“And Miss Washington was your leader?”
“No,” Jason said, and then decided against the lie. “Well, she was sort of the one who always knew what was going on and the one we all came to with ideas. So yeah, I guess.”
“What do you know about Stephanie Washington’s involvement with the Anti-Corp movement?”
The change in questioning was so abrupt that Jason paused for a few seconds. “I don’t know anything about that.”
From her corner Hale snorted and said, “I knew he would lie to us. Look, you don’t seem to realize what we can do to you. All those innocent games you played in college are enough to land you on the blacklist in Silte’s eyes. Do you like the idea of being unemployed for the rest of your life? No? How about a decade of solitary in a corporate prison? They say you never leave that cell, even when they take you out.”
“You know nothing?” Sorensen asked calmly, once her partner had finished.
“Nothing.”
Raising her eyebrows, Sorensen leaned back and said, “You know nothing, and yet we have visual evidence of you accompanying Miss Washington two weeks ago to the home of one Rai Belgarino, a chief financial backer of the Anti-Corp for the last five months.”
Thinking back to that party Steph had made him go to, it all made sense now. He had thought it was strange seeing so many casually-dressed young people loitering around the lavish estate that night; the youthful group hadn’t seemed to belong in the company of a billionaire venture capitalist—or his distinguished guests that included several CEOs and at least one senator. Steph must have brought Jason to a secret (and probably incredibly rare) in-person meeting of the AC without telling him about it. But why, Steph?
He needed to tread carefully now. “That was a party,” he said. “I didn’t know who this…Belgarino guy was. Steph told me she needed someone to go with her to a function for work. She said it would be fun to see how the filthy rich live for once; that was sort of a thing with her. She convinced me, so I went. As far as I know, she went to that party because she’s covering Belgarino for her job, writing articles and stuff.” It’s the truth. Please believe it.
They weren’t believing it.
Squinting sharply at him, Hale said, “You expect us to believe that your close friend of nine years is regularly involved in rampant criminal activity and you don’t know anything about it? Even when meetings are happening right in front of you?” Her voice had become almost threatening.
“It’s the truth. I…” The lie came to him then. “We had a falling out senior year. I told Steph I needed to move on and I wanted out. It was time to go out, find a job, grow up and start life. After that, I never heard anything about non-E or anything like that from her again. And I haven’t since.” There was a little truth to it; he had quit the group just before graduation. He’d offered to do work for them at a fair price, but he hadn’t been the only one to grow up and move on; the group fell apart soon after, and Steph moved on to bigger and better things.
Sorensen stared at him for a while then stood up and beckoned Hale. “One moment, Mr. Delaney.” The two went out of the office and closed the door. Jason waited for a tense minute or two, stifled by the dense, perfume-laden air in the small office. He wished there was a window, just so he could see some open space.
The detectives came back in, and Sorensen stood by his chair as she said, “You’re free to go, Mr. Delaney. And don’t think you can warn your friend into hiding. There is no hiding from us this late in the game.”
“You’re lucky,” Hale said tauntingly. “I wanted to keep you in here all day. Sabrina must like you or something.”
Ignoring the younger woman, Jason stood up and faced Sorensen eye-to-eye. “Are you going to kill her?”
“No,” Sorensen told him, “we’re going to make sure justice is carried out.”
“Whose justice?” Jason was feeling braver now that he was free. “Not yours or mine. The Guardian organization doesn’t follow the law, they follow money. It’s who you work for, who I work for. The one at the top of the tower in Dallas. That’s whose justice you’re serving.”
“Neither of us wants me to have to call security, Mr. Delaney.” Sorensen was remarkably placid.
At that, Jason shook off his courage—or stupidity—and started from the office. But he turned at the last moment. He didn’t know what made him do it. Was it a small hope that this detective could be turned? Maybe—maybe—if she knew the truth, knew what might happen, she would lay off Steph and all those connected to her.
“The Houston Warehouse report,” he said. “Look it up. And not on Google—Silte’s had it censored—in your Guardian police files. It’s there, somewhere.” He turned and walked and did not look back to see if his message had any effect whatsoever on the stony detective. He didn’t stop until he was in the elevator descending to sweet freedom.
Back out in the open air, he pulled his tablet out. Checking to see that no one was around, he found an app he hadn’t used in almost seven years and opened it. “Video to Steph,” he said.
He had to warn her. She may not be able to escape now, but he had to warn her.
5
There were still a few hours left in the work day, but Sabrina felt the Washington case was already as complete as it needed to be. The only thing left to do was to go after her, and that meant putting it in another officer’s hands. She felt a little bad for this girl, Stephanie; she didn’t have a history of criminal activity like some of the other cases, and she seemed genuinely to believe in her cause. But she chose to express her opinions with terrorism, by Silte Corp’s definition at least, and for that she had likely earned a prison sentence. Since the Corporate Freedom Act, entities like Silte had possessed the right to define the law as far as it directly related to protecting their business from outside threats. There was no question Washington and her associates were a threat.
