Chapter 44
Chapter 44
The interrogation room was cold and cramped. A single light hovered over a steel table casting the edges of the room in shadow. Daniel sat in a stiff metal chair, hunched over and handcuffed. Another Dan stared at him from across the room, his reflection in the one-way glass, still dirty and disheveled from fighting. His body was sore, despite the brief combat, and his wrist ached from using the police baton like a cattle prod.
He was, to summarize, extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, he knew the situation was only temporary. His bonds were a polite fiction at best, considering his ability to teleport. It was a display of trust, though a small one. It would be a colossally stupid decision for Dan to leave the room without permission. He was a suspect in the kidnapping of a police officer and a student, at least for now. There were dozens of witnesses in and around the parking lot, and Dan had spotted a few security cameras as well. He would be fine.
Nearly the instant that thought passed through Dan’s head, the door to the interrogation room swung open. Sergeant Kaneda Ito strolled inside, still in uniform and with a manila folder tucked under his arm. He spun a ring of keys idly around his finger as he approached Dan’s little table.
“Well this is a fine mess you’ve found yourself in,” the gruff officer stated. He leaned past Dan, keys in hand, and began to unlock the handcuffs.
They came apart with a click, and Dan rubbed his wrists. “Sorry.”
He couldn’t find it in himself to make a joke.
“S’not your fault, kid.” Ito waved off the apology. His other hand dropped the manila folder down onto the table. “Your story checked out.”
Dan’s body slumped in relief. He wasn’t worried, exactly. He knew that he was innocent, but it was still comforting to hear it said out loud. Especially by someone in uniform.
“So what now?” Dan asked anxiously. “How do we find Graham and Gregoir?”
The scarred officer snorted lightly. “We do nothing. You’re a civilian, remember? Your ride along has ended, and with it, the protections that it afforded you under the law. Leave this to the professionals, we deal with kidnappings all the time.”
“So it was a kidnapping, then?” Dan inquired, leaning forward keenly. “Was Graham the target?”
The young student certainly looked rich enough to justify that sort of action. Dan had rarely considered that particular downside of wealth. It just seemed like the sort of thing that, if and when it happened, happened… elsewhere. Even after hearing Abby’s stories, he’d just dismissed the idea.One more thing to chalk up to stupid naiveté.
He really needed to call Abby.
Ito seemed caught between amusement and annoyance. He gave Daniel a long, considering look, clearly calculating how much should be said.
“No,” he grunted after a moment. “No one was a target.”
That caught Dan a little off guard.
“Not to point out the obvious,” he said hesitantly, more than aware that he was speaking to a veteran police officer, “but two people are missing. Kidnapped, or, however you’d like to describe it. That sort of implies that at least one of them was targeted.”
Ito nodded. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“…Yes?” Dan offered, not quite sure if he was asking and answering.
“Well, you’d be wrong. Assumptions are dangerous. This is why.”
The unexpected statement silenced Dan. It seemed ludicrous on the surface. It didn’t take a genius to evaluate this particular situation. Mind control plus missing people equals kidnapping. Simple arithmetic.
What was he missing?
Fortunately, Ito took pity on him before Dan could tie his own brain into knots.
“If Mr. Charleston planned to abduct the three of you, then why did you encounter his partner in the parking lot?” Ito asked pointedly. He slid to the opposite side of the table and dropped into the open chair. “Why did Mr. Charleston give you the order to leave, rather than to go somewhere with him?” Ito leaned forward and flipped open the manila folder. “Why bother installing this beneath Gregoir’s squad car?”
The folder was filled with pictures of the vehicle’s undercarriage. A square device, both bulky and electronic, was attached to a random bit of protruding metal, alongside a stick of something that looked frighteningly similar to a plastic explosive.
Dan’s mouth went dry. “Is that what I think it is?”
He had assumed that Smoke Guy had planted a bomb during his brief skirmish, but he hadn’t really internalized the idea. It was more of an instinctive reaction rather than any sort of intellectual thought. Had he seen the blasted thing earlier, Dan might’ve just abandoned the parking lot entirely. He may have been spoiling for a fight at the time, but nothing could take the wind out of a man’s sails quite like an explosion.
Ito smirked, the scar on his face twisting with the motion. “Tracker.” He tapped his finger on the largest part of the device. “Bomb.” He tapped a different picture, where a large stick of semtex was clearly visible.
