Synth, p.43
Synth, page 43
“What, you’re telling me you couldn’t handle breaking into a warehouse and freeing dozens of humans without me?” I teased.
“Of course I could.” Hawthorne scoffed. “I just don’t want you to miss out. Besides, Aries would probably be disappointed if you weren’t there.”
My eyes narrowed into a glare, but Hawthorne simply grinned.
“I’m joking.”
“Ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re hilarious.”
“But in all seriousness,” Hawthorne said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on my table. “We should come up with a plan in case that happens.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I’ve been thinking about that, but I really don’t know what I can do. The cars have GPS trackers in them, so if I’m stuck in the city centre, I’d have to run down to the docks. Otherwise, they might notice it in the log files.”
“That would be a far run.”
“No kidding,” I sighed. “I mean, I could do it. Maybe park my personal car near my patrol route and swap vehicles, but if someone noticed, it would raise some red flags or, at the very least, look bad on my service record. If anything happens on my route and dispatch puts out a call and I don’t respond, at a minimum, it will look like an OT grab.”
“Which is something Mallick is already harping about,” Hawthorne said. “He called a floor meeting during the break last night – said if anyone was caught camping in their cars simply for the sake of getting OT, there would be repercussions.”
“I can’t afford to get fired, Hawthorne.” I met his eyes with concern. “I won’t be useful to Orion without my CPD access.”
“That’s not true,” Hawthorne countered. “But maybe you should just go ask Mallick to be paired with me?”
“He never plays favourites.” I dropped my gaze to the table, staring at the map as my thoughts spun. “But who do you think it is?”
“What do you mean – the contact?”
“Yes.” I nodded, meeting Hawthorne’s eyes once more. “I keep thinking about it, and it has to be a lieutenant in Patrol and Street, right? Otherwise, how would they be able to alter our patrol routes?”
“I wondered that too, but it could be someone in IT,” Hawthorne pondered. “Or maybe Eridanus has more than one ally in the CPD.”
“Or maybe Eridanus is the ally in the CPD,” I said as I wondered just how much Orion’s contact knew about Hawthorne and me. If they had access to the CPD and an inside person with the capacity to influence our shifts behind the scenes, it wasn’t farfetched to think that both Eridanus and Orion now had copies of our files.
Perhaps that was why Orion had accepted our help…
“Did they ever say anything about him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing – it might not even be a him.”
“Maybe it’s Mallick.”
I snorted, smiling in amusement. “Could you imagine him breaking rules?”
“No,” Hawthorne laughed. “But it would be the perfect cover.”
I nodded, dropping my eyes back to the table.
The idea of Mallick being Eridanus or being an ally of Eridanus was insane. Thinking about it made me want to laugh, and yet the longer I stared at the map and my computer chugged along behind me downloading the files, the more I started to wonder if I was crazy for thinking it didn’t sound so crazy. After all, that exchange with him in the elevator had been a bit odd. Though, maybe not. Mallick had warned me about the Detective Unit before he’d brought me up to meet Vogle. So maybe he just didn’t approve of what happened in that unit. The man was incredibly clean-cut, and I couldn’t see him ever allowing someone to rip pages from his notebook, let alone turn a blind eye to a federal crime.
“Do you mind if I use your shower?” Hawthorne’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “I can help you clean up the mud after.”
“Go ahead.” I gestured toward the bathroom with my hand. “I’ll keep going through these old videos while the download finishes. See if I find anything related to Sante Lumen Limited.”
“Nothing yet?”
“Not yet,” I sighed. “Just the usual dock patrols, a few people in business clothes coming out to their cars, and the janitors coming by to clean the office area at the end of the night, but I’ll keep you posted.”
Wednesday, October 28
1:23 pm
It was difficult to see. Between the sunshield and the sheets of rain that pelted against the car, everything blurred together, and I found myself sympathizing with the officer Hakim had kicked off stakeout duty. No wonder he didn’t have anything noted down in his reports. He probably couldn’t see a damn thing the entire time he was in his car, and I had no idea what Hakim was expecting us to find. Reborn didn’t mind the rain, but we didn’t venture out into the rainy season for fun either.
In the last two hours, only one car had driven by, and there wasn’t a single kid in blackout gear to be found, which made sense. The gutters were flooded. The sewer system was at capacity, and school midterm exams were in the works. Even kids who hated studying would find it undesirable to step outside in this, especially with all the good skateboarding areas flooded.
I bit back a sigh, wishing that I was the one running the supply drop to Warren this afternoon instead of wasting my time in this car. I’d have to wait until I got back to the precinct to text Hawthorne. Drawing my secret phone out was out of the question with Hakim sitting less than two feet away. As it was, I had turned both phones to silent, letting Warren and Hawthorne know I would be MIA until the sun went down and we swapped shifts with the new officer Mallick had loaned out to the Jane Doe case.
While impossible in practice, a part of me was amazed Hakim wasn’t planning to stakeout Morin’s apartment during the night shift too. I was sure he would if he could, but he seemed pretty convinced that whatever Morin was up to, it was happening during the day. All our data agreed with that theory—times of death, when the bodies were found, where they were dumped, the footage of him getting on the train, and even Gloria Gilbert’s recollection of when he came home.