Something about this case, though, still bothered Sabrina. And not just this case either: all the work Guardian had done since being employed by Silte. What Jason Delaney had said in their morning meeting, all that about justice… It’s not like she hadn’t thought about it before since starting with the GPA eighteen years ago; in fact, she had been thinking about it more and more lately. Things had seemed so much easier when Guardian worked exclusively for the US government. They might not have always done things by the books, but at least they had run in the tradition of justice in America. Now things were different. They were getting money, just like always, but they were operating strictly as a business, chasing a profit rather than taxpayer satisfaction. The proper definition of justice only mattered to them if it mattered to Silte Corp.
And then there was this Houston Warehouse report. Curious about Delaney’s comment, she had Googled it, without much success. She had found some reactions to the report in various seedy forums (lots of faceless repliers claimed to have “lost faith in humanity”), but direct information about it was strangely absent. She had thought about searching the Guardian files, just as Delaney had suggested, but paperwork had come up, pushing it from her mind.
Do I really want to see what’s there? All she could see happening, if there was really anything to it, was disillusionment, meaningless worry—it could even make her hate Guardian. She didn’t want that.
“I finished the Delaney report,” Erris said as she sauntered into the break room and took a seat on the couch beside Sabrina. In a breach of office formality she had unbuttoned her shirt so that a full two inches of cleavage was visible. “Finally. So you want to close the book on him?”
“For now.” There was no way Jason Delaney had been entirely truthful before. He wasn’t a top priority, but Silte’s Crisis Procedure might undermine that fact. “I have a feeling we’ll see him again.”
Erris made a childlike face of mock-disgust. “Do we have to stay in this shitty old building until then?”
“No, we’re leaving after tomorrow to go back to the San Francisco office.”
&n
bsp; That wiped the looked off Erris’s face, to be replaced by genuine confusion. “We just got here today,” she said.
“Yes,” Sabrina said, “and we’re finished here. The lieutenant wants us up there, to be in the action. There’s not as much as we expected going on in San Jose; I guess all the bigger stuff is up around the bay. Anyway, Washington’s there. We still need to close that case, bring her in, get some names if we can. It will be easier if we don’t have to drive her all the way here.”
“I wish the captain would make up his mind,” Erris whined. “They made us stay in a hotel and everything.” The higher-ups had paid for a block of rooms at the Fairmont to keep all officers deployed in San Jose in a central location, even those who lived in the city. “It was supposed to be all romantic and stuff,” Erris said, stretching an arm around Sabrina’s shoulders.
Leaning in, she pulled Sabrina closer to her. The warmth of her breath was hot on Sabrina’s neck as she said, “Hey, we’re both done with our work early for once.” She leaned in and kissed Sabrina, slipping her tongue in subtly as she slowly stroked a hand along her thigh.
“No. God, Erris, not here,” Sabrina pulled away and put some distance between them on the couch.
“Why not?” Erris said. “Door: lock.” She looked over at the door when nothing happened. “See?” she cried. “Nothing in this place is voice-controlled. Here, I’ll lock it manually.”
“No.” Sabrina stood up.
“What are you so worried about?”
She could be so difficult—so clueless—sometimes. “There are probably cameras all over this room.”
Erris laughed, a high mirthful sound. “There are cameras in every room we’ve ever worked in. Somebody somewhere out there has some pretty hot stuff of us already. What’s the problem?”
“It’s just…” Sabrina shifted, uncomfortable. “Look, I still have some work to do here. We’re opening our major investigation on the Bay Area Anti-Corp leaders.” She turned to leave, but Erris called her back.
“What is it?” Erris asked. “What’s going on?”
“I think I’m going to look up that Houston Warehouse file.”
“You actually believe that guy?” Erris was incredulous.
Sweet, naïve Erris. She was still ready to believe that she was on the right side simply because it was the side she was on. Sabrina had been the same way, once, but even after the dream had ended she at least had the feeling she was with the right cause. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She had to see that report, in any case; otherwise it would hound her incessantly and she would be forced to live in suspicion and uncertainty.
“I’m getting back to work,” Sabrina said. “You should do the same.” She felt Erris’s reproachful gaze as she left the lounge.
Back in her temporary office, Sabrina went immediately to her desk screen and accessed the Guardian Police Association database, letting the screen scan her thumbprint when prompted. After she entered and submitted a search for the Houston Warehouse report, she realized that her ID would now be logged accessing this file; if it contained something they didn’t want her to see, they would now know she saw it, regardless of whether she quit now or pressed on. She was locked in whether she wanted to be or not, tied to whatever consequences arose from it.
Hesitantly, she tapped the link to the archived report her search returned.
It would take her hours to read the veritable book the report contained. “Summary,” she said. The extrapolation tool instantly opened a window with a condensed version—this one only a few pages. Sabrina read slowly and began feeling uneasy almost immediately.
Six years ago a CIA agent, referred to only as Agent Lyle in the report, was put in charge of an investigation assigned to the Guardian Police Association, then under the employ of the federal government. Agent Lyle brought the case over from the CIA, who had decided not to handle it themselves. The investigation looked into a series of accidental deaths at a Silte Corp venture in Houston, Texas called Bayou Clean Energy Research Center, more commonly referred to as the Houston Warehouse since it was located in an old shipping warehouse on the Buffalo Bayou. At the time of the report, the Warehouse seemed to be doing little more than taking up space.
