The elevator door opened, and Gilbert led the way out onto the office floor of the police department, groaning a bit at the bright fluorescent lights.
"Are you okay?" Ludwig asked, coming off the elevator after him.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Gilbert assured, "The lighting in my office is dimmer, thank god."
"You go talk to Roderich while I get you some coffee," Ludwig said, before heading off left towards the break room.
Gilbert focused more on the ground as he wheeled around the cubicles, trying to avoid looking up at the bright lights again. He quietly gave small waves to those who tried to greet him on his way by, not really in the mood to tell anyone why he wasn't resting at home after being in a car crash only 15 hours ago.
Roderich was already standing at his office door watching him approach, so Gilbert nodded gently in thanks before letting himself in. He immediately sat down in the guest chair by Roderich's desk, relaxing as the soft landing into the leather cushions. The relief combined with Roderich shutting the door, allowing for quiet in the office.
"How are you feeling, Gilbert?" Roderich queried, "If you think you would be better off in bed, feel free to say so."
"I think I'll do fine in my office with the lights dimmed and the door shut," Gilbert promised, "Anything more than that could be trouble. Ludwig won't even let me drive today, he'll pick me up when I say I'm done."
"As I said on the phone, I am sorry I had to call you in after giving the day off to rest," Roderich repeated, "However, given the circumstances that arose this morning, I do need you to take a look at what happened. Once you've done what you can on this, you may go home."
"I'll see how I fare," Gilbert accepted, "What is the situation?"
"The two motorcyclists you apprehended last night were released on bail this morning," Roderich explained, handing over some loose documents, "Your name is all over these, and the approval came from Lars, despite neither of you having the capacity to process any paperwork this morning."
Gilbert scanned through the two papers, noting quickly that they were bail release forms for Madeline Aurelle Williams and Natalya Maria Arlovskaya. The authorizations at the bottom were electronically signed by Sergeant Gilbert Bielschmidt and Lieutenant Lars Van Ryn at 8:00 in the morning.
"This is impossible," Gilbert denied, "Ludwig didn't try waking me up until 9:30!"
"That's why I asked you on the phone if you had any access to the database at home," Roderich elaborated, "These two bails appear to have been forged, and it wasn't spotted until after the girls had left the building. Bella had stopped Ms. Arlovskaya on the way out, and saw the signatures at the bottom of the page. When she came upstairs and discovered that you weren't here and Lars was still in the hospital, she immediately reported to me."
"Good girl, Bella," Gilbert commented, "Were these girls interrogated before release?"
"They weren't, Bella was supposed to fill in for you this afternoon," Roderich said, picking up a pair of files to hand over, "She is now working with Lenka downstairs to find as much evidence for the breakout as they can. I need you to go over these files and see what you can figure out about Ms. Williams and Ms. Arlovskaya, along with why they were broken out."
"I can definitely do that," Gilbert accepted, noticing the difference in the sizes of the two files, "One of these files is definitely fuller, isn't it?"
"Natalya Arlovskaya has been on our radar for some time," Roderich hinted as Gilbert took the files, "Once you see why, you'll understand why I need you on this case."
Gilbert felt his eyebrow raise in curiosity, but nodded in understanding before rising from his chair.
"I'll let you know what I figure out," Gilbert confirmed, before turning to leave the office.
He turned the doorknob and opened the door to the office floor, groaning slightly as the bright lights and noise hit him again. He shuffled further down the small passage alongside the cubicles, giving small waves to his coworkers as they greeted him. When he finally reached his own office at the end of the hall, he was relieved to see that the lights were on, and Ludwig was already inside placing a cup of coffee on his desk.
"Well, what does Roderich have for you to do?" Ludwig inquired, "Not anything physical, I should hope?"
"I need to see what I can find out about the two motorcyclists we arrested last night," Gilbert explained, "Their paperwork was forged this morning, and they both got released on bail."
"Their bail paperwork was forged?" Ludwig asked, "How is that even possible?"
"Bella and Lenka are figuring out how it happened," Gilbert disclosed, "I need to try and find why these two girls specifically were bailed out. I only need to stay as long as I am able to work, I'll give you a call when I'm done."
"That sounds good to me," Ludwig said as he left the office, "Just don't overexert yourself now."
"Don't worry, Luddy, I won't."
As Ludwig shut the door on his way out, Gilbert sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. While the system started itself up, he opened the first folder, looking at the papers on the arrest of Madeline Williams. Her records were clean, and it was her first arrest, so despite the charges from last night, she would've likely made bail anyways. After borrowing a phone from Eduard to call a friend named 'Toni', a man named Alexander Toris Rasmussen was put on record as having paid her bail. The paperwork from the holding facility claims he also had a clean record. Aside from the fact that Gilbert thought he recognized her, there weren't any obvious problems there.
