Author's Note:

Please be sure you have read chapter 19… because confusion will abound if you have not.

Chapter 20 - Barely Legal

Friday, January 18th

Chizuru sighed in relief as the loading bar crawled across the final few pixels and the 'upload completed' dialogue box disappeared. That was it. The last of the cases had been loaded into the database and she could finally get to work. What they'd done incrementally over six weeks had taken her nearly a week of constant work to reload. With nothing to do but watch a loading bar creep across Heisuke's screen, she'd started recreating some of the cases she'd lost, but that had come with its own set of challenges. Duplicate data would skew the results and she'd had to be careful to double check that the case hadn't already been entered.

Having everything done was certainly a weight off her shoulders, but ever since Okita had tricked her into getting ice cream with him the other day, she'd found that the majority of the stress she'd been feeling had already left. It had been nice to get out and just forget about everything, even if that distraction was her own embarrassment. Chizuru couldn't help but feel that he hadn't been entirely honest with her about his reason for dragging her off. He certainly hadn't need her help in fending off Hijikata like he'd said and she still didn't understand why Okita seemed to take so much joy from tormenting the man.

Okita had also been just about right when he'd estimated how much data they'd been able to salvage. Between what he and Heisuke had saved and the few cases she'd managed to re-enter, they had about three quarters, if not a bit more. Even with the missing cases, it was still the largest database she'd ever worked with. She wasn't sure if all the extra data would disguise any possible patterns or make them clearer. Chizuru felt a mix of nerves and excitement as she finally clicked the small 'launch model' button in the upper corner.

With surprising speed, a massive web of glowing lines filled her screen. Wow. She'd known Heisuke had a nicer desktop than any of the others, what with his dual screens and ergonomic keyboard, but until now, she'd never considered her own laptop to be slow. Feeling a measure of awe, she rotated and maneuvered her way through the model without the slightest hint of an awkward pause or jump, each line appearing crisp and clear.

Chizuru flipped the model over to a geographic view, so the web overlaid a map of the city. Well, at the very least she could confirm that the syndicate operated in every single section of the city. There wasn't a neighborhood that didn't have at least one node in it and the lines crisscrossing the city were so thick in places she couldn't even make out the underlying streets. She was starting to worry that maybe they really did have too much data…

Without any clear patterns or unusual empty spots appearing on the map, Chizuru pulled up the query builder, biting absently at her lip as she considered her options. After a short pause, she pulled up a basic count of the number of cases.

Result:

Cases - 168

Each of which would have its associated evidence logs, witness statements, final reports, and a slew of notes. No wonder the web had been so dense. Moving one step down, she grouped each of the cases by the neighborhood in which the crime had occurred.

Result:

Magnolia - 37

Queen Anne Heights - 32

Port District - 28

University District - 26

Financial District - 17

Madison Park - 13

Wedgwood - 6

Ravenna - 3

Madrona - 2

Delridge - 1

Laurelhurst - 1

Holly Beach - 1

Orillia - 1

The colors on the map shifted, now highlighting by neighborhood, instead of case type. Unfortunately that wasn't much better than the original scheme. All the results told her was that the crimes were most prevalent in the rougher neighborhoods and the centers of commerce. She sat back in her chair and stared at the list. She knew from asking Okita about the cases as they'd originally entered them, that Magnolia and Queen Anne were known for their gang activities. She'd also heard that the local university had seen several scandals with misplaced funds and suspicious donations over the past couple years, and she knew first hand the kind of things that went on in the warehouses around the port. None of this was new information, so the real question was where did she go from there?

Chizuru sighed, feeling slightly disappointed with the results, even if, rationally, she knew it would most likely take time. Maybe if she broke it down even further…?

This time instead of jumping down a single level and grouping them by street, she selected the finest grain possible, a count of unique addresses. Normally this was one of the more useless filters she had at her disposal, and she'd only ever used it once or twice, since most places rarely even had five incidents. Most criminals were smart enough to take the hint and moved their illegal activities somewhere else well before then.

Result:

198 Spring St - 34

415 Boren Ave - 5

1736 Belmont Ave - 3

815 3rd Ave N - 1

119 W Roy St - 1

More...