Over the span of five years prior to the investigation, at least sixteen Silte Corp executives, most from the central headquarters but a few from other branches and assets, were relocated to the Warehouse. Of the sixteen, ten were reported deceased within three months of arriving at the Warehouse. Their deaths were mostly workplace accidents, but there were three suicides and even an accidental shooting by an armed security guard. Of those who didn’t die, four had been indicted and sentenced on corporate embezzlement charges, and the other two disappeared for days at a time before washing up, bloated and rotting, on the local beaches.
Guardian sent an investigation team from their South Texas office to the Warehouse with Agent Lyle. The Guardian team quickly determined no further investigation was necessary, but Lyle insisted that it needed further review. The team, including Lyle, ended up closing the investigation after a majority consensus. That was all the summary said about it. But Sabrina was in no way satisfied; these summaries didn’t always give all the information you needed.
“Search: Agent Lyle.”
A much longer text came up with Lyle’s name highlighted wherever it appeared. She scrolled to the very end and skimmed through until she found a disturbing revelation.
The night after the investigation was closed, Agent Lyle was shot outside his hotel and died on the way to the hospital. The Guardian team took responsibility for the investigation and determined that it was a robbery gone wrong, as Lyle’s gun was out and his wallet was missing. Afterward, the CIA had called for an investigation into the death of their agent. The report said nothing else.
“Search: CIA investigation of Guardian Police Association.”
A list of results popped up over the report. The first was an article with the headline “CIA calls for investigation into agent’s death” and a date of some six years ago. She clicked through and—
Before she read so much as a word, a message box popped up on her desk screen that said, “Session terminated: Your activity has been logged and you will hear from a supervisor.” She watched in disbelief, her gut tying itself in knots, as the screen returned home. Within seconds, a vid-call box popped up containing the face of Lieutenant Garrol from the San Francisco office.
“Detective Sabrina Sorensen,” he growled, his eyes pointing down and off screen.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Listen closely.” His double chin wobbled as he spoke. “You are heretofore placed on administrative leave. You are to remain at your current place of residence until further notice. Your pay will be docked and you will be removed from all GPA activities and investigations until your case has been examined by an internal regulation committee, chosen from your peers in other departments. Do you understand what I have said?”
“Yes.” Another whisper: it was all she could manage.
“Dammit, Sorensen, why were you so persistent?” He looked up, and his voice became softer as he said, “You’ve been an outstanding detective, I’ll give that in my statement if I need to…which is why I want to give you some advice. When they come for you—no, don’t ask me, I don’t know when it will be—but when they come, be there and go with them peacefully. Do that and the worst that will happen is an unpaid vacation, maybe a pay cut.”
“Are you having me arrested?”
“No. Not exactly. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. I’m very busy. Goodbye.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, Sorensen.”
As the lieutenant’s face went to black, Sabrina felt sick. Were they going to interrogate her? What if they didn’t like what she told them? Garrol had sounded sincere, but there was no guarantee he even knew what would happen. They could kill her, silence her. Just like those people at the warehouse.
No, she mustn’t think like
that. Looking at a file, one available to any Guardian senior detective, couldn’t be enough to have her killed. And anyway, was the information in the report really enough to prove that Silte Corp had orchestrated a series of murders and that Guardian had helped them? Her gut told her yes, but she didn’t know.
A horrible feeling hit her then: all those people, the activists and hackers who she had investigated, all of them could be walking around with targets on their heads. They were criminals, to be sure, but they hadn’t earned executions, if that was what Silte had in mind. And if Silte (and Guardian, for that matter) truly killed a CIA agent to keep him quiet, then offing lowly hackers, who together might bring down the entire corporation, would be nothing.
This was all too much. Sabrina had to find out more, but not here; it was too dangerous to stay now. She cleared out everything she needed from her desk into her bag and made to exit the building as quickly and silently as possible. She couldn’t tell Erris, not now or later when they were both back at the hotel. She couldn’t bear to drag her into this and risk her life as well, so Sabrina crept by the slim crack of Erris’s door and hurried on to what she hoped would be an uneventful bus ride back to her room at the Fairmont.
6
“Watch your head,” the security guard said as he helped Mike into the helicopter, handing up his briefcase after Mike was in. The roar of the accelerating blades clogged his ears so he didn’t hear what the armored man said next. Mike had never seen Silte security wearing bulletproof armor before; usually not even the private police wore that. But this one looked like he was going into battle, with black body armor covering most of his torso and limbs, a handgun at one hip and a long-range stun gun at the other.
Inside the helicopter, Mike took a seat on a cushioned leather chair. The interior was not unlike the luxury cars that had taken him to company events back in New York. As he pulled on his seatbelt, the guard nodded and disappeared behind the closing door; the deafening roar of the rotor was mostly shut out when the thick, soundproof door locked in place. A man wearing a green pilot’s jacket and headset emerged from a door to the cockpit.
Dreams in the Tower Part 1 Page 4