DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING
A/N: This is just an idea I thought up a while ago. It'll probably only be two chapters. It's also my first Sons of Thunder fic. Please read and review.
Carlos Sandoval was having the day from hell. He'd overslept and ended up arriving at the police department half an hour after shift started. After Captain Donaldson had finished chewing him out, Carlos anticipated having a routine day on patrol. Wrong. Captain Donaldson had pressed a stack of warrants on him. It was sweeps day, a bi-monthly round-up of citizens who had outstanding warrants. Oh joy.
Most of the people Carlos encountered that morning and afternoon had no intentions of going in quietly for their various warrants. Carlos suffered a few bumps and bruises, but nothing major enough to get him sent home for the day. The most ill-tempered person he encountered during sweeps day was a woman. Baby Girl was a stripper who had a warrant out for beating up a fellow stripper named Glitter behind the club because she caught Glitter giving her boyfriend a lap-dance. Baby Girl became more than a little agitated when Carlos came to her apartment to arrest her. She had fingernails that resembled hot-pink talons, with which she attempted to gouge out Carlos's eyes. Baby Girl fought all the way to the patrol car, only stopping when the high heel of her shoe got caught in the cage and she couldn't pull it loose.
'I'm glad that's over with,' Carlos thought as he sat in the parking lot behind the county jail, watching a female officer attempting to escort Baby Girl inside.
Carlos checked his watch. Shift was almost over and he still had one warrant to serve. He decided to serve it, hoping to make up to Captain Donaldson for coming in late that morning.
It wasn't long before Carlos spotted the silver Impala that belonged to the fugitive, Javy Molina. He turned on his lights and signaled for Molina to pull over. Instead of pulling over, Molina floored it. Carlos gave chase. He had almost caught up to Molina when Molina made a sharp turn onto a dirt access road.
"Damn it!" shouted Carlos, pounding the steering wheel.
Molina's car had kicked up a lot of dust, and he wouldn't be able to pick up the trail again until the dust cleared. By then, Molina could be long gone. Carlos was familiar with this road, which led to a border checkpoint. He wasn't sure if there was time to alert Border Patrol so they could hold Molina for him. Suddenly, Carlos's line of vision was restored. He gunned the engine and roared off to the checkpoint.
When he arrived, a Border Patrol agent seemed to be in the process of searching Molina's car. Carlos breathed a sigh of relief; he hadn't missed him. The feeling of relief lasted until he noticed the loudly barking Customs dog and the fact that Molina was in handcuffs. He immediately jumped out of his squad car and ran toward the guard booth the Impala was parked next to.
"Hey!" Carlos yelled. "Hey!"
The dog suddenly leapt onto its hind legs, baring two sets of bone-crushing teeth at Carlos.
"No!" the dog's handler commanded, jerking hard on its leash. "Radar, sit!"
The dog instantly planted its bottom on the ground.
"Good boy," Radar's handler praised, patting the dog's side.
One look at Radar's handler made Carlos think his day hadn't been so bad after all. She was about 5'5" and slender, her caramel-colored hair pulled out the back of her Border Patrol ballcap in a ponytail that just brushed the collar of her Border Patrol windbreaker. He wasn't sure what color her eyes were because they were obscured by a pair of police-issue sunglasses. Upon checking the nameplate on the woman's uniform shirt, he knew her last name was Bowdre.
"Sorry," Bowdre apologized. "Radar's a little excitable. He's new."
"That's all right," Carlos assured her.
"Is there a problem here, Officer?" asked Bowdre.
"Yeah, I got a problem." Carlos replied. "That's my suspect you're arresting. That guy over there is Javy Molina. He's got outstanding warrants in Dallas for trafficking and aggravated assault." He produced the paperwork from the breast pocket of his uniform shirt.
Bowdre removed her sunglasses and balanced them atop her ballcap, revealing in the process a pair of blue eyes. Squinting, she held the warrant up the sun as though determined to detect a forgery.
"Can you tell me why you're arresting him?" Carlos asked.
"Various types of narcotics found in the car, along with an unlicensed .25 pistol." said Bowdre. "Oh, and before authority comes into question, it says 'Border Patrol' on my jacket, pal."
"My name is Officer Carlos Sandoval," said Carlos, trying hard to maintain professionalism.
Bowdre let out a sort of sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I can see we're going to have a problem with this arrest. Get on your radio, call your captain, and have him meet my lieutenant here. Oh, and you'll probably need to stick around in case anybody has any questions for you."
"Should I call my captain now?"
"No, tomorrow," said Bowdre sarcastically.
"Feds are all alike," grumbled Carlos as he walked back to his car to notify Captain Donaldson of the situation. "Not happy unless they're horning in on other cases, worried about us local yokels wearing their drug collars…"
Carlos radioed Dispatch and asked to be patched through to his captain. Donaldson shared Carlos's opinion of the Feds, then said it would take a few hours for him to get down to the border. Just before hanging up, he told Carlos to follow Bowdre's firm instructions to stay put.