellers state side may or may not have positions withen FBI, CIA, and a couple senators. If you want..." He pulled a small card from his pocket. "555-7324, local office. Johnson Mayz is the handler. I know you probably don't want to trust me but I actually haven't directly lied to you yet for what it's worth."

Brian's shoulders got tenser and tenser while they were walking to the parking lot but he listened to what Walter had to say. His eyes were cold and narrowed by the time he turned to face the guy.
"Am I ever glad you didn't lie to me. You only killed half the crew on a ship, got my girlfriend to shoot me and ditched me with a shitload of drugs and people thinking I'm a thief, which is a great way to end a career. Thank you very much." He stated through gritted teeth.

Then he took the number nevertheless. "I will find out whether there's any truth in what you just said because my girlfriend is about to give birth in there." He pointed back at the hospital. "And the last thing she needs is me going to jail for your bullshit."

Walter was much heavier and better built than Brian but the ex cop had no problem getting awefully close to the man until he could feel his breath on his face.
"If you're so keen on helping me why don't you get me some evidence I present in court next week? Cause I sure as hell am screwed with the damn public lawyer I got."

Walter sighed and stepped back allowing his ego to recede. "Okay, I'll break this down. Behind the scenes right now you have people that know you are innocent, the forensics trace the bullets to a gun that belongs to an FBI attourny. The fingerprints that were found off the brick of blow I left in your car will trace to a hired hitman. Do with that what you will, if you want to toss me under the bus go ahead I'll be brought in under another jurisdiction and sent to tribunal at the NSA. If you want, tell Mira to say I stole her gun and shot you..." Walter stopped and thought for a minute letting Brian take the moment to seep in the information.

"Look, when is your court date. I'll show up and turn myself in. I'll work around the wet teams and get you guys out on top..." Walter looked at the ground, "I've been looking for a reason to feel good about myself for a while now, and it's time I stop and figure out if there is a way for me out of this crap life. If you have a kid on the way there isn't a chance I'm going to let my job fuck up a good guys life. You deserve better then that, and I know your file. You've been stabbed in the back a lot and maybe if I get out of this job I can set up a decent life myself." Walter removed his sunglasses, behind them his eyes looked worn and tired.

The crossed his arms in front of his chest and blew out the last bit of smoke from his lungs. The facts were hard to process since Brian had no idea about any of Walters background nor was he ever involved in anything concerning these agencies.
So he tried his best to memorize what Walter said to try and find out about it as much as possible when he got back home.

Suddenly the man offered himself up claiming he had to clear his conscience, which was hard to believe. @sure thing, come and turn yourself in." He snorted at the man although there was a small part in him that liked to trust him.
After a long moment of looking at him and his slouching posture he asked. "Are you serious about this?"
he then took a deep breath and looked around. "You know what? Whatever you do...no more tricks or using me because if you do I might just end up killing you. Then they"ll have a real reason to lock me up."
The process was something that gave Brian anxiety to no end because last time he was in a court room his best friend had, against the FBIs words, been locked up for good.
"How come you want to get a clean slate now?"
Was it really Brian's babies that gave him a bad conscience?

"Eventually my concience was bound to catch up with me. I'm going to be honest, I used you for your name. It was suppose to be clean, all evidence leading to people that the normal courts couldn't touch. When you were suppose go into the courtroom it would open up a bag of worms that the media would eat up." He smiled and laughed, "This will make even more of a splash though. There is a ring of corruption out there that the normal laws can't touch. I was used by the FBI, NSA, and CIA. I arrange situations where those people get brought into the spot light and then tend to...dissapear would be the correct word I think. These people are scum and always end up in positions where they are too important to deal with legally, they either pay their way out of use their contacts." Walter looked at Brian sobering his look up and reaching his hands out, one with the card and contact number, the other open for a hand shake. "I havn't lied to you and I won't lie to you. Give me your court date and I'll get you out scott free."

His words seemed too far fetched to be true but the man was so persistent in his claims that Brian started to believe him. What could he loose now? Maybe Walter would come up with more lies and get him deeper into trouble but as things were right now Brian was facing jail time. He might as well take his chance.

A little hesitant he reached for the card and read the printed name and number.
"I'll let my lawyer know that he can call you in the stand as witness." His voice was filled with disbelieve and a little bit of hope.
"I hope you know what you're offering me. My freedom for yours and those untouchables sending somebody after you to get rid of you." He summoned it up.

Then he looked at Walter and took his hand. "But if that means I will see my baby's birth I'll take my chance. The trail is Tuesday at 4 pm."

"One way or another Brian...I'll never see the inside of a cell." Walter's face looked grim and he shook his head. "There is a better chance of me seeing a mortition before that would ever happen." He closed his eyes and sighed letting Brian's hand drop and memorizing the time and date. "I'll be there, your lawyer won't be able to contact me. Brian if I was lieing to you do you think I would have been able to tear apart that entire ship by myself, arrange a drug running, GTA, and given your Interpol friend a heart attack and then just 'Poof' disappear? Like I do?" He made a blow up expression with his hands.

Brian raised his brow but admitted. "I guess not." If all of what he was saying was true Walter played in a completely different league.
"If you accomplished all that you should be able to get me off the hook, if you really want to."
Brian nodded at Walter before he walked the small distance to Mira's car and then hollered back. "I'll see you on Tuesday." The day alone made Brian's knees feel like pudding but he had no other choice. Running with a baby on the way just wasn't an option. A lesson he had learned from Dom. Running wasn't freedom. Unfortunately he might join the guy, who said those wise words, behind bars soon.