Monsters of the Week

Together With Qubi - [5] -

On the way over, I got a push on my tablet from some Officer Vernon; a grainy picture of a white Kangoo with a half-readable plate stopped at a curb, some skinny kid with a black brush cut jumping out the back. I pulled up the badge number; it was Ngozi, and she'd left a note as well:

> We got just this one frame from the camera on a
> hardware store on the same block. Nobody saw
> anything, but they did get the plate. Good luck.

I ran the plate against the DMV as we turned off the avenue into the canyoned streets between the factories and warehouses, wildcarding the stuff I wasn't sure was reading right. I didn't need a positive match, I just needed a white Kangoo in the spill – hopefully registered around here. I filtered out the results by color and model, and while there was actually more than one – not surprising, the Kangoo was like the national vehicle of small business and I didn't recall ever actually seeing one that wasn't white – there was one of them in this neighborhood, just like we expected. A couple turns later, and we had visual on it, parked in front of the loading dock of an old factory setup with a newish sign for the Anatolian Import Company of Bremen. Yup, amateurs.

I tapped Ralph on the shoulder. "Go on past, we'll park around the block and call in whatever black-and-whites are around to come over and watch the exits. I'm pretty sure we can just walk up and take them, but there's no use doing anything stupid." He nodded and swapped over to manual control, pointing the car over around the next corner, and parked out of sight of the factory we were aiming at.

There were only two cars within five minutes, but I got them called over anyways; it wasn't going to take a lot to just put the bracelets on an amateur outfit short of muscle. They might be jumpy if they'd killed this guy today and had him bleed wrong and had to change their plans and dump him by the side of the road, but if we moved quickly we could get up, pick up the van and the perps, and convince them to come quietly and maybe try to get a good plea deal. I double-checked all my web gear: tactical HUD glasses, tablet in the car dash locker and the trauma plate in the pocket the tablet normally sat in, taser attachment for my gun, extra magazines, smoke grenade, EMP grenade, tear gas grenade, each in its own slot, in order, around my back, so that if we ended up getting shot at, I'd know which one I was throwing. Two pair of handcuffs and a dispenser of cable ties, if two wasn't going to be enough. All set. I shrugged my jacket down to make sure that it was covering all the heavy-duty gear, then checked my phone. The two cars were rolled up into position. I looked over at Ralph; he was fitted up as well, changing out his regular glasses for the tactical ones. He still had Qubi's bag over his shoulder, though.

"No. What are you bringing that for?"

"Well, I can't just leave Qubi in the car. It might not be healthy."

I shook my head and gave up. "Fine. Whatever. But if things go sideways and it gets shot or something, don't expect a department funeral instead of me just pouring it down the sink. Come on, let's go before they finish power-washing the van or shit." I headed off in the direction of the factory and Ralph followed.

The Kangoo was still sitting out there when we got back around, and I went over to take a closer look. The back of it was closed up, and there wasn't really anything I could see from the front, but it wasn't a bad idea. I looked up from the car, and there was a guy hurrying out of one of the loading doors towards us. He didn't look like one of the guys from the video or the dude from Ngozi's picture, but we still hadn't gotten a half-decent visual on any of the perps in this case; no real way to tell if this was going to be one of our guys or not. "Hey! Who are you? What do you think you're doing? This is private property!" Some kind of foreign accent, but I couldn't quite place it.