Chapter 2 #3
That one word snagged into Hallie’s consciousness and she almost couldn’t see or hear anything beyond that.
It was one of her deepest wishes. To see more of the world than the city she’d been born in and spent her entire life in to date.
She’d begun making plans of her own to see more, to explore, and here was the director offering her paid employment which might also include some travelling.
She hadn’t been aware she was smiling until she saw an answering gleam on the director’s face. “We could always do this on a trial basis. Say, six months? You’d be paid the standard investigators’ salary, of course.”
“Sounds good,” Hallie said. She had no idea what the standard pay was, but discovered she wasn’t all that interested in the monetary amount. She was far more interested in the work being offered. “When do I start?”
“As soon as possible,” the director said.
The amusement faded from his face and he put his coffee down.
Hallie copied him, a trace of unease creeping through her.
She’d rarely seen him more serious. “And I think we may be calling on your old skills earlier than expected. We’ve had an escape from custody. The first one in our history.”
The unease built in Hallie. She’d been involved in assisting a few people into Conclave custody and, of those, there was one obvious candidate for escaping.
“Findo Trask,” she said, voice flat.
Peredur nodded, expression grim. “He was being held in a facility here waiting for transport to the maximum security prison in Abbeyydan. We don’t know how he managed it, but he got out. Unless anything more urgent comes up, I want you and Girard to get to work on that.”
“Alright,” Hallie said, cradling the coffee mug in her hands.
She remembered the clever, violent young veondken very clearly.
He’d masterminded an illegal fighting ring in low city, and had managed to escape from local police custody when Hallie had been transferring him into the station cells.
He might have technically been in police custody when he’d made his escape, but Hallie had been right there and couldn’t shake the sense that it had been her responsibility to keep him confined.
She’d managed to catch him again later, which had helped soothe her sense of guilt.
And now he was free again. “We might need back-up to bring him in,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound either too reluctant or too worried.
While he might still be counted as juvenile among his people, Findo Trask was extremely dangerous and powerful.
“Whatever you need. I don’t want him escaping again,” Peredur said.
“I had to chase down another of his kind recently. The local cops provided some tranquilliser syringes which were helpful,” Hallie said.
She grimaced slightly. Catching that particular skip had been dangerous and she’d been badly injured.
“Although it did mean getting up close to deliver the doses.”
“I’ll look into that. We might be able to modify a weapon into a dart gun, which would let you tag him at a longer distance,” Peredur said. He pulled his phone out from a pocket and tapped a message onto the screen before putting it away. “You didn’t seem all that surprised that he’d escaped.”
“I am surprised that anyone escaped custody,” Hallie said frankly, “but if anyone was going to manage it, of all the names I know, he was the only one that came to mind.” She frowned, thinking back to the circumstances of Findo’s arrest. He’d been organising an illegal fighting ring, and had left several dead bodies in his wake.
The only body of serious concern to the hochlen had been one of their own, but Hallie remembered the other dead.
“The bodies that were found. The ones with no ID chips. Were their identities ever confirmed?”
“No. We had facial reconstructions done, but without any ID or other information, it was impossible to track them further. They were all young men, all human. Karlen, I think you’d say. We have detailed descriptions and files on each one of them.” The director’s eyebrow twitched. “Why?”
“Partly I was curious,” Hallie answered honestly. “And partly because I could never work out how or where Findo Trask had managed to recruit fighters for his ring that didn’t have ID. As far as I know, even the criminals in low city have ID chips.”
“That’s true for Daydawn, yes,” Peredur said. “We had considered the possibility that he brought the fighters in from elsewhere. Ah. You don’t agree?”
“No, not that,” Hallie said, heat rising in her face at how closely the director had been watching for her reactions.
“It’s more that I’ve never heard of that happening before.
People want to get out of low city, not sneak into it.
That’s the part I don’t get. I could actually understand it if Findo had managed to recruit fighters from within the city.
There are a lot of disaffected young men who’d welcome a chance to beat someone else up and earn some money. ”
Peredur’s serious expression lifted in a brief smile.
“Young men seem the same the world over,” he commented.
He paused for a moment and Hallie let him think while she finished her coffee.
“I’ll make sure you get the files on the bodies we found as well as all the information we have on Findo Trask.
Consider the identities a secondary priority, though. Findo has to be the primary target.”
“Understood,” Hallie said. Privately, she agreed with the director.
As harsh as it was, the unfortunate men killed in Findo’s fighting ring were not going anywhere, whereas the longer Findo was on the loose, the more trouble he might be able to create.
“Let me check with my employer, and I’ll come back to you with a start date.
I’m assuming you want that to be as soon as possible? ”
“Indeed. We’ve got our critics on the Conclave and an escaped fugitive is not doing our reputation with them any good,” Peredur said.
Having recently met a few Conclave members, Hallie could easily imagine the open and harsh criticism that the director was facing.
She had the briefest moment of hesitation, wondering if she was being foolish for being so eager to jump into a role which would bring her to the Conclave’s notice.
But then she thought about getting to travel to new places, to investigate and piece together puzzles, and, of course, work with Girard.
She’d find a way to deal with the politics.