The window exploded in a shower of glass shards, raining down towards the street below. Someone jumped out of it. In the darkness and against the brightly lit room behind, no features of the person could be seen. Moments after the jump, the escape kit opened, a simplified parachute designed for fires or other emergencies.
There was a fire. But it started in earnest only a minute later, just before the jumper landed on a rooftop one street away.
The door to the office burst open and four policemen stormed into the room, weapons drawn and ready. They found a scene of devastation. The fire, now raging, added its eerie orange glow to the white ceiling lights and had begun to fill the room with smoke. It became hotter by the second and the smell of burnt plastic and fabric filled the air.
One of the policemen found and hit the fire alarm switch. Nothing happened. The sprinkler system, clearly visible in the suspended ceiling, had not activated, either.
Another men stepped forward as much as the heat allowed, in order to get a good look at what the fire was quickly destroying. Office furniture, computer equipment, folder cabinets. Behind the fire, a door into another room was barely visible, and unreachable.
The third officer, a female sergeant, checked the window and spotted the landing fugitive across the street. A curse left her lips, half-finished. She ran back to the entrance to escape the heat and pulled up her communicator.
Outside in the hallway, another team was trying to break down the next door. It had clearly been reinforced and led to the room behind the door covered by flames. The room where the fire had been started. The door resisted their efforts, successfully so far. A thin sheet of smoke billowed through the slit underneath it.
„Suspect escaped to rooftop across the street. Anyone nearby?“
Nobody answered for a few seconds, then a voice came through: „Negative. We are on our way up and everyone else is with you.“
The sergeant cursed and looked around. To her right, the second team had just broken through the door, and immediately retreated from the heat of the flames licking out through the doorway. So that room was on fire as well. It was late evening, so all the offices on this floor were closed and locked.
Her shoulders slumped. By now, even if she quickly found another escape kit to follow, the suspect would have disappeared into the night.
She walked through the glass door that separated this office from the lobby. Behind her, the other officers had pressed the fire alarm and grabbed portable fire extinguishers to contain the flames. With the flames raging as they did, they would not be able to put them out or save whatever was in those two rooms.
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She contacted the command center: „One suspect escaped out the window, the fire is out of control. Not likely we will be able to salvage much.“
„Copy that“, command responded, „Stay on scene and see what you can find out.“
The police command center was a large room with fifteen multi-screen desks, each coordinating one or more teams. It provided drone and camera footage or additional intelligence as support for their operations and bundled police activities throughout the city.
The operator at desk number six closed the connection and dialed the planetary police HQ. This mission had come from the very top, and he needed to report the failure up without delay. There was an immediate answer, HQ had been standing by as well. „Suspect started a fire and escaped. Unclear how much we will be able to salvage.“
„Understood.“
At the police headquarters, the call had been received in a meeting room. The chief of police and the minister of interior were present, as well as various staff members. The room had fallen silent upon hearing these news.
„They knew we were unto them.“, the chief of police concluded, „Unclear how they knew. We’ve kept this operation top secret. Even the teams on the ground don’t know what they are after.“
„And this was our only lead?“, the minister asked. His name was Warley Bolden.
„Yes. The only cell that we have been able to identify and observe. We sent three teams when the leader of the cell loaded his car full of cans of gasoline and drove off in a hurry. I think we can safely assume that was him jumping out the window. Don’t know how he knew about the police following him.“
Minister Bolden nodded. „The president will be unhappy about this. I’ll keep all space ships grounded. They will be trying to escape off planet. I would if I were them.“
He turned to the side and contacted the space administration. Moments later, he asked „repeat that.“ and then „are you sure?“
Bolden turned back to the rest of the people in the room: „We might already be too late. Half an hour ago, a ship made an unauthorized launch from the capital. It escaped into hyperspace before interceptors could reach it.“
Silence followed.
„Might just be the local cell there? Who knows how many they have.“
Bolden nodded slowly. Then his hands grabbed the arm rests of his chair and calmly pushed him out. „I will inform Vance“, he said.
Two minutes later, Bolden had Amara Vance on the line. She was in the back of the presidential limousine, on her way home after a long day of work. The back was spacious, big enough for a small meeting or working on the way, as she often did. The smell off fresh mango hang in the air, the one daily luxury she allowed herself.
Amara listened to the news from her minister and was, as he had predicted, not happy about them. She ordered the limousine to turn around. The one-time-pads were at her offices, and the only way to securely contact the other planets. Dangorod at least, the courier ship to Dephyr would still be on its way.
Something had tipped the traitors off and they were scrambling and escaping. She felt that the night would be long, but important.
Back at the police headquarters, better news had just appeared: „Our investigation team has identified the company renting these offices and tracked down its registered employees. Two of them are being brought in for questioning as we speak.“, the chief of police let everyone know.
„What about the company itself?“, Bolden asked.
„Unclear. It has a complex ownership structure that my people are trying to unravel. Holding companies, investors, joint-ventures. We’ll get to it but it will take a few hours.“