The Academy

Part Two: Chapter Four

It's been three weeks now. Today is Lindsey's last day in Vegas. She finished the PBR season off last night in third place overall. She's incredible. I watched every second of it on TV, sad that I couldn't be there in person. The first woman in PBR, her first year competing, and she placed third. That's really, really impressive.

I pull my mind away from Lindsey, trying to focus on what I'm doing. LAPD has been after a man named Liam Knox for over a year now, and they finally got a hit. Knox is wanted for multiple felonies, he's been running a high-end drug cartel for years now, killing anyone who pisses him off or gets in his way.

He has a complicated route of nearly untraceable activities, and everything we have on him virtually disappears. LAPD has an electronic system, files and everything are all on computers. We enter anything we have on Knox, and it disappears. We even hired an IT guy to try and restore it, but it's all just gone.

When we realized, we started keeping things on paper, and we set up a trap. Entered information on Knox into the system and...yeah, I'm not good with technology. I have no idea how they actually did it, I think the IT guy set up a bug or something to trace back to the hacker that keeps deleting all our stuff.

Anyway, it worked, and now we're headed to an office building of a tech company where we traced the computer back to. It's pretty small, making this an easier job. We know we're not going to find Knox himself here, only one of his pawns, but anything that can lead us closer to him.

It's only my SWAT team, but the whole building is surrounded by cops. It's the afternoon, and I'm leading the entire raid on this place. Kian is in a building across the street with his sniper, and when he tells me he's got his position ready, I signal to my four guys on the ground with me to move in. 

We burst through the door, buns blazing. The open floor plan of the office makes our job faster as we clear the entire place. There are mainly just cubicles, with a large office and bathrooms and a break room in the back. When we determine there aren't any dangers, we relax.

I'd guess about twenty people working, and I step to the middle of the room and look around. Everyone is in a panic, some people hiding under desks or behind each other, looking terrified. I clear my throat, getting everyone's attention.

"We're looking for someone named Vanessa Lohan!" I command, making sure my voice is loud and firm. My team comes up behind me, scanning the room. "Does anyone know where we can find her?"

This question is non-verbally answered when everyone in the room turns their heads in one direction, staring at one person. A larger redheaded woman with green eyes. She is sitting at her desk, a confused and panicked expression on her face.

I approach her, "Are you Vanessa Lohan?"

She nods, gulping.

"I'm going have to ask you to come with us back to the station, we have some questions about illegal activity we've traced back to your computer." She stands and I guide her out of the room with my team. Before I leave, I stop and turn to address everyone again. "Sorry for the interruption, please continue your work!"

We leave, and I call off Kian. This woman seems easy enough to work with. We get her into a police cruiser and they head back to the station. I hop in the SWAT van with my guys, and we drive back as well. 

The detectives get to take it from here. I'm going to press for updates, but our job was only to get Vanessa and get her into custody. They get her for forty-eight hours before they have to charge her. I don't know exactly what, but something tells me that woman is not a criminal, certainly not working for Knox by choice.

The ride home is quiet, a slight disappointment in the air, as that was one of our more boring missions. Not two minutes after we get back to the department and start to gear down, we get a call about an armed robbery, and our day just got a whole lot more intense.