“…Sorry I’m late, Stefan,” Ashton said, as he approached the older man and handed him the toolkit. “I got accosted on the way over here.”
“What?” Gorski looked him up and down. “You look okay…”
“Yup. You should see the other guys.”
“Guys? Plural?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Damn.”
“Timmy was performing escort duty, so I got him to help me restrain ‘em. Then we had to wait for transport from Headquarters.”
“Aha. Why didn’t he help you?”
“No need.” Ashton shrugged. “I had it.”
“What did you do to ‘em?”
“Shot one. Took out one’s elbow. The third guy surrendered.”
“Nice job.”
“Eh. It made me late. Sorry.”
Ashton spent the rest of the afternoon helping Gorski go over the crime scene in excruciating detail. They found nothing that the Imperial Guard’s forensic team hadn’t already found.
Halfway through, Peterson contacted them with word on Ashton’s assailants – one died at the scene; one was in emergency surgery, and one had had his bail posted…
…By Stash Gorecki.
“I’m getting tired of that guy,” Ashton declared.
Surveillance Time – Team Armbrand
“All right, Nick,” Peterson said in her office the next morning, as Gorski took a seat beside Ashton, “the DNA evidence has come in, along with a request from Major Dunham. Right, Stefan?”
“Right, Maia,” Stefan Gorski confirmed. “We have firm ID on one of three perps, and probable IDs on the other two, including the actual killer, based on the DNA. So now it’s time to round ‘em up for the Imperial Guard.”
“Not for the ICPD?” Ashton wondered.
“Nope,” Gorski said, with a solemn head shake. “The Empress is seriously pissed, by all accounts. The victim wasn’t just a staffer but a personal friend, never mind the fact that the assassination was a direct attack against her plans and policies. This one is being handled by the Throne, not the lesser courts.”
“Oh shit,” Ashton said, his eyebrows shooting up. “That’s serious as all hell. I sure wouldn’t wanna be these guys.”
“No, most likely not,” Peterson agreed. “Now, I’ve already had reports from your team that you were really on the ball and laid things out strategically, Nick; you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and show some real promise at this. So we’re giving you the same team, and we need you to go get the following perps, as quickly as you can, without letting them know you’re after them; we don’t need one notifying the others so they flee.”
“Yes, ma’am; I understand.”
“I’m activating a channel in VR for you,” Gorski said. “You can find the perps’ files there.”
“I see it,” Ashton confirmed, after a moment to check. “Ohhh. Joey Bronze. They pegged him.”
“Well, it isn’t a hundred percent identification, but close enough to round him up and see what we get. Which you predicted. And by the way, I added the info you provided me into his official files in the department.”
“Oh? Thank you, Stefan. That…is important to me.”
“I know. You’ve followed this bastard a long time.”
“Yeah. I’ll be glad to finally get my hands on him.”
“Won’t we all?” Peterson agreed. “He was apparently the assassin.”
“Why am I not surprised? Who are these other two, then? The lookouts? That couple they saw in the video?”
“Susan Kaplan, a.k.a. Suzie Q, a.k.a. Samantha Tripp, a.k.a. Sammy Tripp, a known prostitute and sometime shoplifter,” Gorski noted, “and Derek Beckham, no known aliases, but he generally tends to lurk on the wrong side of the law; he’s had several priors for aiding and abetting of one sort or another. Beckham is a long-time associate of Bronze, and Kaplan is an associate of Beckham. I don’t know about any couple, but per what I was told about the street video, yes, those two were the lookouts.”
“Aha. So they marked the target, and gave VR feedback on her movements to Bronze.”
“You got it, kid,” Gorski said with a grin. “You’re gonna make a damn good detective one of these days. Probably sooner rather than later, if we can keep you out of trouble with the Imperial jerks.”
“Hell, Stefan, he already does,” Peterson said, matching Gorski’s grin.
“Thank you, sir, ma’am,” a serious Ashton said. “And thanks for letting me help out on your case.”
“Way I see it,” Gorski said, as Peterson nodded, “not only are you giving me and Dunham some serious assistance, you’re getting a good bit of training and experience into the bargain, toward your next promotion. Never mind helping to train the others. Because this is a big-ass case, with serious ramifications. And for somebody with your potential, that’s all to the good.”
“Better here than over there, under Kershaw and the like,” Peterson said, grim. “Here, he’ll survive and get trained, and trained right…if, as you say, we can keep him out of their hands. Now, Nick, go round up your team, do whatever you need to do to find these guys, and call Stefan, here, when you do.”
“Yes ma’am!” Ashton said, then headed back to his desk.
In the end, Ashton and his team decided they didn’t have enough information to head straight out and take the assassin and his lookouts into custody immediately – at least, not without risking losing one or more of them to flight. Ashton – and the investigations department as a whole – had a certain amount of info on Joey Bronze from previous interactions, but not enough to be able to determine where he might be at any given time. And other than the nature of “work” engaged in by Susan Kaplan and Derek Beckham, precious little else on those two.
“So I think it’s time to go undercover and have a look,” he decided, and his team agreed. “Because
