Radical
Page 20
“Mr. Cooper has approved your request, if you can follow me please detective?”
They went to the elevator and Shonda used her keycard and then punched the B1 button.
“So, your Surveillance and Security department is in the basement?”
“Yes, and only a few people from the office have access to it. What time frame are we looking for exactly in the afternoon of March 20th?”
“Around 1:15 to 1:35 PM”
“If you don’t mind my asking can you please tell me what this is all about”
“I would love to but since this is an ongoing investigation my hands are bound”, detective Derek replied with a smile.
Shonda made her way to the front desk at the surveillance floor.
Even their surveillance department has a front desk, Derek thought.
Shonda informed the front desk about Mr. Cooper’s orders and told them that they must have received the orders in their email. The person sitting on the front desk checked his email and then asked Shonda and detective Derek to follow him.
They made their way to a room called “Archives”.
“This is where we store all our data from the surveillance footage detective”, Shonda said opening the door to the archives room.
Detective Derek was thinking that the room would be full of shelves upon shelves of CDs containing the surveillance footage from Kent and Cooper, but all the room had was one person sitting behind a desk with one laptop.
“Eric, this is Detective Derek Markus. Mr. Cooper has instructed that he be shown footage of CCTV cameras from one of our canteens from 1:15 to 1:35 PM on the 20th of March”
“I will need to verify this from Mr. Cooper personally”
“He has already sent you his instructions by email. Please check”
While Eric was checking his email address, detective Derek asked, “There is only laptop in this room. Is all the data available on this laptop? Don’t you store data for long?”
“Oh, no, Detective Derek this is just a console” Shonda said making her way to another door which detective Derek thought was a toilet. She scanned her key card and the door opened. Detective Derek looked inside. The room was alive with the sound of ten 7 feet tall servers. The room was extremely cold.
“This is our data center for just the surveillance footage. We have state of the art cameras capable of running facial recognition and they can zoom in even on laptop, tablets and cellphone screens. Surveillance generates huge amount of data because each frame the camera captures is 5 megabytes. We keep surveillance footage in our office for the past 6 months and this is where all the footage is stored in full resolution”
“Oh, so you take your surveillance very seriously?”
“Yes, we have to. Since we handle sensitive defense contracts, we have to have certain checks in place to satisfy our contractual obligations. Nobody will want to work with a firm that cannot even secure its own data. This lets the employees know that there is no place to hide. Although none of our employees have ever gone as far as data theft”
Eric read the email from Alexander Cooper and said, “So detective which particular canteen are you interested in?”
“Are there more than one?”
“There are 8 canteens here”, Shonda replied with a smile.
“Can you give me one minute, please?” Detective Derek said taking out his cellphone.
He dialed a number and then waited. The phone was picked up on the 5th ring.
“Hello Ms. Garner, this is detective Markus. Can you please let me know which canteen you and Ms. Hawkins had lunch in?”
“Sure, we had lunch at the Food Bot”
“Ok, thank you”
Detective Derek looked at Shonda and asked, “Is there a canteen called Food Bot”?
“Yes, there is”, Shonda saw the expression of Detective Markus’ face and continued, “Since this is an IT company, the food department thought it would be fitting to give bot names to our canteens as well. Pretty soon our food will be served by robots as well”
“Nice”
Eric was already typing on his laptop.
“Here you go detective” Eric said turning the laptop screen towards Detective Derek.
Detective Derek could see Alison and Kate having lunch at the canteen.
“Can you fast forward it to when Ms. Hawkins leaves?”
Eric did as he was told.
Alison was right Kate left the canteen at 1:31.
“Can I have copy of this footage?”
This time it was Shonda who said, “Let me check with Mr. Cooper”
She went outside the room and came back after a couple of minutes.
“Mr. Cooper has no objection to sharing the footage with the MPD. Eric, he was already sending you the instructions when I was talking with him. Please check and burn a CD for the detective”
Eric checked his email again and opened his drawer and took out a CD, made a copy for Detective Derek and handed it to him.
“Thank you”
Shonda then guided Detective Derek to the first floor.
“Shonda can you please guide me to the Food Bot canteen. I haven’t had lunch and would like to have a bite before I leave”
“Sure, I can do better than that. I can show you where the canteen is. They walked to the canteen in silence.
“I can see the canteen from here”, detective Derek said when they were about 50 feet from the canteen, “Thank you”
“Anytime”, Shonda said and headed back straight to Alexander Cooper’s. She knocked at Alexander Cooper’s door and entered.
“So, what did he really want to see?”, Alexander Cooper asked.
“Detective Markus wanted to see the footage from one of our canteens. But he did not know which canteen, so he rang up Alison Garner in the Beta Accounting department for information. The video showed Ms. Garner and Katherine Hawkins having lunch.