Chizuru stared in disbelief at the result. If she'd had a drink, she probably would have choked on it. As it was, she very nearly choked on the air. How could there possibly be 34 mentions of a single address? It had to be some kind of mistake. Clicking on the link, she brought up the list of references and was baffled to see that not only were the majority of them from different cases, but they weren't even labeled as key locations. Most of them were categorized as interrogation notes or unrelated witness testimony. This was the type of incidental information that got picked up during the course of the investigation, but wasn't of any real use in solving the crime. What on earth is this place? Highlighting one of the entries, she brought the location up on the map.

A little pin appeared on the screen, overlaying the web of multicolored lines. The building was located at the outer edge of what could be considered downtown and was only a few blocks from the waterfront. The waterfront itself was dotted with the blue nodes of narcotics cases, which faded into the yellow of theft and embezzlement cases scattered across the downtown businesses. Whatever this place was, it existed right where the yellow faded into blue, right on the fringe of both the high-end city center and the criminal underworld.

With her curiosity now well and truly piqued, Chizuru copied the address into her web browser and examined the first few links that appeared. The first one caught her attention almost instantly. The Midnight Orchid? The description was brief and vague, mentioning only good music, great drinks, and excellent dancing. Maybe it was some kind of club? Quickly she perused the next couple links, but they seemed to be blogs and reviews, so she scrolled back up and clicked on the first result.

The webpage that greeted her was clean cut and well designed, highlighting photos of a contemporary, if slightly industrial, bar with high ceilings and exposed beams and ductwork. On each of the tables scattered around the room, she could see a single dark purple orchid with a trio of candles and there seemed to be some kind of stage with a catwalk and a couple of silver poles…

Poles...?

Chizuru stared at the screen as the wheels in her mind turned. There had to be some other explanation than the one her mind had leapt to… They were structural, right? Okay, they clearly weren't structural. Decorative? Unlikely…

Um…

She could feel her cheeks starting to warm as she discarded one ridiculous explanation after another. With only one reasonable explanation left, she hesitantly clicked on the 'Entertainers' link.

It was better than she'd feared it would be, but there was certainly no doubt about it now. Judging by the elegant, yet quite revealing, evening dresses and dance costumes the women were wearing, and their rather provocative smiles, The Midnight Orchid was clearly a gentleman's club. To her it seemed to be a step above average, since the site wasn't flaunting what it was clearly offering, but it also wasn't like she had any real experience go on.

She had just started to scroll down through the list of photos when a voice murmured right in her ear, "Really, Chizuru. At work? I never took you for that kind of girl."

Chizuru was sure she felt her heart stop as she jumped and only barely kept from letting out a yelp of surprise. She whirled around to find Okita grinning, obviously beyond pleased with her over the top reaction. "That's not exactly workplace appropriate you know."

Her initial reaction had been purely due to the surprise of someone so drastically invading her personal space, but as her brain caught up with what he'd said, her face flushed in mortification. She frantically waved her hands in denial and somehow managed to keep her voice low. The last thing she needed was any of the others catching on to their conversation.

"No! I uh… It's not what it looks like! I'm not… I mean, I would never!"

"Oh~? Cause that's not what it looks like from here."

She was sure her mouth was gaping like a fish gasping for air as she tried to get her short circuiting brain to come up with a decent response. When nothing was immediately forthcoming, Okita's grin twitched up at the corner as he spun her chair back to face her computer and she felt him lean on the back of it.

"Relax, will you. I know that." There was a brief pause before he added with a chuckle, "Your reactions are just too fun to pass up."

She let out an irritated huff as she tried to focus on the screen in front of her, determined to ignore him as punishment for his teasing. If reactions were what he was after, then she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Okita seemed to read her thoughts, because he tugged on her ponytail.

"Oh come on. Care to tell me what this is and why you're looking it up?"

"No, not particularly."

"Hmm…" All of a sudden, his voice was back in her ear, "You sure?"

Chizuru leaned sharply away, her cheeks flaming again as she glared at him over her shoulder. Apparently her glare was far from effective, because Okita didn't look the least bit repentant.

"Yes, I'm sure!"

"All right, if I stop teasing you, will you tell me?"

Personally, Chizuru didn't think that was possible for him, but it seemed like the best deal she was going to get. It didn't look like he was going to leave this alone anyway.

She let out a small resigned sigh before turning back to the screen. "Fine. Now that all the data has finally been loaded, I started going through it and this place popped up. This one address has 34 references, which is really unusual, so I decided to find out what was there."

"And? What's this mysterious place?"

"It's called The Midnight Orchid… I'm pretty sure it's a… um…" her voice dropped to a mumble as she said, "gentlemens club."

