Sanctioned

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Of course, there was the small matter of The Syndicate.

  Joel arranged the reshuffle, and Molly sat down next to Paige, opposite Garet. “Here’s the thing, Garet,” she started. “We left you here because we thought you were going to do some good. Since then, you’ve done nothing but play both sides.”

  Garet opened his mouth to protest. Molly raised her hand to silence him. “We’re here to offer you a choice. There is no gray market anymore. The Syndicate will be taken out, and everyone who supports them will be gone along with them. There is no more ‘us and them’. You aren’t able to sit on the fence and feed tidbits to both sides; you’re done.”

  Joel sat down on the sofa next to Garet. Paige noticed a slight twitch in the corner of Garet’s right eye; Joel’s presence was intimidating, and Paige suspected that he deliberately sat a little closer than he would normally.

  Joel backed up what Molly was saying. “You need to choose, Garet. No more fence.”

  The meeting went on for a little while longer.

  Eventually, Molly stood up. “Okay. That’s settled,” she said, satisfied. She looked at Paige and Joel in turn. “I’ll leave you two to carry on. In the meantime, I have someone to see.”

  Joel nodded, though Paige could tell from the slight widening of his eyes that he wasn’t expecting for Molly to just take off. He stood up and followed her to the door.

  She got as far as putting her hand on the doorknob, when Joel caught her. He put a hand on her upper arm. “You sure you don’t need back up?” he asked, trying not to give anything away in front of Garet.

  Molly smiled. “I’ll be fine,” she told him.

  Joel squeezed her arm a little before letting go and taking a small step back. “Be sure that you are,” he said firmly. His eyes were softer than normal.

  Molly nodded and pulled on the door, hauling its weight open. Joel grabbed the top of the door over her head to help her, and she ducked under his arm and out of the office. He closed the door gently behind her, pausing for a moment.

  When he turned back to the room, he was back in ops mode. “Okay, folks. Looks like we’ve got work to do.” He gently clapped his big-ass hands, signaling the ‘let’s get to it’ energy he used with the team in training.

  Paige knew he meant business.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Police Precinct, Downtown Spire

  Molly stood by the mocha stand, watching the main entrance to the downtown Police Precinct.

  Come on, Oz. I thought she’d already logged off?

  She had. She’s now hanging around near the lobby, but I can’t tell why.

  Have you got visuals?

  Yes. Tracking her with facial rec.

  Show me.

  Molly opened her holo, and a feed appeared on it. It was of the lobby area. It showed people coming and going around an elevator and a corridor entrance. Chaakwa appeared onscreen, and seemed to be walking towards the main lobby area.

  Looks like she’s on the move… And she’s coming out.

  Molly looked up again at the doors, and watched for the Estarian detective woman to emerge. Sure enough, a moment later, she appeared.

  What are you going to do? Just walk up to her? ‘Excuse me, Detective. I was wondering if you’d like to be a part of a non-governmental conspiracy to take down a, well, conspiracy that is killing and exploiting thousands of Estarians each week?’

  Yeah, actually, that sounds quite good, Oz.

  Chaakwa turned left and headed down the street. Molly had walked up that way while she had been waiting, and guessed she was probably going to get some food.

  Or she was meeting someone, perhaps.

  In the case of the latter, it would be worth finding out who. Checking her distance, Molly was careful to appear casual, but not lose sight of her mark.

  Not half a block later, Chaakwa turned into a mocha shop. Molly followed quickly and saw her get in line. She was looking at the pastries, not trying to find someone.

  Probably safe to say she’s just grabbing food.

  Molly watched her order mocha and food, and then did the same. As they were waiting for their mochas in the line at the end of the counter, Molly caught her eye.

  Chaakwa wore a look of recognition, and almost said hello. It took another couple of tries before Molly was able to break the ice.

  “Greetings. You may not remember me, but I worked with Joel Dunham….”

  Chaakwa smiled and held out her hand to shake Molly’s, still racking her brain, trying to place her. Then she did. “Bates?” she clarified.

  Molly nodded. “Yes. I was probably your suspect a couple of times,” she paused, blushing a little. “But we’ve come to think of you as something like a sympathetic force in our little team.”

  Chaakwa looked intrigued. “Really?” she asked, trying not to smile, but her eyes giving her away. Her mouth crumpled up in a kind of confused wiggly line. Chaakwa’s drink arrived and she picked it up, her food in the other hand. “I was going to sit and eat. Would you care to join me?” She signaled towards an empty table by the window.

