The Runners: Chapter 34
Chapter 34
David opened his eyes to a throbbing sensation in his legs. Three days have passed since his last call with Woodson. He took advantage of the last 72 hours recuperating and healing his physical wounds. He has been off the pain medication for the past 24 hours. Unfortunately, the wounds still hit him with debilitating pain, at times, when he was least expecting. This morning wasn’t an exception. He placed his right palm where the pain reverberated from and pressed down as hard as he could.
“Argh,” David let out a quiet groan in response to the pain.
As the pain subsided, David’s senses were filled with the elegant aroma of freshly brewed coffee, compliments of the Keurig Omega-3 model. He always thought that the investment in this coffee maker was one of the smartest ones he’s ever made in terms of furnishing his apartment. He couldn’t be happier than right now about this great investment as the aroma soothed and helped him to relax.
David took a long shower. It was the first shower since he got out of the hospital. The warm water removed all the small debris and dust particles that were on him from the gun fight at the Chinese restaurant. They tried to clean him up at the hospital. However, it was only a quick rub down with a wet towel by the hospital staff.
“Nothing replaces a full shower,” he thought. Feeling refreshed, David got dressed in his usual wardrobe for work. He put on his white shirt, blue suit, matching blue tie, and a pair of black loafers. He decided to put on double tactical holsters and packed two pistols. After the last run in with the assassins, he thought that it would be a necessary and more fitting measure.
The aroma of Java filled the room as he entered the living room again. Heading to the kitchen, David grabbed a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled on the to-do list for today. He poured himself a large cup of coffee and read the note which had five things written on it:
Locate Robin,
Connect with Ms. Jensen,
Visit VTT,
Lose the Dupes below,
Look into Robin’s cousin’s case.
David found several circles drawn around ‘Locate Robin’. He remembered making the list, but couldn’t recall highlighting the first task. According to Woodson, as David retraced, Robin was being looked after at a secret location to deter any further attempts on her life. If they were going to go after Robin then Woodson’s opinion was that David himself could be a target as well.
To hinder any potential threats being carried out against David, two cops were placed downstairs, supposedly watching over David for his security. David drank a large sip of his coffee. It tasted bitter. But, with the subsequent second, third, and forth sips came the elegant sweetness that he had anticipated. He felt tranquilized as a feeling of euphoria came over him from the soothing effects of the morning coffee. After savoring the taste for a moment, he walked over to the window, looked down on to the street and found the same silver vehicle parked at the exact same spot where he saw it three days ago.
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‘Ssssss, moving like an inconspicuous serpent through the short grass Jacob inched closer to the old man. He was half submerged inside the muddy swamp. Well camouflaged with mud and grass surrounding him, it would be difficult for anyone to notice him. He got as close to as a few yards when a minute noise from his movements caused enough disturbances for Johansen to abruptly turn to his direction. Instinctively, Jacob stopped immediately and sunk his body further into the swamp. Then, he slowed his breathing and remained motionless, all the while fixating his eyes on the couple.
Conversation between the two people must have ended as the second person has now turned and started walking away from the old man. He saw that it was a female, but could not clearly see the entire figure as his vantage point from the surface of the swamp did not afford him the best views. The grass, stones, and bushes obstructed his sight, only providing him with the partial views above her shoulders. Furthermore, when she came into his view, it was only sporadic at best.
She was wearing a baseball cap low to cover her forehead and had a pair of dark sunglasses, which covered most of her facial features. In addition, the natural surroundings obstructed Jacob’s vision further such that it was impossible for him to get a good description of her. He thought he wouldn’t be able to identify her should he have to do so in the future. He wanted to follow after her. Unfortunately, with Johansen looking over in his direction, he had to settle for only being able to visually trail her at this time. He looked at her as she made her way around the swamp, closing the distance to him.
Jacob was few yards into the swamp. Tall grass, dark murky water and bushes with dead branches separated the woman and Jacob. He stayed motionless as Jane walked by. Then instantly, Jacob froze when he saw something familiar. He saw the blue Badger’s baseball team cap, the same one that Jane had worn on the trip. As recent as this morning, Jane had the cap placed on her head before she went for a walk. He couldn’t help, but wonder, “What is she up to?” as he asked himself. But, he was more concerned about her well being than knowing what business she has had in the swamps with this stranger.
‘Shooo’, ‘Shoooo, Jacob heard some objects flying into his direction.
