The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries) by Martin L. Shoemaker

Author:Martin L. Shoemaker [Shoemaker, Martin L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542091404
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2020-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

My next appointment was a stop down in Digital Investigations to visit with Moore and her team. Things were progressing well there, better than I might have expected. Digital forensics was not my expertise, but it seemed that they had locked up most of the records we were going to need, at least the records from Mars’s side, and were making good progress on the rest. It would take a lot of time and effort to sift through those, not to mention some court battles to get files unlocked; but we had the start of a digital case coming together. Already Moore had found additional instances of the fraud that Nick had identified. I thanked her and her team, and I left them to their work.

I wanted to cut around the Concourse to my office and look in on my team; but I saw on my comm that Magistrate Montgomery had added two early-morning arraignments to our docket. Vile had noted that she would attend, but I canceled that. She had been up all night. I sent her a note: My turn to nag. Get some sleep. Then I went to the arraignments.

Those ran longer than yesterday’s. It looked like defense counsel had learned from the previous proceedings, and they mounted more effective objections and delaying tactics. Magistrate Montgomery had to spend more time tearing them apart and shooting them down; but shoot them down she did. One by one, the objections were overruled and set aside. And the arraignments went through.

So it was 1220 when I finally got to my office. My squad was busy manning comms and consoles, with only Wagner, Monè, and Ammon out. Vile was there, so I approached her and said, “I thought I told you to get some sleep.”

“I did,” she said. “Three hours under the desk in your office.”

I left it alone. She really should have gotten more. But at the same time, while I was unready to concede the age factor, she was a lot younger. I had worked longer hours on less sleep when I was her age. She would survive. And I was certainly grateful to have her on duty.

Then I had to check myself in the mirror and head back around the Concourse. It was the middle of the day, so the place was thronged with tourists and shoppers and shopkeepers, about as busy as it ever got. The three levels had to have two hundred people crossing back and forth between the shops; and the slidewalks looked pretty packed too.

So it took longer than I expected to get back to Admin. I barely had time to duck into the lavatory and check my hair before hurrying over to the conference wing, where Alonzo waited impatiently, checking his comm. “You were almost late!”

“Almost late is still early,” I answered. “Are they here yet?”

He shrugged. “No, but I expect the first one any minute. Pat Knighton. He’s sympathetic to our cause, so try to be polite.”

I was about to snap back at that; but just then, a thin, bearded man approached down the corridor.

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