“Just thought you should know what you were brawling beside.”
Dan’s thoughts quietly groaned to a halt. He searched in vain for something insightful to say. “A tracker?”
“Mmm.” Ito nodded, visibly amused by Dan’s distress. “Why a tracker, do you think?”
Good, a question; something for Dan to focus on other than an alternate timeline, where he was a few seconds slower to react and Smoke Guy reduced him to chunky salsa. He thought back to the hotel lobby, focusing hard on the muddled mess of memories. Eddie had talked quite a bit; his orders worded as suggestions that took root in Daniel’s addled mind. What was it that he had said?
“He wanted us to forget,” Dan murmured, lost in the memory. “He wanted us to go about our day, and not think about what had happened. He told us to leave.”
Dan paused, puzzling over the implications. “We would’ve gone about our patrol, and returned to the station with a bomb strapped to the bottom of our car. Was that the idea? An attack on the police station?” The idea alone was horrifying. He glanced down at the pictures scattered on the table, searching out the close-up of the bomb. The chunk of plastic explosive was as thick as his arm. Dan couldn’t begin to guess how destructive it would’ve been.
“A distraction,” Ito corrected, derailing Dan’s train of thought. The older man leafed through the folder once more, and produced a document with a mugshot of Eddie. “Eddie Charleston, alias ‘Edict’. He’s wanted for a string of kidnappings on the East coast. His usual modus operandi is to simply approach his victim while they are in a public space, and use his upgrade to bring them elsewhere.”
Dan’s nose wrinkled. “That thing he walloped us with is an upgrade? I figured it was a mutation, at least.”
“A banned upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless,” Ito confirmed. He scanned the document in his hand. “It was created by an adult novelty supplier for…” He coughed into his fist. “Roleplay purposes. They got it past the licensing board on the back of several bribes, and the upgrade was outlawed within a month of its release. The effects on a person were extraordinarily similar to the date-rape drug rohynpnol.”
Dan processed that. “So his power literally roofies people?”
“You could say that,” Ito acknowledged grimly. “And, he has a history of using it on children and young adults.”
“What a creep.”
Dan’s frank evaluation startled a laugh out of Ito.
“You can say that again.” He paused, briefly drumming his fingers on the table. “But, we’re getting off track.”
“Right.” Dan rewound the conversation in his head. “A distraction?”
Ito inclined his head. “The target was a police officer, or multiple police officers, if they could get them. More specifically, they hoped to capture officers with restricted A-class upgrades.”
“A-class?” Dan repeated.
“Our internal classification system,” Ito explained. “Every officer has an opportunity to choose one of our exclusive upgrades, but only those who have displayed a particular… devotion, to the cause, are given an A-class upgrade.” After a moment, he added, “Mr. Graham’s family has a long history of public service. He likely would’ve been offered an A-class, so long as he passed his mental evaluation.”
“Nepotism,” Dan stated evenly. Exactly the thing that Graham had accused him of.
“Practical,” Ito countered. “His place here has to be earned through hard work. His upgrade, however, will be determined by both his demeanor and his background. Strong family ties reduce the risk of him going rogue with a dangerous upgrade.”
Dan didn’t like it. The system stank of favoritism, but he wasn’t sure how to go about disputing it. He needed more information before he could even attempt such a thing. Arguing now would get him nowhere.
“Fine.” Dan conceded the point with barely concealed distaste. “So Eddie was trying to snatch up a police officer. That seems incredibly dangerous.”
“It’s certainly a jump up from his usual fare,” Ito agreed, slouching in his chair. His finger pressed down on Eddie’s mugshot and dragged it across the table. He glanced down at it, musing to himself, “I wonder what drove him to such an extreme change.”
Daniel would’ve speculated, but his mind was busy whirring through the afternoon’s events. The tracker, the bomb, the order to leave. The manager, just as confused and addled as they had been. The call, such a minor, stupid thing. Stealing electricity? It should’ve been a milk run.
And Gregoir, the sole natural power of the APD.
“It was a trap,” Daniel concluded. “They somehow knew that a mass ride along was taking place, that officers would prioritize taking the kids on easy calls, that they’d have green students accompanying them instead of fellow officers. Eddie must’ve used his power on the manager, and faked a minor problem. Only, they got unlucky. Gregoir took the call, and he wasn’t what they were looking for.”
