Interlude 03

September 25th, Late evening, Austin, Texas

As Dallas stood at attention in Fairfield’s office, grateful for the older man taking a break from shouting at him, he cursed the senator’s damn stepson. This entire operation was turning out to be nothing more than a long concatenation of disasters!

At first, remembering the dressing down he had received after reporting his superior for unnecessarily disposing of a witness, he made sure to follow Fairfield’s instructions to the letter. So, when he was ordered to caution the surveillance team and prohibit them from trying to enter the apartment, he did as he was told. But, as the surveillance continued their observations over the following days, they reported events that made it seem like Fairfield had, once again, given orders that were ... overly cautious.

The results of monitoring the lawyer’s phone calls and emails confirmed that the people supporting Ms. Anderson were effectively fishing for anything useful. They suspected that the senator had something to do with the false charges brought forth against her, but solely because he was the only one who stood to gain anything from all of this, not because they had any clues, let alone incriminating evidence.

Then there were the repeated visits of what seemed to be young Paul’s girlfriend. The sister of one of his colleagues. If they were seriously working on this case, there wouldn’t be that many conjugal visits taking place, further enforcing Dallas’ false sense of security.

The final straw that made him overrule Fairfield’s orders, however, was the report of the surveillance team stationed in an adjacent building to Paul’s apartment complex. According to that report, there was a good chance that he had, somehow, some way, managed to deceive them, and was in actuality living somewhere else. This report confused Dallas, as they had been observed consistently entering and leaving the building, and he knew for a fact that Paul did not own another apartment in the building. They had launched an extensive background check on the guy, so they knew he didn’t have any secret bank accounts or cash reserves that would allow him to rent anything under a false name.

Fairfield himself was out of the country at that time, meeting with another client to discuss another operation. So, the decision was his. And he needed to make sure they were surveilling the right apartment! If there was even the remote possibility of young Paul deceiving them, he had to confirm it. The operation’s success hinged on information like this.

However, only minutes after the infiltration team had gained access to the apartment and confirmed that the usual indicators for an ongoing cohabitation in the apartment were all present, the lookouts called the alarm. Just as Fairfield had warned them, the apartment must have been rigged somehow, because the police had been on their way within a minute of the team stepping a foot inside!

Dallas, once again, cursed mentally, as Fairfield had finished studying the photos the infiltration team had gathered and leaned back in his seat, regarding Dallas with a deadly glare.

“So, tell me,” Fairfield started in a cold tone. “What exactly did that report say that made you throw caution to the wind and let your team walk right into this mess?”

“Sir, the report from the surveillance team stated that, despite seeing Mr. White and his mother enter and leave the apartment complex on an almost daily basis, ... the lights in his apartment have never been turned on. So, they trained a parabolic microphone towards his living room window, but they couldn’t pick up any significant activity with that either.”

“Uh-huh,” was all Fairfield cared to comment in a lazy tone before leaning towards a drawer and pulling out another report. With a perfectly emotionless face, he loudly dropped the file in front of Dallas and gestured for him to take it.

The report’s first page was enough to make Dallas’ stomach drop. What Fairfield had dropped in front of him was the result of the investigation they had launched into one of Paul’s colleagues. A ‘Timothy Brown’, the brother of the girl that had been witnessed visiting Paul so many times over the past few days. The reason why a single glance had that effect on him was because, at the very top of the very first page, it listed Mr. Brown’s residence as an apartment in the same building. He was Paul’s former neighbor.

“You see, Dallas,” Fairfield started with a mixture of exhaustion and disappointment. “If you just had consulted with me before causing this shitshow, it could have been fully avoided.”

“Sir, you weren’t even in the country. We NEEDED to confirm his whereabouts!”

“Have you ever heard of a phone, man!?” Fairfield responded irritated. “Do you have ANY idea how much of a problem this is going to become!”

“Sir...” Dallas tried to defend himself but was immediately shot down.

“No! You just listen for now.” He waited for Dallas to nod before he continued. “I told you, in no uncertain terms, that we needed to EXPECT countersurveillance. What in the world made you think he wouldn’t have installed some kind of hidden security system in his own apartment? Not only did you burn two very capable members of our infiltration team and handed valuable hardware to the enemy, you also handed them proof of there even being a case for them to work on! Until now, all they had were suspicions! Now they have enough to convince even the most skeptical judge in the country that there’s more going on!”