Chapter 11 - The Midnight Trap at the Docks
Though Gideon was behind bars, the network of dirty contractors and shell companies he had established required a final, decisive sweep. Two nights later, Adrian received intel that Gideon’s secondary co-conspirator—a corrupt municipal building inspector who had falsified Marigold’s safety and zoning permits to allow the arson to go undetected—was attempting to flee across the river via a private shipping dock in industrial east Edmonton.
Adrian invited me to accompany him. We drove through the rainy midnight mist in his black sedan, pulling up quietly beside a row of rusted shipping containers. The inspector was already loading waterproof duffel bags into the trunk of an idling sedan when Adrian’s headlights illuminated the dock.
The man panicked, pulling a crowbar from his toolbox, but three of Adrian’s security personnel cut off his escape route in seconds. Adrian walked up slowly, the rain slicking his dark hair, holding a Manila folder containing the falsified inspection records. "You signed off on a building you knew was targeted for arson," Adrian stated calmly, his voice cutting through the sound of the rain. "You traded public safety for a bribe." The inspector dropped the crowbar, falling to his knees in the wet gravel and begging for mercy. Adrian didn't touch him; he simply signaled for the guards to hand the man over to federal authorities waiting down the road.