"Hm~, thought so."

Wait… he'd already guessed? So he'd only wanted to get her to say it!

Chizuru twisted around to look back up at him, her voice coming out a bit more petulant than she intended. "Okita! You said you wouldn't tease me."

His grin widened as he shrugged nonchalantly, "I didn't. You didn't answer the other half of my question." Well, that was technically true… but before she could come up with a retort, he frowned slightly and his gaze shifted back to the screen, "Hm, you think I would have remembered if we'd had that many cases involving a strip club. Places like that tend to try and keep their noses clean since we aren't exactly good for business."

"That's just it, it doesn't have any direct cases." Distracted from her search for a comeback, Chizuru flipped back over to the list of all the places the Midnight Orchid had been mentioned. "See? They're all in the case notes as incidental data. As far as I know, none of you have ever been there."

"Eh, can't really promise you that."

Chizuru's hand froze on her mouse. "O-Oh…?"

She felt another tug on her ponytail, "Hey, don't you go lumping me in with Shinpachi. He's the one who goes to overrated places like that."

No one had been paying any attention to their conversation thus far, but at the sound of his name, Nagakura's head popped up. "Who's lumped in with me?"

"Oh don't worry, you're in a class all your own."

"Thanks man!" Nagakura said brightly, but after a seconds pause his grin slipped, "I think…"

Across the way, Heisuke snorted, "Now there's something you don't do very often. Careful grandpa, you might strain those few brain cells you have left."

"Oi, you watch your mouth brat. Or do I need to come over there and teach you a lesson in respect?"

Chizuru let out a shaky laugh at Heisuke's and Nagakura's escalating argument, as the slight pressure in her chest she hadn't realized was there eased. She did her best to ignore Okita leaning on her chair, as she began flipping through the information associated with each of the mentions. After only a few, Okita leaned further forward, his hand nudging hers off the mouse. She quickly jerked her hand back, her cheeks flaring back up to full brightness.

If he noticed her reaction, he didn't tease her about it, instead he started clicking through the list at a far faster pace than she'd been going. She glanced back to see that his previous good humor had left his features, leaving in it's place a cool calculation as his narrowed eyes skimmed the pages.

From what she was able to pick up, most of it seemed to be interrogation notes where the guilty party was giving up information on their superiors in exchange for a chance at leniency. She didn't recognize any of the names, but clearly Okita did.

"Damn, how did we miss this?" He muttered under his breath as he clicked through the final result and released the mouse.

"You… you know who these people are?"

Okita let out a short, rather irritated sigh, but she knew his anger wasn't directed at her. "Yeah. They're the ones we've been trying to pin stuff on from the get go. We've known they're involved for a while, but they're pretty well insulated."

"Oh…" Now she understood why he was so upset.

The people mentioned in the notes must be the highest they'd been able to track the Syndicate hierarchy. Unfortunately it seemed they'd been unable to trace any real crimes back to them thus far, and now they'd discovered that they'd been sitting on possibly critical information for who knew how long without even knowing it.

One side of Okita's mouth pulled up and as he glanced down at her, she noticed that a good deal of the coldness had left his eyes. "Not a bad job. It's too much of a coincidence for all of them to be showing up in one spot like this. Every group has their favorite places, and it seems you've stumbled on one of theirs." He looked over at Saito, "Hey Hajime, where's Hijikata?"

"I believe he is in his office."

"Better get him. I think Chizuru's found our first lead."

Saito nodded as he stood and crossed the short distance to Hijikata's closed door. Next to her, Harada and Nagakura each leaned closer, trying to get a look at her screen, while Heisuke asked, "You really found something?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment, Hijikata appeared from his office following Saito and she figured it would be best to wait and go through the whole thing once.

"Well, what is it?" Hijikata asked, his expression serious as he came to a stop behind her chair.

She glanced at Okita to see if he wanted to explain, but he shrugged, so she said, "Once I got everything loaded, I started doing some basic searches in the data. By accident I stumbled across an address that had an unusual number of mentions and when I looked it up, I found out that it was a gentlemen's club called the Midnight Orchid-"

Chizuru was interrupted when Nagakura suddenly said, "Oh, I've heard of-" but at a glare from Hijikata, he abruptly broke off into a cough, "Uh, I mean… never heard of it."

