The next morning, Kate went on her way to pick up the witness. She was wearing "blend-in" clothes, jeans, dark t-shirt, sneakers, because she was supposed to look like the girlfriend of a low-level thug, which was the cover the witness had been given to keep him off the radar in prison. She was driving one of the massive Dodge Durangos that Voight had picked for the transfer, four identical ones, even with matching bumper stickers. She did not like the car, it was way too big for her taste, but it couldn't be helped. Since she didn't know anything about Chicago traffic, she had left the hotel early and as a result was at the prison well ahead of schedule. She parked the car but remained in her seat and checked her phone. Torres had messaged her; he was already at the first location and had set up the super-WIFI according to her instructions. It was easy enough to do, she'd made sure of that together with the techs that had invented it back at Quantico. She texted a short answer to his question if anything else needed to be done, then checked in with Kiana in the observation van to make sure she had everything on her screens. Then she checked her watch. Still 15 minutes to go. A prison was a prison, and the witness would not step out of there even a minute before 10. She sighed. She hated waiting, maybe next time she'd trust the traffic prediction and not leave 30 minutes early. She got out of the car to stretch her legs and enjoy the fresh, clear morning air. Her hotel was right by Magnificent Mile and there was no fresh air to be had anywhere close by. So, this was a nice change. She started walking down the block, letting her mind wander, barely hearing the birds chirping and the rustling of the leaves in the breeze. Had she thought of everything for this op? She had been very focused yesterday, not only because that was what she always did, but also because she wanted to make a perfect first impression on Sergeant Voight. At first, her only goal was to survive this assignment without her career ending up as collateral damage, but the little time she had spent with Voight before he had sent her to dig through possible locations with Kim and Kevin had, for some reason, made an impression on her. Which in turn made it important to impress him. She'd gotten praise from all kinds of high-ranking Military- and Government-brass, why was it important to her to get on the good side of a Chicago PD Sergeant, she wondered. Back at the hotel last night, she'd googled him. Scarce information. Widower. A few rumors on police discussion boards that he was on the take years ago, then that he'd allegedly worked for IA to get out of the charges for the bribery, that he'd killed the murderer of his son and made the body disappear... quite a few other interesting stories, but no official police investigations, no statements, no lawsuits. She put it down as gossip and decided to find out for herself. Asking directly was usually the easiest way to get information.
Her phone buzzed, which startled her. She checked her watch and started walking back to her car. When she got close, she noticed that the big gate to the prison was already slowly opening. She walked around the car and opened the door on the passenger side to take out a dark jacket and a non-descript baseball hat, which the witness was supposed to wear during the ride, along with a pair of aviator sunglasses that she put on the dashboard. "Well, well, well", she heard a familiar voice behind her, immediately giving her goosebumps, "if it isn't Special Agent in Charge Warner, my dear sweetheart." She tried not to take an obvious deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and turned around. "Section Chief Ambrose, good to see you again", she said, no muscle in her face moving, her voice just the slightest bit icy. "I knew we had a situation with the FBI on our hands here, but this is quite the surprise." He put on the hat and jacket that she had held out towards him and took a step towards her, apparently trying to give her a hug before getting into the car, but she quickly stepped to the right, avoided any contact with him and walked around the car to the driver's side. "Darling, I sure hope you're not still holding that grudge – that would be very counterproductive with the situation we have going on here." Ambrose gave her a big smile, apparently completely ignoring her anger. "Buckle up, Section Chief Ambrose, we need to get going", Kate told him, while grabbing her radio. "This is 5021 Zulu for 5021 King, I'm en route to the breakfast location with the coffee, ETA 30 minutes." "5021 King for 5021 Zulu there's a pile-up near Midway, and I don't want cold coffee, suggest you re-route via Claremont Avenue." "Send the new route to my satnav, will you, King, I don't know how to operate this thing while driving." "Will do, Zulu" Kiana replied, and about ten seconds later the update route showed on the big screen in front of her. "Almost as nice as our FBI cars", said Ambrose, trying to keep his balance as Kate made a sharp right turn, "but since when do you not know how to use the satnav while driving?" he mocked her. She didn't react, or respond, just focused on the traffic and made sure to switch lanes in time for the next turn. "OK, silent treatment it is then" Ambrose joked, "I hope your new colleagues won't be as angry at me as you are. What have you told them about me?" he asked. "How could I have told anyone anything about you, Sean, I got the assignment yesterday morning and learned that the witness was YOU about 10 minutes ago. So don't worry. None of my "new colleagues" knows diddly-squat about you or me or us and I suggest we keep it that way." "Fine by me" he shrugged and finally stayed silent.
