Chapter 8 #2
“Pictures. Of course. I can’t believe I forgot,” Hallie said, and wanted to shake herself. She pulled out her phone. “I was taking some photos when the attacks started. I don’t have everything. I’ve got perhaps a dozen, perhaps more.”
“Can you send them to your tablet?” Girard asked.
“Sure.” It took a moment, as the process was still fairly new, but Hallie managed to get the images she’d taken sent to her tablet, then passed the device across the table to Girard. He bent his head to the larger screen.
“Oh, good, you’ve got pictures of the port lists. That’s really helpful,” he said a moment later. “I’m going to send these to the director.”
“There was the tablet there, as well,” Hallie said, her mind replaying the moments before the smoke bomb had landed.
Girard had been holding the electronic device, and speaking to the director.
“I know the building was burned, so the casing might have melted, but would the memory or chip have survived?” They were going back to Daydawn soon, and the forensic team there might be able to pull something useful even from a damaged device.
“Possibly.” Girard sounded hesitant.
“You’d already thought of that,” Hallie said. She wasn’t surprised. Girard was far more familiar with the capabilities of the forensic team and gathering evidence than she was.
“Yes. I mentioned to Frollo that I’d like to go back, just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. He’s under orders to sit tight until we get further instructions. And he’s down one team member, too.”
Hallie nodded, mind turning on the contrasts in Frollo.
He had seemed nothing more than a reckless and careless young man when she’d first encountered him, driving through the port at Daydawn.
But she’d caught glimpses of a highly competent, highly trained warrior in their encounters since then.
He’d never lose that reckless edge, and she had a feeling that if it had only been his own skin he was worried about, he’d already be back at the burned-out house, sifting through the wreckage.
But he had been given the post of team leader, and wouldn’t want to put his people in unnecessary danger.
The phone in her hand started ringing, startling her into nearly dropping it on the table.
“It’s the director,” she told Girard and answered the call. “Director, this is Hallie, and I’ve got Girard here, too. You’re on speaker.”
“Those photographs you just sent through, were those papers in the house?” the director asked, not bothering with any greeting, the tension in his voice carrying clearly through the phone.
“They were, yes. I didn’t get images of everything,” Hallie said, “but I think I got most of them.”
“Girard said there was a tablet as well?” the director asked.
“Yes, sir,” Girard confirmed. “We were just discussing the possibility that the hard drive or chip might be salvageable. It got left behind in the fire.”
There was a brief hesitation at the other end of the line, then the director came back on. “Commander Rojas has another team on their way to you. They are still a few hours out. As soon as they arrive, I want you to go back to the house and see if you can salvage any more of the information.”
“We can go now,” Hallie offered, skin prickling at the urgent tone in the director’s voice. “If there’s something important on the drive, the fifth team member may go back to get it. The longer we wait, the more time he has to get it.”
Another hesitation, and Hallie exchanged frowning glances with Girard across the table. It wasn’t like the director to hesitate.
“From the reports, Girard and Tortain are not fit for combat duty,” the director said, voice terse, “so you’d be two people down.”
Hallie could see the frustration in Girard’s face and frowned at him.
“You are not going,” she told him, voice flat.
“You can barely walk.” He grimaced, but didn’t argue, which told her more clearly than any words just how sore he was feeling.
“The rest of us can go, though,” Hallie said, aiming her words between the phone and Girard.
“And we won’t be taken by surprise again, now that we know how well-armed the fifth person is.
” Hallie shivered lightly as she remembered the dense smoke and the burning in her lungs.
“I don’t want the safe house left unguarded. Tortain and Girard can keep watch,” the director said. Telling the truth, Hallie knew. She saw from the tightening of Girard’s face that he wasn’t happy with his assignment, but he didn’t argue.
“Good,” Hallie said. “I’ll speak to Frollo.” And she’d need to find some body armour, too. She didn’t want any more bruises to add to her already large collection.
“What about transport? The van was damaged,” the director said. And sounded more like himself for the first time in the whole conversation.
“There’s another vehicle. It’s a bit smaller, but we should all fit,” Hallie said, remembering the rugged-looking off-road vehicle that she’d seen around the back of the house.
Oreste and Kasmo had used it for running errands, so she knew it worked.
It was set up for four people, so with the tac team and her it was going to be more than a close fit, but she thought they could make it work. As long as Frollo wasn’t driving.
“Exercise caution, please, Miss Talbot,” the director said, a stern edge to his voice.
Hallie frowned. She didn’t need the warning, not really, but the fact that the director was willing to let Frollo and his team go back to the burnt-out house rather than wait for the reinforcements suggested there was something else going on. Something she had missed or not been told about.
“What’s the significance of the papers we found?
” Hallie asked. She caught the surprise on Girard’s face, perhaps at the directness of her question.
Even though Peredur Roth encouraged his investigators to think for themselves, he still expected them to obey him when he gave an order. And they rarely talked back to him.
“We’ve come across other similar papers in other places,” the director said, the grim tone carrying clearly into the air.
Hallie sat back in her chair, startled, and her brain skipped across the information she had.
“You mean that the information we found here tracks back to your own investigation, sir?” Her pulse picked up.
“So even though we were tracking Findo Trask, there’s some connection back to the port bombings?
” She remembered the abbreviation she’d seen.
DYN32. Possibly the port area where a bomb had exploded only a few weeks before.
“It seems likely.” And all of a sudden, Peredur sounded exhausted.
Hallie remembered Girard’s earlier hesitation about calling the director.
It had been the middle of the night in Daydawn and would still be early morning there and it seemed clear that the director hadn’t even attempted to go back to sleep.
She couldn’t help but wonder how many interrupted nights the director had had over the past few weeks.
No wonder he had looked tired on their last video link.
“We’ll do our best to recover the tablet and anything else that looks salvageable,” Hallie promised.
“Good.”
With that, the director ended the call, leaving Hallie and Girard staring at each other across the table.
“So, Findo Trask might have had a hand in the port bombings,” Hallie said slowly, closing up the notebooks she’d been using and tidying them into a neat pile with her tablet.
Adding some order to the wooden surface of the table provided a small bit of calming relief even as her mind raced to make sense of what she’d learned.
Findo Trask was no stranger to violence, but his involvement in the bombs didn’t make sense, and didn’t fit what she knew of the veondken.
He’d seemed far more interested in his own advancement and not in wider world affairs.
The bombs had been connected to protests against the Conclave.
Political acts. Not personal. She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Agreed,” Girard said. There was a hint of white around his mouth, deep lines etched into his face as he stood up.
He was also exhausted. Healing took a lot of energy, Hallie knew from her own past experience.
He was pushing himself farther than was sensible.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but also had to trust that he knew his limits.
“Let’s go brief Frollo. And you’ll need body armour. ”
“Can you track the missing attacker?” Hallie asked, curious.
Girard shook his head, the lines on his face deepening. “No. I tried that when I woke up. It seems my magic needs something more specific. There was no sense of direction at all. It was like the few times I’ve tried to find Findo Trask and just got nothing.”
“Interesting,” Hallie said, falling into step beside him as he headed out into the corridor.
“Not the word I had in mind,” Girard said, with dry humour.
She laughed, but also shook her head. “It’s more information. That’s always helpful.”
“I suppose.” He wasn’t convinced, though.
“If you hadn’t been able to find the house earlier, we wouldn’t have the extra data,” Hallie pointed out. “And we might get more, but even if we don’t, we know more now than we did first thing today.”
“Are you just trying to make me feel better?” Girard asked, lines fading into a smile.