Yes, I’m still here. Just been lazy and using all my excess time to do other things other than post. So well, as a little reward, I think I’ll post two chapters in two days, so keep reading!
Part 18 – Critical Evidence
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Dinner was Pork chops, steamed broccoli, baby carrots, boiled peas, cream of mushroom, mashed potatoes and french fries. Hide’s eyes bulged at the feast on offer, as Jane beamed widely at him.
“Looks good, but I dunno if it tastes as good.”
Hide spooned soup into his mouth, dripping some on the table.
“Mmmm…”
Jane looked anxiously at him.
“Creamy. Tasty. Wonderful!”
“Try the rest.”
One by one, Hide tasted the various items put in front of him.
“My verdict: Yum!”
Jane slapped him playfully as she untied the apron from around her waist, dropping it on the chair beside, and joined in. Hide showed incredible restraint, as compared to the previous time she cooked. He didn’t want to look like a slob. But the food was simply too good, and Jane was turning out to be too good to be true.
Inside the room, the password sniffer had done its job. The screen flashed “Access Granted” even as Hide was helping himself to a second plate of pork chops and mashed potatoes.
***
Carrie emerged from the tunnels, into the artificially lighted surface of the disaster area. The injured had all been cared for, but dead bodies still lined some of the streets, covered with white sheets and guarded by army medics who looked fresh out of school. Elsewhere, the engineers had erected a temporary medical tent and a command post. She soaked all this in as she walked slowly to the beat up Ford, peeling off the mask and gloves she had been wearing all the time she had been underground.
The next shift had arrived to take over, and she had to return to the station to help with the analysis of the evidence collected. Fishing for the keys, she unlocked the car and inserted the key into the ignition.It took a few tries before the engine caught. But as she shifted into first gear and released the clutch, the car coughed, sputtered and the engine died.
Cursing silently under her breath, she turned the ignition key again. But although the starter whined and wheezed, the engine wouldn’t catch.
Not again, she thought. Tired and angry, she shoved the door open, right into Craig, who was walking past.
He narrowly avoided the outswinging door, but bashed his shoulder onto the lamp post instead.
“Oh no! Sorry! So sorry!”
Wincing as he rubbed his bruised shoulder, he forced a smile as if to say “its ok” and asked:
“What’s wrong?”
“A lot is. My car broke down, then I had to catch the crowded train. After that, I had to draw this lousy Ford, which is manual, and now cannot start and I have to go back to the office.”
“Whoa, whoa. I’m going that way. Want a lift?”
“Yes, please, thank you, you’re a saviour!”“No problem.”
Craig led the way as Carrie slammed the door, took out her forensics equipment, and locked the car. Koo had left the key to the military green standard-issue Opel station wagon with one of the officers on site, and it was the same key that Craig now used to open the rear door for Carrie to stash her things. He slammed it shut and then unlocked the car doors.
“Sorry for the mess.”
“It’s ok.”
The car smelt a little musty, but was otherwise fine. Craig missed his silver Honda Civic, which was currently parked at home, because he didn’t want to dirty it by using it for work.
The well-maintained 1.4 litre engine purred smoothly, and Craig shifted into drive, pulling out of the parallel lot and pointing the car towards police headquarters.
***
Koo, meanwhile, was bent over a transparency as ASP Joy Lee gave a briefing to the higher-ups of the nation. In the meeting room were superintendents, colonels, generals, ministers and the president. She spoke clearly and confidently, and in a few words brought out the true danger that the nation faced at this point in time.
“And now, I’ll hand the stage over to Sergeant Koo here, who will brief you on the technicalities of the recent spate of bomb blasts.”
He had never had such a high-ranking audience before, but Koo composed himself and began to speak.
“The recent spate of attacks were most likely to be caused by remotely detonated C4, a plastic explosive commonly used by the militaries of Europe and
America. It is uncommon here, for we use TNT-based explosives, and so do our neighbours. The remote detonation device consists of a detonator, electronic, connected to a device which sends radio waves. For remote action, I believe that the device is a mobile phone, whose number when called, will detonate the C4. The only exception is the Esplanade bomb, which was made of ammonium nitrate, and detonated by a timing device which self-activated after a certain period of time.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the intention of these bombs are to kill.”
The questions came fast and furious, like why wasn’t border checks intensified, and how could the explosives and detonators make it into the country, and why couldn’t the mobile phones be traced.
