To Butterfly: Actually, Lynchpin's connection is to the girl through Andretti, not to Mind-Wipe.
To Lyger 0: As long as Mind-Wipe isn't able to touch the person skin-to-skin, he can't control them. So as long as his skin is covered (gloves, solitary confinement, etc.), he's safe. They have a special prison wing at La Santé to house major superhuman threats like him.
To yellow 14: That one ended up being a lot more character-focused than most of these have been.
"The target is still en route. Speed as expected. Traffic light."
Gouger furrowed her brows, watching the drone feed on her tablet closely. This was easily the worst part of the job, the part that had taken the most adjustment. She could handle the action just fine; it was all the quiet moments waiting for the action the start that she couldn't handle. But after sitting in the parking lot of a convenience store for the last two hours waiting for the operation to really begin, they were finally in business.
The semi truck in question had just crossed into Neuilly-sur-Seine along A14, right on time. The information they'd acquired over months of observation, including by a detective they'd recruited in Rouen, had paid off. As the truck arrived in the Paris region, the drone took station above and behind the semi, set to track it all the way to the warehouse. The company logo on the side of the trailer was for a defunct commercial transportation company that had been bought at auction 25 years ago by a conglomerate that itself had no physical address but owned the controlling share in three other companies. The name on that purchase, "Jean Provenzo," had been fake, but after hours of searching through records they had finally connected it to Andretti's grandfather, whose wife's maiden name had been "Provenzo." Not quite the smoking gun they needed, but enough to confirm that they were on the right track three months ago. The truck continued down the road at a steady pace, the drone occasionally gaining altitude to fly above overpasses while keeping the truck in sight.
In the passenger seat next to her, Roux groaned, a bag of trail mix from the convenience store in his hand. Popping a handful of nuts in his mouth, he commented, "I sure hope this pays off, because I'm getting tired of just sitting in the car."
Gouger nodded and let out a breath. "If we're lucky, this will give us what we need," she replied. The truck was still visible, taking up most of the view, driving a couple kilometers below the speed limit to avoid notice. As long as traffic in the city didn't get too bad, the truck would arrive at the warehouse in no more than ninety minutes. She cocked her head in confusion as a white car pulled up alongside the truck, confusion giving way to shock as the lights on top of the car turned on.
"What the actual hell?" Roux stared at the screen, his jaw hanging open. "What does this joker think he's doing?"
"Whatever he thinks he's doing, what he's really doing is messing up our sting," Gouger grumbled. Keying the radio button, she announced, "L-T, we've got a problem."
"I see it," Ramus answered from the other car, parked in the parking lot of a school further along the truck's route.
"I thought Rainy said he was taking care of the local precinct for this," Ray's voice observed, riding with Ramus.
"Yeah, well, I guess these guys didn't get the memo," retorted Ramus curtly. "What are they even stopping them for?"
Ray hummed. "I think I see the problem," he finally announced. "It looks like they have a busted signal on the trailer."
"Seriously?" demanded Roux, shaking his head in disbelief. "Andretti needs better people if they let a truck out with a shipment of drugs without double checking the lights…"
"Can you have the Prefect call them off?" Gouger demanded, just as the semi pulled over to the side of the road.
"Too late for that," Ramus answered, sighing heavily. "Hopefully they just write them the citation and let them go."
The police car parked behind the truck and sat still for several minutes before the officers finally got out and walked around to the passenger's side door. Biting back a groan and handing the tablet off to Roux, Gouger shifted her car into gear. Looking both directions, she pulled out into traffic, took another turn, and merged onto the highway. "I'm going to move in closer to check it out."
"Keep us updated."
Gouger matched the speed of the traffic around them, pushing it just a little to cover the twenty or so kilometers between them and the semi as quickly as possible. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened, and she glared at the traffic in frustration. After all of the work and effort they had put into this sting, after their big break just a few weeks earlier, it could all be in jeopardy just because a couple of traffic cops pulled over the wrong truck. That an operation could turn on something as simple as a blown-out light or outdated registration would be hilarious if it didn't mean the waste of hours of work. But, then, the lead that had given them this break had also been completely unexpected.
As Ramus was fond of saying, sometimes a case could turn on the littlest things.
They had only covered about half the distance when Vernant's voice came over the radio. "The truck is not moving, and the officers still have not returned to their car," he reported. "I am moving the drone out of position to get a better vantage, but I–oh, no! Man down!"
Gouger muttered a curse and flipped the switch on the dashboard to activate the unmarked car's dash-mounted siren and lights. Racing down the highway at breakneck speeds she breezed past the other cars, a few of which had already moved over on seeing the lights. A few kilometers down the road she could see the enormous bulk of the semi sitting on the shoulder of the opposite lane of traffic, the drone hovering above it only visible from that angle by the glint of sunlight reflecting off its smooth surfaces.