She caught Harada rolling his eyes as she took a deep breath. "Anyway, that's about all I did. Okita and I were going through the places where it was mentioned in the cases, and he recognized some of the names."

She glanced at Okita again and he picked up the thread of the story. "Basically we've had a bunch of the upper level members of the Syndicate hanging out in a public place right under our nose this whole time."

Hijikata's eyebrows drew down sharply. "How the hell did we miss that?"

"Um," Everyone's attention swivelled back to her. "It's really not surprising that this was missed. I mean, 34 mentions is a lot for a single address, but that's still only 34 out of the thousands of places recorded and most of those seemed to be passing remarks."

She was glad to see that her explanation appeared to ease Hijikata's irritation slightly, but he still didn't look happy. Not that she could really blame him for that, but part of her had hoped that someone would have at least been happy with what she'd managed to find. Okita had seemed glad that she'd found it, but she still felt like she was causing more problems for them than she was actually solving.

Okita picked up where he'd left off, "I got a look at some of the reports and it doesn't sound like they're going there for business."

"So what you're saying is this is a chance to get at them while they're guard is down and maybe overhear something?" Harada asked as he raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair.

Okita snorted, "I don't think they'd be dumb enough to be that loose lipped even if we bugged the place and could get anything over whatever obnoxiously loud music they probably play to prevent things like that."

"Then why don't we just ask the women?" Nagakura gestured at the still open window with the pictures of the Midnight Orchid's employees. "I mean, come on, they have to have heard something if those guys have really been visiting the place often. We can just get them to give us the lowdown on all their customers."

"Really Shin? That's your brilliant idea?" Harada was normally so laid back, that Chizuru was surprised to see he actually seemed angry with his best friend. "You can't just mess with their livelihoods like that. I'll admit they probably know quite a bit, but it'll be more than their jobs on the line if anyone finds out they talked to us. If anything happened to them because of that, it'd be our fault."

Nagakura rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly ashamed. "Sorry, you're right… But who else is in a position to know what's going on in there?"

There was a long pause before, "What if it's not a someone we need to talk to, but a something?"

Everyone turned rather owlish expressions at Heisuke and Hijikata was the first to break the silence. "What do you mean, 'something'?"

"I mean there's something that follows them everywhere and knows a lot of information they wouldn't want getting out. If we could talk to that, who knows how much it could tell us." Rather abruptly, Heisuke switched tracks, "Hey Shin, can I see your phone?"

"Uh, sure…" Nagakura uneasily handed the device over to him and with a few taps, Heisuke had unlocked the phone and was grinning at the screen.

"Hey! How do you know my password?! You better not be messing with any of my stuff!"

Harada let out a bark of laughter, "It's 1234 you dumby. Chizuru could probably break in." He glanced over at her, "No offense."

She smiled briefly to let him know it was fine, but most of her attention was focused on what Heisuke had said. Chizuru thought she knew what Heisuke was getting at now, and it seemed most of the others did as well.

"See," Heisuke said, "Everything is on our phones; numbers, texts, emails, locations, and what are they going to do it? Throw it in the river because it 'talked'?"

That got at least a grin from all of them, but Okita pointed out the flaw in the plan, "Sure that solves one problem, but you can't seriously think they're just going to hand them over."

"No, but phones do a lot of communicating without ever telling us." Heisuke shrugged, "You don't enter the password for our wifi everyday, but I bet your phone is connected to it just like Shin's is. There isn't a place in the city that doesn't offer wifi, and if they go there often, then their phones probably do the same. If it's unsecured, then that's even better on our end."

Hijikata frowned, "That still doesn't explain how you're getting all this data off their phones."

"Uh… Well that's where it gets a bit tricky…" Heisuke looked like he was expecting to get hit over the head as he said, "You remember the StingRay Kondou said he wanted to get several months back? The thing that acts as a hotspot and grabs data from whatever connects to it?"

"Yes, I remember." From the tone of Hijikata's voice, it clear he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Well, I think I can do something similar. If we give the device the same password and signature as The Orchid, then all of their phones would connect without them even knowing."

Saito frowned, "That's running a very fine line Heisuke… I believe you already know falsely identifying a digital service is a federal offense even with a legal device like."

"Um, yeah… but it's not like anyone needs to know, right?" Heisuke laughed awkwardly, "I mean as long as we don't use the data as evidence in court, then what's the problem?"

"What's the problem, he says," Harada rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, "Oh, I don't know, how does ten years in prison sound? Because that's exactly what we'd get."