ASP Joy Lee, assisted by Sergeant Koo, answered all but one question.
“Who did it?”
***
Craig sat at the photofit terminal, figuring out how to make the darned thing work. The technician had gone home for the day, and the area was dark and quiet.
Footsteps approached, and Craig stood up from his seat in the cubicle, only to find the familiar image of Koo and ASP Joy Lee staring back at him.
“Ah, Lieutenant Craig. Come with us to the CMC, we’ll update you on the way.”
Craig retrieved his memory card from the reader and followed as they made their way towards the basement command post.
Carrie, meanwhile, was in the lab and studying the remains of the mobile phone salvaged from the scene. From the circuit patterns and transistor count, she surmised it to be a late-model Nokio, a very popular one at that.
Accessing the shared database, she queried it, looking for information on the mobile phone that she found at the previous blast scene.
The computer hummed as it searched, and returned:
“No data present”
Carrie was puzzled and queried the database again, this time searching by date.
Again the computer returned “No data present”.
She left her perch and went over to the chief technical officer’s room.
“Mam?”
The chief technical officer looked at her quizzically.
“There was a piece of evidence from one of the previous blast scenes, Zook I believe, that hasn’t been analysed yet.”
“Oh. We hadn’t finished when this City Centre one came along today and screwed everything up. The Zook evidence has been boxed up and priority lowered. You can find it in the evidence room, rack 12A.”
“Thanks.”
In her rubber-soled shoes, Carrie walked along the quiet corridors into the Evidence room, which was more like a warehouse than a room. Rack 12A was in the third row, right on top. She dragged a rolling ladder over, secured the wheels and climbed up.
There were three huge cartons, each the size of a 34-inch television set. The inventory labels on the side were a great help though, and she managed to locate the right carton, opening it and removing the evidence bag with the device that looked like a mobile phone.
Back at her perch, she placed the evidence under the microscope and examined it.
The faded letterings on the main chip read “N-O-K-I” and the model number was similarly close to the more intact piece found at City Centre. The circuitry was also identical, leading Carrie to conclude that both were part of a mobile detonation device.
She wrote it down quickly and prepared to submit a report to the chief investigating officer and the chief forensics officer.
Then she remembered, weren’t mobile phones supposed to have a unique identification number? Bagging the two pieces of evidence, she quietly slipped them into her bag, intending to ask someone adept at such things to retrieve the numbers from the damaged hardware.
Picking up her bag and heading to the transport office, she turned in the keys to the Ford and notified them where to pick it up. At the same time, she got a replacement, a rather new Mazda 323, and headed off into the night.
***
The simpler CMC computers allowed Craig and Koo to easily view, expand, shrink and mark the latest photos taken from the scene. As the two experts analysed the blast pattern, Joy Lee sat with a technician at another terminal, this one a more powerful supercomputer. The image plucked from the videotape was cleaned, refined, smoothened and processed, more and more until the result was a smooth, fine black and white image of the perpetrator, whose back faced the camera. However, as the technician zoomed in, they realised that the perpetrator had had the presence of mind to wear a mask. But, the pictures also confirmed other things. It was a female, judging from the body shape and the presence of the outline of a bosom under the bodysuit.
The duty sergeant arrived in the CMC, carrying a file addressed to ASP Joy Lee. She took it over and read through the technicians’ evaluation and assessment of the three crime scenes.
What had started as a light drizzle had developed into a downpour. Paula was wrapped tight in her comforter, fast asleep. The mini grandfather clock chimed two in the living room. Judy Lee, too, was in bed, but she was a light sleeper and could hear the raindrops falling heavily on the windows and the distant rumble of thunder. The weather had just given her some ideas.
Jane had just gotten into the Z4 after leaving Hide’s when the downpour started, so she turned on the wipers and turned out of the parking lot.
Carrie’s headlights picked out another car heading in the opposite direction. A sporty Z4, she thought to herself as they passed each other. She reached into her equipment box, drawing out a portable umbrella, after she parked and switched off the engine. Clutching her bag tight, she stepped out into the rain, and locked the car, after which she sought shelter at the nearest block, which happened to be her destination. From where she stood, she could see the beat-up Datsun belonging to the person she sought, and so started up the stairs to where he lived.
(To be continued)
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Tomorrow, ok? Tomorrow.
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