by Bob Blanton
“We should come up with a conversion kit for the older cars,” Catie said.
“Why?” Marc asked.
“Style. People like the way they look.”
“Why don’t you work on that,” Marc said.
“As a separate company?”
“Hey, you still work for MacKenzies,” Fred squawked.
“Oh, so you think it’ll be a moneymaker.”
“Maybe, but it’ll probably be too small for MacKenzies to worry about,” Fred said.
“So I can start another company?”
“You get my vote as long as I get to be a partner,” Blake said.
“Go ahead,” Marc said. “Fred, anything else?”
“Nothing you won’t learn by looking at the monthly report for ten minutes.”
“Okay, then let’s talk about Onisiwo,” Marc said. “Catie, what does the probe show us?”
“No wormhole yet. We haven’t had much time to really study the system, but it looks like the Onisiwoens have a pretty well-developed space industry, even without gravity drives. We detect at least two space stations in their asteroid belt and two around the planet. Their planet is on the opposite side of their sun from the probe, so we can’t really tell that much yet.”
“Are the Onisiwoens ready to go home?”
“Definitely,” Liz said. “They’re being polite, but they are a bit antsy. I think they’re starting to wonder what’s taking so long.”
“Well, we didn’t want to head that way until we had a probe in place, and we have been busy getting the Aperanjens settled in. Catie are you up for captaining the Roebuck to Onisiwo?”
“Sure. Uncle Blake said that was your plan. It’ll be about as interesting as what I’m doing now,” Catie said.
“It’s not all about having fun,” Marc scolded.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” Catie said. “I’m just not doing anything that requires me to be here except being hospitality director for the Aperanjens.”
“Liz, I assume you can step in there,” Marc said.
“Sure.”
“Okay, back to normal business. Kal, how’s the real-estate business?” Marc asked.
“Hey, my guys are happy,” Kal said. “You have to ask Fred for the details.”
“The sales seem to be doing well,” Fred said. “We’ve sold five thousand condos the first month.”
“That’s a lot, how many did we finance?”
“Forty-five hundred.”
“So we got cash for five hundred condos?” Marc asked.
“Yes, I think it was 320 million dollars.”
“Wow, I’m sure that made Herr Pfeifer happy.”
“Yes, he was impossible to put up with. He thinks we’ll sell that many every month,” Fred said.
“Well?”
“It looks like we will for the next few months. But eventually, we’ll run out of customers or condos.”
“We can add another half-ring to the city.”
“We already are.”
“Okay. Are the prime minister and Chief Nawal ready to come in?” Marc asked.
“I’ll message Masina,” Blake said.
“I should go prepare for my mission,” Catie said.
“Sit back down,” Blake said. “This will be good for you.”
Catie frowned at her uncle but sat back down. Blake was happy that she didn’t stick her tongue out at him.
Everyone stood as Masina led Prime Minister Nazeri and Chief Nawal in. Once everyone was seated again, Marc nodded to Kal.
“There have been a couple of incidents that have led Prime Minister Nazeri to question some of our investigative techniques. She asked that we have this review to discuss them and, I hope, validate their usefulness and appropriateness,” Kal said.
“This will be interesting,” Catie messaged Liz. “What incidents?”
“We have just arrested a man for running an illegal prostitution ring,” Kal said.
“But prostitution isn’t illegal,” Blake said.
“It is when the prostitutes are ten years old.”
“Oh my god,” Catie gasped.
“How did you catch him?”
“That goes to one of the techniques we use,” Kal said. “We insert members of the Marine Corps investigative team into Delphi City as, let us say, less than upstanding citizens. Their job is to drift along at the bottom of society and to infiltrate any illegal activity.”
“You mean spy on our citizens,” the prime minister said.
“They are not peeking into people’s bedrooms,” Kal said, somewhat exasperated. “They are simply engaging with the margins of society.”
“Exactly where and how do you insert these agents?” Admiral Michaels asked.
“We have the youngest looking ones attend the school here as either juniors or seniors. They take classes, make marginal grades, and hang out with the rougher crowd. Generally, they pick up on different methods the kids come up with to cheat on their tests, but occasionally they are brought into more seriously illegal activities. That’s how we first learned about Hooligans, the teen bar. Then we inserted an agent there to work as a bartender.”
Chief Nawal had been nodding her agreement as Kal told the story. “That was important. Their agent helped us to realize that we should leave Hooligans alone. It was serving a good purpose, giving teenagers a place to blow off steam. She was able to influence the club to further restrict the use of hard liquor and focus on beer.”
“So how did you tumble onto this prostitution ring?”
“A prostitute, who was earning extra money doing private parties for this ring, noticed the young girls. She mentioned it to one of our guys.”
“That’s horrible,” Catie gasped.
“How did she know one of your guys well enough to trust him with something like that?” Admiral Michaels asked.
