Solving for Myself

Chapter 4: Breaking the Rules

Stella looked at Carson and said, "You can't investigate without the chief's permission!" He grinned and said"This investigation isn't supposed to be happening ma'am since what we're doing is already undermining the mayor's authority but frankly I'm not worried because I don't intend to leave a trace that anything ever went down". Stella looks at him and says" what are you planning Mr. secret agent?" he said"I'm planning to sneak into his office; see what I can gather and then "investigate" his house". Stella frowns and says"that's dumb; you can't hit one and then another, they'll be onto you before you can escape".

Carson said, "Well then how about I extract the info from his office and you can investigate his house, your way, Mrs. I follow the book". We have 60 bodies and people abusing their powers to cover the truth...they're playing dirty and I'll have to get dirty with them". Stella sighed and said"All right then...you handle his mansion and I'll handle his house, let's see who's more productive Mr. Macho man. Carson opened his laptop and sent the chief the files and a requisition notice and Stella did the same. After waiting a few hours, they received a reply from the chief that read: based on the preliminary evidence, I will allow this operation due to 10 more Victims but if you are caught I cannot vouch for you. Once you have the evidence and its relevancy; bring a copy to me in person".

Stella grinned at Carson and said, "I'm sorry to burst your bubble but the chief chose my plan".He grinned and said, "That's funny because he also approved mines as well, smart ass".Stella frowned before getting up and heading to her room to craft her plan there so she knew Carson wouldn't snoop. Over the course of 2 weeks, the two detectives did top-secret research, studied blueprints, analyzed footage from Cameras, and studied personnel files. With their reports filed and the equipment there and checked, the two waited for the right time to execute their plan. For Carson, his chance came A week after his research was finished; when the mayor had left his office early to host a party at his home.

It was a dark, rainy night as Carson drove his black, plumbing van to city hall and parked out front. He got out of the van, walked to the back, and grabbed his tool bag which was full of the equipment needed to bust into a vault. Since he was wearing a custom-made, silicon face mask, and the plumbing company's uniform, he had no need to hide from the cameras. He walked inside and greeted the night security guard, who asked for his ID and papers which he showed the guard who then verified it with what was left in the maintenance log. Afterward, he let Carson go down to the basement access tunnels, where the pipes were all housed for easy access.

Along the way, two guards came up to him and informed him that they would escort him down there and back once his job was finished, however, Carson had already planned for this. Much like the white house, this city hall was remodeled with a steel frame hung behind the old exterior to preserve its look but update the structure. Between the steel frame and the exterior walls is a thin crawlspace that's used to access the wiring and pipes in certain areas and it just so happens that a part of this space backs up behind the Mayor's office. It was a small known secret due to security purposes but did show up on the blueprints.

After setting his bag down, Carson took out bolt cutters and walked over to the door at the corner of the room that led to the maintenance spaces and reached up to the control box that was disguised as a smoke detector and cut the wires that alert security of the door being opened. Next, he picked the lock to the door and opened it, grabbed his bag, and followed his memory through the narrow corridor up 2 levels,around curves and behind the place where the Mayor's office would be. He threw his grappling hook onto one of the beams and climbed over the passage walls and into the 9-inch space between the floor beams above and the fake ceiling which was covered with ceiling tiles. He removed one of the ceiling tiles and hopped down into the office but thanks to his soundproof shoes, there was no noise to be made.

He carefully walked over to the door of the big steel vault, built into the wall of the governor's office and got to work. This vault was passcode protected but lucky for Carson, the PD has this type of equipment and within seconds the door was open. Upon opening the Vault, Carson was shocked to find nothing but a giant server stack and 2 government computers. He quickly pulled out his mission phone and cracked the password to the first computer using AI software and due to the large scale of documents stored in the server farm, Carson had to choose between pulling the finance files or logs of the mayor's conversations and browsing history.

Carson ended up choosing the finances from the last 7 years before quickly getting onto the other computer and scrambling the computer's ID and user logging processes so no record of this vault computer being used would pop up. It was at this time, that he realized he fucked up and should've listened to Stella's plan of waiting and using his conversations for clues. Nevertheless, he was already knee-deep into this foolish plan of his, and all he could do was carry it out, slip away, and hope he'd recovered something useful.