Still, I found myself doubting we would catch him as my watch buzzed, and I dropped my eyes to note the time.
1:30 pm – no change
I marked the words in my notebook exactly the same as I had every ten minutes for the last four and a half hours. It was partly to keep myself awake but also because I wanted a good, clean record of everything, or in this case, nothing, that happened today.
I chanced a side glance at my partner, wondering how the hell he could sit so still and breathe so quietly. It wasn’t like I was making much noise, but if not for the fact that he’d driven us here and I could see him with my own two eyes right now, I’d never have known that he was here.
A blur of movement in the side mirror caught my eye, and I sat forward in my seat, only to frown in disappointment when the car drove past us and Morin’s apartment building. I watched the red taillights fade from view, then marked the time and noted it down in my notebook because I had literally nothing else to do. I’d already run through my mental map of the warehouse, gone over Hawthorne’s plan for getting down to 236A without going through the docks’ main gate security, and reviewed the security patrol routes.
Now I was left wondering how Orion planned to get his people out and whether Hawthorne would be waiting at my apartment with an outline of the plans.
Then again, maybe Orion didn’t plan to tell us anything. Perhaps we were simply the muscle, instructed to show up at a designated time, get his people inside the building, and take out any guards or armed threats. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. Orion was a smart man. I knew he didn’t have any issues working with Reborn, but that didn’t mean that he trusted us, and I was sure he kept his cards close to his chest. This mission, and likely all the details of his and his allies’ other activities, were probably strictly controlled.
Warren might be the only other person that knew everything going on and who was who within their network. With the exception of Eridanus, it seemed, who might very well be using code names and protective measures for their Reborn ally network too. It was quite possible that even Orion didn’t know who the CPD ally was.
Headlights from the street ahead flickered into view, and I shifted, watching and waiting for the vehicle to drive by like all the others—but it didn’t. I watched it pull to a stop along the side of Morin’s building, and for the first time since we had parked the car, Hakim moved.
“Gorski—”
“On it.”
I grabbed my binoculars, leaning forward and fiddling with the dial to get things in focus, as Hakim grabbed the camera.
“See anything?”
“It’s a van,” I said, moving my binoculars to track the person who had gotten out of the driver’s side door. “One person, average male height – probably around seven feet five inches. Dressed in plain blackout gear.”
I heard the click of the camera as Hakim took several photos.
“They’re getting something out from the side of the van and – oh, it’s just a vacuum.” I readjusted the dial to read the open van door. “Jensen’s Janitorial.”
It felt oddly familiar, but I ignored the feeling in favour of returning my gaze to the unknown person, watching as they kicked the large rolling shop vac through a puddle toward the building, the motion drawing my eyes to their feet and the very distinct symbol along the shaft of their boot.
I stilled.
“They’re wearing Ridgebacks,” I said, the words coming out slowly as the unidentified figure returned to their van to grab a small bag. I dropped my binoculars and turned to look at Hakim, who stared at me blankly.
“The boots,” I clarified, but he simply arched a brow. “They’re a popular brand.”
“So?” Hakim asked. “What’s your point, Gorski?”
“My old patrol partner was really into fashion,” I said, twisting in my seat to face him. “She used to talk about different brands all the time, and Ridgebacks are probably the most expensive boots a person could buy. My point is, how on earth could someone working the janitorial day shift in an apartment building like this afford to buy them – and even if they could, why the hell would they wear them to work in this weather?”
He stared at me for a moment, then nodded. Orion had been right in his words by the fire a month ago—even if it pained me to admit it—Reborn were classist, incredibly so. I had never really thought too much about it before meeting Warren. I knew it, as I’m sure we all did, but it was just so normal it was never a focus until I became Hakim’s sidekick and started to see it everywhere. Until it was shoved down my throat in glaringly obvious ways that left me feeling sick.
A janitorial job simply wouldn’t pay enough to afford someone Ridgebacks. Hell, it would barely pay enough to support a minimum standard of living, and no person who had enough family wealth to afford those boots and not care about keeping them clean would voluntarily be working the day shift cleaning up low-rent apartments.
That wasn’t how Reborn worked, which meant something else was going on.
“Write it down,” Hakim said, turning back to take more pictures as I pulled out my pen. “Capture everything. We’ll open a search on Jensen’s Janitorial when we get back to the precinct. I want a complete list of the staff and all the locations where they work.”
“Got it.”
I scribbled down my observations, but instead of feeling relief that we might have just caught a break, I felt my stomach churn as I realized why the name had seemed so familiar. Jensen’s Janitorial was the same company that cleaned the office building of warehouse 236A.
Thursday, October 29
10:17 pm
I unlocked the door to my apartment, slipped inside, and immediately stripped off my vest. I felt claustrophobic, which was a recurring and concerning theme as of late, and sitting in the car with Hakim all day had done nothing to help. It just made it worse, and I found myself tugging at the collar of my shirt as I kicked off my boots and made my way across the room toward my table.