“Well, various prostitutes in the city occasionally have trouble with one of their customers. They want to keep these problems quiet, so they use our guy to sort them out.”
“And how does he do that?”
“He is very skillful at arranging accidents for these problem customers.”
“What kind of accidents?”
“Some of them have been known to stumble down a flight of stairs when they bump into someone else, others seem to trip on the sidewalk, things like that. He’s managed to accomplish all of the accidents without being caught by Chief Nawal’s constables.”
“With all of our cameras around, that is pretty remarkable,” Blake said.
“Well, not many of his victims complain, and he is remarkably good at it. Anyway, he checked it out. Determined that there was a problem. He got the prostitute to get one of the girls to come forward. Then we were able to set up surveillance. We picked up seven johns and then we grabbed the ring. Three girls were involved. We’ve moved them to Delphi Station to protect them.”
“Okay. Prime Minister, what is your problem with the methods?” Marc asked.
“Due process.”
Marc nodded to Kal.
“Our agents have to observe a crime being committed or have someone come forward who’s observed a crime being committed. That allows us to get a warrant to move further. In this case, it took two rounds before we had a broad enough warrant to roll up the operation.”
“Two rounds?”
“The judges typically issue a pretty narrow warrant with limited use that allows us to surveil or wiretap an individual. That means we cannot use things we observe that are not related to the warrant in order to expand the case. But once we prove that there is a broader conspiracy or organization involved, we go back and get a broader warrant,” Kal explained. “Then we install more surveillance probes into the situation to gather more intel.”
“And the problem with that would be?” Marc asked, looking at the prime minister.
“I’m not sure.”
“Would you have a problem if a regular citizen came to the police and reported a crime, and after
that, the police instituted the same procedure that Kal described?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then, what we have here is that Kal and Chief Nawal are simply inserting regular citizens into situations where they are more likely to observe a crime being committed.”
“What about that enforcer of yours?”
“Chief Nawal, what do you think?”
“If we catch him, we’ll arrest him,” the chief said.
“Agreed, but would you refuse to accept evidence from a known criminal?”
“No, not if it was credible.”
“Then it seems that we are following due process and not violating anyone’s rights.”
“Except the enforcer.”
“Yes, he is breaking the law. But it doesn’t seem that the justice system is being subverted. Kal, is that correct?”
“Yes, the agents know they’re on their own if they break the law. If they get arrested and it goes to conviction, we would step in and pull them out, but they know we will not intercede before that.”
“Have any of your agents gotten into trouble?”
“A couple have run into other enforcers,” Kal said.
“And what happened with those other enforcers?” Blake asked.
“Well, so far they haven’t been able to demonstrate the level of training our people have, so they’ve been forced to find another line of work. Sometimes after a brief stay in the hospital.”
“Okay, now back to the original case. What’s going to happen with the prostitution ring?”
“The johns have all confessed. They’ll receive treatment while they serve out their sentences.”
“How long are their sentences?” Catie demanded.
“Ten years, plus lifetime monitoring,” Chief Nawal said.
Catie grimaced but decided that that was enough.
“And the members of the ring?”
“We expect the low-level guys to hold out until after the top guy is convicted. They’ll get the same sentence as the johns when convicted. The ringleader will get twenty-five to life, and lifetime monitoring if he ever gets released.”
“What is he hoping for?”
“He’s trying to intimidate the witnesses.”
“How is he managing that?”
“It appears he has associates who are doing that for him. They may have prior instructions or he has a way to give instructions through his lawyer. We monitor that, but no system is perfect. We’re still backtracing all the incidents to see if we can determine the source of the instructions,” Chief Nawal said.
“How are the witnesses being intimidated?”
“The use of enforcers against friends. We’ve moved a couple of friends up to Delphi Station to protect them.”
“By friends, you mean other prostitutes?”
“It’s not illegal, here or on Delphi Station.”
“But a cabin on Delphi Station is usually out of their income bracket,” Blake said.
“Blake, you can’t be that naïve,” Liz said.
“Oh, so not out of their income bracket.”
Liz just shook her head.
“Back to the witnesses,” Marc said.
“Yes, the constabulary has arrested a couple of enforcers, and a few others have discovered it is an unhealthy business to be in. We’re now waiting to see what happens next.”
“You mean, now that he realizes he cannot easily intimidate the witnesses?”
“Correct.”
“And when is the trial?”
“In two months.”
“When did you arrest him?” Samantha asked.
“Last month,” Kal said.
“So three months to prepare for trial.”
“Do you think that’s too long?” Chief Nawal asked.
Samantha laughed. “It seems pretty short.”
“Hard for him to make a case that he couldn’t get an attorney full time right away,” Chief Nawal said. “And our judges lean toward speedy unless you can show why you can’t be prepared.”
“So what are we going to do with all these prisoners?” Samantha asked.
