Chapter Text
Looking at the fake vial in his hand after Finch handed it to him, Nate shook his head as he tells the mousy man how he and his group had been tracking the MacBeth shipments since they put the family dynasty under the microscope.
Faked medicine didn’t surprise Nate.
“But why?” Finch questioned why the family would willingly allow it, arguing it would result in investigations, whatnot, but Nate reminded him how the family is in the pocket of a mob boss.
It shouldn’t surprise Finch.
In a perfect world that would get the hospital investigated and everything spilling out, but they’re not in that world, else none of this would have happened to begin with.
“Are they willing to allow their patients to die?” Finch questioned how willing MacBeth was to “help” their patients.
Scratching the side of his side, Nate says he heard rumors regarding low-income patients dying more than well-off patients, but again, rumors.
He tried getting someone on the inside to tell him, but even with his finest tricks he couldn’t get more than the standard “no comment.”
Shifting in his spot, Finch sums, “So whoever is doing this would have to be in an administrative position.”
Nodding his head, Nate suspects it just that.
More.
“I’m not sure how much you know, but I have a grandmother claiming that the hospital stole her grandson,” Nate revealed something even more egregious.
During their initial survey into the MacBeth family, Nate and his cohorts discovered an allegation of baby theft.
The hospital claimed that both the mother and son died during the birthing process, but the mother’s mother claimed differently.
“I have heard those, myself, it’s difficult getting into their systems, though,” Finch sighs as he tells Nate how he hadn’t luck getting into the more locked down servers that would have the information regarding the theft.
And.
“I did learn that their lawyers have the original unaltered files,” Finch tips off Nate what he (and the Machine) learnt.
Chuckling, Nate then asks him, “What, you’re going to use, the USB trick?”
Shocked, Finch goes, “W-why, have you tried?”
Taking a drink from his glass, Nate told Finch that it was one of the first things they tried.
Hit a snag.
“Those files aren’t in the lawyer’s office,” Nate sighs as he revealed to Finch that he and his cohorts attempted locating the files themselves.
It turned out the lawyers did a good job not leaving incriminating files within their workspace.
“Where are they?” Finch inquired.
He heard from Nate, “Dunno. That’s what I’m stuck on.”
As he rested his glass, he asks Finch why he wanted to expose the MacBeth family and Finch said that he became aware of them when a daughter claimed their negligence resulted in her father’s death.
“Where are they on the ladder?” Nate questions where the family stood.
Gesturing, Finch recalls them somewhat on the low-end, somewhat confirming what Nate thinks about what’s happening in the hospital.
“Even if that were true, most well-off have their own practitioners,” Finch points out.
Nate raised his hand, signaling one of his cohorts, and a woman with blond straight hair came to the table with a folder.
Handing it off to Nate, she briefly stopped to look at Finch, uttering, “Geek.”
She trotted away much to Finch’s confusion until Nate apologized for it.
“She does that, but anyway, I have something that might explain it better,” Nate opened the folder.
While it’s true that those rich have their own private physicians and whatnot, not all of them can afford to be caught.
“You’re saying this hospital is a front?” Finch caught on quickly.
Flipping through the folder, Nate pulled papers out to give to Finch.
One being a picture of Giovanni.
“Word on the street is the don needs a transplant,” Nate tells Finch. “He can’t get it through normal means because that’d mean he’d have a bullet hole in his chest.”
As it happened, the MacBeth family got into a bit of trouble, the don, seeing this as a way of getting what he wanted, forced them under his thumb.
“All this for a transplant?” Finch questioned the validity of the claim, causing Nate to raise his hand once again, sending an African American man over with another folder.
Stacking it on top of the opened folder, Nate proceeded to open it, and brought out a piece of paper to hand to Finch.
“Giovanni doesn’t want… who is it… someone from the New York area getting wind where he is,” Nate struggled with names.
He snapped his fingers trying to jog his memory until Finch calls out, “Dominic?”
Lowering his hand, Nate tilts his head as he asks, “You know him?”
Nodding, Finch tells him how Dominic had been ruthlessly expanding his reaches, and how the Five Families had been trying to keep his hands off their territories.
