Chapter 34:

When he had gotten to work this morning, getting to his office, a note from his superior, Van Doren, had already been awaiting him there, asking him to get to her office as soon as possible. This wasn't a good sign, not after all. He had no idea what she wanted to talk to him about – he just hoped it wasn't about the case they were working on.

He was very well aware that this whole affair with the Chileans was way more personal than it should be. It was concerning one of his agents and even if he would tell her so – he wasn't objective on that one. Lying to her about it, wouldn't be of much use, but he was not willing to lose this case.

There had been too many things happening so far – Danny's severe injuries, Elizabeth's disappearance, the first day of trial which had gone that catastrophically wrong – he wouldn't have this case given to someone else, he was willing to fight for that.

When he entered his superior's office right now, the expression on her face and the tone of her voice when she greeted him good morning, told him that something was deeply wrong. After everything he had experienced by now he really wasn't up to any more bad news. But he asked her none the less.

„What happened?"

„Elizabeth Tejar's evidence has been destroyed."

He couldn't believe what she had just said to him, believed he had misunderstood her in some way. He knew he most definitely looked at her in exactly that way, but she didn't reconsider or explain anything. She must have really been meaning it the way she said it. There was just one primary question he wanted to have answered now.

„How?"

„It looks like there has been a fire in the storage room the file has been in. So far we don't know how it happened, forensics is still checking the scenery."

This couldn't be true – it simply couldn't. It was just screaming of injustice. After all they had gone through in the last couple of days, they would have deserved some luck after all... Unfortunately this had widespread consequences. Elizabeth's file had been the only evidence they had and there was no copy of it.

Looking at it now, it seemed absolutely stupid to not have a security copy of the file – just in case. But it simply hadn't seemed necessary at that time. Even Elizabeth – although she had a very hard time trusting people – had been convinced, her file would be secure around here. Obviously she had been wrong – neither had they been able to protect her nor her evidence.

However Jack had the uncomfortable feeling that the destruction of the file hadn't happened by accident. That it hadn't just been some fire, but that there was someone responsible for it. And it didn't need much of a genius to figure out who that might be. He couldn't however believe they had managed to get in here. This was a federal building and it was secured. They couldn't just have walked in here and set a fire.

„What about security? Shouldn't they have realized what was going on? There are security cameras all over the place and there must have been an alarm if there had been a fire."

Her hesitation told him immediately that something had obviously not been alright about the security measures kept up at this place – some situation that had allowed this desaster to happen.

„They're also working on that, but so far there has been no sign of foul play... The cameras don't show anything unusual. However neither did they have an alarm last night. One of the agents reported it this morning."

„So there has definitely been someone down there, destroying the evidence knowingly. Otherwise the whole damn building might have burned down – a fire doesn't keep itself under control."

„That's what it looks like..."

„So you are telling me that we lost every last piece of evidence we had to get these bastards down and send them back to their home country to be sentenced there and we don't even have a copy or some other security to be used for that trial."

„Forensics is still looking for evidence on why or who caused the fire. Maybe we're lucky."

„Do you actually believe that?"

„No. Whoever was smart enough to get in here unnoticed wouldn't have left any form of evidence for us to find..."

He was thinking the exact same thing and apart from that he simply just felt angry – deeply enraged about what had happened here during the cause of the last night. This had been two and a half years of another person's dedication – of her life and it had been wiped out – just like that.

Of course both of them knew that the Chileans were somehow responsible for it. Just like they were responsible for Elizabeth's disappearance. But obviously kidnapping her hadn't been enough for them and unfortunately they couldn't prove it – neither the one nor the other crime. Which was the most frustrating thing about this whole incident.

Actually there was no more need for him to stay here, nothing more to be said about it, but his superior seemed to feel the urgent need to find some words to make this whole incident easier and to hold up some hope after all. Maybe she just wanted him to know that there was still a chance, though he didn't see how.

„How's the investigation going?"

She was referring to Elizabeth and he knew she just tried to make him focus on something more positive, something less inevitable than the destruction of the evidence, for this one they couldn't change any more. Unfortunately they had come to the conclusion, that finding Elizabeth was almost as hopeless.

„Not good."

The tone in his voice and the way he looked at her, made clear to her that taken this conversation into that direction any further wouldn't help. There was nothing more helpful to say about the whole matter and she didn't insist as he turned to leave right now and get back down to his office.

She could understand his reaction completely – to her it was simply unbelievable that something like this could have happened after all, but it didn't concern her personally, it didn't concern a case she was working on or a person she knew. Jack however had to cope with all those things, all the consequences emerging from it.

She looked back up at him, right at that moment as he turned back to her, looking at her in a way, she – if she wouldn't have known it any better – would have called desperate. His words however were completely fitting that emotion.

„We lost her."