He asked for copies of the footage then, which I gave to him after your approval. He then said that he was hungry and wanted to have lunch at Food Bot before he left so, I walked him to the canteen”
“Thank you, Shonda, we need to cooperate fully with detective Markus so that he can solve this case as quickly as possible. That’s all”
Once Detective Derek was in the canteen, he placed a call to Alison. Alison was reading Kate’s email when her phone rang and startled her. She picked it up and whispered, “Hello”
“Yes hello Ms. Garner. This is detective Markus again. I am downstairs in Food Bot. Can you please meet me here and give me the receipt?”
“Sure, I am on my way down”, Alison said still whispering.
She did not know why she was whispering. Nobody was listening in on her, but she did it anyway because it made her feel safe.
She picked up her laptop, checked whether the receipt was in her purse and made her way to Food Bot.
Detective Derek was seated in a corner table with his back to the CCTV camera.
“Hi detective, this is your receipt. I have made a copy for my records as well. This is the original so please keep it safe”
“Sure Ms. Garner let me know if you need more copies”
“Detective I have something to show you on my laptop. But your back is towards the CCTV camera and I don’t want anyone reading the email through those damn cameras. So, if you will please change your seat and come here”, Alison said pointing to a chair on the right.
Detective Derek wasn’t sure what it was all about, but he changed his seat. Then he remembered what Shonda had told him about security cameras being able to read from screens.
Once detective Derek was seated, Alison put the laptop in front of him. It had an email from Kate, that she had sent an hour ago.
Detective Derek read it twice and asked Alison to forward it to his personal email address.
“I will reply to this once I am in my office. But if she contacts you in the meantime you can tell her that we know she is not the killer and she should meet me”
Alison forwarded the email and then deleted it and then purged it from trash as well. On the way back to her office she was wondering what the hell her company was involved in and how the lives of American people were in danger. But whatever it was, she was excited to be part of it.
Alexander Cooper was looking at Alison leaving the canteen. She was a threat, but he could not kill her just yet. It will jeopardize his plan.
CHAPTER 22
When detective Derek reached the station, Jeff was still working on the hard drive.
“Nowhere yet?”
“No. I am trying though”
“Ok carry on”
“Ahan. And I almost forgot, Captain Todd wants to see you in his office”
Detective Derek made his way to Captain Todd’s office and opened the door.
“Captain you wanted to see me?”
“Damn yes, where are we on this Hawkins case? The mayor is at my throat every day?”
“We are pretty close to apprehending Ms. Hawkins. I will have good news on the case within a week”
That seemed to have pacified Captain Todd because his tone completely changed in the next question “Ok. If you need any assistance or extra personnel let me know?”
“Yes sir, but I don’t need anyone at the moment”
“That’s all”
Derek had lied to his captain, but he knew if he brought Kate in, Captain Todd will go for an immediate indictment and put Kate behind bars and the real case will never be solved. He needed to keep Kate safe from police for now.
Detective Derek turned on his computer and logged into his email account and read Kate’s email one more time before replying.
“Ms. Hawkins,
I am currently investigating your case, but there is good news for you. Based on my investigation, I can safely tell you that the chances of you murdering your boyfriend are looking slimmer and slimmer by the minute. I have conducted field work on your rap sheet and looks like it’s just computer based, meaning there is no record of it in hardcopy in the relevant police stations. So, it is baseless.
I have another vital piece of information regarding an employee who worked in the Beta department before you. Based on my investigation on him, I think your life maybe in danger. Please make sure you are not followed.
We can meet tomorrow at 6:30AM at Valley Trail in the Rock Creek Park. I will not arrest you and I will not be accompanied by police officers”
Detective Derek thought about what he was doing for a moment before hitting the send button. He knew that if anyone found out he will be fired. On the other hand, if he wanted to get justice for Kate, he had to do it his way. So far in the investigation, everything that Kate had said had turned out to be the truth and if she was saying that the lives of thousands of Americans was at stake, then he had to take her word for it otherwise he would be regretting this for the rest of his life.
Detective Derek called it a day at 9:00 PM. He checked his email one last time before shutting down his computer to see if Kate had replied but she hadn’t.
As he was walking out to his car, he remembered he had a date with officer Emily Quinn at 9:00. He had completely forgotten about her.
He immediately dialed her number, “Hello”
“Hi, don’t tell me detective that you are going to stand me up”
“No, no, I am running a little late, can you wait for me for 15 more minutes. Something came up at the last moment and I could not get away earlier”
“I understand detective, I am part of the force, so I know how it works. I am waiting for you”
“See you”, he hung up.
Detective Derek had met Emily in the elevator in the morning. She was good looking and had a hot body that showed a lot of promise.
