“How long until the police clear the scene” Abdallah asked idly as he adjusted a line of code in the robotic control system he was using.
“Several hours at least. They’ve sent people up the maintenance trams to look for Kamir’s airfoil,” Jacob replied.
“Will they find it”
“Possibly,” Jacob shrugged. “It will do them no good, however. It was Kamir’s own foil, we took it from his place at the airstrip. He packed it himself, and I made certain that my men handled it with gloves on.”
Abdallah nodded, “good.”
“I met the Interpol man,” Jacob said with a hint of a smile. “A rather dull man.”
Abdallah snorted softly, “Careful Jacob. Never begin to underestimate the enemy, it is the first step to eventual defeat. A police man does not need to be visibly impressive to be competent, and I doubt if he were interested in impressing you anyway.”
Jacob shrugged, but didn’t respond.
“Three days,” Abdallah sighed. “Three days, then we may begin. Why must this happen now Why now, when I am so close.”
“A final test from God, Amir.”
“Yes,” Abdallah said slowly, his eyes dark. “Yes, that must be it.”
When neither spoke for a few more moments, Abdallah decided that Jacob had finished his report.
“Leave me, Jacob. Let me know when the police are gone.I want to run a test.”
“Of course, Amir.”
Gwendolyn Dougal poured over the scene images as they were displayed in three dimensions, feeling a lot less green now that the pictures were safely contained in her terminal display. The information wasn’t really all that useful though, she decided. There was nothing there to indicate that the event was caused by malicious intent.
However that didn’t mean anything either.
She couldn’t imagine how a scene of a murder using the tower in the fashion would look any different than the scene of an accident, or stupidity, as the case may be. Kamir went up, Kamir got diced, and Kamir fell a hundred meters to the ground. Whether he did so of his own accord or not wasn’t attributable to the evidence as she saw it.
They’d bagged everything according to procedure, but now the problem was figuring out what any of it meant. Tower City simply didn’t have a dedicated team of forensics people, let alone the lab space they would require to do their jobs. They were already preparing most of the material for shipment to Sydney, where it would be gone over by the local PD, but until it made it through the queue of an already busy department, there would be nothing.
That would likely be a couple weeks, Gwen suspected, as Sydney had its own crimes and those would certainly be taking priority.
She sighed, clearing her desk with a push of her hands, and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes.
“Troubles”
Gwen opened one eye, swiveling her chair just far enough over to see Anselm step into the room with two large mugs of coffee.
“Thought you might need one of these,” he said, setting it down. “Didn’t know what you liked so it’s black, but the cream and sugar are in the bag.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking the reusable cloth bag from him and pulling out two sugars and a creamer packet.
As she was diluting her coffee, Gwen looked up at Anselm questioningly. “How did your report go”
Anselm shrugged, “You know the brass. Get it done yesterday and all that.”
She nodded, smiling, “That bad”
He sighed, twisting his lips.
She froze, eying him closely. “What is it”
Anselm let out a breath, gently shaking his head. “We may have a complication.”
“Oh”
“It’s possible that the CIA may have become, or be in the process of becoming, involved,” Anselm told her. “The Interpol people in Sydney noted some unusual activity around the American Embassy there.”
She eyed him oddly, “does Interpol often spy on American Embassies”
“Only when we’re working a case we know they’d butt in on, given half a chance,” Anselm smiled slightly.
She chuckled at that, then sobered, “so how bad a complication is this likely to be”
“Not as bad as all that, probably,” Anselm smiled. “Contrary to Hollywood I don’t expect that the Americans will send someone in driving a tricked out muscle car with guns hidden under the hood and missiles launching from the tail pipes. They are just slightly more subtle than that, thankfully.”
“Oh good,” Gwen grinned, “Then I won’t have to arrest him for violating our clean air laws.”
Anselm chuckled, nodding. “There is that.”
“Seriously now,” she said, still laughing slightly.
Anselm shrugged, “it depends on who they send, but I expect that we might run into an American poking his nose into places he has no apparent business in.”
“And how is that supposed to help me tell the CIA agent apart from the American tourists” Gwen asked dryly.
“Hmm Oh, the CIA agent will be the one that’s polite about it.”
“The police have left, Amir.”
Abdallah looked up and frowned, “That was quick.”
“The tower is still taped off,” Jacob shrugged, “but that is a mere formality. The scene has been scanned quite thoroughly, and I have little doubt that they are done.”
“Alright,” Abdalla Amir said, nodding. “We’ll perform our test tonight.”
Abdallah paused, grimacing briefly.
“Amir Are you alright”
“What Oh, I’m fine. Fine,” Abdallah said, waving his hand, “Just realizing that if we’d kept Mr. Kamir alive slightly longer, I could have run a complete dry run.”
Jacob stared for a moment, but finally just shrugged.
“Hindsight, Mr. Jacob. Hindsight,” Abdallah sighed. “Always hindsight.”
“Of course, Amir. Shall I inform anyone of the test”
“No, we’ll handle this ourselves, I believe.” Abdallah said, “Place the sensor package at the top of the tower this afternoon.”
“As you say, Amir.”
“This is the evidence shipment”
Gwen nodded, “All bagged and tagged as they used to say.”
Anselm nodded, looking at the stack of plastic boxes that were stacked and locked together like Lego blocks, forming a cube approximately four feet on a side. The entire thing had been wrapped in tape on which a lot number had been scrawled. An electric lift was waiting patiently to pick it up and deliver it to the road train that would carry it to Sydney.
“How long before it gets to Sydney” Anselm asked.
“A few hours. Depends on conditions. No more than ten, I’d say.”
The Interpol agent nodded, frowning, “How soon will we have the results”
“Not for a while, I’m afraid.” She said grimly, “The Sydney forensics people are normally backlogged with their own cases.”
“Isn’t that always the way.” Anselm shook his head, waving the lift driver to halt as he transcribed the lot number into his portably.
“What are you doing”
“I’ll call my boss and see if I can’t get the priority jumped up,” he explained. “We need this processed quickly.”
“If you can do it,” she waved her hand at the cube.
He smiled, “Interpol has some pull.precious little it seems by times, but we do have some.”
When he’d finished they waved the lift operator in and watched as the pallet was loaded onto the second trailer in the road train. As the truck pulled out, Gwen shook her head and turned to Anselm.
“I hate to admit it, but I don’t know where to go from here.” She said tiredly, “What’s happened the last couple days.It’s beyond my experience.”
“You’ve done fine,” he told her, “and your instincts are working quite well.”