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Blake planned to go to Germantown and confront the homicide captain, but first there was the matter of the new case Peter had uncovered and a meeting with the potential foot soldiers for the team. Then there was the lack of server space for Peter. Blake would have to find time to sit down with June Warner – it would be easy to get more space, but he knew she’d want a report and that would eat up time. Plus, he had one other thing he wanted to discuss with her.
He stopped at the sign-in desk and was given the key card of the day. No one was supposed to take one home, but if they did it wouldn’t get them back into the building. Each day upon arriving, new key cards were issued – just one more layer of the tight security June had instituted. Blake thought it was a pain in the ass but couldn’t help but be impressed.
Stepping off the elevator, he saw Peter rushing from the conference room and waving a fistful of papers about. “Glad you’re here, boss,” Peter cried. “I’ve laid out all the information but was waiting for you before briefing Mary.”
They met at Blake’s office door, where Blake placed a fatherly hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You and Mary are co-workers on these cases. She needs to get the information as soon as you have it. The idea is that the two of you will come up with useful information that the team can act on. Take what you have to Mary and go over it with her, and we’ll all three get together in an hour.” Blake removed his hand and started back toward his office. Peter looked a little disappointed.
“You don’t want to see it first?”
Okay, Blake thought, the new-puppy thing was already getting old, time for a dose of reality for the kid.
“It would do me no good, Peter. I’d be spending time asking questions that the two of you can work out. I want answers; there’ll always be more questions.” He went into his office and closed the door on Peter’s open mouth.
The phone on his desk rang as he sat down. “Hello… Thank you. Send them right up.” It was his three new recruits, and just in time, with the new cases Peter was uncovering.
One of the three figures he could see through his door window knocked. “Come in!” he said. As they walked in, he noticed the escort stationing himself outside the door.
They entered and remained standing, at attention. “At ease, we’re not that kind of an outfit. Have a seat.” There were two chairs in front of his desk and one against the wall. Blake noticed, for no particular reason, that the Asian, Bobby Lee, went for the chair against the wall.
“I’m happy to see all three of you answered my letter.”
Wayne Roberts was raised in the projects and thought joining the police force would be his way out. He was disappointed in his assignments and being passed over by white cops. So, he quit and was working as a security guard when he got Blake’s letter. “What is this job all about? Are we doing police work, guard duty? What?”
Blake laughed. “I guess the wages I quoted you had nothing to do with you showing up?”
Shelley Adams quit the force after working two years as an undercover prostitute. She had asked to be transferred a number of times, but even with her high rating from the police sniper school, she was still undercover, and with the last refusal, she quit. “It’s the wages that concern me,” she said. “You’re offering a lot of pay for a starter position.”
Blake looked at Bobby Lee. “Do you have anything to add?”
“I figured you brought us here to tell us, so I can wait.” Bobby’s grandfather had gotten their family out of Vietnam just before the fall, and Bobby was the first generation born in the U.S., but he was still treated like a foreigner. He had expected the police department to be different, but it turned out worse.
Blake pulled out their files. “The three of you ranked at the top of your classes at the academy, but police work didn’t turn out to be what you wanted. You each have your own reason and I really don’t care what it is. I have a job for you that pays damn good and will be rewarding. Our mission is to uncover and catch serial killers.”
The three recruits looked at each other in more wonderment than disbelief. Wayne said, “What would our job be?”
“It would be determined by the case. If I needed someone undercover and you fit that need, then you would be it. If I needed a door kicked down and someone shot, then that would be your job. I’ll say this: it’s not going to be easy, and you’ll earn what I’m paying you.”
Shelley’s eyes brightened. “It’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time. I’m in.” She may as well have answered for Wayne and Bobby too, as they quickly added, “I’m in.” “So am I.”
“That’s great, welcome aboard. Send me a text so I can know your cell phone numbers.” Blake told them his own number and then stood and shook hands with the three of them.
“Now you need to go to the 6th floor of the Federal Building to fill out some forms, have pictures taken, be fingerprinted, and so on. Be back here at 8 in the morning ready to go to work.”
Blake watched them walk back to the elevator and breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure they would take the job, and he needed them more than they probably imagined.
He picked up the phone; it was time to have a meeting with June Warner. “June, can we meet?”
“Sure, Blake, I’ll send someone to the first floor to bring you up. Meet her there.”
June’s office was on the floor above, at the heart of Air Package Security, where everything was on a need-to-know basis. Blake didn’t need to know and wasn’t cleared to be up there without an escort. It was just one more degree of security, kind of a pain in the ass, but house rules, and it was June’s house.
Blake grabbed his files and took the 2nd-floor elevator down a level, where his escort said hi and inserted her key in the other elevator. They got in and up they went. Blake noticed that the elevator had a back door as well. And that was the door that opened when they got to the 3rd floor – directly into June’s office.
Her desk was covered with computer screens, from behind which June stood and walked around to meet him. “So glad to see you, Blake. I’ve been wondering how things were going.”
Blake smiled. “I thought you might like a report, and now that I have my team together, I thought it would be a good time to bring you up to date.”
“I’m delighted to hear you’re coming along quickly.” June led him toward some chairs around a large glass coffee table nearer the exterior wall of glass. Blake was wondering why none of the rooms on his floor had exterior windows.
“Have a seat and tell me everything. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” They sat down and Blake laid his files on the table.
During a moment of quiet through which they just stared at each other, both seemed to be wondering how to start. June was – but wasn’t – Blake’s boss. Their relationship had yet to be defined.
At last June asked, “Are those the files on the new people?”
Blake handed the files across the table to her and she began reading them. “Very impressive personnel you picked up. I may try to hire them off you.” She looked up to find Blake not smiling at her joke.
“Well, Blake, I believe you came here for more than my approval of your hiring ability. What can I do to help you?”
Blake took the files back and cleared his throat. “We need more storage space on the master computer. Peter is almost out. He talks like we’re holding his girlfriend hostage and won’t feed her.”
June leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Seems good computer geeks are always, shall we say, eccentric? It’s no problem. I’ll have my geek get in touch with your geek and the two of them can work out a system so that doesn’t happen again. What else?”
Blake turned the files over in his hands, not sure that June would go along with what he wanted next. “I have a man I need to hire off the books – at least for a short time. I hope to be able to bring him in from the cold at some point, but until then no one but me will know who he is. There can be no photo, no fingerprints, and no file of any kind. I’ll give you a codename for him that only the three of us will know – no written record of that either.” There was no mistaking the serious turn his manner had taken. “It’s very important that I have someone who can move undercover among the bad guys.”
Even June’s steady face seemed to reveal that all kinds of red flags and rockets were going off in her brain. “I can see the benefit of having such a person in your operation, but I can’t see how A.P.S. can be a part of it. I’m able to hide our involvement with you behind Homeland Security, but we’re housing you and that creates a paper trail that ties us together. And I don’t think Homeland will pay someone who” – she made air quotes with her fingers – “doesn’t exist.”
Blake thought for a moment. “I’ll be drawing my retirement checks from the City beginning this month, and Homeland starts paying me this month, too, right? I can pass my retirement checks on to my man until such time as we can put him on the books and Homeland can start paying him.”
“Okay, that’ll work. And yes, you’ll now have your own paychecks from Homeland. But I don’t want any reports that even hint at an undercover operative.”
Blake stood up. “Thank you, June.”
She walked back to her desk, and the same escort came in to take Blake back to the 1st floor.
| Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers |
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