Chapter 24 - The War Room
By noon, my office had been transformed into a tactical war room. Detective Michael Shaw stood by the whiteboard, pinning up photographs of Julian Vance and his known corporate associates. Clara sat quietly in the corner, flanked by a female officer, still terrified but finding courage in our unified front.
"Julian is highly insulated," Shaw explained, tracing a line between a photo of Julian and a corrupt municipal judge. "He doesn't get his hands dirty. He uses cutouts and proxies for all his illegal evictions and bribes. The financial documents Clara brought are incredible, but they are circumstantial without the digital decryption keys linking the offshore accounts directly to Julian’s name."
"Where are the keys?" Elena asked, looking at Clara.
"He keeps them on a localized, offline server," Clara replied nervously. "It’s heavily guarded inside the sub-basement of the Vance Holdings corporate tower downtown. It is not connected to the internet to prevent hacking."
I looked at the blueprints of the Vance Holdings building that Shaw had pulled from the city archives. The sub-basement was a veritable fortress, protected by biometric scanners, armed private security, and a massive steel vault door.
"We can't just serve a warrant," Elena sighed, rubbing her temples. "If a judge approves a search, Julian’s inside men at the courthouse will tip him off. He will physically destroy the server before Shaw's team even reaches the lobby."
"Then we don't use a warrant," I said, a dangerous, calculating plan forming in my mind. "We don't go through the front door."
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Shaw looked at me, a warning glint in his eye. "Lena, I am a police detective. I cannot authorize a black-bag burglary of a corporate skyscraper."
"You aren't going to authorize it, Michael," I said smoothly, leaning over the desk. "You are going to be busy responding to a massive, anonymous tip regarding an illegal underground casino operating on the completely opposite side of the city. What I do while you are distracted is entirely my own business."
