LITMIR.BIZ

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at a dead end … Connie sighed and said, “Can you clarify what you mean when you said one of the people who ordered him to do it?”

      “Orders were passed along like a military command. The driver was the grunt assigned to complete the task.”

      “And you are willing to give me the driver and his boss?”

      “Exactly. Maybe other bosses, too. My idea is for you to get a wiretap and catch the driver and his boss talking to each other about it. Maybe do a media release or something to spark conversation. Any action you take in regards to anyone else would have to be done with my approval.”

      “Under the circumstances and what we have so far, or I should say, what we don’t have, your proposal sounds great to me.”

      “Good.”

      “Hold on before you say anything. First I’ll want to run it past a prosecutor as a formality to ensure someone doesn’t try to change our agreement later on.”

      “I was about to request that. Glad we’re on the same page. I also want a prosecutor to commit the decision to paper. If someone does screw around and try to charge the informant, I’ll be handing the agreement over to the defence lawyer to get the case squashed.”

      “They’ll hate doing that. It infers that we don’t trust them.”

      “I don’t. You shouldn’t trust anyone these days. Besides, they’re lawyers. Tell them I said a verbal agreement is only as good as the paper it is written on. That, they should understand.”

      “Yeah, okay,” replied Connie. “What you are offering is probably the best deal we could ever come up with. I’m sure they’ll go along with it, but once I get something on paper from them, I’ll need something from you in writing as well if I am going to apply for a wiretap.”

      “I’ll do a report. You’ll get a copy as soon as we get the green light, but treat it on a need-to-know basis only.”

      “Gotcha.” Connie hung up and immediately called a prosecutor who agreed to meet her later that afternoon. She then updated Boyle on what had transpired.

      “You said Taggart was good,” replied Boyle, “but nobody is that good. Today is Friday. Only two days since it happened. To come up with a source that quick … something is fishy. What did he do? Torture somebody?” he added, jokingly.

      Connie stared blandly at Boyle and didn’t reply.

      Boyle dropped his smile and said, “No seriously, how did he do it?”

      “I didn’t ask and neither should you. The important thing is he knows who is responsible. It’s a fantastic deal when you think about it. He’ll give us the driver and who ordered him to do it. What more could we ask for? Once the prosecutor gives us the go-ahead, Jack will send us a report. We are to treat it strictly on a need-to-know basis.”

      “But there were others involved,” noted Boyle. He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and abruptly said, “His source has to be one of them. I don’t cut deals with scum. Everyone involved should be charged.”

      “Yeah, in an ideal world … but we don’t work in and ideal world. He is willing to hand us what the courts would consider to be the key players. Any others wouldn’t receive much anyway.”

      “Well … I don’t like it,” grumbled Boyle.

      “Like he said, we’re free to investigate it on our own without their assistance,” replied Connie, somewhat sarcastically.

      Later that afternoon, Jack was typing his report when he received a call from Gerry in Forensics.

      “You asked me to call you if anyone made any inquiries about you coming in on Wednesday with that bottle of piss,” said Gerry.

      “Let me guess,” replied Jack, dryly. “You got a call from Boyle at I-HIT?”

      “Yup, about a minute ago. I told him we never did any work for you. I take it he is the dirty member?”

      “I think more stupid than dirty, but thanks for letting me know. I won’t forget the amber rum.”

      Jack hung up and told Laura about Boyle nosing around.

      “What an idiot,” she replied. “He’s trying to figure out how we came up with the info.”

      “At best, or wants to identify our source and scoop in and interrogate him in the hopes of charging everyone involved.”

      “Defence would love that. Talk about opening Pandora’s Box. Illegal search of a van … let alone try to convince them the bug was a fake …”

      “And our word to Ho that we would protect him,” said Jack, tersely. “We’ll have to keep quiet about Boyle asking around or the idiot might figure it out.”

      “So you’re going to let him get away with it?”

      Jack looked surprised and then frowned. “You know me better than that. What is it I say?”

      Laura paused. “You play with the bull you get the horns?”

      “Exactly. Time to send I-HIT a report to use as a basis for the wiretap application.”

      “If Boyle was stupid enough to call Forensics, you know he won’t respect the contents of our report. Maybe we should let Connie know and only give her a copy.”

      Jack smiled. “No. I’ll do a report that will put Boyle and anyone else off track of who our source really is.”

      “Sounds good.”

      Jack leaned closer. “Also, the bad guys are Vietnamese, but Parker’s mother is Chinese.”

      “What are you getting at?”

      “A possible connection. We know that Benny Wong CC-1 meets regularly with Dong Tran VC-1. The only common denominator so far is Asian ancestry. Parker’s mother is Chinese. Could she somehow be connected to Wong? It’s a remote possibility, but one I think we should explore.”

      “If it was the Chinese, I would think they would do their own hit and not bother asking the Vietnamese,” replied Laura.

      “Perhaps, or it could be a favour or in lieu of a payment for a drug debt or something. Maybe they did it to insulate themselves from any suspicion.” Jack paused, then lowered his voice. “Let’s find out.”

      “How?” asked Laura, feeling uneasy as Jack got up and closed the door before returning to his desk.

      “AOCTF thinks they have someone leaking information to the Chinese. If that’s true, I’m sure that Benny Wong would be privy to it. I have no doubt that some … idiot … will pass our report on to AOCTF to check our credibility, if nothing else.”

      “You mean the informant’s credibility,” said Laura.

      “No, knowing what Boyle thinks of us, I would say our credibility. If he is caught, then he will say it was to check out the informant.”

      “Sad, but I bet you’re right,” said Laura.

      “So … if the Chinese are responsible, why waste time working on the Vietnamese?”

      “Okay … but how do we find out if they’re behind it?” asked Laura.

      “I’ll word the report to see if there are any consequences,” said Jack.

      “Consequences?”

      Jack used his finger to simulate slashing his throat.

      Oh, those consequences. Laura grimaced. Oh, man …

      Chapter Eleven

      Jack took his report to his boss, Staff-Sergeant Rose Wood, to add her signature below his, before forwarding a copy to I-HIT.

      Rose quickly scanned the report. The first

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