“He thinks Dominic has spies working at the hospitals and trying to thwart his assassination,” Finch gave his theory why the Giovanni don was trying to keep his operation a secret by setting up an unexpected front.
“My guess is, your guy got too close and the don freaked. I can’t find him anywhere here, there, anywhere,” Nate informed Finch how he and his cohorts couldn’t even find a trace of the don.
His blue eyes moving across the pages, Finch expresses, “What will happen once the operation’s complete?”
He heard back, “My guess is either strip it for parts or burn it down for the insurance money.”
Either way, it won’t be pretty.
“You think he’s at the hospital?” Finch suggested.
Drinking from his glass, Nate sat it down before saying, “It won’t surprise me if he’s hunkered down in a private wing.”
Looking up, Finch informed him that the hospital didn’t have a private wing in their records until Nate reminded him how it’s a mob front, of course they won’t be truthful.
“Where would it be?” Finch changed his question.
Shrugging, Nate replied that he doesn’t know, haven’t been able to figure that one out, but he thinks that if the don’s in the hospital waiting for his transplant, he’ll do it under different names.
One for the operation.
One for when he leaves.
“We think he might be trying to use a dead man’s name to escape detection,” Nate explained.
Recalling what Reese told him about the late Walter, Finch goes further into asking the possibility of the don passing off as a dead patient.
“Pretty good chance, but uh, I don’t know much about Dominic to know how well versed he is about a dead man switch,” Nate shrugged.
Chewing on his inner lip, Finch then gestures as he told Nate why he came up to Boston to find him.
“We want to see everyone responsible jailed, the same as you,” Finch sums as he watched Nate stare at him quietly.
It did seem audacious, but through the Machine, Finch knew that Nate and his cohorts weren’t strangers to audacious things.
“What’s in it for you?” Finch heard Nate ask him.
Lightly shrugging, Finch answers that he wanted to help those affected by the hospital.
“This could get bad,” Nate pointed out that anything can and had happened with people betraying him and his cohorts, but Finch insisted he wouldn’t do such a thing.
He wanted to help those affected as much as Nate does, if anything prevents Dominic’s men from hurting innocent people in their mission to kill the don.
Nate grew quiet again and this time, Finch sees individuals coming to the table, two of whom Finch recognized, and two more that he hadn’t briefly met.
“Let’s steal a hospital!” Nate declared that he and his cohorts will work in conjunction with Finch and Reese in exposing the hospital’s misdeeds and everything in between.
Slowly nodding, Finch thanked him for agreeing to help, but he saw seriousness behind Nate’s blue eyes as he reminded Finch of consequences if he betrayed him.
“We’ll get into contact with you when we have our plan,” Nate gestures as he stood up.
Like a lightbulb going off, Nate then added, “Don’t give up on the USBs. Hardison might have use for them.”
He then pointed to the African American man.
“I can get them together for you, how do you intend on finding those files?” Finch questioned Nate.
Stretching his arms, Nate boasts while beaming with pride, “They didn’t make a television show based on us for nothing!”
His comment caused a stir in Hardison as he bitterly says, “We should be getting royalties, they syndicated it! You know how much a year?”
The long-haired man next to him tapped him on the shoulder while reminding him, “We would be in prison!”
Scoffing, Hardison rolled his walnut eyes as he’s forced to reel in the fact he couldn’t obtain royalties due to their criminal background resulting in their timely arrest and forfeiture of their royalties.
With an alliance forged, Finch left the Boston bar as he got into contact with Reese, telling him how the meeting went, and how Nate and his cohorts want to help.
Reese remained skeptical about the group, but Finch assures him that the Machine wouldn’t have let him come to Boston if it didn’t think they could be trusted, much less lead him directly to them.
“After all, our detective needs his rest,” Finch thought having the group help would give Fusco the rest he deserved after the embarrassing incident.
Though, the paperwork from this would have to be rerouted to a different desk, else Fusco’s doomed to be evermore sore with them.
TO BE CONTINUED… Let’s Steal a Hospital!