04-07-2014, 01:06 PM
Nathan is not the most talented reporter on the Denver Post's staff. He is not the most intelligent or the most worldly or the most connected either. If one thing can be said for him, though, he's like a dog with a bone. A little terrier, maybe, but that means he can squirm himself into those places he shouldn't be able to get. And he seems to be squirming toward that coveted front page, with the likes of political reporters and feature writers and those with far more prestigious beats that aren't filling the police blotter, talking to veterans, or looking into other things that end up deep behind the fold and forgotten.
Only one of his contacts will answer his call. That prosecutor he met one day at an event for young veterans (reintegration is key) is staying tight lipped about the investigation, but there's another place where everyone knows his name, or at least his drink, and Vincent owns that place. Lips are loosened up a Vincent's (yes, that's the name). It's the kind of place people go to calm their nerves after an explosion rocks their neighborhood, and one of those gentlemen works at a company that installs and maintains security systems for different buildings downtown.
It seems federal investigators have (predictably) subpoenaed all of the footage from their closed circuit security cameras: ATMs, lobby surveillance, and pretty much everything facing the streets or sidewalks along a certain route near the explosion.
The path leads away from the Denver Art Museum and the Civic Center, just near the Colorado State Capitol building, heading east on 13th Ave from Lincoln Street, south on Downing, before the trail begins to cool off and the investigation again becomes scattershot. It picks back up near Cheesman Park.
Carole drops word to Nathan that for the past two days an FBI forensics team has been carting off evidence from the scene of the explosion to their Denver field office. The explosion happened only blocks away from the Capitol, in the city's bustling downtown arts center, and there is no shortage of jockeying and browbeating for the case between local and federal agencies, with the Colorado State Patrol and Denver Police Department both demanding information on leads. The effort only becomes coordinated when a special agent and former Denver police detective, Brendan Cahill, is put in charge and begins working directly with acting police chief Deborah Vox. The two had a working relationship before Brendan was recruited by the FBI, Deborah having been his supervisor.
Carole is privy to certain information through a personal relationship with one of Vox's assistants. The pair (the victims now identified as Jacques and Gillian Lescot) were leaving a gala hosted at the Botanical Gardens, lit up bright with grand white tents full of music if the Arts & Entertainment section has anything to say about it, then stopped home for an hour before heading out for a late dinner at a pricey restaurant followed by their trip to The Fern.
Press conferences have so far discounted theories that the act was part of a foreign terrorist threat, though domestic roots haven't been ruled out, and FBI agents have been canvassing for leads on a person of interest thought to still be within Denver. Routes in and out of the city are being monitored and sporadic road blocks at major and minor thoroughfares are in place. There are bomb sniffing dogs at most major airports and train stations, as well as as many of these roadblocks, especially those near government buildings.
Hours later Nathan receives another call from Carole. The forensics investigation is still in progress, but the ATF was called in, and another of her friends higher up in the food chain who often liaises with that that agency says that they seem to have a match on the ordinance and style of explosive material used in the bomb. They're tracking it back to bombings in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago. All cities were the victims of altercations in which private military contractors were used to guard highly secured facilities or in the movement of high value personnel for corporations. In all of these situations clashes arose that involved military grade weaponry and ordinance.
It seems these investigations all led back to a private military contractor known as Dogwood. Though nothing more than circumstantial evidence was ever able to pin wrongdoing and violence back on the mercenaries, recognized by the Department of Justice as private military contractors working on American soil as well as overseas, there is no shortage of hearsay and soft intelligence on them.
The next morning Nathan may decide that visiting the scene of the crime and trying to dig up information on who the police are canvassing for is a good idea.
It's at this point he hears a description of a man fitting a certain pyromaniac's description, from a police officer patrolling the area, though no name seems to yet have been identified for the suspect.
There is a coffee shop nearby where one of the waitresses seems very nervous and is talking to an FBI special agent and his partner. Or at least that's what her coworker says. Nathan is just in time to see her being driven off in one of their government issue SUVs.