He opened the door to his car and started driving straight to The Anchor, a bar. It was close to the second district police station and was favored by the cops for dates and for drowning their sorrows.
Simon ducked down when Detective Derek was getting into his car. Simon was in his regular Toyota Altis now. He never drove his van after six as the traffic police were unusually active at night and they stopped vehicles for even the most minor offences. So, he never took the risk of driving his truck at night.
Simon followed Detective Derek to the bar, making sure he was at least 8 cars behind the detective.
Detective Derek came to a halt outside the bar and parked his car there. Simon slowly drove to the parking lot giving detective Derek enough time to enter the bar. Then he parked his car and started towards the bar.
Simon looked around when he entered the bar. It looked as if there were more cops there than there are at a police station.
Simon didn’t like cops, but he had to see who detective Derek was meeting and was this somehow linked to Katherine Hawkins.
He saw detective Derek sitting with a hot blond at a table in the center of the bar.
Simon took a seat near the door so that he could keep an eye on the detective.
Simon tried to listen in on the conversation, but he couldn’t hear a single word due to the noise in the place. It felt to him that everyone there was talking loudly. Maybe that is how the police talk, Simon thought to himself.
“So, what was keeping you away from me detective? I hope it was important otherwise I would be hurt”
“It was something important. I am on this case that is really interesting, and we seem to be making progress”
“Is it something that I can know about?”
“It is still an ongoing investigation so can’t share much”, Detective Derek saw the look of disappointment of Emily’s face and continued, “But I can share this much, the suspect that we all thought was guilty in the beginning, is not, and the case is a lot more complicated, but I have to give it to the suspect, not only is she smart and beautiful but she’s got guts”
“For a moment there you looked as if you are smitten by the suspect?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that she is different, and no one could have ever expected this from her. Anyway, too much about me and my case, tell me more about you. What made you join the police force?”
“Well there isn’t anything paranormal in my background. I was doing my graduation, when my father died, leaving me and my mom to take care of my six siblings.
Mom was having a hard time earning money for all of us. So, I quit college and joined the police force, because they were hiring, and I couldn’t get a job anywhere else”
“Hmm, that is the most honest answer I have ever heard from anyone”
“In the beginning I treated it as a regular job but now I am sort of attached to it and I like the fact that I am in a position to help others out”
“Tell me about yourself, what made you want to join the force”
“Well, you can say that I belong to the justice league. My father was in the police, my uncles were in the police, so after I graduated everyone knew which field I would choose”
“What was it like growing up with a father who was a cop?”
“Me and my father were close, I had an advantage over the other recruits at the police academy. I knew all the terminology and they knew none. So, I was sort of the senior recruit”
“Hmm. Me and my father weren’t close. He was too busy with his business and rarely found time to be with any of us. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever settle down and with this routine, I guess I will never be able to”
“Yes, I don’t know many cops whose marriages have lasted longer than 10 years”
“This is our first date and we are already discussing marriages and settling down. I wonder where this is going”, Emily said with a laugh.
They talked for another half an hour. Detective Derek was enjoying Emily’s company when he looked
at the watch.
“I didn’t realize it was eleven already. I have a meeting early in the morning. When can I see you again?”
“Well you see me everyday detective. Remember I work at your station”, Emily said teasingly.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I was just joking. How about Friday?”
“It’s a date. I will wait for you on Friday at 8 here”
Emily got up and left. Detective Derek eyed her all the way to the door and sighed. He would have loved to take her up to his apartment and make love to her all night long, but he had to get up early in the morning for his meeting with Kate.
Simon got up and went to his car. When detective Derek, came out Simon ducked down again. Detective Derek sat in his car and started heading home.
Simon tailed him for a few streets, until he realized the detective was going home and then stopped following him.
Simon turned towards his home. Simon had been following detective Markus for somedays now and the detective’s routine was pretty monotonous. Going to the station in the morning and coming back home, until today, when he finally landed a date with a hot woman. But instead of sleeping with her he had let her go.
“He doesn’t have much of a private life, just like me. It’s all about work”, Simon thought.
Simon was wrong, detective Derek’s life was full of eager women whom he slept with all the time. But that was before he started working on the Hawkins case. Now, his life revolved around Katherine and the case.
He worked all day in the station on the case, brought the case files home at night and thought about the case all the time. The case had become an obsession with him. He wanted to solve it and get Kate off the hook. But first he must meet her.
Simon also wanted the detective to locate Katherine Hawkins soon, so that he could kill her. He hadn’t decided yet how he would kill her. Cooper had asked him to make it look like an accident. He hated accidents. Because accidents meant he could not enjoy torturing the victims. He would have loved to torture Katherine Hawkins before killing her because she looked so beautiful. But making it look like an accident didn’t mean he could not have just a little bit of fun with her before killing her.