What neither of them knew, was that Voight had ordered for all four transport vehicles to be equipped with wires and was sitting next to Kiana in the observation van, listening to every word they said. He looked at Kiana, eyebrows raised, shaking his head. "I had the hope that there wouldn't be any ugly surprises about Warner waiting for me, but this doesn't sound like we're gonna be sailing smooth waters when she's on shift. Do me a favor, will you?" Kiana nodded. "Send a text to Trudy and get her to snoop. She's good with stuff like that, knows the right people to find anything but without anyone finding out about it. I want to know their history. Section Chief Sean Ambrose and Special Agent in Charge Kate Warner. I'm not liking this." He leaned back in the tiny, uncomfortable chair and folded his arms in front of him, looking at the wall of the van, trying to ignore his gut feeling that the operation had just turned sour. "Sergeant, do you think we should give Torres a heads up about this?" Voight needed some time to come back to reality and actually hearing what Kiana had asked him. He nodded, pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed Torres' number. "Torres, listen up. The witness is FBI Section Chief Sean Ambrose. Apparently, him and Kate know each other and have a history together. We don't know what happened yet, but the assumption is they did not part ways on good terms. So, I need you on top of your game. Try to keep them apart. The good thing is we don't need to tell him how to behave to stay safe. He should know well enough. But try to not give them too much time for one on one conversations. I have a feeling that would create unnecessary risks. If you have time to speak with him alone, try to find out what's going on with that case he's supposed to testify in. The more we know, the better." "Will do boss" answered Torres and Voight ended the call.
About fifteen minutes later, the dusty grey Dodge turned around the corner and passed the van. Voight smiled. The new carpool guy was really excellent. The car looked just the right amount of neglected to not draw attention anywhere in the city, the fake dust smeared to imitate fingerprints and traces left by people walking by too close and touching the car with their jackets. All four vehicles had pretty much the same marks, down to the "clean me" writing in the dust on the rear left window. Nobody would expect this thing to be bullet-proof, lighter than the original, but still pulling the more than 700 horsepower, which made it, as Denny, the carpool manager said, "a rocketship fortress on wheels". Voight still preferred not having to put any of the features to a test. He watched Kate and Sean enter the building, a few minutes later he heard them on the loudspeakers in the van. Everyone knew about the microphones in all of the safe houses, so Voight assumed that for the time being, there wouldn't be any more conversations about why the mood between Kate and Sean was so tense. Voight grabbed his phone again and called Kate. "Anything noteworthy happen on the drive here?" he asked her, without saying hello or identifying himself, when she picked up the call. "No, Sergeant, I was checking for tails or any signs of being watched, but if someone was there, they were good enough to stay invisible. I took the detours that were planned into the route to make sure we can spot followers, but we were in the clear and Central didn't notice anything either", Kate answered. Voight acted clueless and asked "So, what's the witnesses name? Did he give you any hints about the trial he's going to be testifying in?" "The witness is Section Chief Sean Ambrose." Voight noticed her voice being lowered and he could see on the heat camera that she was stepping into the bedroom and closed the door. "I know him. Or rather, I know OF him. We never worked together. But word was that he did not advance to his current rank by merit. More by meticulously gathering dirt on the right people and subsequently blackmailing his way up." Her voice was still low, but Voight could hear that she was angry. Did Ambrose have dirt on her as well? Was that what caused the tension? Voight almost hoped that this was the case. Would be much easier to deal with than, say, a love affair gone south. Anger would be helpful, broken-hearted emotions would not. "Try to find out what's going on with that trial. The more background info we have, the better the chance to figure out who wants him dead so badly." And with that, he ended the call without waiting for her response.
His phone pinged, a text from Trudy, with only a link. It led him to Ambrose's personnel file. Handsome, he thought, tall, wouldn't surprise me if there had been attraction between him and Kate. He started reading through the bio and the achievements and the more he read, the more he realized that the "word" Kate had mentioned was probably right. Not a single one of his operations should have resulted in him being Section Chief. He was never really in charge of anything, mostly just a bystander, not even boots on the ground when there was action involved. The more Voight read, the bigger his frown became. In the end, he snorted, threw his phone on the narrow table in front of him and said to Kiana "If you ever wanna see a perfect impostor, here's your chance. This guy is an FBI section chief with zero accomplishments under his belt, I really wanna know how the hell he pulled that off." Kiana grinned. "We both know Trudy won't rest until she has found that out for you" she answered. Voight nodded. Trudy would find the dirt and she would be as disgusted and angry about this guy than he was. He leaned forward and reached for his phone, then pulled up Kate's personnel file. Now THAT was Section Chief material, he tought, everything sounded even more impressive now than the first time he'd read it. He frowned again. That's how bad Ambroses file really was. How the hell is that guy a material witness, what could he possibly know or have seen that would make him and the trial that important? Voight hated the fact that he didn't know any details. He knew that his team was being used as scapegoats. If everything went well, nobody would ever mention it, but if anything went south, they'd be on the hook, big time. Kate as well. Maybe that was part of the plan, maybe someone needed her to be tainted to get her out of the way. But out of the way of what? Or whom? "Kiana, you, me and Trudy are going to have a little side project for the next three weeks" he said, "are you interested? You can't talk about it with anyone involved in this operation, though, it has to remain strictly between the three of us." "I'm good at keeping my mouth shut, Sergeant, I'm definitely in." she replied. "We'll need to make a communications plan. I'll check the shift plan and see when we are all available, so that we can at least have some personal conversation, but most of the research will have to be shared online. I'm off for now, give me a call if anything suspicious comes up." And with that, he got out of the van and walked to his car.