  Molly nodded, smiling. “I’d like that,” she told her. The two women waited, making small talk until Molly’s mocha arrived, and then they sat down together.

  “So, I take it your visiting me isn’t to pass the time over a mocha,” Chaakwa started.

  Molly looked down into her dark mocha, and shook her head. “No. Not at all. I’m aware of the work you did on the Dewitt case, and from our meeting when we brought Garet back, I got the impression that bringing down The Syndicate was verging on personal for you…”

  Chaakwa stopped eating, and put her food down. Her public persona evaporated, and for a moment Molly could see her as a little girl.

  Chaakwa nodded. “They killed my grandfather, and then they killed my father for investigating them.”

  Molly titled her head. “I’m… I’m so sorry.” She paused, trying to decide whether it was something that Chaakwa would want to talk about. She frowned, confused by the choice. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to pry. Then she remembered something Joel had taught her. “Hey, look, it’s none of my business, and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool… But, what happened?”

  That was almost word-for-word how Joel coached you!

  Shut up, Oz. I’m trying to focus.

  I’m going to start calling Joel ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’.

  What the fuck does that even mean?

  I’ll fill you in later. Go back to your conversation.

  Molly’s brain itched as Oz chuckled away to himself. She had to resist scratching at her head. It wasn’t appropriate. The woman in front of her was about to open up about her driving wound…

  Chaakwa had a tear forming in her eye, but she breathed in quickly and started telling her story. “My grandfather had insurance. Expensive insurance through Iantrogen, the Newld company.” She paused, getting her thoughts in order. “The family had made a lot of sacrifices to make sure he was going to be covered; to make sure we’d all be covered. My brother and I worked, instead of continuing in higher education. Father had said an education is no good if you’re dead. So we worked. And we worked hard.” She took a sip of her mocha.

  Molly glanced out of the window briefly, and then back at Chaakwa. She didn’t want her to feel the weight of her staring. Joel had told her she could be a bit “intense” sometimes in these kinds of conversations. She thought about sitting back a little, but it might come across as disinterest. Maybe in a little while… she told herself.

  Chaakwa continued. “Everything was fine. Grandfather had a condition that the company knew about, but we’d chosen a plan that covered it, and he was getting the treatment he needed. Then, one day, out of the blue, we got a message saying that his condition was being re-categorized, and that it was no longer covered. If we wanted him to receive the treatment, it was going to cost three times the amount.”

  Molly’s mouth dropped open.

  Chaakwa looked up
and nodded. “Yeah. That was our reaction.” She glanced out of the window, her eyes now distant. “Obviously, we couldn’t afford it, so nature ‘took its course,’ as the doctors called it. But around the same time, there were rumors of corruption in the company. My father was a captain at the time, and he was overseeing a task force who was investigating allegations of corporate manslaughter. Of course, as you probably know, the legislation on this has been deteriorating over time. Even back then, it was pretty bad, though. My father was pulling a good case together. I have looked over his personal notes since, and it seemed like he had found a legal recourse, and that he was building a case along these lines in collaboration with a city prosecutor. He would have made things very difficult for The Syndicate to continue the way they were doing.”

  Molly bobbed her head sympathetically. “So that’s why they killed him.”

  Chaakwa nodded. “Made it look like a car accident.”

  Molly shook her head in dismay. “How old were you?” she asked gently.

  Chaakwa looked back at her. “Twelve. Made me decide that I wanted to be a cop, to avenge my father’s death and do some good in this place.”

  Molly put her hand flat on the table, as if reaching to touch Chaakwa, but stopping short. “It looks to me like you are making a difference,” she told her. “And I’d like to help you with that. If you’ll allow me?”

  Chaakwa was still a little emotional, but nodded with a look of determination in her eye.

  Molly was interrupted by a thought. “Did you ever catch the person directly responsible for your father’s death?” she asked.

  Chaakwa shook her head. A strand of raven hair dropped over her blue skin, and she reached up and tucked it back behind her ear. “There were a few suspects, but not enough evidence to get a conviction.”

  Molly pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. “I have some resources at my disposal. We need to take out The Syndicate, and I need your help to do it so that they can’t rebuild. But how about you let me and my team take a look at the case file, and anything else you have on your father’s murder? Would that be okay?”

  Chaakwa’s mouth dropped open. The emotions from talking about her father to a near stranger, and then the possibility of getting some help with a case nobody would touch, made her feel a lot of things all at once. Her face showed she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Yes!” she said enthusiastically. “Yes, I think that would be okay.”