He put Madeline's folder aside for the moment, and opened up Natalya Arlovskaya's very thick folder. Along with last night's charges, she had quite the number of red flags on her file, although most appeared to be suspicions of associations rather than suspected crimes.
"Well, aren't you a curious one," Gilbert muttered, looking at her mugshot, "Who do they think you're associating your pretty face with?"
He turned a few pages, before a name change record was spotted. Only a couple years ago, she had changed her last name from Braginskaya to Arlovskaya. Gilbert looked a little deeper into the file, and uncovered why she would've changed that name.
Ivan Braginski, the Russian researcher that ran away with Mathilda Jones, was Natalya's brother.
"Well, that explains a lot, Natalya Braginskaya," Gilbert chuckled, looking at her picture again, "They want whatever leads you can provide on your brother. You even resemble him, although you're much nicer to look at."
Gilbert inspected her release record again, noting that her bail of $5,000 was fully paid in cash at 10:45 in the morning. Her bail papers were forged and posted with a timestamp of 8:03 in the morning, and there was no record of her asking for a phone call. Whoever got her out couldn't have had the time to find out about the bail and visit a bank to withdraw the cash.
He loaded the database program on his computer, and looked at her release papers for the identity of the man who paid her bail. Once the ID was typed in, the file of Jose Antonio Ramirez came up on the screen. It was complete with an ID picture that gave away the truth, despite the pair of glasses added to the person for added disguise.
"Antonio Fernandez Carriedo," Gilbert snarled, "You god-damned sneaky bastard."
Precisely at that moment, his thoughts were interrupted by a knock to the door. He looked up to see Bella standing there, and waved her in. She pulled the door open and entered the office, placing some full-page pictures on his desk.
"Sorry for disturbing you, but Roderich said you might want to see these," Bella explained, "They are security camera captures of our two girls walking out this morning, each with the men who paid their bails."
Gilbert immediately reached for the pictures and inspected the top one, noticing immediately that it matched what he had just figured out. It showed Antonio escorting Natalya out of the reception area, with a smile on his face and an angry glare on Natalya's.
"She certainly doesn't look too happy to see him," Gilbert noted, "At least she might have that in her favour."
"Who is he, Gilbert?" Bella inquired, "I thought he looked like one of the Vargas mob members we were trying to catch, but his ID didn't match any of the names we're looking for."
"I just ran his ID in the database, it's a blatant fake," Gilbert explained, "His real name is Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, he helped double-cross the Vargas group last year."
"He's one of the fugitives, isn't he?" Bella checked, "Could the man in this other picture also be on our list?"
Gilbert put down the picture of Natalya and Antonio, and looked at the second picture instead. This one had Madeline Williams being escorted out of the building by another very familiar face.
"You've got to be kidding me," Gilbert grumbled at the man in the picture, "How the fuck did you slip past us?"
"Gilbert, who is he?" Bella demanded.
"His name is Toris Laurinaitis," Gilbert revealed, "We had arrested him the day of the busts last year, but he escaped from the crash that killed Sadiq, Heracles and Tomas."
"He's the prisoner that disappeared?" Bella reiterated, "How wasn't he spotted when paying bail this morning?"
"He also used a fake ID, with the name Alexander Toris Rasmussen," Gilbert declared, looking at Madeline's bail paperwork again to confirm the name, "Bella, I need you to visit Roderich for me, and tell him that Antonio and Toris used fake IDs to get the girls out this morning."
"Right away, Gilbert."
Bella promptly turned and left the office, closing the door shut behind her. Gilbert spread the two images across his desk, with Madeline's folder to the left and Natalya's to the right.
"You assholes must think you're so fucking clever," Gilbert criticized, "Creating ID with fake profiles, forging the release papers, paying the bail on these two girls, and strolling in and out of here like you own the place. I certainly wouldn't put it past you to pull this off, getting Ivan's sister out of jail -"
Gilbert paused in his monologue as he realized something. It made sense that they would specifically bail out Natalya, but anyone else in there would have easily been helped by a full-scale mass jailbreak. So why would they also specifically break out Madeline Williams? Since Natalya did not use a phone call, it would make sense that Madeline's call was to Antonio, putting him in the loop about having to pay bail on both of them. If that was so, then was Madeline's breakout the primary objective, and Natalya's only the secondary?
That was when the light bulb turned on.
Gilbert immediately went to the hard drive folders on his computer, and located the file he needed. The file opened up, and Gilbert put it at a good spot before holding Madeline's mugshot up to the screen and comparing the two images. Once he realized his suspicion was true, he could only snap out of his shock to mutter one little phrase.
"Holy fucking shit."