‘Plunk ‘Splash. Series of stones, in sizes of baseball came flying, landing near the vicinity of where he was hiding. One landed behind Jacob in the bushes, another landed just behind Jane as she walked by and the final stone landed just a foot in front of Jacob that sent him coiling backwards. It splashed dark gooey water and swamp debris towards his face.
The noise generated by the first stone caused Jane to stop in her tracks and look over where the stone had landed. She turned her head to get a better view of the swamp area while Jacob remained motionless. Before she was able to lock her vision to any specific object, a second stone flew over, landing on the ground near Jane. Immediately, Jane turned around fully and stared in the direction of Johansen, as if to say, “What the heck was that for?”
“Sorry, I thought I heard something there besides you!” Seeing that he had almost hit Jane with one of his throws, Johansen apologized. Shaking her head, Jane headed out of the swamp giving a second look towards the area where Jacob was hiding. Jacob couldn’t tell if Jane saw him or not. But, there was a brief moment when he thought he had met Jane’s eyes through her dark sunglasses. At that moment, Jacob saw Johansen moving towards his direction, perhaps for a quick visual check before Johansen headed out of the swamp.
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David entered his vehicle in the basement garage. Finding that the vehicle’s seating and instrument positions have been altered, he immediately ordered, “reset to primary settings!” Due to the leg wounds, he needed additional room to stretch out.
“Move up…move in…,” he tried to find the most comfortable position. However, it was impossible for him to order the vehicle to find the most ideal setting. He sat back in his seat, activated the manual control console and began adjusting the interior elements manually. Finally, satisfied with the new positioning of the interior instruments, David silently let out a sarcastic remark, “twenty second century technology trumped by a crippled man.”
Immediately, the vehicle’s cooling system kicked in, establishing comfortable 76 F.
“Good!” David thought. He put the vehicle in auto-pilot mode.
“Where would you like to go, sir?” The vehicle’s on-board computer asked him.
“Office, please!” David responded quickly then took a sip of coffee that he had brought out from his apartment.
“Engaging passenger restraining system!” “ETA, 6 AM, CST,” his car announced and the vehicle began moving fluidly. It navigated the narrow basement parking structure flawlessly. As the gate opened, the vehicle turned right into the street without stopping. David looked over to his left as his vehicle passed the car that was occupied by the two of Woodson’s men. They were both enjoying their coveted breakfast for cops, morning sweets and coffee from Classic Donuts.
After seeing David pull out of the garage, the driver shoved into his mouth the half eaten donut in its entirety in a hurry. The driver engaged the engine and quickly made a u-turn then followed David keeping ample distance between the two vehicles. Aware of this, David began monitoring the silver vehicle’s movements via the video surveillance system in his car.
‘This is a glorious day!’ David thought as his vehicle entered the LSD. He felt liberated since this was the first time of him being outside of his apartment in the last 80 hours. He couldn’t wait to be out and about. It felt like a new freedom has just been granted to him. There were some early birds either heading to work or heading home after getting off of third shifts, he thought of the cars that were on either direction of the LSD. The sun started its daily ascension over the eastern horizon. Unusually, it shone blindingly over the LSD this morning, an indication that it will be, yet another hot scorching day.
The windows of the vehicles passing by in the South bound lanes began turning darker in response to the blinding sun. David wouldn’t typically notice these changes because they were all part of the basic routine each day. However, even such minute and subtle variations like darkening of the vehicle windows would catch his attention this morning. His vehicle was no exception as the on-board computer took over control of the interior environment. David was still afforded great outside views. However, it was impossible for others to see inside of his vehicle. This provided some level of privacy from his trailers.
“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…,” David began lip-synching after the old rock band Eagle’s Hotel California, which was playing loudly on the stereo. Unconsciously, he opened the moon-roof of his vehicle as he got into the spirit of the song. Although, this allowed suffocating hot air to rush into the vehicle, it wasn’t bothering him at all this morning. He was ‘living it up’ with the song and the drive when he heard his phone ringing loudly, ‘RING’ ‘RING’.
“Call from Iris Technology Corp., in France.” On-board computer notified him.
“Connect, in secure mode!” David ordered as the moon-roof closed.
“Hello, this is David!” David greeted with anticipation. He has been eager for a call back from Dr. Bertrand since he had talked to him more than a week ago.
“Bonjour! Inspector David, it’s been a while since we talked last. This is Dr. Bertrand!” He came back with rather an upbeat voice which was an encouraging sign. David thought that he may get a new clue this morning.
“Yes, how have you been sir? I was hoping to hear back from you again.”
“Yes, yes. I am good and you?” Dr. Bertrand didn’t forget the pleasantries.