We hadn’t seen anything the entire day. Not Morin, not Jensen’s Janitorial, and not even any residents from the building as the rain continued to pour, and Hakim sat there in silence, ignoring me completely. I let out a groan, stretching my arms above my head and rolling my neck. It felt good to be out of that car, and I was happy to be home so I could get to work on other things. Thankfully, I only had one more shift on stakeout duty until I was placed on Halloween OT patrol.
Yet that didn’t really make me feel any better.
I still hadn’t heard anything about my placement, and I hadn’t been able to touch base with Hawthorne since Tuesday. Hakim didn’t end our shifts until after 8:00 pm, then we had to go back to the precinct to drop off our gear. By the time I was free to head home, Hawthorne was already at work. He’d texted me to let me know that he had stopped by my apartment again, which I assumed meant that the second drop with Warren had gone well because that was what he had done while I was on duty.
Neither of us was stupid enough to text anything condemning, so after the first drop, he’d left me a note on my table detailing a summary of the exchange. I had read it when I got home yesterday, then destroyed the evidence. Tonight would be no different, except this time, I was hoping his note would include the plans.
The purpose of Wednesday’s drop had been for Hawthorne to pass on all the latest information we had compiled—updated copies of our maps, a complete entrance plan for warehouse 236A, locations of all building exits, approximate head counts for everyone working in the office building based on the cars we had been tracking, camera locations, light locations, rough security schedules, boat schedules—you name it, we’d made copies of it all and Hawthorne had hand delivered it.
Apparently, Warren had thanked him, but aside from that, the first drop had been quick, quiet, and completely unremarkable. So I wondered if this drop had been any different. When I reached the table, I found Hawthorne’s note among the organized mess of papers and quickly snatched it up.
The drop went well!
I told Aries about Jensen’s Janitorial and how you think they might be tied into this. He said he would let Orion know. I gave him the bag of additional supplies, and he said they didn’t need anything else. The plan is really close to being finalized. I guess Eridanus has a way to get everyone into the city and down by the docks. No idea how that’s going to work. I asked, but Aries said he didn’t know, though I doubt he would have told me even if he did. So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Or maybe we won’t.
I don’t know. They might just be there when we show up, but I gave him a copy of my patrol route anyway and told him that we’re working under the assumption Eridanus’s contact will pull through and we’ll get slotted together.
I left some food in the fridge for you because I know you’re going to start crawling through footage again and won’t bother to cook anything. Make sure you eat it.
Also, Aries says hi.
I’m kidding. He didn’t really say much of anything. Strictly business, per usual – but he did give me a code name! I asked if I could have one for the mission, and he said I had been assigned Vela. Not sure what that is? I’ll need to find some time to look it up. Anyway, make sure to get some rest. Aries didn’t mention anything about meeting again, so I’m planning to go swimming again tomorrow and get one last look to make sure nothing has changed.
Good luck creeping on Morin! I hope Hakim isn’t too much of a jerk today!
A smile played on my lips as I finished reading his letter. I didn’t know what Vela was either, aside from knowing it would be a constellation, but I was happy that he had finally gotten his code name. Not only because he wanted one and it would keep his identity safer on the mission, but also because it meant that he was now officially an “exposed asset” too, and that meant Orion had extended him some level of trust.
Which he deserved.
Hawthorne was a good friend and ally, yet despite him being in this mess with me, I felt my uneasiness grow as I made my way over to the kitchen to burn the note.
We were less than forty-eight hours away from those humans being shipped out on a boat, lost forever, and we still didn’t have a plan. I didn’t like it. I hated being kept out of the loop, but I would just have to trust that Orion and Eridanus knew what they were doing. After all, I wasn’t in charge. This wasn’t my mission. These weren’t my people. My only role in this was to help them in any way I could, and I was already doing that. It wouldn’t be my place to push them for plan details or try to take control.
I ignited the front element of my gas stove, setting the paper alight before I switched off the dial and made my way to the sink, paper in hand. I watched the edges curl, the flames growing brighter and hotter like the summer sun. The note was quickly scorched black, crumpling to ash in the sink as an emptiness settled in my chest. I dropped the rest of it when I felt the flame lick my fingers, then washed the remains down the drain.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the drain in silence before letting out a sigh. I might not know what was going to happen, but there was still plenty to do.
I grabbed the food Hawthorne had left in the fridge, then settled down at the table to review the information we had managed to pull on Jensen’s Janitorial. For the most part, they appeared to be a functional and legitimate company. No issues of fraud, no complaints lodged with the Business Bureau, and they filed their taxes every year. We were still waiting on an employee roster, which would take longer because we had to go through the FIDA, completing a broad scan of all known Carneth residents to see if any had their employment listed at Jensen’s Janitorial.
It wasn’t ideal, and I knew we wouldn’t get a complete list, but we couldn’t exactly ask Jensen’s Janitorial for their employment records and expect them to freely give it to us the way Dolan’s had. And we certainly couldn’t submit a formal query through the CPD without raising flags.