Heisuke paled slightly and Nagakura turned to look at Harada, clearly more than a little alarmed, "Ten years! In a federal prison?! That's more than a little problem dude. No. Thank. you."

"I think we could do it."

"WHAT?!" The three men stared at Hijikata, their expressions horrified. Personally, she felt queasy at just the thought of breaking a law, let alone one with such a serious penalty. Even Saito's eyes had widened in surprise at Hijikata's rather confident statement.

The one outlier was Okita, who laughed as he said, "I wouldn't count on your poetry skills winning you any points, they suck."

"Not prison you imbeciles." Hijikata looked at the ceiling, as if praying for patience. "Kondou knows a judge who owes him a few favors, so I think I can get us a warrant. It probably won't hold up in court, so we couldn't officially use anything we find, but it would keep our asses out of jail. Heisuke, I'll talk to Kondou about getting one of these StingRays. Until then-"

Heisuke cleared his throat nervously, "I uh… might have already ordered one…"

"You what?!"

"Yeah, it seemed like it would be useful and when I mentioned it to Kondou a couple weeks ago, he thought it was a good idea, so…" Heisuke let his voice trail off as Hijikata's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"How much did it cost?"

"Kondou approved it!"

"Not what I asked. How much?"

When Heisuke hung his head and muttered something unintelligible, Hijikata sighed, "Fine, when it gets here-"

"It's already here."

"Heisuke…" Chizuru was fairly sure she could see a vein throbbing in Hijikata's forehead. "We are going to have a long talk about this later. Understood?" Heisuke kept his gaze focused on his desk as he nodded. "I want Yamazaki and Shimada to scope out the place tonight, which will give Heisuke time to figure out how that device is going to work. Consider your weekend plans cancelled. I want to act on this quickly, but there's too much at stake here for us to risk running into it blind."

Nagakura and Heisuke both groaned, but they were quickly silenced by a glare from Hijikata. Harada didn't look all that happy with losing his weekend either, but like Okita and Saito he kept silent on the matter. Honestly, the latter two didn't seem all that put out by the situation. She didn't have anything she would need to cancel, so it wouldn't really be a problem for her. Sen's work at her law firm had kept her just as busy as Chizuru, so they hadn't made any plans other than to simply crash and relax at home. Still… This was the second Saturday in a row that she'd had to give up, and she was starting to worry that it was becoming a trend.

End Note: (feel free to skip. Mostly boring, extraneous info no one but me would care about)

*cough* *cough* Okay some of this stuff is made up and some is not. I wrote my outline before taking a cyber security course and well… let's just say the course paid off, but not quite in the way my professor intended :P I had to do some research to figure out how to get myself out of the plot hole I'd inadvertently created and this was the compromise I settled on. (Honestly it probably wouldn't have bothered anyone other than me…)

The prison sentence is completely real because any attempt to access someone else's device without their permission is considered hacking under the 'Computer Fraud and Abuse Act' in the US and no warrant for this type of act would hold up in court (disqualifying any evidence from being used in a trial). However there is a precedent for investigators being cleared of wrongdoing, for say, illegal search and seizure, if an improper warrant was issued by a judge.

The StingRay does exist (see below) and is legal for agencies to use (and has been used quite effectively in some cases), but it cannot do what I'm making it do. It can only read what is passed through it, while what Heisuke plans is more like giving a connected phone a 'worm' which steals data (which is illegal btw. Don't hack, it's not nice. And don't hack back either, because you never know who you're messing with.)

[Wikipedia]

StingRay - an IMSI-catcher with both passive (digital analyzer) and active (cell site simulator) capabilities. When operating in active mode, the device mimics a wireless carrier cell tower in order to force all nearby mobile phones and other cellular data devices to connect to it.

Active mode operations:

Extracting stored data such as International Mobile Subscriber Identity ("IMSI") numbers and Electronic Serial Number ("ESN")

Writing cellular protocol metadata to internal storage

Forcing an increase in signal transmission power

Forcing an abundance of radio signals to be transmitted (think jamming in Star Trek or Star Wars)

Interception of communications content

Tracking and locating the cellular device user

Conducting a denial of service attack (flood a device/system with requests until it crashes)

Encryption key extraction. (they can now decrypt your messages)

Passive mode operations:

conducting base station surveys, which is the process of using over-the-air signals to identify legitimate cell sites and precisely map their coverage areas