David had to think for a brief moment, “I’m fine, sir. Thank you. I assume that you’ve got my last message?” David wanted to cut to the chase not giving Dr. Bertrand another round of regards.
“Glad to hear that you’re doing well, inspector. Yes, as a matter of fact that’s the reason I’m calling you today,” replied Dr. Bertrand.
“Yes sir!” David wanted the doctor to continue.
“I went back to the video because I could not fathom the thought of my software being erroneous, Mr. Chan. What I had discovered was that the tape that you had sent us had many distortions, especially within the 2 hours before and after the supposed time of the murder. So, we had to perform extensive reconstruction work to restore the images as I had told you last…”
“Yes sir…,” said David, trying to focus on the doctor’s words.
“It appears,” Dr. Bertrand continued, “that someone had gone in and manually distorted the images in the file. Did you know anything about it?” The doctor asked.
“I am aware of it, sir. In the process of obtaining the disk, it had gone through shocks and explosions. I wasn’t able to secure it in a clean and friendly manner. Would that have caused the distortions that you were seeing?” Reliving the violent car chase, David shook his head.
“Well, no. I failed to make myself clear. I’m sorry. The things that you’re describing would cause damages to the physical device that holds the information, which will lead to damaged content. It wasn’t like that at all. What we saw was surgical and most likely, intentionally planted distortions!”
“You mean someone changed the images?” David wanted to confirm in simple terms.
“Yes. There were signatures of alterations, changes I mean,” the doctor said.
“Are you saying that there is no conclusive information on the subject in the video? I mean the subject that came back from my search was ruled out immediately based on his movements.” Like a balloon that had just popped, David sounded deflated and remained with only the sense of disappointment.
“Well, no that is not what I am saying. Let me explain…,” Dr. Bertrand took a short pause before continuing. “When we first opened the file, we were disappointed because we looked at the images that were contained in the time-block between one hour before and one hour after the supposed time of the murder. The images weren’t clear so I used my software to reconstruct the scenes down to the subject’s iris based on the 10% of the iris bitmap information that we had successfully extracted from the original video source. Then, we ran a comprehensive retina analysis after the reconstruction on the subject that was in the video. As a result of that, the subject’s ID was what you had received from me few days ago.”
“Yes sir. I got that…,” David responded weakly.
“Well, I know my software and it had never failed me in the past. So, when I received your message that the individual had no history of ever being in Chicago at the time of the murder, it got me to wonder. Then, it hit me!”
‘SNAP’ David heard Dr. Bertrand snapping his fingers, a sign of good things to be heard, David was certain.
“Sir,” David said, “what did you find?”
“It was a very simple oversight. You see, we just started daylight savings time two days ago which advanced our clock by one hour… and it hit me that—-,” Dr. Bertrand was cut short by David who suddenly became very lively with excitement.
“Ahh! I understand! We had DST observed few hours after the murder took place here in Chicago. So, that means, we have to go back an extra one hour’s worth of video!”
“Exactly,” Dr. Bertrand confirmed and said, “and I know that my software has never failed me and the fact that the subject has never been to Chicago made me think that the video file might have been tampered with by someone.”
It was such a simple enlightenment on both of them. Simple time change had thrown this investigation into a deep and confusing spiral for the past few days.
“Are there new findings?” David was very eager to hear more.
“I wanted to prove that my software wasn’t at fault. My company’s reputation was at stake. So, I went back beyond the two hour window of the video just to make sure. At about -1.5 hour point, there was an individual who had entered the main entrance of the victim’s apartment building. Of course, this person was dressed in exactly the identical outfit as the person we had examined last time.”
“Was he the same person?” David inquired with anticipation.
“That was the question we had to answer. As I told you, we had reconstructed the first man’s iris in the initial round of your request, right? So, we analyzed the second man’s iris characteristics. We had some challenges, but were able to extract and rebuild it based on this new subject’s bitmap information. Upon further analysis, two different signatures came back, which implied that these two men were two different individuals.”
“And that proves your theory that someone fiddled with the video file…?” Somewhat confused, David asked Dr. Bertrand.
“It proves that my software is perfect to date! Proving that someone fiddled with the video file was a bit more difficult in this case. Whoever did this did it with masterful skills. It was very impressive!”
“Could you explain?” David asked curious as to how the doctor had discovered the distortions in the file.
“The video images were flawless. There was zero discontinuation of motion, no variations of color, no difference in positions of the objects, nor were there any other discrepancies. The physical characteristics of the two men were exactly the same as well. It was baffling at first for me, too. So, we, literally, processed the images one frame at a time. When we did that, some frames showed some signs of subtle changes when the bit maps of ‘relative objects’ were compared.”