As they passed the truck, Roux looked out the window and frowned. "The car's lights are still going, but I don't see anyone. Any sign of the truck's driver?"
"No," replied Vernant. "The truck is deserted."
"What about the officers?"
"One is moving, but the other is not."
Élodie's voice cut in over the radio. "The ambulance is on the way, but it's still at least five minutes out."
"Hang on." Gouger gave Roux three seconds to brace himself against the door before she slammed on the brakes and turned off the highway into the closest turnaround, drifting across it almost completely sideways. Roux let out an involuntary grunt as the force slammed him into the side of the car. They had barely made it through the gap in the barrier when she gunned the engine and merged back into the traffic, cutting across into the outside lane and screeching to a stop behind the police car. With a quick check of the traffic she jumped out and sprinted along the side of the truck toward the cab, Roux right behind her. As she neared the cab, she could see a body lying just off the road in front of the truck. Closer, one of the officers knelt over a prone form, red staining the sleeve of her uniform. She looked up as they approached. "What happened here?" Gouger demanded, holding out her badge.
"I–I don't know!" the officer answered, eyes wide with panic, pressing her hands to her partner's abdomen. "It was just a routine traffic stop, and then…"
"Who did it?" Roux asked, dropping to his knees beside the two officers, pushed the one out of the way, and pressing his hands against the deep slash across the prone officer's chest.
The other officer slumped back against the semi's tires and shook her head, closing her eyes and hyperventilating. "It–it all happened so fast. I–I think they had a knife or–or something."
Gouger hopped up onto the truck's running board to look inside. The cab was empty apart from a cell phone that had fallen onto the floor. A quick scan of the sleeper show it to likewise be empty. Poking her head out the window, she found the injured officer trying to hold her arm above her head. "There were two people in here. Where's the other one?" Gouger demanded.
"I might've shot one of them…"
"Theo, did the drone catch any of what happened?" she asked, glancing up at it.
"Unfortunately not," came the reply. "The body of the truck was in the way, and I was hesitant to move it for fear that someone would see it. There may have been someone fleeing the scene, but I will need to review the footage to confirm."
Gouger looked closer at the body of the criminal, lying on his stomach with his arms splayed, eyes open and unseeing. A red pool of blood stained the ground around him. Flashing lights in the side mirror drew her eye as Ramus' car pulled to a stop behind hers. Slamming her fist on the dashboard, Gouger finally turned off the truck's engine, pocketed the keys, and climbed out.
Roux still knelt beside the officer with the slash across his chest, maintaining pressure to stem the bleeding. Ray ran down the length of the semi, a first aid kit in one hand, and tossed Roux a tube of clotting agent which Roux emptied into the laceration. As Ray knelt next to the other officer to tend the cut on her arm, Gouger walked past him toward Ramus and the cars. She grimaced darkly. After months of effort, all of it had been ruined by a "routine traffic stop."
When she reached him, Ramus was leaning against his own police car, his phone up to his ear, shouting into it. "What do you mean, you 'must have missed it'!? Your incompetence compromised an ongoing investigation and got two of your officers injured on the job!" he bellowed. He paused for a minute before slamming his prosthetic into the car roof with a metallic clang, leaving a long dent in the car. "Oh, you want to complain to my superior? Don't worry: you can bet your ass that you'll be hearing from him first, just as soon as he gets through deciding just how far to shove Inspectorate up your ass!" He ended the call and threw the phone through the open window onto his seat. "How bad is it?" he asked, staring at the truck without looking at her.
"Two officers injured, one possibly life-threatening," she reported. "One suspect dead at the scene, the other in the wind."
Ramus let out a breath. "Two months," he grumbled. "Two months of tracking cars, following runners, indentifying Andretti's warehouses…"
"To say nothing of the information we got from Sarah…" Gouger added, nodding sullenly. After everything that girl had been through, for her information to have still been valid had been a huge break. If now it wouldn't be useable…
Ramus groaned and reached inside, carefully pushing up on the roof to straighten out the dent. "All of that blown by bad luck."
"This won't be our last chance to connect Andretti to the drugs personally," Gouger pointed out. "So far our observation has confirmed the rest of the information; he could continue to follow the same pattern next month."
"As long as this mistake doesn't change his routine," he argued. "After losing an entire shipment like this, he might stop inspecting the facility, or he might change when he goes, and then we'd be back where we started. This was our best shot, and an asshole captain who forgot to read his morning briefing managed to mess it up. Now we don't know when the next chance will be, or if we'll be in a position to take advantage when it comes."
Gouger frowned, staring at the truck pensively. "Do we know if Andretti is still at the warehouse?"
Ramus nodded, frowning. "I just checked with Moreau en route. Andretti is still there, and they haven't seen any change in activity to indicate that he knows what happened."
Gouger furrowed her brows in thought. "If he's still there, we have the truck, and he doesn't know what happened, why couldn't we deliver it ourselves to get the evidence we need?"