Another officer refers Nathan to a Denver Police Department detective, one Rex Cutter, hoping that the local boys in blue might get some coverage now that the State Patrol and the feds are turning their city into a circus. It's in the middle of the conversation that he's radioed off to deal with one of Denver's hundred other problems.
Only one of his contacts will answer his call. That prosecutor he met one day at an event for young veterans (reintegration is key) is staying tight lipped about the investigation, but there's another place where everyone knows his name, or at least his drink, and Vincent owns that place. Lips are loosened up a Vincent's (yes, that's the name). It's the kind of place people go to calm their nerves after an explosion rocks their neighborhood, and one of those gentlemen works at a company that installs and maintains security systems for different buildings downtown.
It seems federal investigators have (predictably) subpoenaed all of the footage from their closed circuit security cameras: ATMs, lobby surveillance, and pretty much everything facing the streets or sidewalks along a certain route near the explosion.
The path leads away from the Denver Art Museum and the Civic Center, just near the Colorado State Capitol building, heading east on 13th Ave from Lincoln Street, south on Downing, before the trail begins to cool off and the investigation again becomes scattershot. It picks back up near Cheesman Park.
Carole drops word to Nathan that for the past two days an FBI forensics team has been carting off evidence from the scene of the explosion to their Denver field office. The explosion happened only blocks away from the Capitol, in the city's bustling downtown arts center, and there is no shortage of jockeying and browbeating for the case between local and federal agencies, with the Colorado State Patrol and Denver Police Department both demanding information on leads. The effort only becomes coordinated when a special agent and former Denver police detective, Brendan Cahill, is put in charge and begins working directly with acting police chief Deborah Vox. The two had a working relationship before Brendan was recruited by the FBI, Deborah having been his supervisor.
Carole is privy to certain information through a personal relationship with one of Vox's assistants. The pair (the victims now identified as Jacques and Gillian Lescot) were leaving a gala hosted at the Botanical Gardens, lit up bright with grand white tents full of music if the Arts & Entertainment section has anything to say about it, then stopped home for an hour before heading out for a late dinner at a pricey restaurant followed by their trip to The Fern.
Press conferences have so far discounted theories that the act was part of a foreign terrorist threat, though domestic roots haven't been ruled out, and FBI agents have been canvassing for leads on a person of interest thought to still be within Denver. Routes in and out of the city are being monitored and sporadic road blocks at major and minor thoroughfares are in place. There are bomb sniffing dogs at most major airports and train stations, as well as as many of these roadblocks, especially those near government buildings.
Hours later Nathan receives another call from Carole. The forensics investigation is still in progress, but the ATF was called in, and another of her friends higher up in the food chain who often liaises with that that agency says that they seem to have a match on the ordinance and style of explosive material used in the bomb. They're tracking it back to bombings in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago. All cities were the victims of altercations in which private military contractors were used to guard highly secured facilities or in the movement of high value personnel for corporations. In all of these situations clashes arose that involved military grade weaponry and ordinance.
It seems these investigations all led back to a private military contractor known as Dogwood. Though nothing more than circumstantial evidence was ever able to pin wrongdoing and violence back on the mercenaries, recognized by the Department of Justice as private military contractors working on American soil as well as overseas, there is no shortage of hearsay and soft intelligence on them.
The next morning Nathan may decide that visiting the scene of the crime and trying to dig up information on who the police are canvassing for is a good idea.
It's at this point he hears a description of a man fitting a certain pyromaniac's description, from a police officer patrolling the area, though no name seems to yet have been identified for the suspect.
There is a coffee shop nearby where one of the waitresses seems very nervous and is talking to an FBI special agent and his partner. Or at least that's what her coworker says. Nathan is just in time to see her being driven off in one of their government issue SUVs.
Another officer refers Nathan to a Denver Police Department detective, one Rex Cutter, hoping that the local boys in blue might get some coverage now that the State Patrol and the feds are turning their city into a circus. It's in the middle of the conversation that he's radioed off to deal with one of Denver's hundred other problems.