  The two women finished their mochas and lunches as Molly explained the intricacies of her plan to her new ally. When they were done, it was decided they should get to work right away. Chaakwa would sign Molly in as a visitor, and they would work from a spare room in the precinct - which is where they headed back to, armed with additional mochas for the afternoon ahead of them.

  Senate House, Spire

  Joel, Garet, and Paige had been working for the last several hours on the phones, rallying support for a new bill that Garet and Paige had written together only hours before. Molly’s notes and outline had helped, but there had still been a ton to do.

  A couple of interns who had helped with the research were still buzzing about the office, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s on various sections and footers. The piece was pretty much ready for submission, though.

  Joel came back in the room, closing the door gently behind him. “Senator Beaufort, it’s time we made our way over to the meeting with the Attorney General. I’ve just been told he’s arrived in the building.”

  Garet looked up from the sofa and held up a finger. He was dialed into a conference line. He glanced at Paige, who seemed to be on the same call. She nodded and took over, explaining that the Senator had to go to another meeting.

  Joel was impressed at how well Paige had just jumped in and adapted. That ability would probably have taken someone else years of training. He had a feeling that, though she had been in this world before, today had still been a learning curve for her.

  Garet got up, straightened his suit, and strode over to the door where Joel was waiting. Joel regarded him carefully. “Sure you’re ready for this?” he checked.

  Garet nodded sincerely. “Yes. Ready.”

  Joel reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open for Garet, who stepped through. Joel followed him, and they made their way down the hall to the official Senate House conference room.

  When they got there, the Attorney General was already present. He was a nerdy, weedy kind of Estarian, but from what Joel knew of him, he was actually a good man. The men shook hands, and Joel stayed by the door while the two civil servants sat and talked.

  The meeting lasted maybe twenty minutes, after which, the AG sat back in his seat and crossed one ankle over his thigh. “You know,” he said, now smiling, “I never had you down as a humanitarian, Senator.”

  Garet shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah,” he scratched awkwardly at the back of his head. “I’m a work-in-progress. But this is just the right thing to do, given the funding we’re being provided with, and the need that will be hitting us.”

  The AG bobbed his head and sat up. “Cool. Well, I’ll draw up the paperwork from our end, and make this official.” His official demeanor was dropping. He leaned forward, confiding in Garet, and glancing in Joel’s direction. “Personally, I’ll be thrilled to run this racket out of town.”

  A boyish glee danced in his eyes.

  The two men stood up and shook hands before the AG left. He even nodded and tapped Joel on the shoulder as he went out. Joel sniggered silently in his head.

  The moment felt like the geek slapping the quarterback on the arm and saying, “thanks buddy.”

  Joel shook his head as he watched the nerdy AG walk down the corridor with a spring in his step, finally able to feel like the big man in a town that had made him feel impotent despite his position, his qualifications, and his smarts.

  Garet sighed, walking towards the door. “One down…” he sighed as Joel followed him out.

  Police Precinct, Downtown Spire

  Chaakwa pulled up the last of the case files onto an index holoscreen. “That’s all of them, plus my notes,” she told Molly.

  Molly sipped at her mocha. “Shit. That’s a lot of notes to go through…”

  Chaakwa nodded. “It is, but I’ve got half of it memorized, if that helps?” Chaakwa’s voice was bright, but Molly suspected she wasn’t entirely joking.

  Molly peeled her eyes from the holoscreen in front of them. “You know, actually, it might.” Then she dropped her voice a little, conspiratorially. “Hey, are we being monitored in here?” she asked.

  Chaakwa shook her head. “Not that I know of. Budget cuts…” she looped her eyes to the ceiling to punctuate her regard for the bureaucracy.

  Molly leaned forward. “Okay. Good. So it’s probably time I fill you in on a few things…”

  Molly explained to a gobsmacked Chaakwa some of the details of their operation, including the existence of Oz and their in-house tech abilities. She carefully omitted the part about living on an asteroid, though. The fewer people knew their location, the better.

  When she was done, Chaakwa took a few minutes to process — alternating between stunned silence, and rapid-fire questions. Eventually, she understood enough to help Molly with the task.

  “What we’re looking for,” Molly explained, “is anything that can tell us where the remaining pieces of Andus’s empire are hidden. Code names, shell companies, groups we don’t know about, and, of course, any properties he has access to.”