Ito’s eyes glittered. “And so…?”
“And so,” Dan continued, raising out of his seat as his mind connected the dots, “they needed to try again. Eddie whammied us into leaving, into forgetting, while his partner…”
Dan paused.
“While his partner strapped a tracker and a bomb to the car,” he said slowly. “It must’ve been the backup plan. The tracker so that they wouldn’t land Gregoir again, that much is obvious. We would’ve forgotten our encounter with them, so they could just try again, probably at another location. They could keep trying, for as long as they wanted to.”
“I doubt they would’ve attempted it more than two or three more times before fleeing, but yes,” Ito agreed.
“Right,” Dan acknowledged absently. “At some point, someone would figure things out. Especially if he planned to snatch up the students as well. At which point—”
“At which point the remaining students would be recalled to the station for their safety,” Ito stated grimly.
“Then the bomb would go off, throwing everything into disarray, and buying Eddie time to flee,” Dan finished.
The interrogation room was silent as they both pictured that scene. There were precautions in place to prevent that sort of thing, obviously, but nothing is foolproof. Nothing could’ve stopped the bomb from being detonated outside the station, either, or even en route. Had things gone to plan, Dan would’ve ended up a bloody smear on the pavement somewhere.
“Why did you tell me all of this?” Dan broke the silence.
Ito shrugged. “You figured out most of it yourself. The rest,” he flicked the photographs towards Dan’s side of the table, “you deserved to hear. Their plan might’ve gone off without a hitch if you weren’t there to bungle it up. We wouldn’t have even known about most of this if you hadn’t captured Edict’s partner.”
Dan frowned down at photos. “I still don’t get why he took Gregoir and Graham. If that wasn’t the plan, then why…?”
“Panic, I assume,” Ito replied. “Edict isn’t used to his prey fighting back, and this job was far outside his comfort zone. He got sloppy. When you disappeared out from under his nose, and made that big ruckus in the parking lot, he probably acted without thinking.”
Dan winced. “So it’s my fault they were taken.”
“No,” Ito replied immediately. “They were taken as a consequence of your actions, but you did not take them. You are not at fault, because that is not how fault works.” He straightened in his seat, leaning forward to meet Dan’s eyes. “Remember, as distasteful as this outcome is, the alternative could have been far worse. As of now, we are only missing a single student and a single officer. Had that bomb gone off, the casualties might have numbered in the dozens, if not hundreds, to say nothing of the chaos it would cause throughout the city.”
While it did little to ease the tiny coil of guilt growing in Dan’s gut, he accepted the consolation in the spirit that it was meant. “That would have been bad.”
“Probably,” Ito agreed blandly.
The conversation stalled for a moment. Ito was expressionless, simply watching Dan process what he had learned. Dan remained quiet, lost in his own head and contemplating. After several minutes of silence, he glanced across the table.
“So you got all this information from the guy I grabbed?” he asked quietly. He needed the assurance right now, confirmation that he had done something right.
“Mostly, with a few extrapolations,” Ito replied with a nod. “Edict tends to switch partners, and we’re certain that this guy wasn’t in the know.”
Dan frowned, scratching at his cheek. “What do you mean?”
“The partner was under the impression that this was Edict’s plan,” Ito explained, gesturing at the mugshot. “Eddie Charleston has many character flaws, but recklessness is not one of them. It’s widely thought that he had spent a great deal of time staking out his previous victims. This job was entirely based around finding targets of opportunity. Edict would not have come up with a plan like this on his own. Ransom is his style, but who would he ransom the officers to?”
“You think he has a backer,” Dan stated.
The aged officer shrugged. “Something like that. We can’t confirm it with the partner, sadly. The man was paid to not ask questions.”
“No leads, then?” Dan probed with an innocent look.
Ito rolled his eyes at the weak attempt. “Nothing specific that I can share. I suppose I can tell you that surveillance cameras caught Edict fleeing in a van. He will most likely go to ground somewhere familiar, so we’re starting with known acquaintances and we’ll branch out from there. If Mr. Graham’s family receives a ransom note in the next few hours, that’ll confirm we are on the right track.”
“And Gregoir?” Dan asked, trying not to worry for the friendly neighborhood giant.
But Ito laughed, a noise filled with dark promise and grim reckoning.
“Finding Gregoir will be simple,” the scarred veteran told Dan. “We’ll just follow the noise.”