“We’ll finish building the prison. We’ll have to accelerate the expansion to include workspace for these guys since we wouldn’t want to let them out into the community for work.”
“What kind of work will you have them do?” Samantha asked.
“We won’t be trusting most of them, so we’ll start out with recycling. We have to do a lot of disassembly, and we’re not too worried about sabotage there. We’ll see what else we come up with as time goes on.”
“Prime Minister, are you happy with this?” Marc asked.
“I’m still not comfortable.”
“What would make you comfortable?”
“I think I’d like someone to be reviewing all the warrants and activities.”
“You could set up an independent judicial committee to review the operations and warrants.”
“That would make me feel better.”
“I have no objection. Kal, Chief Nawal?” Marc asked.
“We’re fine with that.”
“Okay, then are we done here?”
The prime minister nodded, and Marc closed the meeting.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Kal, I want to talk to the girls,” Catie said as she followed Kal out of the meeting.
“I thought you might,” Kal said. “They’re in cabin 3-7-180. The security people taking care of them will be expecting you.”
“Thanks.”
“You do know that you need to leave the counseling to the doctors.”
“I know. How are they doing?”
“The doctors say they’re doing reasonably well. They’re frustrated that they cannot do as much as they want to until after the trial.”
“Why?”
“We cannot touch their memories before they give their testimony.”
“Oh,” Catie said.
“Yeah, it’s a raw deal, but we have to do what we have to do.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Push!” the doctor ordered.
“I am pushing!” Samantha yelled.
“Come on you can do it,” Marc said. “Ouch,” he winced as Samantha dug into his wrist with her fingernails.
“Sir, it’s best if you stick to ‘I’m here,’ and ‘do you want some ice chips?’” the doctor said.
Marc nodded as he continued to wince as Samantha squeezed his wrist.
“Remind me to explain to Dr. Metra what painless means in English!”
“Oh, you wanted the pain-free option?” the doctor asked.
“What! You mean there is a way to avoid this!” Samantha screamed.
“Here she comes! . . . There’s no pain-free option, but that comment usually gives the patient the energy for the final push I need,” the doctor said as she handed the baby to the nurse.
“I am going to make you pay . . .”
“Here’s your baby,” the nurse said as she brought the newborn over to Samantha. The nurse had been trying to clean the baby up but figured that Samantha needed to be distracted right away.
“Ohh, she’s so beautiful,” Samantha said.
“Yes she is,” Marc said. He now finally knew the sex of the baby.
“Yay! A baby girl!” Catie squealed over the Comm.
Chapter 12
Tres Amigas
The guard at the door snapped to attention as Catie entered the cabin.
“Ma’am.”
“Relax, call me Catie.”
“Yes, ma’am. . . . uh, Catie, I’m Sergeant Ferra.”
“How are they doing?”
“They seem to be doing pretty well. They’ve really taken to the video games. They’re playing with the Fox simulator right now.”
“That’s good. So are they eating okay, sleeping?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’ve got good appetites. Of course, who wouldn’t when you can have whatever you want. They’re sleeping together, but no night terrors that I’m awar
e of. The doctor comes every day to do some counseling. They’ve been especially happy since Celia came to stay with them.”
“Celia?”
“The woman who first reported them.”
“Oh, the prostitute,” Catie said.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s in the kitchen making dinner. She does a good job keeping the place clean, we don’t even need to bring a maid in. And she’s a very good cook.”
Catie winced as one of the girls squealed, “É a Princesa Catie, pessoal, é a Princesa Catie!” Catie’s Comm translated it to, ‘It’s Princess Catie, guys look, it’s Princess Catie.’
“You’ve been made,” Sergeant Ferra said with a grin.
Catie moved into the room and sat on the couch as the three girls stood up and chattered with each other in Portuguese.
“Hi,” Catie said. “Can we talk?”
The girls took a second to respond, then nodded their heads, “Sim.”
“Their English isn’t that good,” Sergeant Ferra said.
“How can that be?!”
“They’re looking into it. It’s gotten better over the last week, but obviously, they haven’t been doing the training.”
“ADI, how long have they been here?” Catie asked.
“I assume you mean in Delphi,” ADI said. “If so, then they’ve been in Delphi for three months. They’re from Brazil, Sao Paulo.”
“So why isn’t their English better?”
“They have not been going through the acclimation program.”
“How is that possible?”
“Someone has hacked the system,” ADI replied.
“Who?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Cannot, it would violate the due process rule.”
“I don’t care about due process!”
“I still cannot tell you.”
“Have you fixed the hack?”
“I can.”
“Then do it.”
“Yes, Cer Catie. But I must tell you it is likely to result in bodily harm to the hacker when his clients are caught violating the system.”
“That sounds like perfect due process to me!” Catie said.
“Done,” ADI replied.
“Com quem você está falando, who are you talking to?” one of the girls asked.