“What do you mean by relative objects?” It was getting too technical for David.
“The position of objects can differ from say, frame #10 and frame #30 for example. An object can be in the left half of the screen in frame #10 while it can move to the right half of the screen in frame #30 when the object is mobile like a moving person or leaves that may be blowing in the wind, for example. But, they are same objects or relative objects in two separate frames. Does that make sense?” Dr. Bertrand paused so David can digest.
“Yes, I think so,” said David.
“Good! So, I compared the bitmaps of the subject from the frames in -1.51 hour block to -1.55 hour block. There was almost zero difference except in the subject’s iris bitmaps. That small area was what was different. The iris bitmap remained the same from -1.55 hour until the same individual exited the building. The bitmap at -1.51 had different iris signatures. Therefore, my conclusion was that someone changed the information!”
“So, the real suspect was the one you found at image frames prior to -1.55th hour, correct?” David had better understanding of what Dr. Bertrand was getting at now.
“Precisely!” The doctor said, satisfied that the young investigator got the gist of his findings.
“How difficult is it to alter it this way?”
“Not easy. Even with the most sophisticated tool, it will take high level of expertise to make it happen. The changes were so minute and they were made with incredible precision. Without the software that I had developed, I wouldn’t have been able to discover it.”
“Who may have such software, I mean the software that can be used to make such modifications? Would, companies like CST have it?” David was wondering if CST had made the alterations.
“I doubt it. It will take much more resources and expertise. I would suspect companies similar to mine and even though very unlikely, the UN could have some secret software that we don’t know about. I can’t think of anyone who could be in possession of such technology.”
“Thank you for that information,” then David asked, “and will you be able to send me the iris code of the new subject soon?”
“Well, I can do better than that. Remember, you attached a couple of photos in the earlier transmission?”
“No, sir…,” David answered as if he was not sure what Dr. Bertrand was talking about although he knew exactly what he had sent.
“Well, I received a 2nd file. Apparently, it had some information on the case and a couple of photos of people. Perhaps, you sent them by accident. At any rate, one of them was a match with the new subject.”
“Pardon me?” Extremely surprised, David ordered his vehicle to pull over immediately after which the car came to a screeching halt to the curb.
“Sir?”
“Here is the individual who had the match!”
Soon, a picture of an old man appeared on his dashboard 3D display. David saw Rick Haney with a sly smile. David slowed his breathing, got his emotions under control and asked the doctor.
“Are you certain?”
“This was an easy comparison once the second subject was reconstructed. I am sure. Why, do you know this man?”
“Yes, he discovered the victim’s body…,” David said extremely subdued that Dr. Bertrand didn’t hear him.
“What was that?” Asked the doctor.
“Uh, no, nothing, could you be able to transmit over your discoveries, sir?”
“To the same account, I assume?”
“Yes sir!” David confirmed.
“On its way, inspector, I hope that the call was helpful for you!”
“Yes, sir, more than you know. Thank you very much for your assistance!”
“No problem. I am just helping myself. My software is perfect to date. I had to prove that for myself. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call. Again, good luck to you!”
“Thank you again Dr. Bertrand!” With that Dr. Bertrand and David disconnected.
David received a file containing the full report from Dr. Bertrand in no time. He moved it to his newest secure account, which he had received from Ms. Jensen. He dictated a short report, but did not send to his superior at the HQ. He wanted to verify Haney’s involvement in all this himself further. Besides, it was very late in Paris and she won’t get to it until the morning at the earliest, David thought. He continued his way to the Chicago Office. He would check in and head directly to Rick Haney’s home with an emergency warrant because the timeline given by Haney does not match the new discovery. David realized that Haney had lied.
David no longer felt pain. His mind was fixed on bringing Rick Haney in for questioning and locating where Robin has been moved to. Right after the original surveillance video file was sent to Paris, David had sent a second file including the photos of Haney and Charlene to Dr. Bertrand. David had hoped that Dr. Bertrand would do exactly what he did. That is, run such analysis when he got to that point. He was very thankful for Dr. Bertrand’s assistance and mostly for his ego. Without Dr. Bertrand’s egotistic personality, he wouldn’t have continued with the video analysis.
This conversation has given a new life into the investigation. With this game changing clue to date, David was sure that he could move this investigation in leaps. He drove his vehicle slowly in order to contain his excitement. Then, looking over to the rear video monitor, he saw the familiar silver